The Old Man bawled to his chief engineer – on their own in the day cabin now – ‘Tell me how else?’
He’d said he wouldn’t be comfy doing nothing, but wasn’t happy with the action as the skipper had outlined it, either. The racket outside went into decline before he’d had time to answer: elevator coming to a halt in a roar of released steam, the last of this day’s intake of ore crashing down through the trunking’s ringing steel and thudding into the foremost hold, and what had seemed for a moment like blessed silence was at once invaded by the Germanic oompa-oompa. Hibbert now able to say instead of shout, ‘Heck of a thing to be taking on, Josh. Even if the lads were trained for such malarkey – or you were…’
‘Bugger training. Not going to be a naval battle, Dick – just a bloody rough-house. All right, if I make a bollocks of it –’
‘Disaster all round. And even if it comes off – without casualties, would you expect? Even loss of life?’
‘Say our prayers and take our chances, is all.’ Thumbing shag tobacco into his pipe. ‘Have to, no bloody option. All right – I have to. You reckon if we behaved like proper little non-combatants we’d arrive home with a clean bill of health?’
A nod. ‘To all intents and purposes…’
‘Those are our people, Dick. The sort I’d soonest not be judged and found wanting by. Sooner not let down – uh?’
Flare of the skipper’s storm lighter. Hibbert shrugging, half in agreement, but scared of consequences. ‘You’ll be chancing your own crew’s lives and freedom. How about their judgement?’
‘I’ll be putting it to ’em fair and square.’ He had his pipe going. ‘Ask ’em are they game for it, or –’
‘And if they say no, the terms of their engagements –’
‘Last thing they’ll do. Long and short of it is there’s a bunch of their own kind over there, locked up and destined for bloody Germany. What if it was us, and we heard another Red Ensign ship had known about it and done bugger all?’
‘The lads’ll vote to have a go, I’m sure. But it’s your head on the block if it goes wrong – as you and I know very well it could.’
‘And that’s what I should be thinking of? Safeguarding yours truly? That how you’d see it if you were Master?’
The engineer wagged his head. ‘Maybe not, but –’
‘There you are, then.’ Sucking on the pipe. ‘There you are.’ He checked the time. ‘Have your crowd told no shore-leave, will you?’
Halloran told Batt Collins, ‘No shore-leave, Bosun.’
Shock in the bony, hard-eyed face. ‘Last night in – no leave, sir?’
‘Captain’s orders. You’ll hear why soon enough, he’ll be addressing all hands in the mess, later. But put it around right away – any of ’em try nipping ashore between now and then, it’ll be Wilful Disobedience.’
For which the statutory penalty that could be awarded by a magistrate’s or naval court was imprisonment for up to four weeks, with or without hard labour, as well as loss of pay.
Batt’s eyes still held the mate’s. He’d have preferred to know the reason now, before he passed on the edict. ‘Reason that’ll satisfy ’em, is it?’
‘If you don’t think so when you hear it, Bosun, you can call me a liar.’
‘Well.’ A shrug. ‘There’s some won’t be overjoyed.’
‘If you like, tell ’em Mr Holt had a heavy date tonight, and he’s not even allowed ashore to tell her he can’t make it.’
The chute trunking was clear of the ship now, and the hands who’d been waiting had gone down into the hold – number one – to square things off. Halloran left the rest of it to Collins and went up to see the Old Man, arriving just as Hibbert left – skipper telling him quietly, ‘Chief – steam for 0130, let’s say, kick-off 0145.’
‘Can do.’ Seeing the mate arriving then: ‘Can do, sir.’
‘Come in, Mister.’ Waiting, puffing at his pipe until the door was shut. Then: ‘Got it worked out, after a fashion. See what holes you can pick in it. What it comes down to in numbers is one party of twelve and two of eight, total twenty-eight – I’d hope all volunteers.’
‘I lead ’em into the Hun, do I?’
