by Nigel Barley
Sometimes complete strangers tipped their hats to him in the restaurant car and offered a card. Alarm bells shrilled in Lauterbach’s Old World head but they were always inoffensive travelling salemen, assuming a fellowship of the road.
“Good day, sir. Milton P. Goosewang, at your service, travelling in leather goods. And yourself?”
“I am a crocodile trainer by profession.”
“That so, sir? Well that’s mahty fahn, mahty fahn.”
At night the train often glided just a few feet from the windows of remote towns and he could peer in and catch glimpses of these little domestic heavens and hells, hermetically sealed like fortune cookies. Sometimes they rattled through empty forest or across vast, cultivated pariries or crept through big cities. The smeared smokestacks of Chicago greatly impressed him, an inelegant city dedicated to the mass evisceration of cattle and swine. But before all these Lauterbach did not pause, wafted past, a rolling stone, perpetually unmossed and wondered whether he was blessed or cursed. Arrived in New York, the new Grand Central Station was a Beaux-Arts thing of wonder with vaulted ceilings and classical gods in stone though gobbed-out chewing gum already marred the marble floors. He stepped outside to marvel at the soaring skyscrapers, amongst the Babel accents of the city, with their magic names of Woolworth and Singer and his heart soared. From a slick hotel on Lexington Avenue, with rubber flooring and glass ceilings, he sought out the German consul.
Herr Flick was all smiles in an office with views over the New York skyline. “Glad to meet you captain. I must say you don’t look a bit like your picture in the paper. Have you heard the good news?” He arranged the blotter on his desk, aligned a pencil with the grain of the wood. He was a very fussy man in a nice dove-grey suit.
“What news?” Lauterbach was installed in a leather armchair, his overcoat retained despite the unseasonable autumn heat.
“Your superior, von Muecke,” Flick smirked, “What a man! He’s fought his way across Arabia and turned up, out of the blue, in Constantinople.” He frowned. “Of course, he shouldn’t really have had to fight his way since the Turks are our allies and that’s their patch but still … At least Germany has a real hero at last. They’ve been in rather short supply of late. They’re shipping him back double quick and organising a big bash in Berlin, bands, march-past, the works. The Kaiser himself will make a speech.”
“I see.” Lauterbach wondered sourly how many of the men had died along the way, sacrificed to von Muecke’s aggressive heroism.
“You don’t look too happy about it. Oh, I see. Yes of course, it must be a bitter blow that you can’t be there to witness his moment of glory. Well that’s war.” He swigged excellent coffee, puffed on a fine cigar to show he knew what the sufferings of war were all about. “So what about you?”
“The first thing,” Lauterbach interposed swiftly, “is some cash. I’ve been living on my wits for months now.” It wasn’t quite true but anxiety gnawed at his stomach despite the cash paunch. He needed urgently to feel he had some more dollars coming in and that he was not simply wasting away.
“Not my area. I’ll give you a note for the cashier. She may be able to find a mark or two but you’ll have to come out of the naval allocation and that’s a bit tight till the end of the financial year. As long as you move on …” He seized the pencil, made a note, stared at the point as if annoyed. It was no longer perfect. He took out a sharpener, twirled the pencil a couple of times and blew away the dust, then sat looking at it on the carpet.
“No hurry is there? I thought, maybe a bit of propaganda work over here. I could travel around, talk about the Emden and my own poor adventures? Some clubs, a few universities, ladies’ groups, you know the sort of thing.” He saw absolutely no reason to rush back to the austerities of wartorn Europe. Life was evidently very comfortable here in America. He sipped his own excellent coffee, sniffed Flick’s cigar that perfumed the air. The British, surely, would dare to make no move against him on American soil. At night, he had begun to dream happily of milk-fed Milwaukee. He actually missed those cows of his imagination, mooing plaintively, lost in the lush grass, tended by apple-cheeked girls in more of those lacy frocks the Chinese wenches had once worn in old Tsingtao.
