The Last Eagle

by Michael Wenberg

  “For an American you speak very good Polish,” Stefan interrupted.

  “I’d pass the complement on to my mother,” Kate replied, “if she were still alive.”

  Stefan’s mouth swung open like a barn door in the wind, but Kate didn’t give him a chance to respond. “We’ve been doing background stories on Polish arts and culture and how regular Polish families are dealing with threat of war. You know, warm and fuzzy pieces about painters, poets, women and children. We were to leave for England in two days and from there back to the United States. But, well, you know what happened. And since I’m a reporter, I wanted to get some photographs of the attack for my stories. I also thought my uncle might appreciate it”

  “Nothing like a few dead bodies and burning buildings to fire up your readers, eh?” Stefan remarked. “Uncle? Who might that be?”

  Kate smiled. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him. We share the same last name. His first name is Franklin.”

  Squeaky broke the silence. “You mean…?”

  “Yeah, the president of the United States.”

  “I don’t care who you say your uncle is,” Stefan barked. “I want you off this ship. Now.”

  Stefan looked at Squeaky. “Get some guards, issue them rifles, have them take Miss whoever and her friend back to their hotel. A submarine at war is not place for a woman.”

  “Belay that order.”

  “Captain on the bridge,” Stefan barked as Captain Josef Sieinski stepped cautiously through the hatchway.

  There was a deep purple bruise on his forehead, the color accentuating the paleness of the rest of his face. He ran a trembling hand through his thin, blonde hair. “We haven’t been formerly introduced,” he said, displaying a vestige of his normal charm despite his condition. “I’m Josef Sieinski, captain of the Eagle.”

  “Kate Roosevelt, reporter with North American News Service.” She ignored Stefan’s snort of derision.

  “And a beautiful American, I see.”

  “That, too,” Kate replied, color coming to her cheeks. “At least the American part.”

  Sieinski turned to Stefan. “And so I have you to thank for being here?”

  “Yes, sir. You were lucky to have survived the attack,” he added.

  Sieinski gave him a quizzical look. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Status?”

  “Repairs are almost done. No telling how long they will last. But we’re fueled and ready to go. We should be underway in less than an hour. Headquarters has ordered us out of port. I don’t want to be sitting here when the next attack comes either.”

  “Of course not,” Sieinski licked his lips, his mind elsewhere for the moment. “We can defend ourselves?”

  Stefan nodded.

  “Very good, then,” he said with barely concealed relief. “I… I’ll be in my quarters. Yes. Come get me when we’re ready to leave.” Sieinski turned and began to edge his way off the bridge, using the backs of chairs, and the wall to keep his balance.

  “Sir?”

  Sieinski didn’t pause. “Yes?”

  “The woman?”

  That brought him to a halt. He grabbed a pipe overhead, turned enough so that everyone could see the garish mark on his forehead. In the artificial light of the bridge, it made him look like a demented Cyclops. “She stays, of course. Everyone knows that a beautiful woman brings a ship luck. A neice of the United States of America’s president—that can’t hurt, either. I’ll take all the luck I can get.” He disappeared down the passageway.

  “What a sweet man,” Kate said after he was gone.

  “Welcome aboard the Eagle, Miss Roosevelt,” Stefan said briskly. “And if you get in the way or do anything that puts this ship or crew at risk, I don’t care who your fucking uncle is… I will certainly throw you and your friend overboard myself. Understand?”

  Kate smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “Put her in my quarters,” Stefan bellowed.

  “Is he always so charming?” Kate remarked as Stefan escaped up the ladder into the conning tower bridge.

  Squeaky gave a weak smile. He wondered if he should tell the woman that the captain had got it wrong. A beautiful woman didn’t bring luck. In fact, exactly the opposite was true. He decided to keep quiet and said instead: “Once you get to know him, you’ll find out that he’s just a big teddy bear.”

  “Hides it well, doesn’t he?” Kate mocked. She held out her hand as the room began to spin again. “I think I need to lay down,” she said quickly, fighting back nausea. “Why don’t you lead me some place quiet,” she strained. You can tell me more about your Stefan along the way.”

