‘Ferguson, take over,’ Smith hissed, as if he might be overhead, ‘I’m going to have a look-see.’ Hurriedly, he clambered down the dripping wet iron ladder that led to the deck.
‘To port,’ Ginger whispered. He cocked his head to one side, his black oilskin slick and dripping with the wet fog. ‘There, sir. Can you hear it?’
Smith nodded and strained too. The boat could be only a matter of yards away. It seemed to be steering a parallel course to the silent Swordfish, which by now was moving at perhaps three or four knots. Fortunately, the current was in her favour, helping to carry her along. Smith prayed fervently that it would continue to do so. If the Swordfish stopped now – he didn’t dare think that thought to its ultimate conclusion.
A harsh voice called something. A moment later a light flashed on. Its beam was broken and refracted by the dense fog. But it was only six or seven yards away. Smith held his breath.
‘Wer da?’ came the challenge. Smith recognised it for what it was. Had they been spotted?
The sound of the small engine came closer. The dimmed bean of the spotlight tried to penetrate the fog once again. Smith felt the cold beads of sweat trickle down the small of his back. In his left temple, a vein started to tick nervously. God, he told himself, it could be only a matter of seconds now before they were discovered.
A harsh voice said something in German. Another, much brighter, light flashed on.
‘Christ,’ Ginger groaned under his breath, ‘that’s frigging well torn it!’
‘Shut up!’ Smith hissed urgently.
The light seemed to take an age, as it swung round very slowly, its beam breaking up into a white blaze by the fog. But Smith knew that the unknown craft had to come only a couple of yards closer and the spotlight would penetrate the fog and pinpoint them. He clenched his fist impotently, wincing as his nails dug into his palms. If only they could knock the damned thing out!
There was a murmur of voices, as aboard the drifting Swordfish everyone froze, all knowing that the slightest sound would give them away now; and knowing too, after what had happened so far, that they wouldn’t live to see another day if the German authorities took them. They would be quietly disposed of somehow or other.
A sudden command. The spotlights flicked off. The unknown motorboat started to pick up speed. The sound of its engines began to diminish. The Germans had given up.
Smith breathed out a sigh of heartfelt relief. ‘That was close,’ he said.
‘I tink, I nearly pissed mesen,’ Ginger said.
‘What d’yer mean – think?’ Billy Bennett at the other side of the bow grunted. ‘I did.’
They laughed. They had done it.
Six
It was a beautiful morning. The sun shone brightly. Over the flat meadows on either side of the Rhine, the swallows soared high into the bright blue sky. Even the cows seemed to be affected by the fine weather. Instead of cropping the grass in their usual slow, dogmatic manner, the sound of the Swordfish’s motors sent them lumbering across the fields, their great swollen udders swinging from side to side like a clock’s pendulum.
Most of the crew, even the off-duty men, were on deck, taking in the sights. All of them had fought the Germans for four years during the war. But apart from Bird and Smith, this was their first glimpse of the one-time enemy country.
‘Don’t look much different to me, Chiefie,’ Ginger opined to the old Scot, as they stared at a pretty little half-timbered farm with a thatched roof, outside which an ancient farmer in rusty black was assembling his cows, with much waving of his stick and curses. ‘Could be the old country.’
CPO Ferguson looked at him scornfully. ‘Only a Sassenach could talk that kind o’ blether,’ he declared scornfully. ‘Yon German’s probably killed more Englishmen than he’s had hot dinners.’
Standing nearby, Smith grinned. Next to him Dickie Bird said, ‘I say, Chiefie, you are really a one hundred per cent fire-eater, aren’t you?’
Ferguson swung round on him, ‘With all due respect, sir,’ he said cuttingly, ‘yer average Englishman forgives too easily. That’s your trouble. Now a true Scot – he bears a grudge. For a very, very long time.’ He drew the words out and thrust out his skinny chest proudly, as if he had made a judgement about Scots and Scotland which was of some value.
‘I suppose so, Chiefie.’ He focused his glasses. Up ahead, he could see the smoke ascending from factory chimneys. ‘That’ll be Gelsenkirchen,’ he said. ‘The start of the Ruhr district.’
