The warning message to merchant shipping was put out again an hour later and repeated hourly throughout the day, but it was coming then from the Ajax instead of the Achilles. PollyAnna was well clear in any case by this time, plugging steadily up-coast on a northeasterly course with normal lookouts posted and all hands employed cleaning decks and holds – steam-powered saltwater hoses backed by men with buckets and brooms sluicing coal dust from decks, gear and superstructure into the scuppers, and from her holds into the bilges, pumps running to clean them out, initially staining the ocean in her wake. In the wireless room, meanwhile, the operators were shifting constantly between frequencies in search of intelligible reports of the recent battle, or at any rate of the phase of it that seemed to have ended at about seven-forty. The one clear picture you had at this stage, derived from that warning message, was of the Graf Spee pounding southwestward at twenty-two knots and British cruisers shadowing; to an extent it was almost all you needed, would be weeks or maybe longer before you’d have it explained that that signal had been made by the Achilles the first time because Ajax, Commodore Harwood’s flagship, who would have made it, had been dismasted, and was thus unable to use her wireless until she’d rigged a jury mast and aerials. Or that the Exeter had been ordered back to the Falklands for repairs. As the best-armed of the three – 8-inch guns, the other two having 6-inch – she’d been the Graf Spee’s primary target, in consequence of which at quite an early stage she’d had only one gun left in use – one of the pair in her after turret – and no internal communications, no gun-control circuits either; she’d been holed, had a heavy list, flooding in her forepart and internal fires. By the end of the engagement the one remaining 8-inch gun had been locally controlled by her gunnery officer who’d moved down aft from the smashed fighting-top to give his spotting directions via a small armoured hatch in the turret itself; he, the gunnery lieutenant, crouched at it on his knees with one eardrum burst and the other ear pouring blood.
Not that the other two had got off lightly. Ajax, for instance, before her dismasting had been hit twice in her bridge and had had two of her four 6-inch turrets knocked out in a single direct hit from one of the Germans’ 11-inch. She and Achilles had been shooting fast and accurately while manoeuvring like destroyers to dodge their heavyweight opponent’s very much more powerful and very well directed armament, a crucial stage coming then at 0710 when Harwood had ordered them to close the range as rapidly as possible so as to take more of the heat off Exeter. You acquired bits and pieces of all this gradually: sparse facts embroidered with conjecture, backed maybe by logic, otherwise only probability. The upshot in any case being that they had ‘got her on the run’; and whatever the detail of it, the ultimate truth and glory was of Nelsonian spirit and tactics at their simplest and utmost having led to victory by a small, heavily out-gunned force against one of the most powerful ships afloat – well, in comparison to their capabilities anyway – and one who’d had no problems at all in handling herself against unarmed, defenceless civilian ships.
This was the picture that had taken root and grown in his own mind, and others’ too, Andy thought, in the course of the long day, although it wasn’t easy to differentiate later between what you’d actually known of it or had partly guessed at, in some areas maybe adding two and two and making five. But there had been a lot of bits and pieces, especially later, sunset-time for instance, in the brilliance of its afterglow – a series of plain-language transmissions in English from a French passenger ship, the Formose: inbound to Montevideo, she was being overhauled by the Graf Spee on that same track, and therefore quite reasonably calling for help – in English – to the British cruisers which she had in more distant sight, black miniatures a long way astern but holding on doggedly, from time to time dashing in terrier-like to keep their giant adversary on the run. The French-accented broadcast rattling on, ‘Captain giving order for passengers put on lifebelts. Mamas taking children in arms with coverings of wraps. Now shells falling around Graf Spee – we see zem!’ The cry for help had become an excited commentary as the battleship rushed on by, the Frenchman’s outpouring ending with, ‘Oh, most heartfelt thanks to our British allies!’ While very much more formal, even stilted bulletins were coming out of London at about that same time and throughout the evening – typically one they’d taken in shortly after Andy had come on watch at eight, for instance, to the effect that the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee, having been brought to action at first light this morning off the mouth of the Plate by cruisers of the Royal Navy, had turned away under cover of smoke, apparently with the intention of taking shelter in Uruguayan or Argentinian waters; this was repeated at nine p.m. with the additional information that the Spee and her pursuers, reportedly now inside the Plate estuary although her captain’s intentions were still far from clear, were again exchanging broadsides.
