Rogue Raider Read Online Free

occasion with a rash of civic receptions and declarations of patriotism that fatigued both givers and receivers but allegedly pleased the Kaiser. In those days of peace and posturing, the navy’s main duty was to please the Kaiser and numbers were everything as nations fought with reviews of the fleet like little boys showing off their collections of marbles.
    She was obsolete when built. The old stove-pipe funnels had a quaint air of tipped top-hats and her torpedoes were of outmoded design and sorely limited range. The prognathous bow echoed a time when ramming was a standard naval manoeuvre while the old piston-driven engines were cumbersome and unresponsive. Ships were split into categories – battleship, destroyer and so on – so that they could be matched between the various nations but then a sort of cheating blurred the distinctions so that a cruiser could be heavy, light or medium. The Emden was a decidedly ‘light‘cruiser. Those of foreign navies already had smooth-running turbines and were faster, better armoured and more heavily gunned than this white-painted swan. They had more watertight compartments and were less easy to sink. Never mind. She had one great charm for Lauterbach. She was not intended to stand and fight other armed vessels but prey on helpless merchantmen. She was designed to be the school bully that kicked little kids and took their sweets off them. If anyone her own size or a teacher turned up, she was to run away.
    â€œYou givee one piece dollar I takee travel box inside ship-ship.” The rickshawman was there, interrupting his thoughts, grinning through broken teeth and holding out his hand confidently. Lauterbach paused and sighed. Those young puppies had spoiled the market. He roused himself, deliberately stood against the sun so the great shadow of his bulk fell in the driver’s eyes and pointed to the stack of old, well-used luggage, generously embossed with supplementary straps and reinforcements, raised his fist and gobbed a stream of pidjin in the expectant face.
    â€œI reckon you one piece fella him savvy box velly bloke. Chop-chop you takee bloody travel box. You no takee I givee bloody bamboo chow-chow, damn right.”
    The scrawny driver quailed, seized a suitcase, clapped it on his head and jogged off up the gangplank at the exaggerated pace they called “the imperial trot.”
    Lauterbach watched him with a satisfied smirk and moved gently up the plank himself, clamping the rail with huge, serial, slow hands. Gangplanks could be slippery and dangerous. This one bent under his weight but that was just a comforting proof of his own solidity. Later, he resolved – point made – the Chinese should have his tip. He was, after all, far from being a harsh man. He just liked things to be clear.
    His cabin was tailored for one of those slim boys, a thing of louvred lockers and stick furniture, a doll’s house. Back on the Kraetke , his own command, he had a double bed screwed to the floor and chairs of leather and brass. Here, there was a slim monastic bench of leatherette that, he could foresee, would be too short, too narrow and preclude all hospitality. He sat down on it with a groan – that it returned – lit up a cigarette and stared at the pile of luggage, like a new schoolboy waiting for his feeling of blank emptiness to turn into the inevitable homesickness. Only now he was not moving forward to some new stage in his life, with new experiences and privileges but backwards towards adolescence and loss of power. Already the leatherette was sticking wetly to his buttocks. There was a smart tap at the door and young von Guerard was there, grinning through flawless teeth, beckoning in another rickshaw driver with more luggage.
    Lauterbach sat his ground, puffed smoke aggressively. “I think you must have made a mistake, Lieutenant von Guerard. They told me this was my cabin.”
    Von Guerard laughed with confident charm