Hechler wiped his face. 'Tell them to concentrate on the heavy cruiser to the right!' Kroll needed no telling, and as if to show its revived determination, Turret Bruno began to swivel round until it was trained on the same bearing as its twin.
'Shoot!'
All four guns recoiled together while the after-turrets followed immediately.
'Short!'
Hechler swung round and saw Leitner, hatless and staring, as he groped his way across the bridge. Theil must have returned the power and released him.
Leitner seemed unaware of the danger, and barely flinched as Kroll's trigger released another shattering salvo from all four turrets.
'You treacherous bastard! You trapped me!'
He peered around and coughed in the billowing smoke.
I'll see you praying for death! It will be denied you!'
Hechler ducked as steel splinters shrieked and clattered around I he bridge. Another hit. He tried to listen to the garbled reports, picture his men at their action stations in magazines and turrets; tending the boilers or just clinging to life.
He shouted, 'Don't lecture me! This is my ship! You are the traitor, Andreas Leitner!' He seized him violently, all caution and reserve gone in the din and thunder of gunfire. 'You were going to run like a bloody rabbit when you found you weren't your own propaganda hero after all!'
'Captain!' Jaeger was holding out a telephone, his face white as a thin scarlet thread ran down from his hairline.
Hechler snatched the phone. It was Gudegast.
'We should alter course now, sir.'
'Very well.' Hechler slammed it down. 'Hard a-port. Steer He ran to the compass repeater and wiped dust and chippings away with his sleeve. 'Steer zero-one-zero.' It would leave the badly damaged ship where she could not interfere and allow Kroll to concentrate on the enemy's heavy cruiser. ‘Steady as you go!' He saw a great column of water shoot up by the port quarter and felt the bridge jerk savagely as another shell slammed down near the quarterdeck. As if by magic, black, jagged holes appeared in the funnel, while severed rigging and radio wires trailed above the bridge like creepers.
Request permission to flood Section Seven, sir?'
Hechler could imagine Theil down there with his team, watching the control panel, the blinking pattern of lights as one section after another was hit or needed help.
The main armament was trained almost directly abeam, their target hidden in smoke and distance.
Hechler dragged himself to a safety rail and squinted to clear his vision.
Small, sharp thoughts jerked through him. She would be on her way to safety. Five hundred miles was nothing to her. He wanted to shout her name. So that she would hear him. Like a last cry.
The hull shivered and flames seared out of the deck below the secondary armament. Men ran from their stations, some with extinguishers, others in panic, and one screaming with his body on fire.
'A straddle!' The voice almost broke. ‘Two hits!'
Hechler clambered above the rail and waited for the smoke to funnel past him. He had to hold his breath to stop himself from choking, but he must see, must know.
Then he caught a misty picture in the powerful binoculars, like a badly distorted film.
The big enemy cruiser, so high out of the water, was ablaze from stem to bridge, and both her forward turrets were knocked out, the guns either smashed or pointing impotently at the clouds.
A voice yelled, The pumps are holding the intake aft, sir!'
'Casualties removed and taken below!' He pictured Stroheim with bloodied fingers, his gold-rimmed glasses misting over in that crowded, pain-racked place. In his wildness he pictured the scene with music playing, Handel, from Stroheim's dusty stack of records.
A shell ploughed below the bridge and more splinters smashed through the thinner plating by the gate. Two signalmen were cut down without a sound, and Froebe clung to the gyro compass, his eyes bulging in agony as he gasped for air. There was a wound like a red star punched in his chest. Hechler reached for him, but he was dead before he hit the gratings.
Hechler yelled, 'Take his place, Jaeger!' He shook the youth's arm. 'Move yourself! We'll beat the Tommies yet!'
He saw the incredulous stare on Jaeger's face, and guessed that he must look more like a maniac than the stable captain. But it worked, and he heard Jaeger's voice as he passed another helm order, quite calm, like a complete stranger's.
