Remember Me (20 page)

Icy water from burst pipes soaked through the captain’s clothing and swirled around his feet, but the sheen on his forehead was the sweat of tension and fear. The U-boat levelled off and sat in the water, crew still and silent but betrayed by the agonised groaning of the hull. Up on the surface sonar and hydrophone operators would be listening, cross-referencing and plotting the U-boat’s position.

‘Depth charges launched.’ The lieutenant’s voice was little more than a whisper. He could’ve shouted for all the difference it would now make.

Captain Berger grasped an overhead pipe with all his strength. Everything depended on the depth at which the charges were set to explode. Would his adversaries believe his U-boat could dive beyond two hundred and fifty metres and survive? He doubted it. He hardly believed it himself. Was the charge that detonated beneath his hull a warning of things to come, a new
type of proximity depth charge or the one-off result of a delay caused by malfunction?

The first explosion rocked the U-boat but was too shallow to cause damage. A second followed, again too shallow. The third and fourth were closer, the fifth and sixth closer still. Close enough to burst open hasty repairs, but no more.

‘What now?’ whispered Lieutenant Richter.

A
N EXTRACT FROM
‘D
EATH OF A
U-B
OAT’

We didn’t get the
Herald
delivered, either, because Dad sold them in his newsagency and it didn’t make sense to buy papers from anyone else. It would’ve been a waste anyway. The mornings were so frantic no one had a chance to read anything. Dad usually brought home the
Auckland Star
in the evenings and we made do with that. It had never occurred to us that Christian Berger would give an interview. We thought the reporter would be sent on his way with a flea in his ear. None of us had the slightest inkling the story would be all over the front page, and no warning of the storm about to erupt over the revelation of Christian Berger’s mission to sink the troopship. I’d listened to Captain Biggs that Sunday before Christmas as closely as anyone but I hadn’t noticed the omission. We prepared for the day with no idea that a bomb had gone off in our midst and we were about to number among the casualties.

The first day back at school after the Christmas holidays is always chaotic. I caught up with Eric on the way and our major worry was who our teacher would be and which classroom we’d be given. By rights Mr Ingleby should be our teacher and the Standard Four classroom the same as it had been the year previously. But sometimes the school changed things for no good reason, at least none that was apparent to us. Our big fear was that we’d end up with Miss Riley. None of us liked women teachers and we reserved a special dislike for Miss Riley. She was an unhappy, embittered spinster who infected everybody with her discontent. She claimed she gave up the opportunity of marriage to devote her life to teaching. Nigel said it was because no man would have her. Apart from being crabby, bossy and impatient, she used her tongue like a whip. She didn’t reprimand kids so much as lash them with ridicule. She reduced more kids to tears than the strap ever did. Mr Ingleby, on the other hand, coached the cricket team and laughed at our jokes. Nigel claimed he could even make history sound interesting and I knew from the assignments he’d been given that Mr Ingleby came up with really original topics for essays. Miss Riley was still of the ‘Why it’s important to clean your teeth’ school.

At the best of times the teachers have their work cut out on the first day back trying to get some quiet and semblance of order. Every kid wants to know what every other kid did over the holidays and until that’s cleared up
the teachers don’t stand a chance. This time there was another ingredient thrown in. The school was abuzz with news about the U-boat captain.

Gary was first to tell me about the story in the paper, although he made me promise not to tell anyone that he’d told me because he wasn’t allowed to speak to me. Clarry confirmed what Gary had said and made me make a similar promise. He wasn’t allowed to speak to me either. It only took a few minutes for me to realise that more than half the kids at school weren’t allowed to speak to me. Not that it stopped them. They made out they were doing me a big favour and taking huge risks but I knew they really just wanted to pump me for more information about the U-boat captain and his attempt to torpedo the troopship. Some kids even claimed their fathers had been on board. But what could I tell them that they didn’t already know? I was still smarting from the realisation that a lot of them had seen the
Herald
and the picture of Christian Berger. It was really galling that they’d had nothing to do with bringing him out to New Zealand but they knew what he looked like and I still hadn’t clapped my eyes on him. I did what I could under the circumstances. I filled the air with words, which appeared to say more than they actually did. It was something I was good at and which stood me in good stead later on in my career in advertising. The industry has an expression: ‘If you’re on thin ice, you may as well tap-dance.’ That morning I was Gene Kelly but no one
can tap-dance forever. I knew the kids would stop talking to me once I had nothing to say.

