Von Steiger glanced at the door as Lieutenant Dehler clumped into the wheelhouse in his gleaming oilskins.

  ‘Ship secured for sea, Captain!’

  Von Steiger’s voice was unruffled and cold. How easy it was to play the role of captain again, he thought vaguely. ‘Very well, Dehler. Double the lookouts, and close up the hands at Defence Stations. Check that the ship is properly darkened, and then set the watch below to altering the ship’s appearance. Just as I told you today. We will become the S.S. Gripsholm of Sweden!’

  Dehler sighed and hurried away again, his face lined and tired.

  Heuss stood at von Steiger’s elbow. ‘Wireless message from the Commander-in-Chief, Captain. He says that the Emperor prays for our victory and safe return.’ He handed the signal sheet to von Steiger, who glanced at it and crumpled it into a ball.

  He stared hard at Heuss. ‘Prayers are for preventing war, Heuss, not fighting it!’

  He turned away from Heuss’s look of surprise and settled himself in the chair. Against the panorama of spray-slashed glass and the open expanse of black water beyond, von Steiger looked like part of the ship. Unmoving, invincible and ruthless.

  2

  THE FORENOON WATCH of New Year’s Day, 1918, found the Vulkan one hundred miles to the north-east of the Faeroes, that desolate group of islands which, swept by the elements all the year round, lie north of the last Scottish islands and four hundred miles south-east of Iceland. The wind still blew strongly from the east, but after nearly four days of slinking along the Scandinavian coastline and then butting into the sullen fury of the North Sea, it seemed to have less effect on the deeper water, which shone in the pale sunlight like green glass and rolled in long, even banks, broken only occasionally into angry white crests. The clouds had rolled away the previous night, but the pale sky was masked in vapour, which denied the sun its strength and seemed to accentuate the harsh brittle cold which nipped at the skin and made the breath catch in the throat.

  Von Steiger sat silently in his chair on the port side of the wheel-house, his leather bridge-coat turned up to his ears. In his hands he cradled a cup of scalding coffee brought by Reeder, his personal steward. The excitement which had shown itself as the ship had left harbour had vanished. They were through the protective minefields, clear of neutral coasts and were at this moment moving north of enemy territory. The ship seemed tense and nervy rather than alert. Overhead the wind moaned and rattled through the rigging, and from behind von Steiger’s chair came the crackle and distorted murmur of Morse through the open door of the wireless-room. It reminded him of the lastest signal from the Admiralty. To lay mines to the north-west of the Irish coast. No reason was given, just a bald statement. He fumed inwardly as he glanced at the crumpled signal. Now that they had him on the high seas it appeared as if he was expected to respond to their every whim without explanation.

  The wheel-spokes creaked back and forth as the helmsman, muffled to his eyes, fought to keep the ship on course. Lieutenant Dehler stood swaying beside the chart-table, while his assistant, Damrosch, paced the bridge wing, his breath pouring like steam from his reddened face.

  In the harsh light the ship looked different, even gay. She now had a bright-yellow star painted on a white funnel, and the blue flag with its yellow cross was painted on the side of the hull. The Swedish flag streamed from the poop, and the new name Gripsholm was displayed in several places around the ship.

  Von Steiger drained the coffee and put the cup on the screen, where it vibrated to the engine’s steady tune. New Year’s Day, he thought moodily. The men moved about the ship with neither spirit nor energy. Years of bad food and harsh discipline had taken their toll, so that now they were at sea again they seemed lost and ill at ease. The feel of the engine reminded him of the fuel accounts which lay in his sea cabin. Every minute of the day, every turn of the screw, meant that the black hoard of coal was falling. As soon as we break south, he thought, I must try to capture a collier. As coal makes up seventy-five per cent of England’s exports, it might not be too difficult.

  As the Vulkan lifted her four and a half thousand tons over the next roller, von Steiger felt the pressure of first one arm of the chair and then the other against his ribs. She was taking it quite well, and the weather would get worse yet.

  He stared steadily at the barren sea and felt the smallness of the ship. No patrols, no fishing boats, not even a swooping gull broke the hard, restless panorama.

