Chapter 41
Saturday 16th April
Viano do Castelo, Northern Portugal
The Portuguese militiamen who had found the fugitives wandering like lost souls in the forest, had taken them to Bemposta, the nearest place where there was a telephone. Melody, exploring the inadequacies of her command of colloquial Portuguese had eventually managed to place a call to the British Consul in Oporto, mentioned Henrietta’s name and an hour or so later things had started to happen at an unholy rush.
‘We need to take you somewhere secure,’ a suave man in a Savile Row suit, accompanied by half-a-dozen heavily armed regular Portuguese Army soldiers, informed the survivors. ‘The Spanish have agents everywhere and there have been a number of assassinations and unfortunate accidents…’
Out of the fire straight into the frying pan…
‘No, no, it is not as bad as that. We’ll just take you somewhere safe until arrangements can be made to get you home, that’s all.’
Hence, a three-hour car journey to the Atlantic coast to deliver the women, Albert Stanton and their charge, Pedro, to the old-fashioned hotel on top of the headland overlooking the mouth of the River Lima.
Henrietta and Melody had been given adjoining rooms but they had retired to the one with the nicer view of the sea and the gardens below the hotel, and clasping Pedro to their breasts slept most of yesterday, surfacing only to dine – that had been surreal after what they had got accustomed to in recent weeks – with the Manhattan Globe man in the evening.
Two men from the Embassy in Lisbon had arrived as they were finishing their meal. They had all eaten too much and were suffering because of it, and given the newcomers short shrift. Albert Stanton wanted to dash off a telegram to New York, the women longed to sink again into blissful hot baths and sleep again.
It seemed that they were all in quarantine.
‘Word has been sent to Philadelphia that Lady Henrietta is safe. The authorities have also been informed that you, Ms Danson, and Mister Stanton are similarly safe. But…’
Clearly, the powers that be did not want them talking to… journalists. Which was a bit rich considering they had been incarcerated in this gilded cage with… a journalist!
The women had picked up Pedro, filled the bath in Henrietta’s state room, whereupon the three of them had bathed until the boy got bored and both Henrietta and Melody decided to emerge before they nodded off to sleep. Retiring to bed they slept, genuinely, the sleep of the happy and the righteous.
That morning melody’s suspicions were confirmed when one of the Embassy men turned out to be a spook.
‘Whitehall is keen to debrief you all.’
More likely, to cover up the fiasco of the mission – or rather, fools’ errand – Melody and Henrietta had been sent on in the first place.
‘The thing is, we believe you two ladies are the only survivors of the Special Commission in Madrid…’
That put a somewhat different light on things.
‘Oh, and there is somebody else who is keen to meet you before you leave Portugal…’
Chapter 42
Saturday 16th April
SMS Weser, 28 nautical miles SW of Rojo Cabo, Hispaniola
Commander Peter Cowdrey-Singh pulled on a borrowed Kaiserliche Marine jacket before he came up to the bridge. The ship had come to battle stations very quietly, very efficiently.
The merchant-raider had parted company with the cruiser Emden the previous day.
At that time Kapitan zur See Albrecht Weitzman had taken him aside: ‘I now plan to call in at San Juan on Hispaniola. It remains an Imperial concession and the Governor is an honourable man. I will land you and your men and leave the repatriation arrangements to him.”
Given the way the war was escalating, hour by hour, he was unable to guarantee the safety of his ‘guests’; given that the Weser might be fired on without warning by any British ship or aircraft, even though he had no licence for, or intention to employ his command as a commerce raider. No, he still intended to head for the Atlantic and make passage for Europe. However, landing his charges at San Juan seemed the safest option in all the circumstances.
“We have a problem,” Weitzman observed, seemingly untroubled. “Two torpedo boats,” the Anglo-Indian was informed.
“Hispanic, we think,” another officer offered.
Even with binoculars the ships were still too far away to be individually identified. A pair of three stack, coal-burning greyhounds armed with 3- or 4-inch guns and half-a-dozen torpedo tubes.
As she had been since she and the Emden separated from the combine fleet off Jamaica, the Weser was flying the black, gold and white ensign of the Kaiserliche Marine.
Albrecht Weitzman stepped over to the bridge wing.
“Flash them our pennant number, if you please.”
The big signal lamp clattered.
“Keep sending until they acknowledge.”
It was some minutes before a lamp lit up on the nearest of the two approaching warships. Both vessels kept on coming with huge bones in their teeth.
“I think they are ordering us to stop and receive borders, sir,” a youthful signals lieutenant suggested. “It is hard to tell, whoever is on that lamp is very sloppy…”
The two torpedo boats were moving apart.
Clearly, they intended to pass the Weser at speed.
“Wheel amidships, if you please.”
“They must be coming on at about thirty knots,” the Weser’s navigator remarked idly. “I bet they can’t keep that up for long!”
“No,” Weitzman agreed. “But they don’t have to, do they?”
“No, sir.”
Both torpedo boats had their guns trained on the merchantmen as they creamed past some hundred yards distant at a closing speed of well over forty knots.
Their little piece of theatre achieved the smaller ships reduced speed and turned to overhaul the Weser.
Weitzman turned to his signals officer.
“Send: I AM BOUND FOR SAN JUAN ON IMPERIAL BUSINESS STOP PLEASE KEEP SAFE CRUISING DISTANCE STOP KSZ WEITZMAN KM MESSAGE ENDS.”
The signal lamp clattered anew.
In the meantime, the white-haired captain of the Weser turned to his officers: “I will bluff these fellows for as long as possible. There are no circumstances under which I will allow this ship to be boarded. Please warn the gun and torpedo crews that if the Hispanics attempt to come alongside it is my intention to fire upon them.”
A minute or so later Peter Cowdrey-Singh saw machine gun crews assembling at the rails of the transport-raider, squatting down low behind the armoured main deck rails.
“Halt immediately or you will be fired on!” The signals officer reported tersely.
A gun on the nearest torpedo boat cracked.
A round kicked up a small waterspout about a cable ahead of the ship and then skipped several hundred yards before throwing up another spout.
Albrecht Weitzman sighed.
“ALL STOP! ALL STOP MAIN ENGINES!”
The engine room telegraphs rang.
“Prepare to run up the battle flag, if you please,” he ordered sadly. And turning to the bridge crew: “Perhaps, now is probably the time we ought to be breaking out the hard hats?”
“Captain,” Peter Cowdrey-Singh interjected while the steel helmets were retrieved from their ready lockers. “It is not too late to surrender my people and I. This is not your fight.”
Weitzman smiled.
“You are in my care; you are my responsibility. No German officer in my position would do otherwise that I am doing. Our Empires are often at cross-purposes, Mr Cowdrey-Singh; but we live and die by our shared moral imperatives.”