The girls in my class and in the school at large were more serious about not speaking to me than the boys. Girls I didn’t have much to do with anyway made a point of giving me the cold shoulder. They’d deliberately walk towards me then veer off at right angles with their nose in the air and their lips pulled tight. It became something of a competition to see who could snub me the most dramatically. Even girls who were allowed to speak to me couldn’t resist joining in. The exception was Judith, who sort of liked me and I sort of liked back. By means and for reasons known only to girls, we’d been paired off. I didn’t mind because she was good looking and I liked talking to her. But the other girls’ posturing was so absurd I couldn’t help laughing and neither could my pals. We mimicked and ridiculed them when really I should’ve heeded the warning. The girls were simply acting out the attitudes of their parents. I don’t suppose it would have made much difference anyway had I made the connection.

The class breathed a collective sigh of relief when we were given the usual Standard Four classroom and Mr Ingleby was appointed our teacher. That done, the girls got back to the serious business of ignoring me, which wasn’t a whole lot different to normal, while the boys speculated upon the U-boat captain and what would happen to him. The number of boys whose fathers
had been aboard the troopship more than tripled in the three hours up to lunch. Opinion was divided over whether Christian Berger would be deported or sent to prison as a war criminal. Some kids talked about nipping out of school at lunchtime and staking out the Church Army in the hope of catching a glimpse of him. Troopship or no troopship, the fact remained that we had a real live U-boat captain holed up no more than two hundred yards up the street. Imaginations fuelled by U-boat movies and storm drains ran riot. Without any doubt this was big news and, as far my school pals were concerned, just about the most exciting thing that had ever happened in the neighbourhood.

I ran home at lunchtime and told Mum all about the story in the paper. I needn’t have bothered. Dad had rung to tell her about it the moment he’d opened his newsagency and seen the bundles of papers stacked in the doorway. Mum’s first comment surprised me although I suppose I should’ve expected it.

‘It’s not “Ponsonby” church,’ she protested. ‘It’s Grey Lynn.’

When I told her how half the boys weren’t allowed to speak to me and none of the girls—except for Judith—would on principle, she became as prickly as a porcupine. ‘Who do they think they are?’ she demanded.

Nigel came home for lunch and said he’d copped much the same treatment. He laughed about it and made jokes.

‘It’ll blow over,’ Mum assured us, although she no longer sounded quite so confident. ‘You wait and see.’

Nigel and I wolfed down our sandwiches so we could get back to school in time for a quick game of cricket. Mum made us promise to come straight home after school to help out. We didn’t need reminding because we knew the score and had our own vested interest. Some time during the afternoon the teachers would give their classes a list of the exercise books, pads, notebooks, pens and pencils they needed, plus a price list Mum had supplied. As soon as the final bell went, kids would dash home, get the money from their mothers and dash back to the shop. By the time they got there, Nigel and I would’ve already helped ourselves to the stationery on our list and be ready to help Mum. Even with three of us serving the queue always extended way past the shop doorway.

Meanwhile the kids who’d gone to stake out the Church Army came back to school brimming with news. They claimed the building was under siege by reporters from the
Auckland Star
, and the National Radio Service, and by angry representatives of the Returned Servicemen’s Association and the Maritime Union. They said the Church Army was locked down with all the doors and windows closed. I’d spotted a few people hanging around on the pavement outside the chapel but hadn’t attached any significance to it.

