by Alan Evans
The ship was still but not completely silent. Men talked in whispers, shifted position and stretched as they waited by the guns. The lookouts ceaselessly searched back and forth through their arcs from bow to stern. The ship across the bay, whatever it was, showed one more brief gleam of light then became dark again—as if a man had opened a door or a scuttle to look out at the night, then closed it. Danby wandered the deck between bridge and fo’c’sle.
Smith had wanted to send him after the Camel because it would be no use saving it if Gallagher was killed in the process. But the pilot would have none of that: ‘It’s my Camel. I’ll trust nobody else with it, especially—’ He broke off there, then challenged Smith: ‘If it was your ship, would you send anyone else?’
So Gallagher had gone.
‘Boat’s coming back, sir.’ That came from Ross.
Smith halted and watched the swift rhythm of the oars as they swept the boat towards Audacity, could imagine Buckley’s hoarse growl, ‘Put your backs into it!’
The boat was hooked on, hoisted inboard and Buckley reported to Smith. ‘Went sweet as you like, sir. Gave that craft a wide berth—‘cept it looks like it could be two of ‘em when you’re a bit closer, though we didn’t get that close, one tied alongside the other. We never saw a soul on the shore. Mr. Gallagher and his lads nipped up the beach and in among the trees at the back of it. I saw that much and all was quiet so we come away.’
‘Very good.’ Smith hoped it was, that he had not sent the four men to their deaths. One more calculated risk. He thrust that thought from his mind. ‘Mr. Ross!’
‘Sir?’
‘I want a man who’s handy with a needle.’
‘A needle, sir?’ Ross shifted his mind to this new tack. ‘Well, Fenwick is a dab hand, does a bit of tailoring.’ Smith had been calling rapid orders into the wheelhouse but now turned back to Ross: ‘Get him up here. I want him to make a couple of ensigns for me.’
Audacity’s engines thumped slowly as she turned and slipped out of the bay as quietly as she had come.
*
‘Morning, sir. Gettin’ light.’ Wilberforce, the little steward, stood by Smith’s bunk, a steaming mug held in one skinny hand. Smith took it and sipped at the coffee while Wilberforce rattled on: ‘Mr. Ross said I was to tell you we’re on station an’ cruising west-nor’-west at eight knots.’
Smith nodded. So they were now patrolling off the mouth of the deepwater channel leading out from Kirkko, where he had handed the gold and Elizabeth Ramsay to the Russians. Audacity had made the passage through the night from Kunda at a leisurely ten knots. Back to Kirkko after all, but no chance of contacting Robertson, or through him the Admiralty. He scowled at the irony. But the gold was gone—and probably his career with it—and that was that.
Wilberforce breathed at a mark on the table and used his cuff to polish it clean. ‘Pity we didn’t come up with them Russians, sir. I’d ha’ liked to see that Mrs. Ramsay again. Very nice to me, she was, always a word and a smile—’
‘Get out!’ Smith shoved the half-empty mug at him.
Wilberforce took it and went, muttering under his breath, ‘Not like some foul-tempered bastard I know!’
Smith had turned in all standing. Now he had only to pull on his boots and the old overcoat. He picked up his cap, went out to the wheelhouse and grunted, ‘Good morning!’ at Ross.
‘Good morning, sir. Nothing seen of Königsberg.’
‘Early yet.’ Smith went out to the starboard wing. The sun had not risen but it reddened the eastern horizon. He thought that was appropriate because over that horizon lay Bolshevik Russia. The sea was the colour of pewter, and cold, though there was no ice this far out. The land and Kirkko were hidden behind the rim of the sea to the north. Fog wisped in patches and Smith’s breath steamed on the air.
He should not have snapped at Wilberforce as he had, but he’d been caught off-guard. That was a sign of the pressure on him and his need to hide it. How deeply was Elizabeth Ramsay involved in the anti-German plot? Why had the Russians insisted she went along with the gold? Would they secretly betray the Allied cause? Would she? He remembered the contact between his body and hers. Would he ever see her again?
‘Excuse me, sir.’
He turned and saw the seaman Fenwick, tall, thin as a whippet, but now as bulky as the rest of them in layers of clothing. He carried two rolled bundles under one arm. ‘Got them ensigns you wanted, sir.’
