iron pirate (12 page)

Hechler glanced at the armoured conning-tower and past it to the fire control position. Beneath and around him the ship vibrated and quivered but the motion was steady, and even some pencils on the chart table remained motionless.

He tried to dampen down his own anxieties. It was always like this when a ship left the land. For him in any case. Now, with the additional knowledge of what might lie ahead, he had to be certain of everything.
Confident.

There had been no flaws, nothing serious anyway. He looked past two signalmen and saw
Lubeck
following half a mile astern, her faint funnel vapour streaming out abeam like her flags. The destroyers too were exactly on station, as if they were all on rails. They dipped their bows occasionally and Hechler saw the sea creaming over their forecastles before cascading down through the guardrails again. A small but powerful force, he thought, with air cover to make it easier. Every few minutes, or so it seemed, they sighted one of the big Focke Wulf Condors which acted as their eyes and escorts.

Two bells chimed out from below the bridge and the men relieved from watch would be having their lunch, the main meal of the day. It had been sixteen hours since they had weighed and with little fuss had steamed out of Salt Fjord, soon to lose Bodo in the gathering dusk.

Hechler had been on the bridge throughout that time, watching the cable clanking inboard with the usual chipped paint scattering to each massive link.

Westward to skirt the Lofoten Islands and then north, the ships closing in protectively on either beam.

All the captains had come aboard just prior to sailing, but l eitner had kept his comments on a general level. They all knew about the enemy convoys, each captain had an intelligence pack as big as a bible. The British might have a change of heart, or perhaps one of the convoys would be re-routed at the last minute.

Sixteen hours at a relatively gentle fifteen knots, although the destroyers were finding station-keeping hard work.

It was a strange feeling to be heading out into an ocean instead of sighting land every so often as in the Baltic. Now as
Prinz I uitpold's
raked bows ploughed across the seventieth parallel nothing lay ahead unless you counted Spitzbergen or Bear Island. Scenes of other sea-fights, Hechler thought, before every eye had turned to Normandy and the Eastern Front.

He walked to the chart-table to give himself time to glance at the men around him. Most of them were warmly dressed, for despite the fact it was August, the air had a bite to it. Soon there would be no escape from the ice.

Their faces looked normal enough, he thought. That morning he had sensed the silence throughout the ship when he had spoken on (he intercom to the whole company.

Leitner had been ready to make a speech, but Hechler had bluntly asked permission to speak to his men, in his own way.

He had pictured them as his voice had echoed around each deck and compartment like a stranger's. Gun crews and engineers, the damage-control men and those who cooked and served the hundreds of meals it took to feed the
Prinz's
people.

'We are going out into the Atlantic - There should have been rousing music, cheering; instead there was a silence which meant so much more to him, no matter what Leitner might believe.

Some had tried to tell him privately that they would not let him down. Others, like the huge Gudegast, had merely joked about it.
Good a place as any to lose a ship!

He wondered what Rau would say if he knew'.

Hechler shaded his eyes to look at the horizon. It was so eerie. A great, unbroken swell which roamed on and on for ever. And the sky, which was salmon-pink, painted the ragged clouds in a deeper hue, like copper. The ship's upperworks too were shining in the strange glow. Endless daylight, empty seas.

Another Focke Wulf droned overhead; a lamp winked briefly to the ships below.

The camera team had been on the bridge for much of the forenoon, but they seemed to have exhausted their ideas, and even the big four-engined Condor did not lure the cameras on deck again.

Oberleutnant Ahlmann, who was officer-of-the-watch, put down a handset and said, The lady flier wishes to come to the bridge, sir.'

Hechler thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He had not seen her since they had left Bodgf, except once when she had been on the admiral's bridge with Leitner. Like the two girls who were in the camera team, her presence gave a sense of unreality. According to Leitner, they would be transferred before the ship headed deep into the Atlantic. Their films would be invaluable, he had said with all of his usual enthusiasm. A tonic to the people at home. It all depended on the first move. Von Hanke would decide after that.

Hechler had the feeling that the rear-admiral intended to use von Hanke as an excuse for almost everything.

