Any Survivors (2008) (11 page)

My sister's bloke never writes to her either. He says he is busy washing the deck, don't you dare use that as your excuse. I know you are underwater most of the time, With greetings and a kiss, your Jakobine.

P. S. I went to see Frau Schnuppelmatz. She says you are a rascal. If you don't propose soon I will come and look for you or write to your admiral to complain. Yours, the above.

This was obviously my bride-to-be. The letter was posted in Wiesbaden before 3 September. I hoped that she was now evacuated, preferably to a camp for civilians where no letter writing was allowed.

As it was now raining heavily, the mess hall was getting busier. I was getting used to the faces around me and feeling more comfortable. In addition to the two paintings of Hitler the mess hall had further ornaments: an aquarium and terrarium in one corner that would have once been in use. One was filled with earth and a few dried-out plants, the other with water and some coral. They must have been designated to hold treasures from foreign countries: exotic fish and amphibians to amuse and instruct the comrades left behind. Wartime activities had led to less exotic specimens being brought back. Instead of fabled animals from the Malayan Archipelago or the mouth of the River Amazon, there were only ordinary central European frogs, lizards and white fish. I could see the Baron pacing up and down, on the prowl for a victim of his jokes. The ones who had been there longer knew to keep well out of his way but unfortunately he had already found me.

‘Guess what happens if I break the lizard's tail off?’ ‘It’ll grow back,’ I answered, annoyed.

‘If only it were that easy.’ He burst into laughter. ‘Why shouldn't their tails be rationed too? First of all he needs a ration card, then he can wait and see what happens … Ha, ha, ha
.
’

I ducked quickly as I was sure that the German sailors never missed their aim, but sadly there was nothing being thrown in the direction of the jester. They must be more tolerant than me.

For my part I would have been perfectly happy sitting on my own, leafing through my diary contemplating various facts that were emerging from my surroundings. For example, it was quite easy to differentiate those sailors who were based on a U-boat from those on other ships, such as destroyers or patrol ships. The latter had bronzed faces, the former an unhealthy green hue around their eyes and pale faces. Fortunately I did not stick out because I was just as pale – the air in London WC1 must be very similar to the air on a U-boat. I was sure no one from the
Geheime Macht
had thought of this small detail. If they had sent a young man from Brighton in my stead, his rosy cheeks would have given him away.

The post had given me no further information about the private details of my predecessor. If only there had been a letter from my newly acquired mother saying something like the following:

My dear son, I am sending you a photograph of our little house in XXXheim, which as you know cost us 2,000 marks and has 950 marks left on the mortgage. Your father Johann, the retired civil servant, celebrated his sixty-second birthday yesterday and he is well. By the way, he received no birthday message from you. I recently went through your papers and put them in chronological order. Your school leaver certificate from such and such a school in XXXmistdorf, a letter refusing a scholarship because you were caught stealing apples, etc., etc.

Although I could easily imagine such a letter giving all the relevant information about my previous life, it was alas not to be as these things only seemed to happen in novels. In real life you receive ridiculous postcards with barefoot, hooded figures, chess clippings and unjust recriminations. When I say unjust, I mean it only to the extent that I was not strictly responsible for my predecessor's sins.

I suddenly had a thought. It may be possible to look in the record office. They must hold some rudimentary information on the sailors, if only the basics such as date of birth, details of parents and other useful titbits. There was a slight risk of appearing suspicious but I hoped that my recent decoration was reason enough. Perhaps I could say, ‘I want to check whether the Iron Cross First Class has been noted in my records’.

If I had been left to my own devices I may have come up with the perfect plan, which may have led to a more advantageous outcome. As it happened it was no surprise that in a group of people of different temperaments, the nervous and fidgety individuals cannot bear to see anyone content in their own company. It was to an extent my own fault as I had chosen my position badly by sitting down at one of the desks where the opposite seat was unoccupied. It was inevitable that I would be disturbed. Had I only chosen to sit with those writing letters, I might only have been jostled in the elbow or been asked to pass the ink pot.

