Rogue Raider (9 page)

“Good God!” cried Privett, toasting then crossing himself. “The Pope? What else?”

“There was a great fire in Madras, started by a hail of flaming meteors that ignited a chapati factory and the oil depot.”

“Madras? Chapatis? Merciful heavens,” cried Rose. “What else?”

“Great sadness. A British ship was lost not far from here. Apparently the crew tell a tale of being beguiled by German-speaking mermaids.”

Privett gaped. “Mermaids is it? And in German? Such a thing has never made itself heard of. Drink had a hand in it I declare.”

“Terrible drinkers the people round here,” confirmed Rose, glaring at Privett. “Might I have a little more of that there …? Not so much for my under-manager. So many disasters. But is there no good news?”

Lauterbach furrowed his brow in concentration. “Oh indeed. The Queen of England, by the grace of God, has been delivered of a multiple birth – quintuplets I believe.”

“But that is extraordinary,” cried Rose. They both gulped, as in shock, and held out the glass for more, a patriotic toast.

“Is she not a lady advanced in years?” asked Privett, amazed.

“That is the wonder of it,” affirmed benign Lauterbach. “The children have been christened Pontoporos, Indus …”

Lauterbach suddenly felt an icy presence tickle the back of his neck, as of a ghostly manifestation and the eyes of his visitors grew wide, looking over his shoulder. Turning swiftly to see what this materialisation might be he found von Mueller, floating in one of his long coats.

“Enough news, I think, Mr Lauterbach, for our guests,” he whispered huskily. “But I see they are thirsty. Please see to their wants.”

It is often only when receiving guests that one becomes truly aware of the failings of one's own home. The
Emden
was no longer the trim, white-scrubbed craft that had left Tsingtao just a few months earlier. She was streaked with corrosion, coal-grime and oil. The rails were bent and broken from the impact of coal sacks and old automobile tyres hung down her sides to shield her from collision with colliers. In more immaculate days, von Muecke had wanted the men to paint them white but such affectation was now a thing of the past. Weekly inspections had been reduced to a visit to the heads to declare them either ‘sweet' or not. The scored deck gleamed with treacherous bare metal. Electrical wires were draped dangerously over handrails and now fishing-lines trailed through every porthole. As they sat in the bilious green wardroom, a chicken wandered in and looked at them, scratched at a hole in the lino and wandered out. A sailor walked past, whistling, with a duck tucked casually under his arm.

Von Mueller offered yet more scotch, thirstily accepted, while he gripped his own, as yet untouched and embarked on an epic tale of their part in friendly joint world manoeuvres by the navies of Britain, Germany and France. The appearance of the vessel must be forgiven. They had put down an armed uprising in German East Africa, been ordered without warning on a trip to the other side of the world, been damaged by a freak wave in a huge storm and come here for emergency repairs. They were suffering too from an accumulation of barnacles that had affected their speed and manoeuvrability. At the very least here, they hoped to flood underwater compartments of the vessel and so cant it to allow them to have their bottom scraped.

“Yes, yes,” cried Privett, misunderstanding, gesturing with ice-tinkling glass. “The ladies here are most obliging. They will do that for you for a few shillings.”

“Shut up fool.”

It was with deep regret that they arrived with no prior notice but the British vessels with which they co-operated had spoken so highly of the hospitality of the residents that they hoped they would be welcome.

“Ah yes. Co-operation.” Rose slurped whisky, sluicing it back and forth through huge yellow teeth like mouthwash. “Delighted to receive you I'm sure, but do you by any chance have a chap on board who knows about motorboats? Mine's a sound enough old thing but the native mechanics have no sympathy for its little ways. You know what they say, ‘Give us the job and we'll finish the tools'” He paused expectantly, awaiting laughter but von Mueller stared blankly. “Well, anyway, co-operation and all that …”

Von Mueller smiled with a shark's smile that involved only his mouth. “Of course. As His Majesty's representative, Mr Rose, it is hardly seemly that you conduct business from a rowing boat. Our machinist, Kluge, will attend you forthwith. Pray let me have you conducted back to your home in our own launch. Mr Lauterbach will attend to facilitate conversation.” He flashed a significant look. Lauterbach understood at once that his job was to frustrate all communication.