He said, 'Very well.' He might get to the bottom of it by asking her what exactly she was doing aboard, in his ship.

Her voice came up the ladder and he pictured Inger, as he had a hundred times since the party. Her anger, her contempt, were so different from that earlier seduction. If it was to happen again . . .

He turned to face her as she was ushered into the bridge.

She wore a black leather jacket with a fur collar turned up over her hair. Her skin was very fresh from the wind and he guessed she had been exploring the upper deck.

A wonderful view, Captain!' She climbed on to the gratings and peered through the salt-blotched screen. 'I should love to fly right now!'

Hechler watched her profile, her neat hands which gripped the rail as the deck tilted slightly to a change of course.

Ahlmann looked up from a voice-pipe and reported, 'Steady on Zero-Two-Two, sir. Revolutions one-one-zero.'

He turned and saw her watching him.

She shrugged. 'So different.' She gestured towards the upper bridge and radar, I.eitner's flag leaping stiffly to the wind. 'So huge. You feel as if nothing would stop her, as if she could run away with you.'

Hechler nodded. 'When I was a young watchkeeper I often I bought that. Especially during the night, the captain asleep, nobody to ask. I used to look at the stars and -'

'Gunnery Officer requires permission to train A and B turrets,

sir.'

Hechler replied, 'Yes. Ten minutes.'

It never stops for you, does it?'

He looked at her. I hadn't thought about it.' Together they w.itched as the two forward turrets swung silently on to the same bearing.

Kroll never missed a chance, which was why he had given him ,1 time limit for this, another drill. At any moment, any second, the alarms might scream out. Men had to be clear-minded and not confused by too many exercises.

I le thought of what Inger had said about this quiet-eyed girl. In some sort of trouble.

She said, 'Seeing those great guns makes me realise what your kind of war is all about.'

Are you afraid?'

She seemed to consider it. '1 don't think so. It's like flying.

[ here are only certain things you can do if the plane gets out of control.' She shrugged again. 'I don't feel I have any hold on things here.'

Then she laughed and one of the lookouts tore his eyes from his binoculars to glance at her.

1
know
you are going to ask me, Captain, but like you, I am under orders. I am on board your ship because I have been so ordered. I am a civilian but 1 fly for the Luftwaffe.'

1 heard what you did.' Hechler tried to adapt to her direct manner. 'It's more than I'd care to do.' He scraped the gratings with his boot. 'Give me something solid . . .'

Theil appeared at the rear of the bridge and saluted, although his eyes were on the girl.

'The admiral sends his compliments, sir, and would you see him.'

Yes.' Hechler was annoyed at the interruption. Being captain usually gave him all he needed, but he craved a conversation with someone who was not committed or involved with the same things. Leitner had probably seen them chatting, and w
^r
as merely calling him away although it could hardly be from jealousy.

The thought made him smile and she said quietly, 'You should do that more often, Captain.' She turned away as the two forward turrets purred back to point fore-and-aft again.

Theil stepped forward so that he seemed to loom between them.

Hechler said, 'If there is anything I can do while you are aboard . . .'

She watched him, her eyes tawny in the strange light. 'Attend your ship, Captain. Her needs are greater than mine, I feel.'

Hechler turned away. The brief contact was broken. And why not? His own self-pity was a poor enough bridge to begin with.

He found Leitner on his armoured bridge, leaning with his arms spread wide on the plot-table.

Leitner glanced up, his neat hair glossy beneath the lights. 'All intelligence reports confirm my own thinking, Dieter. Tomorrow, we shall meet with the eastbound convoy. The British will know we are on the move. No matter, they will expect us to strike at the westbound one, to protect their friend Ivan's supplies, eh?' He nodded, satisfied. 'All working out. There are six U-boats in this area, and round-the-clock air patrols.' He stood up and clasped his hands at his sides. 'I can't
wait
to begin. Into the Atlantic, all that planning and von Hanke's preparations. God, it makes one feel quite humble!'

