The Kaiser’s Navigator (Peter Sparke Book 2) Page 7

  The two men looked briefly at each other. Then the officer straightened slightly in his chair and addressed Opitz directly.

  "Leutnant Opitz, this is now a confidential matter which will be handled by the Navy. If we require further information from you, we will inform you directly. Until you are requested to discuss this matter by this office, you are to treat the subject as absolutely confidential and not to be mentioned to anyone. Is that understood?"

  "Of course, sir. I fully understand."

  The officer seemed to relax. "You have a busy day ahead of you. Our Technical Board feel they have much to gain from your experiences and are anxious to meet with you. Please carry on."

  Opitz stood and saluted the two men then turned towards the door. Before he reached it, the man in tweed spoke again.

  "Did you remove anything from the site, anything at all?"

  Without a moment's hesitation, Opitz turned and spoke directly to the two men. "No, sir, nothing at all.'

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sparke's alarm went off and the dim illumination from its screen cast a blue glow over the small table at his bedside. He had been staring at the phone for almost an hour, waiting to be summoned to his, normally well-ordered, working day. Today was different though, because today was the morning after last night.

  Last night had been unforgettable, for all the best reasons and all of the worst. On leaving the restaurant, Karin had guided Sparke through the quiet Munich streets for what seemed like hours. He could still feel the place on his arm where she had casually rested her hand. He could remember with equal clarity the horrible feeling of knowing that he had been drunk in the company of someone who was stone cold sober. He could remember the feeling of talking too loudly, and too much.

  More important than anything though, he could remember the feeling of turning to look at Karin by his side and seeing her smiling at him. As the effects of the whisky had faded, he had tried to turn the conversation back towards the subject she had wanted to talk about when she had invited him out in the first place.

  "You wanted to talk about something tonight," he said, as casually as he could.

  "Yes, I did, but I don't think that we should have any sort of discussion tonight. Let's just walk."

  And so, giving up on any idea he had about finally resolving the question about how Karin actually felt towards him, Sparke simply walked and enjoyed the experience of being alone with her.

  This morning, though, he had resolved to take the initiative at last and tell Karin that they needed to speak.

  He picked up his smartphone and headed to the bathroom, quickly scanning the emails that had arrived since last night. One caught his attention immediately. It was from Walkinshaw in London, the Chief Secretary's Antarctic expert. It was headed, "Talk tomorrow?" The mail had been sent late yesterday evening and it was a request for a video conference today at 11.00 am European Time.

  He stood in his bathroom typing a reply, confirming his availability, then showered and dressed quickly.

  The new office space had been transformed beyond recognition since he last stood there only a few days ago. Desks, chairs, and computer equipment almost filled the floor. A row of large potted plants was ranked along one wall, waiting to be positioned. His own office from the old head office building had been virtually dismantled and rebuilt here, although in place of the pale glass walls he now had exposed brickwork and timber beams surrounding him.

  He looked at the wall, which was effectively made up of his huge computer screen. He tapped the control consul and was happy to see it immediately glow with a dull light. On the control panel was a new button, showing a man's head with curved lines, indicating sound waves emanating from its mouth. He touched the button.

  "Screen," he said.

  A small icon appeared in the centre of the screen bearing the words, "Voice recognition in process." Then a quiet, accentless voice said, "Mr. Sparke, good morning."

  "Screen, calendar today."

  On one part of the screen, his diary for the day appeared. Sparke read his schedule then said, "Screen, new event. Title: 'Walkinshaw', 11.00 am, duration one hour, create video conference. Invites, Walkinshaw, UK."

  The screen added the event to his diary and said, "Mr. Walter Walkinshaw, Foreign and Commonwealth Office?"

  "Confirm," said Sparke. He then turned to his growing pile of other emails while the screen automatically set up a video conference and sent the login details to Walkinshaw.

