by Antony Trew
At about four o’clock in the morning, these thoughts were interrupted by Hester Smit’s arrival on the bridge with a message scrawled on a German signal pad by Mike Kent.
It read: “Have just picked up a QQQQ message from Havana City on 500 kcs. in position 26 20’S: 34 30’E. Immediately followed by ‘Am being shelled by …’ whereafter message ends.”
Widmark went into the chart-house and with the Newt plotted the position: it was approximately seventy miles to the south-east of the Hagenfels. He looked at the Newt, tapping his teeth with the metal top of the pencil.
They both knew that QQQQ meant “armed merchantman wishes to stop me” and that in turn meant a raider; but it was a dark night and it might just as well have been a surfaced submarine using its gun.
“Pity the poor devil couldn’t get off the last word of his message,” said Widmark. “Must have been ‘raider’ or ‘submarine’—but which?”
The Newt shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing we can do about it either way, Steve.”
Widmark’s thoughts were in the combined operations room in Cape Town. “No. But it makes a hell of a difference to the chaps who have got to do something about it.”
“What raiders are operating round here these days?”
“Three weeks ago, when I was last in combined ops., there were two out which could be here now: the Köln and the Speewald. Köln’s a big chap of about eight thousand tons, and Speewald’s about four thousand. Both formidable.”
“And U-boats?”
“Three or four large U-cruisers for certain and possibly some others.”
“I hope somebody’ll pick up the Havana City’s survivors in due course.”
“I expect help will be around during the day. That position’s only about a hundred and twenty miles from L.M.”
With the coming of daylight their spirits rose. Although it was the beginning of a more dangerous time, the cover of darkness having gone, daylight had a powerful psychological effect, and with the cares of the night behind them their thoughts turned to the promise of the day. Johan came up from the fore-deck, course was altered to 247 degrees so that they were steering for Cabo Inhaca, the normal landfall for a vessel making for Lourenço Marques. They would continue on that course until the Venturas from 22 Squadron had completed their morning reconnaissance, then when the Hagenfels was past Inhaca they would alter course to the south, enter Portuguese territorial waters and make for Durban which they expected to reach by two o’clock the following morning. Widmark hoped soon to get off a message, for Mike Kent, working with renewed energy, the Benzedrine having taken effect, had sent Hester Smit to report that he might get the emergency transmitter going within the next hour or so.
In the distance, to the south-east, they could see the smoke of a steamer; but for that, there was nothing in sight. Wisps of cirrus in the eastern sky reflected the glow of the hidden sun; a light breeze played on the sea, and an occasional flying fish broke surface and whirred in brief flight before splashing back into the water. The bridge was moist with dew, the morning air limpid and good to breathe.
Black-backed gulls flew round the ship and far away on the starboard quarter Widmark saw the smoke-like wisp of a whale spouting. These simple things pleased him and he felt it was good to be alive. That made him think of Moewe and the dead night watchman. Something would have to be done about them before the women arrived on deck.
He and Johan carried and dragged Moewe’s body down to the after well-deck and bundled it over the side, following it closely with the body of the night watchman. For the first time, in a remote way, Widmark felt sorry for these men. The high emotional peak of the night had gone. But he was not conscious of any remorse and still glad of what he’d done. Indeed, the thought of the Havana City’s survivors away to the south-east, struggling for their lives, stiffened his resolve and he soon forgot the dead men.
When he got back to the bridge he told Johan to bring Lindemann and von Falkenhausen to him.
Minutes later they arrived, hair dishevelled, hands and faces streaked with mud, and eyes bloodshot from the long period in darkness. Lindemann’s white uniform and the Freiherr’s tropical suit were crumpled and dirty.
“’Morning,” said Widmark stiffly.
Lindemann said nothing, but von Falkenhausen clicked his heels and bowed, the trace of a smile in his eyes.
Widmark looked away from them. “Captain Lindemann. I’m going to release you and your men and place you on parole. Your party must remain for’ard of number one hold. That gives you the fo’c’sle and some deck space to move about in. Lieutenant le Roux will see that you are given bread and coffee. There’s water in the fo’c’sle and later in the day we’ll give you more food. You and your party will be watched from the bridge. If any man comes aft of number one hatch without my permission, he’ll be fired on.
“To-night you’ll be locked in the fo’c’sle. My men are all armed, so I advise you to accept the position that you are prisoners of war. Is that quite clear?”
Lindemann said: “Yes.”
Von Falkenhausen bowed. “Quite clear, Commander. We accept the position. But we have two men who require medical attention. They have head injuries. Wedel and Müller. Wedel is bad.”
Widmark’s forehead puckered into little furrows of irritation. “What sort of medical attention d’you think they can get here?”
“Some first-aid will be better than nothing.”
“We’ll give you what material we can from the ship’s medical locker, but I’ve no one to spare to give first-aid.”
“One of the women, perhaps?” suggested the Freiherr.
Widmark looked at him sharply. “You will have no contact with the women. You must look after yourselves.”
Von Falkenhausen knew that that was that.
