The Kaiser’s Navigator (Peter Sparke Book 2) Page 5

  "So what happened to the Santa Simone?" asked Sparke.

  "According to Lloyds, she was lost in the North Atlantic, with all hands," said Walkinshaw. "But Buenos Aires plans to claim that this was part of a cover story. They say the ship was scuttled after the successful conclusion of its Antarctic trip to maintain secrecy until they were ready to reveal their triumph to the world. You see, at that point, some elements in the Argentine government were getting quite unhappy at their perceived lack of international status. They also seemed to believe that their country was riddled with British spies."

  "So, they thought that a secret expedition to the world's number one status symbol was just the sort of thing to help raise their position as a nation?" asked Sparke, adding, "Why keep it quiet for so long?"

  Walkinshaw leant back in his chair. "According to what we understand, the whole thing was lost in their archives until recently, basically forgotten. An Argentinian PhD student turned up some of the documents some years ago, from an organisation called the Argentinian Seaboard Club who sponsored the expedition in the first place.

  "Their Foreign Office in Buenos Aires learned about it, took control, and here we are. According to our people, they have built up quite a portfolio of documents and photographs, chaps on skis pulling sledges, tents on the snow, that sort of thing."

  "I can see how this makes things more complex," said Sparke, "but I am not sure how I can be of any particular help here."

  "Well, Mr. Sparke," said the Chief Secretary, "perhaps you can't. But, of course we are all aware of your recent activities in making your intriguing discovery in the Scottish Highlands. So we thought that, perhaps, you might be able to bring some of those extra-curricular skills of yours to bear on helping us to understand how solid these claims might actually be."

  "You want me to disprove the idea that this expedition ever took place?" he asked.

  "Oh, not at all," said the Chief Secretary, "but we feel there is a bit of a conundrum around the whole idea, and we would be grateful if, in your work for us in the South Atlantic, you could spare a few moments of thought on this particular topic."

  Already, Sparke's mind was deep in thought. A small ship, over-crewed and overstocked leaves port in South America, supposedly headed for Norway, and she and her crew are never seen again. Over a hundred years later it is claimed that it had made a secret trip to a place so inaccessible that it was on a technological par with launching a manned satellite into space.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Walkinshaw. "There is one other, final little wrinkle in this, I'm afraid."

  Sparke stared silently at Walkinshaw.

  "It seems that in 1914, a German naval officer, a prisoner of war whom we had captured in the Southern Ocean as it happens, had some rather solid, physical evidence that he had somehow crossed paths with this expedition. An event which would seem, on the surface, to be impossible."

  Chapter Nine

  The good progress made on the first day of marching had been bitterly misleading to the tiny group. Within an hour of restarting the march, problems began to show themselves. The line started to stretch out as slower skiers struggled to keep up. In places, the snow was softer and the deep ruts left by the men in the lead made the going difficult for those behind.

  Filchner ordered a halt and had the group spread out, line abreast, to make skiing easier. No sooner had they restarted than Shaldecker halted, suddenly crippled by a cramp in his left leg. Desperate to massage the agony in his calf, he briefly removed his outer mitts. Opitz rushed to his side, prising his hands from his leg and fighting to replace the canvas outer mitts.

  The rest of the group waited. With every second of inaction, their bodies, warm from the exertion, began to cool down. Their clothes had been specifically designed for men walking and skiing continuously. Any thicker and they would have been unwearable, but they were not made to protect men who were simply standing still in conditions which could kill a man. At last, Shaldecker was fit to restart the march, but as he helped him back to his feet, Opitz could feel his left ski moving loosely underneath his boot.

  He crouched down and saw that in his rush to help his comrade, he had twisted one of the screws holding the boot fastening loose from his wooden ski. Aware of the dangers to the group of standing in the freezing temperatures, he initially tried to persevere, but in less than a kilometre, he was forced to call another halt.

  Opitz would not be able to continue with the broken ski-binding and having the men stop and wait, motionless in the cold until it could be repaired, was not an option. The only alternative was to make camp for the night. They had covered barely five kilometres since dawn. Despite the problems, Filchner was in good form. He gathered all of the men together from both of the tents which made up their small camp before their evening meal.

  "Our food supply and fuel situation is very positive," he told the men, crammed into the tiny space, over the incessant noise of the flapping canvas walls.

  "We should expect small problems and delays. It is part of life when crossing such terrain." He looked closely into the eyes of each man. "Eat slowly, move only when you have to and look to the man on each side of you constantly. We will succeed together."

  Despite the encouraging words from their leader, the third day was little better. Schaldecker's cramps returned and he began to feel the consequences of the few minutes when he had removed his mittens the previous day. The fingers on both hands had begun to stiffen, making it difficult to hold his ski poles. Cutting some strips from the cover of one of the sledges, they fashioned rough wrist straps, so that rather than using his hands to grasp the poles, his wrists could take the strain.

  The broken boot fastening on Opitz's skis proved harder to repair, but Heyer, one of the scientific team, managed to create a makeshift repair by cannibalising the base of one of their stoves. The ski now dragged at a slight angle, but the boot fastening was solid.