Flick sucked air over his teeth and shook his head. He took out his handkerchief and began to rub fingerprints off the pencil-sharpener. “The moment for all that has passed, I’m afraid. The idea at this point is for the navy to keep a very low profile over here, what with the unrestricted submarine campaign and all that. It looks like the policy on that’s going to have to be reversed – which will cause another fearful stink. I’m afraid Lauterbach you’re going to have to be hushed up. Your only use to us is if you get back to the fatherland. Then you’d come in really handy at home as a stick to beat British stupidity and arrogance. Over here, ideally, we prefer our naval heroes to be dead – less bother all round. Since bolstering the wobbly neutrality of America is our principal concern at the moment, I couldn’t risk getting involved in your travel plans myself, of course, but I’m sure you’re a resourceful fellow. And no rush. We could give you a few weeks to get back across the water. I don’t imagine you’d want to take more than that. You’re not formally on leave you see and the navy gets horribly awkward about pay and availability for active service and all that rigmarole and you have been wandering about for some time now on a sort of holiday. We really don’t want our people hanging around in New York without any means of support and doing nothing. It gets us all a bad name.”
It was true. In the bourgeois enclave of Harlem Park, where the Germans strolled on Sundays, he had encountered the military band of Tsingtao, gold braid dimmed by wear and tear and all marooned high and dry. Since they had only worked as stretcher-bearers by day, the Japanese had decently released them as non-combattants. The British, on the other hand, insisted on treating stretcher-bearers as ordinary soldiers, so they dare not continue their journey home. If the British got them on the Atlantic they would stick them in a prison camp and throw away the key. So there it was. They sat in an arid New York park with their hats on the ground and oompahed glumly for their supper while Flick washed his hands of them. He should have known. He was not to be celebrated as a hero after all but to be cruelly abandoned here, thousands of miles from home, ignored with no more than a twitch of the nostril like a fart in a public place. Their ingratitude, lack of vision, administrative sloth – anxiety gripped him as usual in the belly. “I’m going to need quite a bit of money to get back,” he said defiantly, grasping his paunch again.
When he left the building, it was immediately obvious that he was being followed. Was it the British, the Americans or even the Germans? He could not be sure. Sometimes it seemed there were two separate groups on his heels. Sometimes they seemed to give up on him and just follow each other. He saw a lot of them over the next few days. He liked to visit Grand Central, lead them through the crowds, duck down the tunnels and up the stairs. He went to art galleries in one door and out the other. In restaurants, he often left through the kitchens, impervious to the staff’s shouts and curses. When all else failed he would slip into a skyscraper and ride to the fifteenth floor, cross the landing and ride straight down again on the other side. Sometimes he just turned on his heels while walking and came straight back at them, enjoying the horrified looks on their faces as they darted across the road or cowered in doorways. He made their life hell.
Then one day, he went back to the hotel and there was a familiar figure sitting in the lobby, staring into space and fanning himself with his hat. With his other hand, he tumbled a bullet relentlessly base over tip. Lauterbach was suddenly very tired of all this. He went and sat next to him. They stayed there for a minute or two in silence, both unwilling to transform their austere and wordless relationship and engage in what might be a difficult, even unpleasant, negotiation.
“Who are you?” Lauterbach asked finally. The smell of lavender was very strong, made worse by the fanning business.
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sp; The man sighed. “My name doesn’t really matter. It changes as often as your own, Captain Lauterbach.” He was very lean and wiry, something of the sportsman about him, and still sporting a tropical tan. “We won’t let you get back to Europe you know. There’s too much at stake. It would be much better all round if you just elected to stay here. We could all live with that. I could even give you my word that when America comes in on our side, as it surely will, we would make no move to extradite you. Absolutely. Arsehole-hooter-minty as our Italian friends say.”
“‘When’ not ‘if’ and who is ‘we’?” There was an accent there. “Are you Australian?”