He and Lindemann left the bridge with Johan and not long afterwards some of the prisoners appeared on deck forward; at first a crumpled sorry-looking lot, but later, when they had breathed the fresh air and enjoyed the crispness of the morning, they became gayer, talking and laughing among themselves.
The sun came clear of the horizon and what was for Widmark a promising morning became a radiant one when, soon after six, Cleo arrived on the bridge with coffee and buttered toast.
Chapter Twenty
The first hour of the morning watch in the combined operations room in Cape Town was a busy one: just after 4 a.m. the Havana City’s QQQQ message came in, followed immediately by her report that she was being shelled, and while the officers on duty were puzzling about that, a message arrived from the British Consulate General in Lourenço Marques announcing the break out of the Hagenfels. That was followed by a report that a Greek cargo steamer had been torpedoed by a U-boat off Port Elizabeth, where a corvette and a destroyer had picked up survivors and were searching the area.
There was a buzz of excitement as all this information was transferred to the plot, while fresh messages kept coming in from H.M. ships at sea which were reacting quickly to these events. The cruiser Northampton reported that she was eighty-five miles north-west of the position given by the Havana City, and that she was closing it at twenty-five knots. She added that at first light she proposed flying off her Walrus aircraft and that she was assuming that the attack might have been by raider or submarine.
The destroyers Cullington and Carisbrooke reported that they were carrying out an A/S sweep one hundred and twenty miles south-south-east of the position and asked for instructions.
Three armed whalers of the S.A. Naval Forces, escorting a slow convoy from Durban to Lourenço Marques, gave their position as ninety-eight miles to the south-west of the Havana City.
Messages soon started to go out from the combined operations room: the last known positions of the raiders Köln and Speewald were given, together with a brief assessment of their possible movements since; 22 Squadron in Durban was ordered to fly off aircraft to carry out a search at daylight, not only for the raider which might have sunk the Havana City, but
for the Hagenfels now presumed to be operating as a supply vessel. Combined operations suggested that she was most likely to be making for the open sea on an easterly course which would get her farthest from land in the shortest time.
The Cullington and Carisbrooke were ordered to search for the Havana City’s survivors and for the U-boat which might have sunk her; the Northampton was informed that the action she proposed taking was approved. These signals were repeated to all H.M. ships in the vicinity and to all naval and air authorities concerned.
The probable disposition of German U-boats in and near the danger area was re-broadcast; merchant ships were warned of the possibility of a raider operating off Lourenço Marques, and the slow north-bound convoy was diverted.
By the time all this had been done it was 0517 and the duty staff then settled down to wait; they had done all they could, everybody was now in the picture, and it was over to the ships at sea and to the aircraft which were already leaving the runways outside Durban. At 0530, Commodore Carrington, Chief of the Naval Staff, arrived in the combined operations room to look at the plot and discuss the latest developments. When he was satisfied that everything possible had been done he decided to bath and shave. At that stage he remarked to Commander Bensford, the naval officer on duty: “Pity Widmark’s not here. He had a bee in his bonnet about the Hagenfels breaking out.”
Bensford smiled. “I know, sir. Almost an obsession.”
“He was right, of course.” The Commodore nodded forlornly. “These bright young men so often are.”
At 0519 the Northampton flew off two Walrus aircraft, one to investigate the area of the Havana City’s sinking, the other to search along the Hagenfels’s probable track from Lourenço Marques eastwards, since it was in this area that combined operations had suggested she was most likely to be found.
On the bridge of the cruiser, Captain Gillies was thinking of a number of things: of the danger of taking his ship into the waters off Lourenço Marques where there were known to be a number of U-boats operating; of the exciting possibility of intercepting either the Köln or Speewald, for never before had the Northampton been so close to a raider sinking, assuming always that it was a raider and not a U-boat. Nothing, reflected Gillies, would give him greater satisfaction than to meet and destroy a raider. These ships, apart from the havoc they wrought among merchant shipping, tied down large numbers of British warships—of which the Northampton was but one—which were urgently required for other duties. He was thinking, too, of the Hagenfels and how important it was that she should be intercepted before she lost herself in the empty spaces of the Indian Ocean, from which she could rendezvous at will with raiders and U-boats.
Earlier he had sent for silhouettes and other particulars of the Köln, Speewald and Hagenfels; he had paid special attention to the Köln for not only was she one of the most successful raiders of the war, but she was commanded with skill and daring by Korvettenkäpitan von Lüdecke, who had commanded the raider Geier in the North Atlantic two years earlier and who was believed to have with him many of his former crew. Gillies had known von Lüdecke before the war and liked him.
Now he noted that the Köln had a main armament equivalent to six six-inch guns, a useful secondary armament and six torpedo tubes. She carried two Arado seaplanes, and a motor launch with fourteen-inch torpedoes and two 20 mm. guns. The Köln was known to have radar and, one way and another, she would be able to give an excellent account of herself.
It was known, too, that she could change her appearance overnight by means of movable masts and a dummy funnel and that her speed was about eighteen knots. Gillies had already warned the crews of his slow Walrus aircraft not to make a close approach to any suspected raider because of the considerable anti-aircraft armament which these ships mounted.
