On 12 December the last of the coal was out of her by noon, and within a half-hour a tug had come for that half-filled lighter. Deckhands were casting it off now, frayed old ropes flopping over, and the tug’s tall, slim funnel belching smoke as it dragged the barge off the ship’s side. Hoses had been running for some time, sluicing down decks; the next day or day and a half on the way up-coast would be spent washing and scrubbing out the holds, preparing for the load of iron ore they’d be embarking at Vitoria.
Graf Spee permitting. There’d been no distress calls and no reports of her since her destruction (presumably, destruction) of the Streonshalh five days ago, and there was intense speculation, afloat and ashore, as to where she might be by this time. In five days, shifting her ground at, say, twenty knots, covering something like 500 miles a day, by now she could be almost anywhere. The Old Man’s theory – in discussion mainly with Chief Engineer Hibbert in the saloon on Sunday – had been that as the Streonshalh had managed to put out that distress call including her position, and the Graf Spee’s captain would have been very much aware of it, might well have retreated into mid-ocean, be dwelling a further pause out there before starting back in again to these rich hunting grounds.
‘Could have reckoned on the Andrew being hereabouts by the time he’d’ve been. So he’d sheer off…’
‘The Andrew’ was a colloquial term for the Royal Navy. Of whose likely movements, presence or absence, there’d been rumours galore. Most of them concerned a cruiser force which the STO in Cape Town had told the Old Man had been deployed at some earlier stage between Port Stanley, Rio and the Plate. This would have been the South American squadron, which Todhunter too had known about but had no idea of its disposition now. Another rumour was one Todhunter had picked in the English Club, where he’d overheard a visiting nabob from the USA asking Mr Eugene Millington-Drake, British Minister at the Legation in Monte, whether it was true that the battlecruiser Renown and aircraft-carrier Ark Royal were due here shortly. The Minister had shown considerable surprise, then exclaimed, ‘If they are, my dear fellow, by Jove won’t we have a party!’
You could interpret that in half a dozen different ways. Millington-Drake was, Todhunter said, by no means as light-headed as that might have indicated – might have been intended to indicate. In fact he was an astute and well-liked diplomat, and as it happened a personal friend of long standing of the Uruguayan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Alberto Guani. While the men he’d been entertaining in the club that lunchtime, Todhunter had discovered afterwards, were a Royal Navy captain by name of McCall, naval attaché at the embassy in Buenos Aires, and a man by name of Ray Martin who was generally believed to be ‘some kind of cloak-and-dagger merchant’ also linked to that embassy. Between the three of them, Todhunter had surmised, they might well have had an answer to the Yank’s question; on the other hand, maybe they hadn’t – this argument being advanced by Hibbert, the engineer, who as well as being exceptionally large, was a slow-spoken man who read a lot and Andy thought was cleverer than he looked. He’d queried why diplomats, spies or even naval attachés ashore should be provided with information about ships or squadrons at sea, intelligence that would surely be closely guarded and which no one in the Legation, let alone the English Club, could really need. Mightn’t that get-together have been more or less routine hobnobbing, a mainly social business? If they’d had secrets to discuss, wouldn’t they have done it in the Legation – or on private premises?
Todhunter had shrugged – maybe, maybe… As a ships’ agent, he admitted, while he had frequent dealings with the Consulate, he had no business at all with the Legation, was not either functionally or socially in that league.
On Sunday, though, in that debate in the saloon, the Old Man had elaborated on his own suggestion that the Graf Spee might have turned back into the deep blue yonder; what if she’d done so not only to evade hunters who might have picked up her trail by then – in fact surely would have – but also turned on to what had been the SS Streonshalh’s route from the Plate to Freetown. Since he might well not have known that British tonnage was being routed that way, but having by chance come across the Streonshalh, could have reckoned on there being other potential victims on the same route. If his boarding party had found the Streonshalh’s papers, for instance – in other words, if her skipper hadn’t got rid of them before a boarding party reached her. Several British steamers had left this place homebound during the week PollyAnna had been here; one had sailed only that forenoon. And if the battleship was out there – staying well out of sight from shore, of course, on the great-circle route from the Plate to Freetown, and doing his damnedest to ensure that his victims did not get out any calls for help…
‘Like a bloody great shark waiting for its dinner!’
