by Alan Evans
He wondered about Graf Spee. She had been hit, they had learned that much from the radio, but had made Montevideo under her own steam. He had friends in the Panzerschiff. How badly was she hurt?
*
Hannah and Sarah watched the coffins borne to the cemetery on the shoulders of the German petty officers. The people of Montevideo had turned out in force to watch, in silence, the burial of Graf Spee’s dead. Hannah saw to it that she and Sarah were early at the cemetery and so had places at the front of the crowd. There were thirty-seven coffins now because another man had died. They were followed by a middle-aged man in a dark suit and Hans Langsdorff, Graf Spee’s captain, who led the procession of mourners and some of his crew; most had been left aboard the pocket battleship, hard at work on the damage she had suffered.
Langsdorff was haggard and Hannah muttered, “He looks like he hasn’t slept for a week and has plenty on his mind.”
Sarah answered, “He was wounded in the battle. I feel sorry for him.” Then she asked, “Who is the civilian?” He stood out among the uniforms.
“Langmann, German Ambassador.”
The captain sprinkled earth on the coffins then stood back among the petty officers. When all the other mourners gave the Nazi salute with the raised right arm, he put his hand to his cap in the old naval fashion. Hannah whispered, “See that? I’ll bet Langmann didn’t like it.”
As they walked quickly back to their hotel Hannah said, “And the guy does have plenty on his mind. He’s stuck in here and doesn’t know what’s waiting for him out there.” She jerked her thumb towards the sea. Then as she paced her room she dictated to Sarah: “The Uruguayan government have considered a report submitted to them by a team of engineers sent aboard Graf Spee to assess her damage. In the light of this they have decreed at noon today that Captain Langsdorff must take his ship to sea by eight p.m. on Sunday the seventeenth, that’s two days from now.” She was silent, staring out of the window at the ship lying out in the harbour. Then she said softly, “That’s a hell of a countdown. I wonder what size of fleet is waiting out there?”
*
Robert Hurst sat with Donovan at his mess table aboard Ajax. On that first evening after the battle, as Exeter limped south on her way to the Falklands, she had transferred the two Ajax ratings to an oil tanker bound northward to fuel Harwood’s squadron. Next day they were back aboard Ajax. They had heard a broadcast by Mike Fowler and knew of the deadline of the seventeenth. More: they also knew what force would meet Graf Spee when she came out of Montevideo. There were only Ajax, Achilles and Cumberland, now arrived from the Falklands. But she only replaced Exeter.
Donovan, bulking beside Hurst, dug an elbow in his ribs and asked, “What do you think?”
Hurst grimaced, “Only three ships and spread thin, stretched right across the estuary, a hundred and twenty miles. Langsdorff could smash through a line like that or even dodge all of them if he sailed at night. If he came on Ajax we’d be outranged and outgunned.” They were both silent then, remembering the destruction and death wrought on Exeter. She had lost fifty-six dead. Ajax and Achilles had also been mauled and between them buried eleven dead at sea.
*
Gustav Moehle spoke to the crew of Brandenburg: “We have just received a radio broadcast stating that Graf Spee has to sail from Montevideo by 2000 hours on the seventeenth. So repairs to this ship must be completed by 2100 on the sixteenth so we can reach the estuary of the Plate by noon on the following day. That gives us just thirty hours to do the job but you have my confidence.”
When his voice ceased to echo from the speakers around the ship his men swore and then cheered. Kurt Larsen grinned. His team were working hard and well, the staging hung over the side, the acetylene cutters burning through the ragged rim of the gash in the steel. He thought, We’ll make it. We’ll sail by 2100 tomorrow.
Another launch had been hoisted out to carry the pilot back to the mouth of the river. Moehle told him, “I’ll be glad of your assistance tomorrow evening. Meantime I would be grateful if you would run downriver. One of my boats is waiting to take you. It must not be seen so it will put you ashore near the town after nightfall. If those former prisoners of mine get ashore will you please make sure they are held and their mouths kept shut until the day after tomorrow.”
