Orphans of the Storm (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  That evening they sat around the table in the saloon with the ship’s officers and listened to Mike Fowler’s broadcast account of the scuttling of Graf Spee. Smith sat in silence while the rest cheered and pounded the table. He wondered about Robert Hurst, in Ajax.

  Afterwards, when they were alone, Jake said, “You’ll win a decoration for this, that’s for sure.”

  But Smith shook his head. “There’ll be no medals.”

  Jake gaped at him for a moment then protested, outraged, “But you stopped Brandenburg from going to the Plate! What about that night you tried to blow the hole in her bow a lot bigger? And when the Mary Ellen sank under us? That was above and beyond the call of duty! That was a real shooting war up there in the pool!”

  Smith ran a hand through his fair hair and grinned at Jake, of an age with his own son in Ajax, “Exactly. There’ll be no medals for the Mary Ellen, for us or for Moehle and his crew because that river is in the country of a neutral and we fought a war in somebody else’s backyard. We were all violating neutrality. So Moehle’s superiors will lock up his report as Admiralty will lock up mine and the keys will be thrown away.”

  Jake flapped a hand in disbelief, “But somebody will talk!”

  “Who?”

  “All right, so Brandenburg’s crew are sworn to silence. What about me, huh? What if I decided to blow it all over the networks in the States?”

  “I’d say you were lying.” And Jake saw that Smith meant what he said. Smith went on, “And when I said we’d all fought a war in flagrant breach of neutrality, I included you. How do you think your Department of State would react if you claimed to have been one of the belligerents?” Smith watched Jake’s scepticism change to bewilderment then reluctant acceptance. Smith finished, “So it never happened, Jake.”

  Sotheby took them north and when she berthed in Port of Spain, Trinidad, all of them disembarked save Jake. He was staying aboard until the ship reached Galveston, returning to the United States to see to the melancholy business of winding up his parents’ estate. The others would all take another ship back to Montevideo, the original destination of three of them but Garrity was also going to make his peace with the Royal Navy through the Attaché there. Smith had promised to speak in his defence, and to obtain full compensation for his loss of the Mary Ellen, though that would have to be unofficial.

  They bade farewell to Jake on the quayside as their taxi waited with the engine running. He shook hands with all of them and had a lot he wanted to say but was tongue-tied when he looked at Véronique. Smith joked, “You can go back to being a neutral now.”

  But Jake was a serious young man that day. He said, “I’ve a feeling the States can’t stay out of the war for ever, but I might get in on my own.”

  Then they left him standing at the foot of the gangway and walked along to where the taxi waited at the end of the quay. He willed the girl to turn and look back — as she wished that he would call her to stay. But the moment passed too quickly, they piled into the cab and it drove away, leaving him alone. But they were both determined to meet again.

  Smith and the others finally arrived in Montevideo on 3 January 1940. They had changed from one ship to another at the last minute because the second promised a quicker passage. Because of the hurried transfer Smith was unable to inform the office of the Naval Attaché so arrived a day early and unexpected — but in time. As his ship berthed in the harbour he saw that Ajax was already there and considerable traffic passed between her and the shore, launches and pinnaces crowded with sailors. Expensive cables had already assured Smith that Robert Hurst had not been among the casualties. He would be aboard Ajax now.

  Smith went ashore with the other three within the hour and they took rooms in a hotel on the waterfront. Then he went out to stand on the top of the steps at the entrance, Buckley at his side, both of them looking over the heads of the people crowding the street. They were packed shoulder to shoulder on the broad pavements, there to applaud the ship’s company of Ajax. Montevideo was neutral but these young men were heroes.

  They were paraded around the city in open-topped buses and cars, cheered every inch of the way. Smith, standing at the head of the steps, watched them pass. He was in uniform because he was going to report to the office of the Naval Attaché.

  Hannah Fitzsimmons and Sarah had been returning to the hotel but were overtaken by the procession when still some fifty yards away. They perched precariously on top of a table outside a bar, the better to see. Until Hannah chanced to glance aside then blinked, stared, and told Sarah, “There’s your father.” She had to shout to make herself heard above the cheering.

  Sarah was cheering and waving at the young sailors. They waved back at the flushed and laughing girl with the blonde mane. Then Hannah’s words got through to her and her laughter faded, she turned to stare first at the woman and then beyond her as Hannah indicated the direction with a jerk of her head. For some seconds the girl stood still, then she jumped down from the table and ran.

  Smith did not see her slim figure weaving through the edge of the crowd towards him, nor Hannah standing wistful now in the background. There was one open-topped car in the cavalcade that was slowly passing the hotel now. It was crammed with young sailors, all but one of them grinning widely. That one stared back at him, hostile, and Smith saw his own mirror-image.

  He had expected the hostility, and that it would take time for this young man to accept him. He was prepared to wait.

  He was briefly blind to the reality of this war that would not wait for them, nor the other orphans of the storm that had now broken.

  If you enjoyed Orphans of the Storm check out Endeavour Press’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

  For weekly updates on our free and discounted eBooks sign up to our newsletter.

  Follow us on Twitter and Goodreads.

  Acknowledgments

  I have inserted some fictional characters into the crew of Ajax and the words attributed to Mike Fowler are my paraphrasing.

  The episode in Chapter 6 is based on an exploit of Clare Hollingworth OBE, who was a Foreign Correspondent at that time and crossed the border from Poland into Germany.

  My thanks go to Eric Smith of HMS Ajax, whose recorded recollections I consulted, among others, in the Sound Records Department of the Imperial War Museum.

  I would also like to thank the staffs of the National Maritime Museum and Walton Library.

  But, as always, any mistakes are mine!