Townend, William "The Death Ship"

Nazi cruelty and credulity versus Allied bravery and resourcefulness are Townend's themes in this 1942 short story, themes common to much early war years popular fiction. Townend sets his tale in mid-Indian Ocean with an unnamed German sea raider taking over a British tramp freighter (the fictitious BLUENOSE of Newcastle-upon-Tyne). A boarding party headed up by an arrogant Nazi true believer finds the ship seemingly ravaged by bubonic plague, with sick and dying crew members on deck and in the vessel's cabins and staterooms. The ship's log tells of an especially virulent strain of the plague which infects anyone and everyone coming in contact with it. The "brave" Nazi junior officer ("one of the race destined to rule the world," he believes) grows uneasy, and uneasiness turns to fear when his own captain abandons him and the rest of the boarding party to stay aboard the BLUENOSE rather than risk infecting the Nazi sea raider with the plague. It is only after the sea raider has sailed off that the BLUENOSE's captain and crew turn the tables on their new German guests: in a twist ending, it is revealed that no one is really ill (they'd been play acting - improvised make-up had made them appear grievously ill) and that the log had been "doctored" to make it appear that plague was present. (The genius behind the plague improvisation turns out to be a Polish Army general who had fled east after Poland's fall, the very Victor Laszlo-like resistance leader the German sea raider had actually been searching for at the beginning of Townend's story). The short story concludes with a coup de grace: the now no longer arrogant Nazi prisoners learn that the BLUENOSE has given nearby Allied warships the sea raider's position - the Allies have outsmarted Hitler's "master race"!