It was while he was examining the silhouettes of the German ships that Gillies first became aware of the resemblance between the Köln and the Hagenfels. Though they had been built by different shipyards for different owners, they were both of eight thousand tons, and their hulls and superstructure were much alike. The differences were mainly in the positions of the sampson posts and the size of the funnels—the Hagenfels’s being rather larger than the Köln’s—but since the latter was able to alter the appearance of her funnel and masts, these differences could not be relied upon.
At 0628 the signals officer reported that the Walrus which had flown to the south-west—that is to say towards Lourenço Marques—had sighted a merchant ship of about eight thousand tons; the aircraft had approached to within three miles and had called the ship by Aldis lamp and by R/T but could elicit no reply. The aircraft’s observer had added that he assumed she was an allied merchantman as she appeared to be inward bound for Lourenço Marques.
On board the Northampton, the navigating officer examined the plot and reported that there was no Allied merchant ship in the position reported by the Walrus. Captain Gillies’s suspicions were now aroused and he instructed the Walrus to continue to shadow the ship while he checked her position with the combined operations room at Cape Town.
Combined operations confirmed at once that there should be no Allied ship in that position at that time and that the Northampton should assume it was the Köln or the Hagenfels until the contrary had been established.
The Northampton increased speed to thirty knots and altered course for the position given by the Walrus, at the same time informing the aircraft that the ship was probably the Köln and repeating the instruction to keep at least three miles from her.
It was the Newt who first sighted the Walrus. He had come out of the chart-house to give Widmark the Hagenfels’s position when he heard the distant sound of an aircraft coming down to them in the light easterly wind.
“Hear that?” He was tense and alert.
Widmark listened, then, looking astern, said: “It’s somewhere down there. Bit early for the morning Ventura.”
They tried to pick up the aircraft with binoculars but failed; eventually Widmark saw it with his naked eye. Training his glasses on it, he said: “Good show! It’s a Walrus. That means one of our cruisers is somewhere in the offing.”
Johan was near them and Widmark ordered him to hoist the white ensign. This he did, but once hoisted on the triatic stay which stretched from funnel to foremast it looked ridiculously small. It was for this reason that Widmark had decided to fly it from the bridge rather than from the stern where he was pretty certain it wouldn’t be seen at all, particularly with a following wind.
In spite of a thorough search they’d not been able to find an Aldis lamp on the bridge, and when Johan asked Lindemann where it was kept the Captain said that the ship hadn’t got one; they relied on the all-round signal lamp above the monkey island. Widmark knew that such a lamp, while serviceable enough in the dark, could not be read in daylight, least of all in bright sunlight.
He realised then that they would have to rely on the signal torch which could be aimed, and he was glad that they had brought it.
Until the Walrus came up to the ship, however, there was no means of making contact with it. They couldn’t hoist the ship’s signal letters because Widmark knew only too well that, in the absence of a wireless message from him, neither combined operations nor the cruiser had any reason to believe that the Hagenfels was not under German command.
The Walrus had been about three miles away when it was first sighted; a few minutes later it was no closer, although its bearing was drawing rapidly ahead.
“She must have seen us,” Widmark complained to the Newt.
“Of course. Couldn’t miss us at this range. Perhaps she’s got other fish to fry.”
As he spoke the Walrus turned to the south-east and flew ahead of the Hagenfels taking station on her port bow, still a good three miles away. At that moment Rohrbach, who was in the wheelhouse keeping the ship to a zigzag diagram, put the wheel to port so that the Hagenfels turned in the direction of the Walrus; they noticed that the aircraft at once turned away and regained
her position on the bow.
“My God!” said Widmark, shocked at the discovery, “she’s shadowing us. She’s keeping out of range.”
“Wonder why?” said the Newt, but he was already beginning to suspect that he knew the answer.
Widmark didn’t hear him, he was too absorbed in his thoughts. The Walrus was keeping three miles away because she feared the Hagenfels might shoot her down—that could mean only one thing: the Hagenfels was being treated with the respect accorded an armed German raider. The Walrus was shadowing, reporting back to the cruiser from which she had come, and the cruiser would be closing the position at high speed. Widmark remembered the Havana City’s QQQQ message.
With a shock which caused him to draw in his breath he became aware of the approaching climacteric. The Newt reported: “Walrus is calling us by lamp.”
They read the signal as it was slowly winked to them from the aircraft: a series of “N-N-J.” They knew that meant: “Make your signal letters.” But they dared not. To do so would be to invite destruction.
With the torch the Newt made R—“Message received.”
The Walrus kept repeating N-N-J and eventually spelt out “Make your signal letters” in plain language. On the Hagenfels’s bridge they went on making R R Rs, then tried “Roger” and eventually spelt out “We are British. Please close us,” but to no avail. Slowly the ugliness of the situation became apparent: at three miles, in bright sunlight, the signal torch could not be read.
The Newt admired Widmark’s understatement: “They can’t read us. I’m afraid this may be rather serious.”
Then, at Widmark’s request, he went to the wireless cabin with the inevitable inquiry. Mike Kent, white-faced, eyes bloodshot, shook his head. “Sorry. Tell him we’re doing our best. No joy yet.”