A Matter of Time

by Alex Capus

  As it happened, fate decided to terminate his routine duties in the Thames Estuary by staging a brief but effective little drama. Involving fire, destruction and the smell of cordite, it made quite a splash in the international press. Unfairly, however, it denied Lieutenant Commander Spicer-Simson an opportunity to prove his mettle in action and inscribe his name in the annals of human history. On the contrary, the misfortune that befell him on Wednesday, 11 November 1914, was quite as bizarre and absurd as his whole career to date.

  It was just over a week since he had taken command of his flotilla. He had conscientiously spent that week on patrol without going ashore, had submitted his vessels and their crews to close inspection and kept a careful log, had written reports to his superiors and slept every night in the captains cabin aboard his flagship, HMS Niger, a gunboat of 820 tons converted into a minesweeper. That Wednesday morning he permitted himself a well-earned but unofficial treat: he dropped anchor off the seaside resort of Deal, north of Dover, and scanned the pebbly beach through binoculars for his wife Amy and her friend Shirley Hanschell, who had arranged to meet him there. Shirley’s husband, unable to take time off from his hospital duties, had remained behind in London.

  Spicer-Simson eventually discovered that the ladies had indeed

  turned up, but they were standing on the jetty, not the beach, and waving to him excitedly from the shelter of their umbrellas. Although the jetty was, of course, a strictly civilian installation designed for the use of pleasure steamers and ferryboats, he briefly considered laying his warship alongside and welcoming the ladies aboard with a flourish. In the end, common sense prevailed over chivalry and he gave orders for a boat to be lowered and the ladies to be collected.

  It was a fine but chilly day with a stiff south-westerly breeze blowing, and the sea was quite choppy. Spicer-Simson watched his men row briskly over to the jetty, help the ladies into the boat and row back again. He was unaware that a vessel was approaching from the opposite direction, or from the Belgian mainland, at a respectable twelve knots. This was the U12, a German submarine whose captain, Walter Forstmann, was under orders to search the Channel for British warships and, if possible, torpedo one. Spicer-Simson lowered the gangway and welcomed the ladies aboard his flagship, treated them to a guided tour and a detailed lecture on matters nautical, and nonchalantly signalled to a waiting gunner to fire a little salute in their honour. Then he conducted his visitors to the wardroom, where the steward plied them with tea and biscuits.

  Meanwhile, Kapitanleutnant Forstmann was still approaching fast but finding it hard to cope with the rough sea and stiff south-west wind. The ladies, who were also feeling the motion, soon turned green about the gills and expressed a wish to return to dry land as soon as possible. Spicer-Simson granted their request with an indulgent smile. While they were climbing into the boat, Kapitanleutnant Forstmann decided to shelter from the storm in the narrow channel leading to the mouth of the Thames between the Kentish coast and the Goodwin Sands. The sea was indeed much calmer close inshore, but Forstmann could see no warships lying at anchor, only several steamers and sailing boats.

  By now, Lieutenant Commander Spicer-Simson and his female companions had come ashore and were walking over to the nearby Hotel Royal, where he had booked a table in the dining room the previous day. It was a window table with an excellent view of the sea and of HMS Niger

  riding peacefully at anchor. While they were taking their seats, Kapitanleutnant Forstmann’s navigating officer reported that U12 would have to turn back in ten minutes at the latest because the water beyond Deal was too shallow. Forstmann could already see, four points to port, the little towns white houses, some chimneys and church towers. He could also, no doubt, see the quay and the Hotel Royal, a few steamers and yachts lying at anchor, then more steamers and yachts but no warship far and wide. Moored just this side of Deal was a green hulk. Beyond it, another vessel came into view. Noticeably squat in shape, it was grey in colour and proved - on closer inspection - to be equipped fore and aft with heavy guns.

  And so, while Geoffrey Spicer-Simson was sending for the menu with a Napoleonic gesture, lecturing the ladies on salmon-farming in Norway, straightening the unfortunate waiters bow tie and demanding another tablecloth because the existing one was less than clean, Kapitanleutnant Forstmann readied a bow torpedo tube, approached to within 1800 metres, and called: ‘Fire!’ Watching through his periscope, he saw the torpedo break surface in a shower of spray but remain on course.

