The Last Eagle (2011) (17 page)

Sopocko stared at Sieinski’s hand, and then shook his head in refusal. “Not that, I think,” he said softly. “You can still change your mind, you know. You have some good men …. But never fear, I will tell no one. I will die with it this day. Or tomorrow. You never should have taken this command, you know.” And with those last words, he disappeared over edge of the conning tower. A moment later, the M10 moved off into the night.

Sieinski stood there, sick with shame and rage, watching until the vessel disappeared. There was the faint sound of tapping from the gun crew below. He wondered how much they had heard. Probably nothing. No one had heard a thing. Who did he think he was? Talking to him that way. To think that over the years, all those parties, he thought Sopocko a friend. He should have expected as much. Just a motorboat captain. With all his father’s influence, that was the best he could do? There must have been something lacking in his character to warrant a command such as that. Sieinski, on the other hand, was captain of the most deadly boat in the Polish fleet, and not just because of his father’s help.

Sieinski grabbed the side of the conning tower as a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over him. When it was past, he took a deep breath, scanned the sky. Indeed, dawn would not be far off. Soon it would be time to dive for safety. His men wouldn’t like it, but the decision was clear.

And they would obey orders.

He spoke into the speaker tubes. “Lookouts and officers to the bridge.”

Stefan lay on his bunk, eyes closed. He was desperately tired, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting on the bridge. Why the secrecy? What was so important that the second in command of a vessel had to be excluded? Was it something to do with him? Didn’t Sieinski trust him? Even worse, was he planning something that he knew Stefan would not approve of?

Stefan’s thoughts began to take even wild turns. Before they could go far, he growled with frustration, rolled off his bunk, and made his way to the officers’ wardroom. Food and coffee. Since he couldn’t sleep, that’s what he needed.

He found Kate, Reggie, Eryk and Squeaky huddled around the table that dominated the small room. A plate piled with meat, cheese, bread and sliced fruit sat in the center of the table. Everyone had mugs of coffee. Bookshelves were along one wall. A narrow counter along the other. Photographs of Hollywood starlets filled out the rest of the decorations.

“Pull up a chair, commander,” Reggie said cheerfully. “You look like hell.”

Stefan grunted. “Under the circumstances, I’ll take that as a compliment. How go your interviews?” he said to Kate.

“Interesting,” Kate said. “I didn’t realize that your crew was so young. Is that typical?”

Stefan nodded, his mouth already filled with a slice of meat.

Eryk answered for him. “Yes. You’ll find submariners tend to be a young lot. But they’re good boys, smart, quick learners. Navies around the world find that younger men tend to stand up to the rigors of the duty better than older ones.”

“What about him?” Kate said, pointing at Stefan.

“He’s an aberration,” Squeaky said, stifling a laugh.

“Careful with those big words,” Stefan said, eyes glittering. “Might get yourself into trouble.”

“Oh, I think we’re in enough trouble. What do you think about that powwow upstairs?” he asked cautiously.

Stefan didn’t take the bait. He shrugged, reached for a plate of fruit.

“I thought something was different,” Reggie said. “We’re not moving. Oh, I see. You mean, we’ve met another ship?”

Eryk nodded, kept his eyes on the bread in his hand.

Kate noticed the change right away. “Not a happy ship,” she said to herself in English. “Just our luck.”

“What’s that?” Stefan asked.

“I was just wondering if they might like a couple of passengers,” Kate said, slipping easily back into Polish.

Stefan shook his head. “You don’t want to be on that boat.”

“Why, something wrong with the captain?”

Stefan stared hard at her for a moment, Eryk and Squeaky were looking at her, as well, food paused halfway between their mouths and the plate. Stefan’s face reddened and then he exploded with laughter, Eryk and Squeaky joined in.

When they finally quieted down, Stefan wiped his eye and said, “No, nothing wrong with Sopocko. Hell of a man, good captain, too, from all I heard. I suppose you could ask about a ride. But his motorboat is not the place to be.”

Eryk and Squeaky had turned suddenly serious, their faces blank.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you think it will be for them tomorrow? We will spend the day hiding on the bottom, but they have nowhere to go. They can motor close to shore and hope the coastal batteries provide them some protection, but  …” He twirled his hand over his head. “Sopocko is no coward. He will not run for cover, he will fight …” He let that hang in the air.

“Oh,” Reggie said. “Good point. Perhaps we won’t changes ships, then. I don’t mind staying on board here for another day or two. Still a few more photographs to take, you know …”

There was a sudden change in the ever present sound and vibrations of the diesel engines.

 “Duty calls,” Squeaky said, as the three officers of the
Eagle
stood.

“You have everything you need?” Stefan said, pausing as the others slipped out into the passageway.

Kate nodded. “Everyone has been gentlemen.”

Stefan acknowledged the complement with a nod. “Let me know if we can do anything else.”

“Why the sudden interest in my well-being, commander?” Kate asked. “I still seem to remember a growl about throwing us overboard if we got in the way.”

Stefan smiled broadly.

“Oh, there is one thing, if I may be so bold to suggest,” Reggie said.

“What’s that?”

“Get us out of here alive.”

Stefan blinked. “I’ll do the best I can,” he said evenly. And then he disappeared.

Eryk was already at work at his chart table as Stefan passed through the control room. He paused long enough to glance over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Plotting our course. The captain wants us to spend the day here.” He stabbed so hard at the chart he broke the tip of his pencil.”

Stefan stared at the mark. “You sure?”

Eryk nodded.

“Where is he?”

Eryk pointed his pencil upward.

 “I’m going to my cabin,” Sieinski snapped when Stefan appeared at his side. He pushed shakily away from the rim of the conning tower, and arms extended, shuffled toward the hatch.