“Oh I say, most frightfully grateful.” Rose leapt to his feet, whisky slopping on crotch, teetered, overbalanced, put his hand to his head. Privett leapt up, canoned into him, spilt more on his lapel, was slapped angrily away.

“Damn and blast you.”

“Pushing. Always the pushing.” They swayed like two stage drunks.

“It is the canting of the vessel,” von Mueller smiled calmly. “Already they are tilting her over. This, I think, is what is troubling you. It is a matter of a few days only. A little more scotch will steady you. And then, Mr Lauterbach … if you please.”

Lauterbach swayed comfortably in his hammock, shaded by rustling palms, only one bare leg extending into sunlight, the better to appreciate the cool darkness of the rest. A cognac bottle nestled comfortably in the crook of his paunch, half full and providently corked. He had feasted on fresh fish, beach-baked in glossy banana leaf, and yam and cloudy palm toddy that tasted faintly of sheepdog. He had swallowed hot lobster and sea urchin and fruits that had no name in any European language. A cool wind, salted by a thousand miles of ocean, ruffled his hair and he thought fondly of the good, earthy sex he had also enjoyed the night before, betokened by the slight satisfied bruising of groin and thigh. Sex with a new race was always the most satisfactory. It was not the thrill of forbidden fruit, more the fact that – despite his cultivatedly bad memory for partners – he found that, with increasing age, the world was gradually filling up with faces that reminded him of other faces, faces that were quite inappropriate to sexual excitements. A girl in a Shanghai bar had recalled inopportunely and disastrously his grinning Foochow steward, Ah Ping. Whilst engaged in recent play with a Russian countess and studying the back of her neck, he had remembered absently the coiled hair of his great aunt as she sat before him in church, when he was a child. Hopeless. Even one of the more approachable ladies here had suddenly seemed to have von Mueller's purposeful nose and mouth. Unthinkable.

Over the other side of the paradisal lagoon, the men, sexually unshriven, were earning their bread in the sweat of their brows, in the hot sun, heads under knotted handkerchiefs, scraping, scrubbing and repainting such parts of their capsized mistress, the
Emden
, as were made available to their attentions. With the exhaustion of regulation navy off-white, a range of different shades had been produced by mixing together all remaining paint dregs on the vessel, so that the former swan now looked like a thing of patchwork. Lauterbach lay back and smiled and yawned. Newly emptied and filled, he loved to watch others work. It relaxed him.

He had gone over the top, he now saw, with his invention of news to satisfy Rose and Privett. The diminutive Japanese cricket eleven, none over four foot six, currently touring Great Britain and defeating all comers including the MCC, had been a step too far. Rose had bristled with disbelief. Similarly, the French Academy's decree announcing the complete abolition of adjective endings in the French tongue throughout the empire in the interests of wartime economy had been ill-judged and rankled with Privett. Never mind. These had been smoothed over with the gift of a case of scotch and the repair of the motor launch, an antique thing of polished wood and brass more suited to Thamesside regattas than the Pacific Ocean. Rose and Privett had chugged off on a long overdue visit to the other side of the island, visibly still drunk, voices bickering above the soft putter of the recalibrated engine. “Do not push. Always you push.” They remained ignorant of the outbreak of hostilities and this fact had somehow irked von Muecke who felt dishonoured by it and took it out on the men. But then von Muecke believed that wars happened for a reason. Lauterbach, on the other hand, knew they just happened, with all the lack of purpose and indifferent inevitability of earthquakes. The thing to do was keep your head down and wait for them to blow over.

There was an itch around his little toe, that one out there in the sun. Probably a mosquito bite. There was always a serpent in paradise. Perhaps he would scratch it later but it was, for the moment, simply too far. He yawned again, smiled and dropped into a contented doze.

Chapter Four

Lauterbach was by now used to three cheers from departing crews, as they headed back to freedom, with all their personal effects intact, and a tale of adventure to tell. But it was something of a surprise to be cheered while boarding a British vessel for the first time. The
Ponrabbel
was a dredger, small, ugly, a real pig of a ship, shoving its snout into the high waves and wallowing in the deep troughs with a nasty sideways shaking of the tail. The crew were there, grinning, lined up on deck with their bags ready packed and the captain stepping forward with a blushing handshake.

