A sweeping historical adventure, The Cape Raider is the tale of a broken hero who has to find himself despite the trauma of war, a domineering father and the death of his mother during the Blitz. He must adapt to a new country, a new navy and new love, and finally he must come face to face with the Nazi raider in a fight to the death in the icy seas off the southernmost tip of Africa.
“Jack let himself out quietly through the French doors. His father’s snoring was audible from the end of the veranda. A three-quarter moon hung above the Hottentots Holland Mountains, casting a trail of glittering light across the bay. He took the path to the beach. The chirruping of crickets filled the air as he passed beneath the milkwoods, then out into the moonlight and over the rocks. Kicking off his slippers, he walked down the beach. Warm water caressed his feet. False Bay’s mountainous rim was dark and mysterious.
He was weighing his father’s proposal against his fears. Did he have the nerve to captain a ship, even if she was a small one, let alone lead a flotilla? He certainly didn’t have his father’s temperament, or his conviction. His arrogance. Could there be a way to make this work?
Having a command of his own was certainly tempting. In the months before Dunkirk, it was exactly what he’d wished for. Now the dream had been poisoned by something inside him that he found both frightening and unfathomable.
He caught sight of a shadow coming round the headland from the north. It was obscured by the backdrop of dark mountains, but there was definitely something there, and it was moving fast. He narrowed his eyes and waited, feeling a strange excitement. It was a ship coming out of Simon’s Town harbour, knifing through the swell, showing no lights. Leaving for patrol – perhaps an enemy vessel had been reported. Each time she dipped into a trough, he could make out the moustache of her bow wave. After a while, he heard the low thrumming of turbines. A midnight creature of the deep.
As the ship crossed the path of the moon, he saw her silhouette. A Royal Navy destroyer, long and sleek; an iron arrow, all power and grace. A thing of beauty. On the bridge, he thought he could just make out a couple of heads, staring ahead at the wide mouth to False Bay, opening to the South Atlantic. His heart beat faster.
‘Damn,’ he said softly. ‘Damn and blast.’
The drama of it; the necessity of it. Taking the fight to the enemy in the southern oceans. A chance to hit back after all they had taken from him. Mama. Havoc. Hate and anger, infused with the conviction he’d felt at the beginning of the war, flooded through him.
He picked up a pebble, cupped it between forefinger and thumb, and sent it skipping across the water. The stone kisses spread circles through the quiet shallows of the cove. A long line of Pembroke captains stretched back into the fog of British history.
Maybe, he thought, just maybe.”
“Jack, Smit and the two lookouts clung on with all their strength, immersed in freezing water, the air wrenched from their lungs.”
“The wave struck Gannet and enveloped the forecastle. To her captain, it appeared as though a dam wall had burst. The Atlantic had boarded his ship. If anyone had been on the main deck, they’d have stood no chance. Jack clung to the rail, bracing himself as the wave detonated on the bridge. He was knocked over and sent sprawling across the deck, his arms finding the telegraph as the bridge was inundated. Jack, Smit and the two lookouts clung on with all their strength, immersed in freezing water, the air wrenched from their lungs.
Jack’s grip began to loosen. The weight. The terrible weight of water. He floated free. There was nothing to hold onto, no ship, no help, no harbour. He lashed out in terror, his hands seeking a hold. Nothing. Weightlessness. Was he overboard?
The wave travelled the length of the sweeper, filling the waist and swamping the stern. With tons of water pressing down on her, it seemed Gannet would never rise again. Down and down she went, buried under a liquid mountain.
The coxswain stood steadfastly at the con, like a statue, one window smashed and water gushing in. He willed the ship to lift. Pulling at the wheel as though it were a joystick, he held the nose true and waited for Gannet to come to her senses.
Eventually, as if in slow motion, the sweeper began to rise. Water poured off her like a duck, or perhaps a gannet, as she shook herself free. The scuppers wept torrents as she shuddered to the surface. Her inherent buoyancy and, seemingly, her will, reasserted itself. Water drained down the bridge companionway and four drenched men looked around them, stunned to be alive and still aboard their ship.
Jack stood up gingerly, sensing that he had, somehow, been ‘returned’. His teeth chattered and his breath came in short gasps. Horizontal rain stung his face; his eyes leaked. He had survived. His ship had survived. They would fight another day, and another, and he would not give in. Not ever. He smiled at the two lookouts, who also wore strange, disoriented grins.
‘Wet up here, isn’t it, Number One?’ he said.”
Extracted from The Cape Raider by Justin Fox, out now.
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