“Gierek?” Jagello said, the first word that he had spoken in over an hour.
“Yes?” Gierek said.
“Is that the only song that you know?”
Reubold sat on the case of 2cm ammunition in the pen, waiting for the last of the men to gather around him. He longed for a cigarette. His hands were trembling and the last shot of morphine had long since drifted away, leaving the dull ache that gripped his body at a dozen points. It was his legs especially; they cramped when he remained motionless, and the pain was so unrelenting that he wanted to cry out. They actually felt as if they were twisted and misshapen, and he knew that if he looked down he would see gnarled limbs, withered and distorted. When he did look down, of course, his legs were perfectly normal, long and elegant. He wanted to scream liars, liars, and beat them senseless with his fists.
A man beating his own legs, Reubold decided; now that would be a sight.
Waldvogel joined him, the little man’s overalls covered in grease. He and a couple of armament artificers had been trying to decrease the drag on the guns so that they trained smoothly. He was surprised when the work to remove the guns and foils had stopped. Reubold had told the men nothing except to stand down; an explanation would come later. At least he hoped an explanation would come later. Silver Stripes like Walters had a way of changing their minds so that orders were as fleeting as the morning dew. Let the first mild light of reconsideration strike a perfectly sensible order and it disappeared. This was different, however, and Reubold was surprised to receive a telephone call from Walters confirming what he didn’t say on his visit to the pens. The boats will remain as they are. For the moment. That was another thing; Silver Stripes, naval officers who hovered around bases, were reluctant to be specific about anything so that should it return to them they could very easily turn it away at the door like a long-lost relative with doubtful antecedents.
“I’m glad that you could take time away from your whoring and drinking,” Reubold said, the words echoing against the concrete walls of the pen. There was hearty laughter in return. Most of the men had been with Reubold for a while and they respected him. “We’ve been given a true reprieve,” he continued. “That’s like a fallen woman calling herself virtuous again, but I am satisfied with that.” The laughter was louder this time. Reubold thought of the vials in his room as his legs slowly twisted into knots. “The high command apparently has need of us. For what and when, I am not certain. They did not bother to inform me of that. They did inquire about Waldvogel’s wonderful guns and what they did. I said my gunners are blind and the guns are shit.” There was sustained laughter and Reubold rubbed his leg roughly. He grew serious, his eyes sweeping his crews. “We have a chance, comrades. I don’t know what high command wants of us, but we have a chance to show them what we can do. These are fast boats.” He glanced at the S-boats comfortably nestled alongside the quay. “We have got to practice firing, running at full speed, and hitting our targets. Those big gas bags of Waldvogel’s” — more laughter, but subdued because the men knew that this was serious business — “can do some damage when they hit. We’ve all seen the results. But they’re the devil to aim at high speed, as steady as the boats are. And we want to be fast to confuse the enemy and because we stick out like a floating island on Waldvogel’s foils. Fast and accurate, those are the watchwords. Fast and accurate. I want to report to the Silver Stripes that we can thread the eye of a needle at three thousand meters. That means that we have to improve. That means more practice.”
Reubold surveyed the gathering. They shared a look of intense concentration mixed with defiance. Good. They understood what needed to be done. They knew that they could hold nothing back, that if they failed…. He decided to give the pot one more stir.
“There is something else. Something I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear. The army, you know those fellows that keep marching to and fro?” Laughter and a few catcalls. “The army says that if we can’t make our boats work they’re going to take them away and use them as minelayers.” There was an explosion of profanity and insults. Reubold silenced the group by raising his hand. “Feldmarschall Rommel wants more boats to sprinkle mines in the Channel to scare the Americans and English away.” He paused, letting the men’s anger simmer. “Let him find the boats someplace else,” Reubold said calmly. “These are warships, not trawlers. Let us show them that Flotilla Eleven has the fastest, most dangerous boats on La Manche. Work hard, gentlemen. Work well. Those Silver Stripes will see what these boats are capable of.” He nodded to an oberbootsmannmaat, who shouted: “Dismissed.”
Reubold stepped off the box gingerly, his legs crying out in resistance. The speech had drained him and his hands ached to hold the needle. Waldvogel was suddenly at his side.
“I’ve been working on the gun traversing mechanism. It’s much smoother. Much more fluid,” Waldvogel said hopefully.
“Can you hit anything?” Reubold asked, deciding to sit a moment before returning to his rooms. He was very tired and sick of promises.
“Yes. Certainly.”
Reubold nodded. “Good. That is very good. They don’t give us medals for misses, you know.” He stroked his legs, wanted desperately to hammer them into compliance. “We’ll go out in two hours, then. We’ll take your boat out and check the marvelous new traversing mechanism.”
“Yes,” Waldvogel said. “Yes. That will do nicely.”
“Waldvogel,” Reubold said, easing his legs straight out in front of him. “Walters made it very plain to me. Rommel wants our boats. Dresser doesn’t care about them. For some reason, and he hasn’t told me what, Walters wants us to be successful. In his very words; fast and accurate. If we can’t prove that to him,” he struggled to his feet. “We join the army.”
The slide flashed on the large screen in the darkened confines of the briefing room, and Dickie Moore began to speak.
“PRU Squadron 542 chaps brought these back after the raid on Le Havre. They went right to PIU for mark-up.” The Photo Reconnaissance Units were the eyes of the Royal Air Force, their cameras pinpointing targets or bombing results. Photo Interpretive Units examined photographs to determine if targets were selected or if bomber command had succeeded.
The long wooden dowel centered on a circle drawn on the photograph. “Here is the E-boat pen.” The dowel swept the length of a thick dock. “This is called Mole Centrale.” Dickie tapped an area above it, partially obscured by a tuft of clouds. “This rectangle in the Basin Theophile is a floating dock. Obviously much too large for E-boats and intended, I’m sure, for the larger ships of the Kriegsmarine in those heady days before the bottom fell out.”
“Might we dispense with the editorial comments, Lieutenant?” Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsey said from the darkness.
“As you like, sir,” Dickie said, nonplussed.
“What ship is that?” an officer asked. “The one capsized at the top of the photo?”
“The Paris,” Dickie said cheerfully, as if he had had a hand in sinking her. “No danger of her coming back to life.”
“Bomb damage?” Ramsey chided, moving the briefing along.
“Right, sir. Here is an impact crater. Here.” Dickie searched the enlarged photograph. “And here.”
“Damage to the pens?” Admiral McNamar asked.
“Minor, I’m afraid, sir,” Dickie said apologetically. “Everything around it has taken quite a beating, but unless there is evidence of some damage within the pens, it looks as if it’ll require another go.”