iron pirate (33 page)

On the bridge once more Hechler looked at the stars. Fainter now. He felt spray cutting his face, heard it pattering over the chart-table's canvas cover to make puddles in the scuppers.

A voice said, 'First-degree readiness, sir.'

The galley was shut; the cook and his assistants would be sent to help damage-control and the stretcher parties.

Hechler gripped the rail below the screen and stared into the darkness.

They should hold the advantage with the convoy framed against the dawn. The escort had not been identified, which meant that it was nothing important. They were holding that for the next leg. He looked at the stars. But that would be denied them.

'Port fifteen!' Hechler heard his order repeated, almost a whisper, lost in the clamour of fans, the great writhing bank of foam which surged down either side.

'Steady! Steer zero-four-zero!'

The bows plunged into a deeper trough than usual and the sea boiled up and over the forecastle as if a broadside had fallen silently alongside.

As the ship turned, the two big turrets below the bridge trained across the starboard bow. Without turning Hechler knew that the two after ones, Caesar and Dora, were also swinging round in unison, until all four guns were pointing on the same bearing, the long muzzles like wet glass as they steadied over the side and the great surge of spray.

The sea was still in darkness, so that the leaping crests looked like birds, swooping and falling to appear elsewhere in another guise.

'Admiral's on his bridge, sir.'

'Very well.' Hechler tightened the towel around his neck as more heavy spray burst over the screen and pattered against their oilskins.

Leitner had made a suitably timed entrance. Hechler thought of the girl. She had shown no fear, but being sealed below behind massive watertight doors would test anybody.

Somebody whispered and was instantly rebuked by a petty officer.

Hechler kept his binoculars sheltered beneath the oilskin until the last moment to keep them dry. But he had seen what the lookout had whispered to a companion.

A thin pale line, like polished pewter, cold and without colour. Dawn, or nearly so. Hechler thought suddenly of his father. How he had described his horizon of that other war. It had been first light on the parapet of his trench. That had been the full extent of his world in that horrifying arena in Flanders.

'Radar - bridge!'

They all tensed.

Then the speaker continued, Target in sight. Bearing Green Iour-five. Range twelve thousand!'

Hechler tugged his cap more firmly across his forehead. The peak was wet and like ice.

He stood up and let the spray dash over him as he peered towards the starboard bow.

They had found them. Now it was up to Kroll.

'Open fire!'

Bloodfor Blood

The paired explosions from the after-turrets were deafening, and with the wind thrusting across the starboard quarter, the downdraft of acrid smoke made several of the men duck their heads to contain their coughing fits.

Hechler held the binoculars on the bearing and watched the tiny pale feathers of spray as the shells fell on the horizon. Harmless, without menace, although he knew that each waterspout would rise to masthead level. The explosions sighed through the water and faded again.

The speaker said, 'Twelve ships in convoy, estimate three escorts.'

Froebe called from his bank of handsets, 'W/T office reports signals from enemy, sir.'

'Shoot!'
Kroll sounded quite different over the speaker, his words drowned by the immediate response from all four turrets.

Hechler watched the sky. After the previous days it looked threatening. There was cloud there too. He imagined signals beaming away to the enemy's supporting squadrons and to London.

He tensed; a bright flash lit up the horizon and several of the ships for the first time. They looked low and black, but in the spreading glow of fire he could just determine their course and speed.

The speaker again. 'Oneescort hit. Sinking.'

Hechler could picture the gunnery team's concentration on the radar screens. One tiny droplet of light falling out of station, dropping further and further astern of the fast tankers. It would vanish from the screens altogether.

The guns roared out again. Surely the tankers would scatter soon? He held his breath as a straddle of shells fell across one of the ships below the horizon. She was instantly ablaze, but it was made more terrible by distance as the fire seemed to spread down from the horizon, like blood brimming over a dam.

'Shoot!'

Hechler waited and winced as the eight big guns thundered out.

'Slow ahead!' He crossed the bridge and saw a signalman watching him, a handlamp at the ready.

‘Now!
The first Arado lifted from the shadows and circled quickly round and above the mastheads.

