Rogue Raider (6 page)

Lauterbach scrambled for the armoured bridge. At all costs the open decks must be avoided in a battle. Anyone out there would be shredded in seconds. The men rushed to their posts as the two ships, like knights at a jousting, charged either side of a low-lying spit of land, furiously scanning each other with glasses. Battleflags were hoisted. Full speed ahead was rung up. As the men stood in their asbestos gloves, waiting for the order to open fire, the flags were recognised. It was the
Tromp
, a warship of neutral Holland. Speed clanged to dead slow, the flags were hauled down, the guns were pointed straight over the bows and the stiff minuet of internaval courtesies began again. Lauterbach sweated and trembled with relief. Von Muecke cursed. “Infernal bad luck. Thought we had a scrap on at last.”

As master of the smaller ship, etiquette decreed that von Mueller had to pay a call on the Dutchman. Boys Two, Three and Four hastily preened and pressed dress uniforms for the captain and the crew of the steam launch while the men scrubbed down the grimy ship's boat out of sight.

Salutes, piping aboard, a glass of beer in the wardroom. Mynheer must know he was in Dutch waters. It was not permitted for belligerents to be in Dutch waters for more than twenty-four hours every three months for purposes of coaling and repairs. A German supply ship had been detected lurking here in Dutch waters for an excessively long period and been ordered to leave. Mynheer must know that a longer period risked compromising Dutch neutrality and involved the sanction of internment. Von Mueller politely withdrew and the
Tromp
escorted them to the three-mile limit. More extravagant salutes, courtly farewells. And don't come back. Von Muecke raged against Hollander pusillanimity, rooted no doubt in English perfidy. Lauterbach saw things more simply.

“The Dutch have no choice but to be neutral, Number One. Theirs is a country where, if you dig a trench, it fills with water and becomes another damned canal.”

That night in the listless heat of the wardroom, as they forked greasy corned beef fritters and grey rice around their plates, von Muecke seemed preoccupied. They still dined, with cruel mockery, off rather fine monogrammed china, linen cloth, with a silver cruet set in the middle of the table. Lauterbach had a little something tucked away in his cabin he could eat later but he had his eye on that slice of beef untouched on von Guerard's plate. Von Mueller would be in his deckchair, above them, sipping soup. Finally, von Muecke made a face and pushed the food away with decision.

“Did you know, Lauterbach, that I am musical?” What was this? Was he going to do the “Lauterbach” song? Were they to clear the table so that he could leap upon it and hammer out a hornpipe? It might be a trap. Lauterbach looked into the ice-blue eyes and hedged.

“No, Number One, I did not. And what form does this musicality take?”

“Oh,” he smirked self-deprecatingly and flutterd thin, blue-veined hands. “Piano, flute, a little bit on the trumpet.” The trumpet? Von Muecke? Surely not. A piccolo man if ever there was one, just as he himself was destined, in any band, to parp and wheeze on the tuba.

“In my student days, I was most attracted by the romance of the theatre.” Lauterbach was appalled. Von Muecke a star-struck thespian? Young von Guerard winked wickedly, his generous smile plucking any sting from his words.

“We should have a concert party. Number One, you can play the organ and you, Juli-bumm, can put on a bear suit and dance.” Cheers, laughter. Incongruously, in the midst of this tropical sea, miles from land, the sound of sheep bleating blew in the porthole. What enchantment was this? Of course. It was the
Markomannia
, following their stern light too close. Aboard, she still had two pigs, six cattle and a few well-travelled sheep. Converted into roast joints and sausage, they had begun to play a role in the men's dreams. Dr Schwabe there, a follower of the latest psychological fashions, was becoming interested in the subject. Professor Freud was, after all, an Austrian, therefore a sort of ally.

“My principal concern, naturally, was less with acting than with directing others.” Yes, thought Lauterbach, he could see that. Von Mueke with his pointer and wall charts … “and an important part of this was to agree the scenery with the painters, some of them quite talented men but in need of guidance, an overall vision, you understand. They were to produce the large painted backcloths – what we in the theatre,” he blushed, a real insider now, “would call ‘the flats.'” He cleared his throat. Except for long political tirades against the British, this was the longest speech Lauterbach had ever heard him make. “Now, von Guerard. You remarked this evening that you had picked up a Dutch wireless message that mentioned a four-funnelled British destroyer in the Sunda Strait.” Von Guerard nodded, intrigued. “Our principle defining feature, when seen in silhouette,” he turned sideways on, “is our possession of three funnels – not two or four like the British and French – but three. So why do we not rig a fake fourth funnel of canvas – a flat – to confuse the enemy?” Cries of “Brilliant,” “Well done Number One.”