PollyAnna had left Rio Grande abaft the beam by this stage. Fifty-five miles offshore, course unchanged, showing no lights, her big propeller thrash-thrash-thrashing through black water glittering with stars. ETA Vitoria first light 17 December. Get the full facts of it all then, Andy thought, moving out into the port wing of the bridge to check that the lookout was on his toes. Then back in, through the wheelhouse and out the other side, exchanging a word or two with the lookout in that wing while using binoculars to look for movement on the gundeck. Which – all right, there was… Back in the wheelhouse, he found that during his brief absence the Old Man had come up, was at that moment agreeing with some comment the helmsman – Harkness – must have made. Harkness was older than most of his shipmates, a widower who’d left the sea at the time of his marriage and now come back to it. Old Man nodding: ‘Was, lad. Truly was. Make a good yarn for the kids and grandkids, won’t it. You’ve kids, haven’t you – yeah, two boys, I remember – living with your sister-in-law, right?’ Turning to Andy then: ‘All right, Holt?’
‘Losing just over a knot to the current now, sir.’ He gestured towards the land. ‘Not done badly though – Cape Santa Marta’s near abeam. Saw it a couple of times, ten minutes back. Pure fluke, of course.’ Had seen its light, he meant, the double flash every fifteen seconds which should not have been visible at anything like its present distance. Phenomenal visibility wasn’t unheard of on this coast – and at this time of year, presumably – but he hadn’t realised it could apply at night as well as by day. Almost 2330 now. Checking that in a side-glance as he cleaned the front lenses of the glasses, then put them up, resuming his own contribution to the looking out. Old Man meanwhile crouching below the level of the surrounding windows while holding a storm-lighter to his pipe.
‘Captain, sir?’
Starkadder – second wireless officer – stepping off the ladder, hadn’t seen him until the skipper had turned, still at the crouch and clicking the lighter again, sucking its flame down… ‘Uh?’
‘Private to you, sir. Plain-language message via the Cerro station.’
The Cerro was the wireless station at Montevideo. Actually a hill with the remains of an old fort on top and the signal station built on that, on the bay’s western side. The conical hill was invaluable as a leading mark when making landfall. Andy was continuing his search of the horizon on the seaward bow while the skipper straightened himself and took the message over to the chart where he could read it inside the canvas light-screen. It could hardly be a change in their orders, Andy guessed; anything of that sort would have been sent in the owners’ code, not plain-language. Maybe it was his birthday or something, and Todhunter knew it… Starkadder muttering, however, in his fluid Welsh lilt, ‘Bloody amazing, is this. If it means what I’m guessing it does. You’d never have dreamt, not in a million years –’
‘Man’s pulling my leg.’ The skipper was on his way back to them. ‘Pulling my damn leg, must be!’
‘Would ye say so, sir?’
‘No. Since you ask. I would not.’ Slapping the signal sheet with the back of his other hand. ‘Because the man’s not that much of an idiot, and – the way she was heading, last thing we heard…’
PollyAnna lurching slightly in her sensitive, light-ship condition, feeling the movement of the sea under the growing influence of a moderate northeasterly. The breeze had backed that way and had strengthened during the past hour, might even qualify as a wind now. The Old Man said, ‘It’s from Todhunter. Inviting me to guess what ship’s just dropped her hook in the Antepuerto. You want to guess?’
‘Christ…’
‘Right. He’s telling us the bloody Spee’s in there!’
Three days and nights plugging northeastward then, with confusion on the airwaves as to precisely what was happening, but in all their minds a mental picture of the raider lying at her ease in that anchorage within a few cables’ lengths of British merchant ships whom in the normal course of things she’d have sent to the bottom with their cargoes and as like as not their crews. There’d no doubt be a lot of diplomatic wrangling going on, and it would be up to the Uruguayans to sort it out, basing decisions on international law – the Hague Convention – and German pleas, maybe threats. Those were enormous guns to have trained on the centre of a smallish city – if that was how it went. The British cruisers, meanwhile, maintaining a blockade in or just outside the estuary; but it was in a lot of seamen’s minds that if the Graf Spee wanted to blast her way out past them, they’d have a hell of a job to stop her.
