Edland nodded, retrieved the card from his wallet on the desk, and handed it to the officer. The young man scanned the card, glanced at Edland, and handed it back.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “This arrived for you about an hour ago.” He handed Edland a sealed gray envelope stamped USN SECRET, saluted, and left.
Edland closed the door slowly, locked it, and carefully tore off the flap of the envelope. That was quick, he thought, and then took the time to calculate when he had sent the cable, what time it was in the States, and how quickly McGill would respond to his series of questions. If McGill understood what Edland was asking him. He moved to the chair near his desk, adjusted the lamp to give himself more light, unfolded the three sheets of paper, and smoothed them across his knee.
Edland began to read the reply.
“Are you a madman?” Reubold shouted at Waldvogel in the cavernous pen, his voice bouncing off the hard concrete walls.
The medical officer gave Reubold a look of reprimand and continued wrapping a bandage around Waldvogel’s head. A tiny stream of blood stained the pure white cloth.
“How many times have I told you to stay well inside the pen during a bombing raid? Didn’t you hear me order the men to do so? You must have heard that; I said it often enough.”
“Please, Fregattenkapitan,” Waldvogel said, grimacing. “Please don’t chastise me so loudly. My head hurts terribly.”
“You could be dead,” Reubold said, the volume of his voice rising. “Dead you don’t help me. Dead you’re no good to me.”
“I was under the impression that you were through with me and my boats,” Waldvogel ventured.
“Do not tax my patience,” Reubold said. “This is no time for silly words. Look at that.” He pointed to a large crack in the concrete ceiling. A powdery dust continued to sift from the jagged edges of the crack, covering the surface of the black water. “That was a bomb that landed a hundred meters from here. The shock wave sent a wave into the pen that almost swamped the boats.”
“That must have been what knocked me down,” Waldvogel mused in appreciation. “It must have been a very large bomb.”
“Yes,” Reubold said. “It would appear so.” He turned to the group of officers and men watching the exchange. “All right. All right. You have things to do. Get out.” The officers and noncommissioned officers hastily shepherded the men back to the boats. “How is he?” Reubold asked the medical officer.
The officer took a strip of tape from a medical officer and sealed the edge of the bandage in a fold. “I think he has a concussion. He could have cracked his skull. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
The medical officer straightened and gestured to the steward to gather his belongings. “I didn’t bring an X-ray machine,” he said as if Reubold was slow-witted. “And I can’t adequately examine him in this cave. My advice is to get him to the hospital and have someone there look him over. Until then, lower your voice, and don’t be such an ass.”
Reubold helped Waldvogel to his feet as the medical officer and orderly left. The korvettenkapitan examined his drenched clothing.
“I am a mess,” he said. “I think the uniform is ruined. They are so hard to come by.”
“What were you doing?” Reubold said.
“What?”
“What were you doing? Where were you going? The men said you walked to the maw as if you were drunk. Were you trying to kill yourself? If that’s the case, just wait. The British would gladly do that for you.”
Waldvogel rubbed his head tenderly. “No, no. Nothing like that.” He looked toward the entrance to the pen. The night was black and calm, except for the dim light of the faraway fires set by falling bombs. He began to shiver. Reubold removed his leather jacket and covered Waldvogel’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” Waldvogel said. He studied the entrance, trying to remember what had drawn him near the edge, what had almost gotten him killed. He tasted grit in his mouth and looked at the crack in the ceiling. “Such a bomb,” he said in admiration.
“Yes,” Reubold said. “I’ll write the RAF and congratulate them. Let’s get away from here.”
“Yes,” the korvettenkapitan said, trying to sort through his memory. “The guns,” he said, when the thought came back to him in a flood of images. “The anti-aircraft guns. How simple it was. What a dunce.”
“What?”
“The guns,” Waldvogel said excitedly. His hands came up and began to piece the scene together for Reubold. “I watched them for a time before I realized that they held the answer. I did not realize it before. The searchlights, I thought at first. I watched them sweep the sky,” his hand pantomimed the movement of a searchlight. “And I thought, yes. That will certainly work. And then I thought, how ridiculous. They would present the perfect target for the enemy.”
“What are you talking about?” Reubold said, losing his patience.
“The boats, Fregattenkapitan. I did not understand. They have such little movement when on the foils. They are not like other craft, bouncing over the waves, being battered by the sea.”
“Yes,” Reubold said. “They are fast. But we still cannot aim what we shoot at. What of it?”
“Precisely,” Waldvogel said. This time it was his turn to become excited, and his hands became little fists as the full memory of what he had discovered before the explosion came back to him. “The slightest movement, the very least movement at the gun barrel, is translated into many times that by even a minor intrusion.”
“So?”
“The variation is multiplied by the distance to the target. The gunners have no time to compensate for the slightest movement, even if they are aware of it.”
Reubold remained silent, listening. Waldvogel, heartened by the fregattenkapitan’s attention, continued.
“The gunners need a simple device to lay the Trinity exactly on target. I’ve wasted my time with gyroscopes and complicated sighting devices, and even blamed the gunners for their inability to hit the targets.”
“Imagine their frustration and what they thought of you,” Reubold said. “Continue.”
“I saw the tracers fill the sky,” Waldvogel said, almost breathless with revelation. “Long, thin lines of light. And then, I realized — we will use tracers. We will sight by the line of tracers as they strike the target. When we see the fall of the shell, we fire the Trinity. The target is illuminated by the 2cm shells striking it.”
“How does that help?” Reubold said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He could not take the boats out again simply to fail. He had felt Waldvogel’s possibility and for an instant had accepted the man’s excitement as his own — willing the idea’s success. But he dare not promote an idea that he felt would have little chance of success. He could not stand the defeat. “If we use the mid-ship’s doorknocker we have their distance from the Trinity’s to contend with. Not a great distance in meters but enough to throw off anyone’s aim. It is also lower than the Trinity. Remember that when we rise on your hydrofoils our bow is up. I am not a gunner, but if a slight movement presents a problem than surely height and position impact on the situation as well.”
“Yes,” Waldvogel said, undaunted.
“Well then, how can you think that this is a solution? We are exactly where we were before, Waldvogeclass="underline" half-formed ideas and idiotic notions.” Reubold’s anger was fueled by the idea that nothing would ever come of the boats and their guns. Sea Eagles the men called them. They might soon be eagles without talons.
“No. No,” Waldvogel said hastily. “I did not explain myself properly. Forgive me, please. Next to them. Atop them perhaps. If we attach a 2cm in place on the mount, the trajectory will be exactly the same.”