An Evil Shadow (25 page)

Read bonus sample of AJ
Davidson’s
Churchill’s Queen

CHAPTER ONE

19 January 1940

The Kriegsmarine’s
U.33
blew its buoyancy tanks and broke
through the black surface of the water just before 9.00 am Berlin time. The
conning tower hatch was opened and Kapitanleutnant Kroll and Oberleutnant
Bauer,
erster
Wachoffizier
, emerged. The Bo’sun and four watch
crewmen scrambled onto the bridge next.

Above them the stars glittered in the still dark morning sky,
beneath them the water swelled gently. Dawn was breaking through to the east;
the sun taking its time this far north. The winter, the first of the war, had
been one of the coldest on record and the men on deck soon felt its bite.
Submariners, on bitter mornings like this, gave thanks for their cork-soled
boots which prevented the numbing chill of the steel penetrating their leg
marrow. Kroll felt a comforting rumbling beneath his feet as the Chief Engineer
switched from electric motor to the powerful diesels.

Kroll swept the horizon with his Zeiss binoculars. Satisfied they
had the sea to themselves, he spent a few seconds watching the bow waves as the
boat cleaved cleanly through the water. The submerging had been a practice one,
the fourth since they had left their home port of Wilhelmshaven two days before.
So far the trip had been pretty uneventful. They had crossed the North Sea
undetected, but during the night they had rounded Cape Wrath and turned south
into North Minch, the stretch of water dividing the Inner and Outer Hebrides.
They would need to maintain constant vigilance in enemy waters, especially when
passing the Firth of Clyde, before pushing farther south into the North
Channel.

Built in the Germania yard at Kiel, the
U.33
was a type
VIIB boat, capable of eighteen knots on the surface. Normally armed with
fourteen torpedoes, on this voyage the payload consisted of twenty-six magnetic
mines. Naval High Command had great expectations for the new mines, designed to
lie on the bottom undetected, exploding under the keel of any ship unfortunate enough
to sail above it, more often than not, breaking its back.

Mine-laying was not the sort of operation Kroll would have wished
for on this his first voyage as the ‘Old Man’. There would be no sinking
pennants flown when they returned to Wilhelmshaven, no tonnage towards a
Knight’s Cross. Mines could be as deadly as torpedoes, but the U-boats received
no credit when one sank an enemy vessel.

“Permission to come on the bridge?”

Kroll recognised the voice of one of the civilians on board.
Mueller had the clipped tones common to the Bavarian aristocracy.

“Permission granted,” he barked down the speaking tube.

Mueller emerged quickly from the hatch and nodded at Kroll.

Before
U.33
could lay
any mines,
it
had
another task to undertake. Civilian passengers hitching a ride on board a
U-boat were not unheard of, but still an infrequent enough event to make him
and the crew feel uneasy. Two men, grim-faced and wrapped-up in heavy
overcoats, carrying battered leather suitcases, had boarded just before they sailed.
Headquarters had warned Kroll by coded radio signal to expect them. The
blond-haired one, Mueller, had handed Kroll his amended orders as soon as they
were at sea. The Kriegsmarine envelope had also borne the seal of the Abwehr —
Military Intelligence — so Kroll knew not to pry any further into their
business, and told his Bo'sun to pass a quiet word of warning among the crew.

On
opening the orders, countersigned by Admiral Canaris, the Abwehr chief, he
found the instructions to be concise. Sailing under strict radio silence, the
U-boat was to take the two civilians to given coordinates one thousand metres
off the south-west coast of Scotland, where they would disembark and row
themselves ashore in the submarine’s collapsible dinghy. The
U.33
was
then to sail for the Clyde estuary to lay its magnetic mines. The orders made
no mention of when and where the men were to be picked up again.
 