  She didn’t finish. Her mouth sagged open and her eyes began to roll back in her heard. Squeaky jumped forward, catching her around the waist before she crumpled to the deck. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, lifting her in his arms. “We’ll take care of you.” He gently carried her from the control room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stefan took his time filling the bowl of this pipe with tobacco and lighting it. He smoked quietly for a few minutes, the routine helping to diffuse his anger. What had he done to deserve this, he wondered.

  He remembered the first time he had asked himself that question, the memory still as fresh, and sharp as a midwinter storm. It was when he learned the meaning of the epithet hurled by the teenage boys at his mother. Whore. Soon enough, a variant had been directed at him—son of a whore. About the same time, the beatings from the sons of the village’s well-to-do had begun. Many afternoons after school, they hunted him like a pack of dogs after a rat. It was sport for them. Terror for Stefan. He still remembered the first time they attacked him. Alone in the barn behind the blacksmith’s shop.

  He let the smoke trickle from the corner of his mouth, exploring the old familiar scar with his tongue.

  “My dear boy,” his mother had wept, wiping the blood from his torn mouth when he staggered into their small room and collapsed on the floor.

  But even then, Stefan had learned it was better not to cry. The pain made his eyes water, but he kept silent, staring at his mother with the accusing eyes of a child as she pawed at his face, weeping. Of course, she wouldn’t apologize this time, or any other. She would never seek the forgiveness of the church, her parents, or anyone else in the village. Too stubborn. “I loved your father,” was all she would say to Stefan.

  The town tolerated her pride—barely—because she was the daughter of an important man, the owner of the local flour mill. But she would pay the rest of her life for her mistake, scraping by with hand-me-downs from her family and washing clothes for the wealthier members of the village.

  Stefan would pay, too.

  After she cleaned his mouth, she grabbed him by the shoulders and said the words that would become his one commandment: “You must fight back!”

  And so, Stefan learned—as did his enemies. When he fought, he became a child possessed, a boy with nothing to lose because he had nothing. He soon discovered that that gave him the advantage. They, of course, had to explain bloody noses, torn clothes, soiled faces to their parents. He did not. He never picked fights, but he was quick to defend himself and his mother at the slightest provocation. Before long, even the older boys were leaving him alone.

  In the month of December when Stefan was barely twelve years, his mother became sick. At first, it was just a wet cough. She ignored it, continuing to wash laundry by hand, working day after day in temperatures so cold it froze the clothes stiff as driftwood before she had a chance to get them inside. By the time she gave in to Stefan’s pleas, it was already too late. She was dead within a month. Pneumonia, the doctor said.

  Of course, Stefan knew who was truly to blame. That night, he set fire to one of the barns on his grandparent’s farm, the grandparent’s who has always refused to acknowledge his existence, making sure, first, to open the stalls and the huge barn doors, so the horses inside would have a path to safety. After all, they weren’t to blame. As Stefan jogged out of town, t
he glow from the flames lit up the western sky. He didn’t think his mother, watching down on him from heaven, would mind too much what he had done.

  He never looked back.

  Stefan glanced back over the city. He had expected a return of the bombers, but after the first pair, the sky had been quiet. This lull was almost more ominous than another attack. It wouldn’t last.

  “Hello there!” Reggie stuck his head out of the hatch, a big grin animating his face. He scrambled up next to Stefan. “Oh, this is much better. Mind if I smoke?”

  Stefan shook his head, wondering what other rabbits that Squeaky had neglected to tell him about might appear next. He opened his mouth to order this one below. “What the hell,” he muttered instead. He reached into his pocket, held the lighter up to the tip of Reggie’s cigarette.

  “Ahh,” Reggie exhaled. “Damn wretched down there,” he said. “Can’t imagine what it must be like after a few weeks.”

  “You get used to it,” Stefan replied. “And you are?…”

  Reggie grinned, held out his hand. “Reginald P. Goldberg at your service. My friends call me Reggie. You can, too, if you like. And who are you?”

