The Last Eagle (2011) (42 page)

The captain looked up from the message. “West of Bornholm. Looks like you were right.” He sounded disappointed. “She was heading this way. We got her.”

Ritter glanced at the chart, tracing along with his index finger until he found the position on the map. He noted the sea depth in the area and frowned. More than enough room for the
Eagle
to dive and hide. “Is there a minefield anywhere near here?”

“Yes. Since last year. According to this message, it appears that the Polish submarine was caught by it. Somehow those lucky bastards were able to make it through. When our ships were spotted, she dove. She won’t get away.”

Ritter rubbed at the scab on his check. Itching already. That was a good sign. He restrained an impulse to pick at it.

“Shall we join them?” The captain glanced up at the helm, ready to issue the order.

Ritter stared out the bridge window at the gunmetal-gray sea glinting dully in the midday light and the dark band of Danish coastline beyond. They had been prowling the narrow stretch of the Sund, between the Danish port of Helsingør, and the Swedish counterpart across the channel, Helsingborg, back and forth like a relentless sentry, for the past two days. He was restless to move on, too. Do something. But it would be wrong. His father had always complained that he was too impatient. But no longer.

Ritter sucked air in through his teeth. “We stay here,” he decided. “This is where they will come. They will have no choice.” He snagged his copy of Hamlet from the edge of the chart table as he strode across the room, turned slightly in the direction of the captain and touched his forehead in a salute, and then disappeared through the doorway.

 “As you wish,” the captain said tightly. This Ritter had better be right, he thought to himself, or
Grossadmiral
Raeder himself would hear of it.

Stefan hooked his arms over the periscope, slowly walked it around, and then he stopped. “Malmö,” he croaked at the sight of the lights glowing softly like a warm fire against the night sky to the east. He noticed the beam from the lighthouse just south of the city begin another sweep, probing almost all the way out to the
Eagle
, though she must be at least eight kilometers from the shoreline. The location of lighthouse confirmed it. There was no doubt. It was Malmö. And the
Eagle
had finally made the approaches to the passage at The Øresund.

Stefan pulled away from the periscope and found Eryk. Of course, he deserved all the credit. It had been his makeshift charts that had lead them safely west from Bornholm. If anyone was a hero, it was Eryk. But Stefan was too exhausted to offer him anything more than a wink and a nod of appreciation. Eryk seemed beyond any response, panting open-mouthed like everyone else because of the high levels of carbon dioxide, sprawled over his charts, trying to ignore the headache that threatened to split his skull in two parts. But he caught Stefan’s faint motion and, after a moment, smiled as best he could, and nodded back at his friend. If truth be told, Stefan’s recognition was more valuable to him than any medal he could ever receive. Of course, he could never say that to him. It wasn’t their way. And so a mutual exchange of nods would have to suffice.

Stefan glanced around the Control room. In the one faint red light that remained unbroken, it was a garish mess of shattered glass, cracked dials, insulation dangling from the bulkheads and ceiling like flesh from a partially skinned cadaver, a thin layer of fetid, blood-colored water gently washed back and forth across the deck as the
Eagle
swayed to the ever-present pulse of the sea. The air was thick enough to chew, and almost unbreathable, oxygen levels dangerously low and carbon dioxide levels too high. The men were all in various states of exhaustion, or worse. One of the helmsmen—Stefan couldn’t remember his name—had finally broke. He was curled up in the corner, moaning softly to himself. They had just left him alone.

And yet, remarkably, despite their current state, they had suffered no serious damage. They had been depth-charged almost nonstop for 22 hours, the destroyers taking turns flinging cans into the water until their supplies were exhausted, and then hurrying away only to be replaced by another ship.

Instead of running after escaping from the minefield, Stefan kept the
Eagle
resting on sediment at the bottom of the Baltic for most of the day. He suspected they were save by their proximity to the minefield. As the destroyers made their initial depth charge runs, they shied just far enough away from the field to keep the
Eagle
whole. Though not in any serious danger of being destroyed, she was trapped.

