‘Right, you men!’ His voice was harsh and halted the men, even as they began to move. ‘Take your shovels with you, we shall need them again! Now clear the ship in an orderly manner!’ He watched them scamper for the rails, their hands like hooks as they grabbed at the waiting ropes and dangling ladders. He turned to Kohler, who still stood dazed and panting, his face streaked like a clown’s. ‘Have all your men got clear?’

  Kohler pulled himself together with a visible effort. ‘All but one, sir! I had to shoot him in self-defence. He was looting; I . . .’

  Von Steiger cut him short, aware that Reeder still waited with the two officers, his face ashen. ‘Make a report later, Kohler; in the meantime, get back on board!’

  He was aware of the great bank of faces which lined the Vulkan’s side above him, and conscious, too, of the muffled gurgling roar beneath his feet as the impatient sea began to thunder into the ship’s gaping wounds. His limbs were shaking and he could no longer see anything clearly. The coal shimmered in a haze and seemed to mock him, but something still forced him to stand on the trembling deck. He looked at Reeder and smiled. It was a savage, victorious smile. ‘A cheroot, if you please!’

  The gaping, fascinated crew of the raider watched their captain and his steward, as the latter searched frantically through von Steiger’s jacket until he had found the leather case. Another horrifying pause while a match was lit and held for von Steiger’s use, and he bent his head with apparent concentration.

  The freighter lurched again, and the corpse on her bridge plummeted from his place by the telegraph and crashed against the bridge screen, his frightful face hanging through the shattered window as if to see the cause of the delay.

  Dehler watched von Steiger, his hands balled into tight, painful fists. The Captain seemed to be looking at him across his steward’s shaking hand, mocking him, humbling him to his true world of jealousy and pettiness. He felt the sweat pouring down his forehead, and did not see the sad concern on the face of Niklas the engineer.

  The girl saw it too, her hand pressed to her breast, as von Steiger clambered up the ladder, his body filthy and streaked with sweat, yet the jutting cheroot and bright eyes giving him the appearance of an impish schoolboy who was playing at being a man.

  The raider idled clear as the other ship rolled over on to her beam ends, her remaining mast shivering to fragments against the German’s bridge and showering the watching crew with splinters.

  Caryl Brett saw the tension break like the mast, and watched the bedlam suddenly break around von Steiger as his dirty, resentful men became a mass of cheering, laughing pirates, their haggard faces shouting and yelling as they reached out to pat his bare shoulders as he pushed through them.

  He paused at the foot of the bridge ladder and turned to watch the freighter’s last moments. A weed-encrusted bilge-keel wallowed like a submarine in a turmoil of giant air-bubbles, and then she was gone.

  Von Steiger began to climb, his senses reeling, yet feeling the grin on his face like a mask. The cheers rang in his ears, and his shoulders ached from the blows they had received. They were cheering with all the power they could muster. Shame, pride and relief bonded together in a great wave of noise. He reached the safety of the bridge, and forced himself to look at the whirlpool and its attendant flotsam as the wreck plunged towards the sea-bed. Tomorrow they might be cursing him once again, but at the moment they were happy.

  He smiled grimly as he heard Reeder being sick behind the bridge.

  The telephone buzzed like a wasp, and Heuss jerked himself from his trance. ‘Masthead reports a ship on the port quarter, sir! A merchantman!’

  He drew on his cheroot. ‘Stand by to engage! Alter course to intercept, and sound Action Stations!’ He watched the consternation on the Lieutenant’s face. ‘With the crew as they are at the moment, Heuss, I would not hesitate even to fight with the Grand Fleet!’

  13

  A FEW TINY clouds, their fleecy underbellies pink in the evening sunlight, drifted across the peaceful sky towards the fine gold line of the horizon. The unbroken green water moved with rhythmic slowness, like deep breathing, and showed clearly the reflections of the two ships as they lay beam-on to each other, watchful and tense. Under the raider’s trained guns the other vessel seemed vulnerable and helpless, her towering size and deep-laden hull adding vividly to this impression.

  She had been surprised by the raider’s swift approach, and quite unprepared for the harsh suddenness of events which changed her from a proud, independent ship to a cowed, motionless prize.

