“Just over seventy-nine hundred meters, maximum load. Standard load, half that.” Reubold lit a cigarette and regarded Walters. “Why are you here, Kommodore? Why travel all the way from Paris with Allied fighters snapping at your heels, just to ask a few questions? Dresser has already issued orders to dismantle the boats.”
“He was a bit premature,” Walters said, walking away from Reubold. He needed a moment to think and the fregattenkapitan’s negativity interfered with his thinking. But Reubold followed, apparently unwilling to let go.
“You mean that you’ve come to give us a reprieve?” Reubold asked, the question nearly a statement, wreathed in sarcasm. “How kind of you. You must be very close to the fieldmarschal. Tell me, does he know that we exist down here? Does he have confidence in us? We are such a little force — nothing to be reckoned with. It is so difficult for we who fight to understand the complexities of command.” Reubold examined the silent vessels. “No matter. They aren’t ready for war yet — not real war. Not yet.”
They stopped at the bow, Walters studying the strange guns. Reubold was a defeatist but the kommodore laid that thought aside. One day he would say too much and the SS would come and take him away. The guns caught his attention again. “Can they be fired at top speed?” He turned, wanting to be more precise with the question. “They can’t be very accurate if you are moving through the water at that speed. Have you overcome that?”
“You mean can we actually hit anything?” Reubold said, “Hit, yes. Aim, no. Still if one puts enough rounds in the air, one is bound to hit what one is aiming at. Eventually. Kommodore? Why won’t you answer my question? Why are you here?”
“To learn,” Walters said, lost in thought.
“Yes,” Reubold said, “but why are you here?”
“The fieldmarschal has determined that the most effective use of these boats is in laying mines across potential invasion corridors,” Walters said. “I agree. From what you’ve told me, and from what I already know, it is highly unlikely that these S-boats, as intriguing as they are, have any likelihood of inflicting significant damage on the invasion fleet.”
“We have certainly raised hell with enemy convoys in the Channel.”
Walters continued to study the guns. “Everything is the invasion, Reubold,” he announced. “Preparation is all. The fieldmarschal has decreed that the enemy must be stopped at the beaches. Sea mines are a very important part of that strategy. They can potentially disrupt an invasion fleet, influence the enemy’s tactics…”
“We’re lucky,” Reubold mused, “if the enemy possesses no minesweepers.”
“What?” Walters asked, the connection lost.
“Nothing,” Reubold answered.
Overhead the gantry burst into life, the diesels driving the crossbeam along the tracks toward the boat. Thick steel cables with hooks, pulleys, and straps swung rhythmically with the movement. An oberbootsmann shouted instructions, sending half a dozen matrose onto the S-boat’s deck to secure the straps around the gun.
“After they pull her stinger,” Reubold commented, “we’ll take her out of the water, remove the foils and mounts, replace the shafts, and she’ll be a good little girl again.”
The gantry stopped with a loud clank, the sound echoing off the concrete walls and ceiling.
“Time-consuming, no doubt,” Walters said. “Removing the guns.”
The steel cables played out, dropping the hooks and straps toward the gun.
“Something that requires particular care, I should imagine,” Walters said. Reubold cocked his head in question.
“A very complex task,” the kommodore said, looking at Reubold. There was a message behind the words.
Reubold cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: “Hold.” He turned back to Walters. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Kommodore,” he said coldly. “I’m not sure that I care to play.”
“Games are for children, Fregattenkapitan. Perhaps,” he added, “your strange vessels are destined to play another role. My only interest is defending the Fatherland from her enemies.”
Reubold considered the kommodore’s reply. He answered with a smile. “I might be one of those enemies.”
“Are you, Fregattenkapitan?” Walters said.
Reubold’s smile grew broader, but he did not answer.
“Well,” Walters said as the straps swung back and forth. “I must return to Paris and select the fieldmarschal’s wine. I’m very pleased to see that the work is progressing at a very deliberate pace so that there is no danger of damage to the boats.”
“Admiral Dresser may find the lack of progress confusing,” Reubold said.
“Yes,” Walters said, “so might the fieldmarschal should he learn of it. But they are both busy men. I’m sure such details would go unnoticed for a time.” His eyes swept the long, low, ominous shape of the S-boat. “Before I entered the Kriegsmarine, my father held out the hope that I would choose the ministry. Are you familiar with the works of Charles Fletcher Leckie?”
“No. Who is he?”
“He was an American clergyman and teacher. He died in 1927. I actually attended one of his lectures in England. He said: ‘It is a world of startling possibilities.’ Don’t you agree, Fregattenkapitan?”
Reubold eyed the kommodore with a new appreciation. “It is a world of surprises.”
“Yes,” Walters said. “Truly. Shall we combine the two then, and say that it would be to our benefit to investigate any possibility to surprise our enemies? Good day, Fregattenkapitan Reubold.”
The fregattenkapitan pulled a cigarette from his case, lit it, and gave the strange visit by Walters a great deal of thought. What he had learned while immersed in the hierarchy of Nazi high command was that everyone wanted something. Certainly they all wanted to win the war, but success was decided by personal gain, not victory for the Fatherland. He kept that observation to himself, of course. The heady talk that floated around glittering receptions and opulent dinners as counterpoint to Brahms or Wagner was guaranteed to advance one’s position. In a world where so little was certain — this was.
Walters had come to set a plan in motion, but Reubold had no idea what the plan entailed. Was it necessary that I know? he asked himself. Is it so important at this late date in the war that I suddenly become privy to what others have in store for me? Reubold’s answer was blunt: You’ve never cared before — why now?
They had run most of the night, relying on radar to see into the blackness, in unspoken relief that dark clouds covered the moon and stars so that their broad wakes were nearly hidden.
DeLong took the wheel of 155 almost immediately as Cole moved to the farthest reaches of the tiny bridge, melting into the structure, a man finding sanctuary in solitude. It was as if, DeLong thought after glancing at the silent form, Cole had willed himself far away from the living, that he had built a prison and quietly closed the cell door.
DeLong switched on the hooded light over the pioneer compass to get his bearings, then quickly turned it off. Even the tiniest of lights on the flat plain of the English Channel was enough to alert a vigilant enemy.
Edland, as silent as Cole, stood behind DeLong, his arm wrapped casually in the intricate framework of the radar mast. He’s a cool one, DeLong thought long after they had cleared the harbor and full night wrapped itself around the tiny vessels. All business. But he was the one who had told Cole, over a year ago — a century before — that the target was escorted by only a few MAS boats. No E-boats, he had said confidently in the steamy confines of the operations shack at Bastia.
“No E-boats,” Edland had said in response to Moose’s question.