George Washington's Ghost

The missing people might already be in the hands of the Inquisition or the authorities, and might have been for several days.

Men were standing by to cut the Emden’s lines.

Peter Cowdrey-Singh was convinced the Weser’s stern was going to foul the cruiser’s bow right up until the moment it did not. All the while Claude Wallendorf had watched the other ship’s drift, apparently unconcerned.

“There is movement on the deck of the San Miguel!”

“About time!”

The cruiser’s Captain’s voice was suddenly abrupt.

“Reset engine room telegraphs!”

Bells chimed, seemingly deafeningly in the gloom.

In a moment the Weser would begin to obscure the forward part of the cruiser from the bridge of the

San Miguel.

“Main battery turrets Anton and Bruno may traverse and operate under local control! Turret Caesar will remain trained fore and aft!”

Both forward turrets began to track slowly to port.

The rear triple 5.9-inch turret was unmoving; if the idiots on the San Miguel shone a searchlight on the Emden they might, conceivably, still believe the ship was dormant.

The lookouts were reporting regularly, their voices pitched low.

“There is activity on the deck of the San Miguel…”

Activity but precious little action.

The old ironclad might by now have attempted to warp sidelong against the hold of her anchor chains but obviously, nobody had thought about letting out a few fathoms of those chains, or of dumping a new anchor over the side so she continued to wallow in the path of the Weser, now burning from end to end and inexorably bearing down on her.

There was a small explosion near the bow of the Weser

.

And a few seconds later, another on the stern well deck; thereafter, the twenty-millimetre ready use lockers containing ammunition for the raider’s anti-aircraft cannons began to cook off at regular intervals.

Finally, the clamour of ringing alarm bells drifted across the water as the Weser ran into the bow of the San Miguel. Instantly, there was the rattle of chains running out as the ironclad belatedly abandoned her forward anchor. Yet still, the old ship made no attempt to turn her shafts and back away from the burning merchantman, now fiercely burning, looming above her decks.

“She’s still anchored at her stern!” Peter Cowdrey-Singh muttered, not quite believing his eyes.

Finally, the San Miguel’s crew cut her stern chains.

By then it was too late, the ebb tide was pushing the bigger, much heavier Weser broadside on against the warship, and they were grinding rails, locked together.

HMS Achilles’s former Executive officer swore under his breath.

He would not have believed it, any of it unless he had just seen it. Not only could the San Miguel’s guns no longer bear on the Emden, it was odds on that the tide, and the fluky wind coming off the land would push both the

Weser and the ironclad onto the sandbanks on the opposite shore of the bay.

By now the Weser’s fires were casting crimson shadows around the whole bay.

Claude Wallendorf turned and called: “RELEASE ALL LINES FORE AND AFT!”

He waited to hear acknowledgements.

“SLOW ASTERN STARBOARD! SLOW AHEAD PORT! FULL LEFT RUDDER!”

The ship began to gently reverberate as her turbines began to turn her shafts and her propellers stirred the mud and sand under her transom.

And, astonishingly, still nobody had fired a shot in anger.

Chapter 35

Monday 8th May

SMS Emden, San Juan Bay, Santo Domingo

With no specific duties to perform Peter Cowdrey-Singh had watched, to all intents, transfixed, by the Weser and the San Miguel’s slow-motion dance of death. It was not until some minutes later, as Claude Wallendorf fought to back the Emden out into the deep-water channel, that the Royal Navy man realised that very gradually, the ironclad’s guns were coming to bear on the cruiser as she swung around, locked together with the burning, slowly sinking commerce raider.

“Herr Kapitan!” He called lowly from the port bridge wing, where he had migrated to watch the ongoing drama. “I believe that the San Miguel’s forward guns will bear on us within the next sixty seconds or so!”

“Very good,” the German acknowledged bloodlessly. Who simply commanded: “Gunnery Officer! If we are fired upon return fire immediately, if you please!”

That was when the cruiser’s bow had grounded for the first time, some distance inside the marked channel where there should have been at least five and possibly as many as ten feet of water under her keel.

Oh, well, the former Executive Officer of the Achilles thought, that explains why the San Miguel moored so close to the other side of the inner channel!

There was no substitute for a little local knowledge!