During one lull in the action, when the destroyer pack had moved off, their screws silent, Stefan decided it was time to make a run for it. But even after they partially blew the ballast tanks, suction kept
Eagle
glued to the bottom. Stefan tongue-lashed the weary crew to their feet, and then lead the exhausted, and near-dead stumbling and staggering fore and aft until their shifting weight finally broke the
Eagle
free. By that time, the men, many weeping and moaning, simply dropped in place.

They had headed southwest, through another night and another day, hugging the bottom, pausing at the sound of approaching ships, driven along at a dogtrot by their electric motors, the pounding of depth charges in the distance, and high-speed screws from destroyers and torpedo boats ebbing and flowing, but never disappearing entirely long enough so that they could sneak to the surface to recharge their batteries and air supply.

Until finally they had reached Malmö.

Stefan did another circuit with the periscope. Distant lights moved like fireflies, but nothing close.

“Take us up, all the way,” Stefan ordered, and then leaning into the speaker tube, said: “Rig for surface. Cooky to the control room.”

“Yes, sir?” Cooky said, poking his head through the hatchway a moment later.

“You know those bottles I had you hold under lock and key?”

“Yes, sir,” Cooky replied, puzzled.

“Break them out,” Stefan said slowly. “I want everyone on board to get a swig. Tell them it is courtesy of the great people of Poland.”

Cooky’s features disappeared into a grin. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said, saluting. And then he was off.

As was his habit, Stefan was first up the ladder, cracking the hatch, and then scrambling slowly out onto the bridge as the diesels rumbled awake.

He was hatless, wearing a pea coat thrust into his hands at he last moment by someone in the Control room. He raised his nose into the night air and breathed like a man starved. He couldn’t imagine anything so smelling so wonderful.

A chill breeze tousled his hair. Some part of him noted that there was a hint of rain in the air and realized like someone in a dream that that would be a good thing for them all this night. And fog, too, if there was a God in heaven watching over them. The fragment of a poem came unannounced to his mind. Something from Westling’s collection no doubt: The fog comes on little cat feet . . . He hoped it was true, the fog already silently padding across the channel ahead of them.

Stefan ordered half speed, set the new course, almost due north now. He felt the
Eagle
surge forward as if even the submarine had grown tired of creeping along underwater and was as anxious as the rest of them to get this finally over with. He glanced at his watch, the dial glowing faintly in the dark. Twenty-two hundred. The tide was rushing out of the Baltic right at the moment, carrying them along at another three or four knots. Instead of charging through the passage at flank speed, he planned to idle along, zigzagging back and forth across the channel to avoid any ships, keeping the diesels as quiet as possible. And if they were very lucky, they would be into the broad, deeper waters of the Kattegat by morning. Another day of hiding, and then time to contact the British Fleet, slip around The Skaw and out into the North Sea, hoping they didn’t run into a British minefield or get mistaken for a German U-boat by British aircraft before they had a chance to rendezvous with friends. He could see the ending in his mind, shimmering like a distant mirage. So close and yet, still, so many opportunities for failure in between.

He already knew what he would do if they were discovered. He wouldn’t let them be captured by the Germans. He would scuttle the ship first, or make a run for the shoreline—either Denmark or Sweden—and beach the
Eagle
in shallow water.

He felt a lump in the pocket of the pea coat. He slipped his hand inside and pulled out his pipe. Someone had had the presence of mind to put it in the pocket before handing him the coat. Only one problem. He had bitten off the stem earlier. Damn.  He would have to be content with memory again. He set his legs apart, brought the binoculars up to his face. There were a scattering of running lights to the east and west, a few to the north. “Eyes sharp,” he said to the lookouts behind him, though the words weren’t necessary. They understood how important they would be this night.

