The Kaiser’s Navigator (Peter Sparke Book 2)

by Scott Chapman

  Chapter Eleven

  Distances can be brutally deceptive in the flat ice fields of the Antarctic. Once the men had calmed down and resumed their march towards the thin column of smoke, it took two hard hours of skiing before the tiny outline of the Deutschland itself was visible.

  Once they were sure the ship was in clear view, Filchner ordered a halt and had a flare fired into the bright sky. There was no response from the ship. Another half hour of hard travel later, he again brought the party to a halt and had another flare fired. The group stood, silent as statues watching the still tiny ship, each now aware of the terrible possibility that the crew might sail away to search for them somewhere else along the coast. Perhaps the Deutschland was not signalling them, but was raising steam to depart.

  As their flare fell back towards the earth, each man saw a tiny, sparkling response from the ship as an answering flare was sent up by her crew. A few moments later a second flare went up from the ship. Now, despite their fears, their exhaustion, and their injuries, the expedition began to race towards the ship. It took the shouts of Filchner, Opitz and Schaldecker to bring the men into good order. They had survived together, travelled a huge distance over trackless wasteland together, and they would arrive together.

  Arriving at the coastline was another trial of frustration. Loose ice made it difficult for the Deutschland's small launch to land easily, but after three tries she finally ground ashore on one of the few patches of stable ice the men could reach.

  It took two trips to ferry the men to the ship and a third to recover their equipment. There was no question of abandoning anything to the ice.

  The joy of feeling the deck under their feet was immense. As each man clambered up the shaky gangway they were greeted by the ship's First Officer and hustled quickly inside the ship to the main Mess Room where they were each carefully stripped of their heavy outerwear. Frozen fingers and toes were dipped in cool water, and the large space was soon filled with the painful exclamations as they felt blood rushing back through their bodies. By the time Filchner, the last man to leave the ice, reached the Mess, the first men to have arrived were already standing, starting to sort through their discarded gear and sipping warm, thin beef soup.

  Filchner and Opitz waited until the ship’s launch recovered the last of their equipment before following their men inside. Unlike the others, they did not undress, merely pulled off the top layers of protective clothing, and then made their way up to the bridge.

  "You are all here and safe," said the Captain.

  "All here, all safe, but with some injuries," replied Filchner.

  The Captain looked at Opitz, "We all owe you a huge debt, Leutnant. You have managed to complete a magnificent act of navigation."

  "Thank you, sir," said Opitz quietly. "I simply followed my training."

  "Indeed, you did," responded Filchner. "You followed your training in very difficult circumstances and used all of your skill to bring our men back from a position of extreme danger." He paused for a second. "I will complete the report on the expedition overall, but I would be grateful if you could complete a separate report, exclusively focused on your experiences in the navigation aspect."

  "A capital idea," agreed the Captain. "Your experience in navigating over the ice will be of immense value."

  "Any other elements you wish to report are probably best made directly to your naval superiors in Berlin," added Filchner softly.

  It was clear to Opitz what was being proposed by Filchner. He was to keep his comments to the outside world strictly to the subject of his navigation. By definition he was being told that any published report from him should not mention the Santa Simone. By having this discussion in front of the Captain, it was, in effect being supported by his ship commander. No one was saying that it should never be discussed, that it was even a secret, merely that the people who should make that decision were the German Naval authorities.

  Opitz trusted his leaders and followed his instructions, never mentioning to another member of the crew or the expedition the fact that he had stumbled across a wrecked Argentinian ship crushed in the Antarctic ice. But Opitz was a navigator, and, aside from the small telescope that he had lifted from the icy tomb of the Santa Simone, he also possessed the navigation log.

  During the journey home, he recreated the route across the ice he had plotted for his trapped expedition, every sighting, every measured distance, every assumption he had made and the reasons behind it. It was dry work and would make interesting reading only for a tiny population of extreme travellers who would ever find themselves having to find their way on barren ice. Although the potential readers of his report were small in number, they were of an unparalleled expertise. He was fully aware that as soon as his report was published it would be read immediately in London, Paris, Washington, and half a dozen Nordic capitals. These were not men who valued hyperbole or self-praise.

  In the long evening hours, when Opitz was not on watch, and had no other duties to attend to, he found himself returning again to the navigation log of the Santa Simone. It contained nothing more than a dry list of times, dates, positions and headings, meaningless to anyone except a trained navigator. Alone in the tiny chartroom of the Deutschland, he slowly turned the numbers into the story of the journey of the Santa Simone.

  Opitz did not dare bring the navigation log out of his cabin, so he began copying entries from it onto scraps of paper and checking them on the charts for the area. What started as an almost idle pastime soon became a baffling riddle.

  The Santa Simone had left Buenos Aires, headed briefly eastwards away from the South American mainland, then turned almost directly south for several days. Then its position seemed almost to stop, hundreds of miles from anywhere, and then move first south, then west, then east, then briefly south-west, then rapidly east again for several days. Opitz checked the positions again, but knew that he was reading the information correctly.

