gear over to the port side. The boats had been refused acceptance by the Navy and had returned to the yard for months of modifications.
I had been at the Danubius yard throughout those alterations. And now, seven years later, I was sitting in the captain’s cabin of one of these boats with a pencil and sheet of paper, trying to remember what had been done. At last I had it: below the cabin a certain lubricating-oil tank had been taken out and moved to the other side of the ship. So far as I could remember the holes in the frames had never been plated in because there was no need for it. It was worth a try. I pulled open the door of the captain’s locker on the starboard side, up against the forward bulkhead, and dragged out a couple of suitcases, then ripped up a sheet of linoleum from the steel deck beneath. Yes, there was an inspection plate as I had expected: a removable section of deck to allow workmen to look inside the ship’s bottom during a major refit and find any sprung rivets before recoating the bilges with rust-proofing compound. It might just be possible . . . I rummaged in the drawer of the captain’s desk and found a clasp-knife with a screwdriver of sorts then returned to the wardrobe floor and got to work on the counter-sunk screws holding the plate in position. They were well rusted in, but after half an hour or so of exertion we had wormed them out and levered up the plate. I lowered my head inside the hole and struck a match. Yes, there was a hole through the bulkhead, about the size of a largish dinner plate. A thin man with very narrow shoulders might just be able to wriggle through into the next compartment of the boat’s bilges, which happened to be below the vestibule at the bottom of the companion ladder where a sentry was now standing to keep guard on us. The vestibule contained several lockers in addition to the officers’ lavatory. If he could then force open the floor of one of the lockers . . . But who would undertake the task? He would need to be a circus contortionist or a human eel. I looked around. Franz Nechledil was the obvious choice: tall, but so thin that he was difficult to see when he stood sideways.
As for Nechledil, in his present predicament he would cheerfully have volunteered to jump into a vat of boiling acid to prove his loyalty to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. But it was still going to be extremely tricky.
He would have to go down into the bilges head-first, we decided, then worm his way through the hole and bend in the middle to come up on the other side. In the end he had to strip himself naked while we smeared him with the contents of a large pot of cold-cream which Klemmer had been taking home to Pola as a present for his wife. Then we lashed a bedsheet about his ankles in order to haul him up if he fainted. He took a pocket torch, and down into the musty blackness he went.
Just as Nechledil’s feet disappeared the key sounded in the lock and the door swung open. Two armed ratings entered and laid hold of me to drag me out to Vackar, who was waiting on deck. Fortunately they were in such a hurry that they failed to notice that they were one prisoner short. Was this it, I thought to myself as they hustled me up the ladder? Was I due to be shot and dumped overboard in order to impress the others? When we were on deck I shook off my captors and stood as straight as I could, rearranging my disordered clothes as I did so.
“Herr Schiffsleutnant Prohaska?” said Vackar.
“Yes, in what may I perhaps be of service to you now that your ruffians have dragged me up on deck?”
“Come with me if you will. I wish to talk with you in private.”
I was tempted to stand on my dignity and refuse. But a rifle muzzle stuck into the small of one’s back is the most pressing of invitations, and in any case the longer I kept the ringleaders of this mutiny preoccupied the longer Nechledil and the rest would have to break out of their prison.
Vackar led me to the fo’c’sle crew-space and shut the door after bidding the two ratings stand guard outside. He sat down at the mess table and indicated that I should do the same. I considered standing, but felt that I could talk better with him sitting down. He seemed very anxious to speak with me.
“Care for a cigarette, Herr Schiffsleutnant? They belonged to Herr Leutnant Strnadl, but he won’t be needing them now.”
“In that case, no thank you. I don’t touch stolen property.”
“Please yourself. You don’t mind if I light up, do you?”
“Feel free.” He lit his cigarette, and turned to face me across the table. “Look here, Prohaska . . .”
“ ‘Herr Schiffsleutnant,’ if you please . . .”
“Prohaska: you’re not in a position to get on your high horse. Look, I’ll come straight with you: I’m inviting you to join us.”
“Join mutineers and murderers ? You must be out of your mind. But why on earth do you think that I’d want to join you anyway?”
“You’re a Czech like Eichler and me, and I think it’s high time you began to consider where your real interests lie.”
“Perhaps you ought to have done some thinking about where your best interests lie—or, rather, lay, since as far as I can see it’s far too late for it now. Mutiny, murder, desertion to the enemy and offering violence to your superiors are all death-penalty offences.”
“So they shoot me four times if they catch me? Come off it: we’re within thirty miles of Italian waters now and it’ll be starting to get dark in an hour. No, we’ll make sure they don’t catch us—one way or another. I think I ought to warn you though that Eichler’s talking of shooting you one by one as hostages if they come after us. He’s a much harder nut than I am, as I think you may already have noticed.”
“But if you’re so sure of reaching the Italian side before nightfall why should it matter to you whether I join you or not?”
“Partly concern for your own long-term interests . . .”
“Thank you. I’m most touched.”
“. . . And partly concern for ours.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a flying-boat overhead half an hour ago, and it certainly wasn’t Italian. The Wireless Operator managed to get a message off before we took control of the ship. Also the boilers are in bad shape.”
“Why are you telling me all this? You’re beginning to sound as if you aren’t quite so sure of getting to Italy after all.”
He was silent for a few moments. “It’s the stokers down in the engine room. They can’t make up their minds whether to join us or not and they’re just dawdling, waiting to see what happens. If we could get an officer to tell them to do it they’d certainly come over to us and put their backs into it. They’re mostly Croat peasants and used to doing what they’re told.”
“I see. But why should I come over to you? If I don’t your friend Eichler might shoot me and tip me overboard like Fregattenleutnant Strnadl; but if that doesn’t happen the worst I can expect is a spell in an Italian prison camp.”
“Because you’re a Czech like us, that’s why, you and your pilot.”
“I’m sorry; I may have been born a Czech but I became an officer of the House of Austria a long time ago now and gave up my nationality.” “Well, perhaps it’s high time you considered applying to rejoin. Austria’s dead, Prohaska: had been dead for years, even before the war. Now the Old Man’s gone the corpse has finally fallen to pieces.”
“I beg to differ: Austria-Hungary is probably going to win this war.” “Austria won’t win this war, whatever happens. Austria can’t win. But Germany might, and what’s going to happen to us all then?” He leant across the table and stared into my face. “For God’s sake, Prohaska, wake up will you? They say that you’re an intelligent man. This whole precious Austria-Hungary of yours is nothing more now than a way of forcing us Slavs to fight for Germany. What sort of future do you think there’ll be for any of us if they win? Come over and join us, you and your pilot. When we get to Italy we’ll all volunteer to join this Czech Legion of theirs.”
“You seem to know a lot about these things for a petty officer telegraphist, Vackar.”
“I’ve made it my business to know. We wireless operators talk to one another a lot, despite the war. I’ve been in touch with Masaryk and the National Council through Switzerland for a year or more now. There’s a lot of us organising in the fleet and the garrisons, just waiting for the day. It hasn’t come yet, but when it does then believe me there’ll be a lot of us Czechs ready to do what needs to be done.”
“All very impressive. So why all the trouble aboard this ship?”
“The Croats and the Slovenes. We could still get them on our side, but for the moment they’re more frightened of the Italians than of Germany. And anyway, they’re half of them long-service men: heads of solid wood. If an officer told them to jump over a cliff for their Emperor they’d do it.”
