Storm Warning

He came round the desk smiling, hand outstretched. ‘My dear Paul. Good to see you. How was the West Indies?’

‘A long haul,’ Gericke said. ‘Especially when it was time to come home.’

Friemel produced a bottle of Schnapps and two glasses. ‘We’re out of champagne. Not like the old days.’

‘What, no flowers on the dock?’ Gericke said. ‘Don’t tell me we’re losing the war?’

‘My dear Paul, in Brest we don’t even have a dock any longer. If you’d arrived in daylight you’d have noticed the rather unhappy state of those impregnable U-boat pens of ours. Five metres of reinforced concrete pulverised by a little item the RAF call the Earthquake bomb.’ He raised his glass. ‘To you, Paul. A successful trip, I hear?’

‘Not bad,’

‘Come now. A Canadian corvette, a tanker and three merchant ships? Thirty-one thousand tons, and you call that not bad? I’d term it a rather large miracle. These days two out of three U-boats that go out never return.’ He shook his head. ‘It isn’t nineteen-forty any longer. No more Happy Time. These days they send out half-trained boys. You’re one of the few oldtimers left.’

Gericke helped himself to a cigarette from a box on the table. It was French and of the cheapest variety, for when he lit it and inhaled, the smoke bit at the back of his throat, sending him into a paroxysm of coughing.

‘My God! Now I know things are bad.’

‘You’ve no idea how bad,’ Friemel told him. ‘Brest has been besieged by the American Eighth Army Corps since the ninth of August. The only reason we’re still here is because of the quite incredible defence put up by General Ramcke and the Second Airborne Division. Those paratroopers of his are without a doubt the finest fighting men I’ve ever seen in action, and that includes the Waffen SS.’ He reached for the Schnapps bottle again. ‘Of course they were pulled out of the Ukraine to come here. It could be they are still euphoric at such good fortune. An American prison camp, after all, is infinitely to be preferred to the Russian variety.’

‘And what’s the U-boat position?’

‘There isn’t one. The Ninth Flotilla is no more. U-256 was the last to leave. That was eleven days ago. Orders are to regroup in Bergen.’

‘Then what about me?’ Gericke asked. ‘I could have made for Norway by way of the Irish Sea and the North Channel.’

‘Your orders, Paul, are quite explicit. You will make for Bergen via the English Channel, as the rest of the flotilla has done, only in your case, someone at High Command has provided you with what one might term a slight detour.’

Gericke, who had long since passed being surprised at anything, smiled. ‘Where to, exactly?’

‘It’s really quite simple.’ Friemel turned to the table behind, rummaged amongst a pile of charts, found the one he was looking for and opened it across the desk.

Gericke leaned over. ‘Falmouth?’

‘That’s right. The Royal Navy’s Fifteenth MGB Flotilla operating out of Falmouth has been causing havoc on this entire coast recently. To be perfectly honest, it’s made any kind of naval activity impossible.’

‘And what am I supposed to do about it?’

‘According to your orders, go into Falmouth and lay mines.’

‘They’re joking, of course.’

Friemel held up a typed order. ‘Dönitz himself.’

Gericke laughed out loud. ‘But this is really beautiful, Otto. Quite superb in its idiocy, even for those chairbound bastards in Kiel. What on earth am I supposed to do, win the war in a single bold stroke?’ He shook his head. ‘They must believe in fairy stories. Someone should tell them that when the tailor boasted he could kill seven at one blow he meant flies on a slice of bread and jam.’

‘I don’t know,’ Friemel said. ‘It could be worse. There’s a protecting curtain of mines plus a blockship here between Pendennis Point and Black Rock and a temporary net boom from Black Rock to St Anthony’s Head. That’s supposed to be highly secret, by the way, but it seems the Abwehr still have an agent operational in the Falmouth area.’

‘He must feel lonely.’

‘Ships in and out all the time. Go in with a few when the net opens. Drop your eggs, up here in Carrick Roads and across the inner harbour and out again.’

Gericke shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Why?’

‘We may get in, but we certainly won’t get out.’

Friemel sighed. ‘A pity, as I’ll be going with you. Not out of any sense of adventure, I assure you. I have orders to report to Kiel and as the land routes to Germany are cut, my only way would seem to be with you to Bergen.’

Gericke shrugged. ‘So, in the end, all roads lead to hell.’

Friemel helped himself to one of the French cigarettes and inserted it in his holder. ‘What shape are you in?’

‘We were strafed by a Liberator in Biscay. Superficial damage only, but my engines need a complete overhaul. New bearings for a start.’

‘Not possible. I can give you four or five days. We must leave on the nineteenth. Ramcke tells me he can hold out for another week at the most. No more.’

The door opened and the young lieutenant entered. ‘Signal from Kiel, sir. Marked most urgent.’

Friemel took the flimsy from him and adjusted his spectacles. A slight, ironic smile touched his mouth. ‘Would you believe it, Paul, but this confirms my promotion as Rear Admiral in command of all naval forces in the Brest area. One can only imagine it has been delayed in channels.’

The lieutenant passed across another flimsy. Friemel read it, his face grave, then handed it to Gericke. It said: CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION IN THE FULL AND CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU AND YOUR MEN WILL DIE RATHER THAN YIELD ONE INCH OF SOIL TO THE ENEMY. ADOLF HITLER.

Gericke passed it back. ‘Congratulations, Herr Konteradmiral,’ he said formally.

Without a flicker of emotion, Friemel said to the lieutenant, ‘Send this message to Berlin. Will fight to the last. Long live the Führer. That’s all. Dismiss!’

The young lieutenant withdrew. Friemel said, ‘You approve?’

‘Wasn’t that Lütjen’s last message before the Bismarck went down?’

‘Exactly,’ Rear Admiral Otto Friemel said. ‘Another drink, my friend?’ He reached for the bottle, then sighed. ‘What a pity. We appear to have finished the last of the Schnapps.’

It was still raining heavily in London at eight-thirty on the following evening when JU 88 pathfinders of Gruppe 1/KG 66, operating out of Chartres and Rennes in France, made their first strike. By nine-fifteen the casualty department of Guy’s Hospital was working at full stretch.

Janet Munro, in the end cubicle, curtain drawn, carefully inserted twenty-seven stitches into the right thigh of a young auxiliary fireman. He seemed dazed and lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Janet was being assisted by a male nurse named Callaghan, a white-haired man in his late fifties who had served on the Western Front as a Medical Corps sergeant in the First World War. He strongly approved of the young American doctor in every possible way and made it his business to look out for her welfare, something she seemed quite incapable of doing for herself. Just now he was particularly concerned about the fact that she had been on duty for twelve hours, and it was beginning to show.

‘You going off after this one, miss?’

‘How can I, Joey?’ she said. ‘They’ll be coming in all night.’

Bombs had been falling for some time on the other side of the Thames but now there was an explosion close at hand. The whole building shook and there was a crash of breaking glass. The lights dimmed for a moment and somewhere a child started to wail.

‘My God, Jerry certainly picks his time,’ Callaghan remarked.

‘What do you mean?’ she said, still concentrating on the task in hand.