Sink or Capture! (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  Sink or Capture!

  Alan Evans

  © Alan Evans 1993

  Alan Evans has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1993 by Hodder & Stoughton

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Part One - Altmark

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Part Two – Narvik

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  “Proceed to Narvik and sink or capture enemy ship…”

  Signal from Admiralty to Captain Warburton-Lee, 9 April 1940

  Part One - Altmark

  1

  7th February 1940 North Atlantic

  Smith had loved her and wanted her from the moment he first saw her in Montevideo. But would he lose her soon? There were other, younger men eager to take her. He was not a young man. He had fought in the First World War twenty years before and the fair hair that showed under his cap was greying at the temples. There were wrinkles at the corners of the pale, ice-blue eyes. He had not commanded a ship in those twenty years and he was lonely in this command. But he was used to loneliness.

  “Ship bearing Red Two Oh! Could be Brandenburg!” That shout came from Lieutenant Ben Kelso and it brought Smith running from his sea cabin at the back of the bridge, breakfast left on the table. He ran up against the bridge-screen by his high chair and set his binoculars to his eyes. He studied the distant ship off the port bow for a second or two. She was too far away for him to identify but not out of gun range.

  He rapped out, “Sound ‘General Quarters’!”

  The fire-bell clanging of the alarm ‘rattlers’, triggered at his order, exploded the ship into boiling life around him. As his crew raced to their action stations Captain David Cochrane Smith still found time to run a swift glance over his ship, his love, Cassandra. He took in the slender grey length of her from knife-edged bow cleaving the North Atlantic swell to her stern tucked down on the foaming wake that trailed her. He leaned on the bridge-screen, looped the strap of the binoculars around his neck so they hung on his chest, then lifted them to his eyes once more. He looked again for the enemy. Because this was February 1940, this was a time of war and Cassandra was a light cruiser, a warship. Now all her five 6-inch guns were training around, “A” gun on the fo’c’sle forward of the bridge and the other four aft of it, spaced along her hull. Each gun was housed in a shield, the back of it open, not in a turret.

  And that other was a warship — but was she an enemy? He stared at the toy ship on the far horizon, rendered colourless by the distance that also blurred the silhouette. The light was not good, the early morning sun still low behind him and peeping weakly through cloud cover. They were only minutes into the forenoon watch. Ben Kelso had that watch but this was also his station in action. Now he said again, “I think it could be Brandenburg.” He had shouted that on first sighting her and now, as then, it was said tongue in cheek and Smith knew it. As he knew the rest of the bridge staff were watching him, whether they faced him or had their backs to him: Lieutenant Harry Vincent, the navigator, young Midshipman Appleby, the signal yeoman and his signalman, the bridge messengers and lookouts.

  Brandenburg was a German cruiser and had sailed in company with the battlecruiser Graf Spee. Both ships had acted as commerce raiders, sinking a string of merchantmen from the outbreak of war in September 1939 until mid-December. The Altmark, a large, fast supply ship, had acted as tender for both of them. But then Commodore Harwood with his squadron of three cruisers had caught Graf Spee off Montevideo on 13th December. After a savage battle she was forced to seek shelter in that port and her captain had scuttled her four days later.

  Brandenburg and Altmark had not been with Graf Spee and despite extensive searching they had not been found — except for one sighting of Brandenburg in the South Atlantic by a British cruiser, Calliope, and that had ended in tragedy. Many thought Altmark had slipped through the net by now and was safely in a German port, while Brandenburg, with another tender taking the place of Altmark, was still lurking in the South Atlantic, a thousand miles from Cassandra. Ben Kelso was one who believed that. Smith was not. He was certain that if Altmark had returned to Germany then Hitler would have trumpeted the news to the world. He believed Altmark was still at sea and Brandenburg was also on her way home by now. Her captain had told him she would be — but Smith could not tell Kelso that. So it was possible the distant warship might have been Brandenburg. That was why he had sent his crew to their action stations. But now?

  The two ships had been closing at their combined speeds for several minutes and now Smith could make out details of the other. He lowered the glasses and said, “No.”

  Kelso was broad and stocky, full-bearded. Still studying the other ship, his back to Smith, he objected, “It could be, sir.” That was said ostensibly doubting, actually provoking. “We can’t see much of her yet.”

  Smith could see Harry Vincent hiding a grin. He rasped, “I can see enough, Ben.” He called his officers by their first names. It was an accepted, but in this ship a hollow, informality, a false comradeship that cloaked hostility. He thought Kelso would not have been so cool if he believed the other ship was Brandenburg, and that Ben was the worst of the lot, or the most open of his officers: hinting that Smith had spent too long ashore, doubting his professional competence, questioning his ability to command. It was all done subtly, indirectly. But they meant it and he and they knew it.

  Were they right?

  He said, “It isn’t Brandenburg.” Smith knew her as he knew her captain, too well to be mistaken, but that was from a secret chapter of his life. He could not explain that to Kelso, either. Instead he said, “This ship has two turrets forrard and one aft. I think she’s probably American, one of the Minneapolis class or the Augustas. Brandenburg has one turret forrard and two aft.”

