SIMON GELB STOOD beneath the overhanging boatdeck and studied the feverish preparations going on about him. He was cold and hungry, yet, because of the air of uncertainty which had disrupted his new existence, he was unwilling to return to the stifling shelter of the prisoners’ quarters. The wind was whipping across the unprotected decks below him, and the coal-dust moved along the wet planking like black sand, making curious designs around the scurrying figures of the German seamen. He could not take his eyes off the other ship which lay lashed alongside, and now that a sudden order to cast off had been shouted from the Vulkan’s bridge and repeated by the harrassed petty officers stationed across both vessels, a new sense of urgency made him apprehensive and uneasy.

  He had seen the marching column of British merchant seamen escorted past, and had watched stores being carried rapidly across the heaving decks from hand to hand. He had expected to be taken across to the collier with the others, but nobody had shown the slightest interest in him or Arthur Brett, while the British officer prisoners had already been taken below again in addition to the newcomers from the collier.

  He eyed the single seaman who had been left to guard him. A short, swarthy-faced man, with a heavy Mauser slung over his left shoulder, he looked pleased with himself, no doubt because he was being spared the agony of coaling ship. Gelb had questioned him in English, but the man had merely shrugged, and then, when Gelb had persisted, had scowled threateningly and gestured at him to keep away from the maindeck.

  Arthur Brett, who was being allowed to take his exercise with him, moved restlessly from one side of the boatdeck to the other. His hair was tousled by the wind and spray, and his pale cheeks were streaked with coal-dust. Gelb sighed. It was difficult to know what the man was thinking. He had gone completely to pieces in his new surroundings, and yet managed to stay aloof from him and the others. He did not even seem to be curious about how his wife was faring, and now that another ship had come from nowhere he could not, it seemed, think of anything but that. He paused by Gelb’s bulky shape, his eyes desperate.

  What in heaven’s name is going on? Why are they casting off from that ship, after taking such pains to get near to it?’

  Gelb shrugged. ‘It seems another ship has been sighted. Maybe they are going to attack it. Or perhaps they merely want to run away!’

  Ropes were flying through the air, and wild-eyed seamen, their naked shoulders streaked with sweat and dirt, stumbled past them, unseeing and urgent.

  Gelb swallowed hard. All at once it was quite clear to him what he should do. Brett was out of place here, and, once torn from his world of false values and meaningless platitudes, was not only useless, but a real danger to their safety. Keeping his voice level he said: ‘I heard a sailor say that the prisoners have been taken to that ship so that they can be repatriated. Aboard here they will eat too much and hamper the crew. Soon they will be safe and sound in some neutral ship, or landed in a nice South American port.’ He watched the last colour draining from the man’s face. ‘The Captain must think that we are too valuable to lose, eh? He will take us back to Germany with the captured officers!’

  Brett grasped a steel rail and gripped it with all his strength. His eyes seemed to protrude right out of his head, and he stared down at the collier with disbelief. ‘They wouldn’t! It’s unfair!’ His voice cracked. ‘Why should this happen to me?’

  Gelb was shocked by the success of his lie. Unable to restrain himself, he said: ‘Why not? The German Army shot nuns in Belgium, I hear, because they thought they were spies! Outrageous, of course, and I expect they apologised afterwards, but in a war like this the individual is a mere trifle!’

  Brett took a pace towards the short ladder which led to the maindeck. His lips were slack, and he seemed to have difficulty in breathing. With horrified eyes he saw the foremost line whipped aboard, and after a short pause the two ships began to stagger apart. Inches, then feet, and then he saw the tossing water surging up between the two fo’c’sles.

  The sentry was watching the other ship with interest and did not look round until it was too late. Brett turned towards his companion, his taut face suddenly determined. ‘I am going across to that ship! I must!’ He pushed past Gelb, his mouth working quickly. ‘Explain to my wife! She will understand!’ Then he was running wildly along the slippery deck, his shoes skidding on the littered ropes and discarded shovels.

  Gelb watched him go, his face frozen with excitement.