‘No.’ Pointing at a chair. ‘No, we’ll give Holt that job. You’ve a bigger one. See here…’
He’d sketched it on the back of an old chart: two hull shapes alongside each other, PollyAnna with her starboardside forepart impinging on the German’s port side amidships, that point of contact – or impact – marked ‘A’. Explaining quietly, ‘At ‘A’, the group of twelve, Holt leading ’em. Straight over, rush the guard and any others that may be there, and – up to Holt, this, depends on how he finds it – down into that hatch to the ’tween-decks, smash in there, bring the prisoners up out of it and over into the Anna. You’re there at our rail with the first party of eight – who’ll have secured us alongside after he’s gone over – standing by to receive the prisoners. If it’s all gone nice and smooth, mind you – otherwise you send ’em to support Holt’s lot, if they’re in need of it. Same applies to the other eight – who might best be further aft here.’ Port side, abreast number three hatch. ‘There again, Mister, only send ’em into the scrap if or when they’re needed. How I’d hope it might go is the first rush goes over, Holt with as many as he needs gets down inside, rest of ’em keeping that deck-space clear of Huns until he’s back up with the prisoners. Then double-quick back on board – some rearguard action no doubt, your reserves lending a hand or staying put at the ship’s side – your judgement, what’s needed. Then, Mister, you count ’em all back, signal me by whistle that we’ve got ’em all, and – cast off, we’re away.’
Looking at him. ‘Well?’
‘Could be awkward, the disengaging.’
A nod. ‘It could. Principle’d be to get the prisoners over first while our lot lay into the Huns and drive ’em back. But also stick together, no heroes getting cut off on their own.’
‘Right.’
‘Why this has to be your job, see. Holt’s is to break in, get ’em, break out again, get ’em across to the Hun’s port side and over. He doesn’t have to think what else is happening. That’s what you do – see he gets the support he needs and none of ’em gets left behind. I’ll be trying to hold her alongside, but in that tideway – well, what d’you say to a few fathoms of four or four and a half inch Manila, at points A and B? You there, bosun here, a couple of hands at each point going over behind Holt’s team to make lines fast. Lines with eyes in ’em, so securing’s quick an’ easy?’
A nod. ‘Cadets could do with splicing work, I’ll put ’em on to it. How about the start of it – 0145, you were saying?’
‘Tide’ll be flooding. Low water’s 2320, 2330. Step one, rig a steel-wire rope – four-inch, maybe – from the foc’sl to a bollard well up ahead of us. 0115, say, do that. Don’t want to attract attention, mind, no torches. Then when we’re set, bosun nips ashore with two or three hands, casts off breasts and springs, back on board and brings in the gangway. There again, no torches, and we’ll show no lights. Ship’s weight in the tide’s now all on the wire out for’ard: soon as I have her moving off the quay and there’s slack in it, let it go from inboard. So we leave the port of Vitoria one steel-wire rope for a Christmas present. Alternative might be if we had a wire long enough to pass around the bollard and bring back inboard, but I doubt we have, eh?’
‘Sure we haven’t, sir. But’ – he’d had two fingers crossed, uncrossed them now – ‘weapons for the boarding parties. Have Postlethwaite knock up some battens, shall I?’
A nod. ‘Good thinking. Whatever timber he’s got that’s right for it. Two by two maybe. Say twenty-four inches long, and chisel the corners off one end for a hand-grip.’
‘Twenty-eight of ’em. Better say thirty. If he’s got that much that’s suitable.’
‘If he hasn’t, use something else. Lengths of hawser – or rigging-wire. Best get a move on, hadn’t he? But listen now – question of holding us alongside. Might turn out to be not only the flood tide – which we’ll be stemming, obviously, three or four knots for that – but if the Hun’s wide awake he could be working his engines to separate us. In his shoes that’s what I’d do – aiming to trap our blokes on board – eh?’
‘If Holt can do his stunt like greased lightning –’
‘Then no problem.’ The skipper touched wood – not for the first time. ‘But we don’t know what he’ll be up against. And if he gets stuck in there – or can’t get through to the prisoners – well, see to it his front-runners have an axe, cold chisel, fourteen-pound hammer maybe, crowbar… Best have a torch too, hadn’t he.’