  There was a muffled explosion, clearly audible in the Hotel Royal as well, and HMS Niger’s bridge was obscured by a mushroom of greyishwhite smoke that soon enveloped the vessel from stem to stern. However, it was rapidly dispersed by the stiff breeze, so Spicer-Simson had a relatively unobstructed view of what followed: the ninety-two sailors remaining on board leapt into the icy sea and his flagship heeled over prior to sinking twenty minutes later. While the waiter was clearing the table and replacing the cloth at his behest, Spicer-Simson hurried out on to the foreshore with the ladies at his heels. Kapitanleutnant Forstmann took the U12 as deep as he could, spent the night on the bottom, and returned to Zeebrugge the next day, there to be presented, on orders from the very top, with the Iron Cross First Class. By contrast, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson had the unpleasant duty of explaining to a court martial why the Niger had been lying at anchor off Deal on that particular morning, and why her captain, instead of being on the bridge at the time of the regrettable incident, had been entertaining two ladies to lunch in the dining room of the Hotel Royal.

  He escaped with a severe reprimand. Although not formally charged with negligence, he was relieved of his command and transferred to London, where he was assigned a desk in a small office in the Admiralty.

  With the exception of the military, no one on the shores of Lake Tanganyika at the beginning of August 19x4 could really conceive that war had broken out. It was worrying that Kigoma’s telegraph station had suddenly gone dead, that the place was swarming with soldiers and askaris, and that the consuls of the neighbouring colonies had all disappeared overnight. But the lake lay there as placidly as ever, people went about their usual business, and game continued to graze the savannah. In the harbour, Germany’s pathetic old Hedwig von Wissmann lay alongside Belgium’s Alexandre Delcommune, which had brought her some coal from the Belgian Congo in the usual way. In the nearby shipyard, work on the Gotzen was progressing rapidly. Her black skeleton had gradually disappeared behind smooth sheets of metal in recent weeks, her hull reposed on the stocks beneath a brilliant white undercoat, and her two steam engines had been firmly installed in the engine room, which was already protected from wind and weather by a section of the main deck. Anton Riiter had had to accustom himself to the fact that his shipyard was permanently haunted by soldiers. They borrowed tools without asking and failed to return them, took native girls aboard the Gotzen for a nice evening view of the sunset, flicked their cigarette ends all over the place, and urinated against the stocks in the lee of the hull. They were everywhere these days. Although no one knew for certain that war had really broken out, they could feel that it was tightening its grip every day, and that all that had mattered hitherto would soon count for nothing. War was all-embracing and omnipotent. People were people no longer; they were soldiers or civilians. The countryside had ceased to be countryside and become the area between trenches, machine-gun nests and roadblocks. As for the time between sunrise and sunset, it was no longer a day but the interval between reveille and curfew.

  Riiter, Wendt and Tellmann were also compelled to subordinate themselves to the war. They weren’t Papenburgers now, they were German nationals, just as the Gotzen was a cruiser in the service of the Imperial German Navy, not an unfinished freighter and ferryboat. By a happy coincidence, the commander of the troops stationed at Kigoma, Kapitanleutnant Gustav von Zimmer, was an old acquaintance of theirs from Dar-es-Salaam. He visited the Papenburgers at their shipyard the very day he arrived, amiably recalled their tipsy game of
skittles on the night of the Kaiser’s birthday, and belatedly congratulated Anton Riiter on winning it. But then, turning official, he sternly enquired after the Gotzen s progress, requested a tour of the deck and inspected the engine room. When Riiter got bogged down in technicalities he cut him short and asked how soon the ship could be launched.

  ‘Hard to say,’ Riiter replied cautiously. ‘Everything takes a bit longer out here than it does at home. The superstructure will take a while to complete. After that we have to install the propeller shafts, the electrical systems, the steam winches and steering gear. Then there are the passenger cabins - ’

  ‘Forget about the cabins, Riiter, there won’t be any passengers. How many more days?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ Riiter repeated. ‘It’ll be a matter of weeks or even months, not days’

  Kapitanleutnant von Zimmer frowned and said nothing. Then he stuck out his jaw and eyed Riiter keenly.

