iron pirate

by Unknown Author

  Hechler watched the boat. Would their journey ever end, he wondered?

  'Slow ahead, all engines.'

  Theil was peering at him with disbelief. 'You're not going to stop?'

  Hechler said, 'Boatswain's mate, call away the accident boat.'

  The boat would automatically have an experienced petty officer in charge. He glanced at young Jaeger. 'You go. Keep your wits about you.'

  Theil said between his teeth, 'In the name of God, sir, we're a sitting target.'

  Hechler said quietly, 'Keep your voice down, Viktor.'He gripped his glasses more tightly. A trick of the fading light, or had he seen a movement amongst the silent, patient figures in the listing boat?

  'Stop engines!' He hurried to the side as the motorboat hit the water and veered away on the dying bow-wave. Jaeger had only just clawed his way aboard in time.

  He remarked, 'Someone's alive out there.' When Theil said nothing he added coldly, 'Would you have me fire on the boat?'

  He raised his glasses once more, sensing the rift between them. He saw the motorboat speeding across the swell, Jaeger looking astern at the cruiser and probably wondering what would happen

  if there was an attack.

  He knew Leitner was beside him, could smell his cologne. But he kept his eyes on the little drama as the motorboat hooked on and Jaeger with a petty officer scrambled over the gunwale. The petty officer was old Tripz. He was used to this kind of work. He saw Jaeger lean on the gunwale with a handkerchief to his mouth, Jaeger was not.

  A signalman lowered his glasses. 'Two alive, sir.'

  'Call the sick-bay.'

  More feet on the ladder and he heard her thank a seaman for helping her through the gate. She was wearing her black leather jacket again, her hair ruffling in the breeze.

  Theil moved aside so that she could stand between Hechler and the admiral.

  How huge the ship looked as the long forecastle lifted and then Jell again very slowly, the motion increasing as the last of the way went off the hull.

  She asked, 'Just two?'

  Hechler nodded. She was probably thinking of its futility.

  Ships sunk and men killed, two aircraft shot down, and we stop because of these living dead. The unwritten law of the sea perhaps? Or to make up for those they had already left to die.

  He saw her right hand grip the rail beneath the screen so tightly that her knuckles were white through the tanned skin.

  When he glanced at her he saw moisture in her eyes, or were t hey tears?

  Leitner remarked, 'Flotsam of war, my dear.'

  She said huskily, 'My She tried again. 'I knew somebody who died at sea.'

  Hechler glanced down at her. She looked sick. The motion was getting worse as the Prinz rose and dipped like a huge juggernaut.

  'Sit in the chair.' He took her elbow. 'Take some deep breaths.' Then, so that the others should not hear he added quietly, 'Stay in the air, little bird. The ocean can be a dirty place.'

  He glanced across her head. 'Take over. I'm going to the sickbay.'

  Someone yelled, 'Boat's hooked on, sir!'

  The motorboat rose swiftly on its falls, and Froebe asked, The lifeboat, Captain? Shall 1 have a shot put into it?'

  'No.' He raised his glasses once more and knew she had turned in the chair to watch him. 'They have found their harbour. Leave them alone.'

  A great tremor ran through the deck and he felt the men sighing with relief as the great screws began to beat out their track of white froth again.

  Leitner called sharply, 'Find out what you can, eh?'

  Hechler ran down the first ladder and paused, gripping it with both fists.

  What is the matter with me? Is it that important?

  He found Jaeger and Petty Officer Tripz already outside the sick-bay.

  'All right?'

  Jaeger made an effort, but he looked ghastly.

  'All the rest were dead, sir.' He was reliving it. Bobbing about together as if they were really alive. The gulls had got to some of them -' he retched and old Tripz said, 'Easy, sir. You'll get used to it.'

  Jaeger shook himself. 'We brought two of them aboard.' He stared at the deck for a long moment until he could continue. 'One of them is an officer. The other -' he shook violently. 'He wouldn't leave without the cat.'

  'Cat?'

  Tripz said, 'The animal was dead, sir. We left it in the boat.' He looked despairingly at the young officer. 'Must have been adrift for weeks.'