The Student wandered in and came straight towards me and the empty seat opposite. I nodded and made a point of immersing myself in the act of reading my diary with elbows on the table and fingers in ears, but to no avail. The Student had brought a cigar case with bits of wood and glue with the intention of building some sort of wooden ladder for the frog in the terrarium so he could predict the weather. Our aneroid barometer was ultimately useless.

There is a superstition that a frog will climb up a ladder when the weather is fine. The Student had taken out his watch to see how long it would take and removed the frog so that he could acquaint himself with the ladder. But the Student was typically absent-minded and was not getting anywhere. He had the wrong tools and was then trying to feed flies to the watch. I was preparing to intervene if he went so far as to try to wind up the frog or tell the time from it. In the end he gave up. He brushed away the bits of wood and placed the frog on top of his toolkit, where it certainly did not belong, and he said in a whinging voice: ‘It is so unbelievably boring, Gotthold. Please do something.’

I wasn't sure what he meant but extricated myself from the task by taking out my last clean handkerchief and wiping an imaginary bomb splinter out of the corner of my eye. I replied, ‘Not now, can't you see I'm busy.’

I continued to watch him with great interest. He stood up, sighed and took the frog out of the box he was carrying it in, blew away the sawdust on its bright green skin and waltzed towards the corner where the two glass cases were. First he placed the poor frog carefully in position, then he pushed the glass cover away. The three lizards now darted around wildly while the frog was still in shock.

Behind the glass cases a control panel was now visible, with various buttons and a telephone handset. He started to turn the dials and the mouthpiece began to emit the sounds of glasses jingling and a stream of voices. I kept rubbing my eye, feigning lack of interest but I was searching for my source of information out the corner of my other eye. He was still next to me and staring at the apparatus open-mouthed. I kicked his shin with moderate strength to encourage him to ask some questions. This proved unnecessary since everyone stopped what they were doing to listen to the voice that was now clearly turning into our captain’s. One stocky fellow took position at the door to keep a lookout …

‘No, no, gentlemen! My dear people have no idea of the great pleasure that awaits them. We will announce it tomorrow morning, first thing. Thank you so much for everything and the honour you have bestowed upon me. I was warned countless times that I could not expect to achieve miracles with my people but I am pleased to say that I can indeed do so. Not only in the grand scheme of things but also in the little details. Let me explain, only yesterday I awarded the Iron Cross First Class to one of my petty officers who suffered from being terribly cross-eyed. As I was affixing the medal, oh wonder upon wonders, the man looked back at me with a straight gaze for the very first time in his life. That is what can happen – the force of mind over matter, but there is something else …’

It went no further. A red light came on over the door and we could hear a mild buzzing. Like a tiger, the Student leapt towards the control panel and turned it off, interrupting his superior mid-sentence. Everyone was very still and put their finger to their mouth. The Student and the Baron looked at each other and took their places at opposite ends of one of the tables. Both took a piece of paper out of their pockets and began to read in a clear voice over a large groove in the table. I had not noticed it before but it was a very large groove and the dimensions of the table were very unusual as the tabletop was very deep. The Student read out in an even tone:

‘The climate in Germany is temperate, maritime on the North Sea coast, continental further inland. The average temperature is 7.9°C, in January 2.2°, in July 17.2°. The most pleasant weather can be found in the Rhine Valley from Speyer to Cologne, the worst in East Prussia.’

The Baron countered: ‘Thank you, dear fellow, for the enlightening information. I would be most grateful if you could also advise me with regards to the average rainfall.’

There was another buzz and the little red light went out. Everyone went back to their seats. I kicked the young Raimund who had failed me so far. My kick this time had more force. What use was my source of information if he refused to ask any questions? With some trepidation he approached a grey-haired sailor who looked knowledgeable. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I'm new here, what does this mean?’