For their part the interlopers had kept themselves to themselves,
as best they could, given the U-boat’s cramped conditions. They took turns to
sleep in a bunk that had been allocated to them in the crew’s bow room, keeping
both suitcases next to them at all times. When the chief artificer had offered
to find a place to stow the cases, the men shook their heads in a manner that
brooked no further discussion. They ate their meals together and in silence.
Although Mueller would come into the control room from time to time, his
companion, an Irishman called Bracken, rarely left the bow room, other than to
visit the head.

The submariners, a superstitious bunch at the best of times,
considered the men’s ominous presence to be an ill omen.
 
Kroll refused to allow them or the
mine-laying mission to dishearten his crew. Their chance of glory would come
soon enough. Admiral Doenitz, commander of the U-boat fleet, had guaranteed it
when he had taken his hand to congratulate him on his promotion. Kroll’s
opportunity to command was a reward for the part he had played in
U.47
’s
now legendary raid four months earlier. Under the command of Gunther Prien,
U.47
had given the British a bloody nose at Scapa Flow. Prien had done the
unthinkable and slipped undetected through the narrow eastern entrance of the
Royal Navy’s backyard. The British had no idea they were there until the first
torpedo had exploded against the hull of the
Royal Oak
, blowing the
mighty battleship asunder with a catastrophic loss of life.

“Ship bearing 32 degrees, Herr Kapitan,” the port lookout shouted.

Kroll swung his glasses around and soon located the tell-tale
masts etched against a trailing plume of black-grey smoke. It was a merchant
vessel, running in darkness close to the coast, and apparently unaccompanied.

“Ten degrees to port,” Kroll ordered the helmsman. The ship would
not have seen them yet and there was no harm in taking a closer look.

“Your orders were clear, Herr Kapitanleutnant,” Mueller snapped.
“You are to sail with all due haste to the drop-off point.”

“Just taking a look,” Kroll replied, with all the authority he
could muster. “Any intelligence I can gather on enemy shipping may prove
valuable.”

“Not as valuable as following orders.”

Kroll bristled. Who the hell was Mueller to question him? He was
not on the battlements of his family’s Black Forest
Schloss
now,
ordering the village peasants around. “
Äusserste kraft
, full speed.”

“Herr Kapitan, she’s an oil tanker,” the forward watch announced.
“British!”

“And she’s low in the water,” Bauer added.

Probably making for Scapa Flow, Kroll thought. The tanker was
alone against the skyline, and with the rising sun at her stern as she
zig-zagged, any other accompanying vessel would be silhouetted like a pine on a
bare hillside.
 
A fully laden
twelve-thousand ton tanker, sailing without escorts, would be a juicy prize.

“Clear for action,” Kroll barked. “Gun crew on deck.”

Mueller stepped forward. “Cancel that order!”

Kroll lowered his binoculars and directed a hard stare towards
Mueller. “Get below. You have no authority here.”

Mueller just gave a thin-lipped smile, turned and moved towards
the hatch. He had to wait for the gun crew to scramble onto the upper deck
before he could climb through the hatch and slide down the conning tower ladder
into the control room. Kroll let out a deep breath. He had been expecting
further protest. Mueller must have thought better of threatening him with a
report to his superiors. After all, it would have been a threat without teeth;
Mueller was not to be on the U-boat when it made its return to Sludge City, the
crew’s name for Wilhelmshaven.

Below him on the gun deck the ratings had the 88mm ready to fire.
The
U.33
may have lacked torpedoes, but it did have two hundred rounds
for its deck gun, three or four of which should be enough to earn the
U.33
its
first sinking pennant.

Kroll leaned in to the speaking tube. “Any radio intercepts?”

“Negative, Herr Kapitan,” the radio operator answered,

As the U-boat closed on its unsuspecting prey, Kroll counted down
the distance in his head. As soon as they were within range, he gave the order.
“Let’s wake up her captain. Fire a warning shot across her bow.”

The deck gun roared and a tongue of flame shot from the mouth of
the barrel. Kroll nodded his approval when he saw a plume of water rise out of
the sea not a hundred metres from the tanker’s bow. Nice shooting.