Presumably she did not have such intentions. Or guts. Astonishing. Had suffered greater damage in the action than any of the scanty bulletins had indicated, maybe; this seemed to be the general view. But she’d still had twenty-two knots at her disposal and had been using her guns until long after sunset. Anyway, the Uruguayans shouldn’t allow her to stay longer than twenty-four hours, was the skipper’s opinion: twenty-four hours to effect whatever repairs were necessary to make herself seaworthy – but without increasing her capacity to fight, that was a clear proviso in international law – then clear out, take her chances. With a choice of several routes open to her, at that, as far as getting out of the Plate estuary was concerned, as well as the distinct advantage of 11-inch guns and as likely as not thirty knots. But she was still there on the night of the 14th, and apparently – according to the BBC – she’d asked for ten days… Another item was that the Uruguayan dockyard authorities having refused to help, Argentinian technicians were being sent downriver from Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, a British merchantman, the SS Ashworth, had sailed on the 15th, and under the terms of the Hague Convention had to be given a twenty-four-hour start before a hostile man of war could be allowed to set out after her. Chief Engineer Hibbert suggested in the saloon that evening, ‘Might suit us to have her stuck there a while. If it’s still only cruisers we got outside. Sail a steamer so she can’t leave – and if we got any pull with the Uruguays, that too – hold her while we get a couple of big ships up?’ He could have been right, since on the 16th another merchantman, SS Dunster Grange, was sailed – and the world told about it, one of the commentators pointing out that this should hold the Spee in Monte another twenty-four hours… Shortly after this, however, it was announced in a multi-language broadcast that following a technical inspection of the battleship ordered by the Uruguayan government, the President of the Republic had decreed that she might stay a total of seventy-two hours, time limit expiring 8 p.m. on 17 December.
Sunday, in other words.
‘Hardly seventy-two hours, is that!’
‘From the time the decree was signed, maybe?’
‘So what’ll they do if she still hangs on?’
‘Intern her.’ Halloran, authoritatively to Shaw. ‘Presidential decree’s a presidential decree, they’d bloody have to.’
PollyAnna would be tied up in Vitoria by then. She’d be there Sunday morning, in fact. The Old Man had cabled the Dundas Gore agent, a Dane by name of Martensen, on Friday: ETA Vitoria first light December 17th, ready to commence loading on arrival, and had his reply this Saturday noon: You should anchor to the south of Baixia Grande on arrival and await pilot. The Old Man’s comment on this being, ‘He should teach his granny to suck eggs too, shouldn’t he.’ Arrival procedures at this port or that, pilotage and berthing arrangements were all in the Admiralty Sailing Directions, in this case the South America Pilot Vol. I. He didn’t need bloody neutrals telling him what he should or shouldn’t do: the bugger was probably only worried that their early arrival might spoil his Sunday lie-in. Relationships with this agent, Andy guessed, weren’t going to be as sunny as they’d been with Todhunter.
Sunday’s first light, then; the approach and entrance to Vitoria looked somewhat tricky. Approaching on a course of north by west with a scattering of low, hump-backed islands four or five cables’ lengths to port, sea calm and glittering with dawn; dead ahead in that slightly confusing mix of haze and darkness the entrance to Baia do Espirito Santo, which wasn’t easy to define visually on account of its encircling low-lying foreshore. Not easy while this light (or lack of it) lasted, anyway. Which as a matter of fact shouldn’t be for long now: the flush of dawn that was creeping inland over that western curve would put paid to it pretty soon – was in fact already high-lighting the Ponta de Santa Luzia, hardening its edges out of what only minutes ago had been so wishy-washy as to be indistinguishable. That there was a mile-long hidden reef diagonally across the bay’s centre was one of the first things he’d noticed in a preliminary study of the chart; then seen that it was a hazard one didn’t need even to approach, thank God: you’d be making a sharp turn to port before getting anywhere near it – and in fact anchoring before that, in the anchorage stipulated by the Danish agent. Baixio was Portuguese for a shoal, Fisher had mentioned – having looked it up – and Baixio Grande was this one right in the entrance to the bay. It did at least have a light-buoy on its southwestern edge – if it was lit, and hadn’t drifted, as some of the marker buoys in the Plate estuary did tend to do, their last pilot down there had mentioned – and seemed glad of, maybe because it justified his employment. Anyway, you’d anchor say half a mile south of that shoal, and on the present line of approach – course 345 degrees – well, daylight was coming fast now, but even if you’d been making the approach in total darkness you’d have had Ponta de Santa Luzia coming up to port at a distance of about three quarters of a mile with a light on a tower there group-flashing four every twelve seconds, and for a cross-bearing if you needed it, another on Ponto do Tubarao a mile and a half on the other bow.