In the mess room, where the evening meal hadn’t yet been cleared away, the skipper, backed by a gaggle of his officers including Andy, faced close on fifty intensely interested deck and engine room hands, and began by telling them, ‘Before we get into detail, here’s the issue in a nutshell. That German out there – motor vessel Glauchau – is holding British merchant seamen prisoners in her ’tween-decks.’
Like letting a bomb off. Shocked, startled faces, then growing anger, a swelling growl of it, which he silenced with a raised hand.
‘We don’t know how many or from what ship or ships. All we know is they’re in that Glauchau and she’s due to sail at 0500 – pilot’s booked for that hour. To sneak home to bloody Germany, you might guess. Another guess is she may have been going to act as a support-ship for the Graf Spee – she holed-up here the day after the Spee got into Monte – awaiting fresh orders is my guess; her story is she’s been waiting for engine spares – and she’s got away with it this far because the Port Captain’s away and his deputies are bloody Nazis. That’s fact, not fancy, could be why she picked this place or it was picked for her.’
The donkeyman – Barnes, senior engine room rating – was on his feet. A Welshman of average height but unusual width, he was said to have once lifted a full-sized trimmer under his left arm and a greaser under the other and banged their heads together.
‘Cap’n, sir –’
‘Yes, Barnes?’
‘Reckoning on boarding and breaking ’em out, sir?’
‘You wouldn’t be opposed to some such action, eh?’
‘By God no!’
Nor would any of them, by the sound of it. The skipper quietened them again.
‘You’ll see why I couldn’t grant shore leave tonight. We’ll have steam up by one-thirty, cast off one forty-five, and I’ll lay PollyAnna alongside the Hun shortly before two. First mate and I’ve worked out a way of handling it from there on; I’ll just tell you some of the background to this state of affairs, then he’ll take over. Anyway, as even the ship’s cat’s aware, we’re non-combatants: boarding and bashing Huns is not our business. Just happens I don’t believe we’ve any option. I’ve looked for other ways of going about it – after Mr Holt, who’d had suspicions of his own, had it confirmed by a shoreside barman, I might mention. I tried the British consul, but he’s away, couldn’t have done much anyway; telephoned the embassy in Rio and damn me if the ambassador’s not gone walkabout as well. Well, we could go on the air, get the Andrew on the job, but point one, Huns’d pick it up on their wireless and run like riggers; two, the cruisers as were on this coast might by now be days away. And right here, the Port Captain who’s said to be a good ’un was due back noon today and I was hoping to do business with him, but he’s been held up in Rio. What I’m telling you, see, is I’ve tried and got bloody nowhere, so – no choice, uh?’
Andy told his team of twelve, aft on the upper deck, ‘Battens and fists. No knives. Skipper’s orders, that.’
AB Parlance asked him, ‘Brass knuckles allowed, sir?’
‘Well, it’s not Be Kind To Huns Night, is it?’ That drew some chuckles. He added, ‘But we don’t want to leave knife wounds behind us.’
‘What if they got pistols?’
‘Skipper thinks not likely. But he has a Colt revolver and Cadet Gorst’s a practised pistol-shot – he’ll be on the bridge-wing with it and any gunmen do appear they’ll be his target.’ That had been decided in the saloon half an hour ago, skipper having mentioned that he had this old six-shooter, couldn’t hit a barn door with it point-blank, and Gorst had come up with the fact he’d been in his training ship’s pistol-shooting team, didn’t profess to be any dead-eyed Dick, but had been known to hit targets smaller than barn doors.
The other cadet, Janner, was to be Halloran’s ‘doggy’, running messages or errands as required.
Andy went on, ‘Draw battens from the carpenter. If he runs out of timber he’ll provide lengths of hawser or standing rigging-wire. Near the same weight, I’d guess, might even be handier. The wire’d be fairly lethal. Now listen – Ingram here’s my back-up: if I get clobbered he takes over. And if he’s done in, Edmonds.’
‘What if I buy it then, sir?’
