The Rainbow. A World War One on Canada's West Coast Timeline

[YYJ]

Aug 21, 1800 hours. SS Saxonia, Trevor Channel, Barclay Sound.

Sub Lieutenant Thomas Brown was satisfied that the tribulations this day had presented had been happily resolved, in his small corner of the world. The Saxonia’s infirmary had at noon been as busy as a big city hospital responding to a disaster. Between them, the Saxonia’s surgeon, the doctors from the town of Bamfield and the SS Tees, and their conscripted supporting staff of nurses, orderlies, lifeboat crewmen and German dining room waiters, had treated and stabilized the flood of 45 wounded. One of the Germans casualties had succumbed to a serious headwound, and been buried at sea, but the rest of the injured, German and Canadian, were resting comfortably. A few militiamen had even been discharged with arms in slings or on crutches.

The Cable Station in Bamfield to the east had burned to the ground, and the debris had fallen into the basement. This had finally burned out, and only small ribbons of smoke rose from the concrete foundation.

“I’m famished,” said Brown. “I think it is time have the kitchen and dining staff wash up and make some food for us and all the internees on this ship.”

“Prisoners of War,” corrected his commanding officer, the young Royal Navy Lieutenant who was serving as Saxonia’s prize captain.

“Prisoners of War?” said Brown, confused. “The waiters?”

“As an auxiliary to a naval ship,” said the Lieutenant pedantically, “Saxonia was operating as a warship, so her crew are Prisoners of War.”

Come suppertime, Brown released the Saxonia’s dining room staff from their jobs as medical attendants, and sent them to the galley to prepare a modest evening meal. Trays of ham sandwiches circulated throughout the ship. Eventually the waiters arrived at the bridge, and Brown happily grabbed a sandwich in each hand.

“Sauerkraut?” offered the waiter, raising a silver serving bowl.

“No thank you,” replied Brown.

Brown and the Lieutenant had been getting intermittent reports from the wireless set on the SS Tees, tied up alongside, since 1300 hours. The picture they painted was grim. Early in the day the reports were about the bombardment of Vancouver, Nanaimo and Ladysmith. Later in the day they documented attacks on Victoria and Esquimalt. Captain Hose and Rainbow had surprised the Germans off Esquimalt, and a battle had ensued, but the wireless had not reported the outcome.

At 1915 hours, Pacheena Point Dominion Wireless Station began to transmit a message.

ALL SHIPS ALL STATIONS 2 GERMAN CRUISERS WESTBOUND 10 MILES EAST OF PACHEENA LIGHT

Brown happened to be standing together with the Lieutenant at the foredeck gangway, when the runner from Tees delivered the message.

“There seems to be strong interference, all of a sudden,” reported the wireless runner, “but we are still receiving the Morse over top.”

“What do you make of this?” the Lieutenant asked Brown. “Would you guess the Hun are done with their spree? Or are they headed this way?”

“I would expect them to head straight out to sea,” considered Brown. “They have much to gain by fleeing now, and little to gain by staying. Isn’t Japan joining Britain in the war on the 23rd, in only two days time?”

“One day,” replied the lieutenant. Then he added, in response to Brown’s curious expression, “The International Date Line,”

“Could the German cruisers be coming here, to rendezvous with this very ship?” Brown asked, the thought just occurring to him.

“I am not convinced the Hun, the cruisers anyway, know this ship even exists,” said the Lieutenant. “When we first took possession of the bridge, and we had not rounded up all the crew, Saxonia’s captain and first officer had a confabulation. They thought they were speaking in hushed tones, but they underestimated my hearing. And I did not let on that I speak German.” Brown raised his eyebrows. “Well, they are merchant sailors after all,” the lieutenant scoffed. “It sounded like an eager local German diplomat in Seattle arranged to outfit Saxonia as an auxiliary on his own initiative, and had not contacted the ships at sea yet. He was worried his communications were being spied on. And apparently they were. The Saxonia was to contact the cruisers when she was well at sea. And failing that, meet up with the rest of the Hun’s East Asiatic Squadron, wherever they are.”

“When we chased Saxonia down, we jammed any wireless messages she tried to send,” said Brown. “Then the crew smashed her wireless, and threw all the codebooks over the side. If the cruisers somehow do know this ship has been fitted out as an auxiliary for them, they will not know where she is now.” The men looked out to sea, where the sunset was painting the western sky orange. Only a narrow slot of open ocean could be seen between Cape Beale and the islands guarding the west side of the inlet. Across the channel, the wreck of HMCS Malaspina was stranded partway up an otherwise beautiful beach, laying almost on her side.

The wireless runner brought notice that the warning from Pacheena Wireless Station was being repeated constantly, with the reported position of the German cruisers being updated from time to time, as they drew closer. And that the interference was growing stronger. Then, at 1945 hours the wireless operator on Tees reported a message in a different hand.

ABANDON WIRELESS STATION AM ABOUT TO DESTROY WITH GUNFIRE

Shortly after, the warning transmission from Pacheena Wireless Station ceased.

The suspense was lifted at 2020 hours, when a ship nosed past Cape Beale, and turned to enter Trevor Channel. The ship was a cruiser, flying the German Imperial Ensign. She appeared in this light entirely in silhouette, with her ensign dramatically back lit by the setting sun. The ram bow was exceptionally pronounced, almost a caricature, projecting forward into the waves at a 45 degree angle, which made the cruiser look even more alien and menacing, somehow.

Brown said, “We have been chasing these Germans up and down the coast for 4 whole days…”

“Almost 3 weeks for me,” interrupted the lieutenant.

“… and here they are coming right to us,” finished Brown.

SS Saxonia

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[YYJ]

Aug 21, 1615 hours. Esquimalt Naval Dockyard.

McBride walked up the hill to the Naval Hospital. As he got closer, he was greeted by a drone of low moaning. Nurses and volunteers were treating some of the less severely wounded on stretchers on the lawn, with roaming doctor and a pharmacist administering morphine as required. Between the supine wounded men, a pair of goats were grazing. Those of Rainbow’s survivors who were without visible wounds alternately helped with the wounded, stood smoking, engaged in vigorous conversation with comrades, or paced about irritably. A few, overcome with fatigue, had fallen asleep on the grass. One sailor stood in the middle of the cobblestone path, wrapped in a blanket, muttering to himself and shaking uncontrollably. A nurse offered him a cup of hot tea, which he accepted without comment. McBride recognized faces among the surviving crew, acquaintances in the small-town social scene of his capital city, or sons of acquaintances. He also noticed the absence of some faces he knew to be on Rainbow’s crew.

McBride began doing rounds, shaking hands and offering congratulations and encouraging words. He crossed paths with Commander Hose several times. Hose was engaged in the same activity, but it was clear to McBride that the captain’s connection to his men was much deeper. McBride was not sure what he himself would say, had he just survived such an experience, and then with the memory fresh and vivid, been glad-handed by a politician. But as an elected leader, this was his duty, and he would not shirk it.

Later, CGS Alcedo steamed back across the harbor to embark some infantry, and McBride caught a ride. The patrol vessel’s destination was the wharf at the Recreation and Parade Grounds at the east of Esquimalt harbor, the only wharf of size undamaged by the bombardment. McBride learned from the crew that Major Roy, the militia commander of the province, had ordered a platoon of the 88th Fusiliers to be deployed by sea to Jordan River, to garrison against an overland attack on Victoria’s hydroelectric plant. Alcedo was to be their transport.

“Pachena Dominion Wireless Station is reporting the Hun is steaming up the coast, towards Bamfield. And the scuttlebutt is that another company of the 88th is being moved to Port Alberni by train, in case the Hun attack there,” Alcedo’s Naval Reserve First Officer told McBride, confidentially. “Along with the artillery mobile reserve from the Coberg Battery. This is a secret, but I suppose it is fine that I tell you, with you being the premier of the province and all. There was a landing and a battle right in Bamfield this morning, you know.”

Alcedo tied up at the parade ground wharf. The submarine, which proved to be CC-2, was already alongside the same wharf. McBride expected the crew of CC-2 to be frantically provisioning, but they looked to be engaged like the survivors of Rainbow, at ease and smoking. Keyes and Trousdale stood on the deck of the submarine, in discussion.

“Sir Richard,” the two naval officers greeted him as he approached. The men looked somber. McBride joined them on the submarine’s narrow after deck.

“We had another loss today,” said Trousdale. “Lieutenant Mainland-Dougall was sunk pressing a close surface attack on Nürnberg. With all hands.”

“His sacrifice set up my successful attack,” said Keyes quietly. “Bert Jones will be proud. We are all proud.” McBride took off his hat. The men stood in silence for a moment.

“I was expecting more activity here,” said McBride curiously, gesturing at CC-2’s lazing crew. “Is this not the only warship on the coast?”

“This boat will not be going anywhere for a while,” said Trousdale.

“Probably not for a few weeks,” said Keyes. “The diesel engine is blown. Overheated. Broken gudgeon pin, hole in the crankcase, the whole bit. Her batteries are run right down to nothing. We ordered a replacement MAN diesel from Toronto last week, in anticipation of this. I suppose it will arrive by train, when it does.”

“We will have to locate a working shipyard, somewhere on the coast,” said Trousdale. “Or requisition a capable vessel as a submarine tender.”

“I suppose we could bodge together some way to charge the batteries from shore,” said Keyes. That would give us a 5 mile radius of action, if we pushed the limit.”

“When we have electricity again,” said Trousdale.

The conversation was drowned out by the tramping of boots on the dock timbers, and of NCOs shouting orders, as 50 Fusiliers marched down the dock and boarded Alcedo. The patrol vessel cast off and steamed out of the harbor.

“I think you have chased the Hun away,” said McBride, resuming. “I would not expect them back.”

“Oh no,” said Trousdale. “The Hun are gone, out into the wide Pacific, or to the bottom when Izumo arrives. But they are leaving for want of targets. What is left here to burn or sink?”

“We will build back, you will see,” said McBride, feeling the mood called for an inspirational pick-me-up. “The Hun have dealt us a foul blow, it is true. But much of the industry they have destroyed was not built a decade ago. The men and women of this province are an industrious lot. We will rise to the occasion and prosper again, and more quickly than you imagine. You will see.”

The hard-hearted submariners resting on the dock followed McBride’s speech, and bantered cynically among themselves. “The fires should be extinguished in a few hours, that will be a good start,” said one.

“Although the fires would give us some light when it gets dark,” said another.

McBride had not got to his place in politics by listening to nay-sayers. “I say one of the first tasks will be to repair the All Red Line cable at Bamfield, to re-establish regular communication with the Empire.”

“And it just so happens we have a cable ship suitable for the job, right here in the harbour,” said Trousdale. “The CS Restorer.” He gestured at the pair of masts jutting from the debris strewn water.

The men became quiet, and looked towards the setting sun. Only a few distant sounds carried over the dull roar of the burning naval coal stores.

CS Restorer

Restorer 1903

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[YYJ]

Aug 21 1915 hours. SMS Nürnberg Strait of Jaun de Fuca.

“Leipzig reports they are receiving a strong wireless signal, sir,” announced a sailor who had become the new signals officer. He was reading flashes from Leipzig’s Morse lamp. “They are reporting our position in clear. Leipzig requests permission to investigate.”

“Granted,” said Von Schönberg. “We will fire a distress rocket if we need to recall her.” The sailor flapped his improvised semaphore flags. Leipzig turned away to the north, and accelerated to full speed, soon leaving Nürnberg behind. Von Schönberg sighed, grieving his ship’s diminished capacity.

Herman Mueller had sidled up next to Von Schönberg. “That is the Dominion Wireless Station at Pachena Point lighthouse Leipzig is chasing,” Mueller said.

“Those operators would be wise to stop transmitting,” replied Von Schönberg.

“But they won’t,” both men said at the same time, then shared a moment of laughter. Mueller seemed to have gotten over the fear that struck him when he thought of being taken prisoner by the Canadians. At least for now.

“The sun will set in one hour,” said Mueller.

“We will arrive off Ucluelet harbor in about two and a half hours,” said Von Schönberg, “God willing.”

“It will be dark by then,” said Mueller.

“Can you take us in?” Von Schönberg asked “In the dark? I need a sheltered anchorage for what I intend to do.”

“I know the waters, but not by heart. Do you have charts?” asked Mueller.

“No.”

“Searchlights?”

“No.”

“And of course there will be no moon. You are asking a lot,” said Mueller. “You have seen those waters. Every rock in that Sound has a piece of shipwreck on it. All these rocks too, for that matter,” he said, gesturing towards the shore to starboard. “This is the Graveyard of the Pacific.”

“What can I say,” said Von Schönberg. “We are at war.”

Mueller paused to consider. “The weather looks like it will hold. What does the barometer say?”

“The barometer is in smithereens,” replied Von Schönberg sardonically, “like most of the rest of my ship.”

“Of course,” answered Mueller. “Well, if you must seek anchorage in the dark, Ucluelet harbor will be too difficult to enter. I suggest you bring your ships into one of the wider channels in the Sound. Imperial Eagle Channel or Newcombe Channel. That will provide you a measure of protection, but the entrances should be wide enough to safely enter in the dark. You can move to a more sheltered location at first light.”

It was Von Schönberg’s turn to pause and think. “Which anchorage is better shielded from the eyes of that lighthouse on the point? The one by the cable station.”

“Cape Beale Light? Newcombe Channel is much less visible from the tower. It is another 8 or so nautical miles to the west of Imperial Eagle Channel, but it will be a more hidden location for whatever you have up your sleeve.”

At 1945 hours, the low sun reflecting off the ocean swells dazzled Von Schönberg’s eyes as he looked west. To the north-west, 5 miles away, Leipzig was drawing near to a lighthouse on a projecting point of land. Von Schönberg saw a flash, then smoke appear on the cruiser’s starboard side. Half a minute later he heard the crack of the guns. Leipzig left an interval of two minutes until she fired her next salvo.

Mueller turned his head to look. “Pachena Point Wireless Station,” he said. Puffs of dust rose from the clifftop behind the lighthouse tower, and a sudden yellow flame took, looking from this distance like that of a candle.

Leipzig fired 5 salvos, then ceased, and turned to run further off shore. The cruisers followed the shore to the north-west, with Leipzig maintaining her 5 mile lead. The three German supply ships were closer now, and looked to be steering for the northern end of Barclay Sound. Their silhouettes were almost lost in the glare of the setting sun.

“Haun should be in communication with the auxiliaries, and with Galiano, by now,” said Von Schönberg.

Some high horsetails of cloud lit up pink with the sunset. At 2016 hours the disk of the sun touched the horizon and within a few minutes sank into the ocean. Nürnberg was just drawing past Pachena Point. The lighthouse keeper watched the wounded cruiser pass from his tower. He had not yet lit the lamp. Nearby the lighthouse tower, scattered wisps of smoke rose from a cleared patch of land, where the burst fuel tank of a generator had fueled a fire in the shrubbery. A wood frame structure stood partially collapsed, and missing its roof. One of the tall masts supporting the wireless antenna had taken a direct hit, and was snapped in half five meters from the ground. The last golden light of the sun lit the higher parts of wooded slopes behind, as the boundary between day and twilight slowly climbed up the mountainside.

Beyond Pacheena Point, the next major promontory was Cape Beale, topped by its own lighthouse. Von Schönberg saw Leipzig’s profile turn from stern-on to broadside, as she steered towards shore.

“Leipzig looks to be lining up to enter Trevor Channel, the approach to Banfield Cable Station,” said Mueller. Von Schönberg was irritated Nürnberg’s only set of charts existed in Mueller’s head.

Leipzig’s Morse light flashed. “Leipzig is signaling, sir” reported the acting signal officer.

NO CONTACT WITH GALIANO YET AM INSPECTING LARGE FREIGHTER IN TREVOR CHANNEL

Von Schönberg had no ability to reply. He rankled that even though his ship compared well with the most modern naval vessels in the world, damage had reduced his communication capacity to that of the age of sail. No, even worse than the age of sail, since all the halyards that carried his signal flags had been shot away. He had considered raising a temporary improvised signal halyard, but he dared not take even a single man from damage control, and in any case, all the signal flags had been burned up with the bridge hit, and the spare set lost in some other fire below.

If Leipzig had relayed his orders to the auxiliaries, then the three ships would enter Newcombe Channel half an hour ahead of him, so all contingencies were unfolding without need of his input.

So instead of issuing orders, the commander of this squadron watched the landscape and seascape pass at a leisurely pace, as the sky slowly darkened. Large V-shaped formations of migrating Canada geese passed southward overhead, reminding Von Schönberg that it was soon time for him to do the same.

Von Schönberg was curious to see what Leipzig had been up to in Trevor Channel since she had rounded Cape Beale and passed out of his line of sight half an hour before. As twilight descended, the sky had deepened to indigo, with a wavy stripe of orange on the horizon. The colour of the sky was mirrored in the sea, but as a kaleidoscope version undulating on the ocean swells. Detail on the slopes of the mountains and islands was fading to undifferentiated grey. The German auxiliary fleet was steaming towards Barclay Sound 10 nautical miles ahead, directly in line with Nürnberg’s bow. The three ships looked like perfect black silhouettes from a ship recognition manual.

The operator of the Cape Beale lighthouse seemed to be neglecting to turn on his lamp this night as well. Von Schönberg could not fault the lighthouse keeper, considering that the only ships in sight, and the only ships likely to appear this night, belonged to a hostile navy. Nürnberg drew past the darkened tower, and its eponymous wave swept point, and Von Schönberg was confronted with a sight he at first found hard to decipher.

Leipzig was sitting stationary, her bow facing the open ocean, towards the northern side of mile-wide Trevor Channel. To Leipzig’s starboard, close to an island forming part of the west side of the channel, a steamship lay at anchor. The ship looked to be a cargo liner of more than 10,000 tons. Alongside the liner, another much smaller coastal steamer was tied up. Leipzigs bow was pressed up against the smaller steamer. Leipzig’s one remaining undamaged searchlight was turned on, casting a bright pool of light on the dark water. Both of the civilian vessels also had their searchlights illuminating the water. Small boats milled about around the cruiser and the merchants, and other boats came from the direction of the east shore. The decks of all the ships were alive with activity.

“What the devil is going on?” Von Schönberg asked. He raised his binoculars. The stern of the big liner read Saxonia – Hamburg. “She is in the livery of the Hamburg America Line. But she is flying the British Red Ensign. No wait, someone is lowering it.” He had nothing to signal Haun with that he would be able to see in this light, other than a distress rocket, and Nürnberg was not in distress. He wanted to catch Haun’s attention, not distract him. Von Schönberg looked over his shoulder, at the still orange horizon. Nürnberg’s outline should be visible to any alert lookout. “Sound the horn,” he ordered.

“Leipzig is signaling, Sir,” announced the signal officer.

ALL IS WELL AM NEGOTIATING PRISONER EXCHANGE flashed Leipzig’s Morse light.

“Prisoner exchange…” Von Schönberg repeated, then trailed off.

“Sir?” prompted the helmsman. Nürnberg was continuing past the entrance of Trevor Channel, maintaining her speed of 12 knots.

“Steady as you go,” Von Schönberg confirmed. “There is a story about what is going on here, but we will have to hear it later. Leipzig looks to have the situation well in hand. For now we have an appointment with our auxiliaries.”

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[YYJ]

Aug 21, 2045 hours, SS Saxonia, Trevor Channel, Barclay Sound.

“I suppose that answers any question of what happened to the Rainbow,” said Brown’s commander Lieutenant Lock sadly. “The Hun would have to get past Commander Hose to get here, and the old man would not have let that happen while he still drew breath. You!” he called down to the wireless runner below on Tees’s well deck. “Send a message reporting German cruiser at Bamfield! Double quick!” The man ran to the wireless cabin. “We had best go to the bridge.” A pair of boats taking civilians and some of the lightly wounded militiamen who had been bandaged up back to Bamfield were halfway across the Channel, and picked up their pace.

The cruiser’s silhouette shortened as she turned and entered the Channel. She slowed, and in ten minutes was stopped in the middle of the inlet, to Saxonia’s starboard, 200 yards distant. The Canadian officers looked over top of the smaller coastal liner Tees, past the Canadian Pacific Railroad emblem painted on her funnel, at the cruisers broadside guns aiming straight at them. They were not surprised when the wireless runner reported that transmissions from Tees were being jammed.

“Do you know your German cruisers?” asked Brown.

“Not really,” confided Lock. “Nürnberg was the newer cruiser, so this must be Leipzig. Look at the size of that ram prow. What navy uses those anymore?”

The German cruiser flashed a message with her Morse light.

SURRENDER AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED

“Signals, send a reply,” ordered Lock.

WE HAVE MANY WOUNDED ABOARD BOTH GERMAN AND OUR OWN

Brown noticed that in addition to the main battery naval guns aimed at Saxonia, the German cruiser was also training a number of one-pounder Maxim guns, and another couple of rifle calibre Maxims from the searchlight platforms. He also noticed that the cruiser’s boat davits were empty. The German was showing a substantial amount of battle damage, with black burned patches on her paint, holes and, distorted plates on the upper hull and deck houses. But her armament seemed to have survived intact. Brown saw an officer of the Fusiliers giving orders on Tees deck below. Shortly, Tees’ red ensign was lowered, and the militiamen on board slowly and deliberately unloaded their rifles and put them away.

“Those one-pounders will be murder if the Hun decides to use them on us,” said Lock.

“Look, the Hun has no boats of her own,” said Brown. “Probably shot up in battle and then thrown over the side. That will complicate them coming to board us.”

WE WILL RETRIEVE OUR WOUNDED PREPARE TO BE BOARDED

“Let us see how they accomplish that, with no boats.” said Lock. “Signals! Raise a white flag.” He ordered. “That only means we wish to parley, Sub Lieutenant. I am not yet striking our colours. Pass the word, all crew are to unload their rifles and put them away. Be certain not to bring any weapons within sight of the enemy.” The sun had set twenty minutes before, but the light was still as bright as daylight on a cloudy day.

Water churned under Leipzig’s fantail, and the cruiser began to move slowly forward. Her guns traversed to remain trained on the anchored liners. The German warship made a wide slow circle in the Channel, and returned with her bow facing towards the ocean, but closer this time, and she came alongside the Tees until the German’s starboard bow was pressed against the small liner’s starboard bow. In this way Leipzig’s captain was using the Tees as a wharf from which to access Saxonia.