  I must try to get some sleep. I cannot sit here for ever. He stirred uneasily at the thought of his neat bunk, and dismissed the idea instantly. He could feel Dehler’s eyes on his back, and wondered how a man could nurse so much hatred. He had tried to draw Dehler’s resentment into the open, and had even attempted to take him into his confidence. It was useless. Dehler either said nothing but the minimum comment, or started a long tirade about his subordinates, blaming them for their faults, lack of ability or the like.

  He ticked off his officers mentally, and came back to Heuss. He was by far the most competent and also took a great interest in the crew’s welfare. The seamen, wretched in their damp, overcrowded quarters, harried and bullied by their petty officers, had little enough to look forward to. Heuss’s watchful eye might make all the difference. Ebert was a good reliable gunner, and that was enough. Kohler was equally efficient, but lacked any sort of tolerance or warmth. Most of all he lacked charm. Von Steiger had long ago decided that an officer with charm could be excused many other faults. The two boarding officers and the engineers were all right, and young Damrosch, who now froze on the open wing because he thought his captain would expect it of a junior officer, was very likeable and willing. By and large they were a fair cross-section. They had good training, and experience would come also, given time.

  He gazed bleakly at his reflection in the salt-caked glass. Time. An easy word. He remembered Heinz, his brother-in-law, tall yet stooped in his field-grey uniform as he had stood at his side by Freda’s grave. One sleeve empty and pinned to his tunic made it hard to visualise him as an officer of a crack infantry regiment. In that slashing rain they had waited for Heinz’s driver to collect him and take him to the station. He was going straight back to France, to the Front.

  Von Steiger explored the memory uneasily, like a man will touch an old wound. They had always been firm friends, and when Freda had died the importance of that link seemed all the more vulnerable.

  Heinz had said impetuously: ‘What went wrong with Germany, Felix? What happened to bring us down like this?’ His grey eyes had hungrily explored the dripping churchyard and sodden grass. ‘Look at me, Felix! I am going back to that hell! To the mud and wire, and to that horror they call war!’ He hurried on, unaware of von Steiger’s shocked eyes. ‘I have to lead my men to their deaths!’ He laughed, a despairing, bitter sound. ‘Men, did I call them? Boys more like, to be led by a one-armed officer who knows the war is already lost!’

  Even now von Steiger flinched at the words. Lost. Of course he had known it, too, and yet there had always been hope with Freda to wait for him. When his father had been alive, and they had all lived in the great house on the edge of the Plöner See, with its long avenue of trees and smooth lawns, Freda had laughed at such black thoughts. ‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘I will look after you all!’

  The old Admiral von Steiger had died, and now Freda had followed him. Heinz had been the last link, and even he was condemned to certain death. For over three years the great armies had swayed back and forth over fields and towns, villages and hamlets, which had become a battleground, then a place where only wreckage abounded, and finally a sea of mud where shell-hole overlapped shell-hole and the trenches had been blasted to reeking gullies of pain, mutilation and despair.

  Von Steiger closed his eyes tightly and excluded the roar of the sea and the wind’s mad song, and tried to remember the other days. How was it, he wondered, that they had no inkling of what it would be like? Perhaps like Damrosch he had relied too much on his superiors. He thought of the grand overseas cruises, the revues, displays of naval might and the slow, exhilarating climb up the ladder of promotion. With such a family tradition behind him it had been difficult, for the Dehlers of the world were plentiful, and jealousy was rife within every service.

  He thought, too, of his son Rudolf, a serious six-year-old with a face so like his mother’s that it hurt even to think of him. He had been packed away to Dresden to the care of a distant cousin, a good, kindly, stupid man, who was free of the notions of glory and the tradition of the Imperial Navy.

  The brass telephone at his side jangled with sudden insistence, and he had it to his ear before Dehler could move from the chart-table. Far away, his voice whipped and distorted by the wind, came the voice of the masthead lookout:

  ‘Smoke, sir! Bearing red four-five!’

  Von Steiger stared at the swaying black pod on the foremast. So it had happened at last. There was no escape. Like Heinz, he was committed.

