Rogue Raider (12 page)

Von Muecke was stunned. These people were mad – tickety-boo? – but complied. The mast fell with a great crash and lay there, a tangle of twisted girders.

“Oh good shot,” Tarrant popped his pipe in his mouth and clapped both hands together lightly. At the sound of the explosion a Chinese face appeared round the steel door and surveyed the mess ruefully.

“You fluck off,” the same voice called simply, as if confirmed in its first opinion, waved a fist and slammed the door again. Bolts could be heard clanging back into place. Farrant shrugged, mimed more elaborate regret.

“I say,” he offered, removing the pipe again excitedly from his mouth, “Do any of your chaps play? We could have a quick game. Doubles, perhaps?”

“Mr Farrant. We are not here to play tennis.” Von Muecke, scrupulously belligerent, strode off down the neat path towards the beach. These people
were
mad.

“The cables,” he ordered. The plan was simple, they would use hooks to grapple up the undersea cables where they touched land, cut them and tow the ends out to deep water, to make repairs more difficult.

“Ah,” nodded Farrant. “I see. A bit like in croquet where you knock the opponent's ball off into the rough. Jolly good.”

There were problems. First there seemed far too many cables. They were all over the place. They did not know that Farrant had laid phony cables, trailing them off a few hundred yards into the sea to confuse the enemy. Then, they had pictured them as simple wires to be lightly snipped with pliers. But they were huge serpents and actually consisted of many layers of insulation and protection, steel, pitch, copper, even stout brown paper that all had to be hacked through laboriously. The sailors worked like dogs in the hot sun, sawing and chopping with axes and chisels under the amused gaze of the British who sat, fanning themselves. They regretted now demolishing the workshops – there would surely have been something useful there. Then, once cut, the slimy cables were horribly heavy and unco-operative, refusing to be disturbed and snapping back into place once the ends were released.

Farrant scratched his chin sympathetically, sucking on his still unlit pipe. “Pity. You haven't got the right equipment, you see. Damned awkward blighters, undersea cables, if you're not used to them. I say, would you mind if my chaps moved off the square and into the boatshed? Getting a bit hot and some of them didn't bring their boaters, it being first thing. Or perhaps I could get the servants to serve us all some lemonade?”

It was true. The heat was building unbearably. They had been here hours longer than intended. Von Muecke had a sudden flash of insight. These stupid, ponderous, silly-arse Englishmen – was this not all some elaborate ploy to keep him here, a trap to waste his time? He looked round at those red, big-nosed, smiling faces and felt bright hatred flare inside him like magnesium. He opened his mouth to speak when short blasts from the
Emden
's siren rang out, recalling him to urgency – the signal to return to the vessel immediately. He screamed orders, counted the men, ran down to the boats, embarked the weapons. The bags of papers were desperately dragged down to the jetty and they set out for the ship, bathed in sweat, hearts pounding. But it was clear they would never make it. A large A was already being flown at half mast. The
Emden
was weighing anchor. Her screws churned and she moved off, gathering speed. She was leaving without them. They were castaways on a foreign island full of madmen.

The
Emden
had sighted smoke on the horizon. North, the direction the
Buresk
would be coming from. An officer went to the lookout post and confirmed the identification. It was true that there was rather a lot of smoke but it was known that the collier's coal was damp and that could affect the combustion, so the
Emden
swiftly prepared for coaling according to the routine they had practised so often. Fifteen minutes later, the other ship turned and it was suddenly clear that she had two masts and four funnels – one of those foreign warships they had so often imitated – from the look of her, a cruiser and coming on at over twenty knots, ready for battle. This was the fight they had all known would come one day, the fight for their very lives, and adrenalin surged through the ship like an electric charge. Orders rang out – steam up in all boilers – action stations – full speed ahead. Wallowing heavily from lack of power, they steered hastily out of the narrow entrance, running for deep water, the stokers working like demons to raise pressure, shells already clanking up the electric hoists to feed the guns.