  Hechler said, 'You did well.' He gave Tripz a meaning glance. 'Both of you, go to my steward. He'll give you something to warm you up.'

  Tripz gave a sad grin, 'It was worth it then, sir.

  The doctor was wiping his hands on a towel, and Hechler saw that both blanket-wrapped survivors were lying in bunks inside the office and away from the injured sailors.

  An armed seaman stood outside bat it seemed unlikely their passengers would create any problems.

  One, the young officer with two tarnished stripes on his sleeve, was conscious, but only just. Hollow-eyed and filthy,

  he was staring at the white deckhead with shock and disbelief.

  The other man was much older with a white beard. Perhaps he had already seen and done too much when his ship had been blasted from under him. He had his arms wrapped into a cradle, as he had been when Jaeger had found him, clutching the ship's cat to his body to protect it.

  The doctor said, I've given them something, Captain. They'll sleep. 1 shall get them some hot soup later on.' He nodded to the pathetic belongings on the glass table. 'They were aboard the Radnor Star, a freighter.'

  The officer was probably the second mate. He was too young tor much else, Hechler thought. In charge of a lifeboat, perhaps the only officer to get away when the torpedo struck. Watching t hem die, one by one, until he was alone but for the old man with his dead cat. Some last thread of discipline had made him hold on. He had been in charge. What else could he have done?

  The doctor took off his glasses and polished them as he had done at their first meeting.

  He said, 'So this is the Atlantic, the killing ground they warned me about?'

  Hechler looked at him. 'Don't be clever with me, Doctor!' He jerked open the door as the sentry snapped to attention. 'Report when they recover enough to speak.'

  He waited outside, breathing hard, angry with the doctor, more so with himself for dropping the guard he had built up so carefully. When he reached the bridge he was greeted in silence. I le looked for the drifting lifeboat but it had already disappeared into the darkness astern.

  He walked to the gratings, and with a start realised she was still sitting in the tall chair, wrapped about with somebody's heavy watchcoat.

  She did not say anything and he was grateful. He saw Jaeger return to his place on the bridge, the w7ay Gudegast moved across to pat his arm. That would mean more than anything to Jaeger

  just now. He was accepted. One of them.

  And what of me? The captain without a heart? Do they imagine / have no feelings?

  He stared down with surprise as she placed her hand on his wrist. She did not move it or grip with it. It lay there, separate, as if to listen.

  She said quietly, 'I am here, Captain. I shared it with you. I saw it through your eyes.'

  Hechler looked at her neat hand and wanted to seize it, press it against himself. She had understood, as if he had shouted aloud.

  He said, 'I would like to talk -' He felt her hand move away very slightly. 'Later, afterwards -' He was lost for the right words.

  She said. 'Afterwards may not be ours, Captain.' She slid from the chair and handed the coat to a seaman with a quick smile. Then she melted into the shadows and he heard one of his men assisting her on the ladder.

  He touched the chair; it was still warm from her body. He climbed into it and wedged his feet against the voice-pipes.

  She would probably laugh in his face if he even laid a hand on her. What about the man who had been lost at sea? She had nearly said so
mething else. 'My lover' perhaps?

  Afterwards may not be ours. Her words seemed to linger in his mind. His head lolled and he was instantly asleep.

  The Prinz Luitpold's petty officers' mess was in complete darkness apart from shaded blue lamps and one light above one of the tables. A different story from an hour before when the men off w'atch had been watching a film in the other part of the mess, one of the luxuries which v^ent with their status. The film had been a noisy display of German armed strength, backed up between the excited commentary by rousing music from Tannhduser.

  The air had been electric, and had remained so since the intercom announcement from the bridge that they were forging deeper and deeper into the Atlantic, unchallenged as they were unbeaten.

  Hans Stoecker sat in the poo! of light, sipping a mug of bitter coffee, restless, unwilling to sleep although he had only just come off watch.

  Opposite him, his grey head nodding in a doze, was old Oskar Tripz. His chin was covered in grey stubble so that he looked almost ancient.

  His eyes opened and he stared at Stoecker, his gaze searching. Trying to discover something, to make up his mind.