‘We’d be in trouble.’ He shook his head. ‘But none of us is going to buy it – please God. Anyway, my job’s to get in and down to the ’tween-decks and bring up the prisoners. Inside the hatch there must be a vertical ladder as in a fiddley, at least as far as the ’tween-decks where the prisoners are. May have some of it partitioned off, boarded-up, whatever: that’s what the axe is for, and the crow-bar – Parlance with the axe, Edmonds with the bar. You two come in behind me, then Ingram and Crown. That should be as many as we’ll need inside; the rest of you keep the hatchway area clear of Huns so we can bring the prisoners up and across to PollyAnna. Distance of maybe forty feet – her beam must be about the same as ours, fifty or fifty-five, say. The other two teams of eight’ll join in if Mr Halloran sees we need it. He won’t send more than are needed – all got to be brought out of it when we finish; fewer the better really. For the same reason, stick together, support each other – right?’
He wondered whether the Germans might not have guns – on the bridge-wings, for instance – machine-guns, even. If this was – or had been – a Graf Spee support-ship – as she almost certainly was. The skipper had revealed only this afternoon that among War Intelligence Reports he’d received in recent days was one to the effect that the Spee’s well-known support-ship, the MV Altmark, had made what was believed to have been her final rendezvous with the battleship on 27 November in the vicinity of Tristan da Cunha, and had been ordered back to Germany on 7 December; the signal recalling her had been intercepted and deciphered, and she was now being hunted over a wide area. Glauchau might well have been sent south as her replacement. A secondary point the skipper had made was that 27 November, date of the Spee’s last fuelling from the Altmark, had been the day PollyAnna had come across the boatload of corpses – also within spitting distance of Tristan da Cunha. The Anna’s second escape by a mere whisker, therefore.
Now 0140, or near as dammit. Creak of a derrick as the gangway was swung inboard and set down with only the faintest of thuds. Batt and his wingers had rigged the forward-leading wire and then taken the other ropes and wires off her quickly and quietly – rubber-soled shoes and whispers instead of the usual shindy – and Andy now had his team here on the port side for’ard, squatting behind the cover (from the Germans’ angle of sight, if any of them were looking) of numbers one and two hatch coamings, and dressed more or less as he’d advised – dark-coloured trousers and sweaters, or boiler-suits. Most of them would have had a couple of hours’ kip – as he’d had himself. Had in fact considered writing a letter to his father, but sleep was really a more sensible use of the time; and letters written before action had certain implications, whether or not one was writing them in that spirit – which he would not have been.
(Hadn’t the least notion where or when any such letter would be posted, either. Or when they’d get any. Non-arrival of mail was beginning to rankle slightly.)
Thrum of the engine. Steam up and – yes, big old screw churning, PollyAnna on the move, deep-laden with her bellyful of ore. Fisher was up there with the skipper, AB Shuttleworth on the wheel, Harkness manning the telegraph, and spare hands – odd-job men or errand-boys – OS Curtis and galley-boy Starling.
Moving. And the rasp of the steel-wire rope as the foc’sl party knocked a slip off and the wire slid willingly away. Ship now clear of the quay with the flood tide’s force helping to turn her bow out into it: and still no lights moving or changing out there in the anchorage, no lights at all that the Germans hadn’t shown every night this week. A dimly lit patch on the south bank of the river were illuminations on and around the Frenchman. If the Huns didn’t see you coming, they wouldn’t hear you either, with that dirge blaring away as usual. Skipper on the bridge would have his glasses on her: if the bastards did see, hear or otherwise suspect, might get a sudden flood of light and noise other than music; on the other hand, if they’d been drilled to it you might not – orders might be passed quietly, upper deck filled silently with Huns standing by to repel boarders.
With guns in their hands. Guns against sticks. He thought it was distinctly possible. Skipper dismissive of it because there’d be nothing he could do about it – it was part of the risk he was having to take.
