Storm Warning

He reached down and took one of the cold hands in his. ‘Poor lad,’ he said. ‘Poor wee lad!’ His shoulders shook and he started to weep softly.

3 (#ud1b3f7fd-41dc-57f3-ad87-d40e42440297)

Barquentine Deutschland, 12 September 1944.Lat. 26°.11N., long. 30°.26W. Wind NW 2–3. Overcast. Poor visibility. A bad squall last night during the middle-watch and the flying-jib split.

Some five hundred miles south of the Azores, Erich Berger sat at the desk in his cabin entering his personal journal

… our general progress has, of course, been far better than I could ever have hoped and yet our passengers find the experience tedious in the extreme. For most of the time, bad weather keeps them below; the skylight leaks and the saloon is constantly damp.

The loss of the chickens and two goats kept for milk, all swept overboard in a bad squall three days out of Belém, has had an unfortunate effect on our diet, although here again, it has been most noticeable in the nuns. Frau Prager is still my main worry and her condition, as far as I may judge, continues to deteriorate.

As for the prospect of a meeting with an enemy ship, we are as ready in that respect as can reasonably be expected. The Deutschland is now the Gudrid Andersen to the last detail, including the library of Swedish books in my cabin. The plan of campaign, if boarded at any time, is simple. The additional men carried beyond normal crew requirements will secrete themselves in the bilges. A simple device admittedly, and one easily discovered by any kind of a thorough search, but we have little choice in the matter.

The Deutschland stands up well so far to all the Atlantic can offer, although there is not a day passes that shrouds do not part or sails split and, this morning, Mister Sturm reported twelve inches of water in the bilges. But, as yet, there is no cause for alarm. We all get old and the Deutschland is older than most …

The whole ship lurched drunkenly and Berger was thrown from his chair as the cabin tilted. He scrambled to his feet, got the door open and ran out on deck.

The Deutschland was plunging forward through heavy seas, the deck awash with spray. Leutnant Sturm and Leading Seaman Kluth had the wheel between them and it was taking all their strength to hold it.

High above the deck, the main gaff topsail fluttered free in the wind. The noise was tremendous and could be heard even above the roaring of the wind, and the topmast was whipping backwards and forwards. A matter of moments only before it snapped. But already Richter was at the rail, the sea washing over him as he pulled on the downhaul to collapse the sail.

Berger ran to join him, losing his footing and rolling into the scuppers as another great sea floated in across the deck, but somehow he was on his feet and lending his weight to the downhaul with Richter.

The sail came down, the Deutschland righted herself perceptibly, the continual drumming ceased. Richter shouted, ‘I’d better get up there and see to a new outhaul.’

Berger cried above the wind, ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes out there on that gaff in this weather. It’ll have to wait till the wind eases.’

‘But that sail will tear herself to pieces, sir.’

‘A gasket should hold her for the time being. I’ll see to it.’

Berger sprang into the ratlines and started to climb, aware of the wind tearing at his body like some living thing. When he paused, fifty feet up and glanced down, Richter was right behind him.

There was a foot of water in the saloon, a sea having smashed the skylight and flooded in. Sister Angela went from cabin to cabin, doing her best to calm her alarmed companions.

When she went into the Pragers’, she found the old man on his knees at his wife’s bunk. Frau Prager was deathly pale, eyes closed, little sign of life there at all.

‘What is it?’ Otto Prager demanded in alarm.

She ignored him for the moment and took his wife’s pulse. It was still there, however irregular.

Prager tugged at her sleeve. ‘What happened?’

‘I’ll find out,’ she said calmly. ‘You stay with your wife.’

She went out on deck to find the Deutschland racing north, every fore and aft sail drawing well, yards braced as she plunged into the waves. Sturm and Kluth were still at the wheel. The young lieutenant called to her, but his words were snatched away by the wind.

She made it to the mizzen shrouds on the port side, the wind tearing at her black habit, and looked up at the ballooning sails. The sky was a uniform grey, the whole world alive with the sound of the ship, a thousand creaks and groans. And then, a hundred feet up, she saw Berger and Richter swaying backwards and forwards on the end of the gaff as they secured the sail.

It was perhaps the most incredible thing she had ever seen in her life and she was seized by a tremendous feeling of exhilaration. A sea slopped in over the rail in a green curtain that bowled her over, sending her skidding across the deck on her hands and knees.

She crouched against the bulwark and, as she tried to get up, Berger dropped out of the shrouds beside her and got a hand under her arm.

‘Bloody fool!’ he shouted. ‘Why can’t you stay below?’

He ran her across the deck and into his cabin before she had a chance to reply. Sister Angela collapsed into the chair behind the desk and Berger got the door shut and leaned against it. ‘What in the hell am I going to do with you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘There was panic down below. I simply wanted to know what had happened.’

He picked up a towel from his bunk and tossed it across to her. ‘A line parted, a sail broke free. It could have snapped the topmast like a matchstick, only Richter was too quick for it.’ He opened a cupboard and reached for the bottle. ‘A drink, Sister? Purely medicinal, of course. Rum is all I can offer, I’m afraid.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Berger poured himself a large one and she wiped her face and regarded him curiously. ‘It was incredible what you were doing out there. You and Herr Richter, so high up and in such weather.’

‘Not really,’ he said indifferently. ‘Not to anyone who’s reefed main t’gallants on a fully-rigged clipper in a Cape Horn storm.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Tell me, do you still think we’re bad luck? A positive guarantee of contrary winds, wasn’t that what you said at our first meeting? And yet we’ve made good progress, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Oh, we’re making time all right,’ Berger admitted. ‘Although she shakes herself to pieces around us just a little bit more each day.’

‘You speak of her, the Deutschland, as if she is a living thing. As if she has an existence of her own.’

‘I wouldn’t quarrel with that. Although I suppose your Church would. A ship doesn’t have one voice, she has many. You can hear them calling to each other out there, especially at night.’

‘The wind in the rigging?’ There was something close to mockery in her voice.

‘There are other possibilities. Old timers will tell you that the ghost of anyone killed falling from the rigging remains with the ship.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘Obligatory in the Kriegsmarine.’ There was an ironic smile on his face now. ‘Imagine the shades who infest this old girl. Next time something brushes past you in the dark on the companionway, you’ll know what it is. One Our Father and two Hail Marys should keep you safe.’

Her cheeks flushed but before she could reply, the door was flung open and Sister Else appeared, ‘Please, Sister, come quickly. Frau Prager seems to be worse.’

Sister Angela jumped to her feet and moved out. Berger closed the door behind her, then picked up the towel she dropped and wiped his face. Strange how she seemed to bring out the worst in him. A constant source of irritation, but then perhaps it was simply that they’d all been together for too long in such a confined space. And yet …

For most of the afternoon, HMS Guardian, a T-class submarine of the British Home Fleet, en route to Trinidad for special orders, had proceeded submerged, but at 1600 hours she surfaced.

It was the throb of the diesels that brought her captain, Lieutenant-Commander George Harvey, awake. He lay there for a moment on the bunk, staring up at the steel bulkhead, aware of the taste in his mouth, the smell of submarine, and then the green curtain was pulled aside and Petty Officer Swallow came in with tea in a chipped enamel mug.

‘Just surfaced, sir.’

The tea was foul, but at least there was real sugar in it, which was something.

‘What’s it like up there?’

‘Overcast. Wind north-west. Two to three. Visibility poor, sir. Slight sea mist and drizzling.’

‘Succinct as always, Coxswain,’ Harvey told him.