Rogue Raider (11 page)

Lauterbach looked up and bit his lip. Ah yes. Another thing. That reminded him. He must get that damned flag back from Number Two Washboy, chop – bloody – chop.

The Cocos Keeling Islands only existed as a series of accumulated mistakes and misunderstandings in history. They lay well off the northwest coast of Australia in an otherwise determinedly blank, blue bit of the chart. In the early 19th century, an extraordinary and uxorious follower of Stamford Raffles, Alexander Hare, had used the coral atoll to dump his large polychrome collection of ladies and children before being – almost certainly – murdered by his own business partner. Over the years, the people had attuned themselves to the realities of an enforced servitude to the rapacious trading company that ran the plantations. Previously, the British had assumed overall responsibility for the place by mistake, having despatched a naval lieutenant to plant their flag on the
other
Cocos Islands strategically located off the coast of Siam. Afterwards, they were too embarrassed to admit their confusion and repudiate such a pointless and isolated possession of sand and rock. Yet, out of this mix of arrogance and error had emerged an unlikely convenience, for the Cocos Keeling Islands were the junction point of the undersea communication cables that held the whole British empire together – one to Mauritius, one to the Dutch East Indies and a third to Australia, the lot topped off with a powerful radio station central to the co-ordination of allied shipping.

Another coaling from the
Buresk
brought them to the Cocos where they were to meet the
Exford
, a captive British collier. From radio, they were comically amused to learn that the might of Portugal had declared war on them. Only Franz Josef was concerned at this development. After all, the Queen of Portugal was his sister.

“Mr Lauterbach, “ whispered von Mueller, sipping tea. “I have a special favour to ask of you. I imagine you know what it is?” The captain looked terrible. He had lost weight. Dark circles ringed his haggard eyes and the cheekbones were of almost oriental prominence. He had not left the bridge for days and half the shades were pulled down against a beating sun. No wonder the foreign Press liked to speak of him as Germany's Flying Dutchman. A favour? Oh no. He knew at once. A suicidal attack on the British radio station. Even the British would not be so arrogant and stupid as to leave such a vital installation undefended. God knew how many troops they would have garrisoned there, dug in, well-armed, snug behind their machine guns, concrete bunkers and mines, aiming at a nice, big target like Lauterbach.

“No idea, sir.” He stood to attention, face locked.

“I have it in my mind that there is to be a real fight here and I know you are a man of determination and initiative and it is precisely for these qualities that I wish to ask of you the ultimate sacrifice.”

“Sir.” Suicide it was, then. He began to sweat. What should he do? Fall over the side and break a leg. No, shoot himself in the foot while handling unaccustomed weapons of land offence. Christ! That would hurt. With Schwabe as doctor, he could easily lose a leg. With gangrene in this climate he could die. Food poisoning, then He had some tincture of cloves in his cabin. Drink the whole bottle and he would go down with the runs and a fever. No. Best try half a bottle first, the other half he could do with acting.

“I have to ask you to leave the
Emden
for a civilian vessel, the
Exford.
You are aware how completely we are dependent on her coal out here in this part of the world. I need a man I can trust absolutely to survive, in command of that vessel, a man with the full
weight
of a captain's experience and used to handling a Chinese crew. I know you are good with Chinese.”

Lauterbach exhaled in relief then seemed to catch something in the captain's eye. Just what did he know? You always thought von Mueller knew everything, could look straight into your soul. Those eyes were mesmerising. Speech was always the most cumbrous and imprecise form of communication.

“Sir.”

“You will take her to a rendezvous off Socotra and wait until the end of November. If at the end of that time we do not appear, then it will mean … you are to surrender yourself at a Dutch port for internment.” It began to sink in.

“You mean, sir, I'm going to miss the whole show?” He couldn't believe it. He was being sentenced to life. He stifled a laugh.