One of the main battery guns was very deliberately pointed at Tees’s bridge from a scant 20 yards away, another was elevated to aim directly at Saxonia’s bridge. Brown found himself looking directly down the barrel. One-pounder Maxim guns on the Leipzig’s bridge wing and waist positions covered the Canadian decks, and Maxim guns on the searchlight platforms looked down on the liners from above.

“Coming alongside is a calculated risk, said Lock. “The German captain must be in a hurry. He is negating the range advantage of his weapons, if we choose to resist. Which we will not. I am going to parley. I will not surrender this auxiliary to the Hun if I can help it. I am going to stall them. You have the ship, Brown.” He hurried down to the gangway, and made his way to Tees’s foredeck.

“If the German captain is trying to send the message that he will not tolerate any monkey business,” said Brown looking at the one-pounder cannon trained on him, “then he is doing a good job. Unfortunately, he will be disappointed.”

“Vent the boilers,” he called down the engine room voice tube. “Keep steam only to run the dynamos.” He summoned a Canadian sailor, one of Saxonia’s prize crew. “Assemble a work party. Your task is to dismantle the pumps. Shut off the steam lines feeding the pumps, then take the pumps right down until they look like the exploded diagram in the manual. Remove the handles from the hand pumps. Get rid of the parts over the lee side, where the Germans can’t see them, but by all means be quiet. When you are finished with the pumps, take the fittings off the intake valves for the tank drains and the fresh water intakes. Grab as many men as you need, wherever you find them”

“Aye, Sir!” said the sailor, and he disappeared below.

Lock was by now standing on Tees’s foredeck, looking up at the German captain, who stood at the point of Leipzig’s prow, above a very ornate shield-like figurehead, painted over in flat grey. Behind him a party of German sailors was strapping on ammunition bandoliers, adjusting their rifles, and forming up as a boarding party. The German captain opened his mouth to speak, and just then Saxonia’s funnel emitted a roar as it started venting steam. He grabbed a bullhorn and began again. Brown strained to hear the conversation.

“How did you come by this German liner, sir?” asked the captain. He had to shout through his bullhorn to be heard.

“She is a belligerent vessel. We have seized her,” yelled back Lock. This was a vague answer, thought Brown. But if the Lieutenant’s theory was correct, and the Germans knew nothing of this ship, then he need not tip them off that it is a fully stocked auxiliary dispatched for their benefit.

“What of her crew? demanded the German.

“They are all interned aboard, 162 of them,” answered Lock. Although, thought Brown, as the Lieutenant had explained earlier, Saxonia’s German crew were technically Prisoners of War, not internees, because Saxonia was de facto a warship. Lock was being coy. Brown was loath to pull himself away from listening to this exchange, but he had work to do below. He left the bridge and walked swiftly down the outside companionway from the bridge deck, to the boat deck, to the shelter deck, to the well deck, listening as he went.

“You talked of wounded, including German wounded,” yelled the German captain. “You have them on board, Yes?”

“We have 8 German wounded on board, and we committed one of your men who passed away from his wounds to the deep, God rest his soul. In addition we have our own wounded.” The German boarding party was clambering down from their deck onto the Tees. The German sailors looked tired to Brown, dead on their feet even. Brown encountered several of his own men on the way down the companionway, and motioned for them to follow him.

“Is that the Galiano run aground on that beach?” asked the German captain.

“No, Galiano is on the bottom of the Channel,” said Lock. “That is her sister ship lying on the shore. Let us talk of the wounded…”

Brown by now had half a dozen of his men following. He entered an interior companionway and went out of earshot of the speech of the two captains. The men made their way down into the bowels of the ship.

“You two,” he ordered, go end to end of the ship and open all the watertight doors. “The rest of you come with me.” They encountered a party of men with wrenches disassembling a pair of Saxonia’s massive steam pumps in the cavernous engine room. They were working hard.

“This is a lot of work, sir!” said the petty officer in charge. “I’m not sure how much we can get done before the Hun poke their head in to see what we’re up to.”

“Keep at it,” ordered Brown. “We can only do what we can, but think of what Commander Hose would do.” He stepped into the next compartment. A pair of his men had removed a Y shaped casting from a pipe jutting from the inside of the hull. The valve on top now only had to be opened to let in the sea. The men moved to the other side of the compartment and started undoing bolts on another similar pipe. It would be faster to smash the cast iron pipes with hammers, but he wanted to avoid making noise that would alert the Germans.

“They are right. This is taking too long,” said Brown. There are not enough of us.” He noticed movement beyond the open watertight door to the next compartment, the aft boiler room. The foreman of the Chinese black gang was looking at him suspiciously. Behind him, more of his men watched the Canadians. Brown recalled that there were 64 Chinese stokers, and he had contracted them to the Royal Canadian Navy that morning.

“The Germans,” he said to the foreman. “They have come back.”

“Kaiserliche Marine,” said the foreman.

“Yes,” answered Brown, and nodded. He did not know how much English the foreman spoke, but he knew it was not much.

“If the Germans take the ship back,” Brown pantomimed his best Hun impression, and pointed up, “you will be shovelling coal for them.” He made a shovelling motion. “You understand?”

The foreman nodded. “We go away on German ship. Meet Royal Navy,” he said.

“Yes,” said Brown. “If we sink ship here,” he pantomimed a sinking ship. “You stay in Canada.”

“Ship sink now,” repeated the foreman, “We stay in Gold Mountain.”

“Yes,” said Brown.

The foreman smiled, again flashing a gold tooth. He turned and gave a rapid-fire series of instructions to his men, in their impenetrable language, then finished with a single word. “Kaishi!”

The Chinese stokers sprang into action. A some ran aft, some ran forward, but there was also a crush of bodies in front of a machinist’s work bench where the stokers loaded up with tools. Most of the men filtered out to other parts of the ship, but half a dozen stayed in the engine room. One pair immediately began undoing the hinge bolts on a watertight door. That done, they motioned for assistance, and a couple of Rainbow’s prize crew helped them lift the door off, and place it on the deck grate. The other four stokers had split into pairs, two with sledge hammers two with armloads of rags. The water intake pipes were wrapped thickly in rags. The man with a sledge hammer pounded on the pipe. The rags muffled the sound of the blow. He struck again, then established a rhythm, like he was driving a railroad spike. His partner found another hammer to join in the action, but the pipe made a hollow sound, and with the next strike, broke into pieces and fell to the deck. The men with the hammers moved forward to the boiler room, and Brown soon heard more muffled banging.

The Canadians had managed to get the cylinder head off of one of the giant pumps, and were lugging the massive chunk of iron across the deck grates on a hand truck.

“We will never get this part up and over the side,” the petty officer lamented. “Not without using a chain hoist.” The foreman of the black gang passed by. He was carrying a heavy bucket full of bolts. “Throw in boiler. Firebox,” he said to the Canadians and pointed forward. He disappeared into the next compartment, and the sound of that very thing happening was heard. It took six men to lift the loaded hand cart over the watertight door combing, and Brown gave an extra heave-ho to tip the heavy casting of the pump cylinder head through the firebox door and in with the glowing coal embers. Sparks flew out into the boiler room. The heat was intense, even with the fire banked.

A loud crash sounded from the engine room. The second pump cylinder head had fallen six feet onto the deck, bending the grating. Brown heard footsteps, and voices in German coming from above. A detachment of the German boarding party was descending the companionway into the cavernous engine room, still several decks above. Brown helped lift a section of the grating and the men shoved the part through the opening. It tumbled down into the bilge below.

“Open the Kingston Valves,” Brown ordered. “Now.” A Canadian sailor turned the nearest valve, and immediately water flooded into the compartment. Cold spray filled the air. Another was opened to add to the stream. By the time the valves were wide open, the volume from each was as from a fire hydrant. One of his men ran off to pass the word, and open compromised valves in other compartments.

“Remove the valve handles!” Brown ordered, and he had to yell to be heard over the inrush of water. One of the Canadians produced a screwdriver, but the black gang foreman was faster with his sledgehammer, and beat the handle to pieces, bending the shaft over in the bargain. Water initially poured through the grates in the engine room deck and into the bilge, and the machinery spaces and voids below the deck grates, but that small area filled quickly. The Canadians rested momentarily to admire their handywork, but the Chinese stokers had all disappeared to other parts of the ship.

Brown heard the muffled sound of shouting over the roaring flood. He looked up to see a group of German sailors hurriedly climbing down the engine room ladder. Their long rifles swung awkwardly across their backs, and impeded their progress. A German officer stopped on an overhanging landing. He yelled something, and pointed his Luger pistol at Brown and his men. The Canadians dropped their tools, and raised their hands. The water rose above the grate of the deck, and soaked their feet. The sailors of the German boarding party arrived at the engine room floor. Two raised their rifles and herded the Canadians into a corner, the others inspected the machinery.

“Stop the scuttle!” shouted the German officer. “Close the taps!” The Canadians did not move. The German sailors inspecting the sabotage quickly took stock of the situation, made sour faces, then turned to yell up at their officer. A quick exchange in German ensued. The German sailors on the engine room deck shrugged. What was to be done? Water was rising above their ankles. Brown understood the sign language as the officer ordered the Canadians up onto the deck. They climbed the ladder single file. Some of the German boarding party followed, others moved forward or aft to clear the remaining compartments.

 

[YYJ]

Aug 21 2115 hours. SMS Nürnberg, off Barclay Sound.

The planet Venus was first bright point to appear in the navy blue sky. Nürnberg left Trevor Channel behind, and crossed the mouth of wider Imperial Eagle Channel. Waves showed white in the near darkness, as ocean swells rolled up onto the rocks of the Broken Island Group ahead, but the wind had died considerably since the afternoon.

“Let us head further from shore, and stay off those rocks,” said Mueller, and he gave instructions to the helmsman. “I see that the light at Amphitrite Point is not lit either, up ahead. Although that is understandable since you kidnapped the entire population of Ucluelet, Captain.”

“Interned,” said Von Schönberg.

More stars appeared, and by 2200 hours, when Nürnberg passed the rocks off Benson Island, last of the Broken Island Group, the sky was full of constellations, and the horizon to the west showed only a faint glow of blue. To the east and north, the outline of the mountain tops could only be inferred from the absence of stars.

“Let us slow now, Captain,” said Mueller seriously. “We are ready to turn into Newcombe Channel, but we need not hurry. It is darker than the inside of a cow.” Mueller looked through his binoculars, watching for splashes of white, indicating waves breaking on exposed rocks.

“Sound the horn,” ordered Von Schönberg. Nürnberg’s horn blasted a note into the darkness. After a few seconds, the echo returned, bouncing off hidden pieces of landscape.

A searchlight snapped on, illuminating the water of the inlet. Another pair of lights joined them. Then a ship turned on her running lights. Von Schönberg could now see the three auxiliaries lying at anchor, in the center of a wide inlet. The giant liner Niagara, was westernmost, the collier Bengrove held the center position, and the tanker Desalba was to the east, each ship separated from the next by two ship lengths. All flew Imperial Ensigns. A mile and a half of black open water stretched between the ships and the rocky shoreline, lost in the darkness on either side. Nürnberg was still coasting down from cruising speed.

“That is better,” said Mueller. “Helmsman, you may turn now. Nice and easy.” Nürnberg approached the supply ships, at slow, then at dead slow.

“Helm, bring us alongside Niagara,” ordered Von Schönberg. “To starboard.” As Nürnberg approached, the prize crew of Leipzig’s sailors lowered bumpers and ropes and prepared to receive the cruiser. Once the ships were tied securely together, the crew of Niagara unfolded and lowered the liner’s gangway onto Nürnberg’s battered boat deck. Von Schönberg ordered his stokers to bank the fires, and come up on deck for air, and some rest. The filthy men stood in the night air, stretching their limbs. Some lay down on the deck and immediately fell asleep.

“We need to keep up steam to supply the pumps,” said Von Schönberg, “But for now, you deserve a break. You have earned one.”

An officer, formerly of Leipzig, descended the steps of the gangway, and saluted. His eyes wandered over the length of the ship, taking in all the damage with horror. “My, this ship has seen a lot. Oberlieutnant Riediger, Sir. Acting captain of SMS Niagara. I expect you have many needs. What can we help you with first? Can we evacuate your wounded? This ship has a full hospital.”

“Thank you, Oberlietnant,” answered Von Schönberg. “We sent our wounded over to Leipzig, when it seemed we might founder, so we are taken care of on that count. And for now, we seem to be remaining afloat, so we are fine there too. But I am hungry, and so is my crew. Do you have food to spare?”

“Aha!” laughed Riediger. “I expected that might be the case. What with my own men, the interned passengers and crew, and all the civilians from the town on board, we have almost 500 mouths to feed. So I released the liner’s kitchen staff to cook for us all. Those chefs certainly know their trade.” Riediger called up to a junior officer on the deck above for food to be brought down.

“Next order of business,” said Von Schönberg, “I would like to keep my activities here as private as possible.” He looked across the gap between ships at the face of a child, peering at him from a porthole at eye level, on Niagara’s looming side. They locked eyes for a moment, then the child ducked out of sight. Two rows of portholes ran along the hull. “Are you able to move internees from any cabins that can view my ship?”

“Hmm,” Riediger considered. “That may take a while.” He summoned some other of his men, and issued orders. “Please move the internees in the starboard view cabins to port, or inboard. And draw the blackout curtains on the common areas.” As those officers trotted back up the gangway, a line of waiters dressed in black tuxedoes assembled at the top of the stairs, then descended one by one with covered silver serving trays. Nürnberg’s crockery had been smashed in battle, so Niagara’s plates were distributed, emblazoned with a green company flag: a Union Jack with the letters USSCo at the points of the compass. Von Schönberg soon covered over the company logo with his dinner.

“Russian caviar, sir?” asked a waiter with a New Zealand accent, offering his tray with mounds of shiny black roe and melba toast. If the waiter resented serving his enemy and captor, he did not let it show. A consummate professional. Von Schönberg heartily accepted.

“Thank you,” he replied.

“Boiled Alaska Cod and Parsley sauce?” offered the next waiter. The crew was being served where they stood, or lay sprawled on the deck, and the meal took on the character of a picnic.

“Iced Asparagus and Vinaigrette?”

“Roast Spring Lamb and mint sauce?”

“Some New Zealand Cheddar, or Rochefort?”

“Coffee?”

Von Schönberg ate until he was stuffed, not realizing how hungry he had been until he smelled the feast before him.

“Ah, Oberlietnant,” said Von Schönberg when he was finished, “That was magnificent. And it should serve to revive us. We still have much work to do. As you can see, my vessel is beyond repair this far from a Kaiserliche Werft. I was considering the idea of using your ship as an armed auxiliary cruiser, in order to continue our work against British commerce. You have been master of the ship for two days now. Do you have any thoughts to her suitability?”

Riediger smiled broadly. “We learned, after we last parted ways, that this ship is designed to burn both coal and oil,” he said happily. “Quite ingenious. She is burning oil now, but can switch at will. We topped up our tanks yesterday, so she will not need fuel for a good while, but she can burn whatever captured fuel you have for her, at 18 knots. Her center shaft is powered by a turbine!”

“And even better,” Riediger continued. “Niagara is built to Admiralty specifications. She has eight positions on her decks strengthened to receive 15 centimeter guns. I believe she will do very well as a cruiser.”

Von Schönberg surveyed the high sides of the liner. “SMS Niagara,” he said to himself.

RMS Niagara

https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/uploads/r/null/9/3/937312/1ce75365-2dad-4c7f-843e-7bb7bce185cd-A29851.jpg

Union Steamship Line Plate

Union Steamship Company of New Zealand – view relics & brief history

www.sunkentreasures.com.au

SS Desalba

Desabla 1913

Tanker Desabla 1913 Hawthorn Leslie Hebburn

www.tynebuiltships.co.uk

SS Bengrove

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?72109

 

[YYJ]

Aug 21, 2115 hours, SS Saxonia, Trevor Channel, Barclay Sound.

Brown arrived back up on deck. Leipzig’s searchlight was trained on Saxonia’s forward well deck, the bright pool of light exaggerating the darkness of the twilight sky. Saxonia had all her lights deck on, and her searchlights aimed down into the sea. The ships were in the same configuration as when Brown left to go below: Saxonia and Tees side-by-each, bows facing inland, and Leipzig on the outboard of Tees, facing the sea. Boats were being lowered from Saxonia, and from Tees. Many of the davits were already empty. A boat carrying civilians from Bamfield pulled away from Tees towards the inlet, with the Germans’ blessing. Some of Leipzig’s crew were using the deck of Tees as a work platform from which to apply temporary patches to holes in the cruiser’s upper hull.

A steam horn sounded, and Brown looked seaward. Another cruiser with three funnels was passing by, silhouetted against the orange sunset. The Nürnberg. Leipzig signaled to her with a Morse light, but Brown was at the wrong angle to read what it said. The other cruiser continued westward, and did not enter Trevor Channel. As she passed, Brown could see points of orange light from the sunset shining through holes in her funnels.

Armed German sailors had taken overwatch positions on Saxonia’s superstructure and derricks. The deck was filling with the liner’s original Hamburg Amerika Line crew as they were released from captivity, and the air with a babble of German voices. Despite the setting being in the middle of a war, the mood on the deck was convivial, as if at the end of a sporting event. Brown noticed a knot of Canadian sailors, the rest of Rainbow’s prize crew, gathered on the after deck. The German sailors acting as guards herded Brown and his men in that direction. Chinese stokers were emerging from a companionway, and lining up at the rail amidships. Brown made eye contact with the foreman, who very deliberately did not acknowledge his gaze. Brown and his men joined their compatriots on the after deck. A German sailor was lowering the Red Ensign on the aft flag staff. Brown found himself wondering how long Saxonia would take to sink. He had never scuttled a ship before.

“Brown!” he heard his name being called. He looked around. A Canadian sailor pointed him in the direction of the voice. Lieutenant Lock was standing in the back of one of Saxonia’s lifeboats, operated by a German crew, swung out on davits and one deck higher than Brown. “We have negotiated a prisoner exchange!” Lock yelled. “The German captain wanted to take us all as prisoners of war. I countered that we had some of his men prisoner as well, in Bamfield. We are going to fetch them now.” Some of Rainbow’s prize crew were with him, Brown supposed so that the trade would be seen to be legitimate to the militiamen holding the German sailors captive. The lifeboat began to be lowered.

A German officer on the lifeboat objected to his prisoner’s cavalier and chatty behavior, and told the Lock to be silent. The German captain, standing on the cruiser’s bridge wing, called the officer’s name, and motioned that everything was fine. Lock continued, shouting up to Brown, “You may have to deal with some wounded. The German captain wishes to leave a few of his worst casualties behind, so they can get proper care. So you should head to the infirmary, to have that conversation.” As he spoke, the lifeboat descended, until it was afloat. The German crew unhooked the lifeboat from its ropes. “Oh yes,” called Lock again, “you have the ship, Brown.”

“The Germans have the ship,” Brown yelled back to his Lieutenant, “but not for long. I scuttled us. We are sinking.” He tried to say this last part quietly in some kind of stage whisper, but the distance was too great and Lieutenant could not hear him, so he ended up just yelling it.

“Crikey!’ exclaimed Lock. “I’ll say that’s taking some initiative.” The lifeboat pulled away in the direction of Bamfield and was soon beyond communication. The sky continued to darken. On the direction of their captain, a line of Germans had formed up, civilian and naval sailors alike, and were passing items down Saxonia’s gangway across the deck of the Tees, and up into the Leipzig. Brown, confined with the 29 remaining men of Rainbow’s prize crew on Saxonia’s afterdeck and having nothing else to do, watched the procession of supplies go past. He was reminded of how ants carry away their eggs when their nest is disturbed. First passed down the line were boxes marked with red crosses, and other obvious medical supplies. Some of these boxes were placed on Tees’s deck but most disappeared into Leipzig. Then came hams, and sausages, whole sides of beef and pork, crates of vegetables, sacks of potatoes and flour, and crates of wine, beer, and preserves, all bound for the German cruiser. Folded flags, charts, and navigational instruments came next, then, a procession of heavy 45 gallon drums, which Brown knew to contain lubricating oil, were rolled down the ramp,.

This chain was interrupted when a casualty on a stretcher appeared and was carried down the gangway. Another followed, and soon all the recumbent wounded were laid out on stretchers on Tees open deck behind the aft derrick, a dozen in all. Medical staff followed from Saxonia’s infirmary, and clustered around, attending to the casualties. Five ambulatory German wounded, with a variety of bandaged body parts, walked across and onto Leipzig. Twenty-two Canadian walking wounded, in both militia and naval uniforms, and one in civilian garb, were led by German guards up onto the roof of Tees’s after deckhouse. This space had previously been filled with ship’s boats, but those were all now in use. Brown noticed that German sailors moved about tightening the lines securing Tees to Saxonia. The lines had become slack as the big liner slowly took on water.

Brown approached one of the German sentries. “I need to see to the wounded,” he said. “I am the officer in charge.” The German motioned for him to wait, and called to another sentry. Word was passed, and soon a junior officer arrived who spoke some English. Brown explained his situation.

“A moment,” said the officer.

The Leipzig’s captain was already engaged in a shouted conversation with another German on Saxonia, out of Brown’s line of sight. Brown spoke no German, but he managed to pick the words “Tausend Tonnen” from the exchange, because the words sounded just like their English equivalents. The German captain laughed heartily, and raised his arms to the sky.

The officer Brown had been talking to waited his turn, then called over to Leipzig’s bridge, in German, and received a reply, from the captain. They waited. While they did, the line of German sailors began passing supplies over to Liepzig again. This time the burdens were heavy canvas sacks, that he judged to weigh no less than 50 pounds apiece from the way the sailors bent under the loads. In the bright deck lights, Brown could see a pall of dust beginning to form in the air around the brigade passing the sacks.

“They found the coal supply,” said Brown to another Canadian sailor. “All nicely packaged for transfer at sea.”

“A shame,” replied the sailor.

“Yes,” lamented Brown, “but hardly a surprise. How could the Hun miss it, what with searching Saxonia and being briefed by her crew. I just don’t think they have anywhere near enough time to transfer all that coal. I expect they would need 10 hours to bring over the lot. That’s 1000 tons of coal.” By now the sky was completely dark. Despite the dazzling ships’ lights, Brown could see some of the brighter stars near the horizon. Leipzig’s forward searchlight was now sweeping the Channel, in the direction of the open sea.