‘Ay,’ Ferguson said grimly. ‘That yon place where Krupps and his like made the cannon to batter our Home Fleet in the war. I hope the Froggies knock the whole place down if the Jerries don’t cough up the money they owe them. For once the Froggies’ll be doing something right, ye ken, sir.’
Smith shook his head in mock wonder. He had never met a man with such powerful and persistent hates as the old Scot. He dropped the glasses to his chest. ‘Just to be careful, we’ll lower the flag at the stern, Chiefie.’
‘Lower the flag?’ CPO Ferguson looked shocked. ‘Ye canna do that, sir,’ he protested.
‘Well, feeling against the Allied occupation powers is probably running high at the moment in the Ruhr. We’ve taken over their factories and declared martial law. I don’t want to provoke any of the local citizenry into throwing half-bricks at us, or anything like that. Let’s not stick our necks out unnecessarily. Lower the flag.’
Ferguson went off to carry out the order, but reluctantly, muttering something about ‘the disgrace… never seen anything like it.’
Smith smiled and forgot the matter. At this speed they’d be tying up in Cologne by the morning, but it had been a long tiring night, with the crew getting little sleep. Should he order the Swordfish to heave to so that the watches could get at least four hours sleep each before they sailed on to Cologne? God knows what lay waiting for them there. Perhaps they would need all the sleep they could get in advance?
‘What do you think, Dickie?’ he asked Bird a few minutes later, as the smoking chimneys came closer and the brown haze started to increase, progressively cutting out the sun.
‘Why not,’ Dickie said. ‘The chaps need a rest. We can heave to way off the bank, but out of the shipping lane. The cook can rustle up something decent for the chaps. In fact, what about one of us trying to buy some fresh meat instead of that awful bully beef? They say that with inflation the way it is in Germany now, one single pound will buy you anything.’ He nudged Smith significantly, leered and twirled an imaginary moustache.
‘All right, you don’t have to draw me a picture,’ Smith said. In the English papers he had read about the tremendous inflation which currently had Germany in its grips. Workers, it appeared, rushed home at midday with a half-day’s wages, which amounted to millions of marks, in order to buy a single loaf. If they waited till evening the whole day’s wages wouldn’t buy the same loaf. It was said that you could live like a prince in a four-star hotel on a sovereign a day. Germany’s currency, in other words, was totally worthless. The only things which counted were those things which could be sold or bartered on the black market – cigarettes, coffee, foodstuffs etc. ‘A good idea, Dickie,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you to stick your neck out. Just take a couple of sovereigns, no more. Better take Ginger and Billy with you, too. And make sure you’re armed,’ he added. ‘You never know with the Huns.’
‘Rightie ho,’ Dickie said cheerfully. ‘As soon as you’re ready, we’ll set off. Don’t be surprised if you see yours truly herding along a couple of cows or something.’
‘I won’t, Dickie. All right, you tell Ginger and Billy. I think that spot over there looks a likely one for the night. Get cracking.’
* * *
Dickie Bird gasped. Next to him, Ginger gasped too, ‘Never seen anything like it in all my frigging born days!’ At his side, Billy Bennett said, ‘Will yer get a butcher’s at that, mates.’
The whole length of the quayside street, fringed by warehouses and red-bri
ck factories, was crammed with jostling, shouting, angry civilians, men, women and children. Some pushed little wooden barrows piled high with stacks of bright, brand-new mark notes. Others, fat and prosperous, smoking thick cigars, were holding up their wares, or letting underlings do their business for them, biting on gold rings, eyeing jewels through professional eyepieces, fingering the quality of pre-war fur coats. All was noisy, anger, confusion – and naked greed.
There were whores everywhere, too. Women in short skirts and knee-length boots, fingering their private parts provocatively or sucking their middle fingers suggestively, eyes empty of anything except greed. With them they had young boys, who constantly ran up to more prosperous-looking men, offering them the whores’ services. When that proved of no interest, they offered themselves.