‘Let’s have a look at ‘em.’
Fenwick put one bundle down on the gratings, shook out the other. It was the black, white and red-banded flag of the German merchant marine. Smith saw Ross watching from the wheelhouse and nodded, ‘Good.’ Fenwick rolled it and spread the other: a blue St. Andrew’s cross on white. Smith nodded again, ‘That’s a good job. Mr. Ross said you were a dab hand; he wasn’t exaggerating. Thank you.’
He took the rolled ensigns from Fenwick and passed them to Ross. ‘Keep them handy.’
Would there be a use for them? If the German freighter Königsberg and her load of timber did not come, there would not. His plans would have gone awry. He had promised every man aboard that he would take them out of the Baltic. It had been a bold statement, one he might live to regret—die regretting it. He did not let his fears show in his face but said casually, ‘Tell Wilberforce I’m ready for my breakfast.’
Smith ate slowly, forcing himself to swallow every mouthful, then climbed the ladder to the flying bridge. No one was up there now. He paced rapidly forward and aft, eight strides each way. Audacity was steaming on the westward leg of her patrol. Now and again as he turned he swept the northern horizon with his glasses. That horizon was murky and close, the visibility limited by low cloud, mist and drizzling rain.
Robertson had said Königsberg’s master intended to sail this morning. In other words he would finish loading late yesterday and wait until this morning to make his passage of that winding channel out of Kirkko in the light of day. That made sense. Smith had told Ross: ‘Early yet.’ It was not early now. If Königsberg had sailed on time they must sight her soon. He halted and used the glasses but saw only leaden sky and that sea of pewter ending in a grey line of rain and cloud.
He turned away. He had gambled that the destroyer, battered and on fire as she was, would not make good twenty knots, that once her captain thought he had shaken off pursuit he would reduce to half that speed or less, to fight the fire and see to his wounded and dead, the damage to his ship. So he would not reach Reval to raise the alarm until this morning, so that by the time the signals warning of a raider, Audacity, had gone out, Königsberg would have sailed. She had no wireless, her masts had carried no aerials, Smith remembered that. But if her sailing was delayed for some reason? What if the warning signals had reached her?
He had thought there was a good chance that his gamble might succeed. All his plans for escape from the Baltic were based on that. First of all, he needed Königsberg and her cargo—for a disguise. Most Q-ships could change their appearance. They usually operated by trudging back and forth, alone, inviting attack along a shipping lane where U-boats were known to be active. But a U-boat commander was not a fool. If he saw a ship running eastward one day and recognised the same ship steaming westward the next, then he would smell a rat. So Audacity already had a dummy deckhouse that could be erected forward or aft, bands of various designs and colours that could be bolted to her funnel, different names painted on boards to bolt to her bow and stern, strips of black-painted canvas that, stretched along between fo’c’sle and superstructure, superstructure and poop, gave her the appearance from a distance of being a flush-decked ship instead of a three-island tramp. She also carried a carpenter, Bennett, mainly for the purpose of knocking up fresh disguises to order. But now Smith wanted a particular new identity for Audacity, for a special reason, though that would depend on Gallagher’s report. If the airman lived…
‘Ship! Starboard beam!’
Only seconds ago the horizon had been empty. Smi
th set the glasses to his eyes. Königsberg? Or had he calculated wrongly; was the hunt already up and this a destroyer seeking his ship? She was hull-up but blurred in the murk out there. Gradually easing out of it now, Smith could see the outline of her taking shape. He ordered, ‘Starboard ten!’ and dropped down the ladder to the bridge below.
Ross stood at the wheelhouse door. ‘Looks like her, sir.’
‘Yes. Got those ensigns?’ Ross snatched them from a locker in the wheelhouse and Smith slapped the top one of the two. ‘That one and ours. Put the other away.’ He looked at the ship’s head, Audacity still turning to starboard. ‘Meet her…steady…steer that.’ She straightened on a course to intercept the other ship, now on the starboard bow. Königsberg’s black, rust-speckled hull was low in the water, deep-laden with timber. She also carried it as deck cargo, the sawn lengths stacked in the wells between fo’c’sle and superstructure, superstructure and poop, higher than the heads of the men he saw moving on her deck. ‘Pass the word for the carpenter.’ And to Ross: ‘Close up the four-inch but keep it under cover until I give the word.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Ross’s eyes gleamed and his teeth showed in a shark’s grin. ‘We’re going to sink her, sir?’
