THE RISING WIND shrieked around the Vulkan’s superstructure and found every crack and slit in its defences. As the ship steamed steadily northwards towards the Denmark Strait the darkness enfolded her like a cloak, and the sea, which had been at first grey-green, appeared as white-capped pewter the crests crumbling with each savage gust.
In the Captain’s small sea cabin the air was stale with smoke, and unmoving behind the sealed scuttle. Von Steiger sat at the small table which was littered with rolled charts, intelligence diaries and coal returns. His jacket was undone, and he looked strained and tired. He glanced briefly at the officers who were crammed into the small space. Dehler perched uncomfortably on the bunk; Niklas, the engineer, who squatted on the other chair, and Ebert, whose round face looked strange with a layer of stubble. Heuss stood leaning against the closed door. Reeder, the steward, had left a plentiful supply of coffee, and there was also a silver flask of brandy, propped for safety in the wastepaper basket.
Von Steiger’s eyes narrowed as he drew in on a fresh cheroot. ‘Good, you are all here now.’ He leaned back, his hands in his lap. ‘I have called you together as heads of departments to discuss a few points which I think want clearing up. Yesterday we sank that boarding steamer. It is essential that we put a good distance between us and the scene as soon as possible. I do not think that the British will worry unduly about the ship’s loss, but they will search the area. That rules out our taking a short passage north of Scotland, as I intended. The detour around Iceland will cost us several hundred miles, and a great deal of coal. It also means that we shall have to steam a long way in order to reach the Irish coast and get rid of the mines. I want to do that as soon as possible for they are always an additional hazard. We will have to move some of the coal aft to compensate for the loss of weight there when we have laid the mines.’ He paused, watching their faces, gauging their reactions. He could hear the officer-of-the-watch, Kohler, yelling orders at one of the lookouts. He drank some of his brandy, and felt its warmth move like a soothing hand over his aching body.
‘Now, yesterday’s action. The gunnery was very good, Ebert. But I think in future we will dispense with the twenty-two pounder unless it is a major action. It takes too long to clear away, and does not compare with the main armament. All the same, it was good shooting. The masthead lookout, too, is to be congratulated.’ He frowned. ‘Fischer is his name. See that all these men are rewarded, Dehler.’
Dehler stirred. ‘Rewarded? I don’t see what you mean.’
‘Give them a pot of jam, some little luxury, anything! Show them we appreciate their efforts. Morale is low. We cannot afford any lethargy.’
Dehler persisted. ‘We are wasting time by going through the Strait, Captain. Why can’t we just make a dash for it?’
Von Steiger sighed. ‘We cannot afford the luxury of chances. Our job is to sink ships, not to go down in glory in the first week of the cruise! Use your head, man!’ He saw the man flush and continued evenly: ‘We must really train our men. Work at it, keep on to them, even if it means letting some ordinary routine drop out. Recognition is the thing. Two funnels or more means a large merchantman, a liner or something of the sort. We must avoid them at all costs. Full of passengers we cannot accommodate, and no worthwhile cargo. Or they might be armed merchant cruisers.’
‘We can manage them, Captain!’ Ebert stuck out his jaw.
Von Steiger smiled faintly. ‘Maybe, but they could pin us down with damage and casualties until bigger warships arrived. Remember, the enemy is all around us. Do not forget this. He is everywhere, maybe even now a cruiser is shadowing us!’ He ticked off the points on his fingers. ‘Neutral ships usually have pale funnels and may be showing lights. The real prizes will most likely have black funnels. British freighters and colliers, they are our real aim!’
Niklas grunted. ‘When will we get more coal, Captain? At this speed we are getting through it too fast.’
Von Steiger shrugged. ‘Soon, I hope. We will catch a collier and put a prize crew aboard. Then we can take what we want, and send her away again to meet us at another rendezvous.’ He glanced at Heuss, who seemed to be breathing heavily, as if he was only just holding himself under control. ‘You are quiet, Heuss! Any questions?’
Dehler laughed harshly. ‘Poor Heuss is still enraged by the way you polished off that little ship, Captain!’ He glared triumphantly at Heuss. ‘Too much for his poor little stomach!’
