important news. We are to stand by—twenty-four hours’ notice.” He paused. “This won’t involve much change in our routine. But in future all leave will end at midnight.”
He nodded to Siegfried Kuhn. “Turning your engines regularly, Kuhn? Fuel and water tanks full?”
“Ninety per cent full, Herr Kapitän. Tomorrow they will be topped up.”
“Good!” Lindemann turned to Günther Moewe. “Letme have the times of moonrise and moonset and of high and low water each week in advance, please.”
The second officer’s eyes shone with patriotic fervour. “Very good, Herr Kapitän!”
“The strictest secrecy, please. The men are not to be told. The change in leave will apply to all German ships here. It will be said to be in response to new orders from Germany arising out of complaints ashore. Is that understood?”
It was.
“There are new radio frequencies, Moewe. Come to my cabin for them.”
“Very good, Herr Kapitän.” As well as navigating officer, Moewe was now doing radio duties, the original radio officer having been repatriated to Germany via Portugal with the other half of the crew. When the signal to break out was received, the skeleton crew would be augmented by men from the other German ships; at the last moment before sailing and under cover of darkness.
The chief engineer asked the question which was in all their minds. “Herr Kapitän, do we return to Germany or shall we act as supply vessel?”
“We shall not know until we are at sea. Bad security to tell us now. We do not need the information.”
The effect of the news on Lindemann’s officers was electric. For more than three years they’d been bottled up in Lourenço Marques, holding themselves always in readiness for a break out. Twice they’d been at forty-eight hours’ notice, but nothing had come of it. Now for the first time twenty-four hours’ notice had been ordered. A situation must be developing .
The monotony of life on board an anchored ship in a subtropical port far from home might soon end. There would be action. Return to Germany or the dangers and excitement of supplying German raiders and U-boats in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. All were moved by these prospects. Günther Moewe glowed with pride. To strike at last a blowfor the Führer, to get away from this God-forsaken place. His only regret would be Hester.
The feminine voice from the shadows sounded an alarm bell somewhere in the Newt, but when he saw its owner he felt better. She got up from the easy-chair behind him and moved into the light from the lounge window.
She was good to look at: chestnut hair and firm regular features, but her eyes were the thing. Laughing and friendly, cornflower blue, with crow’s feet at the corners. The Newt had some experience of these things and he was impressed.
“ Very beautiful,” He was deliberately ambiguous, looking at her and then at the sea. “Hot this afternoon but cool now.”
“Always so at this time of year.”
“You know the climate well?”
“Fairly well. I live here.”
He offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. “Not now, thank you.”
“Mind if I do?”
“Not in the least.”
“Care for a drink?”
“Love one.”
In the lounge they sat where they could see over the bay, sipping the drinks the waiter brought them.
He soon knew her story: Di Brett, a widow—late twenties, he judged—obviously well off; she’d spent the first year of the war in Cape Town, the next between Durban and Salisbury, then Johannesburg, and in Lourenço Marques for the last eight months. She’d married an Englishman, lived in England most of her life, though born near Grenoble, which accounted for the slight French accent.
“I love this place,” she watched him over the rim of her glass. “So cosmopolitan. Like a breath of the Continent after the stodginess of the Union. The food, the wine, the way people live—oh, so sophisticated. And I adore hot weather.”
She soon knew a good
He nodded to Siegfried Kuhn. “Turning your engines regularly, Kuhn? Fuel and water tanks full?”
“Ninety per cent full, Herr Kapitän. Tomorrow they will be topped up.”
“Good!” Lindemann turned to Günther Moewe. “Letme have the times of moonrise and moonset and of high and low water each week in advance, please.”
The second officer’s eyes shone with patriotic fervour. “Very good, Herr Kapitän!”
“The strictest secrecy, please. The men are not to be told. The change in leave will apply to all German ships here. It will be said to be in response to new orders from Germany arising out of complaints ashore. Is that understood?”
It was.
“There are new radio frequencies, Moewe. Come to my cabin for them.”
“Very good, Herr Kapitän.” As well as navigating officer, Moewe was now doing radio duties, the original radio officer having been repatriated to Germany via Portugal with the other half of the crew. When the signal to break out was received, the skeleton crew would be augmented by men from the other German ships; at the last moment before sailing and under cover of darkness.
The chief engineer asked the question which was in all their minds. “Herr Kapitän, do we return to Germany or shall we act as supply vessel?”
“We shall not know until we are at sea. Bad security to tell us now. We do not need the information.”
The effect of the news on Lindemann’s officers was electric. For more than three years they’d been bottled up in Lourenço Marques, holding themselves always in readiness for a break out. Twice they’d been at forty-eight hours’ notice, but nothing had come of it. Now for the first time twenty-four hours’ notice had been ordered. A situation must be developing .
The monotony of life on board an anchored ship in a subtropical port far from home might soon end. There would be action. Return to Germany or the dangers and excitement of supplying German raiders and U-boats in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. All were moved by these prospects. Günther Moewe glowed with pride. To strike at last a blowfor the Führer, to get away from this God-forsaken place. His only regret would be Hester.
The feminine voice from the shadows sounded an alarm bell somewhere in the Newt, but when he saw its owner he felt better. She got up from the easy-chair behind him and moved into the light from the lounge window.
She was good to look at: chestnut hair and firm regular features, but her eyes were the thing. Laughing and friendly, cornflower blue, with crow’s feet at the corners. The Newt had some experience of these things and he was impressed.
“ Very beautiful,” He was deliberately ambiguous, looking at her and then at the sea. “Hot this afternoon but cool now.”
“Always so at this time of year.”
“You know the climate well?”
“Fairly well. I live here.”
He offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. “Not now, thank you.”
“Mind if I do?”
“Not in the least.”
“Care for a drink?”
“Love one.”
In the lounge they sat where they could see over the bay, sipping the drinks the waiter brought them.
He soon knew her story: Di Brett, a widow—late twenties, he judged—obviously well off; she’d spent the first year of the war in Cape Town, the next between Durban and Salisbury, then Johannesburg, and in Lourenço Marques for the last eight months. She’d married an Englishman, lived in England most of her life, though born near Grenoble, which accounted for the slight French accent.
“I love this place,” she watched him over the rim of her glass. “So cosmopolitan. Like a breath of the Continent after the stodginess of the Union. The food, the wine, the way people live—oh, so sophisticated. And I adore hot weather.”
She soon knew a good
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