“I'm afraid so.” Von Mueller looked suddenly stern and irritated. “This is war Mr Lauterbach. We must all make sacrifices,” he murmered almost angrily. The tea trembled in his hand. Miniature waves crashed into the saucer. “Sail as soon as possible.” He turned away, back to his world of paper. The interview was over. Lauterbach was to go to the far end of the Indian Ocean and sail in peaceful circles and keep safe for the glory of the Fatherland.

“Sir.” He would have to move fast to get his comfy chairs aboard before they sailed.

To land from the sea on a tropical island is to repeat a primordial act of discovery. An island is a perfect world, complete in itself. It bears within it the theoretical possibility that, here, the laws of the universe are simply different, that they are benign and that innocent peace and enjoyment are the sum total of human experience. Diego Garcia had been the proof of it. Direction Island, in the Cocos-Keeling group, was to be the refutation.

The
Emden
had depended on luck and now that stock of luck was exhausted. It began badly. There was a large convoy of troopships on the way to Europe bringing men, horses and supplies from New Zealand to be shovelled into the great military furnace that was the Western front. A cargo of such vulnerability and strategic value required a warship escort and the British, Australian and Japanese navies had pooled resources to supply it. The
Emden
had monitored their coded Morse traffic all day. A skilled listener could tell a Marconi from a Telefunken transmitter, a military from a civilian operator and the strength of the signal could be used to estimate distance. The little ship operated in the knowledge that the allied fleet was a good 250 miles away, at the very least ten hours' steaming. They did not know that HMS
Sydney
, faster and more heavily armoured and gunned than themselves, was a mere two hours distant and using its faulty radio transmitter at reduced power.

A squad of fifty men was mustered, drawn from the most experienced sailors. This land outing was regarded, after all, as something of a treat for old sweats, a relief from incarceration in a small vessel, a bit of a jaunt. The four machineguns were dug out and assembled. All the gunlayers were included in the landing party, making the ship particularly vulnerable during their absence An assault at night was judged too dangerous, given the rocks, but at first light, the ship manoeuvred into the harbour entrance, dropped anchor and released the boats. Since the weather was so calm, it was an opportunity, not to be missed, for coaling. The
Buresk
was summoned by radio from over the horizon, bringing a puzzled enquiry from Direction Island as to who was transmitting. Then the operator turned and looked out of his window and saw the great, white cruiser, lying still in the water with its guns pointing at him.

They could not believe that the station was completely undefended. Every shadow under the palm trees was a machinegun nest, every coconut lying on the sand a potential mine. But totally undefended is what it was. Nevertheless, while the Germans were planning and executing the military assault of the tranquil beach, the British operator had time to identify the
Emden
and transmit a cry for help to the world both by wireless and cable. They might have prevented this by shelling the installation from the sea but von Mueller had forbidden an unannounced attack on a civilian installation as ungentlemanly behaviour.

“The
Emden
is here! The
Emden
is …” And then the Germans really
were
there.

Von Muecke was sadly deprived of the hoped-for swashbuckling and derring-do. There was no passionate charge ashore under a hail of fire. The steam launch pulled the boats quietly into the lagoon and they tied up at the jetty as on a municipal boating pond. The thirty-odd Brits shrugged on their kit and wandered down in canvas shoes, pipes gripped in their teeth, smiling and waving. They simply refused to behave like enemies being invaded by superior forces.

“Hallo, there. You don't mind if I take a quick snap do you? Hold it. Oh do smile. Thanks awfully.”

“That machinegun looks frightfully heavy, can I give you a hand with it ashore? Would it help if I held the boat for you while you climb out? Careful now. Never do to fall in, not with Cecil and his camera there.”

Some sort of manager stepped forward, hand outstretched for shaking. He had a beard tended with the care some would have devoted to a flower border. “Welcome ashore. Lovely weather, isn't it? We've been sort of expecting you. Oh by the way congratulations.”

Von Muecke was nonplussed. The men had their rifles waving about at nothing in particular or pointed at the ground. They were standing around not knowing what to do when they should be flat on their stomachs taking resolute aim. There could be snipers in those trees. One or two were accepting a drink of water. It could be poisoned.