Kroll's intercom croaked through the explosions. 'Both cruisers have lost way, sir. Shall I engage the destroyer? She now bears Red four-five!'
Hechler wiped his streaming face. Exertion or rain he neither knew nor cared. The destroyer would stand by her consorts; she was no longer any danger. By nightfall ... he swung round as men ducked again and the air was torn apart by the banshee scream of falling shells.
For a split second Hechler imagined that another cruiser had got within range undetected. He knew that was impossible. Then the salvo fell across the ship in a tight straddle, the shells exploding between decks, while others brought down range-finders and the mainmast in a web of steel and flailing stays.
Hechler expected to feel pain as he struggled to the opposite side. Even as he levelled his glasses again he knew the answer. The flaw in the picture, which even Kroll's instruments had overlooked.
The destroyer had zigzagged through a smoke-screen, although there was already smoke enough from gunfire and burning ships, and had fired a full broadside into the Prinz. Hechler coughed painfully. Except that she was no destroyer. She was a light cruiser, which nonetheless had the fire-power to do real damage if only she could get close enough. Her two heavier consorts had seen to that.
Another scream of falling shells and this time the full salvo struck them from funnel to quarterdeck.
Hechler gripped the rail, could feel the power going from his engines as Stuck fought to hold the revolutions steady.
Gudegast had appeared on the bridge and was shouting, 'Engine-room wants to reduce speed, sir!'
‘Half ahead!' Hechler watched the two forward turrets swing round, hesitate and then fire, the shockwave ripping overhead like an express train.
There was no response from the after-turrets. The last enemy salvo had crippled them.
‘One hit!'
The light cruiser was zigzagging back into her own smokescreen, one yellow tongue licking around her bridge like an evil spirit. Tell the gunnery officer -' Hechler wiped his eyes and stared up at the control position. It was crushed, like a beer can, riddled with holes despite the thick armour.
'Transfer fire control -' He watched, sickened, as dark stains ran down Kroll's armoured cupola, as if the whole control position was bleeding. Which indeed it was.
Throughout the ship, men groped in darkness as lights were extinguished or passageways filled with choking smoke. Others clung together behind watertight doors which would now remain closed for ever.
In his sick-bay Stroheim put down a telephone and shouted, Start getting these men on deck!' The smoke had even penetrated down here, and spurted through doors and frames like a terrible threat.
Deeper in the hull Stuck clung to his catwalk and watched his men stooping and running through the oily steam, like figures in hell. The three massive shafts were still spinning but he would have to slow' them still further. Was it to be now? Like this, he wondered? He felt the hull lurch as more shells exploded close by. His instinct told him they came from a different bearing, and he guessed that one of the damaged cruisers was rejoining the battle.
The two forward turrets were still firing, but more slowly under the local control of their quarters' officer.
There were fires everywhere, and not enough men to carry away the wounded, let alone the dead.
One man lay where he had fallen from a ladder, after Kroll had sent him to Turret Dora to discover the extent of the damage. Acting Petty Officer Hans Stoecker sprawled on his back, his face tightly pinched as if to protect himself from the unbroken roar of gunfire and internal explo
sions. Even the deck plating felt hot, and he wanted to call out for someone to help him. Each time he tried, the agony seared through him like a furnace bar, but when he attempted to move his legs he could feel nothing.
A bent-over figure slithered down beside him. It was the greyheaded petty officer, Tripz.
He made to cradle his arm under the young man's shoulder, but as a freak gust of wind drove the smoke aside he bent lower still. There was little left of Stoecker below the waist, and he tried to protect him from its horror.
He gasped, 'We did it, Hans! All that gold and jewellery! We did it! We'll all be rich!'
Stoecker sobbed as a single shell exploded against the bridge superstructure and sheets of steel drifted overhead like dry leaves. 'I - I - did - not - mean - to He clutched the other man in a pitiful embrace. His eyes blurred with agony, so that he did not see the cruel splinter which had just killed his comforter.