“Sir?”

Sieinski paused, swaying back and forth with the movement of the ship. “What is it?”

“It isn’t deep enough.”

“What do you mean.”

“The position you gave Eryk. It isn’t deep enough”

“Are you going to question every one of my orders, commander.”

“No, sir, it’s just …”

“I know the rules and regulations as well as you do commander. Unless you have something else to say, I’ll be in my cabin.”

Stefan bit his lip, drawing the salty taste of blood. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said crisply, saluting. He watched his captain disappear into the bowels of the the
Eagle
. A moment later, Squeaky clambered up the ladder. He glanced at Stefan’s face and said, “What now?”

Stefan shook his head. Of course, the captain was exactly right. He was following protocol. Stefan, however, had grown up on the Baltic. He knew its moods, its looks, like a farmer can read the clouds over the distant mountains. The summer of 1939 had been unseasonably cold. As a result the waters of the Baltic were now colder, and clearer, than normal. Thirty meters might not be deep enough. That was the worry. Of course, it would require a lucky pass by a Nazi plane to come across their shadow on the bottom, but why risk it? Why not go deeper? That was all Stefan had attempted to point out. But Sieinski was in no mood. What had gone on with Sopocko? Stefan wondered.

It was an unmistakable sound. The click of a depth charge’s detonator, transmitted to the inhabitants of the
Eagle
courtesy of the unique acoustic properties of the surrounding saltwater. Once heard, it would never be forgotten.

Stefan was already rolling off the wardroom bench, his temporary quarters after volunteering his berth for Kate’s use, instantly awake. The
Eagle
shuddered, the sound of the explosion ringing inside the underwater cylinder like a thousand bass drums. A thin layer of dust was instantly airborne joined immediately by a snow of insulation falling from the ceiling.

When Stefan burst into the control room a moment later, everyone was standing motionless, still stunned, their faces even paler than usual. A boy at the helm controls was staring down at the dark, wet spot blooming on the front of his pants.

“Yeah,” Stefan bellowed, grabbing their attention, “I almost pissed my pants, too. But what the fuck, eh? Nothing to worry about. Just a puny-ass Hun depth charge. That’s all. I think we needed a reminder that we’re at war, and not on a Mediterranean cruise. So, Ears, you just sitting in that room with your thumb up your ass and let a German destroyer sneak up on us?”

The hydrophone operator nicknamed “Ears” for obvious physical reasons, and not just because he was the
Eagle’s
acoustic operator, leaned out of small room containing the
Eagle’s
underwater sensors just down from the control room and shook his head rapidly back and forth. “Nah, sir, All I heard was a bunch of dolphins fucking out there,” he grinned at this, “but that’s all until that detonator went off …”

That help loosen up the men. There were even a few tentative smiles. “Then it was a plane,” Stefan said calmly. “Must have seen us from the air. She’ll be coming around for another pass unless she has some friends flying along with her. If she does, they’ll take the next shot. In any case, we gotta get moving. Blow tanks. Take us up to thirty meters, and all ahead full. Helm, right 10 degrees. No sense going in the direction we were pointing. Eryk, where’s deep water?”

Eryk leaned over his chart table, pencil and ruler in hand. “Just a second.”

“We don’t have a second!” Stefan reminded his friend, quietly cursing himself for not having the sense to order Eryk to plot a course to deeper water ahead of time.

“Two-five-four.”

“Aye, helm right to new heading, two-five-four degrees.”

Squeaky repeated the command, as the two sailors on the bench in front of the periscope, turned their wheels to the right.

“How long?”

“Ten minutes,” Eryk replied, “and then it really drops off .... to 150 meters. Deeper in places.”

Stefan glanced at his watch. They’d make another course change in 30 seconds, zigzagging their way to deeper water. It might be enough to force the plane or planes to adjust their runs over the water, providing the time and space the
Eagle
would need.

“Plot the next course change.”

“Aye, sir.”

Sieinski appeared in the control room, breathing heavily, looking nothing like the rich, confident, captain of his imagination. There were bruises beneath his eyes, face pasty and coated with a thin layer of sweat. Dark circles beneath each arm stained his khaki-colored shirt. Open mouthed, spent from the effort it had taken making it the few meters from his bunk to the control room, he rested for a moment against the bulkhead,

Stefan’s warning was automatic. “Better not do that, sir. Compression from another blast while you’re leaning against the bulkhead could snap your spine like a twig.”

Sieinski grabbed the pipes overhead and pulled himself away just a moment before the boat was rocked by another explosion. Closer this time. Lights flickered. Somewhere toward the bow there was shout followed by the sound of blows as a seaman hammered a wood plug into a leaking pipe.

“I want that man on report, Mr. Petrofski.” Sieinski gasped, pointing a shaking finger in the direction of the hydrophone operator.

“Not a good idea, sir.”

Sieinski’s eyes flared with crazy light. “Dereliction of duty,” he spat. “That’s what it is. He should have heard the approaching vessel and warned us with enough time to take appropriate measures.”

Eryk’s eyes flickered in Stefan’s direction. But Stefan kept his tone even. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “But it was no destroyer. He heard nothing …”

“Except dolphins fucking,” someone muttered quietly.

“What was that,” Sieinski shrieked, his eyes roaming madly around the control room.

“We were spotted from the air by a German plane,” Stefan said.

“How do you know? He could be lying.”

Stefan shook his head. “By the time a destroyer got close enough, we wouldn’t have needed hydrophones to hear her screws. And she would have dropped multiple charges, not just one.”

Sieinski’s face fell, his mouth opened like a fish gulping for air.

“A plane? How was that possible? We must not be as deep as I ordered …” He glared in Eryk’s direction.