A boat appeared rowing from the mouth of Bamfield Inlet, and the searchlight swiveled to illuminate it. The boat was revealed to be one of Saxonia’s lifeboats returning. As it approached, Brown could see his Lieutenant standing in the bow. The dozen or so Canadian sailors who had been passengers on the outbound trip had been replaced by ten men in German naval uniform. The prisoners of war had been exchanged. Only Lieutenant Lock remained of the Canadians on the lifeboat. The returning liberated POWs were greeted by cheers from Leipzig’s crew.

One of the newly returned Germans in the lifeboat, a petty officer, called up to Leipzig’s bridge, and a quick series of back-and-forths, that sounded like questions, were exchanged. These were interrupted mid-stream, when a voice called from out in the darkness. The searchlight beam pivoted to the north, and swept the water and coastline until it came to rest on a canoe being paddled towards Leipzig. The paddlers of the canoe were soon revealed to be a pair of German sailors, wearing bandoliers of rifle ammunition pouches. Another cheer went up from the sailors on Leipzig. The lifeboat was raised onto Liepzig’s davits, and the sailors on board disembarked onto the cruiser. In fact, Brown realized, a number of Saxonia’s lifeboats, as well as some from Tees, had been brought aboard Leipzig.

German sailors on Tees’s deck tightened the lines holding her to Saxonia again. The movement of coal sacks across Tees’s deck continued apace. The Chinese stokers had now been drafted for this task as well. German merchant sailors who were not involved in the transfer now all crossed over from Saxonia to Tees, barging past the labouring men on the gangway. The deck on Tees was becoming crowded indeed, like the deck of a Dominion Day holiday excursion steamer. The bags of coal passed through this crowd like a ripple, then appeared again as they went over Leipzig’s rail.

“You are all to come over to the small liner,” ordered the German officer of the guard. That was fine with Brown. Some unsettling noises were rising up from Saxonia’s bowels.

“We are all moving to the Tees now,” he told his men. The men of Rainbow’s prize crew were almost the only ones remaining on Saxonia’s deck now, save for a few sentries with rifles. As Brown walked past the big liner’s aft companionway, he felt an upwelling of cool air from below. The Canadians walked down the gangway between ships single file. Beside them, the brigade of Germans and Chinese stokers passed their last sack. Brown noticed the heavy bags were wet on the bottom. The German guards herded Brown and his men towards Tees’s crowded after well deck, and the brigade carrying the coal sacks broke up and followed him down the ramp.

 

[YYJ]

Aug 21 2200 hours. SMS Nürnberg, off Barclay Sound.

Von Schönberg gathered the officers of Niagara, and his own surviving officers.

“Gentlemen,” he began. “We have a busy night ahead of us, and a busy day tomorrow as well. I intend to convert Niagara into an armed auxiliary cruiser so as to strike further blows against the commerce of the British Empire.” A general murmur of support rose from the assembled officers. Von Schönberg realized the men were tired, but he wanted this venture to begin on a more resounding note, so he added, “For the Kaiser.” This provoked the cheer he was looking for.

“We have until 1900 hours local time tomorrow until the Japanese ultimatum expires. The Japanese ultimatum was not meant to be accepted, and it is expected a state of war will commence between Japan and The German Empire at that time. We have until then to bring every useful thing from Nürnberg over to Niagara.

“Very first, the submarine that torpedoed us survived the engagement off Esquimalt. If it followed us here, a submarine could be arriving at any moment. Oberlieutnant Riediger, have your men take the steam launch, recruit the motor launch from Bengrove, and make a picket out at the entrance to the channel. Signal with distress rockets if a submarine is sighted.” Riediger gave the orders, and a junior officer left to set events in motion.

“Nürnberg has six serviceable 10.5 cm guns. We will bring these over, leaving guns 9 and 10 until last, so as to cover the approach to the channel. Machinists will have to drill Niagara’s deck to secure the guns, so have your men prepare their tools. All other supplies and equipment are to be brought across. Merging the crews of Nürnberg and your men, Oberlieutnant, will give us a crew of around 170. This will be a stretch, to run a warship of such size. What is Niagara’s civilian crew allotment?”

“Two hundred and five, Sir,” answered Riediger, “including all the chefs and serving staff.”

“We can make do with one hundred seventy,” said Von Schönberg, after a moment’s consideration. After all, this is war. Well, let us get to work.”

“We need to keep steam up on Nürnberg,” Von Schönberg ordered his Engineering officer, “enough to run the pumps at full capacity and keep electrical power. We also need a watch doing rounds to check that the pumps remain working, and that no leaks are opening up. Everyone else should be working on the transfer

At midnight, Nürnberg’s number one 10.5 cm gun, complete with gunshield, was lifted off its place on the cruiser’s foredeck by Niagara’s forward derrick, swung over, and placed in the corresponding position on the liners port foc’sle. The machinists and gunnery officer found that by aligning the mount just so, they could fit a single bolt through the German gun base and fasten it to the British deck, in the P1 position the shipbuilders of John Brown at Clydebank had thoughtfully fitted in anticipation of outfitting Niagara as a Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser. A cheer went up from the men when this task was accomplished. Machinists immediately began drilling more holes through the reinforced deck plates to properly secure the gun.

One such transfer was accomplished per hour. The actions could have been completed more quickly, but the shortage of men necessitated the party dismantling the gun on Nürnberg, then the same men crossing over to receive it on Niagara. While the armament was being moved over, chains of sailors passed 10.5 cm shells, two Spandau guns, rifles, boxes of small arms ammunition, crates of mining Dynamite and fuses, mechanical tools, and anything else remaining of use and intact. Only a handful of main battery shells were left behind on Nürnberg for the time being, as ready ammunition for the aft battery, in case a hostile ship or submarine appeared and caught them here riding at anchor.

Von Schönberg observed the loading process, and was struck by how little of Nürnberg’s supplies and provisions remained undestroyed by fire or splinters. Much of the interior of the ship above the armoured deck had been reduced to a hollow blackened shell. Her coal bunkers had been filled the day before, and it pained Von Schönberg to leave the coal behind, but there was nothing to do about that. Time did not allow. The infirmary had not been hit, but most of its supplies were depleted. He had reserved one box of Canadian paper money from the safes in the Anyox mine office, and had that brought over as a contingency. The code books from the radio cabin had somehow survived, mostly intact. Some spare uniforms were discovered, and foul weather gear, but little else.

“Sir, a wireless message from Liepzig,” reported Riediger.

“Niagara has a functional wireless?” asked Von Schönberg, surprised.

“Yes,” answered Riediger. “The Kiwi crew did a workmanlike job of dismantling the set, but we took spares from Bengrove, and got it working again today. The message is that Leipzig has left Trevor Channel, and will patrol at sea until first light.”

Nürnberg was moved forward so that her midships broadside guns, numbers five and six, could be hoisted over to the aft positions on Niagara’s foredeck, just forward of the bridge. The liner’s derrick had the capacity to reach across Nürnberg’s beam to lift the starboard gun, and this was facilitated by all of Nürnberg’s rigging having been shot away. When this task was completed, Niagara sported 4 guns on her foredeck, 2 on each broadside, one pair forward and one aft of the cargo derrick. Overhead, Von Schönberg noticed that the stars had just started to dim.

Nürnberg alongside Niagara to scale

A composite of this line drawing from Jane's Fighting Ships via Wikipedia

SMS Nürnberg (1906) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And this photo of Niagara from the Vancouver Archives

https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/uploads/r/null/9/3/937312/1ce75365-2dad-4c7f-843e-7bb7bce185cd-A29851.jpg

 

[YYJ]

Aug 21, 2145 hours, SS Saxonia, Trevor Channel, Barclay Sound.

Looking back at Saxonia, from the Tees’s deck, he could now see the progress of the scuttling. At first glance, the liner looked just fine. Saxonia had not been heavily loaded when she left Seattle, and a good 3 feet of her anti-fouling paint had been above water when they anchored in the Channel that morning. Now her Plimsol line was completely submerged, and her lowest row of portholes was less than a man’s height above the waterline. He noticed every single porthole on the lowest deck level had been thrown open, and some even removed, most likely by the Chinese stokers as they had ranged throughout the ship committing mischief.

The decks on Tees were packed. There must have been 400 men topside on the small freighter. Brown organized a detail of his men to form a cordon around the area with the stretchers holding the wounded and their medical attendants on the after deck, but the crown kept pressing. Much jostling was going on, as the crew of Saxonia began to board Leipzig.

“Give us a hand moving these stretchers into the deckhouse here,” asked the doctor from Bamfield. When that was done, and Brown and his men came back into the night air, he heard his name being called.

“Come!” ordered Lieutenant Lock. Brown followed, and found himself standing at the rail facing Leipzig, with Lock, the captain of the Tees, a Fusiliers militia lieutenant, and a pair of Canadian doctors. The Leipzig’s captain looked down on them from his main deck, so their eyes were at the height of his knees. In the background, Saxonia’s crew continued to climb up Liepzig’s sides.

“I apologize for this awkward arrangement,” said the German captain in perfect, if accented English. “I do not wish to leave my ship at a time like this, otherwise we would speak in a more dignified setting.”

“It is understood,” said Lock.

“The reason I called you here,” continued Leipzig’s captain, “is that my ship will be leaving soon, and I have a number of seriously wounded who will not do well at sea. I was hoping to ask a courtesy, that you would receive these men, and treat them as you would your own. I realize that will make my men prisoners of war, but this bargain is their only chance at survival.”

“This is our duty and obligation under the Hague treaties,” replied Lock. “As well as common Christian decency.”

“Thank you,” said Leipzig’s captain. “I wanted to make sure I turned my men over to your military. I imagine with the events of this day, some of the civilians may feel inclined to act in a manner… less disciplined.”

“Yes,” said the captain of the Tees, “I expect there will be some grudges held.”

“I will have the men brought over,” said Leipzig’s captain. “You may have seen, I made sure to distribute medical supplies from Saxonia for your use.”

“Yes, we received those,” said the doctor from Bamfield.

The German captain continued to regard them silently, as if in thought. “The Saxonia’s captain briefed me on the day’s events,” he said, his eyes on Brown and the Lieutenant. “You men are from HMCS Rainbow, are you not?”

“That is right,” both officers said in unison.

“Your ship fought bravely,” he said. “I hold her captain and crew in high regard.”

“You sank her,” said Brown. A statement. His voice almost a croak.

“Oh. I see. You are hearing this for the first time from me,” said Leipzig’s captain. “I can tell you your ship was afloat when I last saw her. And underway, barely. Her ensign was aloft. Beyond that, I do not know.”

At this point, Saxonia lost electrical power, and her searchlights and deck lights went out. The last of Saxonia’s Hamburg Amerika Line crew climbed aboard Leipzig. The final few armed sailors of Leipzig’s boarding party walked down the gangway, and Saxonia was truly abandoned. A detail formed up on Tees’s deck to receive the stretchers.

“Here come my badly wounded now, the men we spoke of,” said Leipzig’s captain. “Eight of them. I have a list prepared with their names and ranks.” He passed a folded piece of paper, and Brown took it from him.

“The Chinese stokers of Saxonia’s crew wish to stay with us,” said Brown.

“What?” exclaimed the militia officer.

“I have no objection to that,” said the German captain. He oversaw the loading of the wounded, then returned to his bridge. All the Leipzig’s sailors climbed back aboard, and the cruiser cast off.

“How about that?” said the captain of the Tees. “I have a ship again. Deckhands! Cast off from Saxonia. Bring up the steam! I want to put some distance between us and that great sinking hulk before she capsizes on us!”

 

[YYJ]

As I have done once before, I feel I should give a warning that the following chapter contains racist language. One of the non POV characters refers to some Chinese stokers as “Chinamen.” This would be the language of the day. I did not set out to write this part of the scene, but as I was writing I realized that it would be unrealistic for a racist incident like this not to happen at some point, given the climate of the setting at the time.

 

[YYJ]

Aug 21, 2215 hours, SS Tees, Trevor Channel, Barclay Sound.

“How about that?” said the captain of the Tees. “I have a ship again. Deckhands! Cast off from Saxonia. Bring up the steam! I want to put some distance between us and that great sinking hulk before she capsizes on us!”

Tees’ crewmen, who had been standing idle in the crowd, hopped to their stations. The deck of the small liner was not so crowded as it had been moments before, but was still populated by nearly 200 people: 30 Officers and men of the Royal Canadian Navy late of HMCS Rainbow; a dozen Bamfield Lifeboat crew, medical orderlies, nurses and a couple of doctors attending to the seriously wounded; 22 assorted walking wounded Reservist sailors and militiamen from the morning’s battle, a handful of civilian passengers who had not been landed by boat earlier in the day, a newspaperman furiously scribbling notes, 64 Chinese stokers of Saxonia’s black gang, and a dozen militiamen of the 88th Fusiliers and their lieutenant. The men of Tees’s crew moved around them, going purposefully at their tasks. Another 11 seriously wounded Canadian and German wounded lay on stretchers out of the way.

Leipzig pulled away into the Trevor Channel to starboard. The German cruiser swept the water with her searchlight, heading for the open ocean. To port, the CPR crew cast off from the darkened German hulk. Brown smelled the smoke from the boiler, and was impressed by how quickly the oil-fired ship could raise steam. Most of the men standing on deck were quiet, like Brown, attempting to adjust to the present moment, after the rapidly changing set of circumstances that had just unfolded.

“We’ve been prisoners of war twice since breakfast,” marveled one of the militiamen to his comrade. Both wore shoulder patches of the 50th Gordon Highlanders. “What next?”

“So!” exclaimed the Fusiliers’ lieutenant, snapping Brown out of his reverie. “What’s with that lot? He said gesturing at the Chinese stokers. “They showed up on a ship, they should leave on one. They can’t stay here. This is Canada.” He started to advance towards the men of the black gang, saying something about papers. The Chinese men understood his demeanor if not his words, and seemed unsurprised. They stared back impassively.

Brown stepped into the militia officer’s path. “If it was not for these men,” he said “whom I contracted to the Royal Canadian Navy, Saxonia would still have been bobbing out in the Strait when Leipzig passed by, and the Hun would have another supply ship.” The Captain of the Tees was inspecting the state of his decks, and stopped to watch this new spectacle, arms crossed at his chest.

“Hear, hear,” said Lock quietly.

The Fusilier officer tried to step around Brown, and Brown cut him off again. “And tonight,” Brown continued, “when Leipzig had captured us, the Hun had another opportunity to take Saxonia back, but these men helped me scuttle her, just in time.” Brown was flummoxed. He knew the Fusilier lieutenant was making a wrong decision, and Brown felt both a personal and a military duty to the stokers, who had assisted their cause so effectively. But he had only been in the navy for three weeks, and had a hard time deciphering the chain of command here. The militia lieutenant outranked him, that much was clear, but the experience of being taken prisoner had left a residual leveling and humbling effect on the morale of all the Canadians present. Lieutenant Lock was of equal rank to this militia officer, but was of a different branch of the service. Tees’s captain was master of his ship, but was a civilian.

“Be that as it may, Sub Lieutenant,” countered the Fusilier officer, “My sworn duty is to defend Canada, and that includes defending her against illegal Asian immigration. Despite the war, it is still my duty to prevent these Chinamen from setting foot on Canadian soil.” Behind him, his men were looking uneasy. The newspaperman was furiously scribbling notes.

Someone heckled, “Jeez, keep your eye on the puck. The bloody Germans aren’t even out of sight yet.”

The militia officer again tried to step around Brown. “I am taking these Chinamen into custody, to hold them here until they can be properly deported. I am not going to have another Komagata Maru incident on my watch.”

“Nor I,” said Lock decisively, “Spirited defence Brown, appealing to reason and sentiment.” He said as an aside. “But it is done like this.” Lock raised his voice to command volume. “Lieutenant!” The Fusilier officer turned to look. “Due to military necessity and state of war, I am placing this ship under command of the Royal Canadian Navy, and thus under command of the Admiralty.” Brown noticed the captain of the Tees raise his eyebrows, but he said nothing. Lock continued, “Stand down. I require nothing further from you at this moment, Lieutenant. You may return to your unit in Bamfield, or accompany us as you wish, at your discretion.”

“Harrumph,” exclaimed the Fusilier officer, taken aback. He considered the situation for a moment. The newspaperman stood stock still, pencil poised. Then the militia officer replied, “Yes sir,” and he withdrew with his men to another part of the ship.

“Lieutenant!” called Lock, and the departing militia lieutenant turned to look. “You won the important battle this day, the one against the Hun.” The officers paused, then nodded to each other. Brown and the Chinese stoker foreman made eye contact, and they too exchanged nods.

Saxonia was sitting 100 yards to port, and pinned in the Tees’s searchlight. Her lowest row of portholes had now dipped into the ocean, and the flooding accelerated. The portholes first admitted a flood of water, then as the hull sank further, let out great gouts of air. Saxonia began to take on a list. To the south, Leipzig’ searchlight could be seen to disappear behind one of the barrier islands, and was gone.

Lock and Brown watched the cruiser’s light disappear. “Captain?” Lock asked the master of the Tees. “Perchance is your wireless operational?”

“That would be handy… Sir,” the captain replied, the last word added sardonically. “But nay. Most of the set is at the bottom of the channel. Almost the first thing the Hun did when they boarded us.”

“We have to establish communication with our chain of command,” said Lock. “Who knows the situation in the town, in Bamfield?” he asked.

“That Fusilier Lieutenant who you just gave the tall hat, he would have the best idea, having recently been there on the ground.” said the captain with some amusement. “Going to talk to him, are you?”

“Oh, I suppose we do what we must,” said Lieutenant Lock with a sigh. Brown followed him to the bow of the Tees, where the militiamen sat, smoking. They looked a bit lost, having been relieved of all their weapons and ammunition webbing by the recently departed Germans. Most were watching Saxonia, as she continued to settle.

“Lieutenant,” said Lock. “I need your assistance. We must communicate with Esquimalt, to report the situation here. What options do we have in Bamfield, now that the wireless on the Tees here is smashed?”

The militia lieutenant considered. “The Red Line is cut, on land and underwater. The lifesaving telegraph shack in South Bamfield burned down. No wireless equipped vessels are in the harbour. Pachena Wireless Station was bombarded by that Hun that captured us. We know the wireless is out there, the telegraph may be as well. I’m not sure where the next telegraph station is on the lifesaving trail.”

“Five miles east of that, at Klanawa River,” said a passing sailor.

“And too rough a trail for a horse,” said another.

“Sechart Whaling station would be the closest telegraph,” opined the first sailor.

“Or Ucluelet,” said the second.

“The Gordons, the original garrison at Bamfield, sent a boat over to Ucluelet yesterday, and they never returned,” said the Fusilier lieutenant. You could ask their CO more about that, but he died this morning in the cable station. I’m going to talk to my superiors, Lieutenant. Those Chinamen should go into the quarantine station at William Head, at the very least.”

“Noted.” Replied Lock, and he turned to leave.

“Quarantine,” scoffed Brown once they were out of earshot. “Saxonia’s last port of call was Seattle. She was sitting in harbour there for a month.”

Lock and Brown returned to the bridge to confer with the Tees’s captain.

“We need to brief Esquimalt. We can’t do that from here,” said Lock. “And we need to get the wounded to a proper hospital.”

“I would be inclined to take the wounded to Port Alberni,” said the doctor from Bamfield. “Port has a genuine hospital, and a rail line to Nanaimo, with an even better one. And Port is half the distance to Victoria.”

Saxonia’s fantail was the first part of her rail to touch the water. Water flowing into the scuppers made a rushing sound clearly audible over the Tees’s machinery.

“You could send a boat to Sechart Whaling Station,” said the Tees’s captain. He looked at his empty boat deck. “But we have none. We would have to go to Bamfield and get them to send over a fishboat. I, for one, am not sure the Hun are truly gone.”

“A boat travelling west might meet trouble, if the Hun are still lurking,” said Brown, “especially if the boat is lighting its way. And with no moon I would not want to travel the Sound without a light.”

“Someone always wants to be a hero,” said Tees’s captain. “But I agree, it would be prudent to wait until first light. If so, we might reach the telegraph at Port Alberni first. The Hun released us with no conditions. They want us to get their wounded to safety. I intend to light my way up the Alberni Canal. But it will take us 4 hours from Bamfield at 8 knots, and we are not there yet.”

“So let us proceed, captain.” said Lock.

“Aye Aye sir!” said the Tees’s captain, and he gave an exaggerated salute.

Tees came underway, and turned towards Bamfield. Astern in the dark, Saxonia made creaks and groans as she slipped beneath the surface of the Channel.

Tees tied up at the Bamfield wharf at 2300 hours, and landed the local civilians and the militia detachment.

Brown was still tense, because of the presence of the Germans somewhere nearby in the dark, and remained awake for the entire trip. But the voyage up the seemingly endless treelined fjord of the Alberni Canal was routine for the crew of Tees, and every nautical mile the little liner steamed put the Germans further behind. He could hear snoring from all around him on the darkened deck. He was glad that the men of Saxonia’s black gang at least could get some rest.

At 0415 hours on August 22, Tees arrived at a blacked-out Port Alberni. After successfully negotiating a challenge from a jumpy force of militia, the ship docked, and managed to connect with the capitol by telegraph. Later, 3 German wounded who had not survived the night were buried in the Greenwood Cemetery, where they rest to this day.

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[YYJ]

0415 hours, Aug 22, 1914. SMS Nürnberg and Niagara, Newcombe Channel, Barclay Sound.

Nürnberg’s forward and midships guns were now mounted on Niagara’s foredeck, so the cruiser was backed alongside the liner, until both ship’s fantails came in line. The crew began the lengthy and arduous procedure to lift Nürnberg’s aft pair of guns over to the P4 and S4 positions on Niagara’s quarterdeck. When captain Von Schönberg looked to the east, he could see the shape of the surrounding mountains slightly darker against the star filled sky. The ships’ decks were brightly lit by Niagara’s searchlights, and must have made an obvious spectacle indeed from the ocean out beyond the islands of the Sound.

At 0415 a Morse light message flashed from the open sea.

LEIPZIG PATROLLING WILL JOIN AT DAWN ARRANGE A PATROL SHIP TO TAKE OUR PLACE

Von Schönberg responded in the affirmative, and messaged to the collier Bengrove to prepare to put to sea as a patrol picket. Then he allowed himself to take a nap, instructing that he be woken at 0530, or if the situation demanded it.

