by Alan Furst
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Back to normal, life on the bridge of the Noordendam. Scheldt giving the wheel a quarter turn every few minutes in order to stay on course, the engine drumming away down below, DeHaan smoking one of his small cigars. No ships sighted. All well on board. Schumpel paced the bridge, making sure, now and again, that the compass bearing was as he’d ordered, then looking out at the M 56, black smoke streaming from her funnel as she chugged along in escort position, some three hundred yards off their stern quarter. The ape with the submachine gun leaned against the bulkhead, bored, with long hours of voyage ahead of him.
For DeHaan, the hours were even longer. He’d done his best, but the odds had caught up with them and what had begun in Tangier, two months earlier, was now finished. He said this to himself again and again, though he knew it meant surrender, true surrender, the end of hope. And he fought it—his imagination produced a coast watcher on Falsterbo, alerting the Royal Navy, who just then had a submarine beneath this Baltic sea-lane. A sudden storm, an exploding boiler. Or Ratter, and the officers in the wardroom, who rushed their guard, then retook the ship with the hidden weapons. That last was not beyond possibility, though, if it was somehow accomplished, they would soon enough be blown to pieces by the minesweeper’s 105-millimeter cannon. But this was, at least, an honorable end, better than what awaited them in Germany. Interrogation, execution.
So his mind wandered, this way and that, from salvation to despair and back again. No point, really, except that it sometimes kept him from thinking about Maria Bromen, which, every time, brought with it a very bitter truth. Which was not that he had loved and lost her, but that he could not save her.
2035 hours. At sea.
“Where did you grow up, Captain?” Schumpel said.
“In Rotterdam.”
“Oh? I have never been there.”
“It’s a port city, typical, like many others.”
“Like Hamburg.”
“Yes, or Le Havre.”
“Perhaps you will see Rostock, where there is a central administration.”
“I’ve put in there—up the estuary from Warnemnde.”
“I suspect you won’t go by ship, this time. Perhaps by automobile.”
“Perhaps.”
“Oh, I think you will.”
He was quiet after that, pacing back and forth, looking at his watch, while, on the bridge, life went on as usual—the green glow of the binnacle light, the helmsman at the wheel, the mess boy bringing coffee.
But not the everyday service. Now that they had guests, Cornelius had brought up a full pot of coffee though, true to his Corneliusian soul, he had forgotten the lid, so the coffee steamed in the damp air. But, at least, for a change, hot coffee. And Cornelius was not alone—he was assisted by Xanos, the Greek stowaway from Crete, poor little man, who wore a grimy white steward’s jacket and carried a tray of cups and saucers, and who was so nervous at this new job that his hands shook and the china rattled.
Schumpel was delighted. “Ah now, here you are more civilized than I thought.”
“Coffee, sir?” Xanos said. For this important occasion, someone had taught him the German words.
“Yes, thank you, I’ll have a cup.”
Xanos held out the tray, Schumpel took a cup and saucer, then Cornelius filled it with coffee. The aroma was strong and delicious on the smoky bridge. Schumpel turned to DeHaan and said, “You will join me?”
DeHaan said he would, but Xanos’s nerves got the best of him, and the tray slipped from his hands and the crockery went clattering to the deck. A startling event, to Schumpel, very startling, because he said, “Hah!” as though he’d been slapped on the back, and threw his cup and saucer in the air, the coffee splashing on his white shirt. But he didn’t care so much about the shirt, because he turned his head and looked over his shoulder and, as Xanos leapt away, drew in a long breath through clenched teeth and twisted his head back the other way, his eyes wide with panic. Xanos stepped behind him and did something with his hand, then Schumpel said, “Ach,” sank to his knees, tilted slowly, and toppled forward, with a loud thump as his forehead hit the deck.
On the other side of the bridge, the ape shouted, and DeHaan turned toward him. Head steaming, he howled and pressed his free hand to his eyes, while Cornelius stood gaping at him, the empty coffeepot dangling upside down from his fingers. Then the submachine gun swung toward him and he dropped the pot and grabbed the barrel with both hands and hung on for dear life, shoes sliding across the deck as he was spun around. The two of them circled twice before DeHaan and Scheldt got there. DeHaan drew his fist back but Scheldt shoved him aside and did it himself, three or four shots, bone on bone and loud. The last one worked, and as Cornelius fell backward with the gun clutched to his chest, the ape mumbled, “Leave me alone,” and sat down.