  ‘Very well.’ He kept his voice calm. He could sense the tautness in the man’s far-off voice. ‘Keep passing your reports, and try to see her masts. Warships have heavier masts, fighting tops, tripod masts and the like. When you can, report on her funnels, too.’ He held the telephone out for Dehler. ‘Report every scrap of information. He has just sighted a ship!’

  He slipped from the chair and beckoned Damrosch into the wheelhouse. He saw the unspoken question on his face and said evenly, ‘Have the men piped to quarters, but do not clear for action yet.’

  He opened a slim leather case and selected a black cheroot.

  ‘Will we fight, Captain?’ Damrosch looked suddenly pale.

  Von Steiger’s teeth showed white momentarily against his beard. ‘Agonising, is it not? Like two insects meeting in a rosebush. Does he eat me? Or do I eat him?’ Then in a sharper tone: ‘Lively now! And close all watertight doors immediately!’

  * * * * *

  In one of the small forward messdecks Willi Pieck sat on a padded bench, his knees drawn up to his chin to steady his thin body against the ship’s plunging motion which was felt so acutely in the bows. As the raider ploughed into each successive roller the small dimly lighted space seemed to drop from beneath the men who were off watch, and every stomach-shaking lurch brought groans and curses from the huddled figures around the scrubbed table, where a game of skat was in progress. The scuttles were sealed with thick steel deadlights, and the light from the small bulb above the table was yellow and weak.

  The card-players concentrated on their cards, heedless of the rattle of loose gear, mugs, seaboots, plates and various articles of clothing which rolled and clattered back and forth across the deck, tangled together in a mixture of salt-water and vomit.

  Pieck stared at the men at the table with wide, unblinking eyes. Schiller dominated the group, his cap tilted over his eyes, a black cheroot-butt protruding from his mouth. It was amazing how easy it had been for Schiller to fit in and make himself at home. He had become the senior rating of the mess, thus deposing a mean-looking man called Lukaschek. He now had the best bunk beside the steampipe, and his face was cheerful and at ease.

  At Pieck’s side Alder swayed vaguely with the motion of each wave, his troubled, vacant eyes staring at his hands. Occasionally he spoke aloud as he fumbled hopelessly with his shattered memory and disordered mind.

  ‘Two hands,’ he whispered, staring at the two pale shapes in his lap. ‘Two hands. My name is Emil Alder. I come from Brunswick.’ Something wet fell on his knees, and he realised with sudden shame that some spittle had fallen from his open mouth. ‘Must try again. Two hands. My name is Emil Alder . . .’ His voice trailed away into a meaningless mumble.

  Schiller glanced across the table in his direction and frowned thoughtfully, then turned his attention back to the cards.

  A mouth-organ’s plaintive notes ebbed and flowed from another mess, and occasionally they heard the powerful thunder of water breaking over the fo’c’sle and flooding along the upper deck.

  Pieck closed his eyes, and relived the nightmare which dogged every new happening, and killed the hope which he had held so fervently when he had stepped aboard. How he wanted to belong, to be part of these men who cursed and joked over their soiled cards and broken-match bets.

  The shame of the barracks, the feeling that he had been made different from other men and the final degradation of the detention quarters had done their work well. But the chance to get aboard a ship which was not only to strike a blow for Germany, but was also commanded by the pick of the country’s sea-raiders, that surely was enough? The chance to lose himself in the comradeship for which he had always craved, and cleanse the guilt from his name, so that his parents would again be proud of their last son.

  But the previous day Pieck had been working on the twenty-pounder on the poop, which was to be his action station. In spite of the wind and the cold, he was happy. The gunlayer, a stocky seaman named Hellwege, had been explaining the parts of the gun and showing him how to clean away the salt which gathered in the mechanism like sand. This was the life, nothing else mattered.

  Hellwege was a cheerful man, and was amused by the boy’s keenness. He was also a kind man, and wondered how anyone could send such a frail-looking boy to sea, on a raider at that A great wave surged against the Vulkan’s hull so that she reeled, caught off guard for an instant.

