by Alan Evans
He went over the events of the last two days in his mind but did not see what else he could have done. Brandenburg had been the stumbling-block, she and the stroke of bitter luck that had wrecked Cassandra’s remaining wireless office and thus her communications with Admiralty and other ships. Momentarily he wondered, had there been an obvious, better course of action and had he been too long “on the beach” to see it? Then he told himself not to be a bloody fool. What was he to do now?
He ordered curtly, “Starboard ten!” He heard that passed by Kelso and told Vincent, “I want a course and speed to take us down the coast but out of sight of her.” He nodded bad-temperedly towards Altmark as Cassandra’s head came round.
Buckley, misjudging his captain’s mood for once, came to him with the steaming mug and said, “Coffee, sir.”
“No!” Smith snapped at him. Buckley looked down at the coffee then sniffed, walked away — but left the mug on the shelf below the bridge-screen and in front of Smith’s tall chair. He retired to the back of the bridge just in time to avoid Smith as he came striding rapidly across the bridge to pivot on his heel on the starboard wing and then retrace his steps. The other officers quickly got out of his way. Cassandra thrashed out to sea and then turned again when Altmark had slipped below the horizon. The two ships were now out of sight of each other. The routine work of the ship went on and she ploughed steadily southward as Smith paced back and forth across the bridge.
Buckley watched him for a time then went below and scrounged a mug of tea from the galley. The cook who gave it to him said, “The buzz is that we’ve lost her, then.”
Buckley sipped at the tea. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Why? What d’ye think your bloke will do?”
“Don’t know. But he’s thinking about it.”
But he returned to the back of the bridge and stood there an hour before Smith suddenly halted in his pacing and stared sightlessly out to sea. Buckley nodded to himself, recognising the signs. A moment later Smith called, “Pass the word for Mr Kelso.” And when Ben Kelso came panting to the bridge, “How much Norwegian did you learn while you were in Oslo?”
Kelso blinked at him. “Well, I learned a fair bit before I went there and I took a phrase book. I got along.” Then he scented danger and hedged, “I’m not fluent, you understand — “
“Still got the book? Is it aboard?”
“I’ve got it somewhere, but — “
“Good. What about your German?”
“Just a few words. I only got ashore half a dozen times so I didn’t get time to —”
“We’ll have to manage.” Smith left Ben open-mouthed and turned to Galloway, “Let’s see that chart. And bring a pad.” In the chart-room with Galloway, Kelso and Vincent he bent over the chart, measuring and calculating, then tapped it with his finger. “There!” And then he gave his orders.
Jackman stood on the mess deck with notebook and pencil in big, stubby-fingered hands. He said, “I’m looking for volunteers. Harrigan, you’ll do for a start. Bennett, Nisbet…” He wrote down the names as he picked them out, glinting black eyes under the black brows scanning their curious, wary faces, ignoring the calls of: “What’s it for?” All in good time. They would find out soon enough. His eyes rested on Dobson for only the time it took to blink, then moved on. Dobson’s name did not go in the book. He knew why and could not look at the others.
Smith sat in his chair and saw the fresh mug of coffee Buckley had brought, unseen, only a minute before while Smith was in the chart-room. The old, cold one was also still there. Was Buckley making a silent point about foul-tempered captains? Smith grinned.
Galloway returned to the bridge after passing on Smith’s orders. He saw that grin, as did Kelso, who muttered, “He’s in a little better temper now.”
Galloway looked at his captain with a new respect. “There’s nothing wrong with his nerve.”
Kelso muttered again, “I’ll grant you that. But what about his sanity? This caper…”
5
Smith strapped the holstered Colt.45 pistol around his middle then shrugged into his oilskin as Buckley held it for him. A swell was still running and Cassandra lurched so they staggered together like some couple in a clumsy dance, cannoning off the desk and the side of the bunk. The sea cabin was crowded with the pair of them in there. Smith cursed but mildly, absent-mindedly, his thoughts already running ahead.
Buckley grumbled for the third time, “I don’t think you should go yourself, sir.”
“Mind your own damn business,” Smith told him absently.