Scheldt stood over him, shaking his hand and grimacing with pain. “Pardon, Cap’n,” he said.
“Get the wheel,” DeHaan said. If they drifted off course, the captain on M 56 would know something had gone wrong. DeHaan went over to Schumpel, who was still kneeling, his forehead resting on the deck, the hilt of a knife fixed between his shoulder blades. A kitchen knife? No, DeHaan saw that the handle was wrapped with tape, a killing weapon. “Thank you, Xanos,” DeHaan said. “Also you, Cornelius.”
“It was the little passenger,” Cornelius said. “He drew it on a piece of paper. Just like you told him to.”
“Where is he?”
“In the galley. He’s peeling potatoes. For hours, Cap’n, pounds and pounds of ’em.”
“Where are the other Germans, Cornelius, do you know?”
Cornelius’s face knotted with concentration and he licked his lips. “He said to tell you, if the plan worked out, that there’s one in the radio room.” He thought for a moment, then said, “A signalman—he told me to tell you that. And I know there’s two of them in the crew’s quarters.”
And one in the wardroom, and certainly two in the engine room. DeHaan looked aft. Out in the darkness, the lights of M 56 bobbed up and down in the swell, keeping station off their starboard quarter. DeHaan knelt beside Schumpel’s body and slid his pistol, a heavy automatic with a short barrel, out of its holster. Xanos said a Greek word and pointed—the ape was trying to crawl out the door. DeHaan and Cornelius stopped him, then Cornelius got a length of line from the signal-flag rack and DeHaan tied his hands and feet, wrapping a signal flag around his head and knotting its cord in back. “If you move, we’ll throw you overboard. Understood?”
“Yes,” the man said, his voice muffled by the flag.
DeHaan put the pistol in his pocket, then picked up the submachine gun and handed it to Scheldt, who stood it on its stock by the helm. For DeHaan, there was a strong temptation to free the captives in the wardroom, but he couldn’t take the chance. So far, there’d been no gunfire, which meant that the signalman in the radio room had not been alerted, so communication between the Noordendam and M 56 was the next problem that had to be solved. And, eventually, they would have to deal with M 56 itself, by force or by subterfuge. Board it? Ram it? Somehow, he told himself. “Stay sharp on one nine zero,” he told Scheldt. “I’m leaving you and Xanos in charge of the prisoner, and the bridge. So, if any German shows up here, you can use that weapon. You better have a look at it.”
Beckoning Cornelius to follow him, DeHaan left the bridge on the port wing—the side concealed from the view of the M 56. Quietly, they moved along the deck to the door of the radio office. It was closed. Locked? He wouldn’t know until he tried. But, if he had to shoot the man inside, the wardroom guard would be alerted. DeHaan took the pistol from his pocket and examined it. J. P. Sauer & Sohn, Suhl was stamped on the barrel, then CAL 7,65, and it had a safety, operated by a thumb lever. He pushed the lever up, so the safety was off, then found a catch behind the trigger. What did it do? He didn’t know. This didn’t work like his Browning, but he assumed that with the safety off, the weapon would fire when he pulled the
trigger. He detached the magazine, counted eight rounds in the clip, then snapped it back in place. “Stay behind me,” he told Cornelius.
DeHaan approached the door, listened, then pressed his ear against the iron surface. Silence. He put two fingers on the metal lever that worked as a doorknob, steadied the automatic in his right hand, and held the barrel up. Slowly, he applied pressure to the lever. It gave. Then he took a breath, pushed down hard on the lever, aimed the pistol at the interior, and threw the door open.
The signalman was sitting tilted back in Mr. Ali’s swivel chair with his feet up on the work desk and his hands clasped behind his head. He’d been staring at the ceiling, maybe dozing, but he was awake now. Eyes wide, he stared at the automatic aimed at his chest, then tried to sit upright, as the chair hung dangerously on its back wheel for an instant, then righted itself as he kicked his legs. He raised his hands in the air and said, “I surrender, understand? Surrender.” He waved his hands so that DeHaan would see them.
