Orphans of the Storm (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  Jake gulped down the coffee, handed her the mug and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Thanks. It’s time we did something about that damn ship.”

  “What do you mean?”

  But Jake only eased out of the hide to make room for her to take his place. He said, “I’ll be seeing you.” He started back up the side channel, waded across it, rounded a bend and was gone from her sight.

  A half-hour passed before Smith wiped sweat from his brow and asked, “Did Jake come back?”

  Buckley shook his head and Garrity said, “Haven’t seen him.”

  Smith stared down the side channel. The hide was barely two hundred yards away around two snaking bends. There was one obvious reason why a young man should dally with a girl, but there had been no sign of that kind of relationship building. And Smith was uneasy. He shrugged into his shirt that stuck to his wet body, picked up the pistol and headed downstream to the hide.

  He asked Véronique, “Where’s Jake?” But already he could guess at the answer.

  “He went back to the lighter.”

  “No, he didn’t. Did he say that was where he was going?”

  The girl shook her head, eyes wide. “He said only ‘I’ll be seeing you’.” Then remembering, “Oh! And: ‘It was time we did something about the ship.’”

  Smith turned and threw over his shoulder, “Tell them I’ve gone to the pool to look for him! You all wait here!” Then he left her at a run.

  That slowed to a trot and then a walk but he pressed on as fast as he could in the heat and against the slope. He had no breath to spare but he cursed Jake in his mind. Then he heard the shots. They were a guide and he headed towards the sound of them.

  *

  Jake had sprawled in the outskirts of the tall timber where he had the cover of undergrowth but a good view of the bow of the Brandenburg. He saw the staging, the plate now in position, the boat and the diver working from it, all as Smith had described. He estimated the range at 600 yards, set the sights of the rifle accordingly and tucked the butt into his shoulder.

  He was a good shot and had used the rifle before. The first round he fired drilled into the staging between the feet of two of the men working there, kicking up splinters. They did not hear the report of the rifle because of the shipboard noise around them, only the whip-crack of the bullet’s passage through the air, the hammer thud as it buried itself in the timber. They hesitated, looking at each other, not used to being under fire, not totally sure that they were. Then Jake’s second shot ricocheted, howling off the cruiser’s steel side. Doubt and hesitation fled and they jumped for the ladder running up to the deck, yelling their warning, and the others on the staging followed them.

  Jake watched them go, not sure whether he was sorry he had missed, but content that he had stopped their work. He saw the other men on Brandenburg’s foredeck had taken cover, but it was obvious by the way some of them crouched still in his view that they did not know where he was. That was confirmed when the machine-guns opened up aboard the cruiser because none of them laid down fire anywhere near him. He waited, grinning now, because Smith had been over-cautious in his estimate of the enemy reaction: ‘They’ll blast you out of the forest.’ Jake was safe and had single-handedly stopped the work on Brandenburg’s hull.

  After several hundred rounds and ten minutes or so the machine-guns fell silent, men rose from cover on the foredeck and some of them climbed down the ladder to the staging again. They, or their officers, had decided the sniper was dead or had run away from that savage fire. Jake waited until the staging was crowded with them and opened fire again.

  This time he laughed aloud after the third shot and lowered the rifle. “Turkey shoot!” He had just aimed for the crowd on the staging and it had boiled as the shots wrought panic among the men there. He stopped laughing as he saw one man hauled up the ship’s side, hanging limp on the end of a line.

  But this time some of the machine-gun fire was closer and a few of the sentries posted in a line through the dwarf timber tried shots at where they thought they had seen the flicker of muzzle flame. One of them snapped twigs from a branch only feet away from Jake’s head, but none of the sentries thought to leave his post and look for the sniper. The firing died away. Another ten minutes passed before a man walked along Brandenburg’s foredeck and climbed down the ladder to the staging.

  *

  Kurt Larsen sweated but was cold despite the blazing heat of the sun. Moehle had said grimly, “It’s the Englishman or one of his crew. We’ll settle with him this time but he’s trying to hold up the work so he won’t fire and give away his position until he sees someone on the staging. I need a volunteer.”