A knock woke him “0530 Sir. Leipzig has entered the Channel,” said a voice.

When he heard the knock on the cabin door, Von Schönberg took a moment to get his bearings. He was in a comfortable gilt brass double bed, hung with tasseled drapery, in a Louis XIV styled first-class cabin. Then it all came back to him, and he pulled on his cap, then headed for Niagara’s bridge. The sun would not rise for another hour over the horizon, and probably another again until it showed itself over the mountains that ringed the Sound, but visibility was already as daylight. The sky to the east glowed pink. Some high cloud showed to the west, over the open Pacific, but the sky was mostly clear.

Leipzig had entered Newcombe Channel and was approaching at dead slow. Further out towards the sea, Bengrove was showing her stern as she headed out to act as a patrol ship and lookout. A couple of powered ship’s boats appeared as specks out at the mouth of the Channel, the overnight picket boats. Now Von Schönberg had an opportunity to look at their anchorage in daylight. A kilometer to the east was a maze of small tree-covered islands the chart called The Broken Island Group, and the archipelago had been well named, thought Von Schönberg. To the north were more broken islands. Four nautical miles to the west lay the entrance to Ucluelet harbor, obscured behind more small islands. Waves rolling in off the Pacific broke against these islands, and on dozens of protruding black rocks scattered across the Sound between the German’s anchorage and Ucluelet. The clear passage to the sea for an ocean-going ship was a mere one nautical mile wide. The pilot Herman Mueller stood on Niagara’s bridge wing, drinking from a mug of coffee.

“Well done bringing us in here last night, in the dark,” Von Schönberg said to Mueller.

“Yes, it was,” said Mueller. “I mean, thankyou sir.”

The tanker Desalba still lay at anchor to the east, smoke rising from her stack showing that she was keeping her boilers hot. To see Desalba, Von Schönberg had to look across the deck of the battered and mostly abandoned Nürnberg. He noticed that the blackened areas of the ship that had burned yesterday were now sprouting orange flecks of rust. Smoke still rose from the cruisers aft funnel, and streams of water poured over the side from the busy pumps. The bodies of seventy-eight of his men were still aboard, in the makeshift morgue, lost in flooded compartments, or otherwise unaccounted for. He would commit the remains of the men he could find to the deep, soon, but the ship itself was a grave.

The crew was in the midst of transferring the last 10.5 cm gun mounting from the wreck of Nürnberg to Niagara. The heavy gun, complete with its shield, hung in the air from Niagara’s aft derrick. The matching gun was now mounted beside the aft deckhouse to port in the P4 position. Von Schönberg surveyed the armament of his new ship, and walked the decks to get perspective. The gunnery officer was using the vantage point of Niagara’s aft bridge to supervise the transfer of the armament.

What is your appraisal of our main battery layout, Lieutenant?” Von Schönberg asked.

“Good morning sir,” the gunnery officer replied. A steward arrived, and handed both officers mugs of scorching hot coffee. “Well, the 4 guns on the foredeck have their fields of fire directly ahead obscured by the anchor capstans and other deck fittings. The second pair of guns would likely inflict blast damage on the crew of the forward guns firing directly ahead, and all would damage the cargo derricks, so I would recommend against that. If I had us in a shipyard for 2 weeks I would build a platform forward to remedy the issue. But leaving aside a 10 degree dead zone ahead, Niagara will have a 3 gun broadside from most aspects, and both aft guns are well situated to fire directly astern.”

“We will not be in the business of fighting warships with this floating palace,” said Von Schönberg. "With the ammunition we expended yesterday, and what we sent over to Leipzig, we could not even sustain a pitched gun battle for very long.”

“We will bring the last of the ammunition across presently, sir,” reported the Gunnery officer. “We have 322 shells remaining sir, from Nürnberg’s after magazines. 198 Armour Piercing, 89 High Explosive, and 35 solid shot. 30 of those rounds are still in the aft ready ammunition lockers on Nürnberg. The rest are below. We are going to have to devote more men to ammunition handling for each gun than on Nürnberg, without proper shell hoists. I have figured out some tricks we can do with passenger elevators and dumbwaiters from the galley, but the gun crews are going to have to do a lot of schlepping, like in the age of sail.”

“As I said,” replied Von Schönberg. “We want to avoid any pitched battles. Hmm… 89 High Explosive shells you say. That is not many.” The officers stood and watched as the derrick swung the last gun over, and lowered it into place on Niagara’s quarterdeck.

Leipzig had made a wide circle in the channel, and came alongside Nürnberg’s ruined hull, with her nose pointing back out to the ocean.

“Haun is restless,” said Von Schönberg. Liepzig’s captain stood on the cruiser’s open bridge, looking back out to the Pacific with his binoculars. “He wants to be able to dash out to sea, if he needs to. I too am feeling claustrophobic in these narrow waters.”

A petty officer from the engineering department arrived to report the conditions aboard Nürnberg. She was not sinking yet, on account of all the pumping. The transfer of all useful supplies was finished.

“Now that the rest of the transfer is complete,” Von Schönberg said to the engineering officer, “Evaluate what would be involved in bringing Nürnberg’s spare torpedoes up and over to Leipzig.” The officer thought for a moment, then dashed off back to Nürnberg. The whine of drills aft announced that the last 10.5 cm gun was being mounted to Niagara’s deck.

Von Schönberg looked again at Leipzig, and realized that Haun had somehow acquired a full set of ship’s boats, where he had none at sunset. He was soon made aware that Leipzig also had 162 extra German merchant sailors aboard, apparently from that liner that Haun boarded off Bamfield. Some stories needed to be told, but there was no time at the moment.

Von Schönberg and Haun juggled crew allotments that saw most of the naval crews returned to serve under their respective commanders, and most of the crews of the prize auxiliaries filled out with merchant seamen from Saxonia. This was accomplished with Leipzig’s new set of boats running back and forth around the Channel. Niagara got a boost in her crew, such that merchant seamen would run the ship while Nürnberg’s Kaiserliche Marine crew would serve her more warlike functions. Von Schönberg did manage to retain Oberlieutnant Riediger, and a few of Leipzig’s officers who had become familiar with the operation of the big New Zealand liner.

“I have a way to lift the spare torpedoes, sir,” reported the engineering petty officer when he arrived back. Von Schönberg noticed the man’s trousers were dripping filthy water onto the teak of Niagara’s bridge wing decking. “We can use timbers and blocks and tackles to serve instead of the damaged reloading equipment. There is about half a meter of water in the torpedo compartment, but we can manage. Shall I begin sir?”

“Please," ordered Von Schönberg. Leipzig’s boats were moving around the Sound, delivering crew to their new assignments. No sooner had the petty officer turned and left than he was replaced by a wireless runner.

“We just received and decoded this message, sir.”

SMS PRINCESS SOPHIA TO SMS NURNBERG OFF FLORES ISLAND CLAYOQUOT SOUND REQUEST ORDERS STOP

“Navigator, plot this position,” ordered Von Schönberg.

The navigator did his calculations and reported the latitude and longitude to the captain, then added, “That puts them only 30 miles away, sir.”

SMS NURNBERG TO PRINCESS SOPHIA RENDEZVOUS IN NEWCOMBE CHANNEL BARCLAY SOUND AT BEST SPEED STOP

Von Schönberg checked Niagara’s wheelhouse chronometer. The time was 0545 hours. “If Princess Sophia is steaming at her full speed of 14 knots, she should be here in just over 2 hours,” he said. “I expect all our work will be done here by then. I the meantime, I have a funeral to conduct.”

RMS Niagara - Wikipedia

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[YYJ]

Aug 22, 0630 hours. SMS Nürnberg and Niagara, Newcombe Channel, Barclay Sound.

Von Schönberg stood on Niagara’s starboard bridge wing, observing the transfer of Nürnberg’s remaining pair of torpedoes, while he jotted down notes for the burial at sea that he had scheduled for 0700 hours. The engineering crew had made an ingenious solution to bypass the damaged torpedo lifting gear. They made a ramp of shoring timbers, and dragged the almost 700 kilo C/03 torpedo tail first up the reloading chute with block and tackle until it emerged into the burned-out compartment of the number 3 gun sponson on Nürnberg's port side. From there it was slung under the liner’s forward cargo derrick, the straps adjusted, and then was swung over to Leipzig.

Haun had to maneuver Leipzig to present her port side to receive the torpedo, and thereby turn his ship to face towards the back of the Sound. Von Schönberg noticed that this made Haun scowl, but Leipzig’s captain was willing to endure this hardship briefly, in exchange for two torpedo reloads. Von Schönberg also managed to trade 50 Armour Piercing shells from Niagara’s stock for the same number of High Explosive Shells from Leipzig.

“You may end up fighting the Royal Navy again,” Von Schönberg had said. “AP could come in handy. We will only be taking prizes.”

“Do you want our solid shot as well?” Haun had offered.

“I am reserving what I have of solid shot for firing warnings.” Von Schönberg had replied. “You may want to do the same. Every shell remaining in our magazine is so precious.” Haun nodded in agreement.

Von Schönberg returned to writing his funeral notes. All of Nürnberg’s crew lists had been burned up in the action off Esquimalt, so he had to recall the lost men’s names from memory. This he could do, but it required some concentration. He had just learned that the prize crew sailing Galiano and her landing party had lost half their number killed, another 18 dead, but on the other hand, the 18 survivors were now back with him aboard Niagara. Nine of these men were resting in the liner’s excellent hospital. He had also retrieved his wounded and some of Haun’s to boot, now that he had the best hospital under his command. He also learned that his most badly wounded had been turned over to the Canadians Navy as part of a prisoner exchange, a wise judgement call Haun had made last night.

As all these thoughts passed through his head, Von Schönberg kept getting distracted by the smells wafting up from Niagara’s kitchen. And busy the kitchen should be, he though. There are more than 600 mouths on this liner at present.

Von Schönberg had 94 names on his list of Nurnberg’s dead this day, now that he included those who had been killed on or around Galiano. He had significantly fewer bodies than that to bury at sea, but the ceremony was also for those who had gone missing. And, he thought, what of the crew of Princess Charlotte? They seemed also to have vanished. Should he count them as presumed dead? Princess Charlotte had another 51 men on her crew, including the high achieving Lieutenants Von Spee and Radl. Where had they gone? Would he ever know?

“Sir?” All of a sudden, something smelled very good close at hand. “Shirred eggs Portugaise?” asked a waiter with a New Zealand accent, holding a loaded tray. We have made a simplified menu this morning, with a selection from the regular breakfast menu. I…”

“Yes,” interrupted Von Schönberg. “That will be fine.” He selected the ramekin holding the custardy baked eggs, and quickly placed it on the binocular shelf on the bridge wing.

“Careful,” warned the waiter too late. “The dish is hot.”

“Are those sausages under that cover?” asked Von Schönberg. “I’m sure I can smell sausages.”

“Broiled Palethorpe sausages, sir” answered the waiter.

“Give me two of those, please,” said Von Schönberg, “Yes, right on top of the eggs.” He was noticing that the waiter was very tall, a mountain of a man, and very dark. “Pardon my asking,” he said to the waiter, “Are you Samoan?” He had spent much time in German Samoa, in Nürnberg.

“Maori, sir,” the waiter answered.

“Ahh,” replied Von Schönberg, “Of course. Your people have been sailing this ocean for millenia.”

“That we have, sir,” replied the waiter, and he was off to feed other crewmen.

The breakfast was, of course, delicious. As Von Schönberg ate, he watched one of Niagara’s cargo derricks feed the last of the pair of spare torpedoes through the open shutters of Leipzig’s port forward gun sponson at a 45 degree angle. Sailors tugged and pushed on the torpedo to adjust the long body of the weapon on its path below, keeping careful to stay clear should it suddenly twist or fall. A wireless runner arrived at a brisk trot.

“A message from Bengrove, sir, announced the runner.

SMOKE TO THE NORTHWEST STILL OVER THE HORIZON STOP APPEARS TO BE CLOSING STOP

“Reply: WE ARE EXPECTING PRINCESS SOPHIA AT THIS TIME AND LOCATION PLEASE CONFIRM IDENTITY WHEN THEY COME OVER THE HORIZON STOP.”

Von Schönberg ordered a detail to bring up the bodies of the fallen from belowdecks on Nürnberg, and arrange them on the cruiser’s fantail. At 0700 the funeral commenced. Von Schönberg, the honour guard, and a party of men to handle the shrouded bodies stood on the rusty and distorted deckplates of Nürnberg’s stern. All other available personnel lined the starboard promenade decks on Niagara and the port rail on Leipzig.

“Oh God, the Great Creator of Heaven and Earth, Thou dost whatever thou pleases in the sea…” The Mariner’s Prayer came easily to Von Schönberg’s lips. This was the seventh funeral at sea he had conducted, in the 9 months he had been captain of Nürnberg with the East Asiatic Squadron. Sailors died from disease or misadventure fairly regularly in the Far East and South Seas. One petty officer had been killed by a thrown rock on a landing party in Mazatlan. A young sailor had stepped on a lionfish on Yap. He had committed 7 of his men to the deep 6 days ago in Chatham Sound. But here he was burying one third of his crew in a single ceremony. As he spoke, he looked up at the somber faces of his men, their caps clutched in hand. He was sharply aware that any and all of them would likely be dead in the coming days, weeks or months. And the last of them would receive no friendly prayers or speeches, just the embrace of the deep, and perhaps some platitudes from their enemy.

Some of the bodies, he knew, had only been identified by their Erkennungsmarke tags, and some had not been able to be identified at all. Forty-one shrouded bodies lay on Nürnberg’s afterdeck. Six were laid on scorched planks, the remnants of messroom benches. An Imperial Ensign was laid overtop. Von Schönberg said a few words about each of the dead. The Ensign was lifted and folded. The honour guard fired a rifle volley. The assembled men saluted. The planks were tipped up, and the bundled bodies splashed into Newcombe Channel. Von Schönberg looked up at the peak of Mount Ozzard, to their north, its eastern face lit by the rising sun. A moment of silence was observed, then the exercise was repeated. Gulls disturbed by the rifle salutes whirled overhead. With each repetition the sunlight moved further down the mountain slopes. After 6 cycles through the ceremony, the last of the bodies dropped into the Channel, but Von Schönberg was just getting started on his list. He read the names of the missing men with equal solemnity to those whose mortal remains were interred. He had to pause before he finished the list for a drink of water, as his throat had become dry. A final rifle volley was fired.

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” Von Schönberg read Psalm 23. The sun rose over Mount Blenheim, and bathed all the mariners in the dawn’s warm light. The assembled men observed another moment of silence.

SMS PRINCESS SOPHIA HAS ARRIVED, Bengrove announced by wireless.

A horn sounded. A steamer had rounded the George Fraser Islands off the entrance to Ucluelet Harbour.

 

[YYJ]

0800, Aug 22. Provincial Legislature, Victoria.

“Remarkable photograph, this,” said Premier McBride, looking at the front page of the Vancouver Sun. The photograph showed an aerial view of a German cruiser, smoke pouring from her funnels, heading straight towards the camera, with a bone in her teeth and a steeply treed slope and burning industrial building in the background. “That is one of the powerhouses at Buntzen Lake, if I am not mistaken. It is a wonder the paper received the electricity to print this edition.”

“German Navy Bombards Coastal Cities,” screamed the headline.

“The afternoon editions were delayed by the power failure,” said McBride’s secretary. “But the steam power plants were not damaged in the bombardment.” He passed the premier another newspaper. The headline of the Vancouver World was more succinct.

“War!” it read.

McBride was back in his office, after having fled the smoke and fumes of his burning capitol city the previous afternoon. The fires were out, mostly. The Naval coal stores in Esquimalt still burned and would for a week. When the wind direction shifted the coal smoke was carried over the city, but at the moment the smoke from the burning buildings had dispersed, and the morning sun shone brightly on the harbor. The pervasive acrid smell of burned paint and waterlogged charred wood remained.

There was a knock on the office door, and McBride’s secretary ushered in Colonel Alexandre Roy, the Militia District Commander for British Columbia. The men greeted one another and settled in to reading the newspapers while they waited for the rest of the meeting attendees to arrive.

The Vancouver World’s front-page photograph showed another high angle shot of the cruiser, captioned as the Nürnberg, racing through Vancouver harbor. Port facilities burned in the left and right foreground, and at waterfront in the background. A tall waterspout rose from the harbor behind the German cruiser.

“This looks like another aerial photograph,” remarked McBride. “Could there have been two aeroplanes flying over Vancouver yesterday? Oh, no. It says here: photograph taken from the cupola of the World Newspaper Building. That building is 18 stories tall.”

“The Coberg Battery had some artillerists correcting fire for their 60 pounder guns on Point Grey from that cupola, by telephone,” said Roy. “Is that not quick thinking in the face of adversity?”

Lieutenant-Colonel Willoghby Gwatkin, Chief of the militia General Staff entered half way through Roy’s marveling. “Yes,” he scoffed, “and they made a hash of it. That one gun’s wild shooting did nearly as much damage to the civilian infrastructure of Vancouver as the bloody Hun. I talked to Major Wainwright of the Seaforth Highlanders this morning. His men have been responding to reports of civilian damage, and unexploded ordinance in people’s gardens. The common feature that comes up time and again is a five inch shell with 60 PR V FS stamped on the baseplate. Oh, and it wasn’t the guns of the battery, it was gun. Singular. One of the breech blocks exploded early in the engagement. Caused a right mess it did.”

“Sabotage,” said Roy. “But the lads had welded the breech block back good as new.”

“Sabotage? Bah!” objected Gwatkin. “Someone dropped that breech block, in transit or back in Ontario, and then hushed it up. And if that unauthorized repair had been satisfactory, the gun would not have burst and injured three men.”

“The 60 pounder did end up hitting Nürnberg, did it not?” asked McBride.

Roy started to answer, “Yes…” but Gwatkin talked over him.

“That is the claim,” Gwatkin said. “The spotters said they saw a hit, and others watching from shore described a hit with secondary explosions. But there was a battery of 13 pounders firing at the same time, and the Hun was generating a smoke screen. I am skeptical.”

McBride turned a page on his newspaper. “The Vancouver World has a whole series of photographs here of the artillery spotters working from their building,” he said, chuckling. “On the telephone. Looking through the telescope. Behold the Hun! You would think that was the story of the day. The editor, that rascal Taylor, looks to be campaigning for the mayor’s chair again. And it is not a bad play. If he hadn’t been scooped by the Sun’s women’s pages reporter in an aeroplane! Now that took some pluck!”

Ranking Naval Officer Trousdale had entered the room. “Oh, I have heard of that,” he said, “let me see.” McBride turned the paper around and laid it flat on his desk. The men clustered around, looking at the front page photograph of Nürnberg from above.

McBride turned the pages from his side of the desk. Page 3 had a series of photographs. The Ioco oil refinery and tanker burning. A freighter at the BC Sugar Refinery wharf surrounded by waterspouts. Another freighter at Hastings Mill wharf bracketed by shellfire, taken through the pusher propeller arc and skeletal tail structure of the aeroplane. In the background was Vancouver’s downtown skyline and the Canadian Pacific liners sitting helplessly at wharfside awaiting the attention of the German Navy.

“I suppose the photographer had to take care she didn’t get her skirts caught in the propeller,” said Gwatkin waggishly.

The men stood for a moment silently reflecting on the vivid scenes of destruction. McBride and Roy went back to skimming their newspapers, and Trousdale picked up a morning edition of the Victoria Daily Colonist.

“Damn shame we don’t have some aeroplanes of our own,” said Roy. “A flying branch of the militia. Drop a 60 pounder shell or two right on the Hun’s deck.”

“Or a naval squadron of Curtis seaplanes with torpedoes,” said Trousdale, wistfully. “The Rainbow’s 14 inch torpedoes only weigh 700 pounds. But good luck getting Ottawa to spend money on that in peacetime.”

“The technology is in its infancy,” said Gwatkin. “I expect we will see more employment, what with the war. But you two have hit on a critical sticking point there, the inter-branch rivalry. Who will operate the aircraft? Who will get all the prestige, manpower, and funding?” The assembled men all grunted, conceding the point.

“Japan has a seaplane carrier,” said Trousdale. “We will see how they put it to use against the Hun soon at Tsingtao. Japan is going to be jumping into the war this afternoon.”

Gwatkin made a noise of displeasure. “No good will come of that I tell you. Japan making themselves indispensable to the Entente war effort. The Japanese will imagine they are a first-tier power. And then what?” Trousdale nodded thoughtfully.

“Well I for one will welcome the arrival of Izumo,” said McBride. Trousdale nodded in agreement with this sentiment as well. “Who are we still waiting for?”

“Mayor Stewart,” answered McBride’s secretary, “Our Member of Parliament Mr. Barnard, and some of your cabinet ministers.”

“Cabinet ministers,” said McBride, and rolled his eyes. “I keep being reminded that I need to involve other members of my government, what with this being a democracy and all. And I suppose they are right. They should be here presently.”

“I managed to arrive on-time,” said Trousdale. “And I had to take a yard launch from Esquimalt. Wait, how are we reading Vancouver papers this morning? Are there any boats sailing?”

“These are the late afternoon editions,” said the secretary. “The Ballena crossed over from New Westminster in the middle of the night, bringing some military officers and VIPs.” A pair of men strode into the room.

“I was on that sailing,” said the Provincial Minister of Transportation. “An experience I don’t wish to repeat. Blacked out all the way. I thought the Hun were just around every corner.”

The new arrivals snatched up copies of the Colonist from a stack on McBride’s desk. A steward entered with a carafe and tray of coffee mugs. He poured and distributed steaming cups for all.

“Sorry I am late,” said GH Barnard, Victoria’s Member of Parliament, as he barged in. “The streetcars are not working, and it is bloody hard to hail a cab. Oh, thank you” he said as he was handed a mug of coffee.



Only a few minutes later Victoria’s Mayor Alexander Stewart wandered in, followed closely by the Provincial Attorney General. “I hope someone slept,” he said, and accepted a cup of coffee. “I am coming straight from my dawn meeting with the fire and police chiefs. I can tell you…”

“We are now all here,” said McBride, “so let the meeting begin. You are all men in positions of authority, positions to make decisions, and you also all have some pieces of information. I want the spread what we know around, so we are all equally informed, and to prevent rumours. Keep in mind that some of what we will be sharing may contain military secrets. I apologize, Mr. Mayor, please tell us about the situation in the city.”