Not so bad, therefore. And you’d know it next time. If there was a next time.
Half-five now. Had been up early not only for this landfall but because late last evening there’d been a report from Montevideo (an American broadcaster who’d been on the air before, giving his name as Mike Fowler) to the effect that although the Graf Spee had been given until Sunday 8 p.m., rumours had been circulating that she was secretly intending to break out during this last night. It would have made sense from the German point of view, they’d all agreed. Take the blockading cruisers by surprise, smash out past them – with several more hours of darkness ahead in which to disappear. In fact – Hibbert had pointed out – the cruisers would not be taken by surprise; unlikely they would have been anyway, but that Yank’s broadcasts would be as receivable on board those ships as they were here: the Huns might well be cursing Mr Fowler. And anyway, there’d been no break-out; the airwaves were still busy but nothing sensational was coming through. Five thirty-five: Fisher had rejoined him at the chart – briefly, leaving again now, commuting between here and the Old Man, watching those bearings and the distance run by log; you wouldn’t much want to run on over the Baixio Grande, which the chart showed as having only six feet of water over it. If that buoy had been out of position for instance – which it might have been; no navigator worth his salt would have taken its reliability for granted. It was in sight now, in fact, a small black lozenge in the old telescope’s lens, its light no more than a flicker as the sea around it reflected these early stages of the dawn.
There were no other ships in the anchorage. They’d passed several southbound steamers during the night, and some of them might have come out of Vitoria. According to the pilot – Sailing Directions – the channel they’d be using – river actually, estuary of the Rio Santa Maria, the town and wharves of Vitoria being four miles upstream – could be used by night as well as by day. It was surprising because at some points the channel itself wasn’t even a hundred yards wide. Anyway, out here in the first light of day PollyAnna was at anchor just before six in fourteen fathoms, a cable’s length southwest of the buoy, the charted position of which had by then been verified. The bottom was soft mud again; very soft, just dropping the hook into it left her rolling gently in what might have been mushroom soup, despite that depth of water.
Andy saw to the hoisting of the yellow flag then – since this was their first Brazilian port of call, they’d need pratique again – and also four-flag identification; it could be read from the pilot station, which was on an island less than a mile from where she was lying: Ilha dos Practicos, around which one had as yet seen no movement, not even a light.
Breakfast, therefore. This would have been Halloran’s watch, but he was shirking it, leaving only Janner with one lookout/bridge messenger; Gorst would relieve Janner when he’d had his breakfast.
The pilot boarded them at eight-fifteen, coming out from the island in a red motorboat with a black ‘P’ on each bow. Halloran was on the foc’sl by then and the Old Man sent Andy down to receive the man as he hauled himself up the Jacob’s ladder. He was dressed in what was virtually a Merchant Navy officer’s uniform – summer whites like theirs – with a master’s four stripes on the shoulder-boards and scrambled eggs on the cap’s peak. A little man of about forty with a limp; could have been a cousin of Batt Collins – the same sharp, foxy look. Andy shook his hand: ‘Holt. Third mate. Speak English, Captain?’
A side-to-side wagging of the head. Glancing up to where the Old Man was peering down at him from the bridge-wing. ‘Little English, sure.’ A thumb to his chest then: ‘Mendoza, me.’
On the bridge, Andy introduced him: ‘Captain Mendoza, sir – talks English.’