  Heavy snow greeted them as they awoke. It was impossible to see the horizon, let alone the sun, so Opitz measured each metre they covered obsessively, checking the tiny distance wheels behind each sledge regularly and measuring their direction by taking bearings on the ski tracks they left in the snow behind them. Every tiny correction he made to their course in this whiteout was a cause for agonising self-doubt. A mistake on his part was certain death for all.

  At dawn on what Opitz planned as being the last day, he checked every reading, every recorded distance and every calculation a dozen times. Last night, like every night as he struggled to get some sleep, he could feel in the outer pocket of his coat the navigation log and the telescope which he had taken from the dead crew of the Santa Simone. So far, they had not been a burden, but if they had problems in finding the Deutschland and had to extend their march, Opitz knew they would have to be jettisoned and would be lost forever.

  As the men assembled for their march, he conferred with his leader. "If I am right, we should reach the rendezvous point by midday," he told Filchner.

  Neither man wanted to discuss the options if Opitz had made a mistake. Filchner made no attempt to check Opitz’s navigation estimates.

  Neither of the two had discussed their gruesome discovery of the bodies of the crew of the Santa Simone since they had left the hut.

  "When we reach the ship," asked Opitz, 'how should we report our discovery of the Santa Simone?"

  "I think," answered Filchner slowly, "that this is a matter beyond the remit of this expedition. I would propose that it should be treated as a naval matter. I will support you in any way which the naval authorities feel is appropriate, but I will leave the matter to you and your superiors." He paused for a moment, and then added, "In Berlin."

  Opitz could feel the weight of the navigation log and the captain's telescope in his pocket. After a few seconds of thought he nodded, almost as though he was in a deep internal dialogue.

  "Of course, sir. I will wait until I make my report back home."

  The final march to the sea was
one of unrelieved agony. The men were exhausted, frozen, and full of apprehension. Every eye was straining towards the horizon.

  At 10.00 am the clouds broke and almost immediately one of the men on the right of the skiing group shouted out, "The sea! Open water."

  Opitz scrambled for his notebook and compass. Taking his watch and small sextant, he quickly took a bearing on the sun. Long minutes passed before he stood and, making a tiny adjustment to their direction of travel, set off in the lead of the group.

  Each man was now alone with his thoughts, the sounds of their own breathing and the slow dragging sound of their skis the only things breaking the oppressive silence around them. Now, with potential rescue hopefully within reach, the massive silence of the white continent began to feel like an all-enveloping monster. Opitz had the feeling of being an ant lost on the floor of a marble cathedral.

  At noon, there was nothing to see: no bay, no beach, and no ship. He stopped the group again to check position and take another bearing. As he knelt, he heard the shouted words, "Smoke! Smoke! I see smoke ahead. Dead ahead."

  Opitz lifted his gaze and saw, like a slender thread in the sky, dead ahead a thin plume of black smoke. The ship's captain had done the only thing open to him which might help the missing explorers: he fed engine fuel directly into the ship's furnace along with the coal to create heavy, dark smoke. In the frigid air, the oily smoke rose in a column visible for miles.

  The men danced, almost comically on the ice, still wearing their skis. They shouted and hugged each other with the joy of men reborn. Filchner stood looking at the smoke for some time, then skied slowly over to Opitz. He reached out silently with his left hand and grasped Opitz by the shoulder. Then with his right hand, encased in layers of mittens and gloves, he shook Opitz by the hand.

  "The Kaiser will learn your name for this."

  Chapter Ten

  Life never seemed to lack complexity as far as Sparke was concerned, but he was increasingly aware that there were two kinds of complexity. One type, the type most people found terrifying, seemed relatively simple to Sparke. Oil rigs being jammed under bridges, rogue ships drifting through oil fields, train wrecks where dangerous chemicals became mixed up creating poisonous clouds, all these things seemed strangely simple to Sparke. They looked to him much like a tangled knot of wet string; it would take time, skill and good process to untangle it, but the basic challenge was clear.

  The second type of complexity was of a totally different type. It was a type which left Sparke almost breathless in frustration. He stared across the table at the head of Human Resources of his newly created firm and mustered his reserves of patience once again.

  "I'm sorry, Lynn, but I'm still not sure I understand the issue."

  Lynn had known Sparke since he had joined the parent company over a dozen years ago. Now, as he had moved to become the CEO of a newly created subsidiary, she had, for reasons unknown to Sparke, left the parent company to become the head of Human Resources in his tiny team.

  "Before we move forward with the office outfitting," she said, "we need to know if you see the team being structured around functional capabilities or around end-user alignment."

  Lynn liked Sparke, but she could never pass up on the opportunity of torturing him because of his famous inability to master the bewildering secret language which those who managed modern corporations used to talk to each other.

  Sparke nodded slowly to himself, running through the words Lynn had used. "Lynn, I know what all of those words mean individually, but when you put them all together in the way that you just have, I have no idea what I am supposed to say in response."

  Lynn smiled, but said nothing. She was playing hardball.

