The Sea Break

by Antony Trew

  When von Falkenhausen, Lindemann and Schäffer were pushed into the chain-locker, dragging with them an almost unconscious Kuhn, they found others already there—Hugo Kolbe, the bosun, Adolph Heuser, the carpenter, Karl Wedel, a seaman, and Eric Francke, the mechanician, who’d come off in the boat with the Freiherr. Francke and Wedel had been attacked by the Britishers. Francke seemed all right though he was dazed, but Wedel was only now coming round, groaning feebly and muttering.

  They did their best to make him comfortable but under those conditions little was possible. Still not accounted for were Moewe, the second officer, Ulrich Meyer, a greaser, Heinrich Weicht, the night watchman, and Paul Müller, the steward; it was these men they were discussing.

  “I wonder what has happened to them?” said the Freiherr.

  Lindemann’s deep voice came out of the darkness. “I expect Weicht was killed. He was probably the first man they encountered, Herr Baron. If he were alive they would have brought him here.”

  “I wonder, Kapitän, how they got aboard without the alarm being given?”

  Lindemann sighed wearily. “I don’t know. The gangway w r as hoisted. They could not have come up that way. Some of my men must have been about.”

  “We’ve not put up a very distinguished performance.” The Freiherr’s laugh was forced.

  Schäffer spoke then. “What chance did we have, Herr Baron?”

  “Very little, my dear Schäffer. Very little. The element of surprise was complete. And in spite of Herr von Ribbentrop’s comforting assurances to the Führer, the enemy do not seem soft.”

  “Tell me, Kapitän,” he went on. “These men still not accounted for—Moewe, Meyer, Weicht and Müller. If they are still at large—are they tough, resourceful?”

  “Moewe certainly is. Weicht is tough, too, but stupid, I fear. Meyer is an excellent technical man but not aggressive.”

  “And Müller, the steward?”

  Lindemann hesitated. “A pleasant, gentle young man. Hard working, but his heart is not in the war. He enjoys life ashore too much.”

  “What I cannot understand,” said the Freiherr, “is what these people are up to? That they want information about the Hagenfels’s possible break out I can understand—that they are concerned about the sinkings on the coast and our system of passing information about Allied shipping—all this I can understand. But what can they hope to achieve by coming aboard a German merchant ship in a neutral port and using violence? That I cannot understand! That seems to be madness! As Canrobert said of the Charge of the Light Brigade: ‘C’est magnifique mais ce n’est pas la guerre!’ What do you think, Kapitän?”

  “It is beyond my understanding.”

  “I wonder,” said the Freiherr softly.” I wonder. Widmark commands the party—Stephen Widmark—The Butcher. He has the reputation of stopping at nothing. He is thoroughly unethical, un-British in his approach to war. I wonder what he’s driving at? I would love to know.”

  From his corner in the chain-locker, Karl Wedel groaned, and the Freiherr put out a hand to comfort him. The man clutched at it, pulling von Falkenhausen down towards him.

  “Wasser, bitte! Wasser, bitte——” he pleaded, his voice a croak. Water, thought the Freiherr, you poor devil! How can we give you water here?

  “Stand clear below!” It was a British voice that echoed down the spurling-pipes. They heard the windlass above them turning, felt its vibrations, and a few minutes later, with a metallic roar, the starboard cable slid back into the chain-locker and the stale air was filled with dust from the mud-caked links.

  “Gott im Himmel!” shouted the Freiherr. “They’re letting go the cables.” So that was it. He’d not had long to wait for Widmark’s plans. The Hagenfels had been captured by a British naval party. It was the grossest breach of neutrality. To seize a ship by force of arms under the nose of the Portuguese and take her to sea. It was unthinkable. But it was happening. Then the wider implications filtered through the Freiherr’s mind; there were U-cruisers and raiders waiting outside for fuel and provisions, counting on the Hagenfels’s break out to get these urgently needed supplies. And what was his own position? He had admitted to Widmark that he had been a spy in Alexandria. It would be quite evident that he had been doing the same thing in Lourenço Marques. And now he was a prisoner of the British. He knew what he could expect. While a sobering fear took hold of him, he accepted the position with stoicism; this was a chance he had long been taking. He had always known that it might—probably would—end like this. It was for that reason, in a very special sense, that he had volunteered for the work after Gina’s death. In the darkness he shrugged his shoulders. All right—if it had to be like that—well, it had to be. Then he thought of Di Brett. She must be protected. She was in great danger. Her life depended upon remaining Di Brett.

