An Honorable German
This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, names of real people and places have been
included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events
to actual ones is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Charles McCain
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Contents
With love to my older sister Mimi, who many times in her life has given me the courage to go on.
And in respectful memory of my friend and mentor Al Rose, who encouraged me to write.
THE SOUTH ATLANTIC
ABOARD THE GERMAN POCKET BATTLESHIP
ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE
30 SEPTEMBER 1939
0830 HOURS
“B
RIDGE
!”
“Bridge, aye.”
“One ship, fine on the starboard bow.”
Max focused his binoculars on the starboard horizon and saw a thin tower of smoke. He stiffened. A warship? No. Must be a
freighter. A warship would never make that amount of smoke—gave you away to the enemy too quickly.
“Bridge to gun director, train rangefinder on smoke,” he ordered, his command passed by the telephone talker. The officers
in the gunnery directing post, high above the bridge, could see much farther through their optical range-finding device.
In a few moments the telephone talker, receiving information over his headset, relayed the word to Max. “Herr Oberleutnant,
gunnery says the ship is a freighter, three to four thousand tons. Range is ten kilometers.”
“Acknowledged. Continue tracking.”
Max took up the metal phone that connected him to the captain’s sea cabin.
“Ja?”
“Oberleutnant Brekendorf reporting from the bridge, Herr Kapitän. We’ve sighted a small freighter about ten kilometers off
the starboard bow.”
“Coming.”
Max’s pulse quickened. They’d been wandering around out here for three weeks, searching the empty ocean, waiting for this.
Max again put the binoculars to his eyes and swept the sea; the blue water shimmered in the morning sun, the symmetry of the
view spoiled only by the smudge on the horizon. Around him, the South Atlantic stretched away seemingly to the ends of the
earth.
“Good morning, Oberleutnant.”
Max turned to see Dieter step onto the bridge with his usual wry smile. A dark smear of grease cut diagonally across his forehead.
They had been friends since their cadet days at the Marine-schule Mürwik. An engineering officer on
Graf Spee
, Dieter stood sweating in his leather coat and pants—standard issue for the engineers, designed to protect them from the
engine room machinery. Comfort had not been taken into account. When
Spee
went to full speed with all eight of her diesels on line, the temperature in the engine room went to one hundred twenty degrees.
Dieter paused to let the fresh salt breeze wash over him.
“What brings you up from the bowels of hell?” Max asked.
“Fuel consumption report for the Kommandant.”
“I hope we have enough for a chase.”
Dieter lifted his eyebrows. “Are we having one?”
“We may. Just sighted a freighter off the starboard bow.”
“Well, don’t worry, we’re not down to the paint thinner yet.”
They laughed.
“Attention on deck!” a starched bridge messenger called.
Everyone came to rigid attention as Captain Langsdorff made his way to the center of the bridge. Langsdorff removed the cigar
from his mouth. “Stand easy,” he said, and the men resumed their positions.
The captain raised his binoculars, scanned the sea around them, then fixed his gaze on the distant smoke. He dropped the binoculars
to his chest and lit a fresh cigar from the stinking butt of the old one. Langsdorff was the only man Max knew who chain-smoked
cigars. Taking up his binoculars again, the captain peered once more at the unknown ship, balancing the binoculars on his
fingertips, his body swaying to the easy motion of
Graf Spee
. “What do you make of her, Oberleutnant?”
Max answered carefully. There was a great difference between identifying silhouettes and pictures of British ships in your
cabin and saying for sure that a smudge on the horizon was a British freighter. “Appears to be British built, Herr Kapitän.”
Langsdorff let his gaze linger on Max, and Max felt the captain’s disapproval. Langsdorff stood silent for a moment, then
looked again at the ship. Taking the binoculars away from his eyes, he noticed Dieter, who came to attention under the captain’s
stare. “Yes?”
“Fuel consumption report, Herr Kapitän.”
“Thank you but not now, Falkenheyn. Muster your boarding party and stand by.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.” Dieter executed a sharp salute, raised an eyebrow at Max, and hurried off the bridge. Langsdorff returned
his attention to the unknown ship.
“Range?”
“Nine kilometers now, Herr Kapitän.”
Langsdorff took the cigar from his mouth and studied the ash. Max knew the captain had to be careful: orders prohibited him
from interfering with neutral shipping. Three weeks into the war would not be the time to start protests burning the wires
to Berlin from neutral powers whose ships were being sunk by a German commerce raider. That was exactly what the Oberkommando
der Kriegsmarine wanted to avoid.
