An Honorable German Read online

  This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, names of real people and places have been included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Charles McCain

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the pubisher.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

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  New York, NY 10017

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  First eBook Edition: May 2009

  Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55086-4

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With love to my older sister Mimi, who many times in her life has given me the courage to go on.

  And in respectful memory of my friend and mentor Al Rose, who encouraged me to write.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

  ABOARD THE GERMAN POCKET BATTLESHIP ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE

  30 SEPTEMBER 1939

  0830 HOURS

  “BRIDGE!”

  “Bridge, aye.”

  “One ship, fine on the starboard bow.”

  Max focused his binoculars on the starboard horizon and saw a thin tower of smoke. He stiffened. A warship? No. Must be a freighter. A warship would never make that amount of smoke—gave you away to the enemy too quickly.

  “Bridge to gun director, train rangefinder on smoke,” he ordered, his command passed by the telephone talker. The officers in the gunnery directing post, high above the bridge, could see much farther through their optical range-finding device.

  In a few moments the telephone talker, receiving information over his headset, relayed the word to Max. “Herr Oberleutnant, gunnery says the ship is a freighter, three to four thousand tons. Range is ten kilometers.”

  “Acknowledged. Continue tracking.”

  Max took up the metal phone that connected him to the captain’s sea cabin.

  “Ja?”

  “Oberleutnant Brekendorf reporting from the bridge, Herr Kapitän. We’ve sighted a small freighter about ten kilometers off the starboard bow.”

  “Coming.”

  Max’s pulse quickened. They’d been wandering around out here for three weeks, searching the empty ocean, waiting for this. Max again put the binoculars to his eyes and swept the sea; the blue water shimmered in the morning sun, the symmetry of the view spoiled only by the smudge on the horizon. Around him, the South Atlantic stretched away seemingly to the ends of the earth.

  “Good morning, Oberleutnant.”

  Max turned to see Dieter step onto the bridge with his usual wry smile. A dark smear of grease cut diagonally across his forehead. They had been friends since their cadet days at the Marine-schule Mürwik. An engineering officer on Graf Spee, Dieter stood sweating in his leather coat and pants—standard issue for the engineers, designed to protect them from the engine room machinery. Comfort had not been taken into account. When Spee went to full speed with all eight of her diesels on line, the temperature in the engine room went to one hundred twenty degrees. Dieter paused to let the fresh salt breeze wash over him.

  “What brings you up from the bowels of hell?” Max asked.

  “Fuel consumption report for the Kommandant.”

  “I hope we have enough for a chase.”

  Dieter lifted his eyebrows. “Are we having one?”

  “We may. Just sighted a freighter off the starboard bow.”

  “Well, don’t worry, we’re not down to the paint thinner yet.”

  They laughed.

  “Attention on deck!” a starched bridge messenger called.

  Everyone came to rigid attention as Captain Langsdorff made his way to the center of the bridge. Langsdorff removed the cigar from his mouth. “Stand easy,” he said, and the men resumed their positions.

  The captain raised his binoculars, scanned the sea around them, then fixed his gaze on the distant smoke. He dropped the binoculars to his chest and lit a fresh cigar from the stinking butt of the old one. Langsdorff was the only man Max knew who chain-smoked cigars. Taking up his binoculars again, the captain peered once more at the unknown ship, balancing the binoculars on his fingertips, his body swaying to the easy motion of Graf Spee. “What do you make of her, Oberleutnant?”

  Max answered carefully. There was a great difference between identifying silhouettes and pictures of British ships in your cabin and saying for sure that a smudge on the horizon was a British freighter. “Appears to be British built, Herr Kapitän.”

  Langsdorff let his gaze linger on Max, and Max felt the captain’s disapproval. Langsdorff stood silent for a moment, then looked again at the ship. Taking the binoculars away from his eyes, he noticed Dieter, who came to attention under the captain’s stare. “Yes?”

  “Fuel consumption report, Herr Kapitän.”

  “Thank you but not now, Falkenheyn. Muster your boarding party and stand by.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.” Dieter executed a sharp salute, raised an eyebrow at Max, and hurried off the bridge. Langsdorff returned his attention to the unknown ship.

  “Range?”

  “Nine kilometers now, Herr Kapitän.”

  Langsdorff took the cigar from his mouth and studied the ash. Max knew the captain had to be careful: orders prohibited him from interfering with neutral shipping. Three weeks into the war would not be the time to start protests burning the wires to Berlin from neutral powers whose ships were being sunk by a German commerce raider. That was exactly what the Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine wanted to avoid. Graf Spee’s mission was to sink British merchant ships and draw off units of the Royal Navy from other duties. It did not include engaging enemy warships, and definitely did not include blowing some Swedish or American freighter out of the water by mistake. The Naval War Staff in Berlin had been very clear on these points in their operational orders—in fact, they regarded the matter with such concern that, on this cruise, Graf Spee reported to Berlin directly, bypassing the admiral commanding Marinegruppenkommando West in Wilhelmshaven altogether. This had caused quite a row—Marine-gruppenkommando West was supposed to control all German warships in the Atlantic—but Graf Spee and her two sister pocket battleships were the pride of the German fleet; Admiral Raeder himself, commander in chief of the German navy, wanted to keep close tabs on their performance. “I believe Ajax was on mercantile patrol in these waters before the war, yes?” Langsdorff asked Max.