“Did you call your ship?”
“No. I was just sitting here. Please.”
“They call you?”
“An hour ago. I answered back, so they knew I was receiving, that’s all.”
“What’s their call signal?”
“Seven-eight-zero, five-five-six. At six point nine megahertz.”
DeHaan looked him over. In his early twenties, just somebody caught up in a war who’d joined the Kriegsmarine, then was lucky or clever enough to get duty on a minesweeper patrolling the Danish coast—M 56, scourge of the herring boats.
DeHaan checked the radio, found nothing to provoke his interest, then walked the signalman back up to the bridge. “So, that’s two,” Scheldt said. Then glanced at Schumpel’s body and added, “Three, I mean.” DeHaan sat the signalman down next to the other prisoner, and tied his hands and feet. “I’m going to the wardroom,” he told Scheldt.
“Let me come with you, Cap’n. With the submachine gun.”
DeHaan thought about it, then said, “No, I’ll take Cornelius.”
On the main deck, one level below the bridge, the wardroom was next to the officers’ mess, down a passageway past the chartroom and the officers’ cabins. DeHaan paused out on deck, in front of the heavy door. “Cornelius, I want you to go the wardroom. Look around, see what’s going on in there, and where the guard is.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Cornelius said. He was being brave, the fighting on the bridge had shaken him.
“You can do it,” DeHaan said. “It’s easy, just do what you always do, you don’t have to be quiet, or clever. Take a walk down the passageway, tell the guard that Leutnant Schumpel sent you.”
“Why did he send me, sir?”
“You’re the mess boy—you’re going to bring up something to eat. They haven’t had any food for a long time, so you’re there to, to count how many, and the cook is going to send up sandwiches and coffee.”
Cornelius nodded. “Sandwiches.”
“And coffee. Don’t be scared.”
“Aye, sir.”
When Cornelius reached for the door lever, DeHaan realized that he had to know what happened in the wardroom—in case the guard didn’t believe the story. He’d intended to wait for Cornelius on deck, but now realized he’d have to go inside. “I’ll be right down the corridor,” he said.
Cornelius hauled the door open and went inside. Behind him, DeHaan slammed it, and Cornelius, clomping down the passageway, made plenty of noise. He was halfway down the corridor, nearing the corner which led to the wardroom, when a German voice called out, “Who’s that?”
“Mess boy!”
DeHaan went down on one knee, making himself a smaller target, and held the wrist of his gun hand to keep it steady. If the guard put his head around the corner . . .
Cornelius turned right and disappeared. Then, from the wardroom, voices, but very faint. DeHaan glanced at his watch—eight-fifty, the radio had been left unattended for fifteen minutes. More voices. What was there to talk about? Come on, Cornelius, count heads and leave.
Finally, footsteps. And a voice, just around the corner, where the guard would not lose sight of his captives. “Hey, mess boy.”
“Yes?” Cornelius’s voice was close to a squeak.
“Bring me two of them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And hurry it up.”
Cornelius did as he was told, trotting down the corridor. DeHaan followed him out on deck and slammed the door for effect.
“Well?” he said.
“He’s got them lying down, on their stomachs, with their hands behind their heads.”
“One guard?”
“Yes.”
Undermanned. He realized Schumpel had made a mistake—this was a boarding crew, not a prize crew. “What does he look like?”
“A sailor, sir. With a mustache, like Hitler. He pointed his rifle at me the whole time I was there.”
“Anybody say anything?”
“No, the guard asked if I’d talked to anybody, from the ship.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“Just the German officer.”
“Did he believe it?”
“He looked at me, Cap’n, scared me, the way he looked.”
DeHaan didn’t dare to send Cornelius to the galley—he needed someone to man the radio, and the mess boy’s normal round trip never took less than half an hour. So he waited, standing on deck in the slow rain, with Cornelius beside him. Eight fifty-five, eight fifty-eight.
“Now we’ll go back,” he said, checking the automatic one last time.