‘That’s the black market,’ Dickie Bird announced and for once, his usual blasé manner had vanished. It was all too obvious that this was the real Germany: Germany in defeat, where nothing had any value, but where everything including honour, had its price. The tall, skinny man with the dark glasses and the spotted armband of the war-blinded, who was trying to sell his medals, made that all too clear. ‘God, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, even the Huns,’ he added grimly.
Billy Bennett nodded and said, ‘Over yonder, sir. There’s a bloke selling sausages and things.’
‘I see him,’ Dickie answered. ‘Let’s go over and see what he’s got to offer.’
With difficulty, they pushed their way through the noisy gesticulating throng, dodging the whores and the young touts, thrusting aside a runt of a man who was selling pornographic photos of two stout, Eton-cropped women, until they came level with the man who was selling sausages. He was a great brute of a fellow, in boots and breeches, whose girth suggested he consumed a goodly number of his own sausages. ‘Landmettwurst… Grutzwurst… Weisswurst… direct vom Bauer…’
Dickie Bird nodded his understanding, ‘The chap is a farmer selling his own stuff,’ he translated for the benefit of the other two.
‘Ay, he would be,’ Ginger said. ‘He ain’t been starving hissen – yer can see that all right.’
The farmer-salesman eyed them shiftily when he heard the English. ‘Englishmen?’ he queried.
Dickie nodded. Hastily he brought out a sovereign. ‘Gold,’ he said winningly.
The farmer’s eyes lit up. He reached out a pudgy paw for die coin, took it and bit it hard. That satisfied him. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Here,’ he pointed to two large rings of Mettwurst. ‘You have.’
Dickie looked at Billy Bennett, whose large stomach was already rumbling with anticipation. He grabbed the rings of greasy sausages and slung them over his upper arm like hoops.
‘We’ve got another four sovereigns left,’ Ginger reminded Dickie. ‘We could see what else we could scrounge.’
‘Good idea, Ginger. Let’s see what we can find for the chaps,’ Dickie agreed. ‘Let’s have a look at that fellow over there. He’s got what looks like a fish tank tied to his belly—’
Dickie stopped short. There was a blare of trumpets coming from the next street and the rattle of kettledrums beaten at a fast pace, accompanied by the swift, crisp crunch of marching feet.
‘Die Franzmanner,’ the cry went up from the crowd. ‘Die verdamnten Franzosen!’
In an instant all was turmoil. Cases and trays were hurriedly repacked. Currency dealers thrust wads of foreign notes into their hiding places. A fat policeman, who had been watching the dealers with a well-meaning smile on his face, swiftly pocketed his last bribe and disappeared down a side-street.
Then they were there. Great black Senegalese with their faces covered in ritual tribal scars. At their head, on a white charger, a little poppin-jay of an elegant officer rode, white kepi tilted at a rakish angle, silk cloak thrown carelessly over his thin shoulders.
‘It’s the Froggies,’ Billy Bennett exclaimed as the Senegalese marched straight into the throng, undeterred by the whistles, boos and threats of the mob. Cases went flying. Eggs were trampled underfoot. An enraged German tried to pull the little officer from his mount. All he got for his efforts was a slash across the face from the officer’s riding crop. He reeled back as the Senegalese started to lam into the crowd with the brass butts of their rifles.
‘Hang on to those sausages, Billy,’ Dickie said hastily. ‘I think discretion is the better than valour on this occasion. Let’s do a bunk.’
The other two needed no urging. Already a couple of shots had been fired, whether by the troops or by the civilians they didn’t know or care. A civilian was writhing in the gutter, blood jetting in a scarlet arc from a wound in his chest.
Now they started retreating down the street, as up above windows were flung open and civilians started raining down missiles on the Senegalese and their officer. He raised himself in the saddle, tugging out his revolver. He fired once. There was a scream. A man sagged wounded – or dying – over a windowsill.