By the time the
Emden
opened fire both ships were heading north, on parallel courses. They slammed away at each other with screaming shells like two bullies in a shin-kicking contest. By the implacable logic of naval engagements, all the
Sydney
had to do was keep out of range and use her bigger guns. But she foolishly got too close and the
Emden
's crew had the better aim though the gunlayers were all stranded on Direction Island. A quick lucky shot was desperately needed and they got one off and blew away the enemy's firing controls. Had all their shells detonated, a major explosion of ammunition might have decided the day, but they didn't. That apparently inexhaustible pool of good fortune was now at an end and its tide had turned against them. They would never be lucky again. An Australian rating seized blazing cordite from amongst his own ordinance, carried it in his arms and dumped it in a washtub. He got the VC and scars he would wear all his life but the
Sydney
was saved. Most of the hits from the
Emden
's smaller guns only dented her opponent's thick armour plating before simply bouncing off harmlessly into the sea.

It took the Australians, now firing manually, a full twenty minutes to score a hit of their own. Pulling, back to 7,000 yards, the
Sidney
now began to coolly pour fire into the German vessel, knocking out communications, the radio room, fire control, one by one and with impunity. Lethal shrapnel zithered along the decks, slashing and eviscerating wherever it encountered human flesh. The stern of the ship was ablaze. Any attempt to close with the enemy was thwarted. Then the steering was shot away. Below decks the torpedo men, in smoke bandages, were fighting the pounding of inrushing seawater and poisonous fumes as they desperately held the tubes in readiness for one last attack, choking like Jonah in the whale's belly. They had to release compressed air from the tanks just to be able to breathe. But the range was still too great and they still had not got up full steam in all boilers, so that the
Sydney
could outpace them with ease. Soon the men were forced out on deck, rolling on the hot plating, gasping and choking, hands and arms blistered from contact with the sizzling metal. The funnels had not been locked in place, released ready for coaling, and now they collapsed onto the decks further suffocating the crew in smoke, coating the gunsights with soot and reducing speed because the boilers would not draw. One by one, the
Emden
's guns were blasted to pieces or fell silent from lack of ammunition and after an hour and a half, it was all over. The
Emden
was a punctured wreck of tortured metal, glowing red hot from the fires that raged below decks and, everywhere a shell had hit, men had died. Bodies were torn and ripped into meat and bloodspray by blast and shrapnel or lay still, mysteriously untouched in death. Many had simply disappeared, blown to pieces or flung high over the side. A bosun's mate, with one arm shot clean off, doggedly kept up fire for a while on a lone gun.

Von Mueller descended from the bridge, minutes before it too was shot away. Von Guerard's slim body lay pitifully crushed by the toppled foremast, a trickle of blood from the mouth already crusting over, the eyes wide in innocence, the youthful immortality and lustrous beauty snuffed out contemptuously like a fag end crushed beneath a heel.

“Set course for North Keeling. Aim for the reef,” he whispered.

Despite the din of battle, the hoarse instructions seemed to fill the echoing body of the ship as he called steering directions down through a hatchway and grimly manoeuvred by throttling back one or other of the engines. The prow glided relentlessly toward the line of surf and they grounded slowly. Abruptly he ordered “Full Ahead” one last time to drive her screaming and protesting down on the rock. It would prevent the vessel falling into enemy hands and save more of his men than sinking her, since there were no usable boats left on board and the cruising sharks were voracious. It was a decision that would ruin his career. To the admirals in Berlin it looked like the impulse to vandalism overcoming the urge to proper heroism. A finished ship belonged discreetly on the sea bottom not blatantly displayed on a rock and its captain should be dead. They went through further rituals of destruction – the magazines were flooded, secret documents burnt, torpedo-aiming equipment dumped overboard. The
Sydney
gave her a couple more broadsides and hastened off to capture the
Buresk
that had inadvertently blundered into the conflict. Too late. She was scuttled and now her crew too must be rescued.