Shaw, third engineer, had said that, and for a moment it had hung in the air somewhat chillingly – until the Old Man defused the notion, pointing out that the Anna would not be shaping course for West Africa. Far from it – he intended hugging the coast all the way up to Vitoria.
That German freighter, incidentally, had shifted yesterday from the Antepuerto to a quayside berth in a section of the docks called Darsena 1, allegedly to embark general cargo. Whether she’d been waiting for the berth or for the cargo to arrive wasn’t clear. But Halloran had queried whether she mightn’t be a supply ship for the Graf Spee. She’d arrived in ballast after all, which suggested she’d have discharged a full cargo elsewhere on this coast, but mightn’t she have discharged it into the raider? And now come in for replenishment which would no doubt be manifested to some German port but might actually get no further than a rendezvous in mid-ocean?
A tug brought a water barge alongside during the lunch hour, and Tom McAlan went to ensure that pumping it into PollyAnna’s fresh-water tanks commenced immediately. Fresh provisions had already been embarked, bunkers filled, and the deep tanks forward and aft flooded: standard practice, when the holds were empty, trimming her down both to reduce the tendency to roll and ensure the propeller was at least submerged.
Sailing time was set for six p.m.
Andy wrote to Liza,
When I have reason to believe I may be home in the reasonably near future I’ll write again. I won’t be able to say anything in the letter about getting back – there’s a lot one isn’t allowed to say, for obvious reasons – but simply getting a second letter from me will signal that with any luck, crossed fingers etc, it may not be many weeks before I’ll be home. What I’d suggest is that when you next hear from me, if you’re being shipped off to some wrennery, you might let my mother know where you are or will be. Tell her I’ve suggested you might do this. Otherwise I wouldn’t know where to find you, and if it took very long to get together – heck, I might be gone again. As people keep saying, there is a war on. But listen – after you’ve had that next letter, if some time goes by and you don’t hear from me, don’t imagine I’m up there learning to play the harp. I might have guessed wrong, been too optimistic – or some higher authority changed its mind and sent us off somewhere else. It was sweet of you to write – lovely surprise, when I’d been thinking about you so much in any case…
Another piece of advice his father had given him – never admit to anything on paper. No harm in telling her he’d thought about her – that was simply paying her a compliment – but better to stay clear of ‘lovely memories of last summer’ that she’d mentioned, for instance.
Todhunter came on board with the ship’s Customs clearance and other business documents at about four p.m., spent some time with the Old Man, then said goodbye and good luck to the rest of them. No, no news of the Spee, not a whisper. ‘Shouldn’t meet her on the route you’ll be taking anyway. Sure you won’t. Give my love to Blighty when you get there, eh?’ The sack of last-minute mails that he was taking ashore with him was already in the launch; by what route it might be sent that would be quicker than PollyAnna in getting home was anyone’s guess, but you could be sure it would. By air via the USA was probably the answer.
The motorboat had been hoisted and secured – and provisioned, its essential contents as a lifeboat checked, as had been those of the three other boats – but the gangway was left in place for the convenience of the pilot, who was late, finally arriving at about six-twenty, by which time the cable had been shortened-in and the Old Man was muttering about not needing any bloody pilot anyway, another five minutes and he’d leave without the bugger. In fact it was compulsory to employ one, and the fine for not doing so would certainly have cost Dundas Gore more than the standard pilot’s fee; what was more, the diminutive ‘cruiser’ Uruguay was lying at anchor just off the naval harbour on Punta Lobos, 3,000 yards distant across the neck of the bay; if the port authorities and/or the Uruguayan navy had opted to stand on their dignity, it might have led to considerably greater delay. In any case, the red pilot boat was coming now: Andy saw it come into sight around the end of the stone jetty called Muella A, reported, ‘Pilot’s coming out, sir!’ and the Old Man signalled to Halloran to weigh anchor.