  'Why don't you turn in?' Tripz sniffed at the coffee and shuddered. 'What do they make this muck from - acorns?'

  A dark shape shrouded in blankets called irritably, 'Hold your noise! Think of the watchkeepers!'

  Tripz grinned. In harbour the mess housed a hundred petty officers, the backbone of the ship, as of any other. Now, with many of them on watch it seemed quiet, deserted by comparison.

  Stoecker lowered his voice. 'I keep thinking about Lubeck.'

  You're always thinking about something. You should keep your mind on your exams. Do you more good. Let the bloody officers think. It's what they're paid for.'

  Stoecker persisted, 'I mean, Liibeck should have been with us surely? Together we'd have made a stronger force.'

  'Easier to find too.' Tripz rubbed his chin with a rasping motion. 'I reckon she was meant to return to base.'

  Stoecker stared at him. 'We wouldn't just leave her!'

  Tripz shrugged. Who knows anything any more? They'd sell their mothers for a bit of glory.'

  'You don't mean that.'

  Tripz became impatient. 'I've got more important things on my mind at present.' He leaned across the table until their faces were only a foot apart. 'Those boxes, for instance.'

  They both glanced along the silent bunks like conspirators,

  I hen Stoecker asked, 'Do you know what's in them?'

  'It's all in that letter. If half of it's true, and I see no reason why that prisoner should lie about it, our gallant admiral is carrying a bloody fortune with him, though I can't imagine why.'

  Stoecker blinked. 'What kind of fortune, I - I mean, how much?'

  The man watched him grimly. 'Do you know how much the Prinz cost to build?'

  Stoecker smiled. 'You're joking -'

  Tripz tapped his arm with a thick finger. 'You could build three ships like this one with what he's got tucked away.' He dropped his voice again to a hoarse whisper. 'If that letter tells the truth.'

  Stoecker thought of the man's face in the air vent, his despair. He often thought about it, also the man's quiet courage in the shadow of death. Murder. The word was fixed in his mind.

  Tripz seemed satisfied with the young man's acceptance; he had never doubted his sincerity.

  He said, 'It seems that the prisoner was writing to some friends. To warn them that the boxes were being moved.'

  Stoecker recalled the burnt-out shop, the crude insults.

  Tripz continued, 'His friends were Jewish, right enough. One of them was a jeweller. Probably why he was still at large.' He dropped his eyes. 'Or was

  I still don't understand.'

  Tripz's gaze softened. 'You wouldn't, Hans. He hurried on. 'All I do know is that we're probably carrying a bloody great fortune. If so, my guess is that Rear-Admiral Leitner's no more entitled to it than we are.' He changed tack before Stoecker could speak. 'What will you do when this lot's over, Hans? Always assuming you're still in one lump, of course?'

  Stoecker hesitated. 'The navy. A career, I thought -'

  The finger jabbed his arm again. 'Suppose we lose? D'you ever think about that?' He did not wait for an answer. 'Me? I'll be good for nothing, no matter who wins. I saw it after the last war. You couldn't even sell your bloody medals for a crust of bread. No, peace will be hard, even for the kids.' He shook his head. 'They'll toss me out like so much waste.'

  Stoecker felt vaguely uneasy. 'Anyway, we'll probably never know. The boxes are locked away, under guard.'

  'I know. The admiral's got one key, the captain's got the other.' He tapped the side of his nose. 'But there's a duplicate, my young friend.' He saw his astonishment and grinned, showing his uneven teeth. 'You've caught on. It's mine.'

  A figure, naked but for a lifejacket, lurched past on the way to the heads.

  Tripz stood up. 'Say nothing, or we'll both end up on the wrong side of a firing-squad. And that would be a pity, eh?' He leaned over and patted his shoulder. 'Thought you should know. In case I stop a bit of the Tommies' steel. After all, we're partners, right?'

  He walked away, leaving Stoecker alone beneath the solitary light.

  The Prinz Luitpold's senior medical officer looked up from his book and saw the girl standing in the open door.

  'Can't you sleep either?'

  She walked to a chair and glanced at the two motionless survivors, swaying gently in their white cots.

