Von Steiger sat on the edge of his bunk, his jacket thrown over his bare shoulders, beneath which showed a wide bandage, which crossed his body like a white sash. The girl saw him grimace slightly as he rose to his feet, brushing away the hands which reached out to steady him.

  He studied her face carefully, and glanced briefly at Heuss, who stood close at her side.

  ‘I want to offer my apologies for what happened, Frau Brett. Under the circumstances, you were safer in the boat, although I must confess I was thinking mainly of my plan of action when I ordered your removal.’ He winced, and sat down heavily. ‘Excuse my sitting down in your presence, but I find that I am not so invulnerable as I would have people believe!’ He snapped his fingers at Reeder. ‘A fresh cup of coffee for our guest.’ He looked across the littered table, his face suddenly relaxed. ‘And a guest is what you have become, whether you like it or not. I am sure there are some who will be indeed sorry to see you leave this ship, although I am equally sure you will be relieved.’ He smiled, but seemed uneasy, as if he depended greatly upon what answer she might give.

  What is happening to me? The words pounded in her brain. I hate this man and all that he stands for. He is more than a German, he has become a personal enemy. Of course, he wanted her to submit to his new mood of humility, if only that she should be silenced. If she told him of the men in the boat and what might have happened to her, he would speak differently. Those men would be punished, she had no doubt of that, and the resentment in some of the crew, that Gelb had told her about, would be fanned into a more dangerous flame.

  Niklas, the engineer, looked up from his list and watched the emotions chasing one another across her face. He waited until she had sat on the proffered chair and had the large coffee-cup cradled in her small hands. Hands which were still dainty and fascinating, in spite of the cold and misery of an open boat. He said gruffly: ‘Only Lieutenant Heuss and I can understand what is being said by you and the Captain. The others are content with their own language, as you are, so you can answer freely. But, my dear, before you speak your thoughts, and I can guess what they are, let me tell you something.’ He turned his back deliberately on von Steiger as he leaned forward to protest. Usually Niklas’s disheveled appearance made him stand out against the other deck officers, but now his white boiler-suit looked almost smart beside the battle-weary men who were standing around him.

  ‘We had quite a fight with the American. It was a near thing, whatever some of us might say now that it is over. We have broken off the action, so that we can put many miles between him and us, so that by the time he is found by his friends we shall be well clear to the south. We are steaming at full speed now’—he smiled wryly—‘I should know, eh? But in spite of the risk and the danger, the Captain insisted on turning back to find you.’ He watched her soberly. ‘That was quite a deed. He would not receive medical attention, although he had a shell-splinter in his chest as big as this pencil, until his men were cared for and until he was sure his ship was prepared to fight again if need be. Think of these things before you judge. I am an old man—I could be your father, almost a grandfather in fact—and I have nothing left to hide, but although we are enemies, because we are ordered so to be, I think you will remember this deed with pride, if not with gladness.’

  Von Steiger groaned. ‘For God’s sake hold your tongue!’ He laughed, a short, nervous sound. ‘He is not only old, he is senile!’

  She placed the cup on the table and watched it vibrate to the thunder of the engine. ‘Thank you for coming back for me, Captain,’ she said quietly. ‘I shall not forget that.’ Immediately she sensed the relief on von Steiger’s face, like the passing of a cloud.

  She stood up. ‘And now, in spite of what I have been told, I should like to go and help Steuer with the wounded. Are there many?’ Her voice was level and calm, yet she could feel the trembling in her limbs. I am mad, she thought. What am I doing?

  Von Steiger kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. ‘Eight dead at present, and another fourteen wounded. Some more slightly injured men are resting in their quarters, and I hope will not concern you.’ He lowered his head. ‘Thank you for your help. As I think you have already discovered, wounded and sick men have no nationality at all.’

  Heuss touched her arm and she stepped through the door. As it started to close she heard von Steiger’s voice again, crisp and impatient. ‘Now Niklas, I want you to get all available men from the engine-room working to repair the plates we have lost. I have ordered Dehler to get the whole ship repainted above decks before the next forty-eight hours!’