‘The great pleasure you mean?’ he answered. ‘I wouldn't hold my breath. We have been severely disappointed in the past. One day our captain called us and said he had a wonderful surprise for us and it turned out to be two British destroyers that we were meant to torpedo. The problem was they saw us first and dropped depth charges. We only just avoided being hit.’

The others agreed and added further comments, such as ‘He's right, we don't want their surprises’. It looked like there was nothing more to be said about the incident with the mysterious voices, lights and buzzing noises. This led to an ever-increasing sensation of panic in me. The hairs on my head began to stand on end; the palms of my hands went cold and sweaty. I had to discard the cigarette I was enjoying after only a few puffs because it made me feel sick. If I couldn't get to the bottom of this, I wasn't going to carry on. I would rather desert the navy and blow up the entire depot of munitions than sit here like an idiot not knowing what was going on. I decided to make one last attempt and looked for my helper. He had moved his chair away from me inch by inch. When he saw I was trying to meet his gaze he lifted his legs and bent his knees. He was obviously not curious and had had enough of my attacks against his shins. For a moment I considered berating him to sit up properly. But then I thought better of it. We were off duty and in a sailors’ home. Why shouldn't he relax and sit how he pleased? I tried a different tactic.

‘A newcomer,’ I began, ‘must feel like a complete idiot. You are all as secretive as one another. Does no one want to give an explanation to the poor lad and put him out of his misery?’

The Baron took mercy. ‘What did you not understand?’ he asked the perplexed weatherman who began to stutter.

‘If you please, sir, if it was the captain speaking, why did you interrupt him?’

The Baron laughed: ‘Do you really think we need the Gestapo to find out that we can eavesdrop on our own officers, particularly when it is a device that we stole from their depot? As you can imagine we have some technical expertise here as one would expect on a U-boat. One of the electricians is very knowledgeable in all matters relating to surveillance devices. This is why we immediately spotted the listening unit hidden in our table. When we traced the wires we discovered they led to the officers’ mess. It didn't take us long to wire up a connection for us to listen to what our superiors are talking about at meal times. Does that make sense?’

The poor sailor didn't know what to say and looked in my direction for guidance. I responded with a mock kick in the shins, encouraging him to keep up the questions.

‘May I ask,’ he enquired. ‘What's the significance of the average temperature of 2.2° in January?’ He was overdoing it a bit and asking the wrong questions too.

I helped out: ‘The poor lad is not a weatherman! That's why he is a bit confused by the temperatures. Keep up the explanations. We were new recruits once.’

Of course, I risked hearing the answer I should explain it all myself and was prepared, should this be the case, to excuse myself with a coughing attack or nosebleed. But this was not necessary. The Baron was the kind of person who loved the sound of his own voice. He usually had problems finding listeners and was therefore happy to take on the role of the instructor, especially with half the room eavesdropping on their conversation.

‘Listen, you rookie, we were tapping the officers’ mess where they were preparing a surprise for us. The Gestapo tried to tap us. We recognised the signals that warn us when they switch on to us. The Gestapo expects to hear conversations and as long as the red light is on we comply by talking about mundane subjects. We have learned that there are few subjects that are truly mundane so we have to artificially create themes. We worked this through experiment. What does one normally talk about: food, holidays, work, clothes, plans for the future. If you say what everyone else thinks about these topics, it's virtually treason. We worked out that the only truly harmless subject is the weather. And that's the only thing that hasn't changed since the rise of the regime. This is why we talk about the weather whenever we know the Gestapo is listening. And just so they can see they are dealing with learned people, we have also taken a few pages out of an encyclopaedia and read these out for the benefit of the enemy when the red light is on. We are quite pleased with the results. We have a mole in the Gestapo quarters who has told us that since the installation of our device they’ve had two cases of nervous breakdowns – both people in the surveillance unit.’

For my part this was explanation enough and I thought it was time for the Baron to finish his speech. But he had only just got into his stride and was not going to stop now. There were only the three of us left now. I had already learned that if I was on my own with the Baron or the Student when no one else was around then I could speak my mind about the system.