  Kelso turned and opened his mouth to argue but Smith looked him in the eye and Ben found he could only mumble, “As you say, sir.”

  Smith smiled at him coldly, “Yes.” He watched Kelso turn away, subdued by that icy gaze — for now. And beyond Kelso’s wide shoulders he saw Lieutenant-Commander John Galloway, Cassandra’s Executive Officer, spring lightly up the ladder and onto the bridge.

  He was one of the young men eager to command Cassandra and despite knowing her faults. Like her new-found reputation for being an unlucky ship. She had only earned that on this cruise. She had been ordered to Montevideo to reinforce Harwood’s squadron but arrived too late because her engines had broken down. Then her main wireless office was gutted by a fire that killed the wireless staff on duty. They were buried at sea. The smoke-blackened door of the main office was still locked and all wireless traffic passed through the second office. Then to cap it all her captain, ailing for months, died just before she docked at Montevideo. Smith’s first duty after assuming command was to inter his predecessor in the graveyard of the English church. So now she was called an unlucky ship.

  Galloway said, “False alarm, sir?”

  Smith wondered if Galloway thought Cassandra was unlucky for him, her Executive Officer? He was a tall, darkly handsome man, liked by his fellow officers and respected by the lower deck. He came of a naval family, numbering more than one admiral among his ancestors and no doubt he would reach flag ra
nk. He was a good officer, highly efficient, and had effectively commanded Cassandra these last months of her captain’s illness. Did he think that in any other ship he would have been captain now?

  He would have made a good captain for her. That was Smith’s opinion but not his alone. Within hours of coming aboard he had overheard a snatch of conversation between two of his officers: “Galloway should have got Cassandra, not a dug-out like Smith. This is his first ship after twenty years on the beach, for God’s sake!”

  Now they were close enough to make out the Stars and Stripes flown by the other ship and Smith nodded at Galloway, “She’s American. Not Brandenburg.”

  Kelso muttered, “Just as well, after what she did to Calliope a few weeks ago. Merry flaming Christmas present, that was!” It was Calliope, sister ship of Cassandra, that had made that last tragic sighting of Brandenburg.

  This time it was Galloway’s glare that shut up Kelso and he followed it up, defending his Service with, “Brandenburg ran for it!”

  Kelso nodded agreement now, “That’s true. Calliope did bloody well.”

  Smith thought “bloody” was the right word. His voice cut between his two officers, “Not quite true. Brandenburg was faster and her guns outranged Calliope’s. So she stood off and shot the hell out of her.” Calliope had been pounded to a near wreck in her vain attempts to come to grips with the bigger cruiser. She had lost a lot of men. And that had been in the South Atlantic on Christmas Day, just eight days after Graf Spee was scuttled.

  Galloway had been startled by Smith’s cutting in and now repeated stubbornly, “But Brandenburg ran.”

  “Not exactly.” Smith had met her captain and fought him, did not think Gustav Moehle was one to run. But again, he could not tell Galloway that. “Another ship appeared, just the smoke of her on the horizon but I think Brandenburg’s captain suspected she might be reinforcements called up by Calliope. So he broke off the action. And I think that was in obedience to his orders, that he was sent out to sink merchantmen and told not to pick a fight where his ship might sustain damage.” Smith lifted his glasses again, signalling that he had delivered his judgment and the argument was finished.

  The Signal Yeoman reported, “She’s dipping her ensign, sir.”

  Smith answered, “Return the compliment.” Cassandra’s ensign dipped and rose again. Smith ordered, “Resume normal working.” He made a last inspection of the other ship now passed abeam. Suppose it had been Brandenburg? He winced at the thought. Kelso had been right there and Cassandra would have gone the way of Calliope. Smith could only have tried to keep Brandenburg in sight and screamed for help but the end would have been the same. Smith loved Cassandra but…

  She was a twin-funnelled light cruiser and had been built for that earlier war. She was vulnerable in her thin armour, slower and weaker than the modern German cruisers that outgunned her. She rode the seas proudly but she was an ageing, fragile beauty. Other men had loved her but used her hardly because they had to, so she was shabby in her pride. And Smith knew he was just such a man, would also be ruthless with her if he had to be. But he had commanded a ship like her in that other war. And she was his.

  But for how long? He lowered the glasses and glanced at Galloway, deep in conversation with the barrel-chested, thick-legged Kelso. Galloway stood a head taller, had a commanding presence and looked like a captain. Would he get Cassandra after all? Had Smith only been given her briefly as a sop, a pat on the head in acknowledgment of his faithful but clandestine service? Was he only to take her home for a refit or conversion to an anti-aircraft cruiser like many of her class? He did not know what fate was intended for her — or himself — when she berthed in Scapa Flow. He shifted uneasily in the chair. He was sure he had been given Cassandra because the other officers in Montevideo who might have qualified for her were too experienced in their posts, while he was new.

  The two officers had discussed his career some weeks before in London as they marched briskly through St James’s Park on a winter afternoon. The Rear-Admiral grumbled, “Smith! His trouble was always women. He was divorced years ago and now I hear he’s living with some American woman in Montevideo.”