  ‘You and your fellow skittlers are members of the Imperial Defence Force as of now, didn’t you realize that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Riiter. ‘I’m an employee of the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, and my instructions - ’

  ‘You received my call-up notice, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I appointed you a corporal. Wendt and Tellmann are privates in the Reserve.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding, Kapitan. I’m a civilian employee under contract to - ’

  ‘Silence! Were at war, Corporal Riiter. Contractual employment under civil law has been suspended. Count yourself lucky you can remain at the shipyard for the time being and don’t have to move into barracks at once. The Gotzen is a project of military importance - she must be completed as quickly as possible. If it’ll help to speed things up, you may continue to live in your shacks and have your meals cooked by nigger women until further notice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But you, too, will begin weapons training the day after the launch. Bayonet practice, marksmanship, foot drill, grenade-throwing. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and the war will be over by then. After all, the Kaiser has promised that we’ll all be home by the time the lime trees lose their leaves in the autumn. I repeat: How much longer will you be?’

  Von Zimmer had no uniforms available - supplies had been held up by bottlenecks - but he handed Riiter three armbands designed to identify him, Tellmann and Wendt as members of the armed forces. They were, he said, under strict orders to wear these and greet any officer with a military salute from now on. When Riiter made a last attempt to explain that their term of employment in Africa was contractually limited to one year and would be up in three months’ time, after which they all intended to go home as quickly as possible, all he said was:

  ‘Forget it, Riiter. You won’t be going home - none of us will be. Not even slowly, let alone quickly.’

  At dawn on 21 August 1914, when Anton Riiter made his way down the path that led to the shipyard, the harbour was silent and deserted. The Arab dhows and the natives’ pirogues had disappeared into the vastness of the lake and sought shelter somewhere out of reach of the allembracing tentacles of the German Defence Force. The Hedwig von Wissmann lay alongside the jetty on her own. Much to von Zimmer’s annoyance, the Alexandre Delcommune had high-tailed it across the lake to the Belgian Congo in good time. Riiter paused at a bend in the path to

  feast his eyes on the Wissmann. He had always relished the sight of the decrepit, neglected old steamer, whose numerous congenital defects and geriatric disorders had aroused his shipwright’s protective instincts. Now that the Defence Force had boarded her, however, she presented such a pathetic picture, he couldn’t get enough of it. The soldiers had burdened her fo’c’sle with a huge 85 mm cannon, mounted two 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving cannon amidships, one on each side, and installed two heavy 55 mm revolving cannon in the stern. They had also carried crates of ammunition weighing many tons aboard and stowed them somewhere. The Wissmann was hanging her head in exhaustion under all this weight, and her stern was cocked up at such an angle that her propeller would have cleared the surface in the slightest sea. Ruter laughed softly. If anyone took it into his head to steer the little ship out into open water in this condition, she would inevitably sink, drowning all on board and feeding them to the crocodiles.

  The only trouble was, Kapitanleutnant von Zimmer happened to come up behind him on this particular morning. Ruter suspected that their encounter wasn’t fortuitous and boded no good. He walked on as if he hadn’t heard von Zimmer coming, but too late.

  ‘Corporal Ruter!’

  ‘Good morning, Kapitan von Zimmer.’

  ‘Kapitanleutnant.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Good morning, Kapitanleutnant von Zimmer.’

  ‘You seem very cheerful this morning, Ruter.’

  ‘Yes, Kapitanleutnant.’

  “'Herr Kapitanleutnant.” It’s time you made a note of that, Corporal Ruter.’

  ‘I beg your pardon: Herr Kapitanleutnant.’

  ‘Tell me, are you making good progress with the GotzenV

  ‘Yes, Herr Kapitanleutnant. We’re doing our best.’

  ‘How much longer will you be?’

  ‘A few weeks’

  ‘I don’t like vagueness, Riiter. May I ask what you were laughing about just now?’

  ‘I wasn’t laughing.’