  “She was, Herr Kapitän.”

  Langsdorff pursed his lips for a moment. “Have turret Anton’s center barrel depressed to the deck.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

  Max addressed himself to the telephone ta
lker, who passed the order over the system to the captain of the forward turret. A hydraulic whine sounded through the bridge as Anton’s center barrel was lowered. From a distance, the turret would appear to have only two barrels, like the forward turret of H.M.S. Ajax, a Royal Navy cruiser familiar to merchant ships in the area.

  “Range?”

  “Seven kilometers now, Herr Kapitän.”

  “Sound action stations.”

  Max nodded to the signalman, who jerked the red-handled battle alarm upward. Gongs sounded throughout the ship while loudspeakers blared: “Achtung! Action stations! Achtung! Action stations!”

  The sailors dashed for their battle posts, hundreds of shoes pounding steel decks throughout the ship. Guns revolved outward from the center line. Stewards snatched crockery from tables in the mess, as watertight doors were slammed shut and dogged home up and down Graf Spee. All eight of the massive diesel engines were fired off and connected to the propeller shafts.

  In the gun turrets, hydraulic loaders rammed the six-hundred-seventy-pound shells into the breeches of the main batteries. Orange ready lights for each of the batteries flickered on in the gun directing tower, where the gunnery officer and his staff took the range of the small ship in the distance. The big guns would be ready to aim and fire as soon as the captain gave the order.

  On the bridge, several more messengers and officers appeared. Max looked at his watch. “Cleared for action, Herr Kapitän. Two minutes, forty-one seconds.”

  Langsdorff nodded. “Excellent, excellent.”

  With the sailors buttoned up in their action stations, a strange quiet descended over the ship, broken only by the swish of water as it flowed down the steel flanks of Graf Spee and the creak of the ship as she rolled in the seaway. Max cupped his trembling hands against the breeze and lit a cigarette. Captain Langsdorff lit another cigar.

  Max drew on his cigarette, looked through his binoculars, then began to repeat the motion but stopped abruptly. He must not appear nervous. He was nervous, it was true—but not from fear. He was sure of that.

  “Range?”

  “Six kilometers, Herr Kapitän.”

  “She’s signaling,” the lookout yelled.

  “Read it out!” Langsdorff ordered.

  “Glad to… see… you… big brother,” Max read, translating the Morse code, binoculars at his eyes. Like all German navy officers, he’d studied English at the Marineschule Mürwik and, at the urging of his father, had continued his studies since leaving the Academy—mainly by reading the American movie magazines his fiancée, Mareth, gave him. Max knew a lot more about Tallulah Bankhead’s love life than he wanted to, but he now spoke fluent English, as did the captain and many other officers aboard the ship.

  “Signal, signal… ‘None shall make them afraid,’” the captain said.

  The clattering of the Morse lamp sounded through the bridge. Max kept his eyes fixed on the small ship.

  “Range?”

  “Five kilometers, Herr Kapitän.”

  The freighter’s Morse lamp blinked to life again. “But… beat your… ploughshares into… swords,” Max translated.

  Langsdorff smiled. “A sense of humor, that one. Signal, ‘Heave to, I have Admiralty dispatches for you.’”

  The bridge signalman began to work his lamp.

  Max lowered the binoculars and squinted at the horizon. All traces of mist from the dawn had burned away in the sun, bright now in the morning sky. Through the open bridge windows, the breeze continued to blow. He wiped the salt mist from the lenses of the binoculars, then, balancing the glasses on the tips of his fingers to cushion them from the gyration of the ship, peered again at the freighter. Suddenly the ship veered hard to the left, away from Graf Spee.

  “She’s turning to port!”

  Langsdorff rapped out his orders. “Run up the colors! All ahead full!” The signalmen hoisted the blood red ensign of the Kriegsmarine—international maritime law required a belligerent warship to identify itself before firing, and Langsdorff was a stickler for the rules. As the ensign rose up the halyard, bridge messengers reached for the engine telegraphs and rang for full speed. Below, in the engine room, duplicate telegraphs and blinking lights alerted the engineers that new orders had been given. They responded instantly. Max watched the revolution counter move swiftly upward. “Making turns for twenty-eight knots,” he said, his voice strained from excitement.

  The pocket battleship shuddered as she went to full speed, her huge propellers foaming the sea beneath her stern. The steel deck vibrated heavily under Max’s shoes.

  “Signalman!”