  Eventually, after several weeks of what appeared to have been almost random course changes in the midst of the Southern Ocean, the readings stopped showing any major movement. Positions, dates and times were given but no headings. The distances between those later positions were often negligible, sometimes basically showing no movement at all.

  Opitz recognised that he was reading the last entries of a fellow ship's navigator, trapped in the death grip of a moving ice field and powerless to escape.

  Chapter Twelve

  Despite being born from entirely Polish stock and having been brought up in Scotland, Sparke had a shocking inability to cope with alcohol. Two glasses of wine with a meal tended to be his limit and it was a limit he rarely reached.

  As far as he could remember, he had never in his life chosen to take a drink purely because he felt like it. Tonight, however, the idea seemed to have some attraction.

  When he arrived at the cafe, a relaxed, quietly busy place near the heart of Munich, he had told the young woman behind the bar that he had a dinner reservation and that he was waiting. In fact had turned up thirty minutes early.

  Sparke's poor German caused the friendly young woman to ask him where he was from. On learning that he was from Scotland, she told him that they had a very good selection of Scotch whiskies, and would he like to order one while he waited?

  Alcohol, Sparke knew, was used by people for many purposes and one of them was to relax. Relaxing seemed like a very good idea at the moment, so he casually picked one of the bottles at random and ordered it.

  "Springbank, please. No ice."

  The young woman poured the drink with a healthy disregard for measures.

  To Sparke, the smell was like a combination of Scottish moorland, deadly chemicals, and the threat of violence. He had tasted whisky before, of course, but only when he had already been drunk enough to face the challenge. Actually drinking high quality malt whisky when sober was a first for him.

  The heavy liquid rolled over his tongue and took over his mouth like an invading army; the tastes, f
umes and sheer explosive experience saturated Sparke’s senses. Having started to drink the glass, he felt that retreat was impossible and since he desperately wanted not to have to repeat this experience, he emptied the glass in one go. As he lowered the glass he had the feeling of surfacing in a burning swimming pool. Now, he could see that two people stood behind the bar, the young woman and a man who appeared to be the manager.

  "He is Scottish," said the woman. "He picked your favourite whisky straight away."

  The man beamed. "You enjoy the Springbank!" said the man, obviously feeling that Sparke's nationality had validated his own preference for the brand.

  "Beautiful," said Sparke, already feeling the impact as the whisky began to gently settle into a position of occupation.

  "Let me give you a taste of the twenty-five-year-old," said the young man, reaching into a cabinet behind the bar and pulling out another bottle. Without a pause, and without any pretence of measuring, he poured a large glass.

  Perhaps the first whisky had slowed his reactions and stopped him saying no, but regardless of the reason, he found himself cradling a second, much larger whisky in his hand while the young man watched him with eager anticipation. Taking a guess as to what was expected of him, Sparke lifted the glass and swirled it briefly. He then burned out the lining of his nose by inhaling a huge breath of the fumes and took half the contents down in one swallow.

  "Excellent, very well-rounded," Sparke heard himself saying. The young man and woman were obviously pleased to have satisfied a discerning expert and beamed back in response. The young man had apparently been to the distillery where the whisky was made and was a firm champion of the brand. He told Sparke about the visit and several interesting facts about how the people at Springbank aged the whisky in various ways.

  As he talked, Sparke could feel himself slipping slightly farther away from reality. He felt as though he was looking at things through an ever-thickening plexiglass screen. As the young man spoke, in excellent English, Sparke nodded, smiled, and said, "really" a number of times. After leaving the glass alone for as long as he thought was reasonable, he took another long sip. Drinking Scotch whisky was a painful, challenging physical experience and Sparke was beginning to understand why people might like it. He seemed to be settling into a new perspective with the world. There seemed to be a slightly better balance point in the world as he now saw it.

  The young manager excused himself, obviously happy, and headed back to the restaurant.

  Sparke swivelled his bar stool round and placed his right arm on the bar, holding the glass in front of himself. He was acutely aware that he never swivelled bar stools around and placed his arm on the bar.

  By accident he was facing the door so he saw Karin as soon as she walked in. She looked relaxed and happy, dressed differently than he had seen her before. He realised she was wearing a dress.

  "Karin," he said, smiling very broadly. "You look fantastic. You're wearing a dress."

  She looked at Sparke slightly quizzically. "Peter, you look very nice, too." She looked at the glass in his hand and the way he seemed to be leaning heavily on the bar.

  "Peter, are you drunk?" she asked lightly.

  He thought for a moment. "Yes, but it was an accident. I am a bit drunk, I think."

  "But why are you drunk?"

  "Well," he said, "I thought I needed to relax a wee bit."

  "Really? Why did you need to relax a 'wee' bit?" she said, almost laughing.

  "You told me that we needed to talk about our personal relationship. So I thought I would get myself relaxed."

  "Well, you do look pretty relaxed, but perhaps you need to have a wee bit of fresh air right now?"