Buckley sighed with mingled patience and exasperation, and gave up. “The motor boat is ready, sir. Paint’s still a bit tacky in places but she’ll do.”
Smith merely grunted acknowledgment. He jammed on his head a cap without cover or badge and shoved out of the cabin into the night. He waited then for a few minutes, peering out at the heaving, black sea under a starless sky, until his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness.
Cassandra had closed the coast again and was on the edge of Norwegian territorial waters but he could not make out the loom of the land in the night. He could see dimly the red and green navigation lights of some craft inshore and to the south, heading northward on a course for Trondheim. There was nothing in sight to the north. He reminded himself that there was still ample time, that Altmark would only be making the ten or twelve knots she was showing when last seen. The weather had still not wholly relented, his ship rolling under him as she lay hove to, a spit of rain sweeping over her on a bitterly cold wind. He thought it was a fine night for what he had to do.
He dropped down the ladder, Buckley trailing him, and strode rapidly aft. Cassandra’s deck was crowded. There were parties of men carrying rifles by three of her boats, other men lined up and gripping the falls of the boats, waiting to lower them. The men watched him as he passed, silent and curious. Kelso and Chivers waited with Galloway on the starboard side by one of the two motor launches carried by Cassandra. Behind them was ranked a party of seamen, swaying to the motion of the ship.
The two lieutenants were talking with Galloway, their heads turned to watch for Smith, voices lowered so the men would not hear. Galloway said, “I can’t fault his handling of the ship in those two actions. He’s hung on to Altmark. Brandenburg could have eaten us alive but she didn’t.”
Kelso, bulky in oilskins, carried a megaphone and wore a cap like that of Smith: without cover or badge. He muttered impatiently, “All right, he’s better than we expected. But this! It could wind up as an international incident! If it works, and it’s a bloody big ‘if’. I know a bit of Norwegian but I’m not fluent or anything like it.”
Galloway put in, “You don’t have to be. You won’t be trying to fool Norwegians.”
Kelso would not be comforted and warned Galloway, “If this blows up in our faces he’ll wind up on the beach again and this time for good. And he might not be the only one!”
But then Chivers saw Smith approaching and said crisply, “Shut up!”
***
Galloway reported, “All ready, sir.” Smith scanned the seamen ranked by the first motor launch and saw that each of the twenty men had a white armband and a rifle slung over his shoulder as Smith had ordered. The white armbands were for identification in the night. He had told the men earlier, “I don’t want you shooting each other.”
He moved on to the second motor launch on the port side and then to one of the cutters. He inspected the men drawn up by each of them as he had those manning the first launch. Then he returned to that first one on the starboard side. He put a finger to the fresh paint on the launch and found it tacky but he agreed with Buckley: it would serve. He ordered, “Lower away!” The men at the falls let them run out hand over hand and the boats dropped down to the sea. The armed parties started to climb down the scrambling nets and into the boats.
Smith cocked an eye at Kelso, “And you?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be. As I told you, sir, my
knowledge of the language is limited —”
Smith cut him off: “But it’s more than anyone else can boast. Besides —” he grinned at Kelso “ — I believe you always doubted the existence of Altmark. Now you’ll be able to satisfy yourself that it’s really her.”
Kelso said glumly, “Sir.” And went down into the launch.
Smith told Galloway, “When we’ve got her you’ll see our signal. Come in to us then.”
“Aye, aye, sir. And good luck.” Galloway watched as Smith followed Kelso.
Smith knew Galloway was still worried about this operation. He had objected earlier in the day, “It’s a hell of a risk, sir, mounting an operation of this kind in neutral waters.” He meant that Smith was putting his career on the line, and that was an understatement.
Smith had told him, “Altmark is an enemy ship and she’s carrying British seamen she should have released as soon as she entered Norwegian waters. She’s already in breach of international law.”
Galloway had argued, “She may have transferred all her prisoners to some other ship for all we know.”
Smith had shaken his head, “I don’t believe she has and I can’t give her the benefit of the doubt and let her go back to Germany with our men aboard. That’s a risk I won’t take.”