  Von Steiger watched the boarding party in the two whaleboats drawing nearer and nearer to the big freighter, the oars rising and falling in perfect unison, and seemingly incongruous with the wild, coal-spattered men who manned them. He moved his glasses slowly along the full length of the waiting ship. Between eight and nine thousand tons, she had reported herself as the Italian freighter Romolo, outward bound for Rio de Janeiro and on passage for France. It had been a copybook attack, and the Italians could not have responded better. One warning shot, the sight of the German ensign, and they had been running for the lifeboats, only to be halted by another signal from von Steiger to stand fast and await the boarding party.

  He breathed deeply as he saw the first whaleboat ride alongside and glimpsed the flash of sunlight on a rifle-barrel as the first of his men shinned up the proffered ladder. Then the second boat, and more scrambling figures. It was so maddening to have to stand and wonder, he thought. He felt the gnawing uncertainty growing as he watched the tiny figures of his men fan out across the Romolo’s deck and move towards her lofty bridge. Such a fine-looking ship, even her drab grey paint could not disguise the proud flare of her bows and the neat rake of her tapering masts and streamlined funnel. The next few moments would decide her fate.

  Lap, lap, lap, went the clear water against the hull, and he could feel the warm air like a tonic replacing the strength which he had lost when wielding a shovel. As he thought of it, he smiled with something like embarrassment. What had prompted him to make such an exhibition? he pondered. He lowered his glasses and ran his coal-blackened hand across his chest. It had been just one more moment of decision. No other officer could have done what he had done. It would have lacked impact and purpose. He grinned in spite of his uncertainty. Suppose the men had still stood back and had left him alone shovelling coal? Dehler at least would have been delighted. And yet why should that be? Dehler had as much to lose as anyone. Was his hatred so pointless that he no longer cared about himself?

  ‘Lieutenant Heuss is signalling, Captain!’ Petty Officer Heiser levelled his big telescope, puffing out his cheeks as he always did when reading the stabbing light. ‘Cargo as follows. Six hundred tons of gunpowder. Five hundred tons of meat carcasses. Two hundred tons of salt meat. Three hundred tons of steel tubing. Latter for use as rifle barrels.’

  There was a pause, and von Steiger could sense the excited air on the bridge.

  ‘In addition,’ Heiser continued, in his flat voice, ‘twelve hundred horses for the French Army.’

  He sighed deeply. In his mind’s eye he could see the poor, terrified animals, penned in the half darkness, on their way to slaughter. Either the French would ride them to ribbons, or they would be used as food. No doubt some fat business man was making a nice profit from their agonising journey. He shook his head angrily.

  ‘Make this signal.’ He plucked his beard, his eyes brooding. ‘Send across fresh meat in three lifeboats and salt meat in two others.’ He eyed the placid ship with sudden dislike. ‘Next, same boats to carry fresh water to maximum capacity.’ He waited, tapping his foot, as Heiser wrote the signal on his slate, his pencil squeaking noisily. He imagined Heuss and his men waiting for the signal, and remembered how the Lieutenant had looked when he had come on to the bridge and seen his wound dressed by the girl. He bit his lip. So that was it. Of course, it would explain Heuss’s taut features and barely controlled anger.

  By God, am I to be watched and judged every single minute! He snapped with unnecessary sharpness at the waiting Heiser: ‘And tell them to get a move on! I want to sink this ship in one hour!’ He felt a childish satisfaction as he watched Heiser’s thick fingers manipulating the light shutter.

  He turned to Ebert. ‘Lower our dory and get all hands to work! Double the lookouts, but fall out the guns’ crews! Now see that they get moving! I do not want another exhibition of temperament!’ Ebert saluted and hurried away.

  ‘Well, Damrosch? What do you think of the prize?’ Von Steiger watched the tired eyes become alert, as if looking for a trap in his words.

  ‘It seems a terrible waste, Captain.’ He sounded cautious. ‘All that to be destroyed.’ He faltered. ‘I am not squeamish any more, sir, but there is more to destroying a ship than just blowing it up!’

  ‘How right you are.’ Von Steiger spoke half to himself. ‘Nothing can be destroyed that has ever been created. This type of fighting is not as you expected?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, sir. It is almost as bad as unrestricted submarine warfare!’

