The Last Wolf (11 page)

Blast Hitler! He was spoiling everything.

In March, the Germans marched into Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, and, by the end of the month, Mr Chamberlain had promised help to the Poles if they were attacked. More barrage balloons appeared, and even more trenches and shelters and sandbags.

Germany and Italy had signed some sort of agreement. It seemed as though a long, dark shadow had fallen over England.

Dear Reinhard,

Thank you for your letter. There were no mistakes at all in it.

I'm very sorry, but I don't think that there's much point in us writing to each other any more, is there? Nearly everybody here in England thinks that we will soon be at war with your country because of the way Hitler is behaving. So, I think this will have to be my last letter.

Whatever happens, I hope that you will be all right.

From,

Stroma

‘I've sent for you over a very serious matter, Stroma.' Miss Calder, the headmistress, looked even grimmer than usual. ‘Matron discovered this photograph concealed in your drawer. Perhaps you would explain it to me? Who is this man?'

‘Somebody I met in Scotland three years ago.'

‘I imagine you are aware that he is wearing the uniform of a German naval officer?'

‘Yes, Miss Calder. He sent it to me when he graduated from their naval college.'

Miss Calder turned the photo over, holding it with the tips of her fingers as though it might contaminate her. ‘Apparently, his name is Reinhard.'

‘It's pronounced Reinhard.' She gave it a very guttural R, like he had done.

‘Don't be impertinent, Stroma. It's of no importance whatsoever how it is pronounced. Are your parents acquainted with this person?'

‘No. They've never met him.'

‘Are they aware that you have been corresponding with him? Writing letters to him?'

‘I don't write very often.'

‘How often is not the point. It should not have been happening at all. It is the policy of this school not to allow girls to receive letters from males outside their immediate families. We discourage it unless the parents in question give their full permission – clearly not so in this case. Do you realize that our country is on the brink of a war with Germany?'

‘Yes, I do, Miss Calder.'

‘And yet you are carrying on a correspondence with one of their naval officers?'

‘We're not actually at war yet.'

‘Don't argue with me.' Miss Calder tore the photograph into four neat pieces and let them flutter into the wastepaper basket beside her desk. ‘If any more letters arrive for you from this man, they will be destroyed immediately. You understand?'

At the beginning of July, they left Koenigsberg with several other U-boats on a fleet exercise ordered by the commander of the Ubootwaffe, Admiral Dönitz. The orders were to patrol the waters from the Shetland Islands off Scotland down to the Atlantic coast of France – to get a feel for what lay in store. From the Baltic they crossed the North Sea, taking a route along the eastern coast of England at a discreet distance from the land, doing trial dives, practice attacks, gun action stations, keeping a constant lookout. The commander was brutal about the slightest shortcoming.

Reinhard, on the bridge for the second watch, from four till eight, covered the port sector aft. Once the eyes were well-adjusted to the dark, it was amazing how much could be seen, even on the blackest night. The sky was lighter than the sea, the horizon visible, the U-boat's wake a glimmering phosphorescent trail. He steadied the heavy binoculars with the tips of his fingers, scanning the sea very slowly from one side of the ninety-degree sector to the other, and then he lowered the glasses to take in the whole sector at one glance before he raised the glasses to begin the slow and painstaking scanning process again. They were thirty kilometres off the east coast of Scotland.

As they ploughed on, the new day began to break. First, a faint strip lighter than the rest appeared above the horizon in the east. It widened, taking on a pinkish tone, until the top part of the sun suddenly showed itself. The boat emerged gradually from the dark.

The Old Man had come up quietly on to the bridge and lit a cigarette. Without turning his head, Reinhard knew he was there because he could smell the cigarette smoke. He kept the binoculars clamped to his eyes and continued the slow and steady sweep. In war, they would be searching for enemy shipping or enemy planes; this was only a rehearsal but must be taken as seriously as a real performance. Was that a seagull or a plane? At a distance, against a still-dark sky, it was ridiculously easy to mistake one for the other. He focussed hard on the small shape until he was satisfied that it was a seagull and not a member of the Royal Air Force out on a dawn patrol.