“Here we are,” Kate announced, pulling herself up the ladder and walking gingerly over to Stefan. Following closely behind were Reggie and Squeaky.

Even in the dark, Stefan was shocked by the change in her appearance, wondering at the same time how he must look. The skin of her face seemed stretched over her skull. She seemed lost in her man’s clothes. Stefan was afraid the breeze would pick her up and blow her into the night. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the sound of her voice. If anything, it was more vibrant and alive than ever before.

She shook loose the bundle she held close to her chest. “Ta-da. Where do you want it?”

In the dark, it took Stefan a moment to realize what it was. “Isn’t that breaking the rules?” he said, chuckling dryly at the sight of the Swedish flag that was now flapping around Kate’s legs like a skirt.

“Oh, don’t be an old woman.” Kate replied with a giggle that was touched with just a hint of hysteria.

“You all right?”

“Hell no,” Kate said, her voice trembling. “I’ll never be the same again. …”

“Where can we put it?” Reggie interjected.

Stefan stared closely at their handiwork. They had done a nice job. It actually looked like a flag, large enough, and detailed enough to fool anyone from a distance. He couldn’t imagine where they had scrapped up enough cloth of the right color to do the job, but the proof was there before him.

“Who did the sewing?”

Squeaky pointed at Kate.

“Nice work. Handy with a pen and a needle.”

Kate’s laugh was brittle as ice. “It helped keep me from losing my mind when those damn ... damn things were going on, and on, and ... .” Her voice trailed off and Stefan didn’t doubt that she was telling the truth.

“Squeaky, have one of the men pry off the numbers. Pull down our colors, and the flag at the bow. Hang this over the edge of the conning tower, secure it to the sides. It might come in handy tonight. If we’re lucky and get the pitter-patter of fog, who knows, we might even make it.”

“Still the optimist I see,” Kate said. “And a poet, too. Pitter-patter? From the American poet Carl Sandburg. His poem was called, “Fog.” I didn’t know you were so widely read.”

Stefan shrugged.

When he remained quiet, Kate asked: “Mind if I stay up here? I don’t think I could  …”

“Stay as long as you like,” he said.

When Squeaky was done securing the flag, he turned to Stefan and said: “OK, what do we call her? Can’t be the
Eagle
anymore. She’s a Swedish sub now.”

“How about Ursula,” Reggie said, remembering the name of a woman he had met in a Chicago club a few years earlier. Blonde. Tall. Gorgeous. As he recalled, she’d said she was from Sweden, though with her accent it had been hard to tell. In fact, she had been so beautiful he hadn’t cared where she’d been born.

 “Shut up, Reggie,” Kate said sharply. She knew him well enough to suspect what he was thinking.

“I think tonight,” Stefan said, “we’ll be the Westling after my old captain. Any objections?”

Reggie raised a finger, and then let it droop when Kate gave him a glare.

Just past midnight, Stefan’s wish was granted. The clouds began to lower, the lights on the shoreline softened and then disappeared altogether as everything was enveloped by fog.

The wind dropped as well, and in the quiet, the sounds began to echo strangely. At one point, they could hear a man singing softly in the distance.

“He’s singing in German,” Reggie remarked. He observation received a jab in the side from Squeaky, and a shush from Kate. There was the rattle of chains on a metal spool, the clang of a restless buoy, and always, the grumble of distant motors.

“Popular, aren’t we?” Kate whispered. “I think I rather like it the other way.”

The boats appeared suddenly in front of them, their stern lights winking dimly. Stefan caught himself before he issued the order to dive. It would have been useless anyway. The Øresund along most of its stretch was too shallow. And then he recognized them. Instead of fleet of German torpedo boats, they were, instead, a half a dozen fishing trawlers, heading out to sea. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all: in the midst of a war, men were still going out to fish. It was a signal. Life would continue—men and women falling in and out of love, children singing, brothers and sisters quarreling—whatever happened to the
Eagle
.