  So now Kurt stepped off the ladder onto the staging and walked along it. He hoped that by moving he might evade a bullet. When it came it glanced off the dangling plate and howled end over end past his ear. Kurt kept on walking. Moehle had a score of look-outs with binoculars searching for the sniper’s hiding place.

  The second bullet snapped close over his head with a crack! as it ripped through the air. He half-crouched then straightened again, turned as he reached the end of the staging, began to retrace his steps with his back to the unseen rifleman. Every shot fired gave the look-outs a better chance of success. And once they located the sniper …

  The third shot passed through his shirt and burned along his side. Later he found a raw, red weal marking its passage. Now he winced and staggered but then realised the lookouts had found the sniper as Brandenburg’s anti-aircraft batteries opened up. There were a half-dozen guns that would bear on his position and each of them poured in 20mm high-explosive shells at a rate of more than 400 a minute.

  *

  Smith had looked for Jake and found him when he fired the first of the three shots at Kurt Larsen. Smith saw the brief spit of orange flame and the wisp of smoke in the undergrowth at the edge of the tall timber. He worked through the trees towards it as Jake fired the second shot and saw the wink of flame further down the slope where the sentries were posted and firing. He was twenty yards from the young man, could see him sprawled in the shadows with the rifle at his shoulder, when the third shot was fired and then Brandenburg’s barrage hit the forest.

  Jake was shocked, disoriented, as the shells burst above him in the trees in a box a hundred yards square. This was beyond his experience and his imagination. He was unable to think or act except to let the rifle fall and put his hands over his tortured ears. He lay where he was, pressed to the earth.

  Smith ran in and found him thus, grabbed his shoulder with one hand, the rifle with the other. He hauled Jake to his knees, turned him around then kicked and shoved him towards the safety of the forest. Jake climbed to his feet and moved obediently, dazedly, then more quickly as fear overrode his shock and gave impetus to his flight. Smith herded him deeper into the forest as the 20mm guns shifted their aim in a creeping barrage. The shells now ripped into shreds the bushes where Jake had hidden.

  After a few seconds the barrage ceased and Smith asked, “Are you all right?”

  Jake rubbed at his face that was without feeling under his hands. He said huskily, “Yeah, I guess so.” He licked his lips and could not control their twitching. “That was some turkey shoot.”

  Smith ceased shepherding him then and pressed on ahead, left Jake to trail behind. They trudged through the forest in silence and were almost back at the lighter before Jake spoke again, “You knew that would happen.”

  Smith answered shortly, “Yes.”

  Jake said, “I was trying—”

  Smith did not let him finish: “I know what you were trying to do. So did Moehle. So he stopped you.”

  “They murdered my mother and—”

  Again Smith cut him off: “They didn’t. Some U-boat captain did.” Now he turned, but without breaking his stride, to stare bleakly at the young man. “Don’t start out on a campaign of revenge. That could destroy you. It nearly did today.”

  Jake muttered, “You said we had to stop
that ship from sailing on time.”

  Smith answered definitely, “We will.”

  Jake was silenced by that conviction. Smith wished he was as certain as he pretended.

  They were within yards of the Mary Ellen when the hanging cans aboard her jerked on the string from the hide and jangled their alarm. Smith waved at Buckley and Garrity peering down from the deck then led Jake at a floundering run down the side channel. As they approached the hide they slowed, went up to it cautiously and quietly. At first they saw only the bushes strung from the rope and hanging like a screen between them and the main stream, but then they eased into the shelter beside Véronique and she pointed at a slit between two of the branches forming the hide.

  The guardboat, Brandenburg’s launch, was cruising slowly up the middle of the main stream. There were sailors on her deck in tropical whites and armed with rifles. There was also, now, a machine-gun mounted on a short tripod in the bow and one man sat behind it. All the men stared out at the banks of the stream, eyes searching as the launch, throttled back, plugged slowly against the current.