The pilot stood to attention before going down to his boat. “I can guarantee that. Rest easy.”
Moehle said grimly, “No one will rest easy aboard this ship until she is at sea again!”
Chapter Twelve – The Command
Smith woke in the forenoon to shafts of sunlight struggling palely through the curtains Garrity had made out of sailcloth to cover the scuttles along the side of the saloon. He could hear the trampling of feet on the deck. The lighter rocked gently as weight shifted on her and in her. He remembered Garrity saying he would be loading a cargo for the quarry. That would be it being humped aboard now by the stevedores.
Garrity himself sat at the table, his head in his hands. He had said any ship drawing more than eight feet would have to lie out in the river. What else had he said? Before Smith slept he had tried and failed to recall the words that he now felt were important. He started to go through that earlier conversation in his mind.
The door of one of the cabins opened and a very tall, lean young man came out. He had not shaved for several days and wore only a ragged pair of shorts made from old trousers snagged off above the knees. He ran his fingers through a rumpled thatch of thick black hair and nodded at Smith. “Hi! You’re the guy who speaks English?”
“Yes.”
“Jake Tyler. I’m First Mate and everything else aboard this old bucket.” He held out his hand.
“David Smith, Captain, Royal Navy.”
Jake’s eyes widened, “The hell you are. What happened? Did one of those raiders sink your ship?”
“One of them sank the ship in which we were passengers. And this is Leading Seaman Buckley.” He gestured to the big man now sitting up on the couch and running fingers through his hair, then pointed at Garrity’s cabin door: “The lady is in there. Mamzelle Duclos is a doctor.”
“A lady!” Jake stared at the door, startled, then added, “But a doctor, huh? Ah, well.”
Mike Garrity’s voice came muffled and pleading from inside his palms, “For Gawd’s sake get some coffee.”
“OK.” Jake nodded at Smith, “Be right with you.” He turned into the galley to emerge a minute or so later. He carried a small, brown cardboard box in one hand. He told Garrity, “The coffee’s brewing up now.” He glanced hopefully at the closed door then ripped open one end of the box with his thumb and took out a radio valve. He muttered, “Hell’s own job getting parts for this thing.” A radio in a stained and scratched plywood casing was mounted on a shelf on the bulkhead and held there by a rope lashing. Jake undid the rope, turned the set around, took off the back and plugged in the valve. He replaced the set: “Let’s see if the darn apparatus works now.”
The radio squeaked, whistled and crackled as he turned the tuning dial, giving out snatches of music and voices speaking rapidly in Portuguese. Then Mike Fowler’s nasal twang came through: “… here in the harbour of Montevideo since the evening of Wednesday, 13th December. I’m watching Graf Spee now. She shows no sign of getting under way but there has been an announcement by the Uruguayan government. They have decreed that she must sail by eight p.m. on Sunday next. She will have a rough welcome outside. We know the two cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, are there, a puny force to oppose the great ship before me. But what reinforcements have reached them? There are rumours of battleships and aircraft carriers being out there …” Smith was standing with his head close to the set, blanket held round him like some Indian. Buckley watched him and listened. Both made pictures in their minds of the scenes described by Mike Fowler, pictures drawn from experience.
Smith heard the recapitulation of the battle, the pursuit and how Graf Spee sought shelter in the harbour of Montevideo. Harwood’s squadron
had fought her, pursued her and one of his ships was Ajax. Smith’s son had been in action, would be again in two days’ time when the pocket battleship had to run the gauntlet of the waiting cruisers. If he had survived the first encounter. If he was alive. Smith knew the horrors of a modern naval battle, had learnt them at first hand.
He forced his mind away from the remembered pictures. Graf Spee was more than a match for the two cruisers and she would annihilate either one of them if she caught them singly. And then there was Brandenburg. Smith was certain that Moehle wanted her bow repaired to go to the aid of the pocket battleship. And now he recalled the words of Garrity that had eluded him: “This is a big, empty country. Once you get away from the coast you won’t find a bleeding soul.”