Halloran coming aft now, bosun with him. Through the darkness Halloran tallish, bosun like a medium-small ape bounding bow-legged at his heels. Andy stood up, identifying himself; the Anna by this time twenty feet clear of the quay and gathering way, vibration building as revs gradually increased. The skipper had said he’d try to get her out there speedily enough to have a fair chance of not being seen, since once she was under way every minute of exposure added to that risk. All portholes and weather doors had been shut and she wasn’t showing navigation or steaming lights; to the Germans she’d been a darkish mass on that quayside for the past six nights, and with luck that was all they’d be seeing now.
‘Holt. All right?’
‘All set.’
‘I’ll join you, starboard side, as you go over. Or on impact, say. Second team will move into your place here, then join me.’
‘Aye aye.’
They’d been over it all about forty times, for God’s sake. Mention of ‘impact’, though – at this speed, maybe eight knots through the water, meaning four or five made good, there would be impact. Bloody great crash, in other words. He’d warned this lot, ‘Get there and crouch, hold on, hope to God we stay in contact – or jumping distance anyway.’ There’d been discussion of that potential source of very unpleasant casualties – jumping when you shouldn’t – or clumsily – falling between two ships each of about 9,000 tons deadweight which might then close in again.
Still no movement and no visible disturbance. Music steadily gaining strength. A lot of them would have their heads down, saving their energies for the 0500 departure. Time now – no, couldn’t read it. Not much short of 0200, in any case. And revs decreasing: you could feel it in her steel. He said quietly, ‘Won’t be long now. On your marks…’
Slower still. You heard the river, saw PollyAnna in your mind’s eye as if from the Glauchau: black shape almost bow-on, looming closer every second and surely visible to anyone with eyes who as much as glanced this way. PollyAnna in, say, quarter-silhouette against the soft radiance of the town?
Manuela grinding her teeth? Or just her hips? Some lucky sod…
Engine slowed. Keeping way on her, not much else he guessed, revs calculated just to get her there, against the tide. Glauchau’s riding lights vivid white, superstructure and funnel clear-cut against the stars. Frothing of the tide visible too now under and around her stern.
And – impact.
A lot bigger than he’d expected after that reduction. Old Man should have reduced sooner, maybe. Long, iron-scraping, rail-bending side-swipe, and the German actually rocking away from it. They’d remained crouched through those few seconds – as well they had, would have been knocked flying if they hadn’t – but were up now and running, over number two hatch and between it and the derricks; PollyAnna’s forward way still holding her alongside, nuzzling the German. Andy was over, others with him, into a glow of light that lit the forefront of the Glauchau’s superstructure and one white-shirted German on his feet – had been down, knocked over by the impact, was now up and another of them coming, shouting and stumbling out of the weather door at that corner.
First time I ever hit a Hun…
Hun on his knees again, Ingram kicking him in the face and two others taking on the second one. Andy had shouted, ‘Keep ’em from coming out that door,’ seen one German bounce off the top of the starboard-side rail and go cartwheeling, bellowing; didn’t hear the splash because he was in the shelter to the hatchway, ’tween-deck entrance, the shelter from any distance looking like a squat ventilator. Now had the grating open – a hinged hatch replacing a hatchboard that had been removed – glow of light from below, didn’t need the torch as he’d thought he might – was on the ladder, less climbing down than free-falling with his palms slapping the iron rungs, and other men’s feet and legs coming down on top of him. The source of light from below was a bulb in a cage above a timber door with a grille in its upper part, from the other side of which he had an impression of men shouting – as far as he could make out, over the racket from above, it could have been wishful imagining – and – glory to God, two large, ordinary bolts, one at the top, one near the bottom. Jerking the top one back and then stooping to the other he realised he was standing on a hatch: get back on the ladder and pull up that lid, you’d find ladder-rungs continuing into the lower hold – from which even with the hatch shut there was an odour that told him fairly plainly what the access might be for. He pulled back the lower bolt, put his shoulder to the door and shoved – Parlance at his side – and a few feet back from the door as it banged open a dozen or more faces: glaring eyes, snarling mouths, bearded or part-bearded faces distorted by alarm or anger or both, but – extraordinarily – silent…
‘You British? How many?’