“I was about to say that we owe the fact that we even have a city left at all to the tugboat fleet,” said Mayor Stewart. “They raised steam while the bombardment was still in progress, and turned their hoses on the waterfront fires without orders. They just went where they saw they were needed. The fire brigades of all of the region responded, and they did help prevent the fires from spreading on land, but it was the tugboats that saved the day.”

“Hear, hear,” said a chorus of voices.

“Sorry, but where are the Hun now?” asked the Minister of Transportation, “Is that not the most salient point?”

“I suppose you are right,” said McBride. He looked towards the military men.

“That remains unclear,” answered Trousdale. “We received a telegraph message from Port Alberni at about 0500 hours, from the crew of SS Tees…” he paused. “The tale gets complicated, but the upshot is that they last saw Leipzig heading to sea at 2230 hours last night.”

“From where?” asked McBride.

“Bamfield,” answered Trousdale. “Interesting aside, the Tees carried German prisoners of war, badly wounded, who Leipzig’s captain wanted to see the inside of a hospital.”

“So that accounts for Leipzig, what of Nürnberg?” asked McBride again. “A dead German sailor was found washed ashore in Sooke at first light. Could she have sunk?”

“Not off Sooke,” said Trousdale. “That body must have been carried by the tide from the battle site. Pachena Point reported seeing two cruisers until the wireless was silenced by gunfire at 1950 hours. Our American friends were transmitting warnings in clear giving the position of two cruisers until 1900 hours when they left the Strait of Juan de Fuca, so that is two independent sightings by reliable sources. Bamfield and Ucluelet are currently incommunicado.”

“We have stationed a company of infantry and a battery of 60 pounders in Port Alberni,” reported Colonel Roy, “in case the Hun want to head that way. And we have a platoon defending the hydro-electric plant at River Jordan.”

“I suppose another attack is possible,” said Trousdale skeptically, “but I imagine the Hun want to head to greener pastures as soon as they can. I would, if I were them. They have already destroyed most everything of military value here.”

“Unless,” said GH Barnard, smiling, “the Hun decide to capture a sternwheeler and head up to the Kootenays to finish destroying our mining sector.”

Roy looked for a moment alarmed, as if this was a serious concern.

“Speaking of captured ships,” said Trousdale, “We know the Princess Charlotte, fresh from ravaging Ladysmith and the industry of the Saanich peninsula, was torpedoed by Maitland-Dougall in Boat One. Haro Strait was obscured by smoke at the time, so we do not know if she sank on the spot, or what became of her, but that ship is out of the game.”

“Look here!” said the Attorney General, who was still leafing through a newspaper. “Page 7, reprinted from Seattle Post-Intelligencer : German raider former CPR Liner Princess Charlotte beached in Mosquito Pass on San Juan Island. Lost her bow to a Canadian Torpedo. 46 German sailors and 3 Canadians interred at Roche Harbour. Three Canadians?” he skimmed ahead in the article. “It says here the Canadians were survivors of the Patrol boat CGS Restless, sunk the night before.”

“Aha” sounded a chorus of voices.

“Photographs?” asked McBride.

“No, just a wire story,” replied the Attorney General.

“I look forward to seeing the American papers,” said Trousdale. “Lieutenant Keyes said the Hun steamed past dozens of photographers in Haro Strait.”

“So how do we find out where the Hun are now, or if they have truly left?” asked McBride. “It could be critical intelligence for Izumo, or Newcastle, when they finally arrive.”

“Well,” said Trousdale, considering, “All of the telegraph lines to Ucluelet and Banfield are cut. The wireless at Pachena Point is out. The Alcedo is anchored off River Jordan, she could reach Bamfield in 5 hours and Ucluelet in 6. Or the Tees is at Port Alberni, she could head back to Bamfield in 3 hours and be at Ucluelet an hour later. The Estevan is at Coal Harbour in Quatsino Sound, but that puts her most of a day away.”

“Aren’t those boats liable to get sunk or captured if they do blunder into the Hun?” asked McBride. “The Estevan is a lighthouse tender.”

“Well, this is a war,” said Trousdale, and shrugged. “The Tees has been placed under command of the Navy, so we can use her as a patrol craft if we wish. I will send orders for both Tees and Alcedo to head for Barclay Sound, when this meeting is concluded.”

“I agree,” said Gwatkin. “Our intelligence picture and communications are badly compromised. As I understand, the Dominion Wireless Stations at Digby Island, Cape Lazo, Pachena, and Shotbolt Hill are all destroyed. That is half of the province’s wireless communication capacity.”

“The private station at Anyox as well,” said Trousdale. “I believe the wireless network is still barely able to reach north to south at the moment, but depending on atmospherics, we may need to station some ships as repeaters."

“Yes,” said the Minister of Transportation, “I can talk to Troup at the CPR. Ships up the coast could begin acting as repeaters straight away. They could even do that from dockside, if they wish to be cautious about the Hun.”

“Troup is going to be feeling the hurt,” said McBride. How many vessels has the CPR lost?”

“Nine,” said the Minister of Transportation, “Seven coastal liners and freighters, as well as Empress of India and the Monteagle. Perhaps more in the form of tugs and barges.”

“Ouch,” said McBride.

“The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway lost two ships,” said Trousdale. “The Prince Rupert, and I watched the Prince Albert burn up in the Graving Dock.”

“On top of that they lost their floating drydock, shipyard, their mainline rail bridge, and their wharf and warehouses in Prince Rupert,” said the Minister of Transportation. “Charles Melville Hayes will be rolling in his grave. We are going to have a shortage of shipping on the coast, and, for that matter, a shortage of wharves to receive them.”

“At least the construction industry will be booming,” said the minister of Finance, “and ship building.”

“Although, we may have a shortage of labour, what with all the fighting men going off to France,” said McBride. “But back to today’s concerns. After this meeting I am going to be talking to the newspapers. How many dead have we suffered? How many injured?”

“Since when?” asked Gwatkin. “Since Prince Rupert? Since Swanson Bay?”

“Yesterday,” said McBride. “I have been hearing all manner of numbers, from zero to something staggering.”

“By the end of the day in Vancouver the police were talking about 4 dead,” said the Attorney General. “One at Ioco, one at Hastings Mill, and a husband and wife killed in their house by a falling shell in Strathcona.”

“I expect the culprit there is that bloody 60 pounder on Point Grey,” said Watkin bitterly.

“Those dead are bodies found and counted,” continued the Attorney General. “But there are countless missing. Some will be found alive, probably some found dead as well, but we may never know.”

“And undoubtedly, some ne’er do wells will take the opportunity to skip out from under their debts or unwise marriages, and go missing as well,” said Barnard. The room glared at him. “What?” he exclaimed indignantly. “Do you actually disagree with that prediction?”

“In Victoria we have two civilian dead we know of, a brakeman at the E&N railway yard, and a gardener in Oak Bay, in the shadow of Shotbolt Hill,” said the Mayor. “But some buildings on the waterfront are burned to the ground. As you say there are many missing. And a good number of wounded. Royal Jubilee Hospital is chock a block.”

“For naval dead we lost 18 men on CC-1” said Trousdale. “No survivors. Five dead on Shearwater, an unknown number from the crew of the Algerine in Nanaimo. And of course the Rainbow. Ninety-seven officers and men lost from Rainbow alone.” He paused, trying to recall. “Eleven Naval Reservists died manning the battery on Siwash Point. There may be more that escape me at the moment.”

“Four militiamen died in Ladysmith,” said Colonel Roy. “fighting with rifles against the deck guns of the Princess Charlotte. And then the militiamen who were lost in the Battle of Bamfield, I did not hear the number.”

“Right,” said Trousdale, “I forgot the crew of the Malaspina. They suffered some men lost, but the reports did not say how many, before Pachena station was silenced.

“I think it is far too early for a count of the dead,” said the Minister of Finance. “In my riding the Hun blew up a ship with a cargo of Dynamite. Nanaimo is all in a shambles, The hospital is full. The bunkers are still of fire in the coal ports up and down the east side of the Island.”

“And the James Island Explosives Factory went up,” said the Minister of Transport.”

“Actually, they took a roll call after the blasts died down,” said Gwatkin. “Every man was accounted for, incredibly.”

“I have not heard of any deaths in Union Bay, or Powell River, said the Minister of Finance. But the town of Van Anda burned to the ground, and there are missing.”

“And what of merchant seamen? How much shipping was destroyed yesterday?” asked McBride. “I lost count of the tally.”

“I believe 28 vessels,” said Trousdale. The room filled with gasps, and groans. “From tugs right up to a CPR Empress. That total does not include warships, or barges.”

“And how many merchant seamen lost?” asked McBride.

“Fewer than you might think,” said the Minister of Transportation, “although I expect there are missing who might turn up dead later. I heard a couple of stokers died on the Marama, when she ran aground in Porlier Pass, at full speed, fleeing the Princess Charlotte. And also a couple of men on the Zurichmoor, off Powell River. That freighter was sunk while attempting to ram Leipzig.”

“There are enough stories of heroism from yesterday to give the reporters fodder for months,” said McBride, “I would prefer if the newspapers ignored me,” There were some guffaws from the room. “Alright, not ignore me then, just leave some column inches for the heroes…” He looked at his pocket watch. The newspaper men are waiting downstairs. Captain Trousdale, what is the state of our naval base?”

“This part, gentlemen,” said Trousdale, “is a bone fide military secret. Most of the military stores and administration building have been destroyed by fire, along with the main wharves. The coal stocks you can smell burning from time to time. The Graving Dock is intact, but the pumping equipment needs serious repairs, and the hulk of the Prince Albert is sunk in the dock. The magazine was untouched. The machine shops are mostly undamaged. I have ordered a coal scow to be towed from Brentwood Bay, and another from Chemainus that escaped the ravages of the Hun, so we will be able to replenish warships once they arrive. Our surviving submarine is immobilized until we receive a new diesel engine from Ontario. Our naval fleet consists of fisheries patrol vessels and motor launches, until naval units arrive.” Trousdale shrugged.

“Well gentlemen that is all for now, should we do another one of these tomorrow morning?” The men began to gather their things and disperse. A clerk entered the room and made his way through the milling men over to McBride’s desk.

“A Report just in sir,” the clerk said, “by telegraph from Sechart Whaling Station in Barclay Sound. Both German cruisers and two freighters are sitting in Newcombe Channel right now.”

Vancouver Sun Building, formerly Vancouver World Building

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[YYJ]

0730, Aug 22. SMS Niagara, Barclay Sound.

“We cannot put off the inevitable for any longer,” said Von Schönberg. “Assemble a party to scuttle Nürnberg.”

When the men had gathered, the captain gave them their orders. “Nürnberg does not have much reserve buoyancy with the two forward boiler rooms flooded. She could sink like a stone when we turn off the pumps. I want to make sure none of you get trapped below. First thing, drive out all the patches in the hull above the waterline you can reach, and open all the portholes. Next move through the ship and open all the watertight doors, save those that are under pressure, and open the companionway hatches as well. Bring the portable pumps topside. Have a pallet slung from Niagara’s derrick to receive them. Once that is done, we can shut down the steam pumps, and vent the remaining steam from the boilers. That should do the job. Nürnberg almost sank on our way up the coast despite our best efforts to keep her afloat. But to be safe, place a scuttling charge in the engine room with a long waterproof fuse.”

“I want a man up on Niagara’s bridge manning the siren, and if there is any sign that Nürnberg is taking the plunge, sound the siren. That will be a signal for the scuttling party to drop everything and run for your lives. Let’s have two of Niagara’s lifeboats in the water, and another two swung out, just in case.” The engineering officer in charge assigned tasks and the men fanned out across the ship. Leipzig cast off from Nürnberg, made a slow circle so that she was facing the ocean, and then dropped anchor 2 ship lengths away.

While all this activity was taking place on Niagara’s starboard side, Princess Sophia arrived and was waved over to the big liner’s port side, where the much smaller coastal liner dropped bumpers and tied up alongside. The ship still had two 10.2 cm naval guns lashed to her foredeck, covered by tarpaulins. Princess Sophia’s small prize crew found themselves being watched by hundreds of faces from portholes along Niagara’s tall side. The interned civilian crew and passengers, who had nothing to look at since dawn except trees and waves, now were allowed to watch some action.

The lookouts spotted and reported several dugout canoes, apparently padded by local indigenous fishermen. “Those would be Toquaht Indians, their village is just over there,” said Herman Meuller, pointing. “One of those fellows came every day to sell us fish, when we holed up here on the Narzisse, waiting for you to show up.” The canoes seemed to show no desire to visit this day, and stayed clear of the German vessels. The lookouts failed to see a motor launch coming from the north, at a distance of 3 nautical miles. The launch ducked out from behind one of the scattering of islands to the north, just long enough to take a gander at the assembled fleet, then returned from the direction it came.

Von Schönberg greeted Princess Sophia’s tired prize crew, who he hadn’t seen since Grenville Channel five days ago, congratulated them, and offered food, but the crew had made good use of the CPR galley, and were already well fed. So he ordered extra crew on board for a work party, seconded Mueller senior the pilot to guide them, entrusted the acting captain with a metal box full of Canadian cash, and dispatched the ship on an errand to fetch building materials from the town of Ucluelet.

A little after 0830 hours Princess Sophia nosed back out of Ucluelet harbor 5 miles to the west. Nürnberg had been venting steam from her aft funnel for a while, and the roaring was trailing off to a hiss. Niagara had a wooden platform loaded up with gasoline powered pumps and hoses suspended from her derrick over the cruiser’s blasted foredeck. The scuttling crew were mostly back topside, having almost finished their sad chore. The cruiser was settling slowly but visibly. Von Schönberg stood watching on Niagara’s starboard bridge wing. Trade Commissioner Meyer and Heinrich Mueller the younger pilot stood watching beside him.

The lookout who Von Schönberg had tasked to watch over the scuttling noticed an unnatural movement at the tip of Nürnberg’s foremast. “There she goes!” he called, and grabbed for the cord that sounded Niagara’s siren. The blast caused the crewmen still on Nürnberg to scatter. Some jumped into the lifeboat holding station off the cruiser’s stern, some ran up the gangway strait up onto Niagara, and one climbed up onto the slung platform with the pumps. The movement of Nürnberg’s mainmast accelerated, and it became clear that the cruiser was capsizing to starboard, away from Niagara.

The sound of rushing water and escaping air rose. When the deck reached an angle of 30 degrees, two sailors burst out of an open engine room hatch midships, ran up the inclined deck, then hesitated at the well deck rail, just forward of the burned-out number 7 gun sponson. The ship continued her inexorable capsize, and the sailors walked down the port side of the hull, now approaching horizontal. The men dived into the water and swam away from the sinking cruiser, to be plucked from the water by a waiting lifeboat.

Nurnberg turned all the way over, showing her keel, and Von Schönberg noticed deep scratches in the hull forward where the ship had run aground in Portland Inlet. Great gouts of air rose from the water around the upturned hull. The torpedo hole, on the cruiser’s starboard side, was now facing Niagara and partly exposed above water. Von Schönberg marveled at how much damage his ship had taken and yet remained afloat. The great puckered rent in Nürnberg’s side vented a boiling torrent of air, and pieces of coal swirled in the disturbed ocean before sinking into the depths, along with, Von Schönberg saw for a moment, a sailor’s Mütze cap. Nürnberg sank bow first. Her screws and rudder rose into the air. The ship hesitated for a moment.

“The ship has struck bottom,” observed Mueller. Von Schönberg was silent. A fierce upwelling of bubbles continued to burst through the surface of the Sound. The parts of the hull remaining above water were seen to rotate on the ship’s long axis as the ship rolled back upright, so that the screws dipped back into the water, and the last piece of the ship to disappear beneath the surface was the empty flagstaff at her stern. The bubbles continued for a while, then trailed off, leaving only a few pieces of floating debris, and an oily sheen in the swirling water.

Von Schönberg stood saluting, until the last of the ship had disappeared, and when he looked away, he saw that the men lined up along Niagara’s rail were also offering salutes. For once, he found himself without anything pithy or inspirational to say.

“Well, we still have much to do before we head to sea,” he said to his junior officers, who were watching him expectantly. “Let us cover the guns with tarpaulins.”

At 0900 hours Princess Sophia came alongside Niagara. Her foredeck carried several bundles of lumber, some bales of canvas, and a couple of pallets of canned salmon. The big liner’s derricks quickly and efficiently loaded the deck cargo aboard. Princess Sophia’s crew also transferred by hand a hardware store’s worth of nails, paint and paint brushes, a small crate of 8mm Mauser rifle cartridges, two dozen — 50 pound sacks of potatoes, and similar quantities of flour, carrots, cabbages, and onions.

“We found a wholesale grocer’s storeroom that your landing party missed the first time you visited the town,” reported a sailor, straining under the load of two potato sacks. After these supplies had been stowed away, Von Schönberg met with a few of his senior officers.

“It is time to put all these civilians ashore,” said Von Schönberg. “Send the good citizens of Ucluelet back to their homes, and land the crew and passengers of the Niagara. The Union Steamship Company of New Zealand has been generous enough to feed and house the… Ucluelet-ers for several days, it is time for them to return the favour. I know we cleaned out the town’s stores, but the townsfolk should have enough food in their pantries and larders to feed the Kiwis until the Canadian authorities show up. And if they run low, well… they can go fishing. This is the frontier after all.”

“We will carry the civilians to Ucluelet on the Princess Sophia. A fitting last voyage for her. I would like to keep our modifications to the Niagara secret, although I expect it is too late for that. The waiters may have caught glimpses of our efforts transferring the guns over. And anyone who knows the ship will notice great lumps of canvas on the decks just where a gun would fit. But I don’t want to make it easy for them. So let us do what we can.” The officers nodded along with Von Schönberg’s instructions.

“Take the ship’s officers and crew directly below. There is only so much room on the Sophia, so some of the locals and the passengers will have to stay on deck. If you keep them on the foredeck, and maneuver so that the bulk of the superstructure is masking Niagara, we may be able to keep any of them from getting a good sightline. Move them along gently, there are women and children. And make sure to let them know they are headed home, or at least for the Kiwis, out of captivity. That should help keep them docile. Go now.”

AM PERFORMING MAINTENANCE AND REPAIRS STOP, signalled Leipzig. WISH TO TAKE WATCH PICKET POSITION OFFSHORE BY 1100 HOURS AND HEAD OUT TO SEA BY 1500 HOURS STOP

AT YOUR DISCRETION replied Von Schönberg. YOU MAY DETACH AS YOU SEE FIT STOP GOOD HUNTING STOP

Soon, Von Schönberg heard a clatter of footsteps descending the port gangway. Herman Mueller returned to Niagara’s bridge, and stood beside his son, and Trade Commissioner Meyer.

“Captain…” he said to Von Schönberg, tentatively.

“I expect you are wondering what is to happen to you, now that we are set to leave Canadian waters,” Von Schönberg said, and Mueller senior nodded.

“After you take Princess Sofia into Ucluelet one more time, your work for us is done. I imagine you want to get far way from Canada.” This time all three men nodded. “Leipzig will be headed for Mexico. This ship is going out to sea, to disappear for a while. We will go where our quarry takes us, but I do not expect to see land again for a long time. Perhaps somewhere in the South Pacific. What we have achieved here for the Kaiser was made possible by your service. You are welcome to take passage on either vessel.”

The Muellers and Meyer looked at each other, in silent conference. “I think Mexico sounds good,” said Mueller senior, and the others agreed. “Yes, Mexico.”

“The country is in revolution,” said Von Schönberg. “But that might make it a good place to disappear.” A babble of voices, including impatient children, sounded from the direction of the port gangway. “You are wanted on Princes Sophia now,” he said to Mueller senior. “You two had better head over to Leipzig straight away,” he said to the other two men. “Haun is strung taut as a pulled bow. He might dash out of port at any moment and leave you behind.” Von Schönberg walked to the starboard bridge wing rail and waved down to a lifeboat still in the water. “Take these men over to Leipzig!” he called. Mueller senior walked to port, and Princess Sophia, the others to starboard and the ship’s boat.

The sound of civilian voices trailed off. Princess Sophia pulled away, turned sharply to present her stern to Niagara, and headed for Ucluelet harbour. The Sound was bathed in bright sunlight, a blue basin sparkling with silver reflections off the wavetops, and wrapped in a bowl of dark green mountains. The big oil tanker Desalba was bringing steam up. Leipzig was also making a fair bit of smoke from her funnels. He could see a pair of welding torches at work, the men hanging over the side on painter’s stages. She also seemed to have divers below. Curious seals bobbed their head out of the water, watching the men, and perhaps hoping for a fish. The lifeboat dropped off the younger Mueller and Meyer, then came back to Niagara and was hoisted up its davits.

At 1030 Princess Sophia emerged from Ucluelet Harbor and steamed out into the Newcombe Channel. Her course took her directly to Leipzig. Mueller hopped off the Sophia’s gangway onto Leipzig’s deck without the liner even coming to a full stop, as pilots sometimes do. He waved back towards Niagara’s bridge. The Leipzig raised her anchors, and at 1100 hours, like clockwork, she was underway and headed for the open Pacific, between the barrier islands of the Sound.

Princess Sophia came alongside Niagara, and her crew came topside.

“Rig scuttling charges,” ordered Von Schönberg. “This little liner has done all she can for us.” A party climbed down the gangway, carrying a wooden crate stenciled Danger Explosives and Bonanza Mine Anyox BC. The sailors disappeared down the companionway, and busied themselves below.

Leipzig shrank into the middle distance offshore. At 1145 she signaled by Morse light,

SMOKE FROM SHIP DUE SOUTH OVER THE HORIZON

15 minutes later Leipzig signaled, SHIP SIGHTED WARSHIP MASTS AND THREE FUNNELS

SMS Stettin, identical sistership to Nürnberg.

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RMS Niagara dockside in Vancouver

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Princess Sophia in Vancouver

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Deck plans of Princess Sophia (big files)

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[YYJ]

Aug 22, 1100 hours. SMS Leipzig off Barclay Sound.

Friggattenkapitan Haun watched the barrier islands of Barclay Sound draw astern with some relief. His ship had been in Canadian waters for far too long, in his estimation, and nothing was to be gained by lingering. The late morning sun was warm on the shoulders of his tunic, as he looked out to sea. The sky overhead was clear, but to the west a band of cloud sat on the horizon, hinting at weather to come. The collier Bengrove was a nautical mile to Leipzig’s port side, on the southern leg of her watch picket route. The big freighter slowly turned back north.