A primitive scream of mass fury went up from the crowd. A half a hundred men thrust forwards at the French colonial troops. The officer’s horse reared up whinnying with terror, as someone slashed at its hocks with a cut-throat razor. The officer fell, disappearing beneath the feet of the mob. Then, the three shipmates were round the bend, out of sight, to be confronted by a lorryload of German police in their black leather helmets, smoking and chatting calmly with one another, as if all was right with the world…
* * *
‘It’s the law of the jungle out there, Smithie,’ Dickie said, toying with the sausage, his appetite vanished now after what he had just seen. ‘The crowd took one of the blacks they had captured down the side-street and hanged him from the nearest lamppost and the bobbies just watched. Didn’t lift a finger. God, that anything like that should happen in the Old Country!’ He shuddered violently and had a quick drink at his pink gin. ‘As for the officer – they simply trampled him to death. Could hardly recognise him. Just a red smear on the pavement. Poor chap.’
Smith nodded and looked out of the porthole. Fires were burning in the industrial city now all along the waterfront, and faintly he could hear the muted sound of rifle fire. A French plane was swooping low over Gelsenkirchen and a French police launch was skimming down the centre of the Rhine, going at top speed. It appeared the French occupation powers had yet another riot on their hands.
‘What you have just said, Dickie,’ Smith said, his face unusually serious, ‘makes me even more determined to see this thing through. I don’t know the rights and wrongs of the French case, but it is clear that law and order is breaking down in Germany. And you know what they used to say – when Germany sneezes, the rest of Europe catches a cold. We’ve been through one lot of that five years ago. We don’t want another dose.’
‘Agreed,’ Dickie said, still very morose. He was used to the savagery and bloodshed of war. But he was not accustomed to the sheer animal hatred that had come from the mob. There had been something bestial, atavistic about it, as if man had reverted to his primitive state.
‘Tomorrow we will be in Cologne,’ Smith continued. ‘McIntyre will put us in the big picture.’ His jaw hardened suddenly, steely blue eyes gleaming with sudden purpose. ‘Then, we’re going to do our damnedest to stop this feller Hitler before he sets Europe ablaze once more!’
Dickie Bird lost his dazed look. His young face blazed, too, with sudden animation. He said, ‘You’re right. By God, you’re right. We’ll stop him!’
Seven
‘The British Army Headquarters is there just behind the cathedral,’ Smith announced as the Swordfish nosed its way through the traffic under the Hohenzollern Bridge.
Dickie stared up at the soaring Gothic cathedral, which had taken six hundred years to complete, then beyond to the Hotel Dom, overshadowed by the great church. ‘Looks impressive,’ he said, as they came to a stop and Billy Bennett sprang over the side to tie up the Swordfish. Hastily Smith gave his instructions to CPO Ferguson, who was in charge now, and then he and Dickie se
t off for the hotel HQ.
There were beggars everywhere, many of them cripples from the war. Mostly they were men who had lost an arm or a leg, but there was one unfortunate who had lost all four limbs and who propelled himself along on a little wooden cart with what looked like oars attached to the stumps of his lost limbs.
But there were rich, smartly dressed men and women, fat and prosperous, who sailed through the crowds of importuning beggars as if they simply didn’t exist. They were obviously the ones who had profited from the war and had put their money into goods and not into the worthless paper which the Reichmark had become.
There were British soldiers aplenty as well. Smartly dressed, swinging their little canes as if they were back on some English barrack square, they strode down the streets. Here and there civilians took off their caps as a sign of respect. But Dickie and Smith could not but help notice the look of hatred in some of the gazes which followed their passing.
They swung round the corner. There was the Dom Hotel, guarded by smart-looking soldiers, their equipment gleaming, their boots immaculate. Important-looking staff officers strode in and out and there was much stamping of boots and saluting.
‘If it moves salute it, if it don’t, paint it,’ Dickie said cheerfully. ‘That’s the good old British Army for you.’
Smith chuckled too and they continued till they reached the open window of the little wooden guardroom just in front of the hotel’s portals. A sergeant with a waxed moustache looked out at them. ‘What d’yer want?’ he asked, looking them up and down, as if they might just well have crawled out of the woodwork.
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