‘Is that true, Heuss?’ Von Steiger’s voice was quiet, and he was conscious of the tension between them.
Heuss pushed himself away from the door, his eyes flashing with anger. ‘Since my personal views are to be bandied about before my colleagues, I can freely say that I was sickened by the episode! I know that we are fighting a dangerous game, but to slaughter those men like that! It was sheer butchery!’ He turned to face the Captain squarely, all caution gone. ‘And I thought we were going to fight with honour, Captain!’
Von Steiger blew out a thin stream of blue smoke. ‘Go on, Heuss, I am interested.’
Dehler laughed, and Ebert looked uneasily from one to the other.
Heuss waved his slender hands helplessly. ‘I am no coward, and I am not squeamish! But to attack and destroy those men, without giving them a chance! We could have beaten them with just our machine guns!’ He looked at Dehler with hatred. ‘And you only laugh because they were small and defenceless! You have not got the guts for real fighting!’
Dehler was on his feet with surprising agility. ‘Why, you little swine! You overbred apology for an officer!’ He recoiled as von Steiger’s voice rang like a whiplash across the cabin.
‘Silence! Both of you! How dare you behave like this!’ His eyes were yellow and seemed to dominate all of them. ‘I do not have to explain my reasons, but I thought you were men to be treated as intelligent beings! Since you are evidently the opposite, I will explain, just this once!’ His face suddenly became calm again, but without taking his eyes off them he stood up and poured another glass of brandy.
‘That ship was as great a menace as any cruiser. We had to destroy her, and at once! If we had waited she would have wirelessed for help, and that would have put paid to all of us. to you, too, Heuss! Even asking them for a doctor gave us time to close the range . . . that is war! God, surely you don’t imagine I enjoy killing unprepared men? But I intend to sail and fight this ship for as long as I can!’ He dropped his voice to a mere whisper. ‘But If I cannot rely on your assistance, Heuss, because of your unbalanced ideals and your apparent disregard for the facts, then I will do it without you!’
He stopped, his hands drumming on the table ‘You may return to your duties.’
He watched them go. Heuss, humiliated but defiant, followed by Niklas, whose old grey head was bent with worry—or was it shame?—for all of them. Ebert clicked his heels and hurried away; he at least had come out of the conflict unscathed, but looked taut and shaken. Dehler faltered by the door, his heavy face expressionless. He could hardly hide the triumph in his eyes. In one blow he had driven a wedge between his two enemies. He would show all of them, he thought. He should have been given the command, yet von Steiger treated him like a peasant and Heuss hated to serve under him because of his poor background.
Von Steiger eyed him coldly. ‘Well?’
‘Thank you for upholding me, Captain. These others should be taught a lesson!’
Von Steiger sat down and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. At length he said: ‘I will always back you, Dehler, because you are my First Lieutenant. But my respect you have still to earn! Now get out and leave me to think!’
He stared at the empty cabin, and then closed his eyes. I am to blame, he thought. Because my heart is not in this voyage they react to my uncertainty. They have no confidence in each other, because I have none in myself!
His head fell across the waiting charts. and he was asleep.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Paul Kohler winced as a sheet of spray rose lazily over the bows and dashed itself against the bridge windows. He stared stolidly ahead although the visibility was non-existent and the ship’s roll was growing more pronounced, so that he had difficulty in maintaining his stance of aloof watchfulness. It was a quarter sea, and the ship was taking it badly. The long black rollers cruised effortlessly out of the darkness and piled up against her hull, until beneath the great weight of water she laid over to one side and hung, it seemed, for several minutes before she laboured upright again to meet the next onslaught. Even in the wheelhouse it was bitterly cold, and the wind screamed and hummed through the rigging like a thousand mad violins.
Kohler wondered what the other officers were doing in the cosy warmth of their cabins. But von Steiger was the only one who counted, and it was up to him to see that Kohler received all the merits he deserved. It was quite useless to go through a naval career without planning each detail in advance. He smiled. With luck he might be allowed to take a prize ship for himself and drive it back to Germany. If he got home be-for the Vulkan, or if indeed he was the only one to reach Germany again, his future would be assured.