The blue eyes turned to stare at Lauterbach who was pursing his lips. “You do not,” he challenged icily, “like the idea?”

“Oh it's not that, Number One. It's an excellent suggestion.” God knows, he would vote for anything that would avoid their being blown out of the water a little bit longer. “God knows, the British papers always claim we hide behind a fake British flag anyway. But what about the old man – I mean the captain? He can be – well – a bit of a stickler in matters of honour. We'd be mutton dressed up as lamb. He wouldn't like that at all.”

Von Muecke considered. “But the
Markomannia
sails under false colours.”

“She is not – strictly speaking – a vessel of war. Anyway, she was already that way when assigned to us.”

“True.” He got to his feet, put on his cap. It had a smear of the still undried green paint on it. “I will just go and ask him, then.” They were speechless. It was like suggesting one should just nip up and ask God for a clarification after an argument over the mystery of the Trinity. Lauterbach noted with distaste von Muecke's athletic, feline step towards the door, the mark of a man with an excess of energy.

When he was gone, they had another round of beers drunk in shocked silence – small, parsimonial bottles, not the elaborate, foaming steins of shoreleave.

“He won't go for it,” opined Franz Josef breaking the silence and pushing a pile of ten silver dollars across the table. There was an explosion of bets and counterbets. “You hold the pot Juli-bumm.”

“It is not seemly to gamble on the ethics of war,” he grinned piously. Howls of derision, lip-farts. He gathered the money in his hat and stowed it, out of sight, on his fat knees under the tablecloth then reached across and forked von Muecke's left-overs into his mouth.

Von Muecke returned, frowned, sat down. Frustrated thespian that he was, he knew how to work an audience. Silence tautened. Finally someone spoke.

“Well …?”

He broke out in a broad grin and threw himself back in his chair. “He said it was a great idea. The treacherous British always talk about their great sense of humour. It would be,“ he explained earnestly, “a sort of English joke.”

What sounded like a squeal of laughter floated in across the waves, one of the pigs aboard the
Markomannia.
“Must have flown into something,” thought Lauterbach, astonished and belched. That last slice of bully beef had been very nasty.

They sailed through the narrow straits between Bali and Lombok, in four-funnel disguise, heading south of Java and Sumatra with the
Markomannia
a safe distance behind. The churning, crowded water and its many prying eyes were the greatest danger they would face in this part of the world. The endless, undisciplined chatter of the British over the radio gave away another of their warships following a similar course at similar speed that they might otherwise have fallen foul of. They coaled once more in Dutch waters and again were caught and ordered to leave. The Dutch official, observing strict neutrality, neither declared their own identity over the radio nor revealed that they had passed within 30 miles of HMS
Hampshire
and certain annihilation. And there were final additions to the crew. The ship's cat gave birth to five kittens.

They had been at war for some two months already and achieved virtually nothing. But now the whole of the Indian Ocean and its rich sea lanes suddenly lay open to them. No one even suspected they were there.

Chapter Three

There is nothing so romantic as the stern light of a ship on a moonless night, bobbing on an ink-black sea. Even better when the whole side of a ship is carelessly lit up like a Christmas tree, with copious coils of smoke belching back from a single funnel. But romance was not on their minds. They were sharks. This was prey. The
Emden
leapt forward, slicing through the water. Real action stations at last. Lauterbach sighed in the tiny cabin and pulled on his boots, tottered as she cut speed again and crept close to fire off two blanks. “Stop engines. Don't use wireless.” The other ship, shocked, stopped dead in the water. Lauterbach was already on the ladder over the side, ready to board, a torch gripped, for want of a cutlass, between his teeth.

