“Jawohl, Herr Oberleutnant.”
A deep hum sounded through
Graf Spee
as four of the mammoth diesel engines were fired off and hooked to the propeller shafts. Max, hand on the bridge rail, felt
the vibration pick up. Aft of the bridge, black diesel smoke began to waft from the funnel. Normally Oberbootsmann Carls would
have his men swab the diesel particles from the deck, but
Graf Spee
was through with all that now. Max supposed he could actually spit on the deck if he wanted to, though it was a serious offense.
In the British navy, he knew, sailors used to be flogged for spitting on the deck since it was held to be the same as spitting
against the King.
“Up anchors,” Langsdorff ordered.
Because the telephone talkers had already left the ship, Max lifted the megaphone against his lips and shouted through the
open window, “Up anchors.”
On the bow, Carls saluted, then, drawing on his gauntlets, he threw the lever on the anchor motor, which began to grind away
as it pulled the wet black chains from the harbor’s muddy water. A loud thump sounded as the anchors were drawn flush to the
bow. The aft anchors had been raised before the crew had gone ashore.
“Anchors secured, Herr Kapitän.”
“Hoist the battle ensign.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”
Max made his way to the bridge wing, then across the metal catwalk to the signal deck. The signalmen had left the ship too,
but the chief signalman had attached the battle ensign to the halyard before he went. Max gripped the rough hemp in his fingers
and hauled the flag up. It hung limp in the heat but he came to attention and saluted. He could barely look at the captain
when he returned to the bridge.
Langsdorff said nothing, only continued vacantly puffing on his cigar. A slight breeze ruffled the harbor waters, and that
along with the lazy current of the harbor caused the huge ship to begin a slow drift. Max glanced at the captain but stayed
quiet. The almost imperceptible movement of the ship finally seemed to shake Langsdorff from his reverie. “Ahead dead slow,”
he ordered.
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.” There were no sailors on the bridge so Max rang the engine telegraph himself.
Her bronze propellers bit the water and
Graf Spee
moved slowly toward the harbor entrance. Max peered through his binoculars at the people on the shore. Many waved white handkerchiefs
and many, members of Uruguay’s German community, gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute. They’d been standing out there in the sun
all day. More than a few must have fainted. Seventeen hundred hours now and the air had cooled by a few degrees but the bridge
plating was still too hot to touch.
The sound of one of the phones startled Max, so quiet and gentle was the ship’s motion. He picked it up. “Bridge.”
“B-Service here, sir. Observers report two British cruisers have moved into the Rio Plata and are steaming upstream at flank
speed.”
Max repeated this to the captain. “Acknowledged,” he said. It was only what they had expected—the little barking dogs sent
in to nip at their heels while the capital ships waited over the horizon, shells loaded in the breech of every cannon, ready
to discharge an immense broadside against
Graf Spee.
Langsdorff withdrew the cigar from his mouth and gave an order so quietly that Max had to have him repeat it. “Left standard
rudder,” the captain said again.
Max bent over the speaking tube and passed the order to the helmsman. Langsdorff let her swing until her raked bow almost
pointed toward the channel that led out of the harbor, into the river beyond. “Rudder amidships,” he ordered.
Max passed this order, too. The ship steadied up on the new course and headed into the channel followed by a long motorized
barge. Max turned aft and gazed at Montevideo. So many people had turned out to see their final voyage. Most of them just
wanted to watch death on the water, as if warships were bulls in a ring. He turned his back on the harbor and cursed them.
Slowly
Graf Spee
moved through the channel and into the Rio Plata, fifty kilometers wide at this point, the water stained khaki by the silt
carried down from the mountains. The sun moved lower now, the breeze picking up. How long before the British cruisers arrived?
Two hours? Maybe three? Because ships of one belligerent nation were not allowed to sail from harbor within twenty-four hours
of a ship from another belligerent nation, the cruisers had been forced to wait beyond the river’s mouth—outside the territorial
waters of Uruguay. But they were coming hell for leather at
Graf Spee
now that she was under way, and they would let the diplomats sort it out later.