‘Christ – he’s – you’re –’
All in full cry suddenly: he had a job to make himself heard. ‘Come on – up and out! Quick, before the Huns’ve got ’emselves together – OK? How many of you?’
He’d heard – thought he’d heard, in a bedlam of other shouts plus music still thumping overhead – ‘Seventeen,’ then a clearer voice correcting that with, ‘Sixteen and the lass.’
‘Parlance – get ’em moving, come up with the last of ’em, try to make ’em understand what’s wanted.’ Shouting upwards then: ‘Go on up – clear the way – Ingram, all of you!’ Grabbing an iron rung, one foot on another until those above gave him room, Parlance telling the prisoners – ex-prisoners – ‘On deck, chums, our lads’ll beat the Huns back, get you lot port side an’ into the Anna. Comprende?’
‘What’s the Anna, then?’
‘SS PollyAnna. Blood Line, out o’ Glasgow. Wanna get you aboard sharpish, see? Then –’
Then sound as well as smell fading below him as the music strengthened: he was at the top, crawling out of the shelter covering it and on his feet then in patchy, moving light and darkness and a crowd of struggling, cursing men – Ingram, Edmonds, Crown, Hughes the cook – and others, defending and widening the deck-space against encroaching Germans, some of whom were armed with bottles. Brooks and McCandle still blocking the weather door, although they – Huns – would have other exits they could use. Edmonds with his crow-bar was the most effective, others using fists as well as battens.
Andy yelled to Smythe – a trimmer – and firemen Sams and O‘Keefe – the latter’s face streaming blood – ‘Prisoners coming up, look after ’em!’ The first of them were already out, a huddle of three, four, as unkempt and scrawny as Pathans. Andy’s eye caught then by a knife in the hand of a German who was going for Cox: he charged him, fists up but kicking him in the crotch – right on target – the German doubling-up and Andy in close then with fists swinging, Cox back in it using his boots too, knife skidding away towards the starboard scuppers. Broken bottles were as bad as knives, though, were being used as missiles too, and there was a lot of blood around. One bearded ex-prisoner had acquired a batten: might have got it from Edmonds, who didn’t need that as well as his crow-bar, from which the Germans truly were keeping their distance. That one and others in a tight group had O‘Keefe and Smythe hustling them over towards the Anna, while Germans advancing across number three to intercept them had themselves been taken in the rear by the first reserves Halloran must have sent – the bosun with gunlayer Bakewell and trainer Timms, bosun wielding a two-foot section of steel-wire rope, Clover and Priestman ditto – and Bennet; a lot of those had gone for the rigging-wire. Huns scattering now – one unwisely backing into range of O’Shea’s batten then encountering Smythe’s fists and boots, finishing up crouched on the hatch with his arms covering his head. Andy dodging a flying bottle – had already been hit by one that had gashed his neck behind the ear – and charging the little squirt of a man who’d hurled this other one, kicking his heels from under him then slinging him at some of his friends.