They continued northwards as far as the Shetland Islands, getting a feel of what the Admiral had called ‘those stormy waters'. Even in midsummer the weather was vile, the wind savage, the seas violent. On the surface, the U-boat rocked and rolled, the crew staggering and stumbling and cursing, crockery smashing, tools and utensils flying about inside the pressure hull like lethal weapons. Diving below was a blessed relief – for as long as it lasted before they had to surface to recharge the batteries. While they were below the surface, it was amazingly peaceful: a soothing silence, broken only by the faint hum of the electric motors. The roar of the wind and sea had been abruptly cut off as they had sunk into the deep, and the incessant rolling and lurching stopped as the U-boat levelled out below. Under the electric light, there was no difference between night and day.

From the Shetlands they altered course south towards the Orkneys and Scapa Flow. The vast sheet of water, ringed by islands, provided a sheltered anchorage fifteen miles long and eight miles wide – big enough to take a whole British Navy fleet, if necessary.

In the officers' wardroom the Old Man moved salt and pepper pots about the table to demonstrate the layout.

‘Seven entrances: Hoxa Sound between two islands here in the south is the big front door; Switha Sound next to it is narrower, and Hoy Sound over here is not much used at all. The rest are small ones along the eastern side of the Flow but which are only big enough to admit fishing boats.' The Old Man paused before he added, ‘Or naval ships . . . the size of a submarine.' He looked around the table, from one face to the next. ‘Two of our U-boats were sunk in the last war, trying to break in, and the British have since tried to plug the holes. It will be very interesting for us to observe these places as we pass by.'

The observing was done that night when the weather calmed down and the Northern Lights conveniently lit up the islands with a flickering and ghostly display – greenish swirls and waves of light, changing to blue, to red, to violet, to pink, to yellow and back again to green, dissolving and re-forming, bright particles shooting out in all directions. Reinhard, on watch on the bridge, had a grandstand view as the U-boat crept stealthily round the outside of the British base like a fox circling a coop full of plump chickens. Impossible not to feel the predator's excitement that his father had described so graphically. The thrill of stalking an unsuspecting quarry. Not so easy, though, in these waters. They had taken
Sturmwind
through the Pentland Firth when they had sailed her around Scotland and he knew its treachery first-hand.

They left the Orkneys behind and continued south-west by the Hebrides, passing quite close to Islay as they headed for the Irish Sea and the Atlantic coast of France. Stroma's last letter had not surprised him; it had been almost inevitable. But it was a great pity. It was now even more unlikely that they would ever meet again. He had been very touched by her hope that he would be all right. He hoped so too, though that seemed equally unlikely.

He wondered if she and Hamish would be spending their school holidays at Craigmore, or whether, perhaps, they would stay in London instead this year because of the possibility of a war. As his father had said, if prodded with a big enough stick, the lion would wake up and roar and the Führer had been doing plenty of prodding. If it happened, he hoped that Stroma would be sent to Scotland where she would be much safer.

After three days, the Admiral recalled them from his headquarters on the Baltic coast and told them to hold themselves in readiness for war.

‘Next time,' he signalled, ‘it will be the real thing.'

Back at the U-boat base, Reinhard wrote one more letter to Stroma and sent it to the London address.

Dear Stroma,

Thank you for writing to me. I understand how you are feeling and I am sorry for this. But I shall miss your letters very much. If there is a war between our countries I hope that we will be able to meet again when it is finished. If I can, I will come to Craigmore and Glas Uig to find you one day. Until then, I hope you will keep safe and well.

From,

Reinhard

In the end, Hamish and Stroma went up to Craigmore for the summer as usual. Hamish would far sooner have stayed in London in case he missed the war starting and he mooched around, spending most of the time in his bedroom making yet another model ship.