It wasn’t the same pilot – not ‘Flash Harry’, as that one had been nicknamed. Similar white uniform but less immaculate, and an older, heavier man inside it. As soon as he was on board – the Old Man had sent Andy down to meet him, Halloran being busy on the foc’sl and Fisher looking busy at the chart – Batt’s men were slinging the gangway up and inboard, dropping a Jacob’s ladder over in its place. PollyAnna on the move by then, southward at dead-slow towards the gap between the two stretches of breakwater, men on the decks of other merchantmen waving goodbye and good luck as she slid past them. In all their minds, Andy realised, at each departure, was the question of whether this one might fall in with the German lurking out there.
Very much like a damn great shark.
The entrance/exit between the ends of the breakwaters was about 300 yards wide, with light-structures on both, and on the one to port, marked on the chart as Escollera Sarandi, half a dozen men were fishing over its seaward side. Some of them stood up and waved their hats, and the Old Man moved out into that wing, waved back to them. Sea dead calm, sky a milky haze; at this point you were still in full shelter of the land. Pilot directing the helmsman to take her straight on down the channel now – the channel being marked at approximately half-mile intervals by pairs of light-buoys set well back from its dredged centre. He also rang down for slow speed ahead – as distinct from dead-slow speed – so she’d be coming up to four or five knots, with the red cutter following astern. Four knots was the maximum permitted in the channel, although Flash Harry had brought her up it a week ago at nearer ten. It took about fifty minutes anyway, to the Whistle Buoy, was seven-twenty when they stopped to drop the pilot, seven-thirty when they got under way again, with Halloran as officer of the watch, course east by south and revs for twelve and a half knots. Halloran asking the skipper, ‘Steaming and navigation lights, sir?’
‘No.’ Old Josh was hunched in the forefront with binoculars at his eyes, scanning the estuary and its outer approaches while there was still some light to see by, rose-tinted light with the colour deepening as evening faded into dusk. Lowering his glasses, glancing round at Halloran: ‘No, Mister – no lights. Double-up lookouts, end of this watch.’
So much for that assurance of immunity in inshore waters. Might have given it further thought, Andy guessed, decided that during the hours of darkness the raider might chance his arm and dash in ‘on spec’, as it were – as sharks had been known to do. Navigationally there’d be no problems, since coastal lights were all functioning. One on Isla de Flores, for instance, which would be coming up to port soon after Andy took over the watch at eight, then a couple of hours later Punta Negra, and Punta del Este after that. In Fisher’s watch, Punta del Este would be. But the Graf Spee had RDF – radar – so one had heard.
He went down to the saloon for supper – a bit late to be called ‘tea’ – which was hake caught on handlines off Montevideo early that same morning, bought directly from the boat on its way back in, and in the past half-hour or so fried in batter. Perfection, absolutely. He was back up top shortly before eight, by which time there was even less light left – a rust-red smear of afterglow astern, and ahead no clear horizon. A white light just discernible to the naked eye and giving two flashes four times a minute on the bow to port had to be Isla de Flores; he went to the chart to check on this, and while he was there freshened his memory of the track and DR positions laid off by Fisher; then he took over the ship from Halloran, who’d smelt the fried fish and was keen to get down to it. The Old Man had already gone down for his – in his day cabin – extra lookouts were closing-up at their stations, and Crown had taken over the helm from Edmonds. PollyAnna merging into the night now: from a distance of even a cable’s length she’d be visible only as an interruption to the dark gleam of the sea’s surface – the stars applying that polish to it – and by the swirling phosphorescence of her passage through it. With the propeller as close under the surface as it was, you could hear it, a regular thrashing beat clearly audible over the engine’s thrum.
When he handed over to Fisher at midnight – 13 December now – Punta del Este bore 045 degrees at about three miles. In another twenty minutes, when it would be safely abaft the beam, Fisher would alter 27 degrees to port for the next stage of forty miles – three hours, roughly – to Cape Santa Maria. And when Andy came up again at five-thirty – making this customary dawn pilgrimage despite being well aware that with land fixes all the way, star-sights weren’t essential – Cape Polonio was abaft the beam at a range of about ten miles. From here on, in point of fact, distance offshore would be steadily increasing.