Langsdorff stood on the bridge wing and took careful bearings from the land with the mounted compass. When he was satisfied
that the ship had come far enough, he said, “Stand by to disembark.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.” Max took up the P.A. system microphone. “Achtung! Achtung! All personnel not on the special detail,
report to boarding ladders on the port side.”
Spee
continued to glide slowly through the river, followed obediently by the barge. By now the two vessels were five kilometers
out from the crowded harbor.
“All stop,” Langsdorff said.
Max passed the order and the vibration died away as the engines went to standby.
Graf Spee
drifted to a halt in the muddy river.
Langsdorff stood for several minutes without speaking, then turned to Max. “Commence.”
Max again picked up the microphone for the loudspeaker. “Commence disembarkation.”
Almost everyone still aboard would leave the ship now. They gathered quietly by the boarding ladders and climbed down into
the barge, which had come up alongside. Langsdorff watched his men go, each sailor giving the captain a respectful salute.
The barge was loaded in ten minutes. It cast off and moved away, leaving only a tiny detail of officers and men behind. Langsdorff
came inside and ordered the ship to proceed ahead, dead slow.
The diesel smoke began to trickle again from
Spee
’s lone funnel as she started to move, her propellers churning the brown water under her stern into a froth. Aft of them,
the barge had anchored itself in the middle of the river. Max followed Langsdorff back out onto the bridge wing, wrinkling
his nose at the muddy stench of the Plata. He could see the lights of Montevideo beginning to flicker on in the blue twilight.
Sailors on the barge had come to attention to salute their receding ship.
Max took his binoculars and peered out ahead of the bow. They were alone on the wide river, which stretched away to the horizon.
He hadn’t really expected to see any British ships, but you never knew about the British. If they came upon
Graf Spee
now, Langsdorff’s plan would be ruined.
The captain smoked in silence, peering at the horizon through his binoculars from time to time. Langsdorff’s shoulders were
hunched from the stress of the last few days. Well, Max thought bitterly, they would soon have plenty of time to rest. A check
of their bearing off Montevideo’s tallest building confirmed their position on the chart. “International waters now, Herr
Kapitän.”
Langsdorff looked at him quizzically, as if he’d forgotten Max was there. “What?”
“We’re in international waters now, Herr Kapitän.”
“Very well.”
“Helmsman is standing by, sir.”
“Very well.”
Now they were out where the British could hit them with no warning and no repercussions, yet Langsdorff did nothing, only
continued to stare absently ahead. The two British cruisers were probably no more than an hour’s steaming time from them.
This was no time for melancholia.
Suddenly Langsdorff left the bridge and ducked into the small chartroom behind. He returned wearing his dress sword.
For God’s sake, Max thought.
Ahead of them the sun touched the horizon, its dying rays coloring the ship a deep pink. River wind blew through the bridge,
wet and cool, stinking of fish and mud. Max felt it play across his face as he silently watched the captain.
“We’ll miss the deep-water channel if we don’t turn, Herr Kapitän.”
Langsdorff made no reply. Should Max order the helm changes himself? He understood the captain’s feelings—his own stomach
was clenched tight with anger. Beneath his hand, Max felt the warm pitted steel of the ship—a ship that had given him so much.
You couldn’t love a ship like a woman, but you could feel a gratitude for her, and
Graf Spee
had certainly earned that from him and the others. Old sailors said ships had a soul, and perhaps it was true, for it seemed
to Max that
Spee
sensed her destiny and went to it slowly, haltingly, like the men who gave the orders.
“Herr Kapitän, we must turn. We must.”
Langsdorff drew the sword from its gilded scabbard, the silver blade gleaming in the last light of the sun. He said, “The
All Highest himself gave me this sword when I was commissioned in 1912. I accepted it from his own hands. ‘I swear by God’s
holy name that I will wear this sword with honor and courage, Your Imperial Highness.’ That is what I said to him.”
Max nodded. The wind blew over them both. “Herr Kapitän, we…”
Langsdorff thrust the shining sword back into the scabbard with a clang. “I know, Oberleutnant, I know. Right standard rudder.