Graf Spee
’s mission was to sink British merchant ships and draw off units of the Royal Navy from other duties. It did not include engaging
enemy warships, and definitely did not include blowing some Swedish or American freighter out of the water by mistake. The
Naval War Staff in Berlin had been very clear on these points in their operational orders—in fact, they regarded the matter
with such concern that, on this cruise,
Graf Spee
reported to Berlin directly, bypassing the admiral commanding Marinegruppenkommando West in Wilhelmshaven altogether. This
had caused quite a row—Marine-gruppenkommando West was supposed to control all German warships in the Atlantic—but
Graf Spee
and her two sister pocket battleships were the pride of the German fleet; Admiral Raeder himself, commander in chief of the
German navy, wanted to keep close tabs on their performance. “I believe
Ajax
was on mercantile patrol in these waters before the war, yes?” Langsdorff asked Max.
“She was, Herr Kapitän.”
Langsdorff pursed his lips for a moment. “Have turret Anton’s center barrel depressed to the deck.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”
Max addressed himself to the telephone talker, who passed the order over the system to the captain of the forward turret.
A hydraulic whine sounded through the bridge as Anton’s center barrel was lowered. From a distance, the turret would appear
to have only two barrels, like the forward turret of H.M.S.
Ajax
, a Royal Navy cruiser familiar to merchant ships in the area.
“Range?”
“Seven kilometers now, Herr Kapitän.”
“Sound action stations.”
Max nodded to the signalman, who jerked the red-handled battle alarm upward. Gongs sounded throughout the ship while loudspeakers
blared: “Achtung! Action stations! Achtung! Action stations!”
The sailors dashed for their battle posts, hundreds of shoes pounding steel decks throughout the ship. Guns revolved outward
from the center line. Stewards snatched crockery from tables in the mess, as watertight doors were slammed shut and dogged
home up and down
Graf Spee
. All eight of the massive diesel engines were fired off and connected to the propeller shafts.
In the gun turrets, hydraulic loaders rammed the six-hundred-seventy-pound shells into the breeches of the main batteries.
Orange ready lights for each of the batteries flickered on in the gun directing tower, where the gunnery officer and his staff
took the range of the small ship in the distance. The big guns would be ready to aim and fire as soon as the captain gave
the order.
On the bridge, several more messengers and officers appeared. Max looked at his watch. “Cleared for action, Herr Kapitän.
Two minutes, forty-one seconds.”
Langsdorff nodded. “Excellent, excellent.”
With the sailors buttoned up in their action stations, a strange quiet descended over the ship, broken only by the swish of
water as it flowed down the steel flanks of
Graf Spee
and the creak of the ship as she rolled in the seaway. Max cupped his trembling hands against the breeze and lit a cigarette.
Captain Langsdorff lit another cigar.
Max drew on his cigarette, looked through his binoculars, then began to repeat the motion but stopped abruptly. He must not
appear nervous. He was nervous, it was true—but not from fear. He was sure of that.
“Range?”
“Six kilometers, Herr Kapitän.”
“She’s signaling,” the lookout yelled.
“Read it out!” Langsdorff ordered.
“Glad to… see… you… big brother,” Max read, translating the Morse code, binoculars at his eyes. Like all German navy officers,
he’d studied English at the Marineschule Mürwik and, at the urging of his father, had continued his studies since leaving
the Academy—mainly by reading the American movie magazines his fiancée, Mareth, gave him. Max knew a lot more about Tallulah
Bankhead’s love life than he wanted to, but he now spoke fluent English, as did the captain and many other officers aboard
the ship.
“Signal, signal… ‘None shall make them afraid,’” the captain said.
The clattering of the Morse lamp sounded through the bridge. Max kept his eyes fixed on the small ship.
“Range?”
“Five kilometers, Herr Kapitän.”
The freighter’s Morse lamp blinked to life again. “But… beat your… ploughshares into… swords,” Max translated.
Langsdorff smiled. “A sense of humor, that one. Signal, ‘Heave to, I have Admiralty dispatches for you.’”
The bridge signalman began to work his lamp.
Max lowered the binoculars and squinted at the horizon. All traces of mist from the dawn had burned away in the sun, bright
now in the morning sky. Through the open bridge windows, the breeze continued to blow. He wiped the salt mist from the lenses
of the binoculars, then, balancing the glasses on the tips of his fingers to cushion them from the gyration of the ship, peered
again at the freighter. Suddenly the ship veered hard to the left, away from
Graf Spee
.
“She’s turning to port!”
Langsdorff rapped out his orders. “Run up the colors! All ahead full!” The signalmen hoisted the blood red ensign of the Kriegsmarine—international
maritime law required a belligerent warship to identify itself before firing, and Langsdorff was a stickler for the rules.
As the ensign rose up the halyard, bridge messengers reached for the engine telegraphs and rang for full speed. Below, in
the engine room, duplicate telegraphs and blinking lights alerted the engineers that new orders had been given. They responded
instantly. Max watched the revolution counter move swiftly upward. “Making turns for twenty-eight knots,” he said, his voice
strained from excitement.