“I wish Von Schönberg would get on with it,” said Haun to the gunnery officer beside him.

Haun saw a flash of movement in the water and lowered his binoculars to look. A school of porpoises was riding Leipzig’s bow wave.

“Dall’s porpoises,” said Heinrich Mueller. “It is so charming when they do that.” He was about to be relieved of his role as pilot, and he and his son would soon become civilian passengers, but they still took the privilege of sight-seeing from Leipzig’s open bridge atop the wheelhouse. The marine mammals wove back and forth across the cruiser’s prow. “A fitting send-off I think.” The Muellers were as eager as Haun to leave British Columbia far behind.

The coast shrank in their wake as Leipzig moved offshore. Haun was relieved to feel the ocean swells under his feet. Looking back he saw taller, bare crags poking their heads above the tree covered ranges surrounding Barclay Sound. The tallest of these peaks were rimmed with cloud. He swept his binoculars to the north, and noticed a long white sandy beach, then another, like those he remembered from Mexico, nestled between black jagged headlands. He intended to take a position about 10 nautical miles off shore, where he could still communicate by Morse light or flag with Von Schönberg on Niagara, but would extend his visual reach further towards the horizon.

At 1145 a lookout called “Smoke! Due South!”

“Bother,” said Haun to the gunnery officer. “I do not want to trifle with taking prizes just now.” He focussed his binoculars to the south. The smoke was indeed from a ship, still out of sight over the horizon “Japan is going to be jumping into this war, by 1900 hours local time if they declare as soon as their ultimatum for Germany to surrender Tsingtao runs out. The opportunists. I can not afford to to have a boarding party on the decks of some British gin palace when our old friend Captain Moriyama arrives in Izumo.”

“I suppose that ship could be a neutral,” said the gunnery officer.

“I don’t even want anyone on a wireless reporting my position,” said Haun. “Send a message alerting Captain Von Schönberg.”

SMOKE FROM SHIP DUE SOUTH OVER THE HORIZON, flashed Leipzig’s Morse light.

“Keep a close eye on that smoke,” Haun ordered the lookouts. He could not long ignore the smoke himself, but the lookouts up in the top crow’s nests would have a better angle of view, with 25 meters more altitude. Leipzig was converging with the unknown ship at her own speed of 15 knots, but the bearing and speed of the other ship was unknown.

“Two Masts visible,” announced the lookout, ten minutes later.

“Does the mast have a spotting top?” called up Haun.

“Not enough visible yet sir,” answered the lookout. Haun racked his brain for Izumo’s profile. He had last seen the Japanese cruiser on August 5, the day war was declared with Britain, 17 days ago. He could not remember if Izumo had a proper spotting top like the British and American large cruisers.

“The masts are obscured by smoke, sir,” the lookout reported. A few moments passed. The new ships slowly rose up the curvature of the earth.

Haun had his binoculars trained on the new arrival. A swirling column of smoke, and two thin upper masts. The line of the sea was dark blue-grey, the sky behind almost white. Heat lines caused the image to dance and shimmer.

“Ship has a naval spotting top,” called the lookout.

“American navy sir?” prompted the gunnery officer.

“Perhaps,” replied Haun, focussed on the horizon. “I would not expect the Royal Navy to have a ship here, just yet. The Royal Navy will be too busy chasing our Admiral Von Spee all around the wide Pacific. Bremerton Naval Yard is nearby, so this could be an American. The Yanks like those strange lattice masts, but they also like military masts with those old washtub fighting tops. That cruiser South Dakota we saw yesterday had one of each. This ship does not have lattice masts.”

“I am seeing funnels!” called the lookout. “One. Two. Three. Three Funnels.”

“Send a message to Niagara,” ordered Haun.

SHIP SIGHTED WARSHIP MASTS AND THREE FUNNELS, flashed the Morse light.

“Niagara acknowledges sir,” reported the signal officer. “The Morse light is very marginal in these conditions,”

“I can see an ensign, Sir,” announced the lookout, “but it is obscured by smoke.”

A few more moments passed. Haun saw the tips of the funnels clear the horizon through his own binoculars. There were indeed three.

“Rising sun!” called the lookout finally, “Japanese!”

“Damn,” said Haun. “That is Izumo.” He looked at the chronometer. It read 1200 hours. The Japanese cruiser was just cresting the horizon, 20 nautical miles away from Leipzig, and a further 10 miles to the shore of Vancouver Island, where the rest of the German flotilla was penned up against the coast or inside the Sound.

If the two cruisers converged at their full speeds, they would collide in half an hour.

“Izumo will certainly have seen who we are by now. But they will not be able to see Bengrove or Niagara yet. If they do, that will put a sudden end to Von Schönberg’s sortie. Signal Niagara.” The Morse light flashing on Leipzig’s shoreward side was invisible to the Japanese.

NEW SHIP IS IZUMO WILL DRAW OFF TO THE WEST IF WE ARE ABLE GOD SAVE THE KAISER

“Commence jamming Izumo’s wireless,” ordered Haun. “Set course west at 19 knots. Let us see how her hull condition and boilers are doing, after all that time off Mexico. I seem to recall Captain Moriyama being coy while we bragged about each other’s vessels. Over the excellent local Mezcal.” The gunnery officer nodded in acknowledgement, of the remembered exchange, and of the liquour. “Naval Intelligence says Izumo could do 20 and a half knots, but that was in 1899. Leipzig is not brand new either, but she is 6 years younger, and we should be a full 2 knots faster.” He pulled down the brim of his hat, against the wind.

“Ship is changing heading to follow,” reported the lookout.

“Good,” said Haun. “Range?”

The gunnery officer gave orders, and crewmen took a sighting with the rangefinder behind them on the signal deck. “37,000 meters,” he reported.

“Very good,” said Haun. “Maintain 19 knots, and let’s see if Izumo gains. I see she is making more smoke now. I want to let her close, so she does not give up the chase, but let her stokers work for it. We have plenty of coal. I don’t see why Izumo should not herself. She is still a neutral, so she can coal where she pleases.” Leipzig had worked up to 19 knots, and was sporting a tall bow wave. The porpoises had departed long ago. The mountains of Vancouver Island were now a greenish band on their starboard quarter. 15 minutes passed.

“Range?” asked Haun.

“No difference,” answered the gunnery officer.

Haun looked about. The Muellers, father and son, were still standing on the open bridge, huddled back against the base of the foremast. Despite the sun and wind, the men looked pale.

“Well gentleman,” said Haun jauntily, “Are you still pleased you chose to come with us? Such adventure, right out of the gate.” Haun rubbed his hands together. “Ah, the thrill of the chase.”

Fifteen more minutes passed. Leipzig had travelled 10 nautical miles westward out into the Pacific since turning away from Izumo.

“Range?” Haun asked again.

“36,000 meters.”

“Just as the script calls for,” said Haun. “If Izumo is gaining at 1000 meters in a half hour, she has one knot on us at our current speeds. We have her on the hook.” He paused. “What would you figure for the range of Izumo’s 20 cm guns?” he asked the gunnery officer.

“I recall Captain Moriyama was tight lipped about that number as well,” said the gunner officer. “Their guns are in 15 degree mountings. They might get a 20 cm shell out to 12,000 meters. Same as us. Are you thinking of fighting? Sir?”

“Not if I can help it,” Haun answered. “And we control this engagement, by virtue of our speed. I simply want to know what margin I can let Izumo close to. To keep her on the line. If Moriyama gives up on us, and turns back, he could bag Niagara and her prizes.”

The ships continued racing west. The sun reached, then passed its zenith, and the cruisers now followed its progress across the sky. At 1300 hours, the range had fallen to 33,000 meters. “I see Izumo found that extra half of a knot,” said Haun. From time to time, Izumo flashed Morse light messages inviting Leipzig to stop, or to parley. Haun ignored the messages. At 1400 hours, the gunnery officer reported the range to be 30,000 meters. Canada was now simply a dark patch to the northeast. To the west, white cauliflower shaped clouds rose on the horizon, above a dark grey stripe at sea level.

“I am familiar with the inexorable maths of a sea chase,” said Haun, “but this is becoming excessively dull. Can we communicate with Izumo by Morse light in these lighting conditions?”

“With difficulty,” answered the signal officer.

“Go to my cabin astern and fetch my chess set,” he ordered a sailor. When the sailor returned, Haun set up the board on top of the signal flag locker. “Send a message to Izumo.”

KINGS PAWN TO KING 4 E 4 Flashed Leipzig’s Morse light.

“Let’s see what Moriyama does with that!” Haun chuckled.

After 10 minutes with no response, Haun ordered the signal officer to repeat the message. Another 10 minutes passed, then Izumo signalled.

C5 flashed the light on the Japanese cruiser’s bridge wing.

“Bishop’s pawn to bishop’s 4,” said Haun, moving the black piece. “The Sicilian Defence?”

“How about King’s knight to king’s bishop 3,” said Haun, chewing on his top lip. NF3

The exchange continued across the rolling ocean swells. Captain Moriayama played an aggressive game, and put Haun in his heels several times, but he lost his queen early, and was checkmated on turn 26.

“Range 27,000 meters,” announced the gunnery officer. The chronometer read 1500 hours.

REMATCH flashed Leipzig.

Izumo responded with a series of requests for Leipzig to stop, which Haun ignored.

Finally, Izumo flashed E4

D4 responded Leipzig.

This game took longer. Both sided played offensively, and kept the pressure on. The game concluded with a draw.

“Range 23,000 meters,” said the gunnery officer.

“Time is 1600 hours, Sir,” said the navigator. “Sunset is at 2014 hours. Full darkness around 2200 hours. It looks like we will be under cloud by then, although there will only be a sliver of a moon in any case.”

Haun did some quick calculations in his head. He invited the assembled officers down to the more spacious wheelhouse, and summoned the head officers of Leipzig’s departments.

“The Japanese ultimatum expires at 1900 hours. Captain Moriyama should expect to receive orders to commence hostile action, if Japan actually declares the moment the ultimatum expires. Which they will. Everyone understands the ultimatum to be a diplomatic ploy. It was never meant to be accepted. Moriyama will not receive those orders, on account of our wireless jamming the airwaves. Will our Captain Moriyama take unilateral action on his initiative? There is no doubt that he will. That man is destined for Admiral. At 1900 hours, Izumo will have closed to 14,000 meters at this rate. Moriyama will have an hour of daylight, and two of twilight once a state of war commences. I am counting on our engineers to be able to give us another two knots right around then, otherwise we will be ein Happen for the Japanese. And when the state of war commences, we will have put 140 nautical miles between Izumo and Captain Von Schönberg’s flotilla.”

The sun went behind the clouds at 1730 hours. At 1830 hours it began to lightly rain. Visibility dropped to 15,000 meters. Izumo was barely visible through the mist, doggedly pursuing. At 1902 hours. Izumo flashed a Morse light message.

A STATE OF WAR EXISTS BETWEEN THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE

Izumo’s forward turret trained on Leipzig, barrels at maximum elevation. The guns flashed. A pair of waterspouts rose in Leipzig’s wake, 2000 meters short.

“Engineering, give us full speed,” ordered Haun. Leipzig’s engine telegraph rang. “Signals, send a message to Izumo.”

SINCEREST REGARDS TO THE EMPEROR.

Izumo fired again, ranging shots. The shells again fell short. Leipzig’s engine revolutions rose. The Japanese cruiser continued to fire ranging shots sparingly, testing to see if the range had closed. Instead, Leipzig began to pull away, opening the space by 1000 meters in the first 15 minutes.

“That would be marvelous luck to lose Izumo in the mist,” said Haun, hopefully, but the rain stopped, the mist lifted, and Izumo remained in Leipzig’s wake. They missed the sunset, under the clouds. At 2100 hours Izumo became lost in the murk 11 nautical miles astern of Leipzig. By 2200 hours it was pitch black.

“Wireless, cease jamming,” ordered Haun. “Helm take us south.” Leipzig heeled over as she made a wide turn.” The wireless runner soon reported transmissions nearby, but was unable to decode them. After two hours of steaming, Haun brought the ship down to 18 knots, to give the engines and stokers a break, and retired for some rest himself.

Pre-dawn twilight came at 0430 hours, still under high cloud. At 0515 hours Haun was back on the bridge, just as a lookout reported “Ship!”

“Incredible!” Haun exclaimed, looking through his binoculars. “Moriyama is still there!” Izumo sat just on the horizon. The Japanese captain had guessed Haun’s intention, but not his exact bearing, and Izumo was well to the east of Leipzig. “Full speed!” Haun ordered. By the time the sun came up, peeking under the lid of clouds as it rose from the sea, Izumo was just a pair of masts and a smoke trail on the horizon, and an hour later not even that.

The Muellers came up on deck at 0630, and looked around at the horizon apprehensively, until they were satisfied it was empty.

“Well gentlemen,” Haun laughed, looking down on them from the bridge wing, “onward to Mexico."

Imperial Cruisers

Japanese cruiser Izumo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Elswick cruisers III: the armoured cruisers

These article by Peter Brook is from Warship International, 1972, #3.

stefsap.wordpress.com

 

[YYJ]

Aug 22, 0930 hours, HMCS Tees, Port Alberni.

Sub Lieutenant Brown woke. A fist was pounding on the door of his cabin.

“Sir! Lieutenant Lock wants you on the bridge.”

He was on a ship, that much was clear. He could feel the hull moving gently beneath him, as if they were tied up at a wharf. And the décor of the room could only be shipboard. But what ship? The last time he had awoken was on HMCS Rainbow, but this was clearly not her. There had also been a German freighter of the Hamburg America line, he recalled, but the ship he was on now was small, and the cabin had some markings of Canadian Pacific Railroad livery. He looked at his pocket watch. It read 9:30, and by the nature of the light, he figured it must be morning. He had only managed to fall asleep at 0700.

“Port Alberni,” Brown said to himself. Things were coming back now. He has slept in his uniform shirt and trousers. He pulled on his boots, jacket, and cap, and stepped out on deck. The morning was bright and clear. Just as it had been when he went to sleep little over 2 hours ago.

Lieutenant Lock was on the Tees’s bridge, as was her civilian captain.

“We have been ordered to reconnoitre Barclay Sound, to see if the Hun are still in place,” said Lock. “Esquimalt reported by telegraph this morning that Nürnberg was torpedoed in the battle yesterday afternoon, but managed to escape. We are to report the situation to Esquimalt. Tees became a naval vessel yesterday, and now they are treating us like one.”

“Torpedoed,” said Brown thoughtfully. “We did see a second cruiser pass by just after sunset. Wait, we have no wireless!” said Brown.

“I reminded him of that fact as well,” said Tees’s civilian captain.

“Can we commandeer a set, or a vessel with one?” asked Brown.

“Your lieutenant and I have gone through all of this already,” said Tees’s captain patiently. “The only vessels in town at the moment are fishboats and boom tugs, as well as what is moored at the mill wharf.” Brown looked at the ships loading at the steaming, smoking sawmill complex. Tied up at the wharf was the 4 masted barkentine Pauko, flying the company flag of Hind, Rolph & Co, and the Stars and Stripes. In the berth ahead of her was the 5000 ton steam freighter Kongosan Maru, of the Ryoto Kisen Line. It was obvious to Brown, now that he looked, that neither ship was suitable for probing the hidden inlets of Barclay Sound, and in any case, neither captain had any incentive to cooperate with the Canadian War effort.

“Japan is still neutral, likely until this evening,” said Lock, emphasizing the point.

“What are we to do as a scout, without a wireless,” asked Brown, a touch too petulantly. He was cranky for lack of sleep, and had not yet had any coffee or tea.

“I see you are new to this being in the Navy business,” said Lock with some amusement, “asking if the orders make any sense. I should remind you that once you have taken the King’s shilling, the only answer to an order is ‘Aye, Aye, Sir!’ But,” Lock continued in a more gentle tone, “you and I were very fortunate to be transferred off of poor Rainbow before she fought the Hun. We can’t shirk now.”

“Alcedo is being sent to join us. She has a wireless, and is armed with a 3 pounder, for all the good it will do her. Most likely the Hun will have fled to sea by the time we arrive. Esquimalt wants a report, and we will give them one. We also want to re-establish contact with Ucluelet. The last anyone heard from them was from Malaspina yesterday morning, and they said the town was deserted.”

“We have some cargo for Ucluelet below that we need to deliver,” said the Captain. “My ship was headed there yesterday, before we became wound up in this war of yours.” He called instructions to some of his crew down on the deck, connecting an oil hose to the fill pipe for Tees’s tanks. Lock commandeered a cutter, whaleboat, and dinghy and had them hoisted on board so that Tees would have some boats. Brown had time to eat breakfast before Tees slipped the dock at 1015 hours. Just before she did, a detachment of 30 militia from the 50th Gordon Highlanders embarked. The militiamen set up a tripod mounted Colt-Browning machinegun on the fo’c’stle.

Tees retraced her route down the Alberni Canal, this time in daylight. The channel was around 500- 800 meters wide the whole way, lined with forested mountains, and because the seaway was convoluted, looked apparently endless from the deck of the ship. At 1315 hours, Tees emerged into Trevor Channel, which she had left around 2330 hours the night before. Brown swept the inlet with his binoculars, but he could see no vessels. Saxonia had sunk in the dark, and he could see no trace of the big German freighter. No masts reared up from the Channel.

Instead of heading south, towards Bamfield, Tees turned west, crossing behind Tzartus Island, hugging the north shore of Barclay Sound and starting to weave her way through the Broken Islands towards Ucluelet. Imperial Eagle Channel was also empty of vessels, save for a couple of dugout canoes in the distance.

At 1400 hours, Tees came in sight of Sechart Whaling station. The station faced south, towards a maze of the treed islands. The station itself was a ramshackle collection of industrial buildings, a pair of them jutting out over the inlet on wharves. Between the wharves, a ramp rose up out of the sea into a courtyard full of machinery. A worker was washing down the ramp with a hose. A pipe big enough for a man to walk inside sloped down from a metal roofed building onto a rocky beach. Brown could smell the station across the water. It smelled foul. Behind the station buildings sat a number of white mounds, several times taller than a man.

“What are those piles?” Brown asked the Tees’s captain.

“Bones,” he answered “Whale bones. I think the plant renders them into fertilizer or something. The fleet is all out at sea now. They have to go farther and farther to find the whales these days.

A motor launch left the Whale Station wharf, carrying several men. Soon the launch was alongside Tees. “The Hun are in Newcombe Channel! Two cruisers and some freighters,” called one of the men in the boat.

“Were you able to report this to anyone?” yelled Lock.

“Yes, told our office in Victoria, and they passed on the message. We have a working telegraph.”

“When did you see the Germans?” asked Lock.

“Around 8 this morning, sent the message off at 8:30!” he yelled back up at Lock.

“Send another one,” Lock ordered. “HMCS Tees performing reconnaissance Newcombe Channel 1420 hours. See that it gets to Esquimalt Naval HQ.”

“Will do!” yelled back the whaler.

Tees continued westward, weaving between the Islands of the Sound. At 1440 hours she was approaching the less constricted waters of Newcombe Channel. “We last saw Leipzig at around 2230 hours last night, 8 nautical miles from here, as the crow flies,” wondered Brown. “Could she have just looped up to this Channel?”

“Leipzig could be rendezvousing with Nürnberg, and the rest of their Auxiliaries, right here,” said Lock.

“We will get to see,” said Tees’s captain, “just as soon as we round Hand Island here.”

“If we do sight the Hun,” said Lock, “prepare to reverse course. Our orders are to report, not to attack.”

Tees’s captain looked at Lock like he was insane, but soon the officers were all looking south through their binoculars as the last of the treed island slipped by on their port. The broad expanse of Newcombe Channel was empty. The sun was reflecting off the water, dazzling the men’s eyes, but it was clear that no ships were in sight. The tension on the bridge eased, as the men came to accept that they were not about to be shelled into oblivion, or taken prisoners of war, again.

“Take us to Ucluelet,” ordered Lock.

“Aye,” replied Tees’s captain. We should be off the harbour entrance in 40 minutes.” But all the bridge officers kept scanning the passages between the myriad islands of the Sound, just to be safe.

“Oil slick,” reported Brown. And indeed there was, a rainbow sheen on the surface, about 500 meters in diameter. “Could the Nürnberg have scuttled here? I don’t see how a cruiser like Nürnberg could survive being torpedoed…”

“There is wreckage in the water,” observed Tees’s captain.

“Take us over there,” ordered Lock. “We need to put whatever we find in our report.” Tees hove-to in the oil patch, and the cutter was lowered to recover debris. Much was not identifiable, pieces of woodwork, upholstered cushions, canvas and linen, all soaked in oil.

“There is a coffee urn,” called one of the sailors in the cutter. The silver urn was floating like a boat. He pulled it from the water and wiped off the oil with a rag. “CPR,” he read. “Canadian Pacific Railway.”

“Could the Hun have been looting the silverware from Princess Charlotte?” asked Lock.

The sailor stirred a tangle of debris with an oar, until a life ring popped to the surface. All on the bridge could read Princess Sophia printed around the circumference in sans serif letters.

“I would say that is definitive,” said the Tees’s captain. “Princess Sophia, how the devil did she end up here?” Tees recovered her boat, and again headed towards Ucluelet harbour. At 1530 hours, as she approached the entrance, a fishboat emerged. The vessels converged. Men appeared on the foredeck of the fish boat, waving their arms in the air.

“You have out attention already,” muttered Tees’s captain. “Sound the horn! Dead slow.” The engine telegraph clanged. The fishboat came alongside. Half a dozen men began to shout all at the same time, as soon as they were in earshot. Brown could make out none of what they were saying in the cacophony. The men on the fish boat looked like the cast of a comedic theatre troupe, with a fisherman, a shopkeeper, an Anglican Minister, an old codger, a young lad, and a sea captain. Tee’s captain had a ladder lowered down.

“Smoke!” called a lookout from the crow’s nest. Tees now had a view to the open Pacific, as she lined up on Ucluelet harbour. “Just on the horizon. At least two ships.”

A party from the fish boat came up on Tees’s deck. They attempted to tell their stories simultaneously again, except for the sea captain, who remained stolid. Brown heard the words “Hun!” and “Prisoner!” and “Niagara!” amidst the jumble. “We never thought we would see home again!”

“Quiet!” ordered Lock, at command volume. “One at a time.”