  The door closed, and Heuss shrugged at her in mock despair.

  ‘You see? What can you do with such a man?’

  * * * * *

  A whistle shrilled, and the seamen threw themselves wearily down on the deck or wherever they had been working for a few moments’ respite. The light was beginning to fade, but the sky had cleared and the air was keen and dry. Soon the first pale stars would be seen in the sky, but even the rarity of such a sight made little impression on the men, who crouched or lay, breathing heavily and staring with hatred at the tools and shovels which were scattered around them, at the fresh planks which the carpenter and his mates had prepared for the torn gaps in the decks, and at the great pots of boiling pitch with which they had yet to pay the open seams. All afternoon the air had been filled with their clamour, the screech of saws on metal and wood, the bang of hammers or the never-ending commotion by the work of shifting coal to the ever hungry bunkers.

  Schiller lay back against a sweet-smelling baulk of timber and closed his eyes. Half a cheroot protruded from his lips, and his cap was tilted jauntily over his forehead. He half listened to the grumbling and whining of some of the men near him, and smiled to himself. It had been a very near thing in the boat that morning. Still, he could have been killed by a shell, or be screaming like that wretch under the knife in the sick quarters. As they had worked he had heard the dreadful cries, even above the din on deck. And to think that girl was in there helping, after what that fool Hauptmann had tried to do in the boat. He shook his head, amazed at the stupidity of his fellow creatures. She could be living like a queen in the Captain’s quarters now, her feet on a silk cushion and a bottle of schnapps at her elbow. Instead, she was amongst all that blood and pus up there. He opened one eye as somebody slumped down beside him. It was Pieck, pale and grim-looking.

  Schiller sighed. More trouble. Poor Willi had been a bit queer lately. Something new on his mind. Still, the detention barracks were enough for anybody, let alone a boy like him.

  ‘Hello, Willi! Where have you been? We’ve been slogging out our guts up here!’

  The boy drew his knees up to his chin, his eyes on the other men. ‘I’ve been to the sick quarters. I tried to see Alder.’

  ‘Oh? What for? Leave him be, boy! He’s a damn’ sight better off than we are!’

  Pieck turned towards him, his eyes desperate. ‘You don’t know what happened the other night.’ His mouth trembled. ‘You’ve got to help, Gustav! I don’t know who else to turn to!’

  Schiller drew on the cheroot. ‘Spit it out, Willi! But keep your voice down a bit.’

  ‘Petty Officer Brandt is dead.’

  ‘Christ! Is that all? I knew all about that!’

  Pieck’s voice sounded as if it would break. ‘Alder killed him!’

  ‘What?’ Schiller sat upright, his eyes suddenly alive. ‘Say that again!’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, he killed him. Brandt locked me in the ice-room, and I nearly died. I could not move.’

  ‘Locked you in?’ Schiller stared at him incredulously, as if he had gone mad.

  Pieck closed his eyes, reliving the terror when the great door had banged behind him. At first he had pounded the door with his fists, and had then decided to make one last effort to keep control of himself. He had marched back and forth across the iced floor, his naked shoulders gleaming blue beneath the emergency light. He had lost sense of time, and when he began to stumble and cannon into packing-cases and frozen carcasses, a warning flashed in his tortured brain. He was beginning to lose control of his limbs. The intense, almost searing, cold had killed his resistance, and he knew that he was almost finished. It had been then that he had flung himself again at the door, his feet, hands, even his head crashing against the unmoving, ice-sheeted plates. He vaguely remembered falling and the light flooding in through the door.

  His feet banged against the rungs of the ladder as he was dragged slowly upwards through the hatch and along the silent passageways. Then he fainted away once more, only to recover, spluttering and choking, as the burning schnapps flooded his throat and spilled down his chin. He was wrapped in blankets, and painfully aware of the feeling returning to his body.

  He suddenly realised that he was telling all this to Schiller in a flat, toneless voice.