‘Good for him.’ Skipper with his hand out. ‘Welcome aboard. Josh Thornhill.’ Jerk of the head towards the estuary: ‘Up-river now, eh?’ He’d signalled to Halloran to weigh anchor, asked the Brazilian as he turned back, ‘What news of Graf Spee?’
‘Ah. Ah!’ That was a good subject; you could see he liked it. ‘Sail from Montevideo tonight, eh?’
‘You reckon?’
‘Go Buenos Aires maybe.’
‘You think that?’
A shrug: ‘More bigger English ships come, eh?’
‘That a fact?’
‘So is Germans saying.’
‘D’you mean on the wireless, or Germans here?’
‘Here. Motor vessel Glauchau. For engine repair, is here. Wait for spare part coming maybe from Rio. Been already three day.’ A glance for’ard: they had a hose playing over the side, sending mud streaming off the cable as it came clanking up. And a yell from Halloran then – anchor aweigh. Mendoza pointed, telling the helmsman, Shuttleworth, ‘Thisaway – slow ahead.’ Checking the compass, adding, ‘Two-nine-zero degree.’ A glance round at the skipper: ‘Maybe tonight a battle?’
‘On course two-nine-oh…’
Shuttleworth’s Adam’s apple wobbled as he reported it. Tallish, balding, slightly stooped; as good a helmsman as they had.
They stayed on 290 until the light-structure on what the chart called Ponta de Santa Luzia bore due south, then altered to 245. Mendoza pointing out for the Old Man’s benefit, ‘Ponta do Tagano. This side, Ilha do Boi. You like I tell you, Captain? Not come Vitoria before?’
‘Never. Fifty years at sea – darn near – and never was.’
‘Is a port we make now, you see. City old, port little but soon make very good. For the mines, huh?’
Fisher had brought the chart from the table, folded appropriately. PollyAnna holding this course for about ten minutes at six knots – one mile covered – leaving on their right a starboard-hand marker-buoy flashing red. The buoyage wasn’t as in British waters, where a starboard-hand buoy was green and can-shaped, port-hand buoy red and conical. Starboard-hand meaning a buoy you left to starboard when entering with the flood tide, or up-river: that wasn’t any different, only you had to be on your toes to remember which was which.
Mendoza was waving an arm like a vertical pendulum or metronome, pointing from bank to bank: ‘Here is for build a bridge. When there is moneys for it.’
Old Man reaching for the chart: ‘Long bridge, eh? Cost plenty?’
Something like a mile of bridge. Mendoza looking serious, nodding. ‘Plenty. Plenty.’ To Shuttleworth then, ‘Starboard – two-six-seven.’ Pointing again: you could see the next mark, a port-hand buoy half a mile ahead, the light on it sparking green. Old Man asking, ‘Berth alongside, will we?’
‘Sure. Berth where is chute for loading. See where is number three berth?’
‘Here.’ Fisher displaying the chart, skipper then asking was the place crowded, ships at berths four and five, for instance? Not bothering to ask about numbers one or two because it was plain from the chart that there wouldn’t be enough water alongside at that point for any ship of ocean-going size. Presumably berths were to be constructed and dredged there, otherwise why put numbers on them? Mendoza was telling the skipper, ‘At berth four is Brazil ship. Coming tomorrow also a French – berth this side, south, new berth only for ore – no cranes, no chute – not yet. But number three is good – has chute and cranes, not use ship’s gear, uh?’
Halloran muttered behind them, ‘Five days instead of ten, then?’