Proximity banished romance still further. She was a small vessel, low in the water, her own good thick ladder on the side, thank God. He examined her papers, ignoring the phlegmatic captain who smelled of garlic and chewed melon seeds, spitting out the shells onto the filthy deck and shouting occasionally to no one in particular, “Greek. Neutral.
Pontoporos.
Greek.” Wait, what was this? Yes, she was Greek but had been chartered by the British Government to carry 6,000 tons of Bengal coal. That coal was fair game, could be called contraband, and badly needed for the boilers. But if the ship itself were sunk, the German government would receive a hefty bill for it and von Mueller would be furious. A dilemma. Never mind. Lauterbach he fixee.

“Captain,” he said, slipping an arm matily around the chubby, doubtless hairy, shoulders. “I think, as men of the world, as fellow members of the merchant marine, we should have a little talk in your cabin. Do you, by any chance, have any of that very fine brandy for which Greece is justly famous?”

“Eh?”

Twenty minutes later, the brandy was finished and the charter of the
Pontoporos
had been switched, with a stroke of the pen, to the German government. It was an intelligent compromise. A wad of US dollars crackled comfortingly in Lauterbach's hidden pocket. He was the only member of the crew developing a paunch on slim rations. The ship would not be sunk. Instead, the coal would be paid for in full by the Kaiser. The news was flashed in Morse back to the
Emden
and the dumpy vessel, with a galling top speed of a mere 9 knots, fell in behind her new mother ship. They were elated to have coal, not yet knowing – as Lauterbach knew – that Indian coal was of terrible quality, soft, fouling the boiler tubes and producing huge amounts of treacherous smoke that betrayed their position twenty miles away. In the cabin he had found another treasure, an Indian newspaper with an obliging list of local shipping movements. Von Mueller would love that. Now they could pick and choose and stop sodding about all over the place.

The first victim was the
Indus.
With her aerials and odd white structures on deck, they thought at first she was a warship but when she cheerfully raised her flag to greet what she assumed was a fellow British vessel, it was a blue ensign not the white of an auxiliary. Her captain cursed as the
Emden
ran up her own German battleflag and fired the usual warning shot. She turned out to be a troopship and the odd structures were stalls for horses. Soon her crew were being ferried across to the
Markomannia
, the ‘junkman,' whose job was to house prisoners and unwanted cargo that could not be sunk. The
Indus
was crammed with supplies but, as yet, no troops and the inexperienced prize-crew wandered through her like bumpkins at a fair, seizing all and sundry with their hands. When von Mueller saw bright silk kimonos, cushions, knitting wool and bundles of stationery tied up with pink ribbons being brought aboard his ship, he knew it was time to send over Lauterbach to supervise the looting and so save the men from mindless haberdashery.

His eye was discriminating. He knew what was militarily useful and what would appeal below decks. Soon there was fresh food, and fine conserves, drink and tobacco and a wealth of fancy equipment – including a whole radio station. The deckhands were soon kitted out in slick oilskins and binoculars. Instead of coal, the decks were now heaped with the untold wealth and benevolence that flowed from Lauterbach's cornucopia. A Father Christmas in mufti, he dispensed sausages and sweet bon-bons filled with brandy, rained jam and pilchards down on the men. Hams were strung across the ship in a cheery bobbing display and a saucy tar had seized a supply of female undergarments to be converted into more gay bunting. Twists of tobacco reared up in benodorous mounds and the British now supplied them with fresh bread and live hens. Ironic toasts were drunk to good King George in brandy, as supplied by royal appointment, and then to Lauterbach as his prophet on earth. They sang the Lauterbach song. They were happy.
He
was happy.

Most sought after of all was soap. The
Emden
had run so short that the precious suds of the men were collected for the use of the laundrymen, and those of the laundrymen used to scrub the sleazy decks. A few days before had been Prince Franz Josef's birthday. The band had oompahed patriotically, in his early morning honour, outside his cabin, but best of all was the present of a complete bar of soap mysteriously preserved by Lauterbach. Now the
Indus
was awash with soap, whole cartons of it. Two, Three and Four fell on it and squirrelled it away with little cries of joy. Cigarettes were so plentiful that von Muecke was found staring at his fake funnel. “How would it be,” he mused, “if the off-duty stokers were to light up in there and get a bit of smoke going?” It was almost a joke. As the day wore on, a glutted torpor fell over the whole ship. The air thickened. Eyes unfocussed. Reflexes slackened and sagged.