I ran home after school expecting to see the little kids from the primers spilling out of the shop doorway with
their mums. They were let out half an hour earlier than the rest of the school. I could hardly believe it when I saw there were only two mothers in the shop buying stationery. Mum chatted with them although I could tell she was beginning to get concerned. It didn’t help that all the mothers wanted to talk about was ‘that terrible man up at the church who’d tried to drown our boys’. I grabbed the books and pads I needed, knocked back a couple of Weet-Bix covered in butter and sugar and joined Mum. The shop was eerily quiet. Eric and Maxie rushed in breathless, expecting to fight their way through a scrum. They could hardly credit it when I served them straight away. Mum slipped out back for a cup of tea and a steadying cigarette. She knew. She’d outlaid everything she had on the piles of books on the shelves and stacked under the counter and was being boycotted. So much for the bright start to the year.

Big Ryan came in for his books and so did plenty of other kids but in nothing like the numbers we were accustomed to—hardly anyone had to wait to be served. Mum stayed open until it got dark but not even that helped. I could tell she was upset but she did her best not to show it. She’d often talked about how the Blitz had hardened the Londoners’ resolve and I saw something of that spirit in her. She was defiant rather than tearful and it didn’t take me long to work out why. In Mum’s eyes, those mothers who boycotted the shop were making out they were better than us and that would never do. In
boycotting the shop they were insulting the family. Nevertheless the pile of unsold exercise books and pads loomed over us, punishment for all to see.

Dad came home grim-faced and even a touch bewildered by the reaction of people we’d always thought of as friends and neighbours. We’d been living in Richmond Road for six years and up to that point it’s fair to say we had no enemies. Now apparently we did, and they’d hurt us where Dad hurt most. He managed our finances. At any given time he knew exactly how much he had in the bank, how much was in the shop tills and how much he had in his pocket. He counterbalanced this knowledge with the demands of mortgage, rent and living expenses and made sure we trod the right side of the fine line between. When Mum showed him the piles of unsold books he put his arm around her, partly in consolation and partly in solidarity. I stood by hoping his spare arm would reach out and encompass me. I was feeling sick for all the trouble I’d caused. As usual, I was the one closest to tears.

‘Have you asked if they’ll take any back?’ Dad asked. His spare arm stayed by his side.

‘The rep said he’d do what he could but everyone’s had their order filled. If he takes any off our hands it won’t be much.’

‘Then there’s nowt we can do but tighten our belts.’

I had sudden visions of months of macaroni cheese, tripe, lamb’s fry without bacon, bacon and egg pie
without bacon and maybe a toad in the hole, if we were really lucky. I could see I was going to have to give my new fishing reel a fair bit of work to help out. Just as I started to plan my week Dad drove all thoughts of fishing from my mind.

‘It’ll all blow over,’ he said, ‘once the U-boat captain moves on.’

Moves on? He’d only just arrived and all I’d seen of him was the picture in the
Herald
Dad had brought home. It was hard to imagine a greater catastrophe. To compound the problem, Rod had ordered me to keep away from the Church Army so I wouldn’t make matters worse and club didn’t start up again for another week. The way things stood it looked as though the commander would move on before I had a chance to meet him. I couldn’t let that happen. I figured I could slip through the fence in Chamberlain Street and into the Church Army building through the back door without anyone seeing me. And I also figured that tomorrow after school was the perfect time to do it.

The
Auckland Star
ran a story on the front page that evening without adding much to the debate besides vague reassurances from the bishop and a bad pun. Their headline read ‘Church Defends Nazi Business’. Honestly, we came up with better puns than that around the dinner table. I’ll give you an example. Our family came to New Zealand on the
Arawa
, a refrigerated meat carrier turned passenger boat. There were seven-year-old twin girls on
the boat who used to give Nigel and me hell. The easiest way to get between decks was via external steel stairways. The twins liked to ambush us on the landing where the steps doubled back, pinch us and twist our arms. One day I saw they’d bailed Nigel up on the landing below and behind me. He was crying. What could I do? I was only four years old. Showing remarkable ingenuity for my age, I lifted the leg of my Bombay bloomers and peed. The wind directed my little stream right onto the girls. The instant they realised it wasn’t spray washing their hair they screamed and ran. As it transpired, everyone on board thought the twins were little brats and I not only escaped punishment but became an unlikely hero for a day. When Dad was relating this story around the table, Rod looked at me and said, ‘In France they call that a
piss de resistance
.’ How’s that for a pun and a half?