‘What kind is it?' Stroma asked, watching him sanding a length of wood.

‘The kind I want to serve in. A destroyer. Fast, lots of gun-power. It lives up to its name.'

‘If there isn't a war, you won't need to join up.'

‘Of course there's going to be a war. The Huns are getting ready to grab Poland and we've promised to help the Poles fight against them.'

‘I don't see why we have to. It's got nothing to do with us.'

Hamish stopped sanding and stared at her crossly. ‘You're hopeless, Stroma. Of course it has. If we don't stop the Germans soon, they'll be unstoppable. We've got to do something. You're an idiot if you can't see that.'

Angus took her out pigeon shooting and she found she could handle a twelve-bore easily now. It helped that pigeons were considered pests because they did so much damage to crops. ‘Verrrmin', Angus called them, blowing them out of the sky. She plucked and drew the dead pigeons for Ellen to cook. Their plumage wasn't as beautiful as the pheasants', but they were still handsome with their soft grey and pink and white and she hated the job.

Grandfather gave her lessons in casting for salmon on the river. The rod was still heavy for her but she was getting the knack of it.

‘Keep practising,' he told her, ‘and you'll be ready when the season starts.'

Hamish went out stalking with Angus and she tagged along behind them, trudging for miles through the heather and the rain as they tracked a stag on the move on the hillside. The trick was to keep out of his sight, smell and hearing. Sometimes, she caught glimpses of the animal and his magnificent antlers turning as he paused and looked around. ‘A puir old one', Angus called him, ‘only fit to be culled'. The stag didn't look anything of the kind, but she knew better than to argue. Angus had once explained to her that the old and weak ones had to be killed for their own good and for the good of the herd. Only the strongest and best should be kept. She prayed that the stag would see or smell or hear them and make off, but he didn't. Instead, he wandered along, stopping now and again to look round, while they lay flat and motionless on the ground. Then Hamish fired. The rifle cracked, the bullet whined and the stag's front legs buckled as he sank to the ground. They walked across the heather to where he lay, his eyes sightless, his neck stretched out, his antlers twisted.

‘What on earth are you crying for, Stroma?' Hamish said impatiently.

Angus laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘He didna suffer one bit, lassie. Twas a guid clean kill.'

On the first of September, Germany invaded Poland and on the third, Grandfather turned on the wireless in the drawing room so that they could hear Mr Chamberlain make his declaration of war. Ellen, Sally, the kitchen maid, Logan, Mack, Angus and Grace and the estate workers crowded into the room to listen. The Prime Minister's voice was quavery.

I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street . . . This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note . . . I have to tell you now that no such undertaking was received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

At first, it was decided that Hamish and Stroma should remain on Islay. The Germans were expected to start bombing London at once – and air-raid sirens sounded on the very day that the war started – but it was a false alarm. No bombers appeared in the skies and no bombs were dropped, although a liner, the
Athenia
, was torpedoed while leaving England and sunk by a German U-boat. Many passengers drowned.

Of course, Hamish was furious about staying, but after a while they were sent back to London and to boarding school. Since both their schools were out in the country, they were considered safe.

At Stroma's school air-raid shelters had been dug big enough to take all the girls. Gas masks had to be carried everywhere and there were regular practices for putting them on and forming into lines and filing into the shelters. They sat for ages on wooden benches while names were called and heads were counted; it was all very boring and seemed rather unnecessary, as some people were saying that the war would be over by Christmas.

And then, in October, another German U-boat somehow sneaked into the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys and sank the battleship
Royal Oak
as she lay at anchor. And two days later, German planes bombed British cruisers in the Firth of Forth. So it had not been so safe up in Scotland, after all. Hamish was probably wishing that they had stayed there.

And where was Reinhard now, Stroma wondered. Was he serving in the U-boat that had sunk the defenceless passenger liner with all those lives lost, or in the one that had sunk the battleship lying at anchor and killed hundreds of British sailors?