iron pirate (39 page)

Two cruisers in line abreast to offer their maximum firepower. Hechler could see them as if they were right here. The destroyer was slightly ahead; they would sight her first.

He heard Kroll's clipped tone, caught in the intercom to give another small picture of their world high above the bridge.

'Anton, Caesar and Dora will concentrate on the cruisers. Warn flak control to expect enemy aircraft, spotters, anything.'

Hechler glanced around the open bridge. He might be forced to go up to the armoured conning-tower, but he would hold out as long as possible. He had been brought up on open bridges, where he could see everything. When their lives were in the balance it was even more important that his men should see him.

Kroll again. 'Large cruiser at Green one-oh.' A brief pause. 'She's opened fire.'

Hechler found that he could watch like any spectator as the enemy salvo exploded in the sea far off the starboard bow. A leaping wall of water which seemed so slow to fall. The wind was whipping it towards them, and he could imagine that he tasted cordite. Death.

'Second ship's fired.'

Someone laughed in the background, a nervous, unstable sound, and Kroll's deputy silenced the man with a sharp obscenity.

'Main armament ready, sir!'

Hechler watched the two forward guns swing across the side, at odds with the jammed barrels of Turret Bruno. Aft, the other turrets were already lining up on Kroll's directions and bearings. Hechler jabbed the button below the screen and seconds later the six big guns lurched back on their springs, the roar and ear-splitting crashes punching at the bridge plating like giant battering rams.

More enemy salvoes fell and churned the sea into a maelstrom of leaping waterspouts and falling spray.

More seconds as the layers and trainers made their last adjustments.

'Shoot!'

The deck jumped beneath the bridge and a huge column of smoke burst over the side while patterns of falling debris were lost in seconds in their rising bow-wave.

The voice-pipes settled down into a staccato chorus, reporting, asking, pleading.

Hechler heard the taut replies from his bridge team. More like robots than men.

'Send stretcher bearers. Fire party to torpedo. TS. Report damage and casualties.'

Froebe shouted, 'One hit, sir. Under control.' He ducked as another salvo screamed over the bridge and exploded far abeam.

'Port fifteen!'
At this speed the ship seemed to tilt right over before Hechler's calm voice brought her on course again. The din continued without a break, giant waterspouts rising and fading astern as the
Prinz Luitpold
tore towards the enemy, her own guns firing more slowly than the enemy's. Hechler knew that Kroll was marking every fall of shot, making certain that his crews concentrated on their markers and did not allow them to fall into the trap of a pell-mell battle.

'Direct hit on left ship!' Someone cheered. 'Still firing!'

A great explosion thundered alongside so that for a few moments Hechler did not know if they had received a direct hit in return. As the smoke filtered downwind he felt rain on his face, and was grateful that the clouds had returned. If they could keep up a running fight until dusk ... He winced as two shells exploded inboard and a huge fragment of steel whirled over the bridge to plough down amongst some men at a Vierling gun. He stood back from the screen, tasting bile in his throat as he saw a seaman hacked neatly into halves before pitching down amongst the bloody remnants of his companions.

'Another hit!'
The speaker sounded excited. Left ship is losing steerage way!'

Hechler wiped his face. 'Tell them to concentrate on the heavy cruiser to the right!' Kroll needed no telling, and as if to show its revived determination, Turret Bruno began to swivel round until it was trained on the same bearing as its twin.

'Shoot!'

All four guns recoiled together while the after-turrets followed immediately.

'Short!'

Hechler swung round and saw Leitner, hatless and staring, as he groped his way across the bridge. Theil must have returned the power and released him.

Leitner seemed unaware of the danger, and barely flinched as Kroll's trigger released another shattering salvo from all four turrets.

'You treacherous bastard!
You trapped me!'

He peered around and coughed in the billowing smoke.

I'll see you praying for death! It will be denied you!'

Hechler ducked as steel splinters shrieked and clattered around I he bridge.
Another hit.
He tried to listen to the garbled reports, picture his men at their action stations in magazines and turrets; tending the boilers or just clinging to life.

