George Washington's Ghost

Peter Cowdrey-Singh raised binoculars to his eyes and studied the SMS Emden, the second ship of the Mainz class 5.9-inch-gunned light cruisers. He noted the static Mark II air search ELDAR aerials at the ship’s fighting top above her conning tower, the main battery gun-director ELDAR mounts, small half-dishes which scanned through thirty degrees either side of the target bearing, the two port and two starboard directors, fore and aft, each triangulating and continually correcting for error. He took it all in with cool, professional detachment. The Royal Navy had adopted a completely different ELDAR fire control solution making it possible, in some circumstances to slave a whole squadron’s main batteries to that of the flagship.

He could see that the German cruiser – which, along with the Breslau – had been involved in the bombardment of Kingston, Jamaica and in supporting the subsequent invasion of the Crown Colony, was in need a little time in dockyard hands. She was heavily rusted in places; crude patches had been welded over a couple of holes in her hull amidships and her seaplane crane was missing.

The Emden’s crew was lining the rail, and she was flying her Imperial Ensign. Clearly, her captain was in no mood to allow standards to drop while he still commanded. That said, this must be a very sad day for the Germans still on board the ship.

The quayside north of the Weser was being made ready to receive the cruiser, and within hours she would be handed over to the Dominicans, with every last good German coming ashore.

“I bet they’ll need a couple of tugs to get her out of the bay,” Peter Cowdrey-Singh remarked idly, looking from bow to stern of the handsome ship as her captain handled her with marvellous adroitness in the confined, relatively shallow waters. It took a rare seaman to so confidently handle his ship in a strange harbour, especially when he was about to surrender his command to a bunch of religious maniacs…

“Kapitan-sur-See Wallendorf was a champion yachtsman in his youth,” von Schaffhausen re-joined sombrely. “He will be sad to learn that his old friend, Weitzman, now lies in the German cemetery.”

The Englishman saw the muddy water churning under the stern of the cruiser, the head of the ship swinging towards him. Slowly, slowly, the Emden

crept closer to the Liner wharf.

Captain Wallendorf was indeed a master ship-handler, that much was readily apparent even to the uninformed. He judged it to a nicety, slow astern on one propeller, slow ahead on the other. Riding the incoming tide, the cruiser drifted, almost imperceptibly broadside on to the dock, the distance narrowing, narrowing…

Lines were hurled.

The Emden kissed the fenders.

There was less than twenty feet of clearance between the warship’s raked, clipper stem and the stern of the half-wrecked commerce raider.

“I shall speak with Kapitan Wallendorf,” von Schaffhausen told the two officers, “I am sure he will be amenable to taking you and your men under his protection, Commander Cowdrey-Singh.”

Von Schaffhausen had been given to understand that a Hamburg-Atlantic line ship had been despatched to collect the crews of the ships of Rear Admiral Erwin von Reuter’s former Vera Cruz Squadron, some two thousand six hundred men in all, and to transport them home to Germany. The dwindling band of survivors from HMS Achilles ought, it was thought, be safe in the company of the four-hundred-and-fifty remaining Kaiserliche Marine men shortly to disembark from the Emden

. Moreover, the attitude of the Santo Domingo regime to its German guests within the Concession should, by rights, be immeasurably improved by the handover of the modern cruiser, some months in advance of the originally agreed date.

Peter Cowdrey-Singh had no say in the matter either way; the decision had been taken to try to get his people off the island with the German navy-men. His people were already preparing to go ashore from the Weser under the protection of the Emden’s disembarked Marine detachment. Wisely, von Schaffhausen did not want to use his own troops unless he absolutely had to; he, after all, was still going to be living here when hopefully, his ‘English guests’ were long gone.

There were already over three hundred Dominican officers and men aboard the Emden, shadowing their German mentors or actually filling posts on the ship’s duty roster, supposedly ready to take over at a moment’s notice.