He sat very still as Morris went on, speaking more quickly, nearly finished and wanting to get it over. “I turned out to sea and got right down on it and that got us out of the Archie. But then that damned permanent patrol of theirs came down behind us and chased us out to sea. Albatros V-strutters, like I said. Three of them. They gave us a pasting until they turned back after a bit, but by then they knew they’d got us. The engine was dicky, smoking and burning. Just as it was getting dark I had to put her down in the sea. And that was that. I hung on to a lump of the fuselage and then your chaps pulled me out.”
Smith imagined Morris in the sea, paddling about looking for Bill. Darkness all around him, hiding him, and the cold reaching out fingers to clutch at his heart. While all the time the observer lay dead far beneath him.
Smith said, “I think you did very well.”
Morris shrugged, embarrassed, shuddered as he drained the mug. “Wish I could have saved the camera. I’m sure Bill got something at the end.”
Smith felt a touch on his shoulder, looked around and saw Brodie. The steward said “Mr. Sanders would like a word sir. He says, would you go over, please.”
Smith stood up and saw past Brodie’s shoulder the face of Sanders, looking at him anxiously. He said to Morris, “I’m sorry about your observer. I should try to get some sleep if were you.” He reached out and took the empty mug, passed it to Brodie and then asked Morris, “Anything you want?”
He shook his head. “No, sir. Thank you.” The pilot huddled down into the blanket, pulled it over his head and rolled on to his side, turning his back on the wardroom, its sights, sounds and smells, turning his back on the world. Clearly he had taken all he could stand for that day.
Smith paused a moment, looking down at him. If the war went on long enough or Morris lived long enough then one day he would have taken all he could ever stand of war, and then they would send the wreckage home. They might call it shellshock or flying sickness D but it meant you were finished.
Smith swung away, sidled between two of Judy’s crew sprawled snoring on the deck and across to the couch where the U-boat commander lay. He looked to be a tall man. He lay on the couch with his head and shoulders propped up against the bulkhead. Brodie had set him up like that so he could still draw what breath was left to him. He was lean with a thin, hard-boned face that was pallid now and glistened oily with sweat in the dim yellow light. His eyes were closed but his mouth gaped as he fought for breath. He was naked under the blanket that was pulled up to his chest and that heaving chest was swathed in bandages. The rags of the uniform they had cut from him lay on the deck beside him. It was salt- and blood-stained and filthy with oil but the insignia was that of a Kapitänleutnant of the Imperial German Navy.
Sanders crouched right up against the bulkhead and Smith knelt beside him so their faces were close to each other and that of the Kapitänleutnant. Sanders’s face was as pallid as the German’s. He was not yet familiar with the sight of death. He whispered, “Brodie says his chest’s stove in and he’s all cut up about the body and legs. It must have happened when we shelled them, sir.”
Smith nodded. The Kapitänleutnant had survived that and they had saved him from the sea. But only briefly. Brodie said the man had not got long and Smith agreed. He was a long way from being a doctor but he had seen men die before. Too many.
Sanders went on, but hesitantly, “I — think there is something you should hear, sir. He keeps repeating some odd phrases. Every now and again he starts shouting or talking and goes on till he collapses. Then after a bit he starts again, though he’s getting weaker all the time. If you could wait, sir…?”
Smith nodded.
They waited.
Sanders said, “I talked to the other one. It seems she was a Flanders boat out of Ostende. I asked where she was bound but he just clammed up at that.”
Smith asked, “Where did you learn German?”
“My father is a doctor. He had an old friend in practice in Berlin. I spent quite a few holidays there when I was a boy, and one or two leaves from the Navy, I don’t speak German all that well but I can understand —” He broke off and lifted a warning hand.
The Kapitänleutnant’s shallow breathing had quickened, the lips moved and the lids over the eyes twitched, lifted. He stared blankly. The flutter of breath between his lips was a whisper that grew into a mumble. The voice had some strength now, but still Smith could barely hear it though his head was bent close. He could feel the man’s fluttering breath on his cheek but he could only pick out odd words from his slurred whispering: “Vater…Ilse…”
The mumbling went on, growing stronger. Sanders whispered, interpreting, “Talking about his father, his home…his girl, or his wife, I think…the boat. Now, maybe…”
The words were clearer now but still they meant nothing to Smith until Sanders whispered, “Schwertträger — hear that, sir?” And seconds of incomprehensible muttering later, “There, sir. Hear it?”
This time Smith did, his ear picking it out. “Schwertträger.”
Sanders said, “It means sword-bearer. It might be a ship, or a code-word, sir?”
The lights blinked, went out and the wardroom was plunged into pitch blackness. The Kapitänleutnant’s voice went on, lifting and falling with Sanders’s whispered interpretation like an echo: “Hinterrücks anfallen — that’s stab in the back, sir — couldn’t get any of that — Springtau — that’s a skipping rope — he must be thinking of his children…” The voice in the darkness, disembodied, stopped.
A torch clicked on, held in the hand of the sentry, its beam directed at the German seaman who squinted at its glare. Enough of it spilled over to cast a glow on the face of the Kapitänleutnant just as his voice ceased. He was looking blankly into Smith’s face then his eyes moved to Sanders and past him. The lights blinked, came on again. Somebody cheered, ironically. Smith was watching the Kapitänleutnant, saw his eyes going about the wardroom, then coming back to stare at Smith and Sanders. His face twisted with pain, he coughed, and he coughed up blood. Smith took his handkerchief and wiped the blood from the man’s mouth.
The Kapitänleutnant’s chest was heaving now, his back rigid with effort, head back. His whisper was almost a breathless shouting. Sweat shone on his face. “Sie haben nicht gewonnen!” He coughed, slumped but struggled to lift his head again, “Bald kommt der entscheidender Schlag und wir werden diesen Krieg zu Ende führen!” He slumped again, lapsing at once into unconsciousness.
Smith wiped the German’s face as Sanders translated, “I think he said something like, ‘You have not won. Soon the — the decisive blow will fall and we will — will end this war’.”
Smith stood up slowly. The man had been aware, then. Just. A kind of drunken awareness. He knew where he was and who he was talking to, but he was not thinking clearly enough to guard his tongue. He should have kept his mouth shut but he was dying, slipping over the edge and the man knew that much and was shouting defiance. Guts made him speak. Valour was the better part of discretion. That had not been a threat so much as a promise. ‘Soon the blow will fall…sword-bearer…stab in the back.’ The words were a warning. But of what?
He asked, “Have you a notebook?”
“Yes, sir.” answered Sanders.
“Stay with him. Note every word he says.” They needed to know more.
Smith turned to leave and caught sight of the miserable face of the German seaman, his eyes fast on his dying officer. Smith patted the man’s shoulder as he passed, a brief gesture of sympathy, and said to Brodie, “Can you get him a dram?”