  Stefan chuckled. “Lieutenant Commander Stefan Petrofski.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” Reggie said.

  “Yet another American who speaks passable Polish. How did we get so lucky?”

  “You’d be surprised how many of us there are. Some places in Chicago and New York. Christ, you’d think you were walking the streets of Warsaw.”

  “You are with the woman?”

  “You mean, Kate? Yes. We’re partners. She talks and writes. I shoot.”

  “Shoot what?”

  Reggie laughed nervously. “Oh, I see. Yes, you might think I’m talking about shooting—killing—or using that thing there.” He pointed to the barrel of the deck gun. “No, I shoot a camera. I take pictures.” He pantomimed the action as if he was demonstrating it to a child or a peasant. “Or, I did, anyway. Before those thugs smashed my equipment.”

  “I know what a camera is,” Stefan said stiffly. “We Poles aren’t all backward bumpkins with straw in our hair. And you might be surprised what you can do—if you have no choice. I imagine you would make quite a good marksman.” He puffed on his pipe, appraising Reggie. “Good eyes, steady hands. That’s all it takes. Oh, yes. And the ability to kill.”

  “I don’t know about killing and not much about fist fighting,” Reggie snorted, embarrassed. “I was known as that Jewish punching bag when I was younger.”

  “I meant no offense,” Stefan said.

  “None taken.”

  “I suppose you know by now that you leave with us.”

  Reggie frowned. “Uh, yes, I can’t say I’m very happy about that. On the other hand, I can’t very well leave Kate by herself. Someone has to keep her out of trouble. Might as well be me.” Reggie sighed.

  “There is that,” Stefan said.

  “I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it. And who knows,” Reggie smiled brightly at Stefan, “you might all be heroes. What a great story that will make back home. And we’ll be the ones getting credit for reporting it.”

  “What about your cameras?”

  “Yes, well, there is that.” Reggie’s faced darkened. “Rotten luck.”

  “I have a Hasselblad camera under my bunk. You’re welcome to use it,” Stefan offered. “I won it in a card game a few months ago. Haven’t had the time to sell it or give it away.”

  “That’s decent of you!” Reggie exclaimed, grasping Stefan’s arm with excitement. “I suppose you have film for it, as well?”

  Stefan waited just long enough for Reggie to begin to deflate, and then nodded. “Of course. What good is a camera without film.”

  Reggie wagged a finger at Stefan. “I see how it is. You aren’t a nice man, are you?”

  “Not very.”

  “Well, forewarned is forearmed, as my mother liked to say. We’ll make heroes of you and your crew anyway.”

  “Know what they call heroes in Poland?”

  Reggie shook his head.

  “Dead!” Stefan’s laughter echoed across the quay.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was the grind of the starter. The Eagle’s twin Sulzer diesel engines roared awake, their valves clattering for a few moments before settling into a well-lubricated rumble. Blue exhaust drifted out of the exhaust ports, and spread over the debris studded and fuel-fouled water. Seagulls lining the pilings next to the submarine screamed in protest over the sudden commotion. They raised lazily as a group into the pale morning air and then settled back down again.

  Stefan signaled casually with his right hand. Sailors at the bow and stern dropped the forearm-thick ropes, holding the Eagle in place against the quay, into the water. They were immediately pulled up out of the way by young boys—not much younger then they sailors—racing to see who would be first to have a coil piled neatly at his feet.

  Stefan pointed to the small, rust-scabbed tug idling patiently off the submarine’s bow, raised his hand, spinning his index finger in the air. White water frothed from beneath the tug’s stern, spreading out in front of her bow like a bridal train as she pulled against the dead weight of the submarine. The line connecting the two vessels quivered like a plucked guitar string, and just when it seemed it would break, force overcame inertia and the Eagle began to move away from the pilings.

