iron pirate (27 page)

Hechler was only half aware that she had called him by name, that for just a few seconds her fingers had rested on his wrist.

She added, 1 have never met anybody like you.' She withdrew her hand and shrugged. 'Will you make me say it? Would you despise me if I told you?'

He looked at her. The figures around the bridge seeming to mist over like moisture on metal fittings.

He heard himself say, 'I will not make you. Let me say it, no matter what the rights and wrongs are.'

She said, 'We can decide.'

Yes.' He looked away, afraid she would change her mind because of his inability to find the words. '1 want you.' It sounded so flat, so crude that he looked at her, expecting to see anger, or contempt. He was shocked by the happiness in her eyes, a new brightness there like the moment in his quarters.

She whispered, 'It's all 1 needed to hear. I've known there was something, I think from the beginning.' She shook her head as if she barely believed it. 'We must talk.'

Jaeger said, 'W/T office, sir.' He held out the telephone, his eyes on the girl.

'Captain?'

It was Theil. 'It was just some Brazilian radio station, sir.' He sounded petulant, as if he thought a junior officer could have been sent to deal with it.

Hechler looked at the horizon. The light was strengthening ail the time. He tried to picture it in his mind. One hundred miles to the Cable and Wireless outpost. They should have arrived by now. Give them another five minutes, then full speed ahead. The
I’rinz
would be there in three hours. By that time - he glanced at the chair but it was empty. He looked at Jaeger who said, 'She went below, sir.' He sounded very calm, but his young face asked
.1
million questions. Something to tell his hero father about, if I hey ever got home again.

He heard Theil, humming quietly in his ear. A nervous sound.

I lechler said, 'Never mind, Viktor. Check it through. You might glean something, eh?' He put the telephone in Jaeger's hand. 'Ask I he navigating officer to come here.' He smiled, glad of something l<> distract him as he saw Gudegast already present, stripping off (he canvas cover from the ready-use chart-table after a quick glance at the clear sky.

'What do you think?'

Gudegast stuck out his lower lip so that his untidy beard sprouted over his uniform, mottled with grey like frost on a bush.

'Now, sir.'

Hechler nodded. The W/T office would have picked up any alarm call from the island if the mission had gone rotten on them. There was always the chance of course that the two pilots had lost their way. He saw Gudegast’s expression and knew it was less lhan likely.

Take over. Full speed. Warn radar, and tell the Gunnery Officer to muster his landing party.'

Hechler would not be able to step ashore. Nothing was safe any more. But it would have been like a release to tread on firm ground again. With her. Her fingers inside his. Just a few moments of make-believe. He had said it to her.
I want you.
He examined his feelings, and the words seemed stronger than ever. It was true. He climbed into the chair. She had been loved, perhaps even married. He took another glance at his thoughts. Nothing changed. It was not a dream after all.

Theil watched the stooped shoulders of the radio operators, and listened to the endless murmur of morse and static over the speakers. The junior officer in charge, Leutnant zur See Ziegler, stared at him anxiously and said, 'I am not certain, sir. My superior has left no instructions -'

Theil glared. 'I'll deal with it!' He gripped the handle of Leutnant Bauer's private office and then rattled it angrily.

Ziegler stammered, 'It's locked, sir.'

'I can see that, you dolt!' He knew he was being unreasonable, but somehow he could not contain it. Perhaps seeing Hechler with that girl had done it. He was married. What was he thinking of?

'Give me the key!'

The young one-striper wrenched open a desk and handed it to him. Theil saw that it had a red tag on it. To be used only in a final emergency. He ground his teeth. It was unlikely that anyone would bother about colour tags with a ship on her last nose-dive to the bottom.

He slammed the door behind him and slumped down in Bauer's chair. It was curious that he had never set foot in here since the ship had been handed over by the builders. A secret place. A nerve centre.

He was growing calmer again and took several deep breaths.