‘Shoot!

The whole bridge structure shook violently and Hechler had to repeat his order to the engine-room to resume full speed. He would launch the second plane if there was time.

Someone was yelling, 'Another hit! God, two of them are on fire!'

Hechler glanced round to silence the man, but all he saw was Leitner's second flag breaking out from the mainmast truck, the only patch of colour against the sky. It was raining more persistently now, but even that tasted of cordite. It was hard to believe this same sky had been full of stars.

Hechler moved across the bridge, half-listening to crackling static as the Arado pilot reported back to the ship.

It was a sea of fire. The great shells must have come ripping down out of the darkness without the slightest warning. He saw lazy balls of bright tracer rising from the sea and guessed that the Arado was already near the convoy. How slow it looked. How deceptive. He hoped the pilot had his wits about him.

'Convoy breaking up, sir! Kroll's voice cut through the murmur of orders and instructions behind him. It was as if the fire-control position, the pod, was alive and speaking of its own free will.

Kroll added, 'Two lines diverging, sir.'

Hechler lowered his glasses and wiped them with fresh tissue.

'Acknowledge.' He pictured the convoy; they would need no encouragement to break away.
We must close the range.

'Shootl

‘Cease firing!
It was Kroll but he sounded momentarily confused.

Hechler picked up the fire-control handset. 'Captain. What is it?'

Kroll must have been leaning away to study his radar; when he spoke he seemed angry, as if he no longer trusted what he saw.

'A ship turned end-on, sir. Rear of second line.'

'Wait!' Hechler pushed his way aft and into the tiny steel shack which had been added to the bridge to house a radar repeater alongside that of the sonar. He bent over the screen and as his eyes accustomed themselves to the flickering symbols he saw the complete picture as seen by
Prinz Luitpold's
invisible eye. The diverging ranks of ships, and then as the scanner swept over them, the motionless blobs of light, ships burning and dying in the spreading flames. Then he saw the isolated echo. A large one which had until now been mistaken for one of the tankers. But it was much bigger and was not standing away, but coming straight for the
Prinz.
Hechler had to force himself to walk back to the bridge.

'Can you identify it?'

Kroll sounded very wary. 'There are no major warships listed with the convoy.'

Hechler turned away. 'Carry on. Tell the conning-tower to alter course. Steer zero-six-zero!'

The bridge quaked again as the after guns bellowed out, their bright tongues lighting up the rain-soaked superstructure and funnel. A figure stood out in the flashes and Hechler heard Jaeger call, 'Captain, sir! Message from Arado pilot! The ship is a merchantman!' He hesitated, baffled. 'A liner!'

For an instant longer Hechler thought she might be a hospital ship, one which was trying to keep clear of the convoy, or which had been damaged and was out of control.

A figure in shining oilskins brushed Jaeger aside and Gudegast exclaimed, 'Steady on new course, sir. Zero-six-zero.' He clung to the safety rail, his body heaving from exertion.

Hechler said, 'Do you know what it is?'

Gudegast nodded jerkily. 'It was in the recognition despatches, sir. Oh, yes, I know her all right! He ducked as the guns fired again. Flashes rippled along the horizon. Kroll was ignoring the solitary ship in case the heavy tankers might escape.

Gudegast stared at him, his eyes wild in the reflections. 'She's the old
Tasmania.
Used to come up against her when she did the Scandinavian cruises in the thirties.' He pounded his fist on the rail and shouted, 'They've made her an Armed Merchant Cruiser, for Christ's sake!'

Hechler snatched up the handset. 'Gunnery Officer! Shift target to the big liner - she's the
Tasmania,
armed merchant cruiser!'

'Immediately, sir.'

Gudegast was staring at him. 'She won't stand a chance! You know what they're like! No plating at all and just a few guns from the Great War!'

Hechler called, 'Warn the secondary armament, then call up the Arado.'

He swung on Gudegast and said, 'Have you forgotten the other AMCs, man?
Jervis Bay,
an old cargo liner, but she held off
Admiral Scheer
nonetheless! An old merchantman too, set against a battleship! She was sunk, she knew it was hopeless when she turned to face the
Scheer,
but by God, her sacrifice saved her convoy, and
don't you ever forget it!'

