An Honorable German (6 page)

Max sat at the desk he shared with some of the other officers and read through the intercepts. B-Service had not yet cracked
the most secret codes of the Royal Navy, many of which were employed only once and then discarded, but they had broken the
one used for giving orders to convoys. From this they had learned the call signs of a number of British men-o’-war. Urgent
messages had been flashed that day to
Ajax
,
Achilles
,
Exeter
, and dozens more British warships. These messages, like many others sent by the British Admiralty in the last ten weeks,
contained a single order: sink
Graf Spee
. And so the Royal Navy stalked them, scouring the ocean south of the equator for any sign of
Spee
. How close were these ships? Max had no way of knowing.

Here, sitting behind a desk in the quiet of the evening, the soft drone of the engines in the background, the sea hissing
gently alongside the hull, it seemed possible to imagine that the war was very far away, or even that there was no war on
at all. Yet he could just as easily have gone down with the British merchantman; he probably would have if not for Dieter.
But he would be back in Germany soon enough, hopefully by Christmastime. He and Mareth had let their engagement continue for
years, hoping her family would eventually accept Max, which they had no intention of doing. But somehow since the war began,
their displeasure seemed to matter less. Christmas would make a wonderful time to get married—and it was only three weeks
away.

ABOARD
ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE

FOUR DAYS LATER

6 DECEMBER 1939

W
ITH THE SWELLING OF THE STORM
, M
AX HAD MANAGED NO MORE
than ten minutes of rest in the last four hours. The largest waves heeled
Graf Spee
over thirty-five degrees from the center line, giving the sensation that she was about to capsize. Max would defend his ship
to anyone, be they army, navy, or air force, but truth be told,
Spee
rolled like a pig in a barnyard. Most of the young crew had never been through a Force Ten gale. Max knew many younger sailors
were puking their guts out, convinced
Spee
would capsize at any moment.

To hold himself in his narrow bunk, Max sat cross-legged, knees braced against the special storm railing, hands grasping the
railing as well. In this position he tried to sleep. While the ship rolled from side to side, she also plunged up and down,
sometimes in a violent corkscrew motion. Several times during the night, Max lost his grip and slammed against the bulkhead.

His entire body felt black and blue from two days of pounding by the storm. He had been in rough weather before, especially
in his sailing ship days as a Seekadett, but nothing this bad.
Graf Spee
, big as she was, shipped green water over the bow, burying her foredeck repeatedly into the sea, spray reaching over the
fore turret and striking the ports of the navigating bridge. One of the lifeboats had been carried away, smashed to matchwood
by the force of the waves. Sleeping, relaxing, having a shit—all were impossible. Eating was out of the question. There had
been no hot food since the storm set in, only sandwiches and the emergency rations of chocolate bars.

Belowdecks in the large compartments where the sailors lived—bedlam. Gear had come loose and flung itself in all directions.
Pea jackets, socks, underwear, playing cards, movie magazines, letters from home, strewn everywhere. Water leaked in from
the ventilator shafts topside and sloshed around the decks, the tossing of the ship so brutal that the petty officers had
been unable to organize cleanup crews. But at least the sailors—the Lords, as they were known in the Kriegsmarine—could get
some rest, except for those who were violently seasick. Unlike the officers, the men slept in canvas hammocks that simply
swayed back and forth to the motion of the ship. Max envied them, snoring away like so many fat sausages hung from the ceiling.

The officers’ steward rapped on his door. “Herr Oberleutnant, zero three thirty.” Max had the watch at 0400.

Spee
heeled over again and plunged into a wave, the vibration strong even this far back in the ship. Max gritted his teeth and
held on. He waited for
Spee
to right herself, removed the storm railing, and slid to the deck. Around him the ship creaked like an old coach and four.
From time to time, the turbines raced as the screws came temporarily out of the water, the powerful sea lifting the stern
of
Graf Spee
clear of the surface. From his porthole Max could see nothing, but he felt the waves pounding against the ship’s hull.

He pulled himself up and wedged his body between the small desk and closet. His closet door was secured with special fasteners
to prevent it from swinging loose and banging against the desk. He reached up and jerked it open. Max didn’t dare report to
the bridge in the wrinkled clothes he’d worn to bed. Pulling on a pressed uniform was half wrestling match and half gymnastics.
The worst part was tying his shoes. Sitting on the deck, feet against the bed, he flexed his legs to keep his back fast against
the closet door, freeing both hands to knot the shoelaces. Damn it all. He winced, feeling his bruises.

A sailor’s life. Clean air, brilliant sunshine, dolphins leaping clean from the water as they raced you kilometer after kilometer;
starched uniforms, brass buttons, gilded dirk at your side, bands playing, men saluting, girls throwing kisses—what the recruiting
posters did not show was the ship wallowing like a North Sea trawler in a Force Ten gale, heeling over, whipping back, now
plunging down, a wall of white water breaking against the base of the bridge tower. Max shook his head. To hell with it. No
hot food, no word from home, the bloody Tommies scouting for them everywhere, endless work, no sleep, no hot water for shaving.
Which reminded him that he’d forgotten to shave. It was a good way to cut your throat in weather like this, and Max barely
had any growth to begin with, but Langsdorff would disapprove if he noticed the blond fuzz on Max’s chin and upper lip. On
Graf Spee
you either had a proper beard or mustache, or else nothing.

He massaged his temples. Could there be a lonelier time than four in the morning? Maybe three in the morning. Why had he joined
the navy? If they made it back to Germany he would never set foot on a ship again, never go farther than ten meters from land;
give up swimming. He pulled himself upright. To hell with the navy. To hell with the storm. To hell with everything. The officers’
steward rapped again. “Ten minutes, Herr Oberleutnant.”

