Leaving Antarctica

“Where is my Oberfunkmeister? Ah, there you are. Get a message to the whaling station, right away. I want the Pinguin readied for sea by the time we arrive, and they’re to get steam up on the trawler too. Matrosenfeldwebel, get everyone into the tubes. Don’t forget the frauleins in the canteen, and make sure you bring my radio officer with you when he’s done. Oh, and find the ship’s cat.” Felix von Luckner turned to Harold, “If you would come with me gentlemen, please.”

The Kapitänleutnant led the trawler officers across the ravished concourse towards a set of check-in desks labeled Walfang-Hafen, gathering trawlermen as they went. Kriegsmariners were already lining up neatly, and slightly less disciplined groups of New Swabians in lab coats or boiler suits were gathering near the sliding doors to the pneumatic tubes. The Kronstadt shore detail, led by Dark Flo, appeared from behind a pile of rubble, they laughing and joking, she sporting a puffy, almost closed eye. She was limping and the left sleeve of her shinobi shozoko was torn away to reveal an angry graze on her elbow and purple bruising to the shoulder.

“Thanks to one of your overzealous fishermen. Took a swing at me from behind, with a barstool. Can’t tell a ninja from a stormtrooper.”

Bamse, as was his wont, had rounded up the last of the stragglers. With the company assembled the tube doors opened and embarkation began.

“Once you reach the whaling station get your people aboard your trawler and be ready for the off.” Von Luckner was cradling Fotzenkatze, the lithe tabby mascot of the now crippled submarine Seeadler. “I will be along soon as I know everyone is safe.”

The bow and ruptured freshwater tank of the Ancaster had been repaired in their absence, the boiler was nearly up to pressure and springs taken in so that only shortened bow and stern lines held her to the quay. The crew stood, alert, at their stations. Harold stood by the bridge window, his hand placed lightly on the highly polished new telegraph, its dials disconcertingly labeled in German. Billy Tate held the spokes of the enormous ship’s wheel, awaiting instructions. An Aldis lamp on the wing of the Pinguin’s bridge began to flash morse at high speed. Easter Smurthwait and the Ancaster’s sparks eyed the twinkling light, then each other, and shrugged.   Yes, the trawler did have a radio officer. Sparky, a lad hailing from suburban Dudley, had spent the entire adventure locked in his radio room trying unsuccessfully to contact Wick Radio, blissfully unaware and, as usual, totally forgotten.

“’Spect he’s telling us to get going,” said Easter to his skipper.

“OK. Cast off fore and aft.” He rang ‘Halbe Kraft Voraus’ on the engine room telegraph, “I hope that means what I think it does,” and Ancaster’s single screw began to churn the water into a fury beneath her stern. She moved slowly away from the quay, picked up speed, was steered deftly around the breakwater by the third hand, and belching black smoke from her Woodbine funnel, the trawler proceeded out to sea.

Sea Dog Bamse

As the Lord Ancaster was hailed from the submarine, Bamse the Norwegian St Bernard, had concealed himself in the foc’sle paint locker and managed to remain undetected.

After two days at sea the Lord Ancaster arrived at a small, ice free whaling harbour in Neuschwabenland and the Acting Kommänder of the prize crew, wishing to demonstrate his seamanship and impress onlookers, steamed his charge at her top speed of ten knots towards the quay. It had been his intention to ring Full Astern and spin the wheel at a precisely judged moment so that the Ancaster turned sharply, lost momentum and drifted alongside the jetty in a single and elegant manoeuvre. Sadly, he was unused to the quirky character of his newfound command, and to the unreliability of the ship’s telegraph. The command Full Astern never reached the engine room, in fact the pretty brass handle of the telegraph came away in his hand and the trawler charged full pelt into the quayside, destroying the wooden jetty, rupturing the bow water tank and scattering paint pots around Bamse’s hidey-hole. Stevedores on the quayside were showered in drinking water, which froze instantly, and a rainbow coloured St Bernard appeared briefly on deck before bounding ashore and disappearing into the shadows.

At the same time as Oberleutnant Wilhelm Cremer was contemplating the fickleness of fate and his suddenly diminished chance of commanding so much as a turd in a piss-pot any time soon, Bamse had slipped into the ratings’ changing rooms. Rubbing in a liberal coating of Swarfega and following up with a hot soapy shower he had managed to remove the worst of the paint. He emerged cautiously from the shower and walked straight into a New Swabian seaman.

“Gott im himmel! Einen Hund. Was machst du hier?”

Bamse ducked back into the shower and pulled the curtain across while the sailor screamed, “Alarm!”

The changing room’s steel watertight door banged and a muscular figure in singlet and shorts, hard blue eyes below a severe blonde crew cut, burst in.

“What’s all this racket?”

“Oberbootsmann, there is a dog in the shower.”

“Do not be ridiculous Herman, there are no dogs on the base. There have been no dogs here since the last sled husky died in 1956. See.”

He threw back the curtain to reveal Bamse, with the expression of a startled owl and holding a towel in front of his body to preserve his modesty.   The petty officer ignored him.

“It would be impossible for a dog to be here without me knowing it. Now report to sick bay and get this hysteria nipped in the bud.”

“But…” Herman twitched his head towards Bamse.

“Now, Matrosengefreiter!”

“Aye aye, Oberbootsmann.” And, switching off the light as they departed, the pair left a stunned Bamse to contemplate his newfound fortune in the dark. There were no dogs in Neuschwabenland. Bamse was a dog. Therefore Bamse could not be at the whaling station. He defied logic and so he did not exist. He was invisible to everyone on the base… well, everyone not on the verge of a nervous breakdown anyway. He headed straight for the canteen, piled high a bowl with as many Bratwurst sausages as it would hold, made himself comfortable at an unoccupied table and tucked in. He was not acknowledged by any of his fellow diners. There was Ampelpudding for desert so Bamse had two generous helpings washed down with a stein of Bockbier.

More than adequately nourished, Bamse took a turn round the harbour. The Ancaster was tied up on the quayside, in darkness and apparently deserted. Across the water the old sea dog recognised the auxiliary cruiser Pinguin, which must have docked while he was eating and was moored over on the mole. Originally named the Kandelfels, she still looked like the harmless freighter that she had once been – she was converted into a commercial raider during the winter of 1939/40 in Bremen. He knew that she had two six-cylinder diesel engines delivering 7,000 hp, half a dozen 150 mm L/45 C/13 guns taken from the obsolete battleship Schlesien and discretely concealed behind her bulwarks along with a 75 mm cannon, one twin 37 mm and four 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, and two single 53.3 cm torpedo tubes. She could also carry two Heinkel He 114A-2 seaplanes, all of which made her a lot more formidable than she appeared and the most successful of the Axis raiders. What was she doing down here? No one had seen anything of her for decades and she had been presumed lost at sea. No matter, Bamse left off musing and turned to locate the radio transmitting station. Whilst the Oberfunkmeister was at supper he would have to get a message off to Larry back in London.