  ‘My God, I hope you are wrong!’ The gold eyes gleamed dangerously.

  Damrosch fumbled for words. ‘At least the U-boats make no pretence, sir! They are the butchers, and they are content with their label!’

  Von Steiger’s voice was cold. ‘Then what have you left to fight for?’

  His eyes looked tortured. ‘That’s just it, sir, I don’t know any more! I love my country, and will die for it if necessary!’ He moved his hands helplessly. ‘But how can I remember these things with pride and honour!’

  My God, thought von Steiger with sudden despair, he wishes me to console him and to bring back his confidence. Me, of all people.

  Gently he answered: ‘When all this is over, it will only be important to many people who won and who lost. The method is often overshadowed by the result.’

  Damrosch searched his captain’s face intently. ‘You are trying to be kind, sir!’

  Von Steiger smiled dryly. ‘I am merely being practical.’

  A messenger saluted and handed von Steiger a folded sheet of paper. He flicked it open, noting Kohler’s spidery signature at the bottom and the official wording of the report. Short, official, unfeeling. It summed up the death of a seaman caught looting. It also summed up Lieutenant Kohler.

  ‘So it was Seaman Hahn who was shot?’ He nodded briefly and thrust the report beneath a paperweight on the chart-table.

  ‘That’s the sort of thing I mean, sir!’ Damrosch seemed unable to stop himself. ‘Even amongst ourselves we loot, fight, even murder.’

  ‘Murder? Do you mean Petty Officer Brandt, or Seaman Hahn?’

  He flushed, aware that he had gone too far. ‘I am sorry, sir. My tongue ran away with me!’

  ‘Quite so. Let me give you a word of advice. Try to be a good officer. That has to be enough, even for an idealist. If you want to find something else in all this, let me tell you, you are wasting your time and energy!’ His face hardened. ‘There is nothing else, do you hear? Nothing!’

  He walked away from Damrosch and past Heiser, who was studiously examining his lamp. Damn them, he thought viciously. What do they want of me? He slumped against the screen and stared down at the gently rolling decks below him. Yet, in spite of everything, I cannot turn my back on any of them. Even that man Hahn, thief that he was, did not deserve such a death as that. Alone, in an alien ship, on the bottom of the Atlantic. Braun, the masthead lookout I had shot for cowardice, or the men who died in battle. Even that pompous fool Arthur Brett did not deserve to die in such a fashion. He shied away from that thought immediately, knowing that in reality Brett had deserved to die, if only for not loving his wife.

  He passed his hand across his face. I am so tired I am incapable of reasoning and dead to reason. He watched the white lifeboats pulling towards him, their oarsmen hidden by the piled meat and crates of vegetables. Fresh food for my men. Like that drunken brute Schiller, whose blind hatred of any sort of discipline had saved the situation aboard the hulk. And Heiser, who listened to his officers around him on the bridge, yet never repeated a word of anything he heard. Yes, they were a good crew, in spite of their shortcomings, and in spite of their helplessness. Like those poor horses in the Italian ship, they had no choice any more. Decisions were made in spite of them, not for them.

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant Heuss moved restlessly across the freighter’s wide bridge and peered down at the nearest lifeboat as it shoved off from the side and started another journey to the Vulkan. The ship’s forward deck was littered with broken packing-cases and bundles of meat carcasses, whilst beneath the watchful eyes of the Germans the freighter’s seamen ran to and fro from the broached holds, their faces strained and averted from the levelled rifles.

  Nearby, his round face filled with misery, the Italian master stood motionless and limp. As each new order was shouted, or another boat moved away from the side, he glanced at the clock, as if wondering how much time there was left. From aft came the muffled stamp of hoofs and the frightened cries of the horses, unnerved still more by the silence of the ship’s engines.

  Heuss gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, and tried to stop his ears to the sounds. Across the peaceful green water the Vulkan rolled lazily in the slight swell, her masts spiralling against the purpling sky.

  ‘Please, tenente, tell me what is to happen?’ The captain spoke English like a schoolboy, and no German at all. ‘What will become of my ship?’

