The White Guns (1989) (23 page)

They were still around the table, the documents exactly as they had been.

Captain Sakulkin barked something at his subordinate and the interpreter asked, 'What is the meaning of this intrusion?'

But Marriott ignored him. To Durham he said, 'They've snatched one of the passage-crew, sir.' He was amazed that his voice sounded so calm. Like listening to a total stranger. 'They claim he had no documents. I say that's a lie. The sailor's name is Tripz.'

For an instant he thought that Durham either did not understand or even care, or that he was too drunk to realise the implications. But suddenly he removed his owl-like glasses and thrust them untidily into his breast pocket.

He said gravely, 'In view of this, Lieutenant Butuzov, after you have explained the facts to your superior officer, perhaps you would tell him that we are leaving forthwith.' He gathered up the documents with great dignity. 'It is not open for discussion, either.'

The lieutenant plucked at his collar. 'He says to tell you that it is nothing to do with you.'

Durham repeated flatly, 'Not open for discussion.'

'He says your admiralty will hear of this!'

Marriott watched. It was like a ball being played back and forth by experts, without waste, without pity.

'And so will Moscow, be sure of that!'

'He says you are threatening him!'

Durham eyed them each in turn. 'No, it is a
promise
I will keep.'

Captain Sakulkin suddenly threw back his head and roared with laughter.

Boots-off said, 'He says it was a misunderstanding.' He sounded very grateful. 'If you will sign for the transfer of these, er,
fine
ships, your lieutenant can recover the foolish young seaman and take him on board.'

Marriott faced him quietly. 'I never said a word about his age.'

But the interpreter did not translate it, and Durham's eyes said,
leave it there.

It was a silent procession back to the pontoon. The MGB's engines bellowed into life as if Adair had his own peep-hole to watch their approach. The deck was crammed with anxious-looking Germans, and from one corner of his mouth Durham said, 'A small victory, Marriott, but a victory nonetheless.'

Marriott did not speak until he saw Fairfax at the guardrails.

'Got him, Number One?'

Fairfax nodded. 'In the wardroom, sir.'

Durham turned and solemnly saluted the Russian officers who had come to see him off.

Then he murmured, 'Now let's get the
hell
out of here, eh?'

'Single up all lines! Stand by to let go springs!'

'Take over, Number One.' Marriott ran down the ladder to the wardroom and saw Ginger Jackson at the table, a basin and swab in his hands as he bent over a half-naked youth in soiled white duck trousers. The youth turned and looked at Marriott. He tried to speak but his fear would not let him, and there were tears running down his cheeks and across a livid bruise where someone had hit him in the face. He was at a guess about sixteen.

'Can you manage, Ginger?'

Ginger glanced at him, his eyes blazing. 'Look what them bastards did!'

Marriott rested his hand on the boy's bare shoulder. It was like ice. On the opposite side was a swastika which somebody had cut with a knife.

'Give him a tot, Ginger.' He forced a smile to contain his anger. 'One for yourself, too.'

Ginger wrung out his swab in the pink water and said, 'Ta, sir.' With great care he laid a dressing over the bleeding furrows and added, 'Must 'ave bin quite a party, sir.' He gestured with his head towards the door to Marriott's cabin. They could hear Durham throwing up as if he might never stop.

Marriott swung round as Fairfax yelled, 'Ready on deck, sir!' He paused and saw the boy staring after him, trying to convey his thanks, when everything must have seemed like a nightmare.

Marriott smiled at him. 'I'm taking you home. I don't know if you can understand what I'm saying, but it's where you belong.'

Fifteen minutes later the MGB, followed by her consort, thrashed away from the land and headed for the sparkling horizon.

Marriott half-listened to the mounting growl of the engines, something he had grown used to, always dreading a flaw, some new sound heralding another much-needed repair.

Fairfax had the watch once they were clear of the land. Marriott removed his cap and jacket and carefully lit his pipe beneath the shelter of the screen.

It was an odd discovery. For the first time since he had stepped ashore in Kiel he felt as if he had achieved something worthwhile.

Beri-Beri watched enviously as his German driver brought the great car to rest on a grassy verge which lined the cobbled road, and gestured towards a distant town. 'That's Preetz, according to my map, Vere. There are supposed to be some really beautiful lakes beyond it, where the new naval HQ is going to be.'

Marriott stared at the rather forbidding-looking house on the opposite side of the road. Why had he come? What was the real purpose? The big house had all but escaped any damage. Some tiny figures were working on one of the rooftops replacing tiles and removing tarpaulins.