He shouted, 'Don't lecture me! This is my ship! You are the traitor, Andreas Leitner!' He seized him violently, all caution and reserve gone in the din and thunder of gunfire. 'You were going to run like a bloody rabbit when you found you weren't your own propaganda hero after all!'

'Captain!'
Jaeger was holding out a telephone, his face white as a thin scarlet thread ran down from his hairline.

Hechler snatched the phone. It was Gudegast.

'We should alter course now, sir.'

'Very well.' Hechler slammed it down. 'Hard a-port. Steer He ran to the compass repeater and wiped dust and chippings away with his sleeve. 'Steer
zero-one-zero.'
It would leave the badly damaged ship where she could not interfere and allow Kroll to concentrate on the enemy's heavy cruiser.
‘Steady as you go!'
He saw a great column of water shoot up by the port quarter and felt the bridge jerk savagely as another shell slammed down near the quarterdeck. As if by magic, black, jagged holes appeared in the funnel, while severed rigging and radio wires trailed above the bridge like creepers.

Request permission to flood Section Seven, sir?'

Hechler could imagine Theil down there with his team, watching the control panel, the blinking pattern of lights as one section after another was hit or needed help.

The main armament was trained almost directly abeam, their target hidden in smoke and distance.

Hechler dragged himself to a safety rail and squinted to clear his vision.

Small, sharp thoughts jerked through him. She would be on her way to safety. Five hundred miles was nothing to her. He wanted to shout her name. So that she would hear him. Like a last cry.

The hull shivered and flames seared out of the deck below the secondary armament. Men ran from their stations, some with extinguishers, others in panic, and one screaming with his body on fire.

'A straddle!' The voice almost broke.
‘Two hits!'

Hechler clambered above the rail and waited for the smoke to funnel past him. He had to hold his breath to stop himself from choking, but he must see, must know.

Then he caught a misty picture in the powerful binoculars, like a badly distorted film.

The big enemy cruiser, so high out of the water, was ablaze from stem to bridge, and both her forward turrets were knocked out, the guns either smashed or pointing impotently at the clouds.

A voice yelled, The pumps are holding the intake aft, sir!'

'Casualties removed and taken below!' He pictured Stroheim with bloodied fingers, his gold-rimmed glasses misting over in that crowded, pain-racked place. In his wildness he pictured the scene with music playing, Handel, from Stroheim's dusty stack of records.

A shell ploughed below the bridge and more splinters smashed through the thinner plating by the gate. Two signalmen were cut down without a sound, and Froebe clung to the gyro compass, his eyes bulging in agony as he gasped for air. There was a wound like a red star punched in his chest. Hechler reached for him, but he was dead before he hit the gratings.

Hechler yelled, 'Take his place, Jaeger!' He shook the youth's arm. 'Move yourself! We'll beat the Tommies yet!'

He saw the incredulous stare on Jaeger's face, and guessed that he must look more like a maniac than the stable captain. But it worked, and he heard Jaeger's voice as he passed another helm order, quite calm, like a complete stranger's.

Kroll's intercom croaked through the explosions. 'Both cruisers have lost way, sir. Shall I engage the destroyer? She now bears Red four-five!'

Hechler wiped his streaming face. Exertion or rain he neither knew nor cared. The destroyer would stand by her consorts; she was no longer any danger. By nightfall ... he swung round as men ducked again and the air was torn apart by the banshee scream of falling shells.

For a split second Hechler imagined that another cruiser had got within range undetected. He knew that was impossible. Then the salvo fell across the ship in a tight straddle, the shells exploding between decks, while others brought down range-finders and the mainmast in a web of steel and flailing stays.

Hechler expected to feel pain as he struggled to the opposite side. Even as he levelled his glasses again he knew the answer. The flaw in the picture, which even Kroll's instruments had overlooked.

The destroyer had zigzagged through a smoke-screen, although there was already smoke enough from gunfire and burning ships, and had fired a full broadside into the
Prinz.
Hechler coughed painfully. Except that she was no destroyer. She was a light cruiser, which nonetheless had the fire-power to do real damage if only she could get close enough. Her two heavier consorts had seen to that.