The chattering of the radio had wakened Véronique Duclos and she came out into the saloon wrapped in Jake’s old robe that smelt of tar, paint and manila rope. It bagged around her and was a foot too long so she had to hold up the trailing skirt as she walked.
At that moment Jake stepped out from the galley with four mugs of coffee hooked on his long fingers. He froze there for a second, staring at Véronique, then remembered the mugs and gave one each to Smith, Buckley and Garrity. The last he handed to Véronique, at the same time looking her over, first speculatively then with disappointment. She had not found either brush or comb in Garrity’s cabin and knew very well how she looked. She met Jake’s gaze for a second then looked away.
Jake sighed and shrugged. He saw that Smith stood lost in thought. Now there was music coming from the radio. Jake asked incredulously, “Were you in a battle like that outside of here?”
Smith shook his head and told him of the sinking of the Whitby by Brandenburg, the escape of himself and the other two. “I thought Brandenburg was headed for this port to make her repairs but I understand that’s out of the question. But how deep is this river at the middle, and how far upriver would it be navigable for a big ship?” It was just an idea, improbable but not impossible. He could recall an instance—
Jake cleared his throat and said truculently, ready to argue if he was derided, “Listen, and don’t let anybody laugh, but last night when we were out there I thought I saw a battleship or a cruiser, something, with gun turrets.”
Smith asked quickly, “When was this? Where was she headed?”
“Just a few minutes before we hooked you out of the water. And she was crossing our bow, heading upriver.”
Smith said, “She had a hole in her bow that her captain would want repaired. His own engineers could do it if he could list the ship in sheltered water. Would he find those conditions upriver? Is there enough depth of water? Do people live up there who might raise the roof if they saw Brandenburg?”
Now Garrity had lifted his head from his hands, was staring at Smith. He said slowly, thinking about it, “There’s a deep water channel for all of fifteen miles till you come to the falls. Then there’s a pool at the foot of them with plenty of deep water. The country either side is swamp backing onto forest and it’s no good for farming or anything else. There’s nobody in there except maybe a few Indians.”
Jake looked from one to the other. “All right, I know what I think I saw but are you seriously suggesting that a German cruiser has sneaked upriver to mend a hole in her side?”
Smith said, “It’s happened before. The Königsberg hid in the Rufiji delta in East Africa in 1914.”
And Garrity confirmed, “Ah! I remember that!” Then he saw Buckley watching him and frowning, as if trying to remember … Garrity fell silent.
Jake said, “So if you’re right and she is up there, are you going to try to get her interned?”
Smith said wryly, “Mr Garrity says I’d be interned myself if I stepped ashore and the Nazi element would keep me locked up until Brandenburg got away. Besides, how could she be interned?”
“What do you mean?”
“That cruiser mounts nine 6-inch guns and the police here have what? A motor launch? And the nearest ships of the Brazilian navy are — where? Probably several days’ steaming away. So Brandenburg can come and go as she pleases and the Brazilians can do nothing about it but complain. Moehle will risk any amount of diplomatic complaints to make his ship fit to fight.”
Jake’s gaze had drifted away from Smith to rest on the girl, her eyes cast down over the coffee cup she cradled in her hands. But now he looked back to say bluntly, “OK. If she is up there then this guy Moehle has got you over a barrel. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Yes, there is.” And when the young American frowned, puzzled, Smith explained, “I could stop him making his repairs, or delay them. I think he wants to join Graf Spee and help her to get clear. I could stop that.”
“You mean go up there and throw a spanner in the works? But you just said this cruiser was too tough for the police to handle so how would you do it?”
Smith said, “First I’ll have to find her.” He looked at Garrity. “I need this lighter, and you.”
Garrity gaped at him, then said, “Me?”
Jake stared suspiciously, thinking quickly, then scowled, “You mean us? Well you can count me out, Captain. I’m a neutral.” He turned on Garrity, “And if you’ll take my advice you’ll keep out of it. This guy is planning to take on that damn great cruiser. What you have here is a twenty-year-old, six-knot lighter and one Lee-Enfield rifle that’s even older. Those are rough odds, Mike. The Captain has to do his job, sure, but you don’t have to stick your neck out. Leave it be.”