  The hours until the call went quickly, mainly taken up in discussions with Lynn, who was managing the relocation of the team leaving the parent company to join Sparke's new subsidiary. As they spoke, the office began to fill up with the people. All of them knew Sparke well, most had been trained by him.

  Sparke's frequent walks to the luxuriously equipped coffee bar were constantly interrupted by his having to stop and say hello to people and ask them how the move was going for them.

  The whole place had a happy, energetic feeling to it, made all the more positive when Lynn told him that every single person whom they had invited to join them from the parent company had agreed to the move.

  At two minutes to 11.00, Sparke stood in front of the big screen, waiting for Walkinshaw to log in. At precisely 11.00 he appeared on the screen.

  "Mr. Walkinshaw, good morning."

  "Mr. Sparke, thank you for making the time for this call. Before we begin I would like to say that our IT people are very impressed with the security of your systems. Very comforting."

  "Thank you, I will pass that on to our Comms Team. Have you had time to read our proposal for the South Atlantic project?" Sparke was used to dealing with government departments of all types and had developed a deep reservoir of Zen-like patience when it came to the length of time decisions could take.

  "The Chief Secretary signed it yesterday evening and it is en route to you now."

  Sparke failed to hide his surprise. "That's very brisk. Thank you for being so responsive."

  Walkinshaw allowed a half-smile to flicker across his face. "Everything was as we expected, so we saw no need to linger. The reason for this call, actually, is to update you on a couple of points. Firstly, we have appointed your military liaison officer. It is a Captain McCafferty, Royal Marines, engineering degree, lots of experience in the North Sea and working with civilian authorities. You will meet just before you head off to the Falklands. Secondly, we understand from some of our people that the Argentinians plan to release a television documentary about their assertion that they landed on and claimed those islands we discussed in 1906. It seems that they plan to broadcast it to coincide with the UN debate at the end of the month."

  "Does that have any material bearing on the facts?" asked Sparke.

  "Not in any concrete form, but diplomacy is becoming more and more a PR issue nowadays. It just adds a bit of spice to things."

  "To be frank, Mr. Walkinshaw, we are not all at sure how to move ahead on that front. Unless we can prove definitively that the ship did not go to where they claim it did, I am sure they can make a credible sounding case to say that it did."

  "Indeed, Mr. Sparke, we are aware that it has long odds on our side. But we have come up with some interesting bits and pieces on the link between the Santa Simone and the officer from the Kaiser's Navy. Let me get them to you now." He paused and peered at his own computer screen. "Do I push 'file share' or 'image share’?"

  "File share will do."

  Almost immediately, Sparke’s big screen opened two new images. One was a scanned copy of a typed report entitled, "Prisoner interrogation: Opitz, M, December 1914, Portsmouth", the other was a slightly burred black and white image, which at first Sparke struggled to recognise.

  "The report was made by the Royal Navy officer from the Naval Intelligence Department, who interrogated the German prisoner. The photograph is of an item which was in his possession when he was fished out of the South Atlantic. If you look closely at it you can see the writing embossed on it
."

  Sparke expanded the image. It was of an old-fashioned telescope lying next to a leather case. Next to them both was a rule showing the scale. It looked to be no more than four or five inches long. Sparke spun the image so that he could read the writing more clearly.

  "S.S. Santa Simone, Buenos Aires, 1906," he said out loud.

  "The same words are engraved on the brass body of the telescope. We are tracking down the manufacturer if we can. They may have record of it," said Walkinshaw. "It looks very much like a presentation item, the sort of thing people are given to mark a special occasion."

  "That is a very interesting thing," said Sparke. "And this was found on a German prisoner, Lt. Martin Opitz during the first world war?"

  "Yes, captured in the South Atlantic when his ship went down and taken, initially, to our base on the Falkland Islands."

  "Do you mind if I ask, Mr. Walkinshaw, how did Lt. Opitz come to be a British prisoner of war in the Falkland Islands in the first place?"