All ahead one-quarter speed.”
Max passed the order, then looked again at the captain, who seemed to have regained some of his composure.
Graf Spee
swung to starboard and the vibration picked up as the men in the engine room stepped up their revolutions.
Langsdorff watched carefully now, eyes darting from the compass to the channel markers. When the bow pointed directly upriver,
the captain checked her turn and now the huge ship moved up the muddy river toward Buenos Aires.
They steamed in this direction for five minutes. A dazzling red sun, now just an orb on the horizon, seemed to float behind
them. Langsdorff puffed his cigar and surveyed the water through his binoculars. “Any more information on the British warships?”
“B-Service reports that our observers have them about one hour south of our present position, maybe less, and closing at full
speed, sir.”
The captain frowned. “Left standard rudder.”
Max repeated this order down the voicepipe to the helmsman. When the rudder bit,
Graf Spee
cut to the left and moved out of the ship channel.
“Stop engines.”
Max rang the engine telegraph and moved the needle to
Stop Engines
.
The gentle hum of the engines died away as they were disconnected from the propeller shafts.
Spee
glided softly as her way fell off. On the bow, Oberbootsmann Carls stood ready at the anchor controls.
“Let go fore,” Langsdorff ordered, now more in control of himself.
Max took up the megaphone and bellowed into it with his best quarterdeck voice: “Let go the bow anchors!” A loud splash echoed
through the twilight, followed by the roar of the long black anchor chains playing out.
“Let go aft,” Langsdorff ordered.
Already Oberbootsmann Carls was running down the wooden deck to the ship’s stern. In a few seconds, Max heard the stern anchors
splash into the Plata.
Calm descended over the ship. Captain Langsdorff glanced slowly around the deserted bridge, passing his eyes across the shining
brass of the compass mountings, the soft green glow of the instrument lights, the river chart tacked to the chart table. Through
the bridge windows, the sharp prow of
Spee
was still visible in the murky evening. “Finished with engines,” he whispered hoarsely, reluctant to say it.
Max picked up the engine room phone and gripped it tight, closing his eyes for a moment to master himself.
“Engine room, aye.” It was Dieter’s voice.
Max stared out into the gathering dark.
“Engine room, aye,” Dieter said again.
“Finished with engines,” Max said.
Dieter was silent for a moment and then replied quietly. “Finished with engines, aye-aye.”
It was the traditional order given at the end of every voyage. Max slammed the phone down.
The captain said, “Execute your orders, Oberleutnant.”
Max came to attention and saluted but didn’t speak, not trusting his voice to be steady. He descended to the main deck and
found Dieter among the deckhands.
“All crew accounted for,” Dieter said, saluting.
Max saluted his friend, then turned and made for the main companionway. He began descending into the bowels of the ship as
Dieter and the crewmen prepared the launch.
He moved quickly, like the others. If the British caught them in the launch in international waters, they could be taken prisoner.
In the darkened interior of
Graf Spee
, the blue nightlights had come on, casting a lonely glow over the deserted corridors. Max followed the hoses down through
the ship, making sure they were still in place. Satisfied, he lingered for a moment, looking around the abandoned interior.
A lifejacket lay on the deck, dropped there by a careless sailor on his way out. Worse, a cigarette butt had been crushed
out beside it. A cigarette butt. On the deck of his ship. By the Lord God and all the Holy Saints in heaven if he ever found
the swine who had done that he would see the man got a month in the brig. He picked up the cigarette butt and put it in his
pocket. Turning about, Max made his way up the flights of metal stairs to the top deck, his footsteps echoing through the
emptiness of
Graf Spee
.
Back on the main deck, he signaled Emil to start the pump. The hoses plumped as they began to fill with the stinking diesel
oil from the ship’s fuel bunkers. Oil ran through the hoses into the depths of the ship, where it would spill out in a viscous
black puddle, spreading out like ink from an overturned inkwell. The noxious oil would splash down the narrow stairways, spill
into cabins, into the crew spaces, and foul the once spotless decks of the pocket battleship
Admiral Graf Spee
.