iron pirate (7 page)

A few more days and he'd be off again. Probably for good, if the mad bastards at headquarters had anything to do with it. What sort of a war was it becoming? He was not even allowed to see his new charts. He felt angry just thinking about it so that when he spoke again his voice was unexpectedly hard.

You must get out, girl. You've relatives in Sweden, go there if you can.'

She clung to his arm. 'Surely it won't come to that, Jo?'

He grinned, the rumble running through his massive frame. 'I expect our high command have it all worked out, some sort of treaty, a compromise. We've only wiped out half the bloody world, so who cares?'

She stood and looked up at him, her eyes misty. '1 never thought -'

He smiled at her gently. Too many German friends. No, they'd not forget. He had seen it in Spain after the Civil War. All the
heroes
who show
⁷
ed up after the fighting was finished. Brave lads who proved it by shearing the hair and raping girls who had backed the wrong side. It would be a damned sight worse here.

He held her against him and ran his big hands across her buttocks. Neither noticed that his fingers had left charcoal marks on her bare skin.

Their eyes met. He said, 'Bed.'

She picked up a bottle of schnapps which he had brought and two glasses. Gudegast stood back and watched her march into the other room with a kind of defiance. She would not leave. Perhaps she would find a nice officer to look after her when the Tommies marched in. He felt sweat on his back. God, you could get shot for even thinking such things.

He pushed through the door and stared at her, the abandoned way her legs were thrown on the crumpled sheets, unmade from that morning, and probably from all the rest.

He would do another sketch tomorrow. If he got time he might try and paint her in oils when he was at sea again. He shivered and then stepped out of his trousers.

She put out her arms and then knelt over him as he flopped down on the bed. He was huge, and when he lay on top of her it was like being crushed.

He watched her and said, 'I wish we'd wed, Gerda.'

She laughed but there was only sadness there. She took him in her hand and lowered herself on to him, gasping aloud as he entered her.

It was as if she knew they would never see each other again.

The cinema screen flickered and with a blare of trumpets yet another interminable newsreel began.

Hans Stoecker tried to concentrate but it was difficult to see anything clearly. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The cinema had been commandeered from the town, and he guessed it had once been a church hall or something of the kind. Between him and the screen were rows and rows of square sailors' collars, broken only ocasionally by the field-grey of the army.

The newsreel was concerned mainly with the Eastern Front and showed thousands of prisoners being marched to the rear of the lines by waving, grinning soldiers. The commentator touched only lightly on France, but there were several good aerial shots of I ighter bombers strafing a convoy of lorries, and some of burning American tanks.

The major part of the reel was taken up with the
Bombardment of London.
The usual barracking and whistles from the audience faded as the camera panned across the great rocket, the V-2, as it spewed fire and dense smoke before rising from its launching gantry and streaking straight up into the sky.

The commentator said excitedly, 'All day, every day, our secret weapon is falling upon London. Nothing can withstand it,

I here is no defence. Already casualties and damage are mounting. No people can be expected to suffer and not break.'

There were more fanfares, and etched against a towering pall of flame and smoke the German eagle and swastika brought the news to an end.

Stoecker got up and pushed his way out of the cinema. Several voices called after him. There must be half the ship's non-duty watch here, he thought.

Outside it was dusk, with the lovely pink glow he had first seen in these waters. He thrust his hands into his jacket and walked steadily away from the harbour. There were plenty of German servicemen about, and they seemed carefree enough.

He thought again of the sinking lighter, the terrified screams of the prisoners trapped below. He had passed the place in one of the cruiser's motorboats when he had been sent on some mission ashore. It had been marked by a solitary wreck-buoy, but as one of the sentries on the jetty had told him, there had been no investigation, nor had any divers been put down.
Prinz Luitpold
carried her own divers but had not been asked to supply aid.

It was obvious, whichever way you looked at it. It was not sabotage. He thought of the SS major's face. It had been murder.