Sub-Lieutenant Wildermuth banged his hands together, and Kohler frowned with annoyance. Of course, Wildermuth was a prize officer. He would be given the task of taking over any worthwhile capture. What could an unimaginative old fool like him know about the presentation of an honourable deed, or making his efforts appreciated in the right quarter? Old enough to be my father, Kohler thought. He shuddered. Old, fat and ugly. How could they make such a man an officer? Some people at home had no idea of the damage they were doing to the Navy by such acts of stupidity. No doubt some fat civilian in his steam-heated office had made the decision.
The rage, which was always ready to be fanned into a flame, blazed within him. Germany, the Fatherland, was being betrayed by such people! Filthy merchants, who bribed and wheedled their way into the confidence of staff officers who had become soft, so that they could wax fat on the profits of war. Kohler’s eyes smarted with sudden emotion. While at sea and on the battlefields the true sons of Germany were laying down their lives in steadily mounting numbers. Let these others wait, he thought savagely. After the war they will be winkled out and exterminated. The Emperor will have to abide by the will of the élite of his officer corps. In time of peace the country will be led by those who won her a victory.
Wildermuth moved towards him, his face worried. ‘Sea’s not breaking. Just a damned great swell.’
‘I can see that. What about it?’
Wildermuth rubbed his nose and blinked at the chart. ‘Could be ice about. This time of the year usually brings down a lot from Greenland. It calves from the big glaciers up north and makes its way down to the Atlantic.’ He shook his head. ‘Bad stuff, ice.’
Kohler lowered his voice so that the men on watch could not hear. ‘I know that, man! The sea always remains unbroken when there’s ice about!’ There was contempt in his tone. ‘It keeps like that because of the shelter afforded by the icebergs!’
Wildermuth still fidgeted. ‘That’s right. I don’t like it.’
‘Ach! We are in the Denmark Strait, and such hazards must be expected. But while there is a good wind the lookouts will be able to see any ice if it comes our way.’
He realised that Wildermuth was staring at him, his mouth hanging open.
‘What in hell’s name is the matter now? Try to look like an officer. even if—’ His words stopped in mid-sentence, and he realised with a sudden chill that there was no longer any sound but that of the sea and the muffled beat of the engine. Even as they had been speaking the wind had vanished. He reassembled his thoughts with difficulty, still expecting to hear the moan and shriek outside the bridge. But there was nothing.
Wildermuth stared round with alarm. ‘See? What did I tell you? Ice!’ He walked nervously to the side of the wheelhouse, his professional seaman’s instinct crying a warning. He peered out into the darkness. But instead of the sea he saw only his reflection in the glass. He thought fleetingly of his invalid wife in Hamburg, and how much the prize money could mean to her comfort. How could he convey his fears to a man like Kohler?
The ship heaved over on her side once more, and a pencil rolled noisily across the chart-table. On the port wing of the bridge a lookout stamped his booted feet to restore the circulation, and Wildermuth jumped at the sudden sounds. He swallowed hard. ‘Shall I call the Captain?’
Kohler eyed him angrily. ‘What for? To tell him there is ice about? God, he knows that, man! He only wants to be disturbed if anything unusual happens! Haven’t you read his Standing Orders?’
Kohler watched Wildermuth walk back to the windows. As the other man passed the brass telephone it buzzed noisily, and Kohler pushed him rudely out of the way to answer it.
‘Bridge?’
‘Officer-of-the-watch speaking!’ Kohler stared at his reflection in the salt-caked windows. He made a handsome picture with his clean-cut features and pale eyes beneath the polished peak of his cap. Unconsciously, he adjusted the silk scarf about his neck.
‘Masthead lookout reporting, sir.’
‘I know that, you fool! Just tell me what you see!’
The man sounded confused. ‘Sir, I’ve been up here for three hours. My relief hasn’t arrived. I am so cold I can hardly move my arms!’
