A Mighty Endeavor (18 page)

Rogge watched the cruiser close in. He wasn’t surprised to see her sheer off when she was around 10,000 meters away. He knew what Admiralty standing orders were when intercepting suspect merchant ships: stand off and cover with guns. Shoot at the first sign of a suspicious act. The cruiser was shower a proper, professional caution and 10,000 meters put the advantage firmly on her side. He watched the guns in the twin turrets foreshorten as the mounts were trained on
Atlantis’,
Rogge also could see sailors on the upper deck leaning against the rails, watching the action play out. Obviously, the cruiser was not at action stations yet. That changed as he watched. The sudden flurry on her decks showed that she was going to battle stations.

“Signal, sir. The cruiser has hoisted signal IK. Beware of cyclone, hurricane or typhoon. That doesn’t make much sense.” The signals officer paused. “She’s signalling again, sir. Signal reads NNJ. She’s asking for our signal letters.”

“Play for time. We might yet bluff our way out of this. Make sure all guns are loaded and the torpedoes ready to fire.” Rogge drummed his fingers on the rail.

“Another signal, sir. By signal lamp this time. It reads VH. That’s an order to display our signal letters.”

“Very well. Hoist PKQI.” Those were the signal letters for
Atlantis’
cover identity, the Dutch MV
Abbekerk,
By now the Australian cruiser was clearly expecting trouble. Her Captain had sensed something amiss, although Rogge had no idea what it was.

“She’s the
Hobart,
sir. Signalling again. Signal reads IIKP. They’re ordering us to reveal our secret sign and prepare to be boarded.”

“That must have been that IK signal. We just got the middle of it.”

“Another message by signal lamp. We are ordered to heave-to and prepare to be boarded immediately.”

Rogge knew his standing orders at this point and they were clear. Under no circumstances was he to allow his ship to be boarded. That left only one other option.

“Hoist the German naval ensign, drop the screens and open fire, every gun that can bear. Fire torpedoes as soon as the crews have a good aim.”

Australian Cruiser HMAS
Hobart,
Off Ceylon, Indian Ocean

“Just what the hell is that damned merchie playing at?” Captain Harry Howden was frustrated. “We’ve been signalling them for the better part of half an hour and all they do is hoist some unintelligible nonsense. PKQI? That’s the
Abbekerk
and she’s in Batavia with engine trouble. Has been for weeks.”

The movement on the ship in front of
Hobart
grabbed his attention. The German naval ensign was breaking out from the stem while metal screens were falling down. They revealed guns that belched orange flashes Howden knew to be medium-caliber gunfire. The howl of approaching shells confirmed that impression. The first two shots were clean misses. One fell short; the other screamed between the two funnels and exploded in the sea beyond. Misses they might have been, but they were still close enough to send fragments pattering against
Hobart’s
hull.

“It’s the Hun raider
Kemmendine
warned us about! For God’s sake, open fire.”

Howden’s words were interrupted by a second pair of shots; this time, from the centerline guns mounted fore and aft on the raider. These missed as well. Again by a hair’s breadth, but enough to turn what could have been catastrophic damage into the pattering of fragments against armor. The raider had got off the first shots, but the long range and her crude fire control had robbed her of the decisive early blow she had hoped for.

In reply,
Hobart
squeezed out a four-round half-salvo that was just a touch short. A second half-salvo was a fraction over, but the cruiser now had the range.

“Make revolutions for 28 knots; bring us around in front of her. All guns, fire for effect. Full salvos.”

The orders made sense and
Hobart
leapt to obey them. Her stern dug in; the ship shaking as her engines powered up. Everybody knew that converted merchant ships like the raider had their guns on the beam. The British armed merchant cruisers were the same. That meant they were almost blind ahead. At most, one gun could be brought to bear to
Hobart
’s eight.

Through the vibration of the engines and the beginning of her bows swinging, Howden felt the shudder as all eight guns crashed out a salvo. Four of the shots hit square into the German raider’s hull, starting fires that quickly stained the sky black. They crashed into the raider’s waterline, penetrating her hull and knocking out her engines.

On the bridge, Howden cheered his gun crews on. The six-inch turrets settled into a steady routine that methodically blew the raider apart. This was what every cruiser captain dreamed of: a raider caught cold and under his guns. His only regret was that nobody paid out prize money any more.

“Get a radio message out. Signal we’ve been attacked by a German raider. We’re returning fire and we’ve got her, by George.”

Control Room,
U-99,
Off Ceylon, Indian Ocean

“Periscope depth. Right now.”

Kretschmer almost snarled the order out. His submarine had much better hydrophones that they were normally given credit for and the thunder of gunfire had been clearly audible to
U-99
cruising nearby. The scope ran up. He did the submariner’s swing, a rapid scan that gathered as much information as possible while minimizing exposure. That brief swing told him everything he needed to know.