Stoecker crossed the street automatically and paused to peer into a shop window. He had done it merely to avoid three officers whom he would have had to salute. It was childish, but like most sailors he disliked the petty discipline which the land seemed to produce. He thought of the captain, how he had spoken to him, called him by name, from a company of nearly a thousand men. Hechler never laboured the point about discipline. He had his standards, and expected them to be met. Otherwise he was a man you always felt you could speak to. Trust.

A. hand touched his sleeve. 'Hans! It
is
you!'

He turned and stared at the girl who was smiling at him. It all flashed through his mind in seconds, the brown curls and laughing eyes, school uniform, but now in that of a nursing auxiliary.

'What are you doing here, Sophie?' At home she lived just three doors from his mother. A nurse too, eh?'

She fell into step beside him, the pleasure at seeing him wiping away the tiredness from her eyes.

There is a big hospital not far from here.' She glanced away. Mostly soldiers who were in Russia.'

Stoecker thought of the jubilant newsreel, and of the ship's superstructure shaking like a mad thing when they had fired on the enemy position.

Later he had heard the deputy gunnery officer, Kapitanleutnant Emmler, say angrily, 'Ivan still smashed through and decimated a whole brigade! When will we hold the bastards?'

He said quietly, 'They are lucky to be in your care, Sophie.'

She put her hand through his arm. It was so simply done that he was moved.

She said, 'They have been in hell, Hans. Some of them are she shrugged and smiled, but there were tears on her cheeks. 'Now look what you've made me do!'

He guided her from the main stream of people and traffic and together they entered a narrow street, their footsteps their only company.

They talked about home, people they had known, and the last time they had seen some of them.

He said suddenly, 'I'd like to see you again.'

She looked at him gravely. 'I have every evening off unless

He nodded and gripped her hands. Tomorrow. Where we just met. I have to get back to the ship now.' His mind was unusually confused. If he had not gone to the cinema he would have missed her, would never have known.

I'll be there.' She touched his face. 'You've not changed, Hans.'

She saw his expression and asked quickly, 'What is it?'

Stoecker stared past her, his hand on her arm as if to protect her. The street name was faded and rusty and yet stood out as if I he letters were on fire. It was the same street as the one on the letter. Almost guiltily he touched his pocket as if to feel it there. I le knew it was the house even though he had never been here in his life. There was a shop beneath the living quarters, but the windows, like the rest of the building, were burned out, blackened into an empty cave. But on one remaining door post he saw I he crude daubs of paint, badly scorched but still visible. The Star of David, and the words,
Dirty Jew!

The girl looked with him and whispered, 'Let's get away from here.'

They walked down the narrow street towards the main road again. Who was it, he wondered? Parent, wife, girlfriend? He lightened his hold on her arm and could almost hear the man whisper.
I am going to die. We all are.

Are you sick?'

He smiled, the effort cracking his lips. 'No. It is nothing.'

They looked at each other, sharing the lie as if it was something precious and known only to them.

Tomorrow then.'

He watched her hurry towards a camouflaged van with red c r osses painted on it.

Perhaps he had imagined it all. There was only one way he would find out and he knew that he was going to read that letter, no matter what it cost.

As darkness closed in over the anchorage, the boats which plied back and forth from the shore ferried the returning sailors to their ship. The duty officer with his gangway staff watched as each returning figure walked, limped or staggered away to the security of his mess.

Like a resting tiger the
Prinz Luitpold
was blacked-out, with only the moonlight glinting on her scuttles and bridge-screens.

Almost the last launch to head out from the shore made a broad white wash against the other darkness, her coxswain steering skilfully between anchored lighters and a pair of patrol boats, i lechler seemed to sense that his ship was drawing near. He climbed up from the cockpit and stood beside the coxswain, the collar of his leather greatcoat raised around his ears, his cap tugged firmly down. Spray lanced over the fast-moving hull, but he did not blink as he saw the great shadow harden against the pale stars, and he felt a strange sense of relief. He saw the bowman emerge from forward, his boathook at the ready, heard the engine fade slightly as the helmsman eased the throttle.