  "As far as our own navy people can tell me, the Imperial German Navy sent a battle fleet halfway round the world mainly to impress the Kaiser. Their army was getting all the glory so they needed to catch the royal eye. Captain McCafferty can explain that all for you," said Walkinshaw. "Give you something to chat about on the flight from Brize Norton."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heroic individuals were not part of the culture of the Kaiser's Navy in 1913. Future victory would be the result of the world's best equipment, the best men, and the best training. There may have been a place for a Nelson in the Kaiser's fleet, but not amongst the junior officer ranks. Despite this view, there was an awareness that some members of the service had contributed in such a meaningful way, that they might be afforded some special prerogatives. One such was Leutnant Opitz.

  The fact that the Second Imperial Expedition had survived at all was a major justification for celebration; the fatality rate for Arctic and Antarctic exploration was so absurdly high that simply to bring your people home alive was a triumph of international stature. The Kaiser himself had let it be known that key individuals from the Expedition, not just the leaders, should receive recognition for their services.

  Accordingly, after his lengthy debriefing by the Technical Board, Opitz was summoned to appear before a Service Board. Normally, service duties were assigned to officers purely on the judgement of Board members, but in some cases, it was felt to be reasonable to invite the officer involved to suggest his preferences, if he had any.

  "I am more than happy to accept any duty the Service may have for me, of course," said Opitz, "But if you were to ask me where I feel my service might be of most value, I would say that the South Atlantic is where I feel I could contribute most."

  The members of the Board smiled kindly at Opitz and dismissed him for a period of thoroughly well-earned leave.

  Leave, for Opitz, meant time with his father in the small town of Feldkirchen, thirty kilometres south of Munich. It was rich farmland, just north of the mountains – quiet, hard-working and very far from the sea.

  The farmhouse was little more than a kilometre from the town crossroads and, from his bedroom window, Opitz could see the tall wooden pole, always freshly painted with the blue and white colours of Bavaria, which marked the centre of the village.

  At the end of the third week of his leave, he met the postman in the roadway toward the farm, carrying his new orders.

  He could not have been happier with his posting. It was almost universally known that the purpose of the Imperial Navy was to break any British blockade of the Continent and disrupt shipping bringing supplies to the British home islands from her colonies. All other objectives of German Naval Command were strictly secondary. It was an article of faith within the Imperial Navy that the British could, and in the past had, in fact, blockaded the entire continent, maintaining huge fleets tacking back and forth at the very harbour mouths of their European enemies, strangling the military prowess and commercial lifeblood of whole nations.

  At the express command of the Kaiser, this would not happen to the German Empire. Huge, fast, armoured cruisers were designed and built which could scour the oceans of British Imperial commerce, reversing the blockade, while the German home fleet would take on the Royal Navy and, although smaller, would defeat it in a number of engagements where it would strike at times and places where it was numerically stronger.

  Opitz had been assigned to one of the foremost cruisers in the Imperial Fleet, one which was almost sure to be ordered to break past the British lines to wreak havoc around the world as a raider.

  On his arrival on board the SMS Gneisenau however, he was disappointed to hear a fellow officer voice the opinion that any coming war would be a land affair and that Britain would not be a combatant.

  As tensions rose across Europe, the feeling in the fleet was still that this would be a land war, with little for the Imperial Navy to do outside of trying to engage the Russians and French where possible. The Mediterranean was largely the preserve of their allies in Austria.

  Even when Archduke Ferdinand was shot by the Serbs and the chain of international alliances and treaties brought other nations into the rapidly escalating conflict, few believed that war with the British Empire was likely.

  It was only when the Kaiser's troops stormed through Belgium and London declared war that the heavy truth became real to Opitz and his colleagues.