“Atlantis
is gone. She’s burning like a torch up there.” The vast pyre of black smoke had been unmistakable. “There’s a cruiser close by. She has our auxiliary cruiser under fire.”

Kretschmer paused for a second. His eyes focused on the stuffed animal that he had been given just a few minutes earlier. Making a rendezvous was deadly dangerous for an auxiliary cruiser. Somehow this one had leaked out.
How else had a cruiser been on scene?

“We should even this match up a bit. Prepare Tubes One to Four, target is ... . range two thousand meters, bearing one-three-five, speed twenty six knots. Course one hundred. Fire One  “

Australian Cruiser HMAS “Hobart”, Off Ceylon, Indian Ocean

Howden watched
Hobart’s
aft six-inch guns fire, inflicting yet more damage on the already-battered raider. That was when he saw the white streaks on the water, heading for his ship. The first two passed ahead of him. The second pair were running straight and true. Despite the frantic effort to turn into them, it was too late. The range was too short

The two torpedoes slammed into
Hobart
with almost surgical precision. One hit just forward of “A” turret and near the ASDIC compartment. That was the weakest point on the ship’s hull. It ripped a hole in the side that extended down below the ship’s spine. Her bows started to break off and angled down.

The other torpedo hit the screws, mangling the shafts and jamming the rudder hard over.
Hobart
veered hard to port, completely out of control. For a moment it looked as if the Australian ship was trying to ram the raider. It was an illusion, since
Hobart
was already out of control. The torpedo hit aft jammed the two stern turrets in train. With her forward turrets already mangled wreckage, her main armament was theoretically useless. Yet, somehow, the crew in the forward turrets managed to keep firing. They thumped their last shells into the hull of the burning raider.

It was merely a gesture of defiance and Howden knew it. His ship was shattered by the torpedo hits. Her bows were on the verge of separating and his machinery was useless. His ship was going down. As soon as the bows went completely, she would slide under the water. There was only one thing left to do.

He took a look at the raider whose torpedoes he believed had created this havoc. She was dead in the water as well, burning furiously and had ceased fire. That, at least, was a small mercy.
Hobart
continued to limp away from the scene of the battle, out of control and unable to change speed or steer. Howden sighed and gave his final order as her commander.

“Abandon Ship.”

German Auxiliary Cruiser
Atlantis,
Off Ceylon, Indian Ocean

“Sir, main machinery is out of action. The firefighting system has failed, and the fires are out of control. The temperature in the mine storage compartment is rising steadily and we can do nothing to stop it. The ship is going to blowup.”

Rogge looked at his ship.
Atlantis
was belching black smoke all along her length and listing severely. She was also dead in the water. That settled the matter for him. She was finished.

“Very well, Lieutenant. Order the men to abandon ship. Get the wounded into the life rafts and launch as many lifeboats as we have left. Spread the men out between them and put officers within each.”

He looked at his ship again, and then across the sea to where
Hobart
was limping away. She was sinking as well; there was no doubt of that. The
two torpedo hits that had come from nowhere left her with bows that were moving separately from the rest of the ship and clearly working free. Her course was erratic as her wrecked screws and rudder interacted. Rogge could see the surviving crew beginning to abandon ship. One question kept running through his mind.

What have we done?

Almost three hundred of his crew survived the battle. They managed to pull clear of the burning wreck that had once been
Atlantis
and survived the great explosion that had sent her down. Dusk was beginning to settle when the first patrol plane from Trincomalee turned up. A Short Singapore flying boat, it circled the column of lifeboats on the sea for a few minutes, obviously radioing the position of the little convoy to surface rescue ships. Then, it flew away. Rogge saw it starting to circle another area of sea.
The survivors of the cruiser,
he guessed. He looked over the other men in his lifeboat and shook his head. It had not been a good day.

Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

As the MP’s settled in after lunch, the Honorable John ‘Sol’ Rosevear surveyed the chamber with a good deal of satisfaction. There was no doubt this was their time. Labour was ascendent; the Tories in utter disarray. Even if the Government rested on a wafer thin majority, they were as safe as houses. No one was in the mood for another change of government so soon after the fall of Menzies.

If there was one fly in his soup, it was purely factional. The hard Left of the party was in control. If that didn’t sit to well with Rosevear, it had put him in the speaker’s chair as a sop to the Labor Right. Things could have been a good deal worse.
We can get some bloody good work done here; opportunities like this don’t come along too often,
thought Rosevear to himself.
If Red Johnny doesn’t make a mess of it.

“The House recognizes the Honorable Prime Minister”

John Curtin grinned up at the Speaker as he stood confidently and strode the few paces to the Government dispatch box like a man walking on air. “Mister Speaker, in light of yet another royal abdication of responsibilities and recent events in Europe, and Canada well known to the House, the Government has prepared a draft bill that we believe will address the most pressing issues facing this Commonwealth ...”