Hechler watched his emotion. It came and went like the wind. He thought of the reams of orders, the methods of fuelling, rendezvous, and alternatives. This would be a million times different from previous raiding sorties.

Leitner said, 'I know it is important to you, Dieter, the close comradeship amongst your people. I heard it in your broadcast this morning. Saw it on their faces. Just boys, some of them, but the older ones who can be so hard and cynical -' he gave an elaborate sigh you had them eating out of your hand.'

Hechler replied, 'Comradeship is everything.'

'I
knew
it.' Leitner looked down at his plot-table again. 'Your second-in-command. I had a private signal about him.'

'Viktor Theil?'

'His wife has gone missing.' He sounded almost matter-of-fact. 'Of course I'm certain it will be all right. After all, ration books, identity cards, a civilian can't just vanish, eh?'

Hechler recalled Theil's face, the way he had parried questions about his leave.

Leitner said softly, 'I know what you're thinking, Dieter.
Don't!
He is a good officer, I'm sure, but he
is
the second-in-command. Should anything happen to you, well . . .' He shrugged.

1 trust him, sir.'

Good. I shall remember it. But if he trips up on his mission, he goes, do I make myself clear?'

Hechler nodded. 'Very.'

I .eitner yawned. Pretty girl, that Franke woman, eh? I wonder il she's as good in bed as in the cockpit.'

Fortunately a telephone rang and the flag-lieutenant appeared again like magic to answer it.

Hechler returned to the bridge. He felt strangely disappointed to find she was no longer there. Theil had gone too. For that at least he was glad.

He climbed into his steel seat and listened to the deep throb of engines, the occasional clatter of a morse lamp as signals were exchanged between the ships. Tomorrow that would ail cease. He glanced over the screen at the same heavy guns. Moving targets, not rubble and houses, or a position on a range map.

He tried not to let Inger into his thoughts, to recall how she had looked, and shifted uneasily in the chair. He was getting rattled just when he needed every thought honed to a knife-edge. Tomorrow they would engage the enemy. Right now, at this very moment the convoy was being attacked by U-boats. Like sheepdogs gone mad who were driving the convoy on a converging course.

He thought of Theil, then of himself. Two deserted husbands. It was laughable when you considered it. Was that all it meant? Voices muttered in voice-pipes, while guns moved in their mountings as the faithful Condor droned past the formation yet again. No, it was anything but laughable. He gripped the arms of his seat. Men would die, cursing his name, ships would burn.

Wives and petty squabbles were as nothing.

The bows dipped and he saw his reflection in the smeared glass. No, that too was a lie.

I Ians Stoecker slammed yet another watertight door behind him and wedged the clips into place. Below the ship's waterline where one compartment was sealed from another the air felt cool and damp, the motion more pronounced. He passed the brightly lit door to the forward starshell room.

He had been carrying a message from the gunnery officer for one of the lieutenants but had purposely taken a roundabout route, and had parried not a few questions from sentries who guarded some of the vital bulkheads which in an emergency might prevent serious flooding. Stoecker glanced at the studded rivets and rough steel. It was best not to think of it, of those who might be trapped on the wrong side to face a terrible death by drowning.

He heard the familiar whistle and saw a grey-headed petty officer rummaging through a box of tools. Oskar Tripz was probably the oldest member of the ship's company. He had served in the Kaiser's navy, and when you got him going over a quiet glass of brandy or schnapps, would dwell with relish on the Battle of Jutland, and clashes with the Grand Fleet off the Dogger Bank. Even when he had quit the service he had been unable or unwilling to leave the sea and returned to it in the merchant marine and eventually in the famous Hamburg-Amerika Line. There again he could open the eyes of young sailors with his yarns of great liners, rich widows and randy passengers who chased the girls and sometimes the stewards with equal enthusiasm.

He was a rough, self-made seaman, and one of the gun-captains, despite his great age. great to younger men like Stoecker anyway. Stoecker was never bored by his stories of that other navy, another world, and was ever impressed by the man's knowledge of the sea. Tripz had even managed to teach himself at least three languages, with enough of some others to get him around in ports all over the world.