The sea captain spoke up. Brown noticed he was wearing an unfamiliar civilian merchant uniform. “Captain Morrisby of the RMS Niagara,” the captain introduced himself, with a New Zealand accent. “Our ship was taken by Leipzig on August 20th, just west of Cape Flattery. The Germans used us as a prison ship, and took the entire population of the town of Ucluelet and confined them aboard.” The other men expressed hearty agreement at this point, and attempted to add their bit, but Lock bid them keep their peace. “The German prize crew took us offshore for 24 hours then brought us back today, and landed all back in the town. That would be Niagara just on the horizon there, along with two other auxiliaries.”

“Heading south, by the looks of it,” said Lock. “Where are the German cruisers?”

“We do not know,” said Captain Morrisby. “But I have a hunch.”

 

[YYJ]

1545 hours, Sept 22. HMCS Tees, Newcombe Channel.

“Where are the German cruisers?” asked Lieutenant Lock.

“We do not know,” said Captain Morrisby, of RMS Niagara. “But I have a hunch.”

“Let’s get to that in a minute,” said Brown, revisiting his former role interrogating witnesses at lighthouses and settlements on the Inside Passage, when Rainbow was searching for Nürnberg. He took a small coil-bound notebook from his pocket, and produced a pencil. “Tell us what you know for certain.”

“Both cruisers were here, in this channel, this morning. All of my officers and myself were locked in interior cabins, but some of my men had a good look at the cruiser that came alongside, before they were all moved to leeside accommodations and away from a line of sight. They said she was beaten up something fierce, pumping like the blazes. My dining room staff served the Germans meals, but the Hun kept the waiters isolated from my officers, so I was unable to instruct them on intelligence gathering. The waiters do not have a natural eye for naval detail. The other cruiser came into the Sound at dawn, and came alongside the first. Even the waiters could see that. The second cruiser was reportedly in better shape than the first.”

“Then the Germans brought you back to Ucluelet in lifeboats?” asked Brown.

“In a coaster,” replied Morrisby. “The Princess Sophia, of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.” The Canadian officers nodded to each other.

“Smoke on the horizon is moving away from shore, southward,” called a lookout from overhead.

“What kind of view did you get of the cruisers as you left?” Brown continued.

“None at all,” said Morrisby. “My officers and crew were hurried below decks on boarding the Sophia. The bulk of the Niagara was interposed between us and the cruisers. Some of the civilians were on deck on Sophia, but they did not see much either. I think the ship was handled that way deliberately by the Germans.”

“You said two other auxiliaries,” probed Brown.

“Yes,” said Morrisby. “All yesterday we travelled offshore in company with two freighters. My men had no binoculars, so we could not see names. One of the auxiliaries was described to me as having a center bridge and funnel on her stern castle, so I take that ship for a tanker. Niagara was refueled, with oil, in about this spot on the evening of the 20th. The sound of refueling is unmistakable, and the smell. That oil had to come from somewhere, so it adds up the Hun have a tanker. There is no chance they filled Niagara’s tanks all the way up, in the time they took. Niagara can hold 5000 tons of oil, but we had about 3000 tons in our tanks already, enough for the return voyage to Sydney. Filling those tanks from empty takes 30 hours, and the Hun were only pumping for 5 hours tops.”

Brown scribbled some notes in his pad. “So you went offshore for a day and arrived back, when?” asked Brown.

“Niagara steamed out of the Sound at sunset on the 20th and arrived back just before sunset yesterday, the 21st. My men report us being out of sight from land, for most of that time.”

“And the other auxiliary you saw?” Brown asked.

“I did not see anything myself. There was the small liner, the Princess Sophia. My men also described an oceangoing steam freighter of about 5000 tons. It would seem logical for that ship to be a collier, but I would only be speculating.”

“Since we are now speculating,” continued Brown, “you mentioned you had a hunch earlier.”

“Yes,” said Morrisby. “And I can tell you why. The cruiser that first came alongside Niagara was described to me to be in near sinking condition. My men saw portable pumps on her decks as well as her own pumps. She was burned over and shot full of holes. As soon as she came alongside, all the detainees and prisoners on Niagara were moved to the opposite side of the ship, so not one of us could observe the cruiser. They wanted to hide something.”

“The waiters told me in Ucluelet just now they saw a lot of activity passing between Niagara and the Hun cruiser. I could hear something of the like myself, lots of footsteps. Then I heard Niagara’s steam cranes operating, and heavy objects being placed on her deck, bow and stern. The sound passes through the ship’s frame. They ran those cranes all night and into the morning. I also heard drilling. If you want me to guess what the Hun were up to, I would wager they converted Niagara into a raider, with the salvaged guns from their wounded cruiser. Excellent choice on their part.”

“Could they do that much work in one night?” asked Brown, skeptically.

“Niagara was built to Admiralty specifications,” answered Morrisby, “with pre-strengthened mounts for eight 6 inch guns. That would explain the cranes and the drilling. I expect once the Hun fitted Niagara out to their liking, they scuttled their wreck of a cruiser. That is what I would do if I were them.”

“Hmmm,” pondered Brown. “That makes sense. But could all of the German actions be an elaborate ruse? A distraction while they repaired the cruiser? Could some of the damage your men saw be a ruse as well?”

“I suppose anything is possible,” said Morrisby.

“Well, something looks to have been scuttled in the Sound,” conceded Brown, winding up his interrogation. “We found floating wreckage. Some was undeniably from the Princess Sophia.”

“We were headed to Sechart Whaling Station,” said the fisherman who operated the boat, “or failing that, Port Alberni. Trying to find a working telegraph. But now you are here, there is no need.”

Tees came underway again, and the fishboat followed. The small liner entered Ucluelet harbour to a crowd cheering from the government wharf and the waterfront. The Canadian Red Ensign and Union Jack were waved. A duo played Rule Britannia on coronet and trombone. The citizens were even more elated when they discovered that the steamer was carrying supplies for the town. The population had been back home long enough to notice that their store shelves where completely bare. Tees swung out her derricks and began to unload.

The party of militia from the 50th Gordon Highlanders disembarked and marched down the government wharf into the town. A pair of local girls, sisters, in white dresses, showered the soldiers with flung Rhododendron petals.

An officious looking young man approached Brown noticing his rank. “The Hun took away, must be 200 yards of telegraph wire,” he said. “And the transmitting key and all the gear. My guess is they threw it into the chuck. Same with the wireless at the lifeboat station.”

Brown was still doggedly trying to construct an intelligence picture for Esquimalt, and interviewed a number of townsfolk, crew, and passengers from Niagara. Their experiences agreed with what Captain Morrisby described. For the passengers and crew from Niagara, that meant capture at sea by Leipzig on the morning of the 20th, then confinement. Some passengers had seen the ship being refueled by an oil tanker, in Barclay Sound, and had noticed a smaller German warship patrolling. Some had also seen a cruiser come alongside Niagara the night of the 21st, in the dark but lit by searchlights, before the passengers and crew were relocated to cabins facing away.

“That was a different cruiser that the one who captured us,” insisted one of Niagara’s bridge crew. “We got a good long look at Leipzig as she was chasing us down. The bow of the cruiser we saw on the night of the 21st was clearly different, despite all the damage. And near sinking, she was.”

“Did you see any signs of torpedo damage?” asked Brown.

“The cruiser was low in the water, but I saw nothing specifically that looked like a hit from a torpedo,” he answered.

The civilians from Ucluelet described being surprised by the arrival of the Princess Charlotte on the afternoon on the 20th, and then even more surprised when German sailors emerged and rounded them up at bayonet point. They reported seeing, from inside their temporary prison in Saint Aiden’s On The Hill, two German cruisers coaling from a steam freighter in Ucluelet’s outer harbour basin, the captured and, now that they had time to look, armed, Princess Charlotte filling her tanks from an oil tanker, and another small German warship patrolling. They had also seen the tall funnels and masts of Niagara passing by the harbour mouth. A boy standing on his brother’s shoulders so he could see out the tall church window had reported down, to the breathless questions of his whole community.

“After the Germans dropped us off around 10:30 this morning, and the Princess Sophia left,” said the Anglican Minister, “we sent a party running to Amphitrite Point to watch what the Hun were up to.”

“A cruiser left the Sound at 1100 hours, said a fisherman. She made a dash for the horizon, headed west. Then at 1400 hours, the Niagara and the other two auxiliaries headed south, in company.”

“Niagara slowed by keeping in convoy with the other two,” said one of Niagara’s crew. “That was their smoke you saw on the horizon when you arrived.”

“And what of the other cruiser?” asked Brown, “The damaged one. The one we think is Nürnberg?”

“Either she left without a trace in the time between us leaving Niagara and the time we posted watch on Amphitrite Point,” said the fisherman.

“Or she never left at all,” said Niagara’s crewman.

The shopkeepers had returned to find their premises plundered, as if the occupying Germans had been provisioning for a long journey.

“They robbed the whole town blind,” said one shopkeeper.

“Well, they did pay for it,” said another.

“Paid?” exclaimed Brown, incredulously.

“Oh yes, with Canadian cash, on the barrelhead,” said a third shopkeeper.

“It had to be on the barrelhead,” said the second shopkeeper. “On account of all of us being locked up. Ha! Actually, they paid quite well. Retail, when they should have paid wholesale for that volume.” He paused to consider. “Now don’t you government folks think of confiscating our profits for some tomfool reason!” he accused Brown.

Brown raised his hands innocently and stepped back.

“Still,” said the first shopkeeper, “it’s not right.”

The militiamen took up positions in the town to act as a garrison.

Brown conferred with Lock. “We have a fine post-mortem of what transpired in Ucluelet, and some educated guesses, but we have no hard evidence of the whereabouts of Nürnberg, or the disposition of Niagara. Is she outfitted as a commerce raider, or simply a supply ship.”

“Yes, that is troubling,” agreed Lock.

“Smoke!” called Tees’s lookout. Soon, another vessel arrived in the harbour. This proved to be CGS Alcedo, carrying another militia detachment. She also tied up at the government dock. While the lieutenants of the 50th Gordons and the 88th Fusiliers units engaged in acrimonious discussion about who was in command, Brown and Alcedo’s Naval Reservist commander exchanged what they had learned about the situations in Bamfield and Ucluelet, and sent Brown’s report to Esquimalt via Alcedo’s wireless.

At 1800 hours Tees cast off from Ucluelet’s government wharf, carrying 200 or so crew and another hundred of Niagara’s passengers, making up the last leg of the New Zealand liner’s interrupted voyage to Canada. Several of the passengers and their children had become such fast friends with the townsfolk of Ucluelet that they had decided to remain for an extended visit. The rest of the New Zealanders planned to meet the train from Port Alberni to Nanaimo, and on to Victoria.

The sun was getting low in the western sky as Tees retraced her course, and the shadows were getting long over the Sound. Brown thought he heard a gunshot, faint over the noise of Tee’s machinery. “Did you hear that,” he asked Lock. Then he heard another. Were they under attack?

Brown swept the Sound with his binoculars. On a small tree covered island to the south he saw some movement. Three men were standing on top of a rocky cliff waving frantically. One raised a rifle and fired another shot in the air. Brown saw the muzzle flash a moment before he heard the report. He pointed at the island.

“I see them,” said Lock. “They look to be wearing militia uniforms. Sound the horn.”

“That is Hankin Island,” said Tees’s captain. “Not much more than a rock. What are they doing there?” A couple more men in civilian nautical gear had now joined the militiamen. All were waving. When they heard the Tees sound her horn, and saw her slow and begin to turn towards them, there was much rejoicing.

Tees came to a stop in the Channel and lowered her cutter to fetch the men. Brown went ashore with the boat crew. The 3 militiamen and 2 fishermen emerged from the dark forest like primeval creatures, and clambered down the steep rocks to meet the boat at the water’s edge. “Water!” was all the first man to arrive at the boat seemed able to say. The boat crew managed to produce some canteens, and the castaways guzzled from them until they were satiated. Brown noticed the remains of a wooden launch, burned and sunk, in the small cove. Each of the militiamen still carried his Ross rifle, one of the fishermen wore a pair of binoculars on a strap. The rescued castaways pulled themselves up into Tees’s cutter. The crew helped, as the men seemed weak and unsteady.

“Have not eaten for two days,” said one of the militiamen. The boat crew found an apple and a piece of beef jerky between them, cut each into 5 pieces and distributed them.

“Tees has a galley,” assured Brown, “We can feed you. Tell me, how did you end up marooned on that island?” he asked, then added, “when you are ready to talk.” The cutter pulled away from shore and the oarsmen turned and rowed back towards Tees.

“We came from the Bamfield garrison, the morning of the 20th, ordered to go investigate Ucluelet,” said a corporal. “I get the feeling the officer who gave those orders thought he was just trying to placate some nervous Nellie, and we were chasing an empty rumour. Boy was he wrong.” He took another swig of water. One of Tee’s sailors produced a flask. “Ah, now you’re talking,” the corporal smiled. He took a shot, and passed the flask amongst his men. They were greatly revived.

“We ran into a German patrol boat,” the corporal continued, “then a bigger one.”

“The bigger one he is talking about was the CGS Galiano,” said the fisherman with the binoculars. “The Hun didn’t even bother painting her name out, but she was flying the Hun flag.”

“So it was a chase, and a shoot-out,” continued the corporal. “We made it to shore here, but they sank the launch with their cannon and machineguns. That left us in a stand-off. The Hun had the heavier weapons, we had cover and high ground. They left. No water on that island, and no food.”

Not even any fishing gear,” said the fisherman. “Lots of shade though, I suppose that is a blessing. We weren’t going to swim back to Bamfield, so the only thing we had to do was sit and watch Newcombe Channel.”

“The Hun were coming and going from Ucluelet all afternoon that day, and more arrived around 1400 hours,” said the corporal. “They brought an ocean liner, too big to enter the harbour, and a tanker, as well as Galiano. That was all we saw on the 20th.”

“You saw no cruisers?” asked Brown.

“Not that day, no,” said the corporal. “Next morning, yesterday, the Malaspina showed up at first light, looking the same as the Hun Galiano, but flying the Red Ensign. She went into Ucluelet, then left again. We heard a battle a bit later yesterday morning, in the distance. It lasted for a while, lots of naval gunfire. I guess in the excitement, Bamfield forgot about us.”

“Or figured were dead already,” said the fisherman.

“Then we heard some more naval guns in the early evening yesterday. The tanker and the big liner and another ship came back into Newcombe Channel in the last light. Anchored not 2000 yards from us. Right over there. Any closer we could have shot at them with our rifles. Could hear the Hun voices over the water. Then around midnight they all turned on their lights and a cruiser shows up, all shot to pieces and listing.”

“Streams of water pouring out everywhere,” said the fisherman, “never seen a ship being pumped as hard. We could smell the burned ship over the water. Terrible smell.”

“From then it was just like a shipyard, all night long,” said the corporal. “Lit up bright and the cranes working.” They took the guns off the cruiser, one by one, and put them on the liner. A bunch of other stuff too. At dawn, this is dawn today, a second cruiser appears and ties up with the lot. They exchange ammunition, and the second cruiser got two torpedoes transferred over.”

“Torpedoes,” said Brown.

“Oh yeah. The ships were right there.” The fisherman patted his binoculars, and pointed at a patch of water, now visible around the west end of Hankin Island as the cutter approached Tees. “We could smell their cooking. Bacon.” The militiamen laughed and groaned. “We were getting pretty hungry by that point. The name on the bow of the liner was Niagara. The tanker was the Desalba. The other freighter left at first light, it was too dark then to read her name.”

“At some point the Princess Sophia shows up, flying a Hun flag,” said the Corporal. “She goes in and out of Ucluelet like a harbour ferry. The Hun had a big funeral, we could hear the whole thing, then they scuttled the damaged cruiser...”

“Scuttled the cruiser?” interrupted Brown.

“You heard me,” said the Corporal, “1100 hours the remaining cruiser buggered off. Then they scuttled the Sophia, and the rest of them vamoosed. Just before you got here. We saw you pass by on your way to Ucluelet, but you were too far away and didn’t hear our signal shots.”

The cutter arrived back alongside Tees. The militia and fishermen climbed up the ship’s side, while the sailors rigged to boat to be lifted back onto the davits. Brown followed them. Lock met the recovered castaways at the ship’s rail.

“Tell him what you told me,” Brown said to the Corporal.

“What part?” asked the Corporal.

“Nürnberg scuttled, Niagara fitted out as a warship,” said Brown. “German ships all headed out to sea.”

“Yeah,” agreed the Corporal. He turned to address Lock. “Can we get some grub, sir? We are all famished.”

Lock nodded in the affirmative, and gestured towards Tees’s forward superstructure.

The two officers looked west. That faint patch of smoke on the horizon that had marked the location of the departing Germans had disappeared.

“Well,” said Brown to Lock. “I suppose that’s it.”

Modern Panorama of Newcombe Channel from Seachart Lodge, on the site of Sechart Whaling Station. https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.9564...59-ro-0-fo100!7i12000!8i6000?hl=en&authuser=0

Hankin Island. Zoom out for relative position to other locations described

Sechart Lodge · Alberni-Clayoquot, BC V0R 2B0, Canada

★★★★★ · Lodge

www.google.ca

 

[YYJ]

Sept 8, 1914. Guaymas, Mexico.
After a sea voyage of 17 days and 1800 nautical miles since she evaded HIJMS Izumo off the British Columbia coast, Leipzig met with a chartered collier SS Mazatlan at Guaymas, Mexico. Mazatlan was arranged by the efforts of the German legation in San Francisco, and was released to sail by American authorities with 500 tons of coal only after the objections of British diplomats had been exhausted, and the German consul posted a large bond. Another German collier, SS Marie, brought more coal. Liepzig loaded 930 tons of coal from lighters and railway cars. The pilots Heinrich and Herman Meuller, and the former Vancouver Trade Commissioner Augustus Meyer disembarked in Guaymas, and vanished anonymously into the maelstrom that was revolutionary Mexico. Leipzig continued south in company with SS Marie.

Sept 11.
80 nautical miles west of Puerto Vallarta. Leipzig encountered the 6500 ton SS Elsinore, a tanker owned by the Bear Creek Oil and Shipping Company of Liverpool. Elsinore was travelling in ballast from Corinto to San Luis Obispo, Calfornia. Leipzig stopped and boarded Elsinore, took off her crew, loaded any useful stores, including Elsinore’s boats, onto the Marie, and sank Elsinore with gunfire. Elsinore’s captured crew passed their time on Marie filling coal transfer bags, at their regular rate of pay.

Sept 17-18. Galapagos Islands.
Leipzig arrived and anchored at Tagus Cove, Atternave Island. Loaded 500 tons of coal from Marie. Admiral Von Spee’s standing orders encouraged the warships of the East Asiatic Squadron to coal wherever and whenever they could, so the ships would be topped up for action.

Sept 25. Gulf of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Leipzig stopped and boarded SS Bankfields, a British Steamer of 3763 tons. Bankfields was carrying 9 tons of copper and 5900 tons of sugar. Crew removed, and the freighter sunk by gunfire.

Sept 26. Off Ecuador.
Leipzig searched for more Entente merchant ships, but a shipping stop had been imposed and no prizes were to be had.

Sept 28. Lobos de Afuera Islands, Peru.
Leipzig coaled from Kosmos liner Amasis.

Oct 2, 1914.
Leipzig received a wireless message from SMS Dresden MY POSITION IS MAS A FUERRA ISLAND STOP INTEND TO PROCEED TO EASTER ISLAND TO MAKE CONTACT WITH CRUSIER GROUP STOP

Oct 3, Galapagos Islands.
Leipzig coaled from Kosmos liners Amasis and Abessinia.

Oct 14, Easter Island.
Leipzig rendezvoused with Admiral Maximilian Von Spee in Scharnhorst, with Gneisenau, Dresden and auxiliaries the Kosmos liners Anubis, Amasis, and Karnak. Haun met with Von Spee, described the exploits of Nürnberg and Leipzig in British Columbia, delivered a letter from Captain Von Schönberg commending the skill and bravery of Von Spee’s younger son Otto, and informed the admiral that Otto went missing in action on August 21. This information was shared with the Admiral’s eldest son, Heinrich, on Gniesenau. Admiral Von Spee promoted Haun and Fregettenkapitan Fritz Lüdecke of Dresden to the ranks of Kapitan sur Zee.

Oct 18,
Reunified East Asia Squadron left Easter Island for western coast of South America.

Oct 26-27, Mas a Fuera Island.
Von Spee’s cruiser squadron, including Leipzig, met the armed Norddeutscher Lloyd liner SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich, and the German merchant ships SS Yorke and Göttingen. Somewhere around this time Leipzig captured the French 4-masted barque Valentine, with a cargo of coal. Prinz Eitel Friedrich took Valentine in tow, and several days later burnt her at Mas a Fuera Island, after transferring the cargo. Squadron escorted SS Yorke and Göttingen to Chile.

Oct 30.
East Asia Squadron arrives at Valparaiso, Chile. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Dresden entered port. Since Article 15 of the Haugue 1907 Treaty 13 limited the number of belligerent warships that can enter a neutral port at one time to 3, Leipzig remained outside of the roadstead of Valparaiso, keeping a watch picket. Later, when the first batch of ships left port, Leipzig took her turn and provisioned. Among other actions, Haun handed over to the German consul in Valparaiso 50 pounds of gold, 450 pounds of silver, and 3 metal boxes full of Canadian currency, that had been seized by Von Schönberg in Nürnberg, from the offices of the Canadian mine in Anyox, British Columbia.

Oct 31. Coronel, Chile.
Göttingen was anchored in Coronel harbor when the light cruiser HMS Glasgow came into port to contact the British Consul and get mail. Göttingen sent the news by wireless to Von Spee. East Asiatic Squadron departed Valparaiso and deployed in an attempt to ambush Glasgow. All German warships were using Leipzig’s wireless callsign as a counter-intelligence ruse.

1617 hours, Nov 1, off Coronel, Chile.
Leipzig spotted smoke, which proved to be Rear Admiral Cristopher Cradock’s cruiser squadron. Both naval forces believed they were stalking a single ship, and were surprised to encounter the other full-strength squadron. Weather conditions were rough at Strength 6, and seas mountainous, such that the armoured cruisers, by virtue of their bulk, were able to maintain a faster speed than the smaller displacement light cruisers.