There was a framed photograph of a young naval officer on the desk. Theil picked it up and grunted. It was Bauer himself. Typical of the man. He thought of Stroheim's outburst in the wardroom, the stares of the other officers while he shot his mouth off about some enemy propaganda. Naturally the British would claim all sorts of victories for themselves and their allies. They would hope for fools like Stroheim to listen in and spread the poison.

There was another key on the tag, a much smaller one.

Theil listened to the busy radio-room beyond the door. Back to normal, each man thinking of the one-striper's embarrassment when he had been told off. Serve him right, he thought savagely. We all went through it - he pushed the key into a steel drawer and held his breath as it clicked open.

He was the second-in-command. In battle he stayed with damage-control, whereas Hechler usually stood firm on the open bridge and disdained the massive armour plate of the conning-tower. Theil had thought about it often. He guessed that many officers in his position would consider the very real possibility of stepping into a dead man's shoes.

Even Leitner might fall in battle. Theil suddenly saw himself returning to his home in Schleswig-Holstein, to be decorated by the Leader.

His hand faltered on a pale pink folder with the eagle crest and stamp of naval intelligence emblazoned on the cover. He flicked it open and felt his heart stop. His own name was at the top. Serial number, rank, date of commission, everything. There was his original photograph when he had joined this ship. His fingers felt numb, unable to turn the page. He wanted to lock the drawer, leave now, and to hell with the Brazilian broadcast. There was a freshly typed signal flimsy under the first page. His eyes blurred as he scanned the bottom first where Leitner's signature had been counter-signed by Bauer.

The name at the top was Britta's. Apart from a file reference there was little else except for the line which stood out like fire.
No further action by naval intelligence. Subject arrested by gestapo.

Theil did not remember locking the desk drawer, or even groping his way from the office.

The young officer snapped to attention and said, 'Nothing more from that station, sir. I -' He stared after Theil as he blundered past him and out of the W/T room.

Theil fought his way to the upper deck and clung to the safety rail by a watertight door for several minutes.

Britta arrested? It could not be. For an instant he was tempted to rush back there and read the file again. But it was true. It had to be.

Britta arrested. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut to find her face as he had last seen her. But all he could see was the empty house and dead flowers, the neighbours watching behind their curtains, the doctor's calculated advice.

He wanted to scream it out aloud. They all knew, must have done. Leitner, and that crawling Bauer. He thought of Hechler, his mind reeling like a trapped animal. He would know too, had probably been told weeks ago.

He allowed his mind to rest on the Gestapo. He had always avoided contact with them like most people. Secrecy had not always worked, and he had ignored that too.

But he had heard things. Torture, brutality for the sake of it. He thought of her face, her pleading eyes, the bruise on her body after she had tried to find out about her parents.

Gestapo.
It was not just a word any more. It was death.

The ship began to shake and quiver around him and he knew they were increasing speed towards the tiny islet.

What should he do or say?

He turned his face this way and that, clinging to the rail as if he might otherwise fall.

Britta was dead, or was she even now screaming out her pleas to her torturers?

'No!' His one cry was torn from him, but rebounded against the iron plate as if it too was trapped and in agony.

'Auf Wiedersehen
. . .'

Oberleutnant Hans Bauer strode down the steep, rocky slope and stared at the two float-planes as they lifted and swayed in the swell. They were safe enough, moored with their small anchors, and each with its pilot aboard in case the sea should get up.

Bauer stood with his feet planted apart, his fine black boots setting off his uniform to perfection. The heavy pistol at his waist, like the silk scarf thrown casually around his throat, gave him a dramatic appearance, or so he believed. He had enjoyed every moment of it, the culmination of surprise and excitement when the two rubber dinghies had been paddled furiously ashore ,md his men rounded up their prisoners.

It had gone almost perfectly, but for one unexpected development. There had been two extra people at the radio station. He now knew they were mechanics who had been left here for some maintenance work.

Bauer considered what he would say to the rear-admiral.

Leitner would give him the praise he was due for his quick thinking. He shaded his eyes to watch the cruiser's shortened silhouette as she headed towards the small islet, only her bow-wave revealing the speed she was making through the water. After she had lopped the hard horizon line in the early light she had seemed to take an age to gather size and familiarity, he thought. He went over the landing, the exhilaration giving way to sudden alarm as the two additional men had appeared. Yes, Leitner would be pleased. He frowned. He was not so sure about the captain.