  They passed within forty yards of Smith and the other two but did not penetrate the screen though they seemed to glare right into the hide. Jake felt Véronique shudder, pressed against his side. He slid his arm around her waist and she stiffened then relaxed, leant against him. The launch swung around a bend in the stream and slid out of sight.

  In the hide they moved, straightened, stretched. Véronique slid out of Jake’s arm, smiled shakily at him and said, “I am glad you came. I was — frightened.”

  Jake thought that he and Smith would not have been much help to her if the launch had turned that machine-gun on them. But he only said to Smith, “See that gun they’ve got aboard her now? Those guys mean business next time.”

  Smith nodded but said nothing, stayed looking out through the slit in the screen. Véronique bit her lip and said softly, “They will return.”

  “Soon,” Smith answered her, “the stream narrows quickly once around that bend and I think it probably shallows as well.”

  They only had to wait a few minutes and then the launch hove into sight again, sliding down on them and then past more quickly this time with the current shoving at her. The men aboard her were more relaxed, too, talking among themselves. They still scrutinised the bank but idly; they had searched this stretch already and found it empty. The launch puttered away downstream and was gone.

  Now they relaxed in the hide, the tension running out of them. The girl took off her spectacles and wiped them on a handkerchief. Jake grinned at her and she smiled back at him. He thought with sudden surprise that she was really a pretty girl. He had never looked at her properly before. Then he saw her face flush and realised he was staring.

  Smith said, “There’s a lot to do aboard the Mary Ellen.” He led Jake back to the lighter, leaving the girl on watch. Smith only spoke once more, passing the rifle back to Jake and asking, “How good are you with that?”

  “Pretty fair. I got one for sure today.” Then Jake remembered the limp body being hauled up Brandenburg’s side on the end of a line. He recalled Smith’s words, that the men on the cruiser were innocent of the killing of his mother and that a campaign of revenge could destroy him. He didn’t feel too good about his shooting now.

  *

  In Montevideo, Sarah and Hannah went again to the Shipping Advisory Department on the top floor of the Bolsa de Comercial building. Sarah asked, “Have you any word of the Whitby?’ Her father’s ship had not docked on the fifteenth nor on the morning of this, the sixteenth.

  She was told, “No signal was received from her after the evening of the twelfth. She isn’t answering.”

  Sarah glanced worriedly at Hannah then turned back to the man behind the desk. “My father is aboard her.”

  “I see.” He hesitated, then said, “There’s no reason to worry unduly, as yet. She may have had to stop her engines to carry out some work on them and at the same time had trouble with her wireless. That’s an unlikely coincidence, I admit, but not impossible.” There was also another possibility, that Whitby had met a raider or a U-boat. He kept that to himself; there was still hope.

  Outside Hannah put an arm around the girl and encouraged her, “C’mon, kid! Like he said, there could be all kinds of good reasons for that ship being late.” Behind her smile, Hannah wished miserably that someone would comfort her.

  Sarah smiled brightly in her turn. “Of course. Let’s get back to work.” But she had an awful fear that her father might be dead, like her mother and stepfather in Berlin. She had waited then for news.

  They returned to the hotel and Hannah’s pacing and dictating, Sarah’s typing, both abstracted, thoughts elsewhere. It was evening when Sarah answered the knock at the door of her room. The man standing in the corridor of the hotel wore a rumpled lightweight suit and carried a Panama hat in one hand. He asked, “Miss Smith?” Then looking beyond her and seeing Hannah: “Miss Fitzsimmons?”

  Hannah said, “You’re right on both counts, but what about you?”

  He smiled, “I’m from the Embassy. May I come in?”

  But Hannah asked, straightfaced, “Which Embassy would that be?”

  He blinked, then grinned at her, “Sorry. Should have said. The British Embassy.”

  She grinned back at him, “Of course.” Then to Sarah, “Do you want me to go find myself a drink and leave you to talk alone?”

  The man lifted the hand holding the hat, “No. I’d prefer you to stay, please.” Then as Sarah closed the door behind him he said, “Because I would like your help as well, Miss Fitzsimmons.”