Halloran asked him what he was doing up here – who wanted bloody star-sights? Andy could only tell him vaguely, ‘Habit, I suppose. Wide awake anyway, no point not.’ There’d have been a better answer, but what the hell, it had been a stupid question. Something to do, maybe, with Halloran himself only very rarely getting his own sextant out of its box. He had at the start of this voyage – had taken his own star-sights every evening, as was normal practice.
Andy was at the chart now, checking the Cape Polonio light’s characteristics – as if it was his job to do so, which it was not – hearing Fisher and Gorst out there and deciding to leave it to them; he went out into the other wing just as the skipper hauled himself up into the wheelhouse, exchanging gruff good mornings with the mate and helmsman. Ingram, that was. The sky broad on this beam was getting lighter, with a colour-wash of mauve above an increasingly well-defined horizon – which Fisher would welcome, for his stars. Wind east or southeast, he reckoned, but very little of it. No white water, except around her forefoot and along her sides, ripples reflecting that peculiar colour. He’d come up, he admitted to himself, to see this growth of first light and maybe a pocket-battleship in black silhouette against it: had had that image in his mind in half-sleep, and if he’d stayed below probably wouldn’t have shaken it off, therefore might not have got back to sleep. What you wanted to see, of course, was that it was not there: hardly surprising, considering that for several days they’d all had such visions in and out of mind.
Light was spreading laterally as well as brightening and reaching upward, and there was definitely no other ship in sight. Hell, why should there have been? Answer: because the bastard was out there somewhere – near or far, and could as well be near as far – and it was for ships like the PollyAnna that it would be hunting. Nothing either far-fetched or pusillanimous in recognising this: you’d got away with it, was all.
So far, you had. Or thinking back to events in the Moçambique Channel, might say got away with it again.
‘Looks like we’re on our own, sir.’
The bridge-wing lookout – Brooks, ordinary seaman. Lanky, flaxen-haired, he’d been a ‘lumper’ – baggage-handler – in Southampton, signed on as a galley-boy in some coaster, signed off – and on again as an OS in PollyAnna – in the Clyde in August. Pleasant fellow, played a mouth-organ quite well. Andy said, ‘We weren’t expecting company, this close inshore.’
‘Not in daylight, bosun was saying.’
‘Bosun’s right. Glad you chose this way of life, Brooks?’
‘Been called up by now if I hadn’t. Left-right, left-right on the barrack square, like. But – yeah, suits me well enough. Sir.’
That was a lot of it, he’d noticed, in most cases – a dislike, even horror of regimentation. On top of that, in some cases – whether recognised or not – love of the sea and the attraction of ‘foreign parts’. All of which boiled down to the sense of independence – being one’s own man.
Andy suggested, ‘By the time we get home you might be thinking of getting yourself certificated.’
‘Well – dunno, but –’
‘Earn a few bob more. Just about double your pay, in fact.’
‘Readin’ an’ writin’s no great shakes, see.’
‘Don’t need all that much. Except to know what goes down in your own papers. But if you wanted – must be chaps who’d help?’
‘Yeah. Reckon…’
‘Why not break the back of that first, then have a stab at certification?’
‘Certification’ meaning qualifying as Able Seaman. Which was no sinecure, certainly couldn’t be achieved in a dog watch, but could be the making of a man like Brooks.