Stoecker lay back, the pain suddenly leaving him as he pictured his mother, and the girl called - he tried to speak her name but the effort was too much, so he died.
There were more corpses than living men on the forebridge and Hechler stared down at himself as if expecting to see blood. He was untouched, perhaps so that he should suffer the most.
Gudegast arose, shaking himself from a collapsed bank of voice-pipes, dust and paint flakes clinging to his beard as he stared around like a trapped bear.
Hechler heard Theil on the handset. 'Come up, Viktor. Tell your assistant to take over.'
He turned and saw Leitner standing in the centre of the bridge.
He screamed, ‘Where is Theissen?'
'He went in the plane with your boxes!'
Hechler wondered how he could find words even to speak with him.
Leitner held out a canvas pouch and shook it wildly.
These are mine! All that's left! Someone broke into my boxes, damn you!' He flung the pouch down in a pool of blood which was quivering to the engines' beat as if it was trying to stay alive.
'See!
Hechler watched as jewelled rings and pieces of gold scattered amongst the blood and buckled plating. So that was it.
He heard himself answer, 'So it was all wasted?'
Not quite, you bastard!' The Luger seemed to appear in his fist like magic and Hechler knew he could not move aside in time.
All around him men were dying, or waiting to be struck down. Because of men like Leitner. He felt suddenly sickened and cheated. No wonder Leitner could never understand his ideals, his love for a ship, her loyalty.
A voice shattered the sudden stillness. ‘Torpedoes to port!'
The explosions were merged into one gigantic eruption, so that it seemed to go on and on forever.
Hechler was vaguely aware of objects crashing past him, the sounds of heavy equipment tearing adrift and thundering through the hull between decks.
His mind was cringing but all his skill and training tried to hold on, just long enough.
The light cruiser must have darted in to launch her torpedoes while her battered consorts had kept up a ragged covering fire.
He knew without hearing a single report that it was a mortal blow. Corpses were moving again, returning to life perhaps as the deck tilted over.
Gudegast hopped and limped towards him, his eyes blazing as he exclaimed, 'Thought you were done for!'
Hechler hung on to his massive shoulder. How long had he been unconscious? He could recall nothing beyond the great gout of fire as the torpedoes had exploded alongside.
The admiral lay on his side, his tongue protruding in a crude grimace. One hand still held the Luger; the other was like a claw as it reached out for the scattered fragments of his fortune.
Gudegast aided the captain to the bridge chair. 'He's dead, sir.'
He watched the anguish on Hechler's profile. There was no point in adding to his pain by telling him that he had seen a bullet hole in the middle of Leitner's back. Someone must have gunned him down deliberately as he had aimed at the captain, when the torpedoes had abruptly ended all their hopes.
'The enemy's ceased fire, sir.' That was Jaeger, a bloody handkerchief pressed to his forehead.
Hechler heard the distant shouts of men on the deck below and Gudegast said, 'When I thought you were -'
Hechler held his arm. 'You ordered them to clear the lower deck?' He nodded painfully. 'Thank you, Josef. So much.'
Would I have done that, he wondered? Might more of my men have been made to die?
Now he would never know.
The deck gave a terrible lurch and the chart-table shattered into fragments.
Gudegast said, I'll pass the word, sir.'
Hechler shook his head. 'No. Let me. I must do it.'
He clung to the screen and saw the nearest enemy cruiser for the first time. Her fires were out, and her turrets were trained on the Prinz as she began to heel over very, very slowly.
Hechler raised his hand to the men nearest him. 'Abandon ship!' The words to wish them well choked in his emotion and he heard Gudegast mutter, 'Come on, sir. We'll still need you.'
Hechler tried to stand, but when he gripped the rail he found that he was staring not at the enemy but straight down at the littered water. Floats, broken boats, corpses, and swimmers, some of whom trod water to watch as the heavy cruiser began to roll over.
Hechler knew he had hit the sea, and that his lungs were on fire when hands seized him and dragged him into a crowded float. Someone cried, 'Here's the Captain!'