‘Be nice, wouldn’t it. Oh – First Mate Halloran.’ Performing introductions. ‘Captain Mendoza.’ They’d shaken hands, Mendoza continuing his explanation, that berth five although marked didn’t yet exist, had no quay and wasn’t dredged. The Old Man asking, ‘So where’ve you put the German?’ Andy didn’t hear the answer, he’d moved out into the bridge-wing to see whether the pilot boat was following – and it wasn’t. Mendoza would no doubt get other transport back to the pilot station, or wait until some other ship needed taking out. They’d passed the green-flashing buoy; the next green light wasn’t on any buoy but on a point of land, a light tower. The channel would be at about its widest here, he guessed. The swapping of green for red and red for green was still confusing, but in daylight you could at least see from the buoys’ positions on which side you had to pass them. On a dark night, though, seeing only the actual light flashing and having no shoreline for guidance, if you forgot for a moment that it was all back to front – well, could be somewhat dangerous. Back in the wheelhouse then, borrowing the chart from Fisher he saw that the river opposite the town was marked as an anchorage – half a mile of it roughly, width about a cable’s length – having an anchor symbol in the middle of it. Confined-enough water for a ship of any size to swing in, he thought. Shuttleworth at the pilot’s order was edging her further over to starboard; pilot leaving him to it then, drawing the skipper’s attention to other features – islands and so forth, and up ahead what looked like a very sharp narrowing of the waterway. And some mention of the fact that the tide was flooding, adding maybe two knots to her speed. But a further course adjustment suddenly – to get out of the way of a tug with a string of barges. The tug-master had for some reason taken them on what was surely the wrong side of an island: well, you could see what he’d done – cut a corner through shallows which he’d have known were all right for him, but had now to cross back into the main channel, at serious risk of a collision if this ship which presumably he hadn’t seen at an earlier stage had not put her helm over. As it was, the barges were going to be tossed around in the Anna’s wash. In fact it was happening to the tug already. Serve him right if it broke some lines, lost him his tow. Mendoza had shot out into the wing to scream and shake his fists at him; was returning now, muttering angrily in Portuguese and gesturing to Shuttleworth to bring her back on course.
The narrows were now only a few hundred yards ahead. Half a mile, maybe. And between here and there, two islands to starboard and one to port; there was plenty of room between them, but despite this, after another minute, Mendoza was ringing down for dead slow. Wondering why – and borrowing the chart again – Andy realised (a) that with the tide running as it was you could have stopped engines and still be carried on through, and (b) that beyond the bottleneck you’d be coming up to the wharves that fronted the town, where there’d be other ships alongside and/or at anchor, so that busting through there at any speed, dragging a wash through those narrows with you, wouldn’t be popular at all. Although you did need some engine-power on her, simply to maintain steerageway; and another factor was that the wharves didn’t start immediately after that constriction: there was a stretch of, say, a couple of hundred yards of natural shoreline, then the straight-edged quays.
He gave Fisher back his chart. Hearing Mendoza ask Halloran whether all the holds were empty.
Affirmative grunt. ‘Except for essentials. Ore’ll be waiting for us, will it?’
‘In trucks – rail trucks – is coming. I don’t know they work today. Some time work Sunday, some time work not.’ A shrug. ‘Senhor Martensen telling you what’s fix up, eh?’
The Old Man came in on that. ‘D’you know Martensen well, Pilot?’
A shrug. ‘Know him, sure. Is not such big place you know, Vitoria. Not yet. See, now…’
Entering the narrows, she was making about three knots – one by her own efforts, two by the tide’s. Effectively therefore making no wash at all. Marker-buoys on both sides indicating that the channel was even narrower than it looked. But once through this squeeze you’d be in comparatively open water. Rough foreshore to start with, as expected – both sides – and on the town side – starboard – a small warship. Patrol boat, they might call it – in view suddenly, moored in there with an anchor out for’ard and a floating brow plus wire-rope moorings connecting stern to shore. Until this moment the little ship had been hidden by the bulge of land on that side. Brazilian ensign at its masthead and a gun on the foc’sl, sailors in white caps pausing to stare as PollyAnna passed within thirty yards of them. Mendoza telling the Old Man, ‘Cabedelo. Is minelayer. Building the last year, in Rio – six like this one. Pretty, huh?’
‘Hm.’ He had his glasses on her. ‘What’d she be – five or six hundred tons?’ Training the glasses left then: ‘And there’s your German…’
At anchor in mid-stream, her bows this way of, stemming the tide. Lying as she was you couldn’t see much of her but you’d guess at roughly PollyAnna’s tonnage. Black hull, grey upperworks, here and there patches of red lead, and that red, white and black thing – Nazi merchant ensign – sluggish above her counter. Mendoza had taken the chart from Fisher, was jabbing a forefinger at it under the skipper’s nose: ‘See. The Glauchau here. Brazil vessel Volcao here. There.’ Pointing at the ships themselves then, in the stream and alongside in berth four. ‘Pass Glauchau, also Volcao – for turning here, and’ – fingernail tapping the chart again – ‘in berth three. OK?’