  Quietly he explained the position to the others and there in the musty darkness, pressing their bodies against the sides of the chain-locker, waiting for the port cable to slip back, breathing in the choking air, Karl Wedel in his corner still pleading for water, Siegfried Kuhn snoring in another, they undertook to protect Helga Bauer, while they wondered at von Falkenhausen’s courage.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Widmark watched the gunboat draw ahead, leaving behind it the lights along the Aterro do Machaquene, a signal lamp flashed peremptorily from her bridge and with a shock he realised that beyond any doubt she was calling the Hagenfels. He collected the torch from the wheelhouse, said to the Newt, “Not too healthy—Portuguese gunboat’s leaving the harbour in a hurry. Calling us on her lamp,” then he was out on the bridge giving the acknowledgment. There was a pause and the gunboat made: “W-H-A-T S-H-I-P?”

  Signalling slowly in the uneven fashion of a merchantman, Widmark replied: “C-L-A-N M-C-P-H-I-L-L-Y.” With jangling nerves he waited, wondering what would come next. Then the gunboat’s lamp was blinking again: “G-O-O-D N-I-G-H-T.” There was nothing more. He felt a great weight lift from his shoulders, returned the “Good night,” and went back to the wheelhouse.

  “Relax, Newt. Our friend was being polite.”

  “Bless him. Number nine buoy’s getting close.”

  The green light of the buoy came forward to meet them. Widmark ordered: “Port twenty!” The Hagenfels’s bow came round and the buoy passed down the side and drew astern.

  Course was set on 058 degrees and the ship made up the Polana Channel; ahead of her, winking in the darkness, shone the sternlight of the Portuguese gunboat.

  It was 2316.

  Broad on the port bow, Widmark could see through the night glasses the signal station at Ponta Vermelha, perched high on the cliff, a dark, menacing blurr, thin shafts of light showing through shuttered windows. He waited, torch in hand, his anxiety mixed with irritation that Rohrbach was not yet back; there had been time enough, he felt, for them to take the steward to the chain-locker. Although he was expecting it, he started with surprise as the signal lamp on the cliff flashed into life with “W-H-A-T S-H-I-P?” At that moment, Rohrbach got back to the bridge and Widmark handed him the torch. “About time, me lad! Grab this and make our signal letters.”

  Breathing heavily, Rohrbach took the torch and made the Clan McPhilly’s signal letters: “G-B-A-J.” Someone at Ponta Vermelha was evidently digesting that, for the pause which followed seemed inordinately long. Then it winked again, “R” for Roger, and tension on the bridge eased.

  “Somehow,” said Widmark, “I’ve been worrying a lot about Ponta Vermelha. I mean, we knew the drill but there was always the chance of someone in the harbour spotting that it was us and not the Clan McPhilly that left the anchorage—anyway, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.”

  “That bloke I clobbered in the lifeboat was the steward. Poor little sod. Afraid I rather battered him.”

  “Don’t waste your sympathy, David. They’re not worth it.”

  “I find it difficult to hate people. In the abstract it’s all right. But when you’re face to face with them—well,
they’re just ordinary people. You know what I mean. The animus isn’t there any longer.”

  Widmark was looking over the bridge screen, watching the sternlight of the gunboat, relieved that it was drawing ahead so fast. “You’re getting soft, David. Watch yourself! They’re not ordinary people. If they were they wouldn’t behave as they do.” His voice was harsh. “You know—after I’d finished off Moewe—with my hands like that—I thought I’d feel some sort of remorse or disgust. But I didn’t. I was glad, actually, that I’d done it. It was tremendously satisfying. When I was at school I used to think the Old Testament’s ‘eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth’ was the most savage thing I’d heard of—I had a horrible picture of it all happening. Now I know I was wrong. There’s something about revenge. It’s high in the scale of human emotions. The only logical end to hatred. A sort of sublimation——” His voice trailed off.