He turned back to the screen as the four forward guns edged round, paused and then fired in unison.

The sky was brightening, although with all the smoky rain it seemed to have taken them by surprise. Hechler watched the exploding shells, the ice-bright columns of water. Then he saw the oncoming ship. In her dull paint she still looked huge, with her three tall funnels overlapping as she turned still more to steer towards the heavy cruiser. The next salvo fell right across her path, and for an instant, Hechler thought she had been hit.

Jaeger called thickly, 'She mounts eight-inch guns, sir!'

It was ironic. The same armament as the
Prinz,
in size and numbers only.

'Speed?'

Jaeger replied, 'Twenty-eight knots maximum, sir.' He faltered as the after turrets fired, paint flaking down from the upper bridge fittings because of the blast. 'In peacetime/

Hechler stared at her dull shadow while he wiped his glasses again. They were on a converging course, approaching each other at the combined speed of some sixty miles an hour. Old she might be, and to all intents she could not survive, but just one lucky shot was all it took to delay them, while the convoy clapped on speed to escape. Spectators would remember this day if they were fortunate enough to survive.

‘ShootV

A
straddle. The liner was hidden by falling spray, and at least one shell had smashed into her unarmoured side and exploded deep inside the hull. It was like a glowing red eye.

Hechler heard Jaeger shout, 'That should stop her!'

Gudegast seized his arm. Take a good look,
boy!'

Jaeger stared with disbelief. 'She's hoisting flags to each mast!'

Gudegast stared past him at Hechler's shoulders, shining in the grey light as the rain bounced down on them.

They're
battle ensigns
They sent the poor old girl to fight, and by God she's about to!'

'
Shoot!'

It was a controlled broadside from all four turrets, the heavy shells straddling the tall hull, and blasting one of the outmoded, stately funnels overboard, like paper in a wind.

Jaeger gripped the chart-table as it tried to shake itself from his fingers. He wanted to screw up his eyes as a great scream of shellfire shrieked over the bridge and exploded in the sea, far abeam.

He wrote in the log. 'The enemy opened fire at -' The rest was a blur.

Hechler turned to watch the falling spray. 'Tell our pilot to take a fly over that ship. He might get a lucky hit.'

He did not let himself blink as two flashes lit up the liner's side. Her armament was divided out of necessity. At most she could train only three or four guns at a time.

He bit his lip as Kroll's next salvo erupted on her waterline. Smoke and fire seemed to roll across the waves, and he guessed that one shell had burst deep inside her.

But she was firing back, the old guns sounding strangely hollow when compared with the
Prinz s.

A messenger handed him a telephone, his face ashen as a shell screamed past the bridge.

It was Leitner. 'What is the matter with your gun crews!' He was almost screaming.
‘Kill them! Stop that ship!'

Hechler handed the phone to the seaman and watched a livid flash fan out from beneath the liner's bridge. A mast was falling, but the white battle ensigns still seemed to shine through the rain, and her bow-wave was as before.

Froebe shouted, 'She's on fire aft, sir! What's holding her together?'

Hechler let his glasses fall to his chest. The range was dropping rapidly so that she seemed to tower over the sea like a leviathan.

He said, 'I shall have to turn to port. It will give our spotters a chance.' It would also expose the whole broadside to the enemy, but speed was essential now. It was all they had.

'She's slowing down!' A man's cheer was cut short as the liner's

two most forward guns fired together. It was all confused, and even the thundering crash of the explosion was muffled.

Half-deafened by the shell-burst Hechler dragged himself along the rail to the starboard side. A man was screaming, his face cut to ribbons, and Hechler saw that most of the glass screen had been fragmented by the burst. There was a lot of smoke, and he could smell the stench of burning paintwork and cordite.

'Steady on zero-six-zero, sir!' The voice-pipe from the wheel-house was unattended and Hechler saw a petty officer lying dead against the flag lockers. There was not a mark on him, but his contorted face told its own story. Hechler thrust a man into his place.