  The sentry gaped down at the deck, his jaw dropping. ‘Achtung! Halt!’ He fumbled with his rifle sling, and then called again towards the seamen by the rail. They all had their backs to the running figure, and they were too weary to take their eyes from the collier as it moved clear.

  A whistle shrilled from aft, and like a steel bar the sternrope jerked tightly against the poop fairleads, scattering the labouring men like skittles. The ship gave a great lurch, and seemed to hang suspended and helpless on the trapped rope.

  Von Steiger leaned over the bridge rail and stared for a long moment at the stout rope. If he did not act at once, either the two ships would swing stern on together, or the rope would part and probably be sucked into the screw of one of them. He cursed silently and called over his shoulder: ‘Hard a-starboard! Full ahead!’

  The sudden clockwise turning of the great screw would tend to swing the bows to port and back alongside the collier. It would mean quite a collision, but only that way could his men on the poop clear the rope. It was a massive rope and it would take too long to cut it through, even if they had axes available.

  The Vulkan have a tremendous shudder, and the poop seemed to rise clear of the water in response to the sudden burst of power. From dead slow to full speed made every piece of the hull groan and kick in protest, but almost immediately he saw the action take effect.

  Men were running with the lacerated fenders to take the unavoidable impact, while on the poop Kohler and his men waited to slacken off their end of the rope, so that the men on the collier could release it. The rope acted like a giant hinge, on which the two vessels were inexorably drawn towards each other.

  ‘Stop engine!’ His attention was momentarily distracted by an armed sentry running crazily along the deck beneath him. What was the fool doing? He braced his body against the rail and waited for the shock of impact.

  There was a tremendous crash, and he felt his fingers torn free from the rail. The momentum of the charging ship carried her cleanly along the collier’s low fo’c’sle, smashing down a small derrick and tearing her starboard anchor completely from its hawsepipe.

  As the Vulkan’s angry advance was momentarily slowed the sternrope was released, and the dazed seamen on the poop plucked the dripping coils from the sea and up on to the deck.

  Von Steiger heard a chorus of shouts, and stared with disbelief at the figure silhouetted against the collier’s white bridge. Arthur Brett stood swaying on the Vulkan’s bulwark, his arms reaching for support as the collier lurched and squeaked past him.

  The breathless sentry had almost reached him, but, impeded by his rifle, was unable to climb fast enough to stop him.

  Brett glanced once over his shoulder at the running men and clutching fingers, and then jumped outwards and down towards the rusty deck of the collier. There was a single wire guardrail along the top of her bulwark, over which Heuss and his men had clambered the previous night. Brett’s hands closed on it with relief, and his kicking feet groped vainly for a hold on the battered plates and scarred rivets beneath him.

  As the sternrope was freed the Coxswain applied the opposite wheel, and unwillingly the Vulkan began to sidle clear from the other ship. As she gathered way she seemed to brush almost gently against her for the last time, the full weight of her four and a half thousand tons nudging into Brett’s body like a giant’s hand upon a fly. When they were finally clear there was only a scarlet smudge down the collier’s black paint to show where he had been, and that, too, was already fading beneath the spray and broken water.

  Von Steiger stared back at the collier, his face filled with dismay.

  All at once it started to pour with rain. It advanced across the tossing water towards the ship like a steel fence, and as it swept across the raider’s decks and drenched the shivering seamen, and cascaded into the still-gaping holds, the collier vanished behind its protection, and soon there was nothing to be seen at all but the tumbling wave-tops quivering beneath the torrential downpour, and the mounting bow-wave as the Vulkan’s sharp stem gathered way once more.

