The Princess of Berlin Segment four

A pre occupied Werner swings down from the carriage and glances west. The first winter storm of November is intensifying over the East Anglia coast. Sea driven foam laps at the buttressing rocks, piled where man keeps the hungry sea from reclaiming the island. Shop owners, busy moving the last patio furniture inside and securing the heavy seaward shutters, pay little attention to the striding men.

"How far are we walking, Werner?”

“North. At luftbuild Westi a heavy emplacement is being poured. We will be shuttering down for the season, placing equipment in bunkers. Nineteen thirty seven has been a lucky fall. When the storm moves in from England, I want all equipment secured. When that spate rain moves in from England, Willie, this coast reverts to water.
Battery Westi is to become the fleet’s sacrificial lamb. Positioned in case Admiral Jackie Fisher rises from the grave”, he laughs.

“I don’t follow you”

“In 1915 Fisher wanted to invade the North coast, blockading Emden and Wilhelmshaven, capturing the outer islands. Britain went for Gallipoli instead. The old Kaiser coastal guns were removed and the gun emplacements deteriorated for well over a decade.

We want to place a sea gun in the spring, after the concrete has slow set, during the damp months. There is a spur line to the battery, and this afternoon we will catch the last freight back to the village. No more luxury trains, William Patrick.”

Werner stops periodically to pace off and photograph the areas where he plans his secondary auto cannon emplacements, small bunkers, and the hiding spots for shore observers. High enough, enough to be above the water lines, numerous enough to seal off selected bunkers without attracting attention. Last resort hiding places for material, wealth and if necessary, men on the run from the Gestapo.

“Far enough away from the shore gun to avoid the overlap of bombardment, close to breaks in the rock walls so a shallow draft boat, under cover of the darkness, can slip in and out when needed” murmurs. Hans, the observer, who follows and photographs the pair of coast surveyors. Wind whipped squalls, ragged precursors of the arriving storm, drop occasional rain from clouds fat with promise, and all three men are grateful for their rugged boots and oilskin coats.

“Look at that! Werner!”

Deutschland’s battle cruiser prow cruises past the West end of the island, standing out to deep water. Light grey turrets, large eleven inch radius guns, steaming close enough to shore to impress the Islanders.

Germany is rebuilding might. Deutschland, our pocket battleship, rolling comfortably in the grey chop, out for gunnery training before the storms. Deutschland, returnign frm Spanish coast  neutraity patrol- scarred by the summer bomb attack . Guns practise is now - serious, a deadly prequel t war.
Turrets train west. Peering through binoculars, the pair sees a rusty coaster, a sacrifice, steaming twenty thousand yards to sea. One eleven inch gun blasts a ladder pattern shot, searching for the range. The second barrel elevates as a fountain of green dyed water bursts astern of the freighter, tracking west.

Second shell, bursting nearer, but beyond the zig zagging target. The third shell’s a stern hit. The flash of oily orange old cordite on the freighter, now settling and rocking.

Deutschland is now in full view. High pagoda fighting tower, ranger finders swiveling. The new Germany, announcing to Holland and the world that the North Sea was only on loan and is now to be reclaimed.

The aft turret swivels, centre rifle elevates. The seeking shell arcs and explodes near the freighter. High yellow dye plume marker - a water burst. The second rifle fires. This shell explodes the cordite in the forward hold and the ruptured freighter, breaking in two, folds and vanishes. Standing down from general quarters, cheering ratings line the starboard rails.

General quarters clear the deck again. Power! Deutschland  powering  up  full forward on the port shaft, full reverse on starboard to execute a fan turn to reverse, the  magnificent warship heeling over 12 degrees to port. The maneuver draws applause from the scattered on lookers.

High ,a barely seen sky speck, the RAF amphibian banks and rolls west to Norwich station at Felixstowe. The local  spotting floatplanes, Luftwaffe Arados, roar low over the island, radial engines coughing low staccato. 

Out of the protected channel between Waanger and Spieker Roogs, a large motor launch tows four smaller drifters, sails furled, to the sinking. The launch is guarded, officials’ life jacketed and oil skinned. The drifter’s crews - thin blue cladded men, tattered, huddled, no life preservers.

“Heading to the wreck”, murmurs Werner.” The drifters will scoop net shock killed fish, seals, and if lucky, a pilot whale or shark. The prisoners will get a feast”. The line of towed boats rock in the freshening gale. "Wreckage is gathered and salvaged -  if valuable.”

“What if they swamp those boats? The seas are roughening, Werner. Look at them, gripping those gunwales for dear life.”

“Fewer men to transport back to Dachau for the winter.”

“Jesus. Life`s THAT CHEAP here now?”