  ‘You were. Not loudly, but a little, I heard you. Was it the WissmannV ‘Yes, Herr Kapitanleutnant.’

  ‘I see. So the boat’s a joke, eh?’

  ‘She could sink at any moment.’

  ‘In harbour?’

  ‘As soon as someone’s unwise enough to cast off.’

  ‘You must put that right.’

  ‘What, me?’

  ‘Yes, see to it.’

  ‘But the Gotzen..!

  ‘Leave her and attend to the Wissmann. This is war, Riiter. We must steam across and sink the Delcommune while she’s still unarmed.’

  ‘Once the Gotzen is finished - ’

  ‘I can’t wait that long. We should have impounded the Delcommune last week, while she was still here in harbour. The Governor forbade it because he still believed we were at peace. Now we’ll have to steam across and sink her.’

  ‘But Kapitan, the Wissmann would never make it.’

  ‘Then see she can. Get her ready. What’s to be done?’

  ‘Those guns must go.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, the guns are staying. We can’t sink the Delcommune with our pocket knives.’

  ‘If you leave all those guns on board she’ll sink, Kapitan.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Absolutely sure. That monster on the fo’c’sle must go. And half the smaller ones.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘She must go into dry dock. There’s room beside the Gotzen .’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘Two weeks minimum. Three, more likely.’

  ‘You’ve got until dawn tomorrow. We sail at 0500 hours’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘The Wissmann goes on patrol at dawn tomorrow, Corporal Riiter.

  Oberleutnant Horn will be in command and you will accompany him in the capacity of chief engineer. The lousier the ship, the more she needs a good engineer. The Wissmann is the lousiest ship in Africa and you’re the best engineer.’

  Anton Riiter didn’t know what was happening to him. He had suddenly ceased to be a shipwright and become a soldier, and his survival depended on his transforming a wreck into an operational warship within twenty-four hours. He conferred with Wendt and Tellmann. Then, since there was no alternative, they towed the Wissmann over to the dry dock and went to work on her. Tellmann and a gang of workmen caulked the worst of the seams and cracks in her hull. Wendt patched the leaky boiler, greased all the bearings and installed an extra bilge pump. Riiter balanced her propeller and had the stacks of ammunition boxes lying around on deck taken down to the cable tier to act as ballast and give the vessel greate
r stability. At nightfall he finally managed to persuade von Zimmer that none of this would be of any use unless at least half the guns - above all, the monster on the fo’c’sle - were taken ashore again. The ship’s engine passed muster shortly before midnight, and by four a.m. the Wissmann was afloat once more and ready to sail.

  At dawn two seamen cast off the mooring ropes. Wendt and Tellmann were standing on the jetty, looking grave. They waved to Anton Riiter, who waved back at their receding figures from his post beneath the awning amidships. He felt as if he were being led to the gallows or had been taken hostage by a band of lunatics. There they sat on the side benches beneath the awning, eight white seamen and twenty askaris wearing puttees and caps adorned with the imperial eagle, youngsters of seventeen or eighteen, the oldest of them possibly in their mid twenties, with fluff on their upper lips, artless expressions and childish smiles. They lolled there shoulder to shoulder, some of them already asleep, others cleaning their fingernails with their bayonets or smoking cigarettes with their rifles clamped between their knees like hobby horses

  as they sailed, unprotected and visible from afar, towards the enemy cannon and machine guns that might, in a few hours’ time, shred their intestines, tear off their arms and legs and shatter their skulls.

  To Riiter it seemed as if those youngsters were already dead as they sat on their benches calmly nibbling biscuits they might never digest - as if they were making their way towards the enemy projectiles that would inflict the requisite fatal wounds for neatness’ sake alone. He listened to the inexorable pounding of the engine, which functioned perfectly now that Wendt had patched the hole in the boiler, and to the hum of the propeller shaft, which he had straightened single-handed. The Wissmann had almost stopped leaking and was quite well trimmed. With grim satisfaction, Riiter discovered that he had been an efficient cog in the machinery of misfortune. The Wissmann would undoubtedly reach the enemy shore without incident; from the technical aspect, nothing stood in the way of the bloodbath that couldn’t have taken place without him.