The matrose returned, lugging the box. He set it on the deck with a thump.
“Easy,” an oberbootsmannmaat said. “Those things explode.”
“Like our commander,” the bootsmann tossed the opinion over the case.
The men gave a low laugh and began sliding the shells in the belt.
“Did you hear him take the leutnant’s head off today?” a young matrose said, glancing around to see how the older men received his comment. They were quick to put anyone in their place that spoke out of turn.
“Everyone heard that,” the bootsmann said, to the matrose’s relief. It was the first step toward acceptance by the other men. He was becoming one of them.
“He isn’t what he used to be,” someone said.
The oberbootsmannmaat snorted. “He’s got only himself to blame for that. Mind you, he’s a fine fighter but he’s one of those men who always manage to shit where they eat.”
“What do you mean?” the young matrose said.
“You don’t know the true story of our commander?” another man said.
The matrose shook his head.
“Goering wants him dead,” the oberbootsmannmaat said. “If the Fat Man wasn’t so close to being finished himself, he would have gotten his wish.”
“Why?”
“Reubold was a pilot,” the bootsmann said, apparently comfortable enough with his seniority to join in the oberbootsmannmaat’s story. “Shot down a hundred Ivans.”
“I heard two hundred,” said an old matrose who liked to drink too much to keep his rank.
“All right,” a bootsmannmaat conceded. “Two hundred.” He finished a belt and reached for another. “Goering called him back to Berlin to award him the Knight’s Cross or something at a big dinner. Reubold drank everything in sight and then turned and threw up in Goering’s lap.”
The men laughed while the young matrose looked shocked.
“Not that Goering minds having a man’s head in his lap,” the bootsmannmaat said. “But he doesn’t want the fellow to throw up.”
The low wail of air-raid sirens stopped the laughter. The men looked up, as if they could see through the 14 feet of concrete overhead.
“Well,” the oberbootsmannmaat said. “This isn’t such a bad place to be after all. Is it?”
“Watch the bastards blow up our billet again,” the old matrose said. “I hate the British.”
Searchlights cut on in the darkness, thin gleaming trails that swept the dark sky. Anti-aircraft guns began to boom, splitting the night like lightning.
“Goering hates him for that?” the young matrose asked.
“Nobody takes the Fat Man too seriously anymore. Especially the Fuehrer.” The oberbootsmannmaat’s head swung toward the entrance of the pen when lesser caliber guns began to stitch the darkness with tracers. He glanced at Waldvogel. The little man was intent on the bright flashes outside the pen entrance. A child, the oberbootsmannmaat thought. They send us children and idiots who like to watch pretty things in the sky. Go out there, child. See how pretty those lights really are. He returned to the conversation. “That just gave people one more reason to make fun of the Fat Man.”
“So Reubold is here,” the bootsmannmaat said. “At least until he gets killed. Maybe…”
The oberbootsmannmaat interrupted him. “Where’d that fellow go?”
The bootsmannmaat looked around. “What fellow?”
“The fregattenkapitan,” the oberbootsmannmaat said. “He was standing right there.”
“You don’t think he’s gone to report us to Reubold, do you?”
The oberbootsmannmaat stood. “Turn out that light,” he ordered. Someone switched off the work light, leaving just the red emergency lighting. The oberbootsmannmaat’s eyes swept the pen. “He was just here. I hope he didn’t try to leave. The bombing’s picking up.”
Anti-aircraft guns boomed constantly as the bombers neared the harbor. Once in a while a bomber would fall to earth in a fiery streak. But there would be more bombers, and they would come every night until everything was destroyed.
“There he is,” the young matrose shouted, pointing.
Waldvogel was walking as if in a daze toward the giant maw of the pen. The oberbootsmannmaat jumped onto the dock and, followed by several of the other men, ran after Waldvogel. “Korvettenkapitan! Stop. Don’t go any farther.”
The worst place to be during a raid was the entrance to the pen. It was the only place that enemy bombs could get you. The insides of the walls at the entrance were deeply scarred by bomb fragments, and the leading edges of the pen roof were chipped and split. And yet Waldvogel walked on, oblivious to the shouts of the men who raced after him or the deadly rain of bombs headed toward the pen. He saw only one thing: the graceful trails of green tracers as they searched for enemy planes. They arced into the night, the slim glowing trails curved by distance and gravity. His eyes flicked from tracer band to tracer band, his mind working quickly, absorbing and calculating everything that he saw. He vaguely heard the shouts of the men behind him, but they were a minor distraction and he ignored them.
Waldvogel’s mind flew over the possibilities as he watched the spectacular demonstration in the night sky over Cherbourg. It was all for his benefit, and he accepted it without question because it gave him the answer that he needed.
Now he knew what could be done. Now he knew how to solve the problem that had threatened to destroy everything. Now he could tell Reubold.
A Tallboy dropped from a Lancaster struck the water and buried itself in the harbor mud a short distance away. As Waldvogel approached the entrance, it exploded.
Chapter 15
Edland had sublet a small apartment; it was not luxurious by any standards, but he seldom indulged himself in luxuries. He had learned to get by with very little. His expeditions to China, rather, accompanying his father on his expeditions to China, had convinced him that most things were unnecessary and were encumbrances to everyday living. “You don’t need that,” was his father’s common refrain as he packed for the trips, or the few times that the Great Man came to visit him. “Clutter, clutter,” his father sniffed, surveying what Edland always considered rooms remarkably free of anything except the basics. For the first few times Edland was irritated, and even angered. But then he began to ignore his father’s opinion and even toss in a remark about having new furniture delivered, or something guaranteed to prick the Great Man’s remarkably thin hide.
Edland would not admit it to himself, and would certainly never share the thought with his famous father, that his father was right. So he conditioned himself to live with little. He divested himself of memories, tokens, souvenirs, and the hundreds of other things that reflect a man’s experiences. His life, like his apartment, was barren of such sentimentality.
A persistent knock at the door brought Edland out of a satisfying sleep, filled with dreams of the vast Gobi: endless caravans of plodding camels, and the high, mysterious mountains of Tibet that look to have been created by God simply to shoulder the ominous clouds that crowded the sky.
He made his way out of the bedroom, checked to see that the blackout curtains were in place, and switched on a small lamp atop his scarred desk. Opening the door in mid-knock, he found a young naval officer waiting in the dimly lit hall.
“Lieutenant Commander Michael Edland?” the officer asked.
“Yes,” Edland said, wondering what time it was. His body told him that it had to be very late and he had been nearing deep sleep when the knock awoke him.
“Can I see your ONI I.D., sir?”