  ‘It was Alder,’ he said at length. ‘He saw Brandt lock me in and came to help me.’ He shuddered, imagining the feeble Alder, alone with his terrible mission. ‘He made a noise, and Brandt saw him. He was going to come for you, but Brandt saw him and ran after him before he could get away. I think he chased him along the starboard passageway to where that inspection door opens into Number Two hold. He got the door open just as Brandt reached him, and then . . and then . . .’ His voice died.

  ‘Well, go on!’ Schiller’s face was like stone.

  ‘Alder jumped into the hold on top of the coal. When Brandt looked over the coaming he smashed his head in with a piece of coal!’

  Schiller sat back, his brain working fast. ‘So that bastard’s carcass is still on board, eh? Well, who planted his cap on deck to make it look as if he had gone over the side?’

  ‘Alder. He must have had one of his saner moments. What will we do? If they find the body they’re bound to suspect one of us. They’ve been hounding Alder and me since we came aboard!’

  Schiller grunted. ‘Number Two hold, eh?’ They both looked at the hold cover. ‘Lucky it wasn’t Number One. They’re moving coal from there right now!’ He creased his face into a frown. ‘We’ll get rid of him tonight.’

  ‘You’ll help, then? He stared at him with relief and gratitude.

  ‘Suppose so. Us goalbirds must hang together!’

  The whistle shrilled once more, and Schiller reached for his hammer. ‘I’ll work something out, Willi.’ As he put his cheroot carefully in his cap he asked, ‘By the way, Willi, what did Brandt want to know?’

  Pieck went even paler and shook his head. ‘I—I am not sure!’

  ‘He’d found out about you and Lieutenant Kohler, eh?’

  Pieck dropped his hammer on the deck, his lips ashen. ‘You know?’

  ‘Of course! What did you expect?’ As the men began to move to their jobs, he grabbed the boy by the shoulder. ‘Do you want to go on with it? Do you really like what that swine does to you?’

  ‘No, no! I’ve been so afraid, I didn’t know what to do! He threatened to tell my parents, he . . .’

  Schiller had seen a petty officer drawing near. ‘Listen, don’t go any more! Keep away, see?’

  ‘But if he makes more trouble?’ He hung his head. ‘I couldn’t bear any more detention and punishment, and what it would do to my family!’

  ‘If he tries any more he’ll follow Brandt!’

  ‘You wouldn’t! Not an officer!’

  ‘Wouldn’t I? Look at my face, Willi, and tell me what you think!’

  * * * * *

  Edward Steuer pulled the blanket across the man’s face and stood up, his eyes dark with fatigue. His white smock was daubed with dark-brown stains, and his bare arms were also disfigured with patches of dried blood.

  ‘Another one,’ he said quietly, and two seamen, who had been sitting in a corner of the sick quarters playing cards, reached for a folded stretcher and began to roll the lifeless body out of the cot.

  Steuer did not look round as the men shambled out with their burden, but as the heavy curtain was pulled back and the door opened on to the moonlit deck he felt the cool air on his cheek, and some of the pain and misery seemed to fade before that small contact with the outside world.

  He crossed to the small table at the far end, and stood looking down at the girl. She, too, was wearing a white smock, and her hair was tied back from her small ears with a piece of bandage. He noticed the tiny droplets of perspiration on her forehead and on her upper lip, but also he saw her composure and strange serenity.

  Her voice was low and husky. ‘What time is it?’

  There was a clock above her head, but he answered: ‘After midnight. I think you should turn in, as the British would say.’

  She did not appear to hear. ‘It is quiet now. I did not notice it happening. It just came, like the darkness.’

  He nodded. As he looked along the ranks of shaded cots, swinging gently in the ship’s easy motion, he wondered how they had managed to restore order and peace to what had been a scene out of hell. He had worked steadily throughout the action, deaf to the shattering explosions which rocked the ship, and the awful cries which echoed around the hull like souls in torment. The first case had almost unnerved him. A man with no feet, kicking and screaming, fighting his two comrades who had carried him from the boatdeck above. His bloodied legs opened and closed like scissors, and before he could even get him on the table he was dead. He had stood for several seconds, just staring at the man’s contorted face and broken legs, with the bones protruding from the blackened flesh like splintered wood. He had made himself look, and had told himself, This is where you decide whether you can go on playing the doctor, or run away from it. After that he had cleared his mind of all else but his work, had treated each new case with the efficiency of a mechanic, and not as a mere human.