Another scream of falling shells and this time the full salvo struck them from funnel to quarterdeck.

Hechler gripped the rail, could feel the power going from his engines as Stuck fought to hold the revolutions steady.

Gudegast had appeared on the bridge and was shouting, 'Engine-room wants to reduce speed, sir!'

‘Half ahead!'
Hechler watched the two forward turrets swing round, hesitate and then fire, the shockwave ripping overhead like an express train.

There was no response from the after-turrets. The last enemy salvo had crippled them.

‘One hit!'

The light cruiser was zigzagging back into her own smokescreen, one yellow tongue licking around her bridge like an evil spirit. Tell the gunnery officer -' Hechler wiped his eyes and stared up at the control position. It was crushed, like a beer can, riddled with holes despite the thick armour.

'Transfer fire control -' He watched, sickened, as dark stains ran down Kroll's armoured cupola, as if the whole control position was bleeding. Which indeed it was.

Throughout the ship, men groped in darkness as lights were extinguished or passageways filled with choking smoke. Others clung together behind watertight doors which would now remain closed for ever.

In his sick-bay Stroheim put down a telephone and shouted, Start getting these men on deck!' The smoke had even penetrated down here, and spurted through doors and frames like a terrible threat.

Deeper in the hull Stuck clung to his catwalk and watched his men stooping and running through the oily steam, like figures in hell. The three massive shafts were still spinning but he would have to slow' them still further. Was it to be now? Like this, he wondered? He felt the hull lurch as more shells exploded close by. His instinct told him they came from a different bearing, and he guessed that one of the damaged cruisers was rejoining the battle.

The two forward turrets were still firing, but more slowly under the local control of their quarters' officer.

There were fires everywhere, and not enough men to carry away the wounded, let alone the dead.

One man lay where he had fallen from a ladder, after Kroll had sent him to Turret Dora to discover the extent of the damage. Acting Petty Officer Hans Stoecker sprawled on his back, his face tightly pinched as if to protect himself from the unbroken roar of gunfire and internal explosions. Even the deck plating felt hot, and he wanted to call out for someone to help him. Each time he tried, the agony seared through him like a furnace bar, but when he attempted to move his legs he could feel nothing.

A bent-over figure slithered down beside him. It was the greyheaded petty officer, Tripz.

He made to cradle his arm under the young man's shoulder, but as a freak gust of wind drove the smoke aside he bent lower still. There was little left of Stoecker below the waist, and he tried to protect him from its horror.

He gasped, 'We did it, Hans! All that gold and jewellery!
We did it!
We'll all be rich!'

Stoecker sobbed as a single shell exploded against the bridge superstructure and sheets of steel drifted overhead like dry leaves. 'I - I - did - not - mean - to He clutched the other man in a pitiful embrace. His eyes blurred with agony, so that he did not see the cruel splinter which had just killed his comforter.

Stoecker lay back, the pain suddenly leaving him as he pictured his mother, and the girl called - he tried to speak her name but the effort was too much, so he died.

There were more corpses than living men on the forebridge and Hechler stared down at himself as if expecting to see blood. He was untouched, perhaps so that he should suffer the most.

Gudegast arose, shaking himself from a collapsed bank of voice-pipes, dust and paint flakes clinging to his beard as he stared around like a trapped bear.

Hechler heard Theil on the handset. 'Come up, Viktor. Tell your assistant to take over.'

He turned and saw Leitner standing in the centre of the bridge.

He screamed,
‘Where is Theissen?'

'He went in the plane with your boxes!'

Hechler wondered how he could find words even to speak with him.

Leitner held out a canvas pouch and shook it wildly.

These are mine! All that's left! Someone broke into my boxes, damn you!' He flung the pouch down in a pool of blood which was quivering to the engines' beat as if it was trying to stay alive.

'
See!

Hechler watched as jewelled rings and pieces of gold scattered amongst the blood and buckled plating. So that was it.