  He left ten minutes later and as the door closed behind him Hannah said, “Well, I guess we’d better rehearse this some. It’s going to have to look real. I’ll sit over here and you come in.” She sat down at the small table by the window.

  Sarah drew back to stand by the door and asked, “Ready?”

  Hannah sipped at an imaginary Martini then called, “Action!”

  Sarah hurried forward.

  An hour passed before Hannah glanced at her watch and said, “OK. I think we’ve got it. You give me a half-hour. Right?”

  Sarah nodded and Hannah left the room and the hotel, took a taxi to a restaurant near the waterfront. A waiter showed her to a table and she ordered a Martini: “I’ll eat later.” Then she took her notebook from her bag and began to write. The tables around her were occupied mainly by men. They had halted their conversations to watch the entrance of this lithe, well-dressed woman, but after a minute their talk started again. They spoke in German.

  Hannah took no notice but sipped at the Martini, scowled at the notebook then at her watch, scored a thick line through a sentence and wrote it again. She did not look up when Sarah hurried in through the swing doors, paused on the threshold with eyes searching, then sighted Hannah and made for her table.

  The talk stopped again. This girl had that effect with her high colour of excitement, the sleek and shining blonde cap and the thinly dressed figure. Now Hannah raised her head from the notebook and greeted her, “Hi! Whaddaya know?” Sarah slipped into a chair opposite Hannah. “The Dunster Grange has sailed.”

  Hannah stared at her, “What?”

  “The British have sent her to sea to delay the Graf Spee from sailing. The twenty-four hour rule under the Hague Convention, remember? Graf Spee can’t sail until twenty-four hours after a British ship has left the port.”

  “Oh, sure. I know about that. So what?”

  “I know why they want to hold her here for another day; I found out at the Embassy. Harwood is expecting two capital ships to join him by tomorrow morning. Ark Royal, that’s an aircraft carrier, and Renown. Isn’t she a battleship?”

  Hannah corrected her: “Battlecruiser, and that means faster than Graf Spee. But you’ve done a great job, honey!” Hannah knocked back the rest of the Martini and called for her check: “Waiter!” She got up and tossed money onto the table, grabbed her notebook with one hand,
Sarah’s arm with the other. “C’mon! I’ve got to get back and file this story!”

  She and Sarah weaved their way out between the tables, hips swinging. The men they passed stared at each other and began to mutter in explosive German. Outside the restaurant Hannah said, “Well, I guess they swallowed it.” She raised a hand to flag a passing taxi and it swerved into the kerb.

  Sarah agreed, “I believe they did. Why do you think he wanted us to do it?”

  Hannah ducked into the cab. “That story will get back to Graf Spee’s captain and his crew. It will be another worry for them, wondering just what is waiting for them out there. It’s designed to keep Graf Spee in here as long as possible.”

  Sarah followed her. “So I suppose it isn’t true about those two big ships being outside.”

  *

  It was not. Robert Hurst stood on the deck of Ajax and stared at the horizon beyond which lay Montevideo and the pocket battleship. He had heard the signal made by Harwood, his orders to his ships, to be carried out on their sighting the enemy when he came out of Montevideo: “… My intention is destruction …”

  Bill Donovan, his thick shoulders bulking beside the slight figure of Hurst, said drily, “But whose destruction was he talking about?” Hurst grinned. Donovan was not the only one in Ajax to say it. He and Hurst were not the only ones aboard to find wry humour in their plight.

  Harwood’s three cruisers had still not received any reinforcement and would not for some days. His men knew that. When Graf Spee had steamed into the port she had shown no sign of serious damage nor loss of speed, was still firing her fearsome main armament of 11-inch guns as effectively as ever. They knew that, too.

  “Whose destruction?” Joke.

  Robert Hurst wondered how his father would have behaved in the battle still to come, was certain it would have been with courage and distinction. He realised he was proud of this man he had never seen, while still distrusting him for abandoning Robert’s mother.