He reached into his cabin and brought out a shirt, pulled it over his head and tucked it into his shorts. He picked up a pair of old canvas shoes with rope soles and headed for the ladder to the deck. “I have to go to town. I’m expecting a letter.” He pointed a finger at Garrity, “But you think over what I said.”
But Garrity could stand Buckley’s wondering stare no longer. He said, “Hold on, I’ll come with you.” And added as a vague excuse, “Some people I have to see.” He waved a hand at Smith. “We’ll be back around noon. Our cargo for the quarry will be loaded by then and I’ll take you across the river like I said.” He fled up the ladder.
Jake glanced once more, furtively, at the girl. His robe was short of buttons so that she clutched its baggy folds at the neck. Her face behind the big spectacles was bare of make-up and her hair hung lank about it. Jake shook his head and followed Garrity up the ladder.
Véronique watched him go with a cold eye, remembering the way he had looked at her, his disappointment plain to see. Well, she did not like his beachcomber dress and stubbled jaw. He was not a gentleman.
As they walked up the dirt road from the quay Jake pressed his argument: ‘This is a European war so let the Europeans get on with it. Listen, Mike, my old man went to France in 1918 when we got involved in the last war. He never came back. I was only a coupla months old when he was killed fighting somebody else’s war.”
Garrity squinted up at him against the glare of the morning sun. “I thought you said your Mam and Dad lived in the States.”
“Mom married again just a few years back. He’s a regular guy but he wanted to organise my life. I wouldn’t hold still for that. As of now I don’t know what I want to do with it, but it’s going to be my decision. And listen, Mike, so you’re not a neutral, but you aren’t a belligerent either. You’re in nobody’s army or navy. Like I said back there, this is Smith’s job. But you’re a civilian, right?”
Garrity said unhappily, “I want a drink.” He turned away towards the open door of a bar and the cool emptiness within.
Jake called, “I’ll have one with you on my way back.” He saw Garrity lift a hand in acknowledgment.
Jake walked on to the post office and asked for his mail. The clerk handed him the familiar stiff envelope and Jake kissed it, opened it and saw the cheque inside. The clerk said, “A moment …” He dived into the gloom of the back office and returned with a cablegram. “This arrived only this morning. I was going to send it down if you did not come i
n.”
Jake took it, “OK. Thanks.” And wondered who the heck was sending him cables. He slit the buff envelope with his thumb and took out the form, read it. Then he read it again. And a third time. He knew it by heart then, folded it and put it carefully in the pocket of his shirt. The cable had asked for a reply but he wasn’t ready to reply so the hell with it. He had not been ready for the cable. Oh, Christ.
He started back for the Mary Ellen, walking a familiar route automatically while a mix of emotions, grief, anger, pain, outrage, hatred, boiled up inside him. So he did not hear the commotion until he was level with the bar. Then the scuffling and cursing brought him back to the present. He looked into the shaded dimness and saw Mike Garrity being wrestled back against the bar by Otto Bergmann’s two henchmen, one grappling each skinny arm. Otto himself stood in front, pulled back his hamlike fist and measured the distance then let it go. The punch half-missed because Mike lunged to one side so he took the blow on the side of his head and not full in the face. Otto swore and demanded, “Hold him still!” Then he pulled back his fist again.
Jake stepped up behind him, grabbed the fist, twisted, yanked, then smashed his own clenched fist down on the elbow and broke the arm there. They all heard it and Otto screamed. Jake hit one of the other two while he was still holding on to Garrity and so was open to the punch. He fell back against the bar and then down on his knees. The third man let go of Garrity in time to grab a bottle but not to avoid the kick Jake planted between his legs.
Garrity wiped at his face with a shaking hand and looked down at them then his eyes lifted to Jake and he said, “I’m sorry. It was my fault. They started on at me again and I lost me rag and told them what I thought of their bloody Hitler.”