Alan Evans - Ship of Force

“Ship, sir.” Buckley calling softly from the bow. “To starboard.”

Smith saw her bulk and used the torch to flash the long-shortlong of a K as she came on, at first just a vague shape in the growing light under trailing smoke then the shape hardening as she trudged down on them…

“Oars!” He barked it at them and they jumped to it. She was not Sparrow , and she was going to run them down! “Give way!”

The oars dug in and heaved the boat forward as the men strained to drag it and themselves out of the path of the ship, and failed — just. Smith swung the boat away so the towering stem missed them but her bow-wave nearly turned them over and then her side hit them and stove in the boat with a smashing of oars.

They fell or jumped from it, yells cut short as they hit the water and went under. There was a minute of chaos as they thrashed around in the wake of the ship, paddling clumsily then all of them struck out for the wreckage of the boat that drifted among them. Smith blinked water from his eyes and saw the head of Eleanor Hurst, nearer the boat than he and swimming strongly for it. She grabbed hold and Smith laboured after her with the weight of his clothes dragging and hindering, reached it with one last desperate lunge and clung to it beside her, coughing.

They were all coughing, spitting out water. Smith started hoarsely calling the roll: “Buckley…”

They were all present.

Then he remembered. “Josef?”

No answer.

“Did anyone see the Belgian?”

No answer. They turned their heads to peer out over the waves. They called his name, shouting all together then stopping to listen. They never got an answer from Josef. But a hail came out of the darkness and slowly the ship swept on them again from out of that darkness.

“ Wer da ?”

A light flashed out, wavered, then swept and found them.

Smith knew that much German. ‘Who is there?’ None of them answered. They could see the figures at the rail, that she was a small coaster of maybe eight hundred tons or less, her engines and funnel right aft. The figures stood in the bow staring down at the men in the water where they were lit by the pool of light from the torch. One of them leaned further over the rail, pointing, his hand with its prodding finger in the cone of light and he bawled, “ Engländer! ”

The ship had stopped and rolled gently in the beam sea. She’d made a lee for them and as she drifted down towards them the figures at the rail dropped ladders over the side. Smith could see the men clearly now, the bearded faces and blue jerseys, the soft caps with the peaks tugged down, the skipper with his head stuck out of the wheelhouse aft. He wore a homburg so he had to be the skipper. And then one came hurrying with two rifles so that as the first of Smith’s crew dragged himself out of the sea and up the ladder the bolts of the rifles slid out then snicked home as the men worked them, feeding a round from magazine to breech.

Smith hung on to the ladder and pushed Eleanor Hurst on to it and thought they would be naval reservists because they handled the rifles with familiarity. Maybe too old for U-boats or the High Seas Fleet but not too old to run small cargoes down the coast under cover of darkness.

He saw all of his men aboard then followed them to join their dejected, dripping group. Someone had relieved the skipper at the wheel so he was able to stare at them in the light from a hurricane lamp he held over his head at arm’s length. He was bearded, short but wide, made huge by a thick coat over a jersey. He conducted a brief interrogation.

“You. Englisch.” He pointed at them. The men were all in working dress but they wore their badges of rank. Smith’s jacket was unmistakable to these men.

Smith nodded. “Yes.” There was the skipper and one other man with an apron knotted around his waist, doubtless the cook. Also the two men with rifles. All of them gaped at the little crowd of British sailors.

Then the light from the lantern fell on Eleanor Hurst, her hair unpinned and hanging limply to her breasts where the blouse clung to them. The skipper snatched off his hat, sought words and only found “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

Smith shook his head again and that ended the interrogation. The skipper burst into rapid German and the other three nodded. Smith caught the word “…Schiff!” The skipper’s arm waved, pointing out into the darkness and he snapped a cover over the lantern. His conclusions were obvious: Smith and his men had come from a ship and it or another might be out somewhere in the night, seeking them, possibly close now.

Smith hoped so.

But the rifles waved, menacing, gesturing. Smith and his party obeyed the gestures and started to stumble aft along the deck. Dawn was close upon them but the shutting off of the light brought a temporary blindness so they stumbled over obstructions on the deck and the guards were not immune. There was a flash of flame that lit them all and the crack of the rifle set their ears ringing.

Smith heard someone yell, “God!”

His head turned. “Anyone hit? Anyone hit ?”

The bullet could not have passed through the knot of them without striking someone. Smith thought the barrel of the rifle must have been pointed at the sky at the moment it fired because no one was hit.

The skipper had been ahead of the group, climbing into the wheelhouse. Now he yelled at the men with the rifles, furious. As well he might. The bullet could as easily have hit him. One of them muttered what might have been an apology but then the rifles gestured again.

They moved aft once more. McGraw muttered, “Somebody should tell you daft bastards to watch out! We’re prisoners o’ war and no’ targets!”

Prisoners.

The word brought it home to Smith, to all of them. Heads turned as they exchanged glances.

Prisoners. Prisoners of war. Shut up in a camp for — how long? A year? Two? Longer? A year would be a lifetime.

They were herded down a companion and into a small, dark hole, crowded together, groping in the faint light that came down the companion. Then the hatch was closed and there was an instant of total darkness before a lantern was uncovered. One guard had been left with them. He hung the lantern on a hook and stood by the foot of the companion, rifle held ready across his chest. The engines started, thumping slowly then steadily.

They were in what would rank as the saloon in a ship of this size where all hands would mess together. There was a low deck-head that kept them stooping, bunks on either side, a table with benches flanking it on which some of them sat. The rest perched on bunks or squatted on the deck. Smith had been last down behind Eleanor Hurst and they were crowded into a corner near the guard. It was warm in the saloon, stuffy because the deadlights were tight-closed. They could not open one either for air or to try to signal Sparrow . The guard was there to stop that. Their clothes and bodies began to steam. Smith found there was a rifle-rack on the bulkhead behind him, empty now. So the two rifles he had seen comprised the ship’s armament.

Prisoners of war. Then he remembered that was not true of all of them. He looked at Eleanor Hurst. She was a prisoner for the second time this night and she knew she was not a prisoner of war. There would be no camp for her. By comparison, the rest of them were lucky.

Escape? They had to escape, that was obvious. The method was not. But there must be some way…

Buckley said, one eye on the guard, “They’ve got the wind up about a ship. It’s a fair chance Sparrow will run across us.”

“Ah hope not.” McGraw looked up from where he sat, elbows on the table, squeezed in among the others.

Smith glanced at him and McGraw said, “Did ye no’ smell it as we came aboard, sir?” He looked around at them. “Petrol.” Heads nodded. “There’s drums of it stacked for’ard. Maybe they’re moving it down tae Ostende for the seaplanes there. Anyhow, if Mr. Dunbar puts a round into this lot it’ll go up like a bloody torch!”