River of Death

Spaatz sipped his cognac and smiled sadly. ‘Cynicism, Wolfgang, never did become you.’

At the best of times the docks at Wilhelmshaven would have no difficulty in turning away the tourist trade. And that present moment was not the best of times. It was cold and raining and very dark. The darkness was quite understandable for the port was bracing itself for the by now inevitable attack by the R.A.F.’s Lancasters on the North Sea submarine base or what, by this time, was left of it. There was one small area of illumination, and subdued illumination at that, for it came from low-powered lamps in hooded shades. Faint though this area of light was, it still contrasted sufficiently with the total blackness around to offer marauding bombers a pinpoint identification marker for the bombardiers crouched in the noses of the planes of the surely approaching squadrons. No-one in Wilhelmshaven was feeling terribly happy about those lights, but then no-one was anxious to question the orders of the S.S. general responsible for their being switched on, especially when that general was carrying with him the personal seal of Field Marshal Goering.

General Von Manteuffel stood on the bridge of one of the latest of the German Navy’s longest-range U-boats. Beside him stood a very apprehensive U-boat captain who clearly didn’t relish the prospect of being caught moored alongside a quay when the R.A.F. appeared, as he was certain they would. He had about him the air of a man who would have loved nothing better than to pace up and down in an agony of frustration, only there isn’t much room for pacing on the conning-tower of a submarine. He cleared his throat in the loud and unmistakable fashion of one who is not about to speak lightly.

‘General Von Manteuffel, I must insist that we leave now. Immediately. We are in mortal danger.’

‘My dear Captain Reinhardt, I don’t fancy mortal danger any more than you do.’ Von Manteuffel didn’t give the impression of caring about any danger, mortal or otherwise. ‘But the Reichsmarshal has a very short way of dealing with subordinates who disobey his orders.’

‘I’ll take a chance on that.’ Captain Reinhardt didn’t just sound desperate, he was desperate. ‘I’m sure Admiral Doenitz - ’

‘I wasn’t thinking about you and Admiral Doenitz. I was thinking about the Reichsmarshal and myself.’

‘Those Lancasters carry ten-ton bombs,’ Captain Reinhardt said unhappily. ‘Ten tons! It took only two to finish off the Tirpitz. The Tirpitz, the most powerful battleship in the world. Can you imagine - ’

‘I can imagine all too well. I can also imagine the wrath of the Reichsmarshal. The second truck, God knows why, has been delayed. We stay.’

He turned and looked along the quay where groups of men were hurriedly unloading boxes from a military truck and staggering with them across the quay and up the gangway to an opened hatchway for’ard of the bridge. Small boxes but inordinately heavy: they were, unmistakably, the oaken chests that had been looted from the Greek monastery. No-one had to exhort those men to greater effort: they, too, knew all about the Lancasters and were as conscious as any of the imminent danger, the threat to their lives.

A bell rang on the bridge. Captain Reinhardt lifted a phone, listened then turned to Von Manteuffel.

‘A top priority call from Berlin, General. You can take it from here or privately below.’

‘Here will do,’ Von Manteuffel said. He took the phone from Reinhardt. ‘Ah! Colonel Spaatz.’

‘We fight to the death,’ Spaatz said. ‘The Russians are at the gates of Berlin.’

‘My God! So soon?’ Von Manteuffel appeared to be genuinely upset at the news as, indeed, in the circumstances, he had every right to be. ‘My blessings on you, Colonel Spaatz. I know you will do your duty by the Fatherland.’

‘As will every true German.’ Spaatz’s tone, as clearly overheard by Captain Reinhardt, was a splendid amalgam of resolution and resignation. ‘We fall where we stand. The last plane out leaves in five minutes.’

‘My hopes and prayers are with you, my dear Heinrich. Heil Hitler!’

Von Manteuffel handed back the phone, looked out towards the quay, stiffened then turned urgently towards the captain.

‘Look there! The second truck has just arrived. Every man you can spare for the job!’

‘Every man I can spare for the job is already on the job.’ Captain Reinhardt seemed oddly resigned. ‘They all want to live just as much as you and I do.’

High above the North Sea the air thundered and reverberated to the throbbing roar of scores of aero engines. On the flight deck of the point plane of the Lancaster squadrons, the captain turned to his navigator.

‘Our E.T.A. over target area?’

‘Twenty-two minutes,’ the navigator said. ‘Heaven help those poor sods in Wilhelmshaven tonight.’

‘Never mind about the poor sods in Wilhelmshaven,’ the captain said. ‘Spare a thought for us poor sods up here. We must be on their screens by now.’

At that precise instant another aircraft, a Junkers 88, was approaching Wilhelmshaven from the east. There were only two people aboard, which seemed a poor turn-out for what was supposed to be the last plane out of Berlin. Colonel Spaatz, seated beside the pilot, looked uncommonly nervous and unhappy, a state of mind that was not induced by the fact that their Junkers was being almost continuously bracketed by exploding anti-aircraft shells - practically the entire length of their flight lay over what was now Allied-occupied territory. Colonel Spaatz had other things on his mind. He glanced anxiously at his watch and turned impatiently to the pilot.

‘Faster, man! Faster!’

‘Impossible, Colonel.’

Both troopers and seamen were working in a frenzy of activity to transfer the remaining treasure chests from the second military truck to the submarine. Suddenly, the air raid warning sirens began their ululating banshee wailing. As if by command, and in spite of the fact that they had known this was inevitable, the workers stopped and looked up fearfully into the night sky. Then, once more, again as if by command, they resumed their frantic efforts. It would have appeared impossible that they could have improved upon their previous work-rate but this they unquestionably did. It is one thing to be almost certain that the enemy may appear at any time: it is quite another to have the last lingering vestiges of hope vanish and know that the Lancasters are upon you.