Kohler gripped the telephone viciously. ‘God in heaven, I am surrounded by a watch of maniacs! Is that all you wanted to tell me?’ He struggled to control his voice. ‘Do you realise you are supposed to be keeping a sharp lookout? There may be ice about, and all you can do is whine about the cold! Who is that?’
A mere whisper answered. ‘Braun, sir.’
Kohler bit his lip. He remembered Braun. A tall, good-looking boy with a weak mouth. He had already considered him as a possible convert, but this was too much.
‘Report to me when you come off watch!’ he barked.
‘But, sir!’ He was cut short by the hand-set being slammed into its cradle.
Kohler dismissed him from his thoughts, and to cover his irritation began to snap out orders at his weary watchkeepers.
High overhead in his tiny crow’s-nest Braun, the lookout, swayed his head from side to side, the agony in his legs making him moan with pain. As he moved his head, as if in some way to alleviate this suffering, he felt the ice forming on his muffler where his breath froze with each short gasp.
He put his hands on the lip of the canopy and tried to jump up and down, but his clothing, stiffened by salt and ice, held him firm, and he knew that he was near to collapse. With sudden desperation he peered down at the deck below. As it swayed eerily from side to side, its pale planking white against the black water, he tried to see someone he could call or send for that swine Hahn who was supposed to relieve him. No man was supposed to do more than two hours aloft in this weather, and he had arranged for Hahn to be the one to take his place. He stared wretchedly at the deserted deck and tried to control his chattering teeth. At least he thought he had arranged with Hahn. He was so dazed by exposure and numb with cold that he could no longer think properly. He was nineteen years old and reasonably healthy, but he knew that unless he could get warm within the next few moments he would collapse and if he did that he would never recover consciousness. He peered at the telephone in its leather case. It was no good, Lieutenant Kohler was already after his blood, he could not risk asking him again for help.
With fumbling hands he lifted his powerful Zeiss glasses and swept the area directly ahead. He cursed weakly and wiped the thin film which had formed on the lenses and tried again. He got the usual jumbled picture. The dark arrowhead of the bows, the streaming white wave on either side, and the occasional gleam of broken crests beyond. Apart from that the water was too dark to have any shape at all, and a light mist, pale and indefinable, seemed to surround the ship.
With mounting desperation he hung the glasses on their hook and began to lever himself out of the pod, his numbed fingers impeding every movement. He had made up his mind. He could be on deck in a few moments, and get Hahn or somebody else in his place before the bridge realised he had gone. The foremast was too far from the bridge for anyone there to see him descend, and Kohler was not in the habit of using the telephone unnecessarily. He sobbed aloud as he began to drag his thighs over the edge, every move starting a fresh flood of pain through his frozen limbs. Bindly he groped for the steel ladder which ran straight down the rear of the mast, his gloves slipping on the smooth sheen of ice. He had to look down to see if his feet were on the rungs, for he could no longer feel anything below the knee. He bit his lip and tried the next two rungs.
Soon be all right. A little shelter, and cocoa from the galley. Perhaps someone had some schnapps he could buy.
He opened his eyes wide as an extra-bad pain jarred his leg, and as he did so something beyond the mast took his attention. He blinked, and looked again.
That damned mist. He cursed with mounting frustration and pain. Below and behind him he could see the tall square shape of the bridge. He was still well above it and had hardly covered any distance at all. He peered forward again and gurgled with horror.
The mist was still there, but it had more body to it. A long sliver of white, which grew even as he stared, until it resembled a jagged, phantom cliff. An iceberg! He twisted his head from side to side but could not see either end of it. It lay across the Vulkan’s course in an unbroken line.
He shouted, his voice cracked, but nobody could hear. He stared back at the bridge calling like a maniac, but even the lookouts were too deaf to hear him. Braun was too frozen and terrified to realise that he was hardly making any noise and his voice was too weak to carry.
‘The telephone! Must try to get back!’ Mumbling and whimpering in turn he started to drag himself back up the glittering, treacherous rungs.
* * * * *
Above the swaying wheelhouse, Willi Pieck crouched beside the camouflaged range-finder. He pulled the frozen canvas canopy around his body to protect himself from the intense cold as he bent over the mechanism to ensure that the oil was free from ice.