  Hellwege laughed, and gestured with his thumb towards the bridge. ‘I bet that made the pigs up there jump, eh, Willi?’ He nudged the boy roughly in the ribs, but Pieck only stared at the open wing of the bridge, his face ashen.

  There was no escape, after all. Lieutenant Kohler stood outlined against the angry sky, his handsome face disdainful and irritable as he stared after the receding wave. Lieutenant Kohler, the divisional officer who had promised to help Pieck. Who had instead opened his eyes to shame and fear.

  Pieck stared across to Schiller, wanting to tell him, wondering how he would begin. A tear formed in a corner of his eye. He dared not speak of it to anyone. He could not risk losing his last friends.

  A bell jangled like a mad thing overhead, and simultaneously the bosun’s mates ran through the ship, their pipes trilling.

  ‘All hands! All hands! Hands to quarters! Close all watertight doors, enemy in sight!’

  The figures sat like statues. Then there was one concerted rush, in which Schiller’s guttural voice could be heard hurling advice and curses at all and sundry. As the men clambered up the small ladder which joined the mess to the maindeck, Schiller turned and grabbed Alder by the sleeve. ‘Come on, comrade! Here, Willi give me a hand! We don’t want that bastard Petty Officer Brandt chasing us up here again!’

  Then the mess was empty. The cards lay forgotten on the table, the mouth-organ lovingly wedged in an empty bunk. Overhead, the thunder of running feet died away, and a great, deathly silence seemed to fall over the ship.

  * * * * *

  His Majesty’s Boarding Steamer Vole was making heavy weather of the big rollers, and the officers clinging to her small bridge had to struggle to keep their glasses trained on the distant ship.

  The little steamer had originally been used for carrying freight, livestock and a few passengers between the Scottish islands and the mainland, but like most of her consorts had been taken over by the Royal Navy for use as a boarding steamer. They carried out limited patrols, and stopped and searched neutral ships to ensure that war material useful to the enemy was not being carried, or exports from Germany were not being smuggled through the tightening blockade. The boarding steamers were equipped with wireless, and reported all suspicious vessels, if necessary, to the lurking cruisers which made the bulk of the British patrols.

  The Vole’s captain, a grey-haired Reservist, wiped his streaming face and shouted above the whine of the wind. ‘Swedish ship! Signal her to heave to! They won’t like that in this weather!’

  Flags soared to the yard, and a lamp stammered across the tossing water.

  The Yeoman of Signals read the slow reply. ‘S.S. Gripsholm. Sweden. On pasage to Reykjavik, Iceland.’ The light flashed again. ‘Have you a doctor on board?’

  The Captain frowned, and glanced at his gunners who clung to the four-point-seven on the fo’c’sle. So the Swede had some injury or illness aboard.

  The First Lieutenant shouted, ‘Shall I clear for action, sir?’

  The Captain lifted his glasses again. The tall black ship was nearer now. Decks deserted but for two or three oilskinned figures and two heads on her high bridge. Harmless enough, but might be worth a search.

  ‘Stop engines! Stand by to lower boats with boarding party! And tell the doctor to go across with them!’

  The litle steamer idled to a halt, her deck heaving in the deep troughs. The other ship loomed nearer, her bow wave dying in response to the Vole’s signal.

  As the first boat was lowered and the First Lieutenant clattered down the bridge ladder, the Captain lifted his glasses again.

  The Swedish flag had gone. Even as he stared in disbelief and horror, a white ball soared to the ship’s gaff and broke stiffly in the breeze. The black cross with its spread eagle, arrogant and final.

  The Captain yelled: ‘Clear away the gun! Open fire! Get that boat back on board!’ But it was too late. It had been too late from the moment the British captain had failed to train his gun on his enemy.

  A shutter fell away on the stranger’s bow, and the long muzzle which appeared flashed fire immediately.

  The Vole’s captain saw other guns, and was blinded by the salvo which screamed down on his ship, the shells blasting into her sturdy hull and turning it into an inferno. He tried to crawl to the wireless-room, but realised that the ship was already keeling over. His fingers slipped on the riveted deck as it rolled on to its beam ends. He was still shouting his orders as another shell fell on the shattered bridge and blasted him to oblivion.