‘Eventually. First I want you to get a boarding-party together. McLeod will lead when it boards but you will later take command of the prize, so bear that in mind when you pick your men.’
That shook Ross: ‘Prize, sir?’
Smith read the first lieutenant’s mind and grinned. ‘All right! I’m not asking you to sail her back to Rosyth.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Pretended relief; possibly not all pretence?
‘You’ll want engine-room staff so take the second engineer and tell him to pick some off-watch stokers. You can have ten men for the boarding-party but most of them will be working for Bennett.’ The carpenter was now climbing the ladder to the bridge. Smith rapidly gave Ross the rest of his orders then turned to Bennett. The old jacket buttoned over his blue jersey was strained tight as he caught his breath from the hurried climb. He kept his cap on though in front of his captain and did not salute; someone aboard Königsberg might be watching and Bennett was supposed to be a merchant seaman. Before the war, he had been. Before that he had served twelve years in the Navy.
‘Sir?’
Smith’s gaze was trained over Bennett’s shoulder and fixed on Königsberg, now broad on the starboard bow, and closing every second. Smith’s eyes shifted fractionally to focus on Bennett. ‘Take a good look at that ship.’ And as the carpenter half-turned: ‘I want this ship to look like her, with her deck cargo. I’m going to put you aboard her. I’ll tell you now what I want done and you’ll work out how much timber you’ll need. Be sure you’ve got enough, allow a safe margin, but that’s all. There’ll be some seamen aboard but you can take the rest of those airmen as well.’ They could earn their keep. ‘Find out which of them knows a hammer from a saw.’
Bennett got out a dog-eared notebook and the stub of a flat, carpenter’s pencil. He scribbled quickly as Smith spoke his orders then tucked the pencil behind his ear and hurried away. After the man had gone Smith took off his cap and ran fingers through the fair hair that the cap had pressed flat. He had not taken his eyes from Königsberg for a second but he had heard the crew of the four-inch running to the gun, the report to Ross that it was closed-up. Audacity was still on a course to intercept the timber ship. Smith jammed the cap back on his head. ‘Port ten.’ Then as Audacity’s bow swung, ‘Ease to five…meet her…steer that.’
Now the two ships ran level, barely a hundred yards between them and Audacity was still edging in on Königsberg, if slowly. The few hands working on Königsberg’s deck drifted to the port rail to stare across at Audacity. A stumpy figure in a short, black overcoat and peaked cap emerged from Königsberg’s wheelhouse and waved at the Swedish ship he might be remembering from Kirkko. Smith trained his glasses and saw a man of maybe sixty, round-faced and scowling. He would be wondering why this stupid Swede had come so close.
Close enough. Smith lowered the glasses and his eyes swept in one swift glance from McLeod and the boarding-party, kneeling hidden behind the starboard bulwark forward of the bridge, to Ross in the wheelhouse, the signaller and the bosun’s mate with the two ensigns bent on and ready to hoist. Then from the innocent-seeming housing that concealed the four-inch gun to Bennett and the group of airmen lying on the deck below the bulwark aft of the bridge—finally down at the machine-gunner squatting on the gratings near his feet, the Lewis gun in his hands.
Smith ordered, ‘Hoist the ensigns! Lay the four-inch on her!’ And leaning over the rail to call down to McLeod on the deck below, ‘Say your piece!’ McLeod stood up by the bulwark, but the boarding-party, armed with rifles, still lay in its cover.
The roof and the sides of the four-inch housing fell away and the long barrel of the gun swung to point at the bridge of Königsberg. The White Ensign broke out, and another with a blue St. Andrew’s cross on a white background—the ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy.
McLeod was bellowing through a megaphone, ordering Königsberg to stop or be fired on. Smith watched the round scowling face through his glasses and saw it lengthen as the jaw dropped. For a second the German master gaped into the muzzle of the four-inch, then he turned, to shout his orders. Smith let the glasses hang. Would the old man try to turn away and run for it, even with the gun trained on him at point-blank range? Or would he turn towards Audacity and try to ram? Either way, Smith would order the four-inch to fire. A murderous decision, but one he would have to take for the sake of his men.