  Almost immediately after the declaration of hostilities, Opitz and the men of the Gneisenau found themselves hurtling across the Pacific. Their mission was, technically, to defend the Kaiser's Imperial possessions in the Far East and their fleet was known, therefore, as the East Asia Squadron. Despite the Kaiser's determination that his Pacific possessions should be defended, the Navy knew that defending these scattered outposts was strategically impossible, given the size and strength of enemy forces in the western Pacific. The German commander, Admiral Maximilian von Spee almost immediately ordered the squadron to break for the Atlantic.

  In a lightning campaign they raced across the Pacific, striking at enemy shipping wherever they found it, capturing and destroying several cargo ships. They met and annihilated a scratch force of British warships sent to intercept them off the coast of Chile, and so it was with high spirits that they rounded the Cape and began to head back towards the North Atlantic to rejoin the fleet. Reports of these exploits had the Kaiser virtually skipping with pleasure, and he occasionally donned a navy uniform to show his gracious affection for his fleet.

  Thousands of miles from the Imperial Court, the Kaiser's Imperial Cruiser, Gneisenau, drove through the southern oceans. She was a modern state-of-the-art weapons system, and as she moved, her massive hull pushed aside thousands of tons of water. The turmoil left in her wake turned the ocean's surface into a grey-green maelstrom. She was shadowed by the sister ships of the fleet, churning through the South Atlantic at a furious pace, only now they were no longer heading north.

  Ships, especially whole fleets of ships, do not wander aimlessly about the seas. Virtually without exception they leave one port and take the shortest practical route to their destination. Now, the German fleet was not racing to arrive anywhere, they were racing away from a tiny point of land directly behind them.

  The officers commanding the Squadron, all of the ships' captains, and almost every man on board were horribly aware that the chances of them ever seeing dry land again were virtually nil. Despite being amongst the most modern and deadly ships of their type in the world, this was a fleet, fleeing for its life with little hope of success.

  Only a few short hours before, the fleet had approached the harbour at Port Stanley, the main anchorage of the Falkland Islands and a vital coaling station for the Royal Navy. The destruction of these facilities would hinder British operations and would be a tremendous psychological coup for Admiral von Spee.

  Believing the harbour to be largely empty, von Spee was shocked to find his ships under bombardment from an unseen enemy as they roun
ded the headland. In fact the shells were practice rounds, dummies fired by an obsolete battleship, HMS Canopus, which had been run aground by the British to provide a gun platform.

  Shocking as this was, a far greater and more deadly surprise was in store. Instead of finding the harbour empty, German lookouts were reporting that the anchorage contained a number of large British warships. Worse still, some of the ships had a high and very distinctive form of mast in the shape of a tripod which showed them to be the only sort of ship in the world that von Spee had cause to fear. They were battlecruisers, ships of a type so powerful that they were almost unequalled in human history for their destructive powers. And they were fast, faster even than the Gneisenau.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sparke left his office late that evening, stopped at his apartment to pack a bag, and was at Munich airport for the 21.15 flight to London. He was not looking forward to the journey south to the Falkland Islands.

  Decades of business travel had given Sparke a high tolerance for the vicissitudes of commercial aviation. Planes were delayed, planes were cancelled, but nothing, no matter how troublesome, compared with the agony of being transported by the military. A successful flight by the military seemed to be defined by the criteria of arriving roughly when you would be required, and not being dead. The effects of this approach were multiplied by the scale of the trip involved.

  A casual glance at a map would suggest that reaching Port Stanley, the tiny capital of the Falklands, should be almost easy. A long-haul commercial flight to the nearest major airport, then a short hop on a regional connection to the island's airport. However, the local major airport was Buenos Aires, which was, in effect, blockading the islands' air and sea traffic. So to reach Port Stanley, Sparke's best option was to join the agonising military flight from the UK.

  He arrived at RAF Brize Norton carrying a huge sheaf of papers which his travel manger in Munich had compiled for him. The reception area of the airbase was bare, but tried its best to put on a cheery face, and the two sergeants there went through his paperwork with the practiced speed of experts in the field of document juggling.