When you were in the U-boat business, strange orders were liable to get you killed. (So were ordinary orders; it was that kind of trade. But with strange orders your odds were worse.) If that bothered his superiors in the Kriegsmarine, they went out of their way not to show it.
And so the U-30 cruised slowly through the chop off the east coast of Scotland. Not very far off the Scottish coast, either: land was clearly visible to the west. One of the ratings on the conning tower with Lemp said, “If they’ve got a 105 on the beach, they can hit us with it. We can hit ’em back with the 88 on deck, too.”
“I know,” Lemp replied. “But even if they do have a 105 there, chances are they won’t shoot with it. They’re bound to think we’re one of their own U-boats, not a German machine. No German boat would be mad enough to show itself so close to their coast.”
“Sure, skipper,” the rating said, as if humoring a lunatic. “So what the hell are we doing here?”
“We are carrying out our orders,” Lemp said, which was literally true. “We are searching for any signs of wreckage or survivors from a Messerschmitt-110 that may or may not have gone into the North Sea in these waters.”
“Sure,” the rating said again. “But why?”
“Martin, you never ask that question,” Lemp answered patiently. “Because they told us to, that’s why.”
Martin only sniffed. The hell of it was, Lemp had a hard time blaming him. He wondered why they were looking for bits and pieces of a Bf-110, too. However much he wondered, he didn’t know. The hard-faced captain back in Kiel hadn’t looked the sort who was much inclined to answer questions. In fact, he’d looked the sort who would bite your head off if you had the nerve to ask any. Sometimes the best thing you could do was salute, go “Zu befehl!”, and get the hell out of there. Lemp had judged that to be one of those times.
Had he been wrong? If the Royal Navy or the RAF decided the U-30 wasn’t an English U-boat, the enemy owned all the advantages here. Cruising along in broad daylight was all very well. Audace, audace, toujours l’audace, the French said. Well, yes, but when the fellows on the other team trumped all that audacity with depth charges…
He scanned the gray-green sea. This close to the coast, all sorts of rubbish floated in it. He hadn’t seen anything from a German fighter plane, though. He wondered if some important officer’s son had been flying the 110. That might account for a search like this. He couldn’t think of much else that would.
One of the things floating in the North Sea was a basket of the kind and size that might have held a baby. Martin said, “Sir, with all this shit around, how are we supposed to recognize stuff from a 110 even if we do come across it?”
“We’ve got to do the best we can,” Lemp answered, by which he meant he didn’t have the faintest idea.
Martin, unfortunately, understood him much too well. “Right,” the rating said, and scratched the side of his jaw. Gingery stubble sprouted there. Lemp didn’t shave when he was at sea, either. Like a lot of U-boat men, from the lowliest “lords”-ordinary seamen-to skippers, he trimmed his whiskers when he got back into port.
“What do they do when we send them the message that we can’t find what they’re looking for?” another rating asked.
“We don’t send it.” Now Lemp’s voice grew sharp. “We’re ordered to maintain radio silence throughout this cruise. I will make the report orally when we return to Kiel. Have you got that?”
“Yes, skipper. Sorry,” the rating said. Lemp didn’t usually come down hard on his men, but he had to be sure no one fouled up here. Somebody’s head would roll if the U-30 broke radio silence. He knew whose, too: his.
Like the rest of the men on the U-boat, he wished he knew what was going on. He didn’t like getting sent out on wild-goose chases. He especially didn’t like it when he had to wear a blindfold while hunting his wild geese.
All of which had nothing to do with anything. They’d given him his orders. He was following them. If he found no wreckage-or even if he did-he was to return to Kiel after four days of searching. It made no sense, not to him or to the men he commanded. Maybe that was because the officers set over them knew more about what was going on than they did. Or maybe the geese had got uncommonly wild lately.
The U-boat performed the ordered search. It found nothing from a Bf-110. For that matter, it found nothing from any airplane. Lemp wasn’t sorry to order the boat away from the Scottish coast. He counted himself lucky not to have been spotted. The Royal Navy must not have believed the Kriegsmarine would give any of its boats such an idiotic assignment. Well, he wouldn’t have believed it himself if he hadn’t got stuck with it.
No English planes happened on the U-30 as it hurried back across the North Sea. The farther Lemp put the British Isles behind him, the happier he grew. He was downright delighted when the boat got back to Kiel. But his pleasure chilled when armed guards on the pier kept anyone but him from going ashore. “We have our orders,” said the chief petty officer in charge of the detachment. That was a sentence unchallengeable in any branch of any military service the world around.
More sailors with Mausers escorted Lemp to the office where he was to make his report. He wasn’t astonished to find Rear Admiral Donitz there waiting to hear him. Whatever was going on, it was going on at levels far over his head.
He came to attention and saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir. My news is very simple: we saw nothing and found nothing.”
“Very well,” Donitz said. “That makes it more likely the 110 reached England, then. Scotland, I should say.”
“Sir, did you want it to do that?” Lemp asked.
The admiral looked through him. “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant.” In his mouth, Lemp’s rank might as well not have existed. A word from him, and Lemp’s rank wouldn’t exist.
“Yes, sir,” Lemp said. “But you can’t wonder if I’m a little curious. Everyone on my boat is a little curious, or more than a little.”
“It has to do with high policy. You can tell them that much,” Donitz answered. “And you can tell them not to push it, not if they know what’s good for them.” His eyes were gray-blue, and at the moment frigid as the North Sea in February. “The same goes for you.”
Lemp could take a hint. “I understand, sir,” he said quickly.
“I doubt that. The scheme surprised me when I heard about it,” Donitz said. “If it works, everything changes. And if it doesn’t, we’ve lost very little.”
What was that supposed to mean? One more quick look at Donitz’s face discouraged Lemp from asking. He saluted again. Then he asked, “May my men go ashore for liberty now?”
“After you let them know they’d better keep their mouths shut,” the admiral said. “Anyone who makes a mistake will regret it. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Lemp said. Clear as mud, he thought. Maybe events would answer his questions for him one of these days. Or he might spend the rest of his life wondering. You never could tell.
Chaim Weinberg believe his eyes. Was he really seeing this? Damned if he wasn’t. Half a dozen French tanks clanked up to the stretch of line the Abe Lincoln Battalion was holding outside of Madrid. These weren’t slow, ancient Renaults-leftovers from the last war. They were brand-new Somua S-35s, the best medium tanks the French made. The Spanish Republic had got a few-only a few-in 1938. Chaim didn’t know France had turned any loose since.
But here they were, painted a pale grayish green that put him in mind of olive leaves. It was a good color for operating in Spain. It would be even better once they got dusty and dirty. The Italians and Spaniards painted theirs khaki. The German tanks of the Legion Kondor were mostly dark gray, which made them stand out more. That mattered only so much. If you couldn’t stop them, so what if you saw them coming?