  Stefan glanced along the length of the Eagle, admiring her sleek, shark-like lines. Even though she represented the latest in submarine technology, she was still, unmistakably, a submarine. The engineering requirements for a vessel that could fight from above and below the ocean’s surface meant any submarine manufactured the past three decades had a cylindrical hull, tapered to a bow at one end, ballast tanks on either side, bow and stern diving planes, diesel engines for surface travel, and battery-powered motors for underwater propulsion at much slower speeds. Even the weapons of choice were common among all submarines: deck guns when surfaced, torpedoes, miniature submarines in their own right but packed with enough high explosives to split a ship in half, spit from fore and aft tubes when submerged.

  Stefan had been aboard French, British, and even German submarines. Except for the labels on the valves and gauges, they were all essentially the same. He could fight effectively aboard any of them. And fighting is what lay in their future.

  Stefan watched the sailors hustling across the deck below, his eyes burning with fatigue and nagged by a growing sense of uncertainty about their fate and future. He wondered how long they would be able to survive, hunted by the Kriegsmarine. They were all just one mistake away from transforming the Eagle into a coffin. Stefan couldn’t hide the grim smile that split his bearded face. With Sieinski in command, it would be a miracle if they lasted the week. And the fault would be his alone.

  There was a small crowd on the pier, a brave few willing to venture out to see the submarine off despite the threat of more German air attacks. The old man who had brought the meats in the middle of the night was waving a huge red and white Polish flag. “Good hunting, Eagle,” he screamed hoarsely. “Bring us back some German heads!”

  It took the tugboat only a few minutes to pull the Eagle far enough out into the bay so she could maneuver on her own. Stefan leaned over the edge of conning tower and signaled the bow crew. They cast off the tug’s line, and it backed quickly away, signaling her goodbye and good luck with a blast from its whistle before wheeling around and steaming off in the other direction.

  “Your orders, sir,” Stefan said. He had the brim of his cap pulled low over his eyes. His eyes scanned the water ahead. Both hands clasped the Zeiss binoculars hanging against his chest.

  Sieinski stood motionless, a slight figure next to the big-boned bulk of his executive officer. He was still hatless, despite the bite in the early morning air. The blow to his head had made it impossible to fit his cap over the swelling without some discomfort. A breeze tousled his thinning hair, the pale sk
in around his eyes tight as he scanned the morning sky.

  “Sir?” Stefan said again.

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “Orders?”

  “Yes, of course. Take us out. I double checked with Hel. We’re to patrol the Gulf of Gdansk. You there, stay sharp!” Sieinski directed an angry stare at the young gunner sitting behind the Bofors AA gun in the aft part of the conning tower. His hands were up in the air, his face bright with excitement, waving at the crowd on the pier. At the captain’s shrill reprimand, his expression froze and then disappeared completely, his eyes immediately drawn skyward.

  “Aye, aye,” Stefan said dryly. He pulled the speaker tube up to his mouth. “Ahead slow. Port five degrees,” he relayed to the helmsman in the control room below decks.

  “I suppose I owe you my thanks.”

  Stefan shrugged. He didn’t want to be reminded of the evening. His legs still ached from the marathon up to the hotel and back again, and something still smelled vaguely of vomit. It was probably his boots.

  “I suppose you met Marie?”

  “Yes, sir,” Stefan said. “An interesting woman.”

  Sieinski gave a coarse chuckle. “Yes, indeed. I suppose you could say that.”

  “She was worried about you,” Stefan said.

  “Of course she was,” Sieinski said lightly. “By the way, I can’t find my overcoat. I don’t suppose?”

  “Sorry, sir. Don’t recall whether I managed to grab it or not.”

  Sieinski’s gave Stefan an appraising glance. He had always been careful about his personal habits. Damn bad luck the Nazis would pick the previous night to attack. Hard to tell with this one, he thought. Despite his reputation, Stefan had kept his emotions under wraps, though Sieinski could tell he was seething over being skipped over for captaincy of the Eagle. But life wasn’t fair. And resentment was something Sieinski could use. He was always good at sniffing out the weakness in an adversary, turning it to his advantage. Of course, it was a mistake to have gotten so out of control at the party. Perhaps Stefan was considering how to use that fact to his advantage. Who could fault him? It is what Sieinski would do in his place. But that was the difference between the two.