  “Ja, Herr Kapitän.” The chief signalman snapped to attention.

  “Signal, ‘Heave to, no wireless transmitting.’”

  Bright signal flags soared up Spee’s signal halyards now that she was close enough to dispense with the Morse lamp, but the small ship continued turning away, soon presenting her stern to Graf Spee. A square of brilliant red cloth broke over the stern—the Red Duster of the British Merchant Navy. What fools! Spee could blow the freighter out of the water at eighteen kilometers. By God the English were always stubborn in their pride; Max had never met an Englishman who wasn’t arrogant as a Prussian general.

  “She’s transmitting a distress signal!” one of the young telephone talkers screeched, repeating what the codebreaking squad down below was telling him.

  “No need to shout,” Langsdorff said quietly. “What’s she saying?”

  “She’s, she’s… transmitting, ‘Immediate to admiral commanding South Atlantic, RRR S.S. Clement gunned.’” RRR was British Admiralty code for attack by a surface raider. Max already had his hand on the gunnery phone when Langsdorff delivered his next order: “A shot over her bow, quickly!”

  They could not afford to have the freighter disclose their location and bring down the wrath of the British fleet.

  “Bridge here,” Max barked to the gunnery officer on the other end of the phone. “Order from captain: the target is the merchant ship. A shot over her bow.”

  Immediately the firing gongs sounded, warning the ship’s company that the main battery was about to fire.

  Turret Anton revolved under electric orders from the gun director. Max bent his knees and gripped the metal handhold just below the bridge windows to avoid being thrown to the deck. The forward battery fired with a deafening report, the recoil blasting throughout the ship. As the shock waves passed through him Max instantly smelled the cordite propellant. A tower of white water shot into the air a hundred meters forward of the freighter’s bow.

  But the ship continued her flight, oily smoke pouring from her stack, and Graf Spee kept up her charge, spray breaking over her as she beat through the swells. Spee’s Morse lamp rattled back to life, continually repeating the order to cease transmitting, seconded by the whipping signal flags.

  “Still transmitting, Herr Kapitän,” the telephone talker said.

  “Range?”

  “One and a half kilometers, Herr Kapitän.”

  “Rake her bridge—quickly, quickly!”

  Max snatched up the gunnery phone again. “Order from captain. Target is the bridge of the merchantman. Forward machine guns, fire!”

  The staccato rap of the machine guns rang out, bullets punching holes in the freighter’s superstructure and smashing her bridge windows. But still the propellers of the British ship churned up an angry wake as she tried to make her best speed. Max’s heart thumped in his chest. Every minute she kept up her distress call increased the danger for Graf Spee. Still, the British captain displayed courage, he gave him that; probably an old sea dog, haughty as a lord, stubborn as pig iron, knowledge of half the world’s oceans tucked into his mind. Max wondered if the captain would be stubborn enough to get his crew killed.

  Suddenly the British ship began to yaw. A crewman dashed to the stern and struck the Red Duster.

  “Transmission ceased, Herr Kapitän.”

  “Cease firing,” Langsdorff ordered, “reduce speed t
o dead slow.”

  The machine guns fell silent, spent brass cartridges tinkling as they rolled around on the deck. Max could feel the ship slow

  beneath him as her way fell off.

  “Oberleutnant.”

  “Ja, Herr Kapitän?”

  “See the boarding party away. I want the captain, the chief engineer, and any of the ship’s papers they can find. Remind them. And Oberleutnant?”

  “Herr Kapitän?”

  “Of course, there is to be no bloodshed.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

  Max saluted and ducked out of the bridge. He grasped the metal side rails of the outboard stairway with both hands, then lifted his feet and slid to the boat deck where he found the boarding party formed up, Dieter at their side, trying his best to look stern. In front of the sailors, both he and Max were very serious. Langsdorff always told them, “If you don’t take yourselves seriously, you cannot expect the men to do so.” Since Max out-ranked him by a grade, Dieter came to attention first and gave Max a parade-ground salute. Max returned the salute with equal formality.

  “Orders from the bridge,” Max said.

  “Boarding party standing by, sir.”

  Max repeated the captain’s orders. Dieter saluted again, then faced his crew and ordered them into the sixty-foot motor launch. Once they’d settled in, one of Graf Spee’s two cranes plucked the boat from the deck and lowered it into the sea.

  Max returned to the bridge and watched the launch speed toward the British ship, its sharp bow throwing up spray. The Brits weren’t waiting. They clambered into their own boats, lowered them, and began to row frantically away, oars thrashing the water—a useless gesture since Dieter quickly overtook them. He seized the British officers wanted by the captain and brought them to the deck of Graf Spee. They left the remaining British crew to sail for shore—maybe fifty kilometers. Spee would have rescued the men if they’d been another fifty kilometers out from land. That evening, Langsdorff would report the position of the British lifeboats to the marine station at Pernambuco on the six-hundred-meter emergency band.