  Rohrbach, embarrassed at this pulling aside of the curtain to another man’s mind, said: “I’m a German Jew, Steve. I suppose if anybody should be able to hate I should, but I can’t. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me. When I went for that steward under the lifeboat cover he was just an anonymous shape. I knew I had to stop him. I suppose I went berserk. Then when I saw him in the light afterwards—he—well, he looked quite a decent chap. His face was dead white and there was blood on it. I felt pretty shabby——”

  Widmark’s voice was flat, toneless. “I think there is something wrong with you, David. And frankly, I don’t understand that berserk stuff. Isn’t it just a cliché? Or an excuse? ‘She was standing in front of me, my lord, an’ I blacked out, an’ when I come to she was lyin’ on the floor and—I seen the gun in me ‘and——’ Lot of cock, David, take it from me. I knew what I was doing—every second of the time. I didn’t even lose my rag. Afterwards my only regret was that he’d died so quickly. I mean, it was too easy for him. To get away with it like that.”

  There was a long silence.

  “War’s not exactly an ennobling thing, is it?” Once he’d said it Rohrbach was sorry. But it was too late.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” said Widmark in sudden anger. “Let’s stop philosophising and get on with the job.” He went across to the other side of the bridge.

  It was 2320.

  Full speed was rung down on the engine-room telegraph and the Hagenfels’s pace quickened, the lights along the Polana Beach dropped astern and on the starboard bow the red flashes of number eight buoy slid towards them.

  Under the overcast sky the smell of rain hung in the air, and from Chefine Island came the aromatic odours of beach and decaying vegetation. Ahead of them the light at Ponta Garapao flashed white and red, white and red, every five seconds.

  The only sounds were the wind in the rigging, the muffled roar of the main diesels, and the slap of small waves along the side as the bow sliced through the water. Rohrbach thought it was the moment to break the news, so he went over to where Widmark stood looking back at Lourenço Marques, waiting for the navigation lights of the Tactician to show round the corner.

  “There’s bad news about the W/T, Steve.”

  Widmark lowered the night glasses. “Why, what’s up?” He tried to conceal his anxiety.

  “That Jerry steward must have got into the W/T cabin before Mike Kent. Somebody’s smashed about in there with a heavy hammer.”

  “My God! What’s the damage?”

  “Mike says it’s bad. He’s got one voice receiver going which he’s tuned in to the Port Captain’s frequency. But the main set’s pathetic. The generators are all right but both transmitters and receivers are unserviceable.”

  “Why wasn’t I told before?”

  “What difference would it have made, Steve? You couldn’t have done anything. Mike’s working like a black trying to rig up something, but he’s a bit pessimistic.”

  Widmark was silent. In the dark he glowered, clenching and unclenching his fingers, hating the steward and wishing he’d been able to kill the little swine before he’d done the damage. But all he said was: “Tell Mike that a lot depends on getting that gear going.”

  He sounded tired and Rohrbach felt sorry for him. The operation had been so thoroughly planned, so well executed in spite of the unexpected situation which had arisen, and now—for reasons which none could have foreseen—the Hagenfels was without the means of communication upon which so much might depend.

  Rohrbach left the bridge and Widmark called after him: “When you’ve seen Mike, do the rounds. See how Johan, Chiefy and the women are getting on. Then double back here and take over from the Newt. We’ll need him for pilotage soon.”

  “Okay, Steve.”

  When he’d gone, Widmark went across to the wheelhouse and told the news to the Newt. The Englishman’s calm was reassuring.

  A man stood in the darkness on the cliff no more than a hundred yards from the signal station. He wore a raincoat over his shirt and trousers, and a hat pulled well down on his head. From a leather strap about his neck hung a pair of night glasses. Where he stood, surrounded by bushes, the earth was well trampled for he had stood there many times before and he would, he knew, stand there many times in the future, for it was to be a long war. A few minutes before, a ship with all her lights burning had gone past at high speed and had not been challenged. He had watched her through the night glasses—one of the Portuguese gunboats, going out for survivors he supposed. He could still see her stern light as she made up the channel towards Chefine.

