Free Gold From Crete by C.S. Forester Page A

suggest?’
    Captain Crowe looked down at the floor and then up at the admiral.
    ‘Of course the Queen Anne will be secured by convoy,’ he said. ‘I know you’re not thinking of letting her make her regular transport runs without escort. If Loewenstein is waiting for her with five submarines, her speed won’t do her any good. And if the Germans know the course and time out of your ports now, there’s no guaranteeing they won’t know any change in course or time you might give the Queen Anne’
    The admiral made a sudden gesture. ‘We can send the Queen out with half the fleet,’ he said. ‘But once we’re at - map, please, Lieutenant!’
    Young Harley spread a map in front of the admiral. Captain Crowe hunched over it, following the line pointed by the top- striper’s finger.
    ‘Once there,’ said the admiral, ‘we’ll have to let the Queen go on her own. We can’t go past that point without neglecting our coastal duties. And Loewenstein is bound to trail along until the escort leaves. Then he’ll hit. Unless he can be drawn off.’
    ‘Yes,’ echoed Crowe absently. ‘Unless we can draw him off.’
    ‘Can we?’ the admiral demanded. ‘Or - I’m sorry - that’s an unfair question, thrown at you all at once, Captain. Think it over and tomorrow morning at’ - he glanced at his wristwatch - ‘ten we’ll talk it over.’
    ‘It wouldn’t break my heart,’ said the naval-intelligence agent, Brand, suddenly, ‘if something drastic happened to Loewenstein. I’ve seen some of the pictures he’s taken with his little camera from conning towers. Close-ups of drowning men - and one that’s the pride of his collection, a woman and a kid off the Athenia .’
    ‘Something drastic is going to happen to Loewenstein,’ said the admiral. He looked at Crowe, and the captain blinked.
    ‘Right-o,’ said Captain Crowe.
    He found himself outside the office without clearly realizing how he got there. He wanted to walk; he was urgently anxious to walk, partly because long hours in planes had cramped his legs - legs accustomed to miles of deck marching - and partly because he wanted to think - had to think - and he thought best on his feet.
    He had to draw Loewenstein off. But what could draw a sub commander off a prize like the Queen Anne ? To sink the Queen would give any U-boat skipper the Pour le Mérite with oak leaves or whatever brand of decoration Hitler was giving out now. A man would have to be mad to forsake a prize like that. Mad or - but Loewenstein had been half mad that day he had seized the wheel from his helmsman at that Copenhagen regatta and had tried to ram the boat that had overhauled him and blanketed him, stealing the race at the last moment. That Danish club had disbarred Loewenstein for that. But the helmsman had been exonerated. Good man, that helmsman, Crowe thought. Braucht - it was something that started with a B. Broening. Yes, that was it - Broening.
    Crowe looked around him, squinted at the sun, tucked his chin in his limp white collar and set off boldly in the direction of the British Embassy. He was remembering all he could about Korvettenkapitan von und zu Loewenstein. He called up the slightly pug nose, the cold blue eyes, the colourless hair slicked back from the forehead - he remembered all these. Then there was the ruthless boldness with which he would jockey for position at the start of a yacht race. He would bear down on another boat, keeping his course while the helmsman - Broening - yelled a warning until the other boat fell off. The protest flags fluttered on many occasions when Loewenstein sailed. And after the races, it always was Loewenstein and some beautiful harpy at their table, alone, except for the miserable helmsman, Broening. Now, Loewenstein was the boldest of all U-boat captains.
    Crowe knew his lips were not moving, but his mind was speaking. Draw Loewenstein off , it said. But how? Loewenstein is a believer in the guns, as shown by his record. He conserves