  * * * * *

  The sentry in the narrow passageway crashed his heels together and held his rifle stiffly to his side. He did not relax a muscle until von Steiger had passed him and entered the lobby of his day cabin. Von Steiger paused with his hand resting on the handle, aware that he was more than just apprehensive about seeing Caryl Brett. He felt again at a disadvantage; it was curious how he always felt that way when he saw or spoke to her. She always put him on the defensive, whatever his own private convictions might have been, and this time it would be worse. He had tried to tell himself that he was being stupid and over-wrought, and that it did not matter what she thought of him and his actions. He need not even see her. In fact, he had sent Heuss down from the bridge earlier to tell her of her husband’s death, and even then had known that he was looking for a way out, an escape. He had sat brooding on the bridge as the ship gathered speed beneath him, and the decks bustled with frantic activity as the men were driven like exhausted animals to secure hatches and lash down booms and derricks, and all the time he had been thinking of Heuss and the woman below. The lookouts had been unable to see the other vessel, but the wireless room had picked up some faint signals, which appeared to be in code. He had forced his tired mind to concentrate, and had even endeavoured to placate himself with the thought that he had been able to get coal for his ship, in spite of doubts and disbelief and the incredulity of others.

  His fingers closed over the door-handle, and without knocking he stepped quickly into the cabin. The three figures by the table froze at his unexpected entrance, and he studied them gravely without speaking. The cabin, warm and inviting, looked pleased with itself, he thought. The steel deadlights were clamped across the scuttles, and across them the velvet curtains had been pulled into place. Caryl Brett sat at the end of the table, facing him, her hands invisible in her lap. Heuss had risen to his feet, and von Steiger saw with sudden irritation that Simon Gelb was sitting on the woman’s right.

  He made a short half-bow and tucked his cap under his arm. He noticed that the girl had rearranged her hair, and was wearing a white, high-necked blouse. She looked quite different from the loose-haired girl he had expected, and it unnerved him. Although her eyes looked a little red, she seemed composed, even cool, and as he moved towards her he saw the small chin lift imperceptibly with defiance.

  ‘I would have wished that I could have come earlier,’ he said slowly, ‘but I hope my officer explained what happened?’ She did not answer, and he felt his gaze drawn to her eyes. Deep and green, they seemed to hold him mesmerised. It was as if they belonged to another being. Someone else who was peering at him through this calm, expressionless mask. He tried to dismiss the fantasy, and continued evenly: ‘You must understand that there was nothing we could do to save him. He acted, I imagine, on a sudden impulse. It was all over very quickly.’

  Gelb stirred for the first time. He had sat watching the Captain, his dark face almost entranced by his unheralded appearance. He stared up at the slight, almost youthful, figure, his deep eyes taking in the salt-stained jacket and faded medal-ribbons, and, above all, the black cross about his neck. He saw the neat brown hands twitch momentarily, and he marvelled that a man like von Steiger could betray any emotion. After a quick flicker of an eye towards the others, he decided that he alone had noticed it. The girl was too shocked, and the Lieutenant too overawed by the presence of his superior, to see anything. He said softly: ‘He told me prior to his death that he was afraid. He would not tell me much, he was too proud, but he did say that someone aboard this ship had threatened him in some way.’

  They all turned to look at him, their expressions as mixed as the thoughts which Gelb’s lie had aroused.

  Von Steiger eyed him coldly. ‘Why did you not tell someone of this?’

  ‘He told me to say nothing. I think he was afraid for his wife’s safety.’

  Heuss stared down at him with contempt. ‘You are making this up! Who would want to threaten him? The poor fellow merely wanted to get aboard the collier for some other reason, not to escape!’

  Gelb dropped his eyes to hide the triumph. ‘As I said, Lieutenant, he told me but little. Of course, if somebody on board wanted him out of the way, perhaps so that he could try to interfere with this dear girl, then maybe that person might use threats against her husband, eh?’

  ‘That’s enough, please!’ Caryl Brett spoke quietly. ‘I don’t want to hear any more suppositions from anybody! Arthur’s dead. He can never be brought back by anything we say.’ The eyes returned to von Steiger. ‘Is that all you wished to say, Captain? That you are sorry? Always you seem to be apologising. If your deeds are disgusting and treacherous, your manners at least are impeccable!’

  Heuss caught his breath and darted a glance at von Steiger. She had gone too far this time. He stared at his captain in amazement. Instead of anger, there was something quite new on his face. It was as if some door had been opened in his mind, and that some nagging worry had been part cleared.