An official residence, once that of the dockyard's captain but now partly occupied by the British army. A small tank was parked by the gateway beside a lawnmower.

Beri-Beri yawned. 'I'll wait out here. I've had a gutful of senior officers of late,
theirs
or
ours,
it doesn't seem to matter!'

Beri-Beri had told him that while they had been in the Russian sector he had been back north again in Flensburg. 'They're gathering a new convoy. Nobody seems to know what for, but I think
I'm
involved. It's all so secret that you'd think war had broken out again!'

Marriott climbed from the car and saw an armed sentry draw his feet together at the gates.

'Won't be long, Beri-Beri.' He smiled and crossed the ruler-straight road. It was completely empty of traffic. Once he glanced back and knew that his friend had fallen asleep in his seat.

He thought of the return to Kiel, the anxious relatives of the passage-crew, peering for familiar faces, as if they had all expected the worst. And the German boy Willi Tripz, dressed completely in naval clothing which had been freely offered by some of 801's company, trying to grin as he had left the boat. He had shaken hands with some of them, his scarred shoulders held stiffly, a cruel reminder of the nightmare which Marriott had interrupted.

A naval car had been sent to collect him with an RNVR doctor and one other officer inside it.

Marriott returned the sentry's salute and stared up at the grim-looking building. The ex-German captain still carried a lot of weight, it seemed. He thought of the way the watching Germans had saluted and nodded to him when he had left the boat. Did they see him as different from all the others because he had saved one terrified youth? Or was it that their respect for his father was as entrenched as ever?

The boy had hesitated by the guardrails and then offered his hand. It had seemed determined as well as shy, and Marriott thought he knew the reason. Some of his seamen had looked on coldly and had avoided his offers of thanks for his rescue and return home.

It had been important that the man who had rescued him should not be one of them.

He had stammered haltingly, 'I never forget, Herr Leutnant!
Never!'

And now, for better or worse, here I am.

The house was dark inside, gloomy and unwelcoming.

A plump servant in a white jacket led the way along a high-ceilinged hall, past pale rectangles where great pictures or portraits must have hung, and where common-or-garden noticeboards had taken their place.

All military personnel report to orderly office.
And more important ones like
To the Canteen
and a door which read
Officers Only.

But once through a pair of tall double-doors Marriott found himself in Germany again.

There was a certain grandeur about the huge room which even the dusty curtains could not diminish.

On one wall there was a large picture of Hipper's cruisers steaming into the attack at Jutland. Marriott had seen several reproductions of that famous sea-battle to end all sea-battles in the Great War, but this he knew was the original.

It was a twist of fate that the ship named after one of Germany's finest commanders should be lying wrecked and partly submerged in the harbour.

The man had been sitting in a high-backed chair by an empty marble fireplace so that at first Marriott did not see him.

Manfred von Tripz, until just two months ago a senior Kapitän-zur-See in Hitler's navy, was slight in build, and yet even as he moved displayed great presence and dignity.

He faced Marriott and looked him slowly up and down as he would one of his own lieutenants. If he displayed any surprise it was at seeing Marriott standing at attention.

He said quietly, 'Please be at your ease, Herr Marriott.' A brief smile. 'You are the victor, not I.' He gestured to a chair. 'I am afraid I can offer little refreshment as yet, but I am glad –' He shook his head as if he had heard a silent voice. 'No, I am
grateful
that you came to see me.'

Marriott tried to see the fair-haired boy with the crude swastika carved on his shoulder in the little captain. Perhaps he had also been fair? Now he was grey, with a neatly clipped beard which seemed to put him straight back in that other war, the one depicted by the gallant picture of Jutland.

Marriott sat down in a chair which had never meant to be comfortable. It probably went with the official residence, he thought.

Von Tripz asked, 'May I ask how old you are?'

'Twenty-six, sir.' It was all madness. It had to be. Sitting here with a man who had probably controlled the supply and repair work to half the U-Boats which came from and went to the Atlantic. And calling him
sir.
And yet it seemed to fit. He added haltingly, 'I feel much older.'

The other man smiled properly for the first time. 'I know how that can weigh on a naval officer!'

Marriott watched him as he moved to a tall cabinet. His father must have been very like him, he thought. He had seen pictures of him too, in his boyhood magazines, where he had read about that other war.

It was hardly surprising that the Germans looked up to Von Tripz; his father had commanded one of the most famous commerce-raiders, the
Cobra,
in that so-different war when men had still clung to their beliefs of honour and example.

Von Tripz came back with a framed picture and said absently, 'I do not display this, because of his uniform.' It was said without rancour or contempt.