The sun was now providing enough light for the submariners to make
out the merchant seamen as they rushed to the hand railings to stare at the
boiling maelstrom of water sweeping past on their port side.

With a grunt of satisfaction, Kroll noticed that the tanker was
making less smoke and slowing. He would have done the same thing if he and his
crew were sitting on top of thousands of tons of highly inflammable oil and
someone was threatening to lob a high explosive shell into their midst.

“Smart man, that tanker skipper,” Bauer said, echoing his
Kapitan’s thoughts.

The rating on the varta-lamp stared at Kroll, anticipating
delivery of his next order.

“Signal them to make no radio transmissions and to surrender their
vessel,” Kroll said.

The lamp’s shutter started its familiar clanking. Kroll expected
the tanker’s captain would count his blessings that the U-boat had given him
the opportunity to get his crew off without any loss of life. With any luck,
before evening the captain and his men would be enjoying a beer in one of
Ullapool’s public houses without having got their feet wet.

The tanker’s seamen moved away from the port bow and started to
prepare to launch the lifeboat. Kroll watched the frantic crew slip the
bindings holding the tarpaulin. The tanker was already almost dead in the
water, another sure sign that it had a very full hold.

“Can you make out a name?” Kroll asked.

“It looks like the
Algonquin
,” the watch officer replied
uncertainly. “French- sounding?”

“Herr Kapitan, it’s North American Indian,” the gunner spoke up,
not once allowing his attention to wander from keeping a deadly bead on the
tanker. “She’s out of Liverpool. I was once moored beside her in the Port of
Glasgow.”

Kroll returned his attention to the merchant ship. The crew had
swung out the davits and the men were climbing into the lifeboat. Try as he
could, Kroll could not be sure at this distance which of them was the captain.
As the crew took their seats, the two seamen on the winches started to lower
the lifeboat.

An abrupt announcement came from the speaking tube. “Herr Kapitan,
the tanker is signalling its position!”

Kroll responded instinctively to the hostile act.

“Fire two rounds into her side!”

The deck gun roared a fraction of a second after he had finished
giving the command. The steel deck shook from absorbing the recoil and Kroll
had to stretch out a hand and grab the bulwark to steady himself. The lifeboat
was riding the waves and a few of the seamen were lowering oars to row away
from the tanker. Their heads turned as one as the shell exploded into the wall
of steel towering above them. Red-hot shrapnel and burning oil rained down on
them.

The gun fired again, but Kroll knew that it was overkill. The
tanker was already doomed. A second explosion ripped through the tanker’s
stern. A few of the seamen stood up, coated with the flaming black oil. The
clinker-built lifeboat was a mass of flames. Two men threw themselves into the
water, but the oil pouring from the ruptured steel plates was spreading faster
than they could swim. The sea seemed to be on fire. A blanket of thick black
smoke was rising quickly across the morning sky.

Sickened at the needless slaughter, Kroll, his face as white as
chalk, watched as the devouring flames caught the two swimmers.

“Herr Kapitan,” the radio operator shouted, scrambling through the
conning tower hatch. “The tanker did not use its radio. It did not signal its
location!” he shouted breathlessly.

“What are you saying?” Kroll demanded, but realised in that
instant what Mueller had done. For he knew it had been the arrogant Bavarian
who had used the speaking tube to deceive him into sending the British seamen
to a fiery hell.

Bill Bracken swung his legs from the hammock and rubbed sleep from
his eyes. He checked his watch. He had been asleep for barely an hour. The
sound of the U-boat’s deck gun had woken him, but he had assumed it had been a
test firing and tried to get back to sleep. The second round clearly indicated
that something was afoot.

He pushed aside the cured hams, sausages and the string nets of
onions that the cook had slung from the bulkhead. Before a U-boat sailed, space
had to be found for the provisions, which usually meant keeping them off the
ever-wet deck. Bracken hopped down to the steel floor, checking that both the
battered brown-leather suitcases were still safely stowed in the bunk.