Storm Warning

‘My papers, please. May I have them now?’

Prager opened his briefcase. He searched inside, then took out a passport which he dropped on the desk in front of Berger.

Berger frowned. ‘But this is Swedish.’ He opened it and Sister Angela stared out at him from the photo. He looked up. ‘I wonder if you’d be so kind as to step outside for a moment, Sister. I’d like a few words with my good friend here.’

She hesitated, glanced briefly at Prager, then went out.

Prager said, ‘Look, Erich, let me explain.’

Berger held up the passport. ‘Not something you can pick up at twenty-four hours’ notice, so you must have known about this for quite some time. Why in the hell didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I knew you’d react exactly as you are doing.’

‘So you thought you’d leave it until it was too late for me to say no? Well, you made a mistake. I won’t play. And what about this mission station they’ve been operating? Is it suddenly so unimportant?’

‘The Brazilian Department of the Interior has changed its policy on the Indians in that area; moving them out and white settlers in. the mission was due to close anyway.’

‘They’re a nursing order, aren’t they? Surely there must be some other outlet for their talents up there.’

‘They are also Germans, Erich. What do you think it’s going to be like when those first Brazilian casualty figures start filtering through from Italy?’

There was a long pause. Berger picked up the Swedish passport, opened it and examined the photo again. ‘She looks like trouble to me. She’s been used to getting her own way for too long.’

‘Nonsense,’ Prager said. ‘I knew her family from the old days. Good Prussian stock. Her father was an infantry general. She was a nurse on the Western Front in nineteen-eighteen.’

Berger’s astonishment showed. ‘A hell of a background for a Little Sister of Mercy. What went wrong? Was there some sort of scandal?’

‘Not at all. There was a young man, I believe. A flier.’

‘… who didn’t come back one fine morning so she sought refuge in a life of good works.’ Berger shook his head. ‘It’s beginning to sound like a very bad play.’

‘But you’ve got it all wrong, Erich. The way I heard it, he simply let her think he was dead. She had a breakdown that almost cost her life and was just coming out of it nicely when she met him walking along the Unter den Linden one day with another girl on his arm.’

Berger held up both hands. ‘No more. I know when I’m beaten. Bring her back in.’

Prager went to the door quickly and opened it. She was standing outside talking to the bosun.

Berger said, ‘You win, Sister. Tell Richter to have you taken ashore to collect the rest of your friends. Be back here by two a.m. because that’s when we leave, and if you aren’t here, we go without you.’

‘God bless you, Captain.’

‘I think he’s got enough on his plate at the moment without me.’ As she moved to the door, he added, ‘Just one thing. Try not to let the crew know before they have to.’

‘Are they likely to be disturbed by our presence?’

‘Very much so. Sailors are superstitious by nature. Amongst other things, sailing on a Friday is asking for trouble. Taking any kind of a minister along as a passenger, the same. We should certainly pick up all the bad luck in the world with seven nuns sailing with us.’

‘Five, Captain. Only five,’ she said and went out.

Berger frowned and turned to Prager. ‘You said seven passengers.’

‘So I did.’ Prager rummaged in the briefcase and produced two more Swedish passports which he pushed across the desk. ‘One for Gertrude and one for me. She, too, is waiting on shore with our baggage which includes, I might add, that wireless transmitter you asked me to try and get you.’

Berger gazed at him in stupefaction. ‘You and your wife?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Good God, Otto, you’re sixty-five if you’re a day. And what will your masters in Berlin say?’

‘From what I hear, the Russians are far more likely to get there before I do, so it doesn’t really matter.’ Prager smiled gently. ‘You see, Erich, we want to go home, too.’

* * *

When Berger went up to the quarterdeck just before two it was raining harder than ever. The entire crew was assembled on the deck below, faces pale, oilskins glistening in the dim glow of the deck lights.

He gripped the rail, leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. ‘I won’t say much. You all know the score. It’s one hell of a trip, I’m not going to pretend any different, but if you do as I tell you, we’ll make it, you and I and the old Deutschland together.’

There was a stirring amongst them, no more than that, and he carried on, a touch of iron in his voice now. ‘One more thing. As most of you will have observed, we’re carrying passengers. Herr Prager, once assistant consul at our embassy in Rio and his wife, and five nuns from a mission station on the Negro.’

He paused. There was only the hissing of the rain as they all waited. ‘Nuns,’ he said, ‘but still women and it’s a long journey home, so let me make myself plain. I’ll personally shoot the first man to step over the line, and so enter it in the log.’ He straightened. ‘Now everyone to his station.’

As he turned from the rail his second-in-command moved out of the darkness to join him. Leutnant zur See Johann Sturm, a tall, fair youth from Minden in Westphalia, had celebrated his twentieth birthday only three days earlier. Like Richter, he was a submariner and had served in a U-boat as second watch officer.

‘Everything under control, Mr Sturm?’ Berger enquired in a low voice.

‘I think so, Captain.’ Sturm’s voice was surprisingly calm. ‘I’ve stowed the wireless transmitter Herr Prager brought with him from Rio in my cabin, as you ordered. It’s not much, I’m afraid, sir. A limited range at the best.’

‘Better than nothing,’ Berger told him. ‘And the passengers? Are they safely stowed away also?’

‘Oh yes, sir.’ There was a hint of laughter in the boy’s voice. ‘I think you could say that.’

A white figure appeared out of the darkness and materialized as Sister Angela. Berger swallowed hard and said in a low, dangerous voice, ‘Could you now, Mr Sturm?’

Sister Angela said brightly, ‘Are we leaving, Captain? Is it all right if I watch?’

Berger glared at her helplessly, rain dripping from the peak of his cap, then turned to Sturm and said, ‘Haul up the spanker and outer jib only, Mr Sturm, and let the anchor chain go.’

Sturm repeated the order and there was a sudden flurry of activity. One seaman dropped down the forepeak hatch. Four others hauled briskly on the halliard and the spanker rose slowly. A moment later there was a rattle as the anchor chain slithered across the deck, then a heavy splash.

Richter was at the wheel but, for the moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then Sister Angela, glancing up, saw through a gap in the curtain of rain, stars pass across the jib.

‘We’re moving, Captain! We’re moving!’ she cried, as excitedly as any child.

‘So I’ve observed,’ Berger told her. ‘Now will you kindly oblige me by going below.’

She went reluctantly and he sighed and turned to the bosun. ‘Steady as she goes, Richter. She’s all yours.’

And Richter took her out through the harbour entrance, drifting along like some pale ghost, barely moving, leaving a slight swirl of phosphorescence in her wake.

Fifteen minutes later, as Captain Mendoza sat playing whist in his booth at the Lights of Lisbon with a young lady from the establishment next door, the man he had assigned to keep watch on the fish pier burst in on him.

‘What is it?’ Mendoza demanded mildly.