There was a bit of hubbub around the benches as the Prime Minister droned on, some pleased, some not, but mostly surprised. By any standards, this was quick work; to lay a bill before the house within hours of the BBC broadcast. To those so inclined, such decisiveness spoke well of a new Government itself hardly settled in to office. Amid the Opposition, initial skepticism at such haste grew to outright alarm as the PM concluded introducing the bill and immediately began to read the contents out in full, punctuated by increasingly frequent interruptions and objections.

He’d been expecting Curtin to come out swinging this afternoon, and no one could ever say Solly Rosevear was shy of a good fight. Even so, this was turning out to be even hotter than he’d anticipated. The struggle to maintain order, and even more to retain any illusion of impartiality, grew harder as the Points of Order mounted and were stuck down by his gavel. After the preamble and first few sections of the bill had been tortuously ground through, Rosevear was starting to regret the Labor Party’s principled rejection of the Speaker wearing robes. Rumor had it some Speakers had sat in nothing but a singlet under their robes. It was warm day to start with. The chamber was getting hotter by the minute and Solly was sweating like an alcoholic sponge in his sauna of suit, vest and tie.

Down on the floor, Curtin bore the mounting temperature with the same tolerant smile he gave to all the raucous objection and procedural insult. Discretely studying the House over his spectacles as he read, or gazing about more frankly during the frequent interruptions, to Curtin it was all poetry set to life. Sweetest was the dismay across the room. The coalition shattered and leaderless in the wake of Menzies’ departure now clucked about like headless chooks as the tidal wave of Labour victorious crashed over their privileged ranks. The faint mutterings of dissent from his own party only served to confirm his judgment of the situation. Every ship had its rats; and so long as he knew where they lay, Curtin was confident in his grip. A consummate party politician, he had his numbers locked down tightly. With the support of the Party Caucus and Trades Hall, he had nothing to fear from a few grumpy backbenchers and lukewarm supporters.

But those lukewarm supporters were turning the heat up on Rosevear. This might have been all part of Curtain’s plan, having set the man up as Speaker partly with this sort of situation in mind. However, it had the Speaker in a lather; both physically and politically. He was having to strike down a growing number of interjections from his own side of the Labor Party in addition to the Opposition, many of which were points he agreed with and would have been making himself.

Like any Parliament worth its salt, information traveled around the chamber almost by osmosis. Early doubts hardened into ironclad conclusions long before Curtain reached the end of his document. The bill may have been a little rough about the edges, but it was no work of hours. Depending on one’s point of view, this was either proof positive of the new leadership’s depth and insight, or the depths of their conspiracy and treachery. All felt a growing sense of urgency as the details slotted into place.

The interpretation of Daventry lay at the heart of things, Labor took it as permission to wrest the nation free of its links to Home and Empire and were taking this opportunity with both hands to set some cherished planks of party policy into law. In sum, this bill was paving the way to a republic. That notion was as controversial on the Labor side of the house as it was unthinkable among the Opposition. Torn between the duties of his office, his own inclinations, and the hard lines of party allegiance, Rosevear grew increasingly angry and in dire need of a stiff drink. His rage might have been expressed in his language and temper towards towards objectors, but inwardly it focused exclusively on his party leader and Prime Minister.

As Curtin concluded his reading of the bill, he tabled the bill for immediate debate. His well oiled machine kicked into top gear. Having pushed proper procedure somewhat beyond its limits already that morning, gagging debate might have out of the question. But that didn’t imply he had to play fair. If anything, the first hour of debate was even more disorderly than all that had passed before. A solid stream of well primed Labor MP’s stood to ramble on, asking back-handed questions their own front bench could answer with long winded positive replies in favor of the Government’s case. Occasionally, Rosevear let one of the Opposition get a few words in edgewise, but each was snowed under in a blizzard of interjections and objections. It was an old game, familiar to all on both sides of Parliament. But it was not one used lightly for matters of such weight that verged on constitutional reform. The fury this provoked exceeded anything seen before in the Australian Parliament, and Rosevare verged on losing control utterly.

Around that whole room of angry, shouting, screaming men, the Speaker could only see one island of support. Ironically it was the man he had replaced less than a week before. George Bell, DSO, MP and senior of the two Deputy Speakers, knew exactly what Rosevear was going through. He had spent the past six years in the chair himself. While not unmoved by the politics, he sat there smiling up at Rosevear and offering what encouraging nods he could.

Bell’s was more than a professional sympathy; he actually thought the fellow was making a dreadful fist of it. The Speaker’s face was flushing deep purple when it wasn’t pasty white and Bell could see he was perspiring like a fountain from 20 feet away. The Tasmanian MP thought it best to do what he could, lest Rosevear collapse and leave him with the job of presiding over this shambles of a travesty.

