Sink the Graf Spee by Duncan Harding

Author:Duncan Harding [Duncan Harding]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Nautical Fiction
Publisher: Thunderchild Publishing
Published: 2017-08-22T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

It ended as Zero had half-expected it would ever since he had run away as a fifteen-year-old boy to join the Black and Tans during Ireland’s ‘Troubles’: in violence.

They had emerged from the clearing in the forest to the florid music of Verdi being badly performed by the native fire brigade, dressed in shabby blue uniforms and wearing polished brass helmets like inverted toilet bowls on their heads, and barefoot, all of them, save the conductor, who wore firemens’ thigh-high rubber waders. They were performing in front of a group of local Portuguese administrators, mostly in white uniforms or dark civilian clothes, smoking cheroots, sipping champagne and eyeing whatever womenfolk there were about.

The whore nudged Zero. “Radio,” she hissed and indicated the building before them, with the radio mast escaping from the circle of light around the fireman’s band into the darkness beyond.

“Good,” Zero said and reached for his wallet. One of them could be bribed, perhaps the lot, if he knew the Portuguese, but one would suffice. “You stay here —” he stopped short. In front of him the bushes parted to reveal a shabby, skinny cop armed with an ancient Mauser, and behind him were two others, both carrying machetes which gleamed in the light. “Hey, what’s the game?” he asked unnecessarily, for he knew immediately what it was. The cop had been sent to get him. The question was who had — and could pay — the bigger bribe which might save him and the whore. He tendered the wallet, smiling winningly. With his other hand he reached furtively for the knife he had stuck down the back of his belt.

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