The young officer smiling at the camera was about Marriott's age. Again that same uncertain feeling. All the years, fighting an elusive enemy. The uniform with its Iron Cross and Nazi eagle on the right breast. It was an abhorrence he might never lose.

'My son Walther.' He replaced the picture in a drawer. 'His first cruise in command of his own
Unterseeboote,
lost to the Atlantic' He swung round and looked at Marriott as if he wanted to memorise every detail. 'My remaining son Willi is very dear to us. The Russians would know it. They would have tried to use him to influence me.'

Marriott recalled Meikle's insistence that the Germans would do anything to sow ill will between the Allies, especially where it involved the Russians.

He realised he had discovered the one similarity between father and son. The eyes were unusual, tawny, which appeared to change colour in the sunlight.

What had they nicknamed the
Cobra's
elusive commander in 1917?
The Tiger of the Seas.

Marriott said, 'Your family has a great naval tradition.'

'True. Like many in England also.' He smiled sadly. 'Even Willi was a cadet in the barque
Gorch Fock
until the –' He hesitated, then added bluntly, 'Until we surrendered.'

He took out a pocket-watch and studied it. 'I have an appointment with your Commodore Paget-Orme. I must not be late.'

Marriott stood up. It was over.

Von Tripz said, 'If ever I can do anything for you, Lieutenant.' Once more the brief smile. 'Although you are maybe thinking it would be the other way round?'

'I understand, sir. I'm glad I was able to get your boy out of that place.' He found that he meant it. 'He has his whole life ahead of him.'

'Thanks to you.' Von Tripz held out his hand. 'Do not forget what I said, Lieutenant. My father once told me, in war you have enemies, afterwards you have only survivors!'

Marriott left the house and felt the sunshine close around him. He realised how cool it had been inside.
Cold with memories.

Beri-Beri stretched and yawned. 'All done then? What's he like?'

The car throbbed out on to the cobbles and Marriott replied, 'I liked him.' He felt suddenly embarrassed. 'For a German, that is!'

Beri-Beri studied his profile affectionately. 'You really are a funny old bugger, y'know!'

On the drive back to Kiel, Marriott thought a lot about Von Tripz and other Germans like him. So-called men of honour who had been cleared of any implication with the kind of war crimes which were daily making the world's press.

And yet how could they have survived under the same regime which had perpetrated such horrific deeds?

He was still thinking about it as the car slowed down at the dockyard gates.

He said, 'Maybe we can meet up later for a noggin?'

But Beri-Beri was staring at the unusual activity at the gates. More redcaps than usual, some women in battledress, plus the white belts and gaiters of naval patrolmen.

'What the hell is all this flap about?'

A Royal Marines sergeant saluted and grinned at them. 'Security check, sir!' He was a Londoner who sounded like Ginger Jackson's brother. 'I wouldn't mind searchin'
'er,
an' no mistake!'

Marriott noticed that the door of an army hut had been left open because of the heat.

A young German girl had been ordered into the hut, picked out at random, he supposed, from the many workers who were finishing their shifts in the dockyard.

Two of the women in battledress had opened her coat and were running their fingers expertly through the pockets, feeling the lining. Another worker, this time a man in a boiler-suit, was called off the road and ordered into another hut where some redcaps were waiting to search him.

When he turned back Marriott saw that the girl's shirt had been deliberately opened and one of the tough-looking women was pulling some sort of bag from her waistband.

He looked at Beri-Beri as the girl, humiliated and distressed, burst into tears.

The marine said, 'Coffee, most likely. That's
'er
for th' 'igh jump!'

'Drive on, for Christ's sake.' Marriott stared at the twin masts of the HQ ship, his mind still lingering on what he had just witnessed.

Beri-Beri looked at him as he climbed from the car.

'Take it off your back, old son. You know it happens.' He sighed as Marriott strode towards the brow. 'We'll talk about it later!'

Marriott entered the operations room and looked around, taken aback by its abandoned emptiness. He could hear a few telephones from other parts of the ex-steam yacht, but the filing cabinets and desks had vanished.

The door of a cupboard was slightly ajar, and as a passing vessel pushed the bow-wave against the hull the door swung open. A blue shoulder-bag fell on to the deck.

At that moment she entered the room, her eyes moving from him to the bag and back again. She was carrying a towel and a toothbrush. She exclaimed, 'It is
mine,
Herr Leutnant!' She seemed oblivious to everything but her bag, and as he stepped away Marriott noticed some bars of chocolate inside, and one of the little toy animals which had started to appear in the flourishing NAAFI canteen.