Hechler hooked his arm round Gudegast's shoulder and heard him murmur, 'Come on, old girl, get it over with, eh?'
It was like a great bellow of pain, an indescribable roar, as with sudden urgency the Prinz Luitpold lifted her motionless screws from the sea and dived.
Hechler struggled upright on the float and watched the maelstrom of flotsam, the tell-tale spread of oil.
They were still a long way from home.
But those who survived would speak for many years of the
Prinz.
He stared up at the first, pale stars.
The Iron Pirate. The legend.
Epilogue
The train was moving very slowly as if weighed down by the packed humanity which crammed every seat and compartment. Hechler was glad he had been able to find a place by a window, although it was so gloomy beyond the misty glass he could see very little.
It was hard to believe that the journey was nearly over, that the long train was already clanking through the outskirts of Hamburg.
Prinz Luitpold had begun her life in this port. It all seemed so long ago. He glanced at his companions, mostly in army field-grey, like the rest of the train, creased, worn-out, huddled together for warmth and comfort.
It was about noon, but it could have been evening, he thought. Winter already had its grip on the countryside. He stirred uneasily as his mind explored the past like a raw wound. A year since that day in the South Atlantic when the Prinz had lifted her stern and had dived. So many familiar faces had gone down with her; too many.
The survivors had been gathered into the British ships, and Hechler had found himself aboard the light cruiser Pallas, the one which had fired the fatal salvo of torpedoes.
It was strange, but he had sensed no elation amongst the victors. It had been relief as much as anything. He had learned snatches of the final action, of the British commodore being killed by the Prinz's first straddle, and the New Zealander's initiative in pressing home the attack despite an overwhelming adversary.
Hechler had been separated from his men, then from most of his officers. Some he knew had died in the cruiser's final moments. Kroll directing his guns, the taciturn Stuck, dying as he had lived with his engines roaring around him when the torpedoes had burst in on him and his men.
Hechler had managed to stay with Gudegast, even after they were transferred to a fast troopship with an armed escort, to be landed eventually in the port of Liverpool.
He had seen young Jaeger for a while, but once in
England Jaeger had been sent to an officers' prison camp somewhere in the south.
Gudegast had told him of Theil's last appearance, all that anyone had seen of him. As the ship had taken on her final list, with men pouring up from the smoke and fires between decks, several of the survivors had seen Theil returning below, as if going to his quarters. Hechler had asked if he had seemed to be in a great hurry? Perhaps he was trying to retrieve some small item of value from his cabin before he abandoned ship with all the others.
Gudegast had shaken his head. 'They said he was just walking. As if he had all the time in the world.'
A way out. Remain with the ship he loved, which was finally being taken from him. Now' they would never know the truth.
Hechler thought of the months as a prisoner-of-war. He gave a faint, wry smile. In the bag, as his British captors termed it.
The camp had been in Scotland, a bleak, lonely place, shared mostly with embittered U-boat commanders.
Hechler had been interrogated several times, on arrival, and later by officers in civilian clothes who were described as being from Naval Intelligence.
They questioned him mostly about the incident at St Jorge, and whether he considered that as captain he was solely responsible for the shooting of the civilian mechanic. Bauer was probably the only one who knew the whole truth of that, but he had been blasted to fragments with the rest of his staff early in the engagement.
After that, nobody took much interest in him. Gudegast was good company, and when they were not walking around the wire fences and looking at the varying colours of the heather, Gudegast would be busy with his paints and sketches. He obtained all the materials he needed by offering to do portraits of the guards. It was an amicable arrangement.
Then one day Gudegast was ordered to leave for another camp in the south.
It had been a sad if unemotional farewell. They had survived too much for anything more.
He had asked Gudegast what he would try to do after the war.
The big man had plucked at his beard. 'Back to the sea. It's all I know.'
Before he left he had handed Hechler a small roll of canvas.
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