Just after 3 PM, and with no end in sight, the Sargent-at-Arms crossed the floor to deliver a note to the PM. The Minister for Transport, who had been using two hundred and fifty words to say ‘yes’ in reply to a yet another prearranged question, paused as Curtin read the message. The Prime Minster looked up and waved the Minister back in action, stuffing the note into his pocket before leaning back with a casual smile. If Curtin had hoped to down play this new piece of information, the parliamentary grape vine had other ideas. The news raced around the chamber, leaving something approaching silence in its wake.

Rosevear, sitting in splendid isolation, was the only man excluded from the bush telegraph, although he certainly noticed something was happening. For the first time in what seemed like hours, and probably was, he was not beating down waves of protest, or even facing angry glares. It was almost uncanny how quiet the Chamber had become. Every MP in the House was whispering to each other instead of shouting at him. Given a chance to draw breath, he waited for the Minister to finish and resume his seat. As if wired to some trigger, the ministerial backside meeting leather saw almost half the house spring to its feet in a jabbing roar of “Mister Speaker, Mister Speaker!” They all clamored to gain Rosevear’s ‘eye’ and be called up to speak.

Scanning the crowd judiciously, and with his own eye on trying to reinject some calm and normality to the proceedings, he chose one of the steadier heads off the Opposition backbench and the fringe of the United Australia Party.

“The House recognizes the Member for Lara”

Under other circumstances, the Labour front bench would have nodded appreciatively at this. If not quite an Independent, the MP for Lara was well known for taking a casual view of party allegiance and speaking his rather liberal mind on occasion. If anyone on that side of the House might support the Government he was as likely a candidate as existed. Even if he didn’t--well the seat of Lara was a marginal and Labor had high hopes for it. If the sitting member cared to put a foot or two in his own mouth, the Government would thank him for the ammunition.

Rosevear saw he had made a mistake immediately. It was hard not to with his whole front bench staring daggers at him.
Bugger ‘erm,
he thought.

Let the lazy sods deal with their own bloody problems; I’ve done more than my share today.

Gregory Locock remained standing as the other aspirants sunk back into their seats. “Mister Speaker, thank you. I was going to ask the Honorable Attorney General to expand on clause 12, but instead might I ask the Prime Minister, if in light of this recent naval action in the Indian Ocean, might not this whole bill be reexamined? Again I refer in particular to clause 12, but also several others ...”

The rest was drowned out under a barrage of sound.

Curtin rose to his feet as the Speaker hammered the Chamber into silence. “Mister Speaker. I’d like to thank the honorable member for his question,” he said with great confidence “And reassure him, and any others who may be concerned, that while events remain unclear, the Government has things well in hand. In any case, it is hard to see how such matters might have any bearing on business presently before the House. There’s nothing that can’t be smoothed over and we should not be distracted from more important things.”

As soon as the words passed from his lips, Curtin realized he had made a grave mistake. It wasn’t just the deafening silence, but the low grumble that replaced it. The sound, not of anger, but of men quietly saying hard words in serious tones.

Locock remained standing for the next ten minutes as the Prime Minister tried to unsay what he had just said. A fine job Curtin did too. Slathering on the butter of reason and jam of promise with a lavish trowel to the hearty Hear Hear’s of his increasingly vocal supporters, once the Whips and Ministers had recovered their poise and got to stirring up his defense. But it was a hollow noise, and few in the chamber bought the line he was selling, no matter how hard they stamped their feet after Curtin made each point.

If Australian ship had fought German ship, whatever the outcome, it was an act of war.

Curtin might say what he liked, but Berlin would have their own view and that was nothing to brush under the carpet. Nor was there any point to pushing this bill though until there was some idea of how Herr Hitler felt about it all.

Locock was still on his feet as the PM resumed his seat. Rosevear would have graveled him down, but the fellow had asked the question that had to be asked and done it with unusual civility. There was no reason to be abrupt and every reason to encourage a return to the usual courtesies on such a day as this, so Rosevar nodded at Locock.

“Mister Speaker,” Locock nodded back, “I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his clear and informative expression of the Government’s position. And further, Mister Speaker, I would beg leave to move this House has no Confidence in the present Government.”

Chaos descended, bringing with it pandemonium, bedlam and turmoil. It did not quite reach anarchy, if only because Parliament sat on benches so there was a shortage of ready weapons. Rosevear pounded his desk like a carpenter and swore like a bargee, turning ever deeper shades of puce in the process. He might as well have spared his voice and blood pressure the strain. Eventually it was George Bell who stepped up to the Speaker’s chair, stuck two fingers between his lips and let out an ear piercing whistle.