“Ja, ja.” No choice in the matter, must make the legs move. It was a courtesy to relieve the watch ten minutes early.

Max stepped into the passageway that ran through the officers’ quarters, quiet at this time of night, pale blue in the gleam
of the nightlights. Fumbling for a moment, he buttoned his heavy bridge coat and made his way toward the main companionway,
staggering like a drunk. Going out on deck would be suicide in a storm like this; he climbed the interior ladder to the bridge,
clinging tightly to the handrail as the ship bucked beneath him.

The wind howled around the navigating bridge, and even here, in the enclosed section, Max could barely hear. Gerhard gave
him a weary smile. A four-hour watch exhausted a man in these conditions. The constant giving at the knees tired your legs
and made you feel like you had been mountain climbing. This high in the ship the motion was even more pronounced. Just keeping
your feet was hard enough; paying attention to your duties, almost impossible.

Max lurched to the starboard binnacle, grabbed hold. He saluted Gerhard. “Sir,” he said, almost shouting, “Wachoffizier Brekendorf
reporting.”

Gerhard returned the salute. “We are proceeding northwest by north, steering a compass heading of three three zero. Wind is
out of the northeast by east coming from zero six zero degrees at fifty knots. Making turns for twelve knots. Engines two,
three, four, and six are on line.”

Langsdorff had them heading perpendicular to the wind, the force of the gale striking the ship all along her starboard side.
This explained why they were shipping so much green water to starboard and constantly rolling thirty-five degrees to port,
then whipping back on an even keel for a moment, only to do it again. And again. Even Max began to feel queasy. Normally a
captain would position his ship bows on into the wind with just enough power to maintain steerageway and ride it out. Since
the bow was the strongest part of the ship, this method had been used by mariners for centuries. Instead, Langsdorff proceeded
at his best speed with the storm abeam, which exposed the starboard side of
Graf Spee
to the full fury of the gale, creating the harshest conditions for the men—the ship rolling and plunging like a porpoise.
It would have been easier on the men to ride the storm out hove to, but
Spee
could not afford that luxury. They had to proceed northwest by north to make their rendezvous with
Altmark
.

“Ship is battened down,” Gerhard continued. “Main batteries only are manned. Captain is on the bridge.”

Max turned. Langsdorff was wedged in the back corner, buttoned tightly into his bridge coat, a glowing cigar jutting from
his mouth.

Max came to attention and saluted. “Sir, I relieve you.” Gerhard saluted in return. The relief crew assembled behind Max.
Max and Gerhard initialed the logbook. Formalities completed, the men moved to their posts, replacing the exhausted bridge
messengers and telephone talkers.

The only light on the bridge came from the illuminated instrument dials—the two chest-high compasses and the smaller gauges
giving speed, wind direction, engine revolutions, depth of the water. Max clung to one of the compasses, squinting in the
pale green glow. He waited for the right moment, then moved to the center of the bridge, grasping the handrail that ran underneath
the wide, square portholes, which showed nothing but black outside. Rain drummed loudly against the heavy glass. Beneath him,
the deck shuddered as the ship pounded into the waves.

“Weather officer believes we are on the edge of a vast storm but should be through by tomorrow.”

Max turned. The captain had come up beside him. “I hope so, sir,” Max said. “But this will delay our rendezvous with
Altmark
, yes?”

Langsdorff nodded, then leaned in close. “By a day, but it cannot be helped. The sea has other plans, as you can feel.”

“And where do we meet
Altmark
, sir?”

“Off the estuary of the Rio Plata. We will try to pick up an outbound British convoy after we resupply. Then home by Christmas,”
Langsdorff said, smiling at the last remark.

Max turned to the captain. “Home by Christmas, Herr Kapitän, would be the best present we could have.”

“I’m certain all aboard agree with you, Maximilian, myself most of all.”

Langsdorff said nothing else, only stared into the darkness. Max scanned the instrument dials. He had little to do with the
captain exercising direct command on the bridge, especially with a crew so well trained as that of
Graf Spee
. The men knew their jobs and performed them with little prodding from the officers.

The last two hours of night were a vigil, weary and long, Max’s body constantly tensed against the motion of the ship. To
let go of the handrail was to be flung to the deck, which happened twice to one of the bridge messengers. Dawn broke, revealing
vast mountains of water heaving around them. Wind caught the wave tops and blew the spray against the ship, rattling the vessel
as if striking the hull with chains.
Graf Spee
would rise to the top of one gray-green mountain, then down, down, Max holding fast, till the ship buried her prow into the
sea, shipping water in a torrent to the foot of the bridge. Just when it seemed as if she might not rise again,
Spee
would drag herself out of the trough and climb to the top of another wave, her sides streaming water like a hunting dog coming
out of a pond.

Sun hit the waves, and the sea laid bare the insignificance of the ship. In the months since he had come aboard, Max had always
thought of her as a fortress—stout and strong, armored against her enemies by the finest Krupp steel—so large that young sailors
often lost their way when first aboard. But one could hardly maintain that illusion now—a fortress wasn’t thrown about like
a woodchip in a stream. So
Graf Spee
labored through the storm, the marching waves pounding her to starboard in a relentless parade, at one point rolling her
so violently to port that even Captain Langsdorff lost his footing and went sprawling across the bridge.

Still,
Spee
could not turn bows on into the wind and ride out the storm, for even now the British would be plowing into the gale, drinking
endless cups of tea, cursing the weather and the Germans.
Graf Spee
was the most wanted ship in the South Atlantic, and they would not be able to outfox the British forever. The Royal Navy
knew every ocean and every sea, every wind and every current. They had charted every coastline, every harbor. They knew every
merchant shipping lane. And they knew how to chase down and destroy a commerce raider. They had been doing it for three hundred
years.