‘Port side to, then. Suits me. Right way for when we leave, eh?’
‘Stop engine, please.’
Shuttleworth reached to the telegraph, jerking it over and back again. Mendoza answering the Old Man, ‘Depart on flood tide only, Captain. Ebb tide, ships this side not move, tide holding them against the quay – eh?’ Demonstrating it – his hands up and pushing an imaginary ship’s hull against a wall. PollyAnna’s single screw was now effectively at rest but the tide still carrying her upriver; Andy thinking of the single screw because turning the ship in such a confined tideway would have been a darned sight easier if she’d had two of them. No doubt the Old Man would show them all how to do it – or out of respect for the pilot’s local knowledge might leave it to him. Telling Halloran now, ‘I’ll have an anchor ready for letting go, Mister.’ Which was of course the answer. Drop the hook, have the tide swing her around it, then go slow ahead against the tide while weighing and then manoeuvring into the berth. He yelled after Halloran, ‘Less than a shackle’ll do it. Eight and a half fathom we’ll be in.’
‘Starboard…’ Mendoza to Shuttleworth. Pointing – that he should take her midway between the anchored German and the Brazilian steamer alongside in berth four. Brown hull, yellow upperworks, twin yellow funnels with brown badges on them. Five thousand tons, Andy guessed. While the German, of which one could now see more, might be more like 7,000. Men were moving on its decks, a drift towards the port-side rails. With a Red Ensign flapping in their faces, he guessed, they’d be wondering what might be happening or about to happen around the Graf Spee. Well, who wasn’t – or at any rate wouldn’t be once this ship was berthed? Meanwhile, of course, the Huns would love to see them make a mess of the berthing operation: the Old Man would be conscious of that, too. Most likely leave it to the pilot – who after all was being paid for it, and must have executed the same manoeuvre a thousand times – but be ready to shove his oar in if said pilot showed signs of screwing up.
Asking Mendoza now, referring to the chart, ‘This a shoal here – this Pedras What’sit?’
‘Pedras das Argolas. Si – four fathom. Don’t be scare, Captain, we not touch!’
‘Who’s bloody scared?’
‘Four fathom where is the buoy, you see?’
She’d be OK in four fathoms, empty as she was. You wouldn’t chance it, though, because it could turn out to have become, say, three and a half fathoms overnight. As was stated often enough on charts and plans: Depths in the dredged areas may be considerably less than indicated. Passing the Brazilian ship now: and a clattering from for’ard as Halloran’s foc’sl party walked the anchor back with the windlass until it was clear of the pipe, then screwed on the brake. They’d take the windlass out of gear now, and have only to release the brake to send the anchor plunging down.
Passing the Hun. Not a soul on the Anna so much as giving it a glance. Not even when a Hun shouted something that was probably abusive and his shipmates around him laughed. Mendoza did glance in that direction, though – and looked sour about it. He asked the skipper now, ‘I do this, or you?’
‘Go ahead. Holt – in the wing, pass orders for’ard.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ Scooping up the megaphone as he went, Fisher leaning in the doorway to hold it open. Mendoza telling Shuttleworth, ‘Engine slow astern.’ Because while she was still making two or even three knots in relation to the shore and that anchored ship, in a tide that was running at the same rate she’d have no steerage-way, would take not a blind bit of notice of her rudder whichever way you put it. She was well enough clear of both the Brazilian and the German, was getting into the eight, eight and a half fathoms which the chart showed as the depth of water opposite the centre and eastern end of berth three, and if one wasn’t going to risk grounding on that allegedly four-fathom patch – which would make the bloody Germans’ day for them –
Mendoza called, ‘Drop anchor!’ and Andy howled, ‘Let go!’ Brake off, anchor splashing down, cable rattling out. Mendoza telling Shuttleworth, ‘Hard port!’ and himself ringing down for half astern. The anchor had to take hold, that was all – snub her round, put her on the swing.