  The floor space had gradually filled with soiled dressings, broken splints and bloody rags. His unwilling working party emptied the enamel pails repeatedly, sometimes retching at their contents, and sometimes thanking God that they at least were spared.

  It had seemed hopeless, and then the girl had come in, as she had that first morning. Frightened, fragile but so grimly determined to help, that she swung the scales in his favour. Now the place was quiet. Nine men had died so far, and another thirteen lay in the cots. Some were as still as death, rescued from horror by hurriedly applied anaesthetics. Others lay apparently asleep, but with their eyes open and unblinking, no doubt thinking of their wounds, and dreading the dawn.

  She handed him his cigarette case, and he smiled. ‘Thank you. I think I need one now.’

  ‘What was it like on board during the battle?’

  He shrugged, and watched the smoke pass into the fan. ‘It was outside, it did not seem part of all this. I feel like a man who runs into a church during a terrible storm. It is hard to explain.’

  ‘What about the Captain?’

  He darted a quick glance at a cot, as one of the men moaned violently and then fell silent. ‘That was the only time I left here. It was after the action; in fact, I did not know he had been wounded. He was sitting in his chair on the bridge, and opposite him there was a small hole in the glass. A stray splinter had hit him without anyone seeing.’ He shook his head, still unwilling to accept it. ‘It was uncanny! He was soaked in blood, and yet would not let me do more than stick a shell-dressing under his shirt.’

  Her wide eyes were watching him gravely. ‘He must have been in great pain?’

  ‘Terrible. It must have been half spent when it struck him, probably a ricochet, otherwise it would have gone right through him!’

  ‘You admire him, don’t you?’

  He drew on the cigarette before answering. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that today he would not give up until your boat was sighted.’ He smiled sadly. ‘He ordered Heuss to stay at his side in case he fainted. I think he is always afraid that Dehler will jump at the chance to overthrow him and take command! After today I think he has little to fear in that way!’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Dehler has had a stomach full of fighting.’

  She shook her head. ‘If I try to reason it all out I become dazed by all that has happened. It makes me verge on hysteria.’

  ‘I am not surprised. You have suffered more than all of us. Yet you are in so many ways stronger than the rest, even than von Steiger.’

  She forced a smile. ‘You are teasing me!’

  ‘I am quite serious. For all that you may hear or see, I still believe he is a sentimentalist. He laughs at others who preach idealism or boast of their private beliefs, but he is affected by other forces as well.’

  ‘What drives him? What makes him so completely dedicated?’

  ‘I think it is despair. He is no ordinary commander. He is a thinker. He is like that old British captain from the Cardiff Maid. He has only his ship now, and I think he is just beginning to realise it.’

  She stood up and stretched, aware of the great tiredness which enfolded her and chilled her body. She felt dirty, and ached in every bone. All at once she wanted to get out of this place, with its smell of living death, and find the peace and privacy of her cabin. She suddenly remembered that the fresh water was turned off, and the bewitching picture of a hot bath faded like a distorted mirror.

  As if reading her thoughts, the Swiss smiled. ‘A salt-water shower is as good as anything for freshening you up.’ He held out a small packet. ‘Have one of these, and I guarantee you a good sleep. It is what you need now more than anything.’

  She paused, her hand on the curtain, the fatigue making her sway. ‘Where are we going, Eduard? What will happen?’

  ‘I do not know. South, to a better climate. I have heard a rumour that von Steiger intends to touch the South Americas somewhere to get rid of the wounded and the “unwilling passengers’!’ He seized her hand impulsively and held it to her lips. ‘I shall always thank the fates for permitting me to meet and work with a real lady! It has all been worth that!’