“Come right aboard you is it?”

She was built for harbour work in sheltered water and they were bound from Cardiff for Tasmania at a top speed of four knots. Every one of them had been seasick most of the time and they expected her to turn turtle at any moment. This was their second attempt to drive their pig to market and they were four months into it. The first vessel had gone down under them in a storm and this time they had prudently negotiated payment in advance and were not in the least averse to seeing this loathed ship go to the bottom as the
Emden
used her for target practice.

“You wouldn't let me have just one shot at her I suppose? No? Thought not.”

The British crew watched and cheered as the hated dredger turned over, pointed its red bottom rudely at them and disappeared with a slurping noise. They settled cosily into the
Buresk
and luxuriated in the unaccustomed fags and booze stripped from other, larger prizes. Several more ships went down over the next few days for, in an attempt to frustrate them, the allied shipping routes had been conveniently shifted to precisely where they now were and British vessels virtually queued up to be sunk. Then they stopped the
Troilus
, a Blue Funnel liner, packed with strategic metals, rubber – and passengers.

“Hallo, Julius.” A small woman, short hair, mid-forties, fashionably dressed in a manner somewhat too young for her years. “I'm sure you remember me … that night on the
Kraetke.
”

“Er …” He looked round wildly. None of the crew were within earshot.

“Oh. Don't worry. My husband's not here, busy dumping the brats at school in Shangers and making more money in Singers. Rodney only earns, never seems to get time to
spend
… I've been off in Honkers and Rangers and now I'm here.” She smiled and preened. “I've never been ravished by a pirate … before.”

“Er …” Neat body. A mouth used to laughter. Nice condition for her age. In peacetime she would have been nothing special but now, with the war, the world was on sexual short rations. She was not, even on closer examination, just some rancid old tuna boat. Mmm.

“This is the third time you've blocked my passage, you naughty boy. Every time I get on a ship, they make us get off it again because the
Emden
's been up to its old tricks.” She fiddled with a diamond brooch pinned over her right breast. “I was lucky with the
Troilus
, brand new … maiden voyage.” She lit a Black Cat, blew and flicked the match. Very bold that. She was poised and assured. Clearly a total bitch. “They say your commander's quite dishy. Where is he?” She sucked on the cigarette – blatant red lipstick circled the stub – and threw back her head, exhaling hot smoke and showing to advantage the line of her throat. Too much gold gleamed a trifle indiscreetly at neck and ear. There was a pale line on her finger where a ring, normally worn, had just been removed. She flashed him the smile with which Eve beguiled Adam and the serpent rose within him.

“What? Who? Von Mueller? No, no. Small, ugly, totally bald. Anyway a monk.” Who the hell was she? Had he already boarded her on the Shanghai run? She pirouetted and her skirt flounced up as if by chance. Good legs. Peach silk shift flapped against her calves. Action stations trumpeted in his brain. Eyes goggled. She patted coquettishly at his arm and pouted little-girlishly. “So what are you going to do with me, captain,” she gasped huskily. “Make me walk your beastly long plank?”

That was it. Any more whispering and she'd begin to remind him of cock-crinkling von Mueller. Lauterbach ran up the battle flag and rang up full speed ahead. He smirked cheesily and offered a gallantly crooked elbow. “Perhaps, madam, at the risk of bringing comfort to an enemy, you would honour me by having a little drink in my cabin before we part? For old times sake.”

She slid her hand confidently into it and squeezed. “Oh how kind. And then, perhaps you might take me on a tour of the less public parts of your vessel, what you might call your private parts. I should just adore to have a look at your torpedo tubes …”

Ah. So he
had
… “Lieutenant Fikentscher,” he beckoned the young man across. “My compliments to Lieutenant von Muecke. Please report that I am obliged to remain on duty here this evening to ensure the security of this prize and take an inventory of her cargo.” His ordinance was primed and ready to fire. He had the range. Now where the hell was the captain's cabin on this ship?