On the
Emden
, the wounded had been assembled on deck. Many had terrible injuries or burns. They were running out of morphine to quieten the screams of the dying and – worse – there was no drinking water for those who might still live. And now another horror. As they lay there exposed to wind and sky, they were dive-bombed by huge, razor-beaked birds that swooped down to attack their eyes and faces and feed on their wounds. They had to be beaten off, squawking, with clubs and revolvers. Some of the crew had tried to swim to the island with its tantalising hope of water and coconuts, a mere hundred yards away, but the treacherous currents dragged down most to their deaths. Dr Schwabe would perish in this way. Some of the carnivorous birds were caught and lines attached to them in the hope that they would fly to the island so that a Breech's Buoy could be rigged. They plunged into the water and also drowned. The men searched the various compartments of the ship, often having to break open the buckled hatches with crowbars, to release the trapped and wounded screaming and beating against the metal. Down there, lay the bodies of three Chinamen collapsed over wet washing, hands still gripping Elysium soap. The fourth washboy, Number One, certified on the manifest, had mysteriously disappeared and would never be found.

The
Sydney
returned. They prepared to be rescued but, to their surprise and dismay, the enemy cruiser kept her distance and opened fire again. The Germans had not replied appropriately to signals asking them to surrender. Captain Glossop of the
Sydney
sat down and wrote von Mueller a formal letter inviting him to do so. On the
Emden
they hauled down their colours, raised a white flag and the firing stopped. By now, half the crew were dead or badly wounded but rescue was still not imminent and instead, Fikentscher, saved from the
Buresk
, was sent on board with water and medical supplies. The
Sydney's
priority was to establish what had become of von Muecke and his men. She sailed off again.

At Direction Island, the Australian ship cruised up and down all night at the entrance to the bay. Then, as soon as dawn broke, several boats were sent, crammed with armed hands, flying a flag of truce. Like von Muecke before them, they expected to storm on land beneath a hail of machinegun fire. Like von Muecke before them, they were disappointed.

“Gone,” said Farrant, finally lighting his pipe and puffing smoke. “Sailed off last night in the
Ayesha
, our old schooner. Hauled up their flag and made a big speech about her now being the smallest man-of-war in the German navy. Got to admire their guts but they took all our dashed record papers with them and we use them in the loos. Shouldn't think they'll get far though. We've had no use for the old
Ayesha
since the new ship so she's just lain there, rotting. The old girl's got a dodgy bottom. Odd. If you'd come a bit later they'd have blown her up. If you'd come sooner, you'd have bagged the lot. Just shows. Still, they were jolly decent, split the stores and water with us fifty-fifty and promised to drop a line to Cold Storage, Singapore, to let them know we were running low on condensed milk. We lent them some togs and a few wrote letters home to wives and sweethearts but frankly most were so young the letters were to their parents and they asked us to send them on. Got some ripping snaps. Cecil's just running them through the darkroom. And they were absolute gentlemen about the tennis court. I say. Any of your chaps fancy a game?”

Finally, the
Sydney
returned to the wreck and took off the crew. Von Mueller came last, haggard and silent, piped honourably aboard despite his appearance, dyed in the colours of the German flag – black from soot, white from explosive and red from the blood of more than half his men.

Chapter Five

There were only twenty potato-eaters aboard the
Exford
, including himself. Yet they had loaded enough sacks of gritty, grey potato powder to sink a battleship. Lauterbach was sure all would be well till the rice ran out. He did not yet know that Lieutenant Gropius, whom he had replaced as captain of this rust bucket, had leapt to his death from the stricken
Emden
with three cheers for the Kaiser. As an old Asia hand, he
did
know that Gropius had not insisted on the provision of enough rice to feed a mainly Chinese crew. So instead of rice, they had this cement-like potato powder and nuts of Cardiff coal coming out of their ears. And when the rice ran out the Chinese would mutiny. They always did. Then he would have to shoot someone.

They had installed a radio post, filched from one of their victims, and Hagendurst was down there struggling to apply a one-day radio familiarisation course in Tsingtao to the state-of-the-art British apparatus hot from Cambridge. The ether yodelled with a hundred Morse voices, all in code, except for the occasional word
Emden
that came through the fug with the clarity of one's own name whispered in a crowded room. It could mean only one thing, the destruction of the vessel, yet Lauterbach's orders were to preserve himself at all costs – which was a duty dear to his heart – and to wait, so that's just what he would do. He would wait away from all shipping and away from the war and turn in stately circles up this remote north-western end of the Indian Ocean until the rice ran out and the crew mutinied and he shot someone.