The Sea Break (24 page)

Lieutenant-Commander Widmark,
D.S.C
,
R.N.V.R
., had grown to detest the enemy with a pathological hatred. In the Mediterranean he had earned the nickname “The Butcher.” Widmark derided the Geneva Convention, and the pusillanimity that sometimes delayed or tempered action against the enemy for “diplomatic” or “political” reasons. In his view war was a rough and bloody business in which those who stopped at nothing would be victorious—the gentlemen would be defeated.

This exciting story tells of Widmark’s greatest
adventure
, the organisation and execution of a private cutting-out operation, designed—regardless of any consequences, either bloody or disciplinary—to strike a single telling blow for his own side. Widmark plans to seize and sail and take as a prize from the neutral Portuguese East African port of Lourenço Marques the 8,000 ton German motor vessel
Hagenfels.

This is the story of Lieutenant-Commander Widmark and the
Hagenfels.
The planning, the extraordinary
circumstances
of the seizure, and the fantastic developments thereafter are presented with all the author’s familiar knowledge of sea-going and with the power of narrative that brought world-wide success to his first novel
Two
Hours
To
Darkness.

TWO HOURS TO DARKNESS

SMOKE ISLAND

TOWARDS THE TAMARIND TREES

THE MOONRAKER MUTINY

KLEBER’S CONVOY

THE ZHUKOV BRIEFING

ULTIMATUM

DEATH OF A SUPERTANKER

THE WHITE SCHOONER