He turned, his boots squeaking on the rough ground, and surveyed the desolated station. A long, curved corrugated building which the British called a Nissen hut, and two radio masts, one small, the other very high and delicate. It was a wonder it could withstand the gales.

He saw two of his men, their Schmeissers crooked in their arms, and congratulated himself on his choice. Hand-picked, and all good Party members. It was right that they should profit by this small but obviously vital operation.

Closer to the building lay a corpse, covered by a sheet which was pinned down by heavy rocks.

One of the visiting mechanics. He had seen the landing party, and had turned, blundering through his astonished companions, and run towards the building. To send a message, a warning, or to sabotage the equipment, Bauer did not know even now.

He remembered his own feeling as the heavy Luger had leaped in his grip, the man spinning round, his eyes wide with horror as he had rolled down the slope kicking and choking. The second bullet had finished all movement. After that, the others had crowded together, shocked and frightened, seeing only the levelled guns, the sprawled body of the dead man.

Bauer had told them to obey each order without hesitation, and after the building had been thoroughly searched, the radio transmitter checked for demolition charges, they had been locked in a storeroom and left under guard.

Bauer adjusted his cap at a more rakish angle, rather as the rear-admiral wore his. Such a fine officer, an example to them all.

He saw the petty officer, a grim-faced man called Maleg, coming down the slope, two grenades bouncing on his hip. He was not one of Bauer's choice for the raid. He thought of Theil who had detailed the man for the operation. Bauer was suddenly grateful he had never cultivated Theil as anything more than a superior officer. He had had everything within his grasp, and had been stupid, instead of taking full advantage of his position. He owed everything to the Fatherland, everything. How could such a man become involved with a subversive, a traitor? He should have known his own wife better than anyone. He sighed. Instead -

The petty officer saluted. 'About the burial, sir?'

Bauer eyed him coldly. The prisoners will do it. It should dampen anyone else's foolishness!'

Maleg stared past him at the distant cruiser. They had found no weapons, no demolition charges either. Even the prisoners were harmless civilians. It was all the lieutenant's fault, but any after-math would be shared amongst them. Bauer had enjoyed killing the man, he decided. Given half a chance he would have gunned down all the rest. Maleg knew about officers like Bauer. Why had he been the one to get saddled with him?

I.ater as the prisoners stabbed at the rocky ground with picks and spades, Bauer entered the makeshift radio station and looked with disdain at the garish pictures on the walls, the nudes and the big-breasted girls in next to nothing. Decadent. How could they have hoped to win the war, even with the Yanks as allies?

He pictured his family home in Dresden, the paintings of his ancestors, proud, decorated officers. A heritage which was a constant reminder of his own role and his promising future. Leitner had promised him an immediate promotion with an appointment to the naval staff as soon as they returned to a safe harbour. Bauer was not so blind that he did not know about the rear-admiral's relationship with Theissen, his flag-lieutenant, but nothing could mar his qualities as a leader and an inspiration.

Maleg watched him and was glad that the ship was getting nearer. The
Prinz
was something he could understand and work in. He had good comrades in the petty officers' mess. He sniffed at the aroma of fresh coffee from the hut's spindly chimney. It was quite amazing. They had proper coffee and piles of tinned food which he had almost forgotten. He would take some back with him to the mess, he thought. He tried not to dwell on an old newspaper called
Daily Mail
he had found in the sleeping quarters. He could read English fairly well, but even if he had not been able to, the war maps and photographs with their screaming headlines would have told him anyway. The Allies were said to be through France and Belgium, and the only German resistance was in isolated pockets in Brittany and the Pas de Calais. The sites of the rockets and flying-bombs, the much-vaunted secret weapons, were said to be overrun, their menace removed for all time. It could not all be true. There was mention of some 400,000 German troops being taken prisoner. That could not be accurate, surely?