The man sucked in his cheeks. “‘We’ is the British. The Allies more generally, if you prefer. No I am not really from Australia. I have a poetic soul and what poetry can there be in a country whose name rhymes only with ‘failure’ and ‘genitalia’? If you stay here, we can call that a kind of victory and I’ll leave you alone. But try to get back to Germany and I’ll do for you. We’d have no choice really after what your blokes just did, putting that captain of a ferry boat before a firing squad for trying to run down one of your subs off Antwerp. Public opinion, I’m afraid, would insist upon our stringing you up. It’s me or you old chum. You must remember that it’s different here. This isn’t Asia. The Atlantic’s our home territory and we keep it locked up tight as a drum. You’ve made me look very foolish one way and another, spat in my soup and made me drink it. Good luck to you. But you see, now my expenses need to be justified or they’ll send me to some bloody hellhole in Africa. No shortage of those in the Empire. I need you Lauterbach.”
At least somebody did. But expenses? Was this some great truth? Was the whole war nothing to do with national pride and the realities of politics and personal honour? Was it for everyone ultimately about nothing but trying to look good to the boss and justifying one’s expenses? Herr Flick had said much the same thing, so had Kessel in Batavia and as for himself, expenses had been a fundamental article of faith. But he had always regarded himself as a lone visionary and, of course, it wasn’t that simple. There were plenty of people like von Mueller and von Muecke, the true believers. But then maybe they were the true source of all the trouble in the world.
“I’m tired,” said Lauterbach. It was true. “I cannot hide the fact that I have been thinking about settling down here.”
“Best thing,” said the lavender man, coolly. “You have a good think. You Germans are patient chaps, something to do with the language I expect, all that waiting for the transitive verb. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s best all round. You settle down, get yourself nice and snug – gemuetlich, as you say. You may not be seeing me again but I’ll certainly be seeing you.” He rose, plumped his hat on his head and strolled elegantly away without looking back. Two old friends. A very civilised chat. Lauterbach was a little surprised that neither had offered the other any money, though which way the cash would have passed was unclear. Could he be trusted? Of course not. This was the man who had tried to have him shot down like a dog in Shanghai. As soon as America came into the war he’d sell him out in the interests of his expenses and, anyway, Lauterbach couldn’t let him get away with a smooth exit like that.
“My regards to Katsura-san,” he called.
Lavender man paused and looked genuinely puzzled. “Mr Katsura is dead,” he said slowly turning. “It seems he had an accident one night and fell in the river in Shanghai. He could not swim. I thought you knew.” He seemed suddenly angry. “Remember what I said Lauterbach. I’ll lay you a thousand dollars, here and now, you don’t make it back to Germany.”
Lauterbach stared him in the eye. “Done.” It was now a bet and he was immediately astonished that something so stupid should lift his spirits as he felt it did. The world and his movements in it had a clear, direct purpose again. It was all just a bet. This must be what it felt like all the time to be von Muecke.
That afternoon, a reinvigorated Lauterbach walked swiftly through the Broadway entrance of Macy’s Department store, rode the lift to the Men’s Outerwear department and shrugged on a mackintosh before crossing over to the neighbouring building and diving down the stairs to exit at the rear. Then, he made his way cautiously to his favourite place, a smoky bar called The Stockfish, down by the Battery, haunted by Baltic sailors in ancient, lumpy pullovers that smelled of sweat and fish. There were already the first leaves blowing in the streets and the first icy note sang in the wind. He talked Swedish, gave himself out as an old salt looking for a berth home, bought some disgruntled seaman’s papers cheap and kept his ears open. A Danish boat, the Frederick VII seemed the best bet, bound for Copenhagen. The captain was a regular at The Stockfish, a seasoned tippler of aquavit. Over a drink, Lauterbach broached the subject of a job. The captain looked at him evenly enough but his hands trembled on the glass. “I am looking for a stoker. I think you are not a stoker. You are Swedish but I think maybe not too Swedish. You look like a man of experience but then experience is just a kind name we give to all our mistakes. Times are hard. I tell you what I do. I take you aboard but you get no pay. Instead you give me two hundred dollars and I ask no questions and tell no lies. Is good?”
They shook hands on it. Was good.