  'My wrist. It's bothering me. If I lie on it -'

  He took her hand and reached out for some scissors. The girl was very attractive. It was hard to think of her as the professional

  flier, as good as any Luftwaffe ace, they said. It seemed wrong that she should be here, in this iron machine.

  'You're new aboard the ship?' She had a direct way of asking. As if she was telling him.

  He looked at her. She seemed strained, and there were shadows under her tawny eyes.

  '1 am. Lost amongst strangers.' It seemed to amuse him.

  She said, 'Call me Erika. If you like.'

  He cut the last of the bandage. 'I do like.'

  Her skin felt hot, feverish. He remembered all those other women. The scandal which had almost got him into prison, a ruined man. But the women who came to him 'in trouble' were people of influence, or those who had powerful friends. Curious ! hat such power could be smashed because of an unwanted baby, he thought.

  I ike the captain's wife, for instance. Well-bred from an old lamily, she was always in the centre of society, that jungle which was safe only for the privileged few. It was strange how the high party members, men of the people as they liked to be known, were so in awe of women like her.

  He wondered if the captain really knew what she was like. One of his colleagues had once described her as a thoroughly delectable whore. That doctor had been indiscreet in other ways too. Then one day he had simply disappeared.

  He said, 'It is a bit stiff, er, Erika.'

  She watched him, unsmiling. 'I have to fly in a day or so.'

  'It will be all right by then.' What were they thinking of? Flying? They would meet up with the enemy at any time now. The British would not give up until they had brought them to action.

  She glanced at the gramophone and the pile of well-used records. She raised her eyebrows. 'Handel? You surprise me. Is it patriotic?'

  She smiled then, at some private joke perhaps.

  'I like it.'

  'You always do what you like?'

  'I try to.' He looked at her, and tried not to think of her on his examination couch, naked.

  She said, 'I wanted to talk. I knew you would still be awake. It's not like a ship down here.'

  He chuckled. 'I suppose not. I shall attempt to keep it that way.'

  ‘I was with the Captain when these survivors were brought aboard.'

  He said nothing and waited. So that was it. There was certainly nothing wrong w
ith her wrist which could not wait until daylight.

  She said, 'He is different from what I expected.'

  'An enigma perhaps?'

  She smiled at him. 'You are leading me.' She added, 'He seems to care so much about people. How can he do his work?'

  Stroheim spread his hands. 'Perhaps it is tearing him apart. I do not know him that well. Yet.'

  'But you know his wife, don't you?'

  He started. 'How do you hear these things?'

  'A friend told me.' She had been going to say a little bird told me. But at that instant she remembered his face, the concern in his voice as he had said so quietly to her, 'Stay in the air, little bird.' To use the expression loosely would seem like a betrayal, like sharing a secret.

  Stroheim said vaguely, 'She is very beautiful.'

  'I met her.' She thought of the other woman's searching stare, her arrogance giving way to caution when she realised who Erika was. Because she was a flier and had carried out a mission for the Fiihrer, people often thought she too had influence. Yes, she recalled that stare, her perfect body, so carelessly displayed in the cutaway gown. Try as she might, she could not see her and the Captain together. Maybe they had both changed.

  'Well, you know what she's like.'

  Are they still married, or anything?'

  He warmed to her. 'Anything would be closer, I believe.'

  She opened and closed her left hand her face expressionless as she tested the pain, the discomfort.

  Stay in the air, little bird.

  'I'll say goodnight then.' She looked at the two sleeping figures. Flotsam, Leitner had called them. Or, good morning now, I believe?'

  He watched her leave and then reopened his book.

  Every so often, even in the midst of danger and death there was one small light. Like a flower in a forest, a lone star.

  He sighed and crossed his legs. She had made him feel human again.

  Chapter Nine

  Viewpoint

  Apart from the regular swell the sea's face was like glass, blinding bright in the sunshine. There was a fine haze which never seemed to get any closer, so that there was no break between sea and sky. For the Atlantic it was unusual, even this far south.

  The two ships stood close together as if for support, which was true, and at a greatly reduced speed appeared to be almost motionless above their quivering reflections.