“To ask again?”
“No,” DeHaan said. “Just say who you are, as you go down the passageway, and run past the door. Quick. Understand?”
“Aye, sir. Are you going to kill him?”
“Yes.”
DeHaan opened the door, and followed Cornelius down the corridor. Such familiar territory; the chartroom, his cabin, Ratter’s cabin—strange and alien to him now.
In a whisper, DeHaan said, “Call out to him.”
“Hello! It’s the mess boy.”
“Now what?”
“Mess boy.”
They reached the corner, Cornelius hesitated, DeHaan let the guard have a look, then pushed him hard so that he went stumbling down the passageway. In three strides, DeHaan reached the open door of the wardroom, found the German sailor, pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. It was a double-action trigger so the shot didn’t come immediately, and in that tenth of a second DeHaan realized the man wasn’t who Cornelius said he was—yes he had a Hitler mustache but that was all. Tall and thin and nervous, he sat on the deck with the rifle resting across his lap. His mouth opened when he saw what DeHaan meant to do, then the automatic flared, and he yelped and threw the rifle out in front of him as blood poured down his face.
It was a mle after that, the officers struggling to their feet, Kees grabbing the rifle, Poulsen and Ratter grabbing the sailor—more because he’d held them captive than anything else, he was no threat to them now, breathing hard with his eyes closed. Dying, he thought. But he was wrong about that—DeHaan had aimed at his heart and clipped off a piece of his left ear.
2140 hours. At sea.
They now held the bridge and the top deck of the ship. Five and a half hours from Warnemnde, with the engine room and the crew’s quarters still under the control of the four remaining sailors from M 56. DeHaan saw Maria Bromen only for a moment, in the wardroom, as she stamped her feet and rubbed her legs to get the circulation back. “You have the ship?” she said.
“Part of it.”
“What will you do now?”
“Take the rest, then deal with the minesweeper. We may be shelled, it’s likely, so I want you to stay in my cabin, and be ready to go to the lifeboats. On the first shot, go and wait there.”
“You plan this?”
“It’s one idea. In the darkness, one of the boats might get away, and make for Sweden.”
“Better than
going like sheep,” she said.
Meanwhile, Shtern had torn the guard’s undershirt into strips, and patched up his ear, then DeHaan told him to remain in the wardroom, with Poulsen, and walked the guard up to the bridge. When he was secured, DeHaan handed the automatic to Mr. Ali and told him to go to the radio room, accompanied by the German signalman. “He’ll handle communication with the minesweeper,” DeHaan said. “Shoot him if he betrays us.”
“How would I know, Captain?”
“Cannon fire.” He then translated into German for the signalman, and the two of them left the bridge. Now there was one job that remained to be done, and DeHaan and Ratter rolled Schumpel into a length of canvas, traditional sea coffin, tied the ends with rope, and dragged him out to the port side of the deck. They briefly considered sea burial, then and there, but the iron weights normally used for the ceremony were in the engine room, and they didn’t want him floating past the M 56 lookouts. When they’d sent Xanos and Cornelius down to the wardroom, to join the reserve force, DeHaan, Ratter, and Kees remained on the bridge.
“Next is the engine room,” DeHaan said. “Then the crew’s quarters.”
“Your pistol and the rifle are hidden in a duct,” Ratter said. “Along with the minefield maps. Once I get them, we’ll have a pistol, two rifles, and the submachine gun. Was the signalman armed?”
“No.”
“Well, we better get moving. I was their prisoner for one afternoon, that was enough for me.”
When he’d left, DeHaan said to Kees, “What can we do about the minesweeper? Board it? Ram it?”
“We’ll never ram—she’s too nimble. And we’d have a dozen shells in us in no time at all, with fighter planes here in twenty minutes. As for boarding, I don’t see how we can get close enough, using the cutter. They have a searchlight, and machine guns. That’s suicide, DeHaan.”
Ten minutes later, Ratter arrived with the ship’s armory. Kees took the Enfield rifle, Ratter the submachine gun, DeHaan his Browning automatic. “We’ll give the guard’s rifle to Poulsen,” Ratter said.