Now Smith found Buckley already in the sternsheets of the launch with Kelso. The second launch, with Chivers in command and towing the cutter, came up astern. Both were filled with armed men; there were just over sixty of them in the three boats. Smith tucked the tiller under his arm and the line of boats curved away from Cassandra’s steel side. Galloway saw them become furred outlines and then merge into the rain and the night.
Smith was out to free the prisoners from Altmark.
“Ship right ahead and running down on us, sir!” That call came from a keen-eyed lookout in the bow, uttered softly but carried back on the wind to Smith in the stern. He shoved up to his feet and stood, balancing against the roll and pitch of the motor launch. He blinked away the rain and the spray that flew inboard from seas breaking at the bow and saw the lights of the ship coming down from the north. The launch was heading to meet it. Both ship and boat were within a mile, or two at most, of the coast.
Kelso asked, “Do you think that’s her, sir?” He sat beside Smith in the sternsheets, oilskins around him like a tent and the megaphone clutched on his knees. But most of the men carried aboard the launch were hidden in the cabin and only half a dozen showed as crew.
Smith nodded. They would know for certain soon enough. He looked astern at the other lights coming up from the south that he had seen when standing on Cassandra’s bridge. He judged them to be better than a mile astern of him now and belonging to a small craft, probably not much bigger than the launch. A fisherman? That seemed likely. And unlikely that it would interfere or affect this operation. His eyes came down to the boats following him, Chivers’ launch with the cutter in tow. They, too, were taking a lot of water inboard but the conditions were good enough.
He borrowed Kelso’s megaphone to hail: “Wait!” He saw the white bow-wave fall away from the stem of that other launch as Chivers threw out the clutch. It lay with engine idling, the cutter drifting astern, as Smith in his launch pulled away. Chivers knew what to do and would wait there for Smith’s signal.
The ship ahead was closing quickly now, the gap between ship and boat narrowing at their combined speeds. Kelso shifted in his seat and there was a general restless stirring among the men in the boat, a tensing for action. Smith called, “Be still! But check your weapons, make sure safety catches are on. No one moves or fires unless I give the word. Hear that, Jackman?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” He was the petty officer in charge of this party and answered from his post at the entrance to the cabin, his face a pale mask in the darkness. From there he could see the men inside the cabin and out of it, could be relied upon to see Smith’s orders carried out.
The ship was lifting close now, could be seen and not just in outline but as a three-dimensional hull, black in the night and with a white bone of a bow-wave in her teeth as the ten thousand tons of her drove down on the little launch at twelve knots. There was the bridge structure forward and then further aft the main superstructure where the boats hung in their davits.
Kelso said hoarsely, “That’s her!”
It was Altmark. Smith took a breath. Now for it. He ordered, “Signal her!”
The signalman in the well of the launch lifted the Aldis lamp and worked the trigger, sending in flickering morse a U and an L, the international signals for “You are standing into danger” and “Stop”. A lamp blinked acknowledgment from Altmark’s bridge and then seconds dragged by until the bow-wave subsided. But her screws still churned slowly giving her bare steerage way, she still slid down on the launch.
Altmark’s bow was passing the launch now and Smith eased over the tiller so he came around in a hairpin turn. He ran level with her but quickly closing her side and just below her bridge. There was a man out on the wing, leaning over to peer at the boat bouncing in Altmark’s bow-wave and close alongside.
Smith ordered, “Hail him!”
Kelso stood up, cleared his throat and lifted the megaphone. He bawled the message he’d carefully prepared in his laboured Norwegian, “Altmark! Stop! Mines ahead! You must take a pilot!”
It would be no surprise to Altmark’s captain that there was a freshly-sown field of mines on this coast; there were others, also needing the services of a pilot. Smith and Kelso wore plain uniform caps such as pilots might wear, while on the upperworks of the launch and the roof of the cabin was painted, and still drying, a Norwegian flag. Would it work? Smith held his breath.
The man up on the wing shouted down to them and Kelso groaned, “Oh, hell! He says he doesn’t understand Norwegian.”
Smith snapped, “Tell him you speak little German!” Kelso muttered, “That’s a fact!”
“And get over the message of mines!”