“What? Who?” He looked around wildly. “Congratulations for what?”

“Your Iron Cross. Came over the blower yesterday. All you chaps on the
Emden
have been awarded the Iron Cross by Kaiser Bill. Oh, sorry, where are my manners? I'm Farrant, Head of Station.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “Not that we stand on ceremony much round here. All the chaps sort of just muck in, don't yer know.”

Von Muecke shook his head to dispel this terrible matiness, stood to attention and started screaming in German.

“This station is now under the occupation of His Imperial Majesty's forces and subject to military discipline …” He paused. “What class was the Iron Cross? One or Two?”

“Sorry, old man. Haven't a clue.”

Von Muecke started screaming again. “Any disobedience to my instructions will be punishable by summary execution in accordance with military regulations …”

“Jolly good,” said Farrant. “Will you come inside? Have you had breakfast, by the way?”

“All firearms are to be immediately surrendered to His Imperial Majesty's forces. All foreign aliens will assemble in the square. Failure to comply at once with these orders will be counted an offence against military discip—”

“Do excuse my interrupting,” said a bony man in round glasses. “Most of the fellows here don't speak German, you see. Would it help if I lent a hand and tried to translate a bit? I did some German at school. Now. We' ve got a few shotguns for keeping the animals in order – monkeys and squirrels and so on. Would you like us to go and get the old guns scattered about the place first, or would it be best if we all turned up at the square so we can be properly introduced? What do you think?”

Von Muecke was hot and flustered. This was not going at all the way he had intended. He felt panic rise in his throat and switched to English.

“You will forthwith surrender all keys to strategic installations. Demolition will commence immediately. Failure to comply at once with these orders will be counted an offence against …”

“Righty-ho. Be back with the keys in a jiffy, then.” Farrant wandered slowly off.

Von Muecke began shouting orders at his men, telling off a detail to demolish the radio mast, another to set charges in an old schooner down by the jetty, leading a third, himself, to the offices where they seized fire-axes and set about the furniture, the Morse equipment and anything else with wires coming out of it. Last they turned over the huge jars of printer's ink.

“Oh, I say, couldn't they do that outside? Frightful mess.” Farrant mouthed distaste, having returned with the keys, redundant now, because any locked doors had been booted in in best soldierly fashion. They seized all papers and bagged them for transport to the ship. Von Mueller liked papers. Then they moved on to the outhouses, smashed generators, switchgear, the maze of condensors and transformers, gratuitously poked in the glass at the windows with their rifle butts. One steel door remained locked. It would take explosives to shift it. A Chinese voice called indignantly from inside.

“You fluck off. No belong lectic. Belong makee ice.”

Farrant was there, square-mouthed in apology. “How terribly awkward. Our technician. He's right I'm afraid. Very proud of his ice-plant. Built it himself from a sketch plan in an encyclopedia. Frightfully clever fellow. Could you possibly …?”

They moved on to the radio mast, surrounded by crouching sailors in pith helmets, where no progress seemed to have been made. This was all taking much longer than had been allowed for. The first detonation had achieved nothing at all. The mast was unmoved. They had set new charges but the structure was deep-rooted in the coral rock to withstand typhoons. It swayed a little but still stood proud.

“Ah yes,” said Farrant. “Our Chinese technician again. He drilled right down into bedrock. Frightfully clever fellow. I wonder, if I might make a suggestion. Just over there,” he pointed with wet pipestem, “Is the tennis court, you see. We're a bit short of level ground round here so that's just about the only place on the island we can put it. If we put it on the beach the bounce is no good and we lose too many balls and it's quite a hike to a tennis ball shop, as you can imagine. Now, if you make the mast fall towards the court, it'll be a frightful bore. We're half way through the club tournament.” He leant forward confidingly. “Now some – no names, no pack drill – might argue that the change of surface would invalidate the previous rounds, you see. Might have to start the whole tournament over from the beginning and frankly I've been doing rather well this year. We should be most awfully obliged if you could topple it the other way into the undergrowth there. Then things would be just tickety-boo”