Chapter 14
Sunday 9th April
SMS Breitenfeld, Guantanamo Bay
Rear Admiral Erwin von Reuter remained on the bridge long after the cruiser had returned to her moorings. At dawn the flagship and two escorting Cuban destroyers had put to sea to bury his German dead from die Schlacht der Windward Passage.
Last night, ignoring the objections of Vice Admiral Count Carlos Federico Gravina y Vera Cruz, Minister of Las Amada de Nuevo Granada, and High Admiral of the Fleets of the Triple Alliance, he had transferred the bodies of the four Royal Navy men who had thus far died on the Weser, to the Breitenfeld. Gravina had been particularly exercised by von Reuter’s implacable insistence that the senior surviving ‘captive’, Commander Peter Cowdrey-Singh, should be permitted to accompany his fallen and take part in the interment ceremony, conducted some fifteen miles out at sea.
There was a discreet cough behind von Reuter.
He snapped out of his brooding introspection to find that his flag lieutenant had stepped back to leave his admiral alone with the former Executive Officer of HMS Achilles.
The Royal Navy man had dispensed with the sling for his injured arm and shoulder, and like von Reuter, his heavy bandaging had given way to neatly stitched, ugly but healing wounds.
“Whatever our differences, sir,” the Anglo-Indian said. “I and my men thank you for the courtesy you have extended to our comrades this day.”
The Cubans had wanted to bury the Squadron’s dead under Catholic rites, regardless of their faith. Most of von Reuter’s men considered themselves to be Lutheran, determinedly Protestant or had registered themselves as ‘agnostic’ on their papers. As for the ‘English’, well, Gravina’s people had just wanted to throw them into unmarked paupers’ graves.
The handful of Spanish dead – during the battle most of the Armada de Nuevo Granada men had been getting in the way and generally making a nuisance of themselves within the armoured citadels of the Breitenfeld and the Lutzen – had received heroes’ funerals in the capital, Havana, yesterday afternoon.
Cowdrey-Singh joined the German, and gazed across to the converted merchantman, the SMS Weser, now guarded by two Cuban motor gunboats which slowly cruised, like sharks about her. The second-in-command of the Achilles was still a very angry man; however, his angst was no longer wholly directed at the man standing beside him. Moreover, he had little doubt that but for von Reuter’s actions the Achilles’s seventy-four survivors – himself included – would be in even direr straits.
Not that his men’s situation was in any way rosy.
“I have received orders to send the Weser back to Vera Cruz,” the German said resignedly. “My request to send the Weser to Great Inagua or Grand Turk Island under a flag of truce to transfer you and your men into British hands was rejected, I am told, at the highest level, by the Government in Mexico City. I have cited technical difficulties to delay executing my orders, the priority of making good battle damage and so forth but regrettably, unless I comply with my orders within the next twenty-four hours officers of the Armada de Nuevo Granada will take total control of my Squadron. That, I cannot permit. It would, in any event, be a breach of the terms of my government’s agreement with the Mexicans.” Von Reuter shrugged apologetically. “I am not required to relinquish my flag until such time as I and the last of my men depart my ships. That was supposed to be some months hence. Then, of course, everything went to Hell.”
Peter Cowdrey-Singh said nothing.
“The Weser will depart Guantanamo this evening,” the German continued. “Earlier, if the transfer of the remaining seriously wounded men from the Breitenfeld and Lutzen, is completed ahead of schedule.” Von Reuter looked the other man straight in the eye. “I am also sending the flagship’s midshipmen – all of them, not just those men ‘under training’ – and some fifty other supernumerary personnel back to Vera Cruz on the Weser.”
The Royal Navy man raised an eyebrow.
“The Lutzen is doing likewise,” von Reuter went on. “If the transfer has not been completed by this evening, the Weser will depart this port with the rest of the fleet, possibly as early as tomorrow morning.” He shook his head, quirked a wan smile. “There are those in Berlin who honestly believe that the Royal Navy is a bloated, complacent, untested Goliath ready to be felled by slingshots. Those of us in the Kaiserliche Marine who have served beside our British colleagues and,” he shrugged, “Imperial competitors, knew the folly of this mode of thinking. But even I was surprised by the recent action in the seas to our east. True, my own temporary incapacitation at the height of the engagement enabled Achilles to exercise her anti-aircraft auto-cannons against the Lutzen – an unpleasant surprise – and cost us the von Roon; however, contrary to my expectations the fact remains, that once he had been fired upon Captain Jackson turned to fight a greatly superior enemy force without a thought to flight.”
Peter Cowdrey-Singh had had a lot of time to think in the last few days. That morning, whilst on the barge transferring him and the Achilles’s burial party to the Breitenfeld he had watched the light cruiser Karlsruhe, bearing obvious battle scars amidships, aft and at the waterline on her starboard stern quarter, manoeuvring under tow into the base’s biggest dry dock. Given that the Breitenfeld obviously had some kind of underwater damaged – judging from the persistent drizzle of oil leaking from one of her forward bunkers – it spoke volumes that the Karlsruhe had been granted first claim on the one dock capable of accommodating the Vera Cruz Squadron’s two damaged heavy cruisers.
There were big dry docks at Havana, of course, albeit far too close to at least two potential Colonial Air Force, and one RNAS air base, all three of which were capable of launching bombing attacks on the Cuban capital.
“You should know that your Government has declared war on the Triple Alliance, Commander,” von Reuter announced.
“What of the German Empire?” The Anglo-Indian asked quietly.
“The madness goes no farther at this time, thank God.”
The two men shook hands, exchanged nods of guarded respect, and parted.
Erwin von Reuter went to the bridge wing, gazing aft down the length of the ship. Crews were closed up at every second anti-aircraft gun, unseen, elsewhere two of the flagship’s four twin main battery turrets were manned. The Breitenfeld was at what the Royal Navy would call Air Defence Condition Two with half her weaponry part-manned at five minutes readiness for action. Below decks, all watertight hatches sealing off the armoured ‘box’ protecting the ship’s vitals – magazines, machinery spaces, boiler rooms – were dogged shut. Both Breitenfeld and Lutzen had lit off a second boiler, just in case the big ships had to cut their chains to seek sea room in the event of an air attack.
Within minutes of the flagship returning to her anchorage in Guantanamo Roads the first ammunition lighter had pushed off from the Weser. Now the ship’s Gunnery officer was supervising the erection of a temporary A-frame lifting assembly to hoist the eight-inch reloads stacked on the approaching boats on board. Other lighters had gathered alongside the Lutzen’s fore and aft main battery turrets for much of the last twenty-four hours.