Five minutes later the first bomb fell.

Fifteen minutes later the Wilhelmshaven naval base appeared to be on fire. Clearly, this was no run-of-the-mill raid. By this time Von Manteuffel could have ordered the most powerful arc-lamps, searchlights if necessary, to be switched on and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference. The entire dock area was an inferno of dense and evil-smelling smoke shot through with great columns of flame, through which shadowy Dante-esque figures moved as in some nameless nightmare, seemingly as oblivious of their surroundings as they were of the screaming aero engines, the ear-numbing explosion of bombs, the sharp whip-like cracks of heavy anti-aircraft fire, the ceaseless stuttering of machine-guns, although what the machine-guns hoped to achieve was difficult to imagine. Through all this the S.S. men and the seamen, reduced now, despite all their will to the contrary, to almost zombie slow motion by the increasingly heavy burden of the chests, continued their by now fatalistic loading of the submarine.

On the conning-tower of the submarine both Von Manteuffel and Captain Reinhardt were coughing harshly as the dense and evil-smelling smoke from the burning oil tanks enveloped them. Tears streamed down the cheeks of both men.

Captain Reinhardt said: ‘God’s sake, that last one was a ten-tonner. And straight on top of the U-boat pens. Concrete ten feet thick, twenty, what does it matter? There can’t be a man left alive there now, the concussion would have killed them all. In heaven’s name, General, let’s go. We’ve had the devil’s own luck till now. We can come back when it’s all over.’

‘Look, my dear Captain, the air raid is at its height now. Try moving out of the harbour now, a slow business as you know, and you have as good a chance of being blown out of the water as you have alongside the quay here.’

‘Maybe so, Herr General, maybe so. But at least we’d be doing something.’ Reinhardt paused, then went on: ‘If I may say so without offence, sir, surely you must know that a captain is in command of his own vessel.’

‘Even as a soldier I know that, Captain. I also know that you’re not in command until you have cast off and are under way. We complete loading.’

‘I could be court-martialled for saying this, but you are inhuman, General. The devil rides your back.’

Von Manteuffel nodded. ‘He does, he does.’

At the Wilhelmshaven airfield a dimly seen plane, later identifiable as a Junkers 88, made so violently bumpy a touch-down that its undercarriage could well have collapsed under the impact. The bumpiness was understandable, the drifting smoke being so intense that the pilot could make only a blind guess as to his height above the runway. Under normal conditions he would never have dreamed of attempting so hazardous a landing but the conditions were far from normal. Colonel Spaatz was a man of a highly persuasive cast of mind. Even before the plane had rolled to rest he had the door open, peering anxiously for his waiting transport. When finally he saw it - an open Mercedes staff car - he was aboard it within twenty seconds, urging the driver to make all possible haste.

The smoke surrounding the submarine was, if anything, even denser and more acrid than it had been minutes before although a sudden gusting wind, no doubt the result of the firestorm, gave promise of an early amelioration of the conditions. But choking and half-blinding though the smoke still was it didn’t prevent Von Manteuffel from seeing what, despite his coolly relaxed calm, he had so desperately wanted to see.

‘That’s it, then, Captain Reinhardt, that’s it. The last chest aboard. And now your men aboard, Captain, and let the devil ride on your back.’

Captain Reinhardt was hardly in the frame of mind to require any second bidding. Shouting hoarsely to make himself heard above the still thunderous din, he ordered his men aboard, ropes to be cast off and engines slow ahead. The last of his men were still frantically climbing up the sliding gangway as the submarine inched away from the quayside. It hadn’t moved more than a few feet when the sound of a motor car screeching and skidding to a halt made Von Manteuffel turn sharply and look at the quay.

Spaatz had leapt from the Mercedes while it was still moving. He stumbled, recovered himself, and stared at the still very slowly moving submarine, his face contorted in desperate anxiety.

‘Wolfgang!’ Spaatz’s voice wasn’t a shout, it was a scream. ‘Wolfgang! God’s sake, wait!’ Then the anxiety on his face yielded abruptly to an expression of utter incredulity: Von Manteuffel had a pistol lined up on him. For some seconds Spaatz remained quite still, shocked into a frozen and uncomprehending immobility, then comprehension came with the crack of Von Manteuffel’s pistol and he hurled himself to the ground as a bullet struck only a foot away. Spaatz dragged his Luger from its holster and emptied it after the slowly moving submarine which, apart from giving vent to his feelings, was an otherwise futile gesture as the conning-tower was apparently empty, Von Manteuffel and Captain Reinhardt having obviously and prudently ducked beneath the shelter of the steel walls off which Spaatz’s bullets ricocheted harmlessly. And then, abruptly, the submarine was lost in the swirling banks of smoke.

Spaatz pushed himself to his hands and knees and then stood upright and stared in bitter fury in the direction of the vanished submarine.

‘May your soul rot in hell, Major-General Von Manteuffel,’ Spaatz said softly. ‘The Nazi Party’s funds. The S.S. funds. Part of Hitler’s and Goering’s private fortunes. And now the treasures from Greece. My dear and trusted friend.’

He smiled almost reminiscently.

‘But it’s a small world, Wolfie, my friend, a small world, and I’ll find you. Besides, the Third Reich is gone. A man must have something to live for.’

Unhurriedly, he reloaded his Luger, brushed the mud and moisture from his clothes and walked steadily towards the Mercedes staff car.

The pilot was in his seat, poring over a chart, when Spaatz clambered aboard the Junkers 88 and took his seat beside him. The pilot looked at him in mild astonishment.

Spaatz said: ‘Your tanks?’