  Von Steiger answered, ‘I hate to see civilians involved in the matter of war.’ He paused, listening to the whine of the fans and the steady thunder of the engine. ‘Everything has changed in this war. There is no longer security or isolation for anyone. The world is in flames about us.’

  ‘I understand about war, Captain. But do you really call this a way to fight it? You slink about the sea like a pirate. You kill and maim without mercy!’

  ‘You have had a severe shock, and I admire your self-control. For that reason I will ignore what you have already said.’ Von Steiger stared across her head at the picture of his son on the far bulkhead. He tried to use it as an anchor, as something to hold down his self-control. He heard himself say: ‘You British always talk so freely about the injustices of others! You never stop to think that you have everything! Yet you still want the world at your feet! I am a seaman, and a German officer, and although I loathe and detest this war and what it is doing to all of us, I will never turn my back on my duty!’ He leaned forward, his eyes flashing with mounting anger. ‘Do you imagine that my men enjoy being here? Do you think they find satisfaction in bad food and constant danger? Just because they wear uniform, it does not mean that they have no other life!’ He waved his hand around the cabin, embracing the ship and the black water beyond. ‘They have wives and children, too! And they are being made to fight for them. It is as simple as that!’ He pointed suddenly at Heuss, yet remained staring down at the girl. ‘Yesterday I would have killed this officer in order to save my ship! Yes, I would have killed him, although I value him greatly. And I may have to sacrifice every last man aboard before I am through, but, in the name of God, do not imagine for one small moment that I am enjoying it!’

  He stopped speaking and stood with his chest heaving uncontrollably. His eyes were low now, and he was aware that the others were staring at him, shocked by his outburst. All the pent-up anxieties had been too much for him. He knew that he had been waiting for this opportunity, or perhaps this audience, and he felt unsteady and yet elated.

  He suddenly raised his head and looked once more at the girl. Her eyes, which had fixed him with that rebuking, contemptuous stare, were empty, yet there was something more. He studied her with new interest as the realisation came to him. He cursed himself for not recognising it earlier. She was afraid, desperately afraid. Perhaps not of him, but of the new meaning of complete loneliness which Brett’s death had shown to her. He jerked his head. ‘Take this man to his quarters, Lieutenant.’ He waited, counting second, as Heuss moved unwillingly round the table.

  He thought: God, this Gelb is cleverer than all of us with his cunning insinuations. Even if what he said was true, he would not have spoken as he did without some other reason, it is not in his make-up.

  Gelb moved slowly towards the door. ‘I shall see you again, my dear.’ His voice was heavy with sadness. His sympathy seemed to throw a protective wall between her and the two officers. ‘I shall be thinking of you all the time!’

  The door closed, and he realised that he was alone with his prisoner. He forced himself to sit opposite her, and saw her eyes guardedly watching his hands as he groped for a cheroot. He lighted it carefully and dropped the match in a brass ashtray.

  ‘Why have you stayed, Captain?’ She sounded puzzled, like a child, yet with the constant wariness of a defenceless woman.

  He smiled. ‘I wanted to talk. You see, in spite of what you said about me, I know that you do not really believe it. I am merely the emblem for your hatred, a figurehead. With those who fight their war from behind a desk or through a bank account the emblem might be a flag, or a strange language. Unfortunately, the closer we get to war the more we discover that it is human, as well as inhuman

  ‘Go on. I cannot ask you to leave your own quarters, anyway!’ He saw her lip tremble slightly before she controlled it with an obvious effort.

  ‘No, that is true. But you speak freely here, simply because you think you are safe with me. That is so, eh?’ His mouth turned down with self-mockery. ‘Because I am a man of honour?’ He waved his hand wearily. ‘You are right. I am safe enough. But you must not be too brutal in your accusations. Your husband is dead. I do not think he was a happy man, and I think he was twisted within himself.’

  A glow of the old defiance showed itself in a small flush on her cheeks. ‘How could you understand a man like him? He was above your world completely. He was a builder, not a destroyer!’