Dark Voyage

BALTIC HARBORS

They left the Skagerrak minefields on a perfect summer morning.

Coming around