Petty Officer Brandt, the most unpopular N.C.O. aboard, a man who would make trouble when it was not easily found, had ordered Pieck to carry out this additional duty although the boy should have been off watch and below in the warmth of his mess.
Brandt had hounded and chased the four new seamen from the detention barracks from the moment they had stepped aboard, but, shaken by Schiller’s indifference and Hahn’s cunning, he had concentrated his wrath upon Pieck and the defenceless Alder.
Pieck was still wearing only his thin uniform and oilskin, the petty officer having refused him permission to get his watch-coat. He clenched his fists like a child and rested his head against the range-finder. One way or the other, there was always someone who tried to extinguish his small spark of hope.
With a sigh like that of an old man he lifted his head. It was then that he saw the iceberg.
Afterwards he tried to remember how it had looked, but could recall only its ghostly gleam through the mist and its terrible menace. For a long moment he could not drag his eyes away. The iceberg was getting sharper in outline, and the ship appeared to be dashing towards it with something like eagerness.
Then all at once he was up and running for the ladder, heedless of his own safety and conscious only of the realisation that the lookout for some reason had not seen the danger.
He fell the last few rungs, but picking himself up with the resilience of a rubber ball, he burst into the quiet calm of the wheelhouse.
‘Sir! Sir!’ Pieck was tongue-tied with the urgency of his news.
Kohler spun round. ‘How dare you come in here like that!’ But the reprimand died on his lips as the boy stepped into the small circle of light. For a moment Kohler was completely off balance and could only stare at Pieck’s stricken face.
Making a tremendous effort he snapped, ‘Well now, Seaman Pieck is it not?’
The boy swayed, and would have fallen but for Wildermuth, who said, not unkindly, ‘Make your report, lad!’
Pieck still stared at Kohler, but his lips moved mechanically as if he was mesmerised by those opaque eyes.
‘Iceberg, sir! Dead ahead!’ The words dropped like grenades in a sleeping trench.
As Wildermuth dashed to the forward window calling: ‘What did you say? Where is it?’ Kohler strode to the telephone and cranked vigorously at the handle. Excluding everyone else on the bridge but Pieck he said, ‘If you are lying, I’ll——’
He paused, the lifeless telephone still in his hand, as the starboard lookout screamed out: ‘Ice! Dead Ahead!’
Wildermuth gasped and jumped back from the window as if he had been scalded. He had seen the white wall for himself. It rose over the ship with contemptuous majesty, maybe a hundred feet higher than the foremast itself.
Kohler, still caught off balance by Pieck’s appearance on the bridge, felt panic rising within him.
‘Hard a-port!’ His voice was toneless, his eyes fixed on the ice.
The helmsman had taken one turn of the wheel when a sharp voice cut across the bridge like the bite of a whip.
‘Wheel amidships! Full speed astern!’ Von Steiger walked slowly to the front of the bridge as a man would walk to a window to see a passing parade. ‘Bosun’s Mate, pipe the watch below on deck! Close all watertight doors and swing out the boats!’
As the frightened seaman ran from the bridge von Steiger added, almost conversationally: ‘Never put the helm over, Lieutenant! You might slit open her belly on an ice ledge!’
Von Steiger listened to the clang of the telegraph and waited for the increasing tremble beneath his feet which would tell him that the great screw was fighting to stop the ship’s relentless dash to destruction. He controlled the raging fury of anxiety and anger which made him want to scream at Kohler’s stupid mask of a face.
With great care he took a cheroot from his case and lit it with enforced slowness. He could hear the twitter of the bosun’s pipes from up forward, followed instantaneously by the trample of running feet and orders shouted hoarsely in the darkness. It seemed an age since he had entered the wheelhouse, although it was only seconds. He had recognised immediately the seeds of demoralised chaos, and had been sickened by it. From his position he could see the iceberg quite clearly now, and he knew that to a less experienced eye it would appear as if it was already touching the stem. He stared along the deck at this silent adversary and waited. He could hear the helmsman’s uneven breathing, and one of the lookouts muttering to himself as if in prayer. He stiffened as a small piece of ice detached itself from the top of the berg and seemed to float down to the sea like a feather. There was no sound, but he guessed that the piece of ice weighed many tons.
