Around the next bend, Commissioner." Kyller's voice carried the lazy inflection that made Fleischer think of champagne and opera houses, of skiing parties, and boar hunts. "I hope that Captain von Kleine has made adequate preparation to defend her against enemy attack?"
"She is safe." For the first time there was a brittle undertone to Kyller's reply, and Fleischer pounced on it. He sensed an advantage. For the last two days, ever since Kyller had met him at the confluence of the Ruhaha river, Herman had been needling him to find a weakness.
"Tell me, Kyller," he dropped his voice to an intimate, confidential level. "This is in strict confidence, of course, but do you really feel that Captain von Kleine is able to handle this situation? I mean, do you feel that someone else might have been able to reach a more satisfactory result?" Ah! Yes! That was it! Look at him flush, look at the anger stain those cool brown cheeks. For the first time the advantage was with Herman Fleischer. - "Commissioner Fleischer," Kyller spoke softly but Herman exulted to hear his tone. "Captain von Kleine is the most skilful, efficient, and courageous officer under which I have had the honour to serve. he is, furthermore, a gentleman."
"So?" Herman grunted. "Then why is this paragon hiding in the Rufiji basin with his buttocks shot full of holes?" Then he threw back his head and guffawed in triumph.
"At another time, sir, and in different circumstances, I would ask you to withdraw those words." Kyller turned from him and walked to the forward rail. He stood there staring ahead, while the launch chugged around another bend in the river, opening the same dreary vista of dark water and mangrove forest. Kyller spoke without turning his head.
"There is the Blitcher," he said.
There was nothing but the sweep of water and the massed fuzzy heads of the mangroves below a hump of higher ground upon the bank. The laughter faded from Herman's chubby face as he searched, then a small scowl replaced it as he realized that the lieutenant was baiting him. There was certainly no battle cruiser anchored in the water-way.
lieutenant..." he began angrily, then checked himself. The high ground was divided by a narrow channel, not more than a hundred yards wide, fenced in by the mangrove forest, but the channel was blocked by a shapeless and ungainly mound of vegetation. He stared at it uncomprehendingly until suddenly beneath the netting that was festooned with branches of mangroves, he saw the blurred outline of turrets and superstructure.
The camouflage had been laid with fascinating ingenuity.
From a distance of three hundred yards the Blitcher was invisible.
The bubbles came up slowly through the dark water as though it had the same viscosity as warm honey.
They burst on the surface in a boiling white rash.
Captain von Kleine leaned across the foredeck rail of the Blitcher and peered at the disturbance below him, with the absorption of a man attempting to read his own future in the murky mirror of the Rufiji waters. For almost two hours he had waited like this, drawing quietly on a succession of little black cheroots, occasionally easing his body into a more comfortable position.
Although his body was at rest, his brain was busy, endlessly reviewing his preparations and his plans. His preparations were complete, he had mentally listed them and found no omissions.
A party of six seamen had been despatched fifteen miles downstream by picket boat to the entrance of the delta.
They were encamped on a hummock of high ground above the channel to watch the sea for the British blockade squadron.
As Blitcher crept up the channel she had sown the last of her globular multi-horned mines behind her. No British ship could follow her.
Remote as the chances of overland attack seemed, yet von Kleine had set up a system of defence around the Blitcher. Half his seamen were ashore now, spread in a network to guard each of the possible approaches. Fields of fire had been cut through the mangroves for his Maxim guns. Crude fortifications of log and earth had been built and manned, communication lines set up, and he was ready.
After long discussions with his medical officer, von Kleine had issued orders to protect the health of his men. Orders, for the purification of water, the disposal of sanitation and waste, for the issue of five grains of quinine daily to each man, and fifty other safeguards to health and morale.
He had ordered an inventory made of stocks of food and supplies, and he was satisfied that with care he could subsist for a further four months. Thereafter he would be reduced to fishing and hunting, and foraging.
He had despatched Kyller upstream to make contact with the German Commissioner, and solicit his full cooperation.
Four days have(] been spent in hiding the Blitcher under her camouflage, in setting up a complete workshop on the foredeck under sun awnings, so that the engineers could work in comparative comfort.
Now at last they had begun a full underwater appraisal of Blitcher's wounds.
Behind him he heard the petty officer pass an order to the team at the winch. "Bring him up slowly the donkey engine spluttered into life, and the winch clattered and whined shrilly. Von Kleine stirred against the rail and focused his full attention on the water below him.
The heavy line and air pipe reeled in smoothly, then suddenly the surface bulged and the body of the diver was lifted dangling on the line. Black in shiny wet rubber, the three brass-bound cyclopean eyes of his helmet glaring, grotesque as a sea monster, he was swung inboard and lowered to the deck.
Two seamen hurried forward and unscrewed the bolts at the neck, lifted off the heavy helmet, and exposed the head of the engineering commander, Lochtkamper. The heavy face, flat and lined as that of a mastiff, was made heavier than usual by the thoughtful frown it now wore. He looked across at his captain and shook his head slightly.
"Come to my cabin when you are ready, Commander," said von Kleine, and walked away.
"A small glass of cognac?" von Kleine suggested. I'd like that, sir." Commander Lochtkamper looked out of place in the elegance of the cabin.
The hands that accepted the glass were big, knuckles scarred and enlarged by constant violent contact with metal, the skin etched deeply with oil and engine filth. When he sank into the chair at his captain's invitation, his legs seemed to have too many knees.
"WelP asked von Kleine, and Lochtkamper launched into his report. He spoke for ten minutes and von Kleine followed him slowly through the maze of technicalities where strange and irrelevant obscenities grew along the way. In moments of deep concentration such as these, Lochtkamper fell back on the gutter idiom of his native Hamburg, and von Kleine was unable to suppress a smile when he learned that the copulatory torpedo had committed a perversion on one of the main frames, springing the plating whose morals were definitely suspect. The damage sounded like that suffered in a brothel during a Saturday night brawl.
"Can You repair it? "von Kleine asked at last.
It will mean cutting away all the obscenely damaged plating, lifting it to the deck, re cutting it, welding and shaping it. But we will still be short of at least eight hundred obscene square feet of plate, sir."