  Sparke thought the idea of a bit of fresh air was the best idea he had heard for a long time.

  "I would love to get a bit of fresh air."

  Karin walked off and explained to the restaurant receptionist that they would have to cancel their reservation, then came back over to the bar where Sparke stood, slightly unsteadily.

  "Let's get some air," she said, smiling at Sparke.

  As they left the bar she placed her hand through his arm and they walked through the streets of Munich, as Sparke explained the ageing process used for twenty-five-year-old Springbank Malt Whisky.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After the long months on board the Deutschland, the modern world came at Opitz with the shock of a steam train. The noise, the movement, and the endless numbers of people thronging the dockside were almost too much to bear. The solid, unmoving ground beneath his feet was thoroughly disorientating after so long at sea and it took him days of walking, with a rolling sailor’s gait, before he regained his land legs.

  The arrival of the Deutschland had been treated as a major event by the German authorities and the press. Family flocked to the quayside and onlookers from every ship in the harbour craned to see the small ship as it docked. Endless photographs had been taken, and, much to the embarrassment of those involved, they had to dress up in their Antarctic clothing for the press.

  A senior naval cadet had been waiting at the dockside for Opitz with orders and travel documents sending him to Berlin. The cadet was also ordered to take possession of the official reports that Opitz was expected to submit. These were still in handwritten form, but ready, and were whisked off to be transcribed and typed for review so that his reports could be discussed with him on his arrival.

  Before leaving for Berlin, Opitz was welcomed back home into the bosom of the Imperial German Navy by the officer commanding at Bremmerhaven. It was an evening of celebration and relaxation with his fellow seamen. No one asked any silly questions as the press had, everyone toasted his health, and he spent a marvellous night in the company of his brother officers, comfortable in the knowledge that he had contributed just a little to the onward march of the prestige of German naval affairs.

  Berlin was, of course, a different matter. On his arrival, he sat alone and freezing in the marble hall of the Admiralty building, waiting to be called. A junior officer appeared and escorted him to a room big enough to hold a parade in. In the middle of a table at the end of the room sat two men, one in naval uniform, the other in civilian clothes. The civilian was dressed in tweed and had the look of an English country gentlemen that virtually all German naval officers cultivated when out of uniform.

  In front of the two men were a number of documents.

  First, was a typed copy of the navigation document which Opitz had created covering his feat in guiding the party over the ice, next was a copy of the standard report which all service personnel submitted following an attachment with a civilian expedition. The third document was obviously his own service record, and next to that was a file in a plain brown card folder with no title on its cover.

  "Leutnant Opitz," said the man in uniform, "you will be spending some time later today with our Technical Board to discuss in detail your experiences in navigating over the southern icecap. I understand that they are very happy with your efforts and with this report. However, before that, we need to discuss your additional report. Your report over the wreck you found." He tapped the plain brown folder.

  "Of course, sir," said Opitz. "How can I help?"

  "This wreck seems to have been of a ship from the Argentine," said the officer, "and you seem to suggest that the bodies you found did not have the appearance of whalers or merchant seamen?"

  "All I can say, sir, is that the clothing the men were wearing seemed more suited for land travel than sea wear. Many of them were not dressed like sailors. They were clothed more like our own land party was. Also, the clothes seemed to be of very high quality, not like those normally worn by sailors."

  "Are you trying to suggest that the Argentine launched a polar expedition, Leutnant Opitz, and that you discovered the remnants of that?" asked the man in civilian clothes softly.

  German naval training was amongst the best in world, especially for junior officers. They were trained to take the initiative when
it was called for, but to trust the judgement of their senior officers. An officer of Opitz's junior rank was expected to deliver concise reports based on the facts as he observed them and leave the bigger picture to those above him.

  "There is no way that I could make such a suggestion, sir," said Opitz carefully. "All I can do is to report what I saw."

  The man in tweed nodded, happy with the response. "The government of the Argentine has made no comment about such an expedition. We have no interest in possibly creating embarrassment to the government of that country. In fact, we see that nation as being a potential friend of the Navy at some point."

  It was open policy within the Imperial Navy that its function was to challenge the stranglehold on the world's shipping lanes which the Royal Navy had maintained for over a century and, if there ever should be war with the British, it would be the role of the German Navy to disrupt the vital links between the British Isles and her colonies. German raiders would need coal and supplies and for that it would need friends around the world. Embarrassing a potential friend in such a vital area was not on the agenda of Germany.

  "Explain to me how you are so sure that this was an Argentine ship. Did you see the name and port of registration on the hull?" asked the officer.

  "No, sir. The name was visible, but as I could see only the prow, there was no port of registration visible. However, the name of the ship was clearly shown in the logbook."

  "And where is the logbook now?"

  "In the hut where we left it."

  "And only yourself and Herr Filchner know about this discovery?"

  "Yes, sir. Herr Filchner felt this was a purely naval matter and should be handled by Berlin."

  "Herr Filchner is a very astute man," said the man in tweed. "We have already spoken to him."