Getting towards six – 0559, to be precise – and much lighter than it had been. PollyAnna’s own greyness noticeable, whereas ten minutes ago you might have forgotten it, assumed she was as black as she’d been before all the scraping and painting in Calcutta. Salt-stained grey now, ploughing sea already glinting blueish in the first flush of the new day, which had of course to be brighter still sixty miles to the east, where although you hadn’t a notion of it at this stage, three other grey ships were steering in company for the Plate – cruisers Ajax, Achilles and Exeter. Todhunter might have mentioned them as comprising the South American Squadron, but you hadn’t been memorising any of that or taking notes, had none of those warships’ names in mind, no way of guessing that those three names would soon be ringing around the world and in such a context that you’d be more than ready to say, ‘Oh, we were there!’ Aware as you would be by then that Commodore Henry Harwood, flying his broad pennant in Ajax, had calculated from as long ago as the Doric Star’s sinking on 2 December that the Graf Spee might be expected to show up off the Plate by about the 12th, and that six minutes ago, at 0608/13th, Achilles having reported smoke in the northwest, he’d sent Exeter to investigate it and received at 0614 her signal: I think it is a pocket-battleship.
Fisher joined Andy in the bridge-wing.
‘Not a sausage, eh?’
‘Short on sausages, this morning. Shot any good stars?’
‘Gorst has. Can’t have him resting on his oars when we were just beginning to make progress.’ Waving a hand eastward and upward: ‘Light comes quick around these parts, doesn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘Lovely morning. Virtually damn-all wind.’
‘Precisely as forecast – for once.’
‘Yeah. Hey, what’s…?’
Thunder, in the east?
And again – like distant, rolling echoes…
‘Can’t be bloody thunder!’
‘Harder edge to it, isn’t there.’
‘Gunfire?’
‘I’d say so. Sainted aunt… Hellish long way off, mind you…’
More of it then. Big ships’ guns in action – God only knew how far away. Or how big. But you could guess. He’d fairly leapt to the wheelhouse doorway: ‘Captain, sir …’
Those opening salvoes had been heard at six-fifteen and gunfire continued with varying intensity and intervals of never more than a few seconds through six-thirty, six forty-five, 7 o’clock, seven-thirty. The Anna’s off-watch crew all over her upper deck, foc’sl and gun-deck listening to it with their eyes glued to a horizon that stayed empty. Clean-edged horizon too, visibility exceptionally good, the land on the other side, a dozen or fifteen miles away, clear-cut even to the inland hills – a visibility range of twenty-five miles at least – but out there to starboard not a wisp of funnel smoke. So the battle – Graf Spee versus whom? – had to be a long way beyond that horizon; ships in action, needing full power, would surely be emitting smoke. Might be the cruisers Todhunter and the man in Cape Town had spoken of, Andy guessed; and by now, an hour and a half since it had started, men in them would have been killed and maimed, ships’ armour-plating blown away, hulls punctured, gear smashed, guns knocked out. Graf Spee’s guns, please God; but that might not be the case, one knew only too damn well it might not be. The rate of fire, he realised, was slackening, thunder storm petering out. He found himself face to face with the Old Man at this moment – had stood aside to make way for him coming back out into the bridge-wing – asking him, ‘D’you think cruisers could stand up to a battleship with eleven-inch, sir?’ The answer came over his shoulder as he pushed on out: ‘Don’t know they are cruisers, do we. As I recall it, there was talk of bigger ships. But’ – pausing, glancing round with a blunt hand raised, two thick fingers crossed – ‘could, I reckon. Well enough handled, could, I’d say.’ Shake of the head: ‘Bugger’s got the reach as well as the weight, though, hasn’t he…’
There’d been no thunderclaps now for several minutes. Time – seven forty-five. And he, Andy, had to take over the watch at eight, before which it would be as well to cram in some sustenance – a bucket of coffee and whatever else came to hand quickly and in quantity. No time to shave, or –
‘Plain language signal, sir – to all British merchant vessels from cruiser HMS Achilles!’
Young Clowes, looking excited; the skipper snatched the flimsy sheet from him. Muttering it aloud to himself jerkily, as if having trouble reading Dewar’s or Starkadder’s scrawl: ‘German battleship – Graf Spee in position – that – steering to enter Plate estuary – speed twenty-two knots. Shipping advised stand clear…’
Staring round as if bewildered – at Andy, Fisher, Brooks and Clowes – swivelling then to bawl to Halloran, ‘Graf Spee’s running for the Plate! They got her on the bloody run!’