Chapter XXXIII Max Renounces the Fatherland
Max Hilliger was now alone in the submarine’s conning-tower and in charge of its controls. He was shaking violently as he began to realise the horror of what he had done.
He had deliberately fired a bullet into the heart of his superior officer, who had also been his companion and his friend. It was a terrible thing to have done; yet he believed that the act was justified. He only regretted that he had not committed it sooner, before Hermann Körner had had time to give the fatal command for the discharging of the torpedo.
Had he done so, had he fired his shot at the right instant, how many hundreds of precious lives he might have saved! He would have had no haunting regrets in taking one man’s life, if by taking it he had been able to prevent a far greater crime.
What he had seen in the mirror of the periscope was far more awful than the sight of Hermann Körner’s dead body. That the great liner was doomed he could have no possible doubt. He had heard the explosion as the torpedo struck its intended mark. He had seen the immense vessel heeling over, the passengers thronging her decks and scrambling for the boats.
There were no other ships in sight to rush to the rescue. He, Max Hilliger, himself, could do nothing to help. Even if the U50 had been capable of picking up survivors, he was well aware that, in spite of their peril, there was not a soul in that sinking leviathan who would accept help from a German submarine.
Steadying himself, he took Lieutenant Körner’s place and gave the command for the U50 to dive. Below in the engine-room they seemed not to have heard the sharp report of his automatic pistol, or, if they had heard it, they probably attributed the sound to some ordinary and innocent cause. But at length the quarter-master, who had been occupied in the torpedo chamber, climbed up the communication hatch to inquire into the result of the attempt upon the great liner.
“What luck, Herr Körner?” he cried excitedly. “We have struck her—yes?” He crawled into the conning-tower and at the top of the ladder stumbled over the body of the dead commander. “Ach!” he ejaculated in consternation. “What is this? What is this?”
The submarine was going down at a sharp angle, propelled by her electric motors. Max Hilliger remained at his post to give the signal when she should be deep enough, and to control the steering gear.
By the light from an electric bulb the quartermaster saw the commander’s body lying grimly motionless at his feet. At first he believed it was Max Hilliger, but he was quickly undeceived. Hilliger was still at work among the instruments and switches where a few minutes earlier Hermann Körner had been. And now Hermann Körner lay dead!
“There has been an accident?” the quartermaster questioned in agitation. “How did it happen, Herr Hilliger?”
Max Hilliger rang the telegraph indicator to the engine-room, he adjusted the rudders, and turned round to answer nervously and in a trembling voice:
“No. It was not an accident. I have killed him. I need not tell you why. You know. You heard me warn him that if he touched that lever I would shoot him. You had better send up one of the other officers to take command and make me your prisoner. I will suffer the punishment for what I have done.”
The quarter-master glanced swiftly at the dead officer and then back again at Hilliger. “You killed him!” he cried in amazement. “You!”
He was staring at the Iron Cross on the midshipman’s breast. Max was conscious of the fixed gaze, and his hand went up to the decoration. He gripped it in his fingers, and tearing it off, threw the medal contemptuously from him.
“But he was your friend,” continued the quartermaster. “He was your superior officer. He was doing his duty to the Fatherland. He was obeying his orders!”
“He was not bound to obey an order to take the lives of hundreds of innocent people—peaceful, unarmed travellers,” Max objected warmly.
“But you did not prevent him,” rejoined the quarter-master. “The torpedo was discharged. I, myself, discharged it.”
“Yes, unfortunately it was discharged.” Max nodded gravely. “It was discharged, and it struck the target at which it was aimed. Even at this moment that great ship is sinking and her passengers and crew are struggling to save themselves.”
“That is good,” said the quarter-master with a chuckle of satisfaction. “It is a blow from which our English enemies will not soon recover. The whole world will now know that our enterprising submarines are more powerful than all Great Britain’s boasted battleships.” He returned to the engine-room and told his expectant companions that the mighty Atlantic liner had been sent to the bottom. They cheered noisily and started singing, and their singing and cheering only ceased when they learned that their commander was dead.
Many of them deserted their stations to make a rush at Max Hilliger. They called him an assassin, a traitor. They declared that he was at heart a contemptible Englishman, and that he ought never to have been allowed to enter the Kaiser’s navy.
But while they clamoured for his life they realised that in their present situation they could not well do without him. There was only one other of their officers capable of assuming the command and navigating them home—a sub-lieutenant named Adolf von Wiebe. It was necessary, therefore, that Max Hilliger should continue to act as an officer, taking watch and watch about with Lieutenant von Wiebe, until they should join the main fleet beyond Heligoland, and hand him over for punishment.
“In the meantime,” said Lieutenant von Wiebe, “you will consider yourself under arrest.”
“Naturally,” returned Max. “And you need not suppose that I wish to escape the penalty for what I have done. I told Hermann Körner that if he fired that torpedo I would shoot him. Instead of warning him I ought to have shot him as soon as I knew that the liner had come in sight. It was he who was the murderer, not I.”
“He did his duty,” argued Wiebe. “He obeyed his instructions. It was to sink that liner that we came out here into the open sea. The whole thing was planned and arranged weeks ago. The owners of the ship were warned. The passengers were told before they left America that they would sail in that steamer at their own risk. The captain could have escaped us if he had taken a different course. Why did not the British Navy protect her by sending a cruiser convoy with her?”
“Because,” Max reported, “the British Navy trusted that Germany had still a little honour and humanity left, and that no German submarine commander would be so brutal and cowardly as to fire a torpedo into an unarmed passenger steamer, carrying neutral Americans and women and little children. But that is where Great Britain and all other civilised nations have made the mistake. They have given Germany more credit than she deserved. She has no honour and no humanity, but only deceit and falsehood and cruelty.”
“Be careful what you are saying,” cautioned Lieutenant von Wiebe. “Remember that we are at war, and that our whole existence as a nation depends upon our conquest of Great Britain.”
“War?” rejoined Max. “But war has its laws as well as peace. We Germans have broken those laws. Our enemies—Russia, France, and Great Britain—are playing the game fairly and honestly; but we are not. You know this as well as I do, only you shut your eyes to it all. From the very start, when we invaded Belgium, we’ve been worse than savages, robbing and murdering peaceful citizens, destroying their beautiful cathedrals, wrecking their homes. We’ve gone out of our way to bombard unfortified towns; we’ve hit below the belt. When we couldn’t break through our enemies’ lines, we have forced them back by using poison gas; when we’ve been too cowardly to engage their battleships in open fight we have sunk their merchant vessels and helpless fishing boats. And now there is this greatest crime of all—the sinking of the Ruritania. I tell you, Adolf, I am sick of it all, and I hope, as I firmly believe, that Germany will be beaten.”
Adolf von Wiebe forced himself to laugh.
“You are hoping for the impossible,” he said. “Germany can never be beaten. Do you think that we have been preparing for this war all these years only to be defeated in the end? Why, this very sinking of the liner—one of the biggest ships that ever sailed the seas—is a proof of our power. As for Great Britain—she is not worth talking about. You, who have lived in England, should know better than to imagine that she could have a ghost of a chance against so mighty an empire as ours! Sooner than you suppose, Great Britain will have ceased to exist.”
“It is because I have lived in England that I am so sure that she will be victorious,” persisted Max. “And if I could escape——”
“Escape? Escape from a submarine? Oh, no, I shall see to it that you don’t escape, my fine fellow! You are as safe here as if you were imprisoned in a fortress. And since you cannot escape, there is no need to put you in irons. I will allow you to continue with your duties, and, notwithstanding your silly prejudices and scruples, I shall trust you not to put any obstacles in our way when it is a question of sinking a few more ships. We still have some torpedoes left, and I intend to use them.”
“We shall need more petrol,” Max told him sullenly.
“That will be forthcoming,” returned Lieutenant von Wiebe. “A supply ship will meet us.”
“Where?” Max asked.
“Never mind where. It is perhaps as well that you should be kept in ignorance of the situation.”
Max could only very vaguely guess at the course which the U50 was now taking. He was not allowed to handle the charts or to know more than the general direction as indicated by the compass, which usually pointed northward.
As previously arranged, the submarine’s two consorts separated from her when the Ruritania had been dealt with. Their instructions were that they were to proceed across the Bay of Biscay and through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean to attack British and French warships operating in the Dardanelles; but the U50 had not been fitted for so long a voyage.
As much as possible she was kept submerged, or with only her periscopes above the surface. No ships were chased or attacked. It seemed to Max that it was the purpose of Lieutenant von Wiebe to get as far away as possible from the scene of the foundering of the Ruritania, and to avoid all accidents which might bring him under suspicion of having been concerned in that disaster.
Once, when the submarine was passing abreast of a wild, rocky coast, Max was at the periscope. In the mirror he saw reflected the grey shape of a small British cruiser lying at anchor within easy torpedo range.
In ordinary circumstances he would have rejoiced at the opportunity of doing damage to an enemy ship; he would instantly have commanded the crew to their firing stations and manoeuvred to take aim.
But now he told himself that, as he was practically a condemned prisoner, a mutineer who had disavowed his loyalty to Germany, it was no longer a part of his duty even to report the fact that the cruiser was within striking distance. So he kept silent, and the U50 proceeded on her secret way, and Max Hilliger was never suspected of his duplicity.
On the following morning he heard the chief engineer announcing to the commander that they were becoming perilously short of petrol. Lieutenant von Wiebe showed no concern.
“Within two hours,” he said, “we shall be in touch with the supply ship. We will creep into one of these bays and get into communication with our wireless.”
And in the stated time the Marconi aerials were at work.