Dehler arrived breathless on the bridge, and von Steiger said softly: ‘Ring the masthead lookout, Dehler. There seems to have been a fault somewhere!’
Dehler licked his lips, fascinated by the iceberg. ‘Can we get clear?’
‘I think so. We have had good warning, thanks to this man.’ He spoke over his shoulder. ‘What is your name?’
The reply was subdued, even frightened. ‘Pieck, sir. I—I was on top of the wheelhouse, sir!’
Von Steiger clenched his fists inside his pockets. Was it his imagination, or was the ship beginning to go astern? He waited, not trusting himself to speak. A few more seconds might have been too much for the ship. Her four and a half thousand tons, with a following sea to help the thrust of her screw, would have been hurled against the foot of the berg, and that would have been the end, if they were lucky. If they were not, the ship would have slit open her round bilge on a razor-billed ledge, deep below the surface, and then sunk slowly. To die up here in these bitter wastes would have been too terrible to contemplate. The thought made him angry, and he hardly looked up when a lookout reported wildly: ‘We’re going astern, sir! She’s pulling clear!’
So I have done it again. His lips curled as if with contempt for himself. The iron captain who is always beyond criticism.
He whirled round with sudden impatience. ‘Take over the ship, Dehler. Put her ahead and steer south-west until you are clear of his ice. Reduced speed for an hour, and we will see what happens.’
He looked from Kohler to Wildermuth, his eyes bleak. ‘What happened, Kohler? Why was there no report? Was the masthead lookout asleep?’ He waited, tapping his foot.
Kohler stood rigidly at attention. ‘He deserted his post, Captain!’
Von Steiger turned his face away and watched the pale mist, which now hid the iceberg completely. ‘Deserted?’ Soft, half disbelieving.
Kohler nodded vigorously, some confidence returning to his voice. ‘Yes, sir. The duty petty officer has just found him lying on the maindeck. He has broken his leg, and says that he was going below to get warm, sir.’ He licked his lips, his voice ingratiating. ‘I had no idea this could happen, Captain. I have a bad watch to work with. I have to carry all of them, sir.’
Von Steiger turned to Wildermuth. ‘And is that your explanation also?’
Wildermuth hung his head. ‘It is as Lieutenant Kohler has said, sir.’ What was the point of bringing up about the telephone message? he thought heavily. It was hard enough working with Lieutenant Kohler without adding to the unpleasantness. After all, he thought, it would not do the lookout, Braun, any harm to spend a few days in the cells because of his stupidity.
Von Steiger felt the raw edge of the air for the first time. Until this moment he had not noticed that he was without his bridge-coat. They are both lying, he thought wearily. Something else happened, but I shall never know the truth. The one thing I must be sure of is that it will never happen again.
Sharply he said: ‘I see. I trust that you will learn by this mistake, and control your watch in future!’
Kohler nodded eagerly. ‘It will not happen again, sir!’
‘That is true!’ He eyed them coldly, hating them both. ‘I have already told you the importance of eternal vigilance. In this war only the dead can afford the luxury of carelessness.’
Kohler showed his teeth. ‘I will put him in the deepest cell, Captain. It will help to improve his memory!’
As if he had not heard, von Steiger continued, his tone flat and remorseless, ‘By the authority vested in me by the Emperor and the Admiralty, I hereby sentence this man, Braun, to death by shooting!’ He saw the horror forming on their faces and continued, ‘The sentence will be carried out at dawn tomorrow, the firing party to consist of all the masthead lookouts not on watch!’ He turned on his heel, adding harshly, ‘You and Wildermuth will supervise the execution!’
Wildermuth took half a step forward, his hands outstretched. ‘But, sir . . .’
In the doorway the yellow eyes glowed like a cat’s. ‘My men will respect their obligations, whatever the cost! You will all do well to remember that in future!’