The Frederick VII was not a graceful ship. She was an old rustbucket weighed down by a cargo of tinned goods, bacon and fresh fruit and gobbled twice the coal a more modern ship would have. After six hours’ stoking in heat and dust, Lauterbach felt he had worked himself sufficiently into the role and went to the captain. A little more money changed hands and the rest of the journey consisted of light duties, polishing brass, oiling valves, painting hatch-covers. Lauterbach had always disliked the Atlantic, a nasty cold sea that amplified the greyness of life. It was vicious and hostile and featureless. Glumness was somehow also the natural idiom of the vessel and its crew and, as the journey wore on, he felt himself becoming nordically depressed. They were tossed back and forth by storms for weeks till the smell of decaying fruit began to invade the galley and chase out that of fish while the captain drank himself from black moods into blacker ones and sobbed alone in the wheelhouse at night. Once, after midnight, he had barged into Lauterbach’s cabin, wild-eyed and distraught. “People are pears not apples,” he had raved a propos of nothing. “They rot from the inside out, not from the outside in!” and plunged back into the storm, tearing his hair.
The crew sulked and groaned in Swedish and Norwegian and other Nordic tongues that had no name whenever the slightest effort was asked of them. No one shaved. Few washed. Evenings were spent playing patience alone. Everything was just too much trouble and life was a burden to be borne. They even lacked the energy to fight with each other. Then the British came.
They came unobserved because no one could be bothered to keep a proper watch and nearly opened fire when their orders to stop went unheeded. Finally the crew were roused by a shot across the bows. It was a big, armed auxiliary and they sent over a boarding party. The petty officer in charge was a fussy man and became obsessed with the amount of bacon they carried. Why so much bacon? And to a country that produced its own bacon in abundance. Was this bacon not intended to bring comfort to the German army? Was it not a fact that Germans lived almost exclusively on bacon? He felt sure it was. They were ordered into Kirkwall in the Orkneys. The crew groaned and the captain sobbed but, in the icy wind, Lauterbach saw a familiar face at the rail and felt a knife twist in his stomach. It was lavender man, waiting to come across.
The boarding was sloppily done, not as Lauterbach would have handled it. There had been no checking of lists against names and engine-room crew had been allowed to stay at their posts. He had planned for this. Above the scalding boilers he had constructed a nest shielded by metal plates from below, so that it looked like a mere continuation of the boiler itself. It was as hot as Hades but bearable for short periods and he shoehorned himself in, gulped water from a store laid to hand, slapped a soaked towel over his head and settled to sweat it out. Half an hour limped
by. Then his foe appeared below, looking suspiciously in all directions, opened doors, checked lockers and moved with painful slowness down the aisle between the throbbing machines. He stared the crew boldly in the face, stopping them at their work and turning their heads with his hands as if they were pots he was thinking of buying. None of them – Lauterbach was sure – would give him away by a word or an upward glance. They were too depressed to look anywhere but at their feet. Lavender man came to rest right beneath the roaring boiler and glanced up at it as if he could see Lauterbach up there, smoking like a kipper, and fanned himself aggravatingly with his hat while Lauterbach stiffened and felt the sweat gush down his chest to drip sizzling on the hot metal. His guts gurgled like the boiler pipes around him and he strangled a fart behind his sphincter and thought he could almost smell the lavender but such a thing was – surely – impossible over the reeking smoke and oil. Gazing down, he felt rage and hatred and then a sudden stab of pity, like his dyspepsia, at the incipient soft baldness of the man’s crown, normally concealed by the hat and now revealed in all its babylike vulnerability. Then the man reached into his pocket and pulled out the bullet that he began working through his fingers like an infant sucking on a joyless dummy. Suddenly, Lauterbach was assailed by dizziness. He blinked, shook his head and swam in fumes and fear and, finally, when it seemed he would topple at his foe’s feet, the man passed on. Lauterbach stayed a few more minutes and emerged light with terror and dehydration. The British vessel returned to station, leaving only a skeleton crew in occupation. His enemy was gone.