Nobody seemed to be in command on deck although there were lights on in the bridge and shining through several of the bow and stern portholes.
Pumps still thumped below decks on the Weser but apart from a man coming topside for a smoke from time to time, otherwise, she might have been an abandoned hulk.
Leutnant Kemper who had been watching yesterday, and throughout the day joined the older men and speculated that there might still be as many as one-hundred-and-thirty men still on the Emden. If yesterday was anything to go by, the rest of the crew would not start to come back to the ship until after eight o’clock tomorrow morning.
The first prostitutes began to slink aboard once it was fully dark; whores, pimps, drug dealers and the normal scum of the earth who had been excluded from the Concession until recent weeks, driving decent people indoors at night.
“Well,” the German Minister asked, lighting a cigarette as he joined the officers on the balcony of his office to gaze at the lights of the ships in the bay, “what do you think, gentlemen?”
“That bloody cruiser in the bay still has her guns trained on us,” Claude Wallendorf sniffed, irritably.
“At the Weser,” Peter Cowdrey-Singh offered.
“At the dock, whatever,” the German muttered, very nearly lost in thought.
“When the tide ebbs I noticed it pulled a lot harder than I expected on the Weser’s moorings,” the Royal Navy man said, similarly distracted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, were she to be cut loose, she’d drift straight into the San Miguel the way she’s dragged her anchors.”
“That wouldn’t help,” Wallendorf apologised. “If that happened the Weser and the San Miguel would block the Emden in…”
“Ah, yes, but only if the San Miguel remains moored fore and aft,” the Anglo-Indian suggested, unhurriedly eyeing the movement of flotsam in the muddy waters of the bay.
Hans von Schaffhausen was studying the near-deserted quayside; until a couple of days ago, there had been several armed men guarding the gangways, stationed onshore and on the decks of the ships.
“Still no communication from your normal contacts in the government, sir?” Peter Cowdrey-Singh inquired of the German Minister, gesturing across to the other side of San Juan Bay.
“No, this is the third day running I’ve been fobbed off by a particularly supercilious underling. Ever since I refused point blank to discuss the future of you and your men other than to raise the repatriation issue, in fact.” Von Schaffhausen sighed, and made an admission. “My last conversation with the authorities ended badly when it was put to me that the surviving Kaiserliche Marine officers of the Weser should be put on trial as war criminals.”
“Cheeky beggars!”
“Yes, just so. Anyway, there are more soldiers posted on both of the roads leading into the Concession this evening. For all I know, the jungle around us may be crawling with Dominican troopers. If we act, we must act tonight, gentlemen.”
The two Navy men looked at each other.
“Is that possible?” Von Schaffhausen pressed.
“This would be a thing fraught with great risk, Herr Minister,” Claude Wallendorf cautioned. “Also, I must remind you that I have no idea what damage those idiots have done to my ship!”
Von Schaffhausen did not reflect overlong.
“How would we proceed?”
Wallendorf looked to Peter Cowdrey-Singh.
“We keep things simple,” the Royal Navy man declared. “We send your Marines in to seize the Emden and the Weser. No mucking about. We shoot anybody who makes trouble. Thereafter, everybody just piles onto the Emden pronto, and all non-operational personnel are sent down below decks behind some armour plating. Obviously, even those dozy beggars on the San Miguel out there in the bay will eventually notice something is going on; however, personally, I doubt her captain will do anything without first consulting higher authority because that’s the way joke navies like the Armada del Santo Domingo work. In the meantime, once we’ve got the Emden in our hands, we send your Marines back onshore to guard the port area while the civilians are chased onto the ship…”
Claude Wallendorf opened his mouth to speak.
Peter Cowdrey-Singh had not finished: “The tide begins to ebb at two-fifteen tomorrow morning. That’s when we set fire to the Weser and cut her moorings. In the confusion the Emden puts a couple of broadsides into the San Miguel and we do our level best to get out to sea!”
Nobody said anything for several seconds.
“Then what, Commander?” Angela von Schaffhausen asked in a whisper.
The former Executive officer of HMS Achilles laughed a little unkindly.
“I have no idea, dear lady. That was a thing I planned to worry about it if I am still alive at the time!”
Chapter 31
Sunday 7th May
Government House, Philadelphia
The Governor of the Crown Colonies of the Commonwealth of New England, Edward Philip Cornwallis Sidney, 7th Viscount De L'Isle, The Lord De L’Isle, Dudley and Northampton, bent and kissed his wife’s cheek before her chair was wheeled into the adjacent morning room. That Elizabeth had been well enough to accompany him to church the last two sabbaths, and to stand for short periods – granted, with a stick and his arm for support – was the one thing which had given him any real solace in the last few days.
Well, that and the news – the best part of three weeks ago now – that Henrietta was safe and sound in Portugal. Her disappearance and the coming of the war had stilled, for the moment at least, all those mendacious rumours about his youngest daughter and her companion, Melody Danson; as if he and Elizabeth cared a fig so long as their remarkable little girl was safe, well and happy!
God in Heaven!
Did people not have better things to worry about?
A sheaf of new telegrams had arrived in the two hours he had been away; presumably, further endless tidings of bad news. It seemed that if things had been going badly in New England then his woes might soon be trumped by developments in Germany. All talk of sending as many as six divisions of the Indian Army to New England had been comprehensively quashed overnight; with chaos threatened along parts of the Franco-German border most of those men would probably be needed to beef up the Army of Occupation in France…
Sir Henry Rawlinson, De L’Isle’s Chief of Staff knocked and walked in through the open door to join the Governor in his office.
“Elizabeth seems most chipper,” the other man observed, cheerfully. He was one of those irrepressible old soldiers whose mood often brightened the darker things looked
“Yes, getting out and about helps a great deal.”
The Governor of New England had poured himself a stiff drink, now he poured a second whisky for his friend and indefatigably loyal comrade in arms in Philadelphia.
Both men glanced at the pile of telegrams.
A few more minutes unread would do them no lasting harm, the Governor decided.
“That the King and Queen and our ministers successfully got out of Germany in one piece sounds ever-more like a minor miracle, Henry. It is a damned disgrace! As for the notion that the new, self-appointed dictator is threatening to confiscate all the Empire’s property and investments in Germany, well, that’s…”