  There’s not long to wait now, he thought.

  In the distance he could see the navigation lights of a ship making its turn to port around number nine buoy. He would have liked a smoke but knew he couldn’t, so he began to hum “Stille Nacht”; he often hummed it when he was waiting here. It seemed appropriate somehow to these hot silent nights, even though it was evocative of another time and place, of cold and snow and boyish voices singing in Gothic cathedrals.

  The ship had rounded the buoy and was heading up the Polana Channel. To the man’s right was the dark bulk of the signal station, chinks of light glowing through shuttered windows.

  It would not be long now.

  A little later he saw the beam of light as the signal station challenged and he waited, his eyes on the ship’s port side-light, for he knew the answering signal would come from above it There it was. Flashing now. Concentrating, he read the message: “G-B-A-J.” In the darkness he scribbled the letters on to a small pad he’d taken from his raincoat pocket and noted the time—2318. After that he stood waiting again, stamping occasionally so that his legs would not get stiff. They never sailed singly. There would be another soon and then perhaps another. If there were two or three they would be sailing independently; if there were more they would be joining a convoy outside.

  The ship was close to him now, perhaps three hundred yards away, and to pass the time he examined it with the night glasses and what had just been darkness around the steaming lights took on distant anonymous shape so that he could see dimly the high fo’c’sle, the sampson posts, the mainmast, then the bridge superstructure with more sampson posts against it; aft of that the squat funnel and the big engine-room ventilators —he was a sailor and it was while he was looking at them that he realised this was a German ship. Only German ships used that sort of ventilator cowl. Every sailor knew that. This must be a ship the British had captured on the outbreak of war: she was not the first he had seen in their service. Idly he wondered what her German name had been and whether she had been registered in Bremen or Hamburg. That made him think of his wife and family in Augsburg and he hoped they were not getting much bombing—as the time passed many other things went through his mind before his thoughts were interrupted by the lights of another ship coming up to number nine buoy.

  She rounded the buoy, came up the Polana Channel, Ponta Vermelha challenged, and she made “G-F-S-K.” He wrote the letters into the notebook and the time—2331.

  And then in due course there was a third ship, and when he read t
he message she flashed to Ponta Vermelha he could not believe his eyes for it was “G-B-A-J” again—the letters given by the first ship.

  It was impossible!

  Two ships could not have the same signal letters.

  What had happened?

  In the darkness he shook his head, and then he remembered something: that first ship—it had been German built!

  Was it possible that the break out signal had come at last? It was just like Herr Stauch to give him no hint of what was in the wind. Why should he, anyway? Security was the main consideration. He felt a tingling sense of pride. The Germans understood security. Knew what lack of it meant. That was why the U-boats were having such a rich harvest outside.

  It was 2334.

  Walking quickly he made his way in the darkness up the winding path to the tarred road, went along it, turned right at the corner, and came to the parked car. Driving fast he made for the Silva Pereira park, round the corner beyond the Cardoso. From there he would be able to see across to the anchorage. He stopped the car, got out and walked through the park to the cliff’s edge. He knew the position of the German ships in the anchorage as well as he knew his own face. With the night glasses he checked from left to right. There was the Dortmund, to her right and beyond her the sailing ship; then the Gerusalemme, then—should be—should be—— Ah! He was right. She’d gone. The Hagenfels had gone.

  The break out had taken place. The fuel and provisions were on their way. This time his pride was mixed with excitement. He must report at once to Herr Stauch.

  At seventeen minutes after eleven o’clock that night a car skidded to a stop at the corner of Elias Garcia and Miguel Bombarda and a man jumped out of the driving seat, slammed the door behind him and ran up the long path through the gardens of the British Consulate General. With his own key he let himself in through a side door in the big white building, ran up a flight of stairs, along a passage, stopped before a door at the far end, knocked and went in. The pale man with the tired face looked up from his desk. “What’s the trouble, McMasters? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”