Kelso tried again, his stretched nerves raising the pitch of his voice as he shrieked his warning. Possibly that apprehension came over to the man on the bridge, or it may have been Kelso’s gestures as he wailed, “Minen!” He pointed ahead and threw up his arms, “Boom!”
The man on the bridge wing shouted back unintelligibly then disappeared. Kelso blew out his cheeks and said weakly, “I think he’s got it.”
Smith said, “Well done.” Altmark was slowing further still, her screws had stopped and just the last of the way on her was shoving her through the water. More men showed on her deck below the bridge, lifting some heavy bundle onto the bulwark, throwing it over. It unrolled as a Jacob’s ladder dangling down the side, its foot trailing in the sea.
Smith eased the tiller over again. The launch’s engine died and she slid in towards the ladder. “Signal Mr Chivers!” The Aldis flashed again, briefly, and that would bring the second launch and the cutter down on Altmark. The sooner the better. Altmark would have a crew of a hundred or more. Smith and the score of men with him could only hope to gain a foothold by surprise and hang on for a few minutes until the reinforcements arrived. But it could be done. He had stopped Altmark and the crucial element of surprise was almost within his grasp.
Kelso waited to take the tiller. Smith unfastened his oilskin, ready to throw it off. Then he would be able to get at the big Colt.45 and it would be easier for him to climb. He was going to be first up the ladder. Jackman and the boarding-party in his launch would follow him, then Chivers and his two boatloads of men as soon as they could get alongside. In minutes the ship would be his.
Kelso said, “Jesus!” A flame licked up over the sea to the south and a second later there came the muffled thud! of an explosion. Smith saw the flame had its source in the fore part of a fishing boat, a craft little bigger than the launch with a wheelhouse and mast set aft. She seemed to be carrying some sort of cargo stacked on her deck and now the yellow flame from the front of this was broadening at the base, lengthening as the wind blew the f
lame back towards the rest of the cargo, leaping higher.
This he only glimpsed from the corner of his eye, intent on taking the boat in to the foot of the ladder. But he was aware that the fire out there was bright enough to shed light this far and it was casting shadows of the boat against Altmark’s black side. Worse! It had lit up the launch and cutter that had been lying off and now were heading towards Altmark in response to his signal. They were between Altmark and the fishing boat and could be seen against the light cast by the fire, packed with men, and the rifle muzzles poking up above some of them were only too obvious. They were unmistakeably naval boats with armed parties aboard.
Kurt Larsen woke when Altmark’s engines stopped. He jammed his feet into boots, grabbed his oilskins and ran out on deck. He saw the knot of seamen below the bridge, lowering the Jacob’s ladder, and heard their explanation: “It’s the pilot coming aboard, Herr Oberleutnant.” He leaned over the bulwark and saw the launch in its Norwegian colours sliding in towards the ladder. Then he raised his head as the thud! of the explosion came flatly over the black sea. He saw the leap of flame and its spread — then a launch and cutter silhouetted against its light.
He shouted, “Tommis!” Then bawled it again up at the bridge, “Tommis!” He heard an answering yell from up there then the clang of the engine-room telegraph being put over; they were starting the engines again. The seamen around him gaped, then tried to haul in the ladder but failed. A man in the launch below was holding it fast.
Kurt spun on his heel and saw on the bulkhead behind him a fire-hose, an extinguisher and an axe. He pulled the axe free from its clips and turned to the ladder. The blade gleamed in the firelight as he lifted it above his head, then he brought it down on the rope of the ladder where it was stretched taut over the bulwark.
Smith swore at the firelight but then the launch ran in and banged against Altmark’s black side, ground along it. Jackman seized the ladder and Smith threw off his oilskin and plunged towards it as Kelso grabbed the tiller. That was the signal for two ratings to shake out a big white ensign and spread it over the Norwegian colours on the launch. There came a yell from the deck of the ship above and Jackman was suddenly straining to hold the ladder as the men up there tried to haul it in: Smith saw one of them pointing; they had seen Chivers’ two boats. Jackman shook his head and growled at Smith through clenched teeth, “No good, sir!”