The proud talk, the dinner parties, the uniforms and gaiety - he had had enough in the past few days to sicken his insides. Only here was reality. His ship.

A voice grated a challenge from the darkness and the coxswain shuttered a small hand-lamp.

The ship's raked bows made a black arrowhead against the sky and then they were turning towards the long accommodation ladder.

The captain is back on board. Maybe there will be news.

Hechler ran lightly up the ladder and folded back his leather collar so that the faint gangway light gleamed dully on the cross around his neck.

Prinz Luitpold's
captain felt as if he had never left her.

Maximum Security

There was a tap at the door to Hechter's day-cabin and then Theil slepped over the coaming and closed the door.

Hechler was glad of the interruption. His table was covered with intelligence files, packs of photographs and even vague news reports. In a matter of days he had soaked up everything he could find about the war so that he felt his mind would explode. It was the first time he had seen Theil since he had returned from leave, other than for the brief requirements of reporting aboard.

Theil looked paler than usual, and tight-lipped. Hechler had felt a change of atmosphere throughout the ship when the married men had returned from their brief escape. They might make laws about spreading gloom and despondency, but they could never enforce them, Hechler thought.

Several men had requested extra leave on compassionate grounds. Relatives killed or missing in the constant bombing. Unfaithful wives and pregnant daughters. The list was endless.

He waited for Theil to be seated and for Pirk to produce some fresh coffee.

Theil said, 'Everyone is aboard, sir, except for two seamen. I have posted them as deserters.'

Hechler frowned. A tiny fragment set against the war, and yet in any ship it was distressing, a flaw in the pattern.

Pirk opened one of the scuttles and Hechler saw some trapped pipesmoke swirling out towards the land. Gudegast the navigating officer had been one of his visitors; in fact Hechler had seen all of his heads of departments.

Gudegast never actually complained, but his dissatisfaction over the charts was very apparent. It was useless to tell any of them that he did not know the ship's new role or mission either. Nobody would have believed him.
Would I in their place?

They may have their reasons, Viktor. They won't get far.'

He thought of the news from the Russian Front. The enemy were making a big push, perhaps to gain as many advances as

possible before winter brought its ruthless stalemate again.

Theil said, 'We sail this evening, sir.' It was a statement. The escorts have already anchored as ordered.'

Hechler looked at him casually. Theil sounded almost disinterested. It was so unlike him and his constant search for efficiency.

'Is everything well with you, Viktor?'

Theil seemed to come out of his mood with a jerk. 'Why, yes, sir.'

'I just thought - how was your leave?'

Theil spread his hands. 'The usual. You know how it is. A house always needs things.'

Hechler glanced at the papers on the table. So that was it. An upset with his wife.

'Anything I can do?'

Theil met his gaze. It was like defiance. Nothing, sir.'

'Well, then.' Hechler looked up as the deck trembled into life. It was a good feeling. He never got tired of it. The beast stirring after her enforced rest.

He said, 'Norway. We shall weigh at dusk and pass through the Skagerrak before daylight.' He studied Theil's reaction if any. 'I want to be off Bergen in thirty hours.'

Theil grimaced. 'I doubt if the escorts will be able to keep up.'

'So be it.' He pictured the jagged Norwegian coast, the endless patterns of fjords and islands. It would give Gudegast something he
could
grumble about.

'After that we shall keep close inshore and enter our selected f jord to await further intelligence,'

Theil nodded. 'Another fjord.’

Hechler guessed he was thinking of the great battleship
Tirpitz
which had been hidden in her Norwegian lair many miles from the open sea. Safe from any kind of attack, and yet about a year ago they had reached her. Tiny, midget submarines with four-man crews had risked and braved everything to find
Tirpitz
and to knock her out of the war by laying huge charges beneath her as she lay behind her booms and nets.