Germans were tending to stand back now, and the first of the former prisoners had reached the ship’s side, were clambering over, Janner and others helping. Halloran was there: and there had been movement between the ships’ hulls – see-sawing with the gap between them opening and closing – as the skipper had predicted. Andy was back at the ’tween-deck access with Ingram and the others, and what must have been the last of the prisoners were emerging now into their protection; Parlance was with them, so those had to be the last. Parlance was king-pin, with his battleaxe which the Germans seemed disinclined to face. Several had been hauled away by their friends after close encounters with Edmonds’ crow-bar, but the axe really frightened them. Weren’t showing a lot of fight in any case, acting more like hyenas milling around at a safe distance while watching for chances and now and again taking one, the Anna’s men still having to dodge an occasional flying bottle. Half the prisoners must have been over in the Anna by this time, and of that last group out, now halfway across, one of middle-age – bald with grey in his beard – had an arm protectively round the shoulders of a smaller, much slighter one who was shrouded in an oilskin, and behind them another young one seemingly sheltering them both, at close quarters with Andy for a moment, yelling at him out of a darkly unshaven face, ‘Blooming miraculous, sir!’ It needed some explaining, but the slim one – beardless, with bright, scared eyes – was a girl, for Pete’s sake… He remembered that answer to his question in the ’tween-decks three or four minutes ago – Sixteen and the lass… He shouted to his own group – primarily to Ingram – ‘Stay with these now!’ Because the job seemed to be damn near done, all over bar the shouting, although progress was slow at the ship’s side – ex-prisoners in a bunch, some hold-up there. Wasn’t quite finished, though: a large, bulbous German in a singlet and shorts lurching out of the screen door, the door with his weight behind it catching McCandle off-balance, sending him staggering, and the German lunging with a knife – kitchen-type, he’d be a cook maybe – breasts like a woman’s bulging the singlet, huge biceps, shaven head. Andy had started forward but Parlance was ahead of him, axe swinging up ready to split the gleaming skull – all it needed, man-mountain stopping dead, dropping the knife and lifting its great arms in surrender. Meanwhile, those last three were making better progress – the girl with the older man, and the lad protecting them. They had Ingram, Hughes, Edmonds and Crown flanking them; Brooks and McCandle back here between them and the weather door, other PollyAnnas here and there: the action was all on the port side now – and the ships were moving in relation to each other, Andy realised, might have accounted for the hold-up. He yelled to McCandle and Brooks, jerking a thumb, ‘OK, you two!’ – meaning job done here, shove off – but swivelling to face a Hun rushing at him, whirling a length of chain; an officer, no less, epaulettes on his shoulders. Andy stopped him by jabbing the batten into his yellowish-looking face, was in close then, inside the scope of the chain, landing a good straight left followed by a right cross, which didn’t connect as the man tripped backwards, went sprawling across the hatch-cover. No purpose in following up: his own orders to the lads had been to keep Huns at a distance but not on any account get in among them. Looking to the ship’s side again now: the girl and the older man were climbing the German rail, Janner courteously rendering assistance from PollyAnna’s. The Germans weren’t trying now, only pretending to, fifteen or twenty of them in an ostensibly threatening half-circle, as if to give the impression they’d forced this withdrawal. Halloran and the bosun were summoning men back over. Andy with Ingram, Parlance, Edmonds, Crown and Hughes were going to be the last: facing the Huns still, guessing that turning their backs on them might give them ideas. But you couldn’t stand around for ever: he shouted to Ingram, Crown and Hughes, ‘Go on, you three. Bloody good job you’ve done.’ Keeping Parlance the axeman and Edmonds the crow-bar man because they were the best Hun-frighteners. Despite which, a few Huns, seeing this bunch thin out, had begun edging forward – hesitantly, though, looking round at others for support. Halloran bellowed through a megaphone, ‘Holt – finish, pack up!’
‘Give me the axe, Parlance. Off you go. You too, Edmonds.’
Holding the axe up and clearly visible, letting them know there could still be skulls split if they insisted, while giving those two time to get over. There was a lot of to-and-fro movement on the ships, grinding of hulls and lurches from time to time as the securing lines came up bar-taut. Should by rights have parted – and might yet. But OK now, maybe. Keeping the axe in view while backing to the rail – then on it – on the German’s rail and over it, heels on the iron coaming outboard of the scuppers. There was a gap between the ships’ hulls of about two feet and it was widening – very good reason not to wait for ever. Had to let go of the rail behind him – the Glauchau’s – and jump from his heels while grabbing for the Anna’s. The gap was now more like three feet and still – well, Christ…
Over. While Halloran, grabbing at his arm, had been slashed in the face by glass from a bottle shattering against a kingpost. Reeling back, hands to his face: there was a lot of glass and blood about. Two blasts on a whistle then – Halloran’s – telling the skipper all hands re-embarked: the bosun was on his knees sawing through this tether of Manila rope. They’d already cast off the other, which would have accounted for that sudden widening of the gap. Halloran, holding a wad of cotton-waste to his torn forehead, snarling at Andy, ‘Took your fucking time, didn’t you?’ Then – surprisingly – ‘Done a nice job, for all that.’