He let out his breath in a whistling sigh. Königsberg was slowing, her single screw stopped and the way coming off her. Audacity slowed, too, at Smith’s order, edged in closer, and rubbed gently against Königsberg as both ships lay still, fenders between their steel sides. Lines flew across and were caught and made fast by the German seamen, bewildered by this sudden attack and under the threat of the Lewis machine-gun now mounted on the wing of Audacity’s bridge.
The boarding-party, McLeod at their head, swarmed across and Smith ordered him to tell the German master, only feet away now, to lower his boats. He dropped down the ladders to the deck forward of the bridge as McLeod bawled a translation. The grating now lashed between the two ships tilted gently as they rose and fell on the sea. Smith crossed it quickly, light-footed.
The rest of the German crew were assembling on deck, routed out by the boarding-party: seamen from the fo’c’sle, stokers and the engineer from the engine room. McLeod already had some of them working at lowering the ship’s boats on the starboard side. They stared at Smith as he climbed to the bridge with McLeod hurrying behind. The master waited sullenly, flanked by his two mates, men as old as himself, their status as officers marked by weather-worn, peaked blue caps set square on their heads. All three glowered at Smith in his old overcoat, and at McLeod, who had shed his duffel for the sake of speed and wore one old jersey pulled over another. McLeod launched into carefully rehearsed German. Smith hardly understood a word but he had told McLeod what to say anyway: that Smith had been captain of a British submarine but now commanded this Russian ship out of Petrograd. There was an angry outburst from the German master and McLeod reported, ‘He says we’re breaking the rules by not being in uniform and we’ll be shot as spies. He says our stay in Kirkko, under the Swedish flag, was spying too. And Russia is supposed to be neutral.’
Smith pointed to the Imperial Russian ensign flapping over Audacity. ‘Tell him the Red Russians made peace but the White Russians did not. Tell him his Navy has got to catch us before they can shoot us—and laugh as you say it. Then tell him the four-inch is only one of our guns. We met one of his destroyers yesterday and she was glad to run for her life. But we mean him no harm and as seamen feel sympathy for him. Then get down to the rest of it.’
Smith smiled pleasantly at the master and his mates. McLeod went on with his speech, his laugh coming on cue, and the Germans exchanged
uncertain glances. Smith leaned against the rail, smiling easily, seemingly without a care in the world. Now McLeod would be asking if the Königsberg was bound for Helsinki. Wasn’t there a lot of German shipping plying into and out of those waters—and in the Gulf of Bothnia further west?
All the while Smith was aware of the boats on Königsberg’s starboard side being lowered, her crew going down into them with pathetic little bundles of hastily snatched belongings. Smith hardened his heart; this and worse had been done to British seamen by U-boats—and by the raider they had seen off Norway. The airmen had come aboard and were trooping along behind Bennett as he bustled around inspecting the timber stacked on Königsberg’s deck.
The conversation on the bridge flagged, then ceased, the master and his mates standing scowling and silent. Smith said cheerfully, ‘All right, they’ve guessed what we’re trying to worm out of them. What results?’
McLeod grinned at Smith, trying to indicate satisfaction, the Germans watching him. ‘They began by saying there was some German traffic with Helsinki and now there might be more with Von Goltz’s troops landing nearby. Then they started nudging each other and shut up.’
Smith nodded; he’d seen the Germans’ flicker of wary interest as Helsinki was mentioned. ‘Tell the captain we’re casting off now and once we’re clear he’ll be able to lower the boats on the port side and get away. I regret it, but I’m sending his ship to Russia under a prize crew. Fortune of war. He has my best wishes.’
That did not mollify the German skipper. He growled something clearly offensive and McLeod stiffened. ‘You bastard—’
Smith stopped him. ‘I can guess what he called me and in his position I might have done the same. Come on.’
He touched his cap in salute, went back to Audacity with McLeod and climbed to the bridge. Ross crossed over to take command of Königsberg, with the course McLeod had given him on a piece of paper tucked into his pocket. The captured ship was cast off and now the boats on her port side could be lowered. The remainder of her crew and her officers climbed down to them. They pulled clear of the ships and then rested on their oars, watching intently. Smith bellowed across to Ross on Königsberg’s bridge, ‘Get under way!’