  For another moment, Sparke sat in silence, then, slowly smiling, said, "Imagine I was a fairly stupid twelve-year-old child and you had to say the same thing. How would you describe the situation?”

  "Okay," said Lynn, "do you want all the people who do the same job to sit together, engineers next to engineers, response managers next to response managers and so forth, or do you want all of the oil people to sit together, all the chemical people, et cetera?"

  Sparke glanced along the huge empty office space of the new headquarters of his company. It was a refurbished warehouse, built in the nineteenth century for a brewing company, a beautiful stone building with timber flooring and open beams.

  "We could form a committee?" he said, more in hope than expectation.

  "Yes, we could form a committee," said Lynn, nodding doubtfully.

  "But, perhaps that is a really stupid idea?"

  "Hmm, perhaps it is a stupid idea. It would almost certainly mean that the committee would split into groups and they would almost certainly call on senior leadership to help resolve the issue."

  "You mean me, don't you?"

  Lynn nodded. Part of the fun in working with Sparke, was that working with Sparke was fun.

  "We could toss a coin," said Sparke.

  "What would you do if a committee asked you to make a decision?" asked Lynn.

  "Probably toss a coin."

  A door at the far end of the office space banged open suddenly and the harsh clicking of heels echoed across the floor.

  "Karin," said Sparke, standing up too quickly, as relieved to avoid the issue as he was pleased to see her. "Please come in."

  Karin walked over towards the lone desk where Lynn and Sparke had been sitting.

  Sparke put on his corporate business voice. "We have just been finalising our policy towards our team structure and strategic alignment." He paused briefly to make sure that what he had said was reasonably coherent. Deciding that it was close enough to the English language to have some meaning, but sounded enough like management gibberish to sound credible, he pushed ahead.

  "After working through all the alternatives we have come up with a best practice based strategy that we feel makes commercial and cultural sense for our business and reflects the dynamic needs of our markets."

  Both Lynn and Karin looked at Sparke, both fully aware that he had little grasp of what he was actually saying.

  "Out of interest," asked Karin softly, "what structure will you and your team be taking?"

  "Lynn will explain," beamed Sparke.

  Lynn looked up at Sparke. "Which option do you favour?"

  "The second one," said Sparke, oblivious to what the second option actually as.

  Lynn looked at Karin. "Peter feels that our team should be aligned to each of the businesses we support. So we will have one multi-function team for each industry we serve: oil and gas, chemical, aviation, mining, and logistics."

  "Good move," said Karin.

  "Good move," repeated Sparke, surprised at how well it sounded when Lynn said it.

  Lynn rolled up the screen of her computer with a snap and slipped it into her bag. "I'm sorry to run out, but I have to talk with the office equipment company about the furnishings.

  "Do we already have a policy on that?" asked Sparke, almost pleading, seeing another meeting on the horizon.

  "No," said Lynn, “but I thought that we might give everyone a choice of three types of desk and chair and let them pick what they want from that. How is that for a policy?"

  "Lynn, you are just great at policies."

  Karin looked around at the huge open floor of the new office which Sparke and his team would occupy. At the moment, they only planned to occupy this floor, but there were two others which they could expand into if the new subsidiary grew as planned.

  "Things seem to be looking very positive as far as I can tell," said Karin. "The market seems to be keen to work with you and your team."

  Although Sparke's company was still working from the head office, they had already secured several major clients. No less than eight oil producers and three governments had placed contracts for their services.

  "Yes," said Sparke, "it seems to be well received so far. We have a new one which we expect to sign next week covering a project in the South At
lantic."

  "With our British friends," said Karin. "You have met with their Chief Secretary?"

  "I have. He sends his warm regards. He seems to have a very high opinion of you."

  "Good. That is an opinion I value very much. Do you mind if I ask how that project looks?"

  Sparke no longer reported to Karin, but he felt very happy in sharing his thoughts with her on any business matter. "The two main areas are very much part of our core business: health and safety and environmental protection."

  "There is a third part?"

  "Yes, one small area of additional concern. They want us to consider possible future legal claims by other parties on the seabed in the region."

  "By that you mean Argentina, I suppose?"

  "Yes, of course, Argentina," said Sparke. "The British Chief Secretary made use of the phrase 'our people tell us' a lot, by which I assume he means spies."

  "You are working in the grey zone now, Peter," said Karin. “This sort of thing was anticipated when your company was created. I can think of no one better than you to do that for us."

  Sparke was as surprised by Karin's relaxed acceptance that they were infringing on the world of spies and espionage as he was by the fact that this had been considered already by the people who actually ran the firm. To cover his surprise he took a long drink from the glass of water in front of him.

  "Actually, Peter, the reason I am here is not to discuss business," said Karin. "I would like to find some time outside working hours to have another discussion with you. It is to discuss our personal relationship and how that may develop."

  By a heroic display of self-control, Sparke managed not to spray out the mouthful of water he had just taken in. His composure was ruined, however, when he missed the table completely as he tried to put the glass down and sent water and shattered glass cascading across the floor.