‘You don’t know the half of it, Willie. That coaster contained at least a dozen condemned men. If they float, the bodies are picked up for the medical examination of the effects of cordite blast, and then the convict work crew vanishes- Night and Fog. Life is cheaper than herring, and Dachau is its’ life sentence. We salvage wreckage in the New Reich - while wrecking the salvers…’

Werner’s mood brightens when he reaches Luftbuilt Westi, for his blue men, working hard, have earned their meager supper. He strides around the grey green new concrete pad, the water drops pooling and sliding off the surface. He pokes the pad with his walking stick- firm.

Good. It can cure all winter. The equipment has been stowed in the bunkers; the doors are opened for his inspection and locking.

The Bluemen are huddled out of the rain, grateful for the dry shelter. The prison guards let them rest. Werner does not tolerate casual brutality and although he is not in the chain of their command, the Kapos defer to his rank and his class. Slaves for the summer, they have stretched muscle and bone beyond the expected and they have constructed soundly. Tomorrow their island camp closes for the summer and they will be herded in the pre-dawn to a prison ferry, then into boxcars to Dachau camp, where a harder breed of Kapos waits to break their battered bodies and souls.

Inselheim Rustigen, the little narrow gauge steamer whistles its imminent arrival across the moorland. Swaying, veering, and leaning with the sharp wind that now lays its brave black smoke flat against the tenders. Two engines, front and rear, for this train will split at the verboten wye, the Bluemen and their guards diverting to the unseen camps behind the towers and the wire.

The green of summer has vanished and the green of scotch pines muted and dark... Gone are the free ranging sheep,  the Trakehner geldings, the sheep dogs and  even the newly wary beach  seals, for the storm from  East Anglia has stretched its ragged fall line to the island and the sleet  blasts through the barren trees. Skiffs of snow, melting on the ground but lingering in the pines as the sun runs for a dark horizon. Only the men and their small steam engines remain to face the coming storm.

"Last train for the Day, Hans. Come out of the dunes and I will introduce you. You can get a close up for your report” calls Werner. Hans, local police officer, slouches grinning from the lee bunker. “This is William Patrick Hitler, nephew to the leader, newly arrived from Ireland, and our Island guest.”

The Inselheim has arrived and waits steaming at seaside. Werner strides over to the bunker, points to a stacked pile of oiled canvas.

“Take these to the gondolas, gentlemen, you will need them by the time the trip home is over.”

“You will spoil them “, growls the lead guard, but not too loudly.

“Oiled Canvas is always handy, Franz. Tell the commandant this is the ABwehr Christmas Present”.

The Bluemen hurry to lash the canvas across the open gondola cars. The rising sea weather tears and pulls but many hands subdue the cloth covers. They huddle and settle underneath, opening the drain cocks. keeping as dry as possible.

At the site of the Coaster’s target shelling, a Nix, alarmed by the wanton killing of the Bluemen forced harvesters, shrieks out to Poseidon. The Sea Lord, enraged by the desecrators of his ancient codes of Sea Realm, rises in vengeance to the sea surface, drowning the terrified Kapos, sinking their boats, taking both victim and oppressor to the depths.

The Deed is not witnessed, except by one radioman of a departing, observing Dutch Dornier Wal seaplane. Reaching for his camera, he records only the water swirl as the royal trident submerges with the doomed and the damned. He tells no one, for his pilots were searching the dark skies for menace and route.
For what man will believe a witness to the parting of the barrier between natural and the supernatural?

The wave raised by the Sea Lord races for the exposed North West beach of  Wangerooge, where the narrow gauge steam train simmers at the low embankment. In the gather of gloom, the dark sleet, the guards leisurely boarding the semi roofed guard van are surprised and panicked, suddenly buffeted by the crash of waters. The wall of seawater surges halfway up the tank engines undermines the track bed.
As the tenders buck and settle, the half-drowned engineers release brake and throttle lever. Wheels spin on sodden, seaweed covered track. The terrified train crews pull clear of the beachfront as the water surge returns, twisting the rails seaward before their eyes.

The guards van and the day car are awash, windows smashed, the occupants sputtering, clinging to seat and railing. The small train limps, sodden coaled, creaking and groaning back to the village, back to the prison camps. Under lashed canvas, the blue coat prisoners, relatively dry, grin as for once the table of terror turns and their overlords feel their daily fear.

The rogue wave peels the north shore of Wagenroog until reaching the roadstead where Irish Elm, steaming homeward and Deutschland inbound, suddenly buck and plunge toward collision, rudders fighting for steerageway.

Propellers racing aft and forward, left to right, churn air and water behind Deutschland as she swings her stern towards Elm, the Irish struggling to clear the outbound channel. The ships pass within yards before Elm pulls clear, Keegan threading the needle between mud and steel into the forbidding North Sea.