  Heuss turned on him, hating the hurt in his voice, and stared at the man’s gentle, liquid-brown eyes. ‘How do I know?’ The man looked at his feet and shifted uncomfortably. Heuss compared him and the other Italian sailors with his own ragged men. Even taking their coal-streaked faces and stubbled chins into consideration, the comparison was plain to see. The Italians were without exception well fed and sleek, their uniforms pressed and neat. They looked like innocent bystanders caught up in a war not of their own choosing.

  Petty Officer Weiss clattered on to the quiet bridge, his tiny eyes gleaming. ‘Here you are, Lieutenant! Are these what you were looking for?’ He held out a bundle of well-thumbed newspapers which he had collected from the messdecks.

  Heuss nodded, and spread them hungrily on the chart-table. Newspapers in unfamiliar languages, yet with stories plain enough in any tongue. He gestured impatiently to the captain. ‘Here, read this one. I do not read Italian.’

  The captain did not look at the proffered paper, but stared instead at the distant Vulkan. ‘It says, tenente, that a German raider is at large in the Atlantic.’ He paused as Heuss scanned the stark headlines, picking out familiar words and fitting the captain’s own into the gaps.

  ‘It says how you have murdered innocent men, and have sunk ships without warning.’ The captain’s sad voice seemed to gather strength. ‘It also reports that you are pirates, and outcasts from human society.’ He stopped, as if waiting for Heuss to strike him.

  ‘And this?’ He gestured to a faded photograph which showed a jubilant french poilu planting a tattered pennant on a broken gun-carriage. ‘What do they say here?’

  ‘The Allies have defeated a German offensive in France! Your army has lost ten thousand men!’ The Italian spoke calmly now, without malice and without interest. ‘You are being destroyed, tenente!’

  Heuss folded the papers into a bundle and handed them to Weiss. ‘Send them to the Captain. He will want to see them.’

  He walked into the cool evening air, his brain burning with jumbled thoughts. What are we doing here? Why do we not go home and fight there, if we must?

  The Italian’s voice intruded yet again. ‘Are you going to kill us?’

  He whirled round, his face white with fury. ‘Kill you? What do you think we are? Savages? Are you the only damned people with right on your side? For Christ’s sake stop looking so damned pious and righteous!’

  The Italian looked confused. ‘Please, tenente, you are speaking too fast!’

  But Heuss hurried on, his ears deaf. ‘God in heaven, how sick, sorry and tired I am of all this humbug! If only I could find one man honest enough to say that he was fighting because he is afraid of the alternative! Why must the cause be justice?’

  Heuss started as Lieutenant Dehler climbed the ladder of the bridge and stood blinking in the half-light of the wheelhouse. He looked tired, and suddenly old.

  ‘Everything all right, Emil?’ He sounded apprehensive and nervous, and Heuss stared at him in disbelief. He had called him by his Christian name for the first time.

  Guardedly he answered: ‘Nearly finished. The water is going across now. Every available drum of the stuff!’

  ‘Yes, I saw it as I came over.’ Dehler spoke vaguely, as if trying to make up his mind. ‘Why are we hanging about? It’s asking for trouble!’

  ‘Well, you should know! You are the senior officer!’ Heuss’s voice was cutting, but there was no response. Instead, Dehler’s fat shoulders seemed to sag.

  ‘I know I treated you badly, Emil. A man can have his reasons.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he answered coldly. ‘You made it obvious enough!’

  ‘Look, do you want me to grovel? I’ve got a bit of pride, whatever you people think!’ With a trace of his old bitterness he continued: ‘Oh, why should you understand? You’ve always had everything!’ He lifted a red fist to silence the other man. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to drag yourself from the stinking gutter, always having to be grateful, and servile! I’ve never owned anything.’ He laughed, a short, barking sound, which made the Italians draw together even closer. ‘No, not a damned thing! I’ve tried all my life to get on, to make good, and all the way there has always been a clever, stuck-up bastard with position and “breeding” behind him who has beaten me to the plum job!’ He glared across at the Vulkan, his eyes misty. ‘She should have been mine by rights, but look who has got her! Another damned aristocrat, who doesn’t even begin to care for the likes of me!’