  His colleague said patiently, “He’s not the only officer to be divorced, though I admit that’s only part of it. He was involved in some scandals before that. But his wife left him not because of any infidelity but because she could not stand the long separations the Service — his particular kind of Service — forced on him. She didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, when he would return to her, when leave her again. And he couldn’t tell her.”

  “All right, that’s got nothing to do with giving him a ship. But he hasn’t been to sea for twenty years.”

  A shrug: “Because we wanted him in Intelligence for those twenty years and we were right; he was very good. But now that we have a shooting war again, well, his record in the last one was impressive.”

  The Rear-Admiral slashed bad-temperedly at a fallen branch with his walking stick. “He was insubordinate and rebellious! Lucky not to have been court martialled! He only got away with it time and again because he was successful!”

  The other smiled to himself but let that go. He said, remembering and reminding his superior: “After his last Intelligence operation he asked for the command we had always promised him. Instead we sent him to Montevideo to join the staff of the Naval Attaché in Uruguay. On the way there as a passenger in a freighter he was captured by Brandenburg but first took the helm of the freighter and succeeded in ramming the cruiser, damaging her bow. She hid in a Brazilian river to carry out repairs so as to be able to go to the aid of the Graf Spee, bottled up in Montevideo by Harwood’s cruisers. God knows how Harwood would have got on if he’d had to handle both of them. But Smith escaped from Brandenburg and delayed her repairs by one attack after another. He was acting almost single-handedly but Brandenburg was too late to save Graf Spee and her captain scuttled her.”

  “I know all about that,” the Rear-Admiral growled, “and Smith was bloody lucky.”

  “And successful. Again. Now he is in Montevideo, so is Cassandra and she’s needing a captain. Maybe it’s the hand of Providence at work.”

  The Rear-Admiral scowled suspiciously, “Are you trying to be funny? It’s more likely the Devil looking after his own. But we’ll give him Cassandra.” And he conceded, “He’s earned her, and more. Bad-tempered, bloody-minded, bed-hopping, he’s all of those — but he delivers the goods. We just have to hope his luck doesn’t run out.”

  “Ship bearing Red Two Oh!” Now it was close to noon on that same 7th February and the Lookout was reporting from Cassandra’s masthead.

  Smith lifted his glasses as did Galloway and Kelso. They peered out along the bearing and then Galloway said, “She’s a merchantman.” Not a warship nor a U-boat on the surface. The brief moment of tension passed but still they studied the distant ship.

  Kelso muttered, “There’s smoke but just a trace of it. She doesn’t look to be under way.”

  Lieutenant Harry Vincent, tall, thin and stooping, the navigator and a good one, appeared from the chart-room to join them. Smith lowered the glasses to rest his eyes for a moment and told Ben Kelso, “We’ll close her.”

  Kelso ordered, “Port ten.” He stayed bent over the voice-pipe, beard brushing it, passing helm orders until Cassandra’s bow swung then steadied on the smudge lifting above the horizon.

  They waited as the distance shrank and the ship grew before their eyes. Harry Vincent murmured to Kelso but his voice carried deliberately across the bridge, sarcasm aimed at Smith, “Suppose it might be Altmark.”

  Galloway’s whisper cracked savagely, “Shut up!” He was too good an officer to allow that kind of talk. Harry Vincent reddened but shrugged, not put down though he held his tongue.

  Smith had heard the exchange but said nothing, watched the ship through his glasses. It was not Altmark; that tender was to outward appearances a typical big motor tanker of the time. This ship was a three-i
sland freighter, the three “islands” of forecastle, superstructure and poop standing high above the decks between.

  Galloway said, “She looks to be derelict. And she’s been fired on!”

  She lay dead on the surface of the sea, rolling sluggishly. Her boats were gone and the falls that had lowered them to the sea hung slack from the empty davits, lines and blocks swinging against the side of the ship as she rolled. She was low in the water and listing to starboard so Smith could see over the bulwarks to the hatch covers. Her decks were empty of life. There was a shell-hole in her side and several more torn in the square superstructure amidships that held the bridge and cabins.

  She was horribly familiar.

  Smith told himself she could not be the same ship. That one had left Montevideo only a few hours before Cassandra sailed from that port and she had been bound to call at New York before sailing for Liverpool. So she should be trailing Cassandra by hours if not days. But then he recalled that she was a fast ship and had not been sailing in convoy, while Cassandra had spent some days patrolling before turning north and setting a course for home. So it could be…

  Harry Vincent read her name from her bow: “Orion.” But Smith knew that already.

  He told Kelso, “Stop alongside her and call away the sea-boat.” And to Galloway, “I’m going over to her.” His voice sounded strange in his ears but Galloway stared at him for a different reason.

  “You’re going yourself, sir?” It was odd, to say the least, for a commanding officer to lead a boarding-party.

  “Yes.” Smith did not explain, shoved out of his chair and dropped down the ladders to the upper deck. He strode rapidly aft to where the sea-boat’s crew waited in the whaler and there he met Leading Seaman Buckley.

  The big man said worriedly, “I thought you might be goin’ over, sir. It’s —”

  Smith cut him off, harshly, “I know what ship it is!” Buckley had been with him when he had watched Orion sail.