1905 hours, Nov 1.
Just after sunset, The Battle of Coronel was joined. The two squadrons steamed south in line ahead formation. Leipzig was trailing and struggled to join the rear of Von Spee’s line. A Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser, HMS Otranto, turned away and fled to the west almost immediately as the firing started, being out of her league in a battle between warships. The battle lasted several hours, spanning sunset, twilight and darkness, but was decided in the first few salvos. The Royal Navy armoured cruisers HMS Good Hope and Monmouth were beaten into oblivion by the 21 cm guns of Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau. Dresden and HMS Glasgow fought an inconclusive exchange at the back of the line, with Glasgow turning away when it became apparent that her efforts were hopeless. Good Hope exploded and sank with all hands, and Monmouth was lost in the darkness, down by the bow, listing heavily to port, and in danger of foundering. Leipzig blundered into Monmouth in this condition, in the dark, while she was trying to rejoin the German line.

Haun approached Monmouth from the starboard side where the surviving British guns could not train, and attempted a torpedo attack. The torpedo missed. Leipzig then fired several salvos into Monmouth’s waterline. The British cruiser was unable to respond, but her ensigns still flew. Haun ordered his searchlight be played across Monmouth’s flapping ensigns, so as to invite surrender, but the British refused to strike their colours. A second torpedo shot, fired from 500 meters, struck home, and the battered Monmouth capsized and sank. Sea conditions made it impossible to launch boats, but Leipzig closed on the rapidly sinking British cruiser and her crew managed to pull 3 survivors from the freezing ocean before all were lost.

Nov 3, Valparaiso, Chile.
The victorious East Asiatic squadron entered the harbor and were feted by the celebrating German community. Von Spee was taciturn at the reception in the German Club of Valparaiso, and instead of celebrating the defeat of Craddock, he praised the bravery of the British sailors. His mood was buoyed somewhat when the German consul presented him with an American newspaper containing an article describing the internment of the German raider SMS Prinzessin Charlotte in Washington State and informed him that his son Otto was alive in the United States. Von Spee also received orders via the consul to return to Germany. The 3 British prisoners of war were placed on the auxiliary Norddeutscher Lloyd liner SS Seydlitz.

Nov 6, Mas a Fuera Island.
The Squadron arrived and coaled from auxiliaries.

Nov 15, Bahia San Quentin, Chile.
The Squadron arrived. Von Spee presented 300 Iron Crosses, Second Class, to crewmen at a ceremony. Von Spee himself received an Iron Cross First Class. The intelligence picture was unclear, with reports of British warships all about.

Nov 26,
the Squadron left for Cape Horn, in order to pass into the Atlantic. Some strong weather was encountered.

Dec 2, Staten Island, Chile, off Cape Horn.
Leipzig captured 1800 ton sailing vessel Drummuir, and her cargo of anthracite coal. The Drummuir was taken to Picton Island, the cargo transferred to the German colliers SS Baden and Santa Isabel, and the crew transferred to the Seydlitz.

Dec 6, Picton Island, Chile.
The Squadron raised anchor and traveled east.

Dec 8, Falkland Islands
Von Spee attacked the British coal and wireless station at Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. The tables were turned when it was revealed that Royal Navy warships were present. The warships proved to be a squadron commanded by Admiral Doveton Sturdee, with the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and Inflexible, armoured cruisers Kent, Cornwall, and Carnarvon, the light cruisers Glasgow and Bristol, the armed merchant cruiser Macedonia, and the ancient and broken down battleship Canopus run aground as a guard ship.

Von Spee fled, and a long stern chase ensued, but the weather was fine, and the British had all day to catch up. Von Spee detached the light cruisers and ordered them to try and escape. In what became later called the Battle of the Falkland Islands, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were sunk by the battle cruisers. Dresden, the fastest German cruiser and turbine powered, managed to escape to the west. The auxiliary liner Seydlitz evaded the warships and escaped. The colliers Baden and Santa Isabel were stopped by Bristol and Macedonia and later scuttled.

Leipzig was pursued by Kent and Cornwall. The German light cruiser should have been the fastest of the three, but her engines and boilers were tired, and Kent managed to reach her trials speed in the chase. The matter was decided when Glasgow gave up chasing Dresden and rejoined the scrum on Leipzig. By around 2100 hours, Leipzig had been reduced to a drifting, burning wreck, and had expended all her ammunition. Only 100 or so men survived to sing the Imperial anthem, and prepare to abandon ship. The Imperial Ensign still flew, although it was unclear if this gesture was made in defiance, or if the intense fires on deck prevented crewmen from reaching the halyards. It is also unclear whether, when Glasgow fired on the men assembled on Leipzig’s deck awaiting rescue, if this action was taken out of confusion regarding Leipzig’s still-flying ensign, and thus her surrender status, or whether it was in revenge for the deaths of Good Hope’s and Monmouth’s crews at Coronel. Leipzig fired flares to signal surrender, and 18 of her crew were saved by Glasgow. The rest went down with the ship, including Haun.

Leipzig at Guaymas

SMS Leipzig at Guaymas, 1914

Here we see the Bremen class cruiser SMS Leipzig at Guaymas, Mexico, on 8 September 1914, soon after the outbreak of the First World War

www.historyofwar.org

NPGallery SAFR Archive Asset Detail

npgallery.nps.gov

SS Elsinore

Elsinore 1913

Tanker Elsinore 1913 Swan Hunter Wigham Richardson Wallsend

www.tynebuiltships.co.uk

SS Bankfields

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?17905

SV Valentine

https://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?154018

SV Drummuir

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?17929

 

[YYJ]

Aug 22, 1400 hours. Barclay Sound.

NEW SHIP IS IZUMO WILL DRAW OFF TO THE WEST IF WE ARE ABLE GOD SAVE THE KAISER, had been the last message Haun had sent before Leipzig disappeared westward.

Niagara left Barclay Sound when Von Schönberg was satisfied that Haun had enough time to lure Izumo away and over the horizon. The wireless operator was keeping track of the interference caused by Leipzig’s jamming. The signal gradually faded, and continued to do so. The last sight the crew had of Canada, at around 1700 hours, was the cloud that gathered around the highest peaks of Vancouver Island. Niagara travelled in company with the tanker Desalba and collier Bengrove.

Von Schönberg was irritated at having to remain in convoy with these slow ships, and wished to detach them as soon as possible. Desalba and Bengrove were capable of dashes of up to 13 knots, when required, but for regular operations were best limited to 10 knots. Niagara was designed as a fast Trans-Pacific liner, and could maintain 18 knots for weeks at a time, and often had when plying her pre-war route of Sydney-Aukland-Vancouver. When the sunset and then complete darkness arrived on the August 22, and the Izumo had not appeared, Von Schönberg breathed a sigh of relief.

Aug 26, 300 Nautical Miles off Oregon

Von Schönberg kept his convoy well off shore, and only crossed shipping lanes in a perpendicular track. They had gotten some rain on the 23rd, and the sky had been overcast at times, as summer in the norther hemisphere faded into autumn. Once well away from shipping lanes, the crew was set to work building a wood and canvas target. When finished, the target was towed behind Bengrove.

The gunners of the East Asiatic Squadron knew their trade, but Von Schönberg wanted to familiarize the men with the characteristics of the guns on their new mounts on Niagara’s deck. Still he allowed only 5 rounds of practice per gun, for a total of 30 shells. Even this expenditure of ammunition agonized him, as he counted down towards zero their remaining supply. As it turned out, the gun in P1 position, the forwardmost gun on Niagara’s port foc’sle, was found to have a damaged breech block that jammed in the open position after the first shot and refused to budge. Consequently, only 26 shells ended up being fired that day. The shooting was satisfactory, but suffered from not having a central rangefinder.

“I intend to vanish for a while,” Von Schönberg told his officers. “And reappear again where not expected. In the meantime, we will practice some guile. We can build a false funnel or two with the hardware we loaded in Ucluelet, and take on the guise of an Entente liner.”

“You can,” observed Saxonia’s former captain wryly, “but I don’t know what good it will do you. Half of the 4 funnel liners in the world are German. Of the rest, they are Cunard and White Star giants, dwarfing even this ship. And they all operate exclusively in the Atlantic.”

“Hmm,” considered Von Schönberg, slightly deflated. “Apparently I do not know my merchant vessels. What about three funnel liners?”

“Most of those are German as well,” said Saxonia’s former captain, “like the Imperator and the Bismark.” The Hamburg Amerika captain considered the question for a moment. “There are the French Gallia and Lutetia. Of the Sud-Atlantique Line. They do the Buenos Aires run, so with wartime disruptions could conceivably round the Horn and end up in the Pacific. Sud-Atlantique also has the Burdigala as well, with three funnels. That’s what the Frogs renamed the Kaiser Freidrich when they bought her from HAPAG. That ship was a great disappointment, I can tell you. Gallia and Lutetia are funny looking ships. The number one funnel sits almost on top of the bridge.”

“Then the Anchor Line has the Columbia,” Saxonia’s former captain continued. “The Brits will probably turn her into an armed merchant cruiser when they get around to it.”

“I know the Russian navy has a training ship Okean, with 3 funnels, sir,” said Lieutenant Riediger. “I saw her in the Baltic. She looks like a liner. Somewhat smaller than Niagara.”

“There are scores if not hundreds of liners from all nations with two funnels,” said Saxonia’s former captain.

Aug 27-29, 300 NM off Oregon, and Northern California.

Niagara’s crew spent the days of calm bright weather building a secure area of the accommodations to contain interned crews, repainting the ship in the livery of Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique, and building a false funnel directly on top of the wheelhouse. The upperworks were painted white one deck lower than The Union Steamship Line colours, and a large red cockerel was painted on each funnel, and the Tricolore was raised.

September 2. 300 NM and Northern California.

Niagara detaches Desalba and Bengrove to linger to her north, and heads for the San Francisco-Honolulu shipping lane.

September 4. 400 NM off San Francisco.

Niagara encounters a storm that knocks over her false funnel.

September 6-8, 400 NM off San Francisco.

Niagara’s crew rebuilds the false funnel and returns to the San Francisco-Honolulu shipping lane.

September 12, 500 NM off San Francisco.

Niagara encountered and boarded the 1900 ton Australian steamer SS Urilla, of the Adelaide Steamship Company, carrying a cargo of wool and bully beef. Her log indicated that she had been bound for the Panama Canal, but had redirected to San Francisco to avoid the reported position of Leipzig off the Mexican coast. Niagara took her crew of 28, ships papers and newspapers, and Afghan hound mascot aboard, and sank Urilla with demolition charges. As the scuttling was irrevocably underway, another steamship arrived on the scene.

The SS Minnesotan, a 6600 GRT freighter of Hawaiian-American Steamship Company, intervened in what her captain thought was a fire and rescue at sea. Too late he realized the actual situation, but by then was only a mile away from Niagara and the foundering Urilla. Minnesotan was a neutral, and an American at that, the very kind of meeting that Von Schönberg was most seeking to avoid. Still, now that there was no choice in the matter, Von Schönberg took decisive action, jammed the airwaves, and ordered Minnesotan to stop and receive boarders. He went along with the boarding party himself.

The Minnesotan’s captain protested that he was a neutral ship with a neutral cargo. Von Schönberg apologized. “I am truly not any happier about this than you, captain,” said the German. “I have no quarrel with our friends the United Sates of America. But I cannot allow my position to be reported. I must purchase your wireless set, at market value, so that you will not be tempted to give our location and description once we pass over the horizon.” A negotiation ensued, and Von Schönberg was shocked at what he ended up paying to relieve the American of his wireless, but he shook hands with the Minnesotan’s captain paid promptly and in full, in crisp Canadian dollars from the Anyox strongbox. The boarding party reported that Minnesotan was carrying a cargo of sugar and pineapples from Honolulu to San Francisco, confirming that the cargo as well as the ships flag was neutral and in no way contraband. The German sailors transferred the Australian crew and their dog to the American ship, and bid them good day.

From the Minnesotan’s officers, Von Schönberg learned that there was an Entente shipping stop on the west coast of the Americas, due to the proximity of Leipzig. From the newspapers and wireless logs from Urilla, he learned that SMS Geier had captured a British freighter SS Southport off the German island colony of Kosrae, on September 4th, but the Brit had somehow managed to get away and report the old gunboat. He also learned that the German wireless station at Yap and the colony of German Samoa had fallen to a mixed force of Australians and New Zealanders, their troop ships escorted by most of the Royal Navy and French warships in the Pacific theatre.

Von Schönberg watched the Minnesotan depart. He figured that at 10 knots the American freighter would take at least 50 hours to reach San Francisco and tell their story, but at the rate that Minnesotan reached the horizon the navigator figured she was making at least 15 knots.

“This area is not going to be profitable to us,” Von Schönberg concluded. He set a course to the south and west, and called by wireless for the Desalba and Bengrove to follow, at a distance. His transmissions in German merchant code must have carried some distance, for he received a wireless message in similar code shortly after.

HAPAG SS ALEXANDRIA IN SAN FRANCISCO HARBOUR REPORTS HMS NEWCASTLE HIJMS IZUMO AND COLLIER AT PORT SAN BARTOLOME MEXICO

“Unprofitable, and too hot as well,” said Von Schönberg. “Onward.”

SS Urilla

Screw Steamer URILLA built by Sir Raylton Dixon & Co. in 1907 for Adelaide S.S. Co. Ltd., Port Adelaide, Cargo

Screw Steamer URILLA built by Sir Raylton Dixon & Co. in 1907 for Adelaide S.S. Co. Ltd., Port Adelaide, Cargo 23/08/1937 shelled and sunk by Japanese warships at Nantao.

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SS Minnesotan

SS Minnesotan - Wikipedia

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[YYJ]

1100 hours, August 25, HIJMS Izumo, Esquimalt Naval Dockyard

“Civilian Death Toll in Vancouver Rises to 6 as Bodies of Drover and Pipe Fitter Discovered among Ruins of Lonsdale Shipyard. Provincial Total of Civilian Dead Reaches 18. Swanson Bay Hit Hardest With 4 Confirmed and 7 Presumed Dead.”

“Military Casualties Censored, But Expected to Number Well Over 100. Militia and Navy Suffer in Fierce Fighting. Russian Allies Also Pay High Price with Over 100 Dead in Prince Rupert Battle.”

“Rolling Blackouts and Streetcar Closures expected until at least the New Year, Says BC Electric Railway Spokesman. Buntzen Lake Power Plants Beyond Repair.”

“It’s a Miracle! Distraught North Vancouver Family Overjoyed as Missing Toddler Returns Unharmed. 2 Year Old Reportedly Spent 3 Days Hiding in Woods With Family Dog.”

Headlines. Vancouver Sun, August 24 afternoon edition.

“Granby Mining and Smelting Company Announces that Anyox mill will be rebuilt. Until Facilities Operational, Ore from Hidden Creek and Bonanza mines will be Shipped by Barge and Rail to the Company’s Smelter in Grand Forks.”

“Steamship Travel to Vancouver and Beyond Sporadic as CPR, GTP Lines deal with Shortage of Vessels.”

“Britain’s Army in Strong Position, Withstands Attack of Enemy. Forts at Liege Still Defended. Begin Blockade of Tsingtao—British French and Russian War Vessels taking Part, German Garrison Makes Defensive Preparations.

Headlines. Victoria Daily Colonist, August 25 morning edition.

The yard launch approached the recently arrived giant armoured cruiser His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Izumo. The cruiser sat anchored in the middle of Esquimalt harbour. Around her, steam tugs of all shapes and sizes were busy working. To the south, the requisitioned steam tug SS Lorne was spraying her fire hoses on the collapsed wreck of the Naval Coal wharf. Steam still rose from the mounds of coal piled on the shoreline, 4 days after they had first been set alight.

A crane was clearing wreckage from the Yarrows Shipyard on the east shore. At the Graving Dock, portable pumps landed from half a dozen salvage tugs, the main pumps of the tug SS Madge, and a steam powered fire pump engine were dewatering the dock, in lieu of the drydock pumphouse, which had taken a direct hit. The wreck of SS Prince Albert sat on the bottom of the dock. Workers were cutting down her masts to reduce topweight.

The tall sides of the Japanese cruiser loomed above the oily debris strewn water, as the yard launch approached. Turrets and casemates bristled with guns over the heads of the Canadian delegation.

“Just as soon as this war ends,” Premier McBride said in an aside to Captain Trousdale, “we shall find Japan in complete control of the Pacific.”

“And at the moment,” replied Trousdale, “They seem to have saved our bacon.”

Captain Walter Hose ran his eyes over the Japanese ship and made difficult to interpret grunting noises. “Rainbow had two 6 inch guns as her main armament,” he said. “This ship has seven per broadside, and that is only her secondaries.”

“Built in Newcastle-upon-Tyne,” said Trousdale.

The yard launch bumped up against Izumo’s landing stage, and the men were greeted by Japanese sailors arranging to tie the boat alongside, and a tall Japanese officer.

“You are early,” said the Japanese officer.

The Canadian officers and McBride climbed up onto the landing stage. Hose was walking with a cane, but refused any help. When the Canadians arrived at deck level, it was clear they had indeed arrived early. Japanese sailors were rushing to erect an awning over the afterdeck, but were waved away by an officer and quickly concealed the canvas and rigging. Members of Izumo’s ship’s band appeared, with their instruments, in ones and twos.

The first notes of collected brass instruments sounded from behind the Canadian delegation. A Canadian band was assembled on the deck of the steam tug SS Maud, their tunics a splash of red on the blue-grey harbour. Ready-or-not, the Japanese sailors sprang to attention. The strains of Kimigayo, the Japanese National Anthem, carried across the waters of Esquimalt. Bagpipes added an otherworldly quality to the already foreign sounding composition.

“The Dockyard’s own Naden Band is busy at the hospital helping with Rainbow’s wounded,” whispered Trousdale to McBride. “This is the Band of the 50th Gordons… Highlanders,” he offered by way of explanation. The Japanese captain appeared on Izumo’s after bridge, still doing up the top buttons on his dress uniform jacket. He quickly pulled on white gloves, and stood at attention. When the anthem was finished, the Gordons’ Band struck up with Gunkan koshinkyoku, the march of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Gordons handled this conventional military march capably.

The members of Izumo’s band continued to file on to the deck and assemble, such that by the time the last chorus of the Gunkan machi trailed off, the Japanese band struck up with God Save the King. The standing at attention continued all around, save for a few stragglers from Izumo’s band arriving and taking their places. Izumo’s band followed the anthem with Heart of Oak, the Royal Canadian Navy (and Royal Navy) March. McBride noticed that Hose was singling along quietly to himself, “We are always ready, steady, boys, steady.”

Once the musical introduction was finished, bowing, saluting, and hand shaking commenced. Captain Moriyama Keizaburo, greeted the Canadian officers and McBride. Immediately the naval officers began to exchange intelligence.

“You are a politician, premier of a Prefecture?” Moriyama asked, wondering why McBride remained at the meeting after the formalities were completed.

“Of the province, yes,” answered McBride.

“He is a very hands-on premier,” offered Trousdale. “He took complete charge of Canadian Defence on the Pacific Coast just after the war started.” Moriyama looked at McBride, curiously.

We were stretched to the breaking point, thought McBride, someone had to step up. And conscious of not wanting to give too much to the Japanese ally he was not inclined to trust, he said, “I just did my bit.”

“The good news is we have coal for you,” said Trousdale. “We are working on getting the graving dock functional again, but that will take several days at least.” As the meeting commenced, the steam tug SS Pilot brought a coal scow alongside Izumo. Once the scow was tied up the Japanese sailors prepared a coaling operation.

"So,” began Moriyama, “my ship chased the Leipzig from Canadian waters on August 22nd, and still had her in sight on the morning of the 23rd, heading south. We have searched for her since then, but were forced to break off and come to Esquimalt for want of coal.”

“We believe Leipzig deliberately led you away,” said Trousdale, “so that their prize supply ships and an armed merchant cruiser could escape.”

“Why was I not told of this?” asked Moriyama.

“You did not communicate with us until this morning,” said Trousdale. “And in any case, we only found out the story half a day after they sailed, when we were interviewing witnesses who were held prisoner at the time. The British Consul in San Francisco inforems us that the steamer SS Mazatlan has been released by American customs after the German Legation payed a bond. Mazatlan is understood by all to be functioning as a collier for German commerce raiders, most likely headed to refuel Leipzig.”

The Canadians and Japanese exchanged intelligence. McBride worried they shared too much. “HMS Newcastle should be arriving August 30,” said Trousdale. “You two will be the Entente squadron on the West Coast of Canada.”

“Five days. Awkward timing,” said Moriyama. “I would prefer to sail earlier, but having a squadron rather than a single ship is advantageous. I will have to consider.”

The Canadians returned to Esquimalt Dockyard. Some surviving buildings had been re-allotted as command offices, tents had been erected, and the banging of hammers announced that temporary huts were under construction. Izumo coaled until 1900 hours, loading the entire contents of the coal scow. Another was brought alongside, but bunkering did not recommence until 0700 the following morning.

Aug 26

By 1400 hours Izumo had finished coaling to her 1500 ton capacity. At the same time, the gates of the graving dock opened, and the blacked hull of SS Prince Albert, showing a number of patches, was towed out of the dock by SS Maud and taken over to Victoria’s Inner Harbour to be scrapped. Captain Moriyama was offered space in the graving dock to care for Izumo’s hull after 10 months at sea. Moriyama did not like that the slow operation of the improvised pump system would keep him captive in the dock, when he was the only Entente warship on the coast. He opted to patrol off Cape Flattery, and Izumo left Esquimalt at 2000 hours.

Aug 30

HMS Newcastle arrived off Esquimalt to much fanfare, and entered the harbour at 1400 hours. Captain Powlett accepted the offer of the graving dock. A better improvised pumping system had reduced the draw down time.

Aug 31

Izumo arrived back from her patrol. Newcastle left the graving dock at 0900 hours, and Izumo took a turn having her hull cleaned, while Newcastle coaled from a scow. A collier SS Aid that had somehow escaped the destruction on the coast, brought a fresh load of coal from a surviving facility in Nanaimo, and joined the squadron as an auxiliary.

Sept 3

Newcastle, Izumo, and SS Aid left Esquimalt for Port San Bartolome, Mexico. As they passed by Royal Roads, the squadron saw on their starboard a barge and tug performing a salvage operation on the shallow wreck of HMCS Rainbow. A 4.7 inch gun was being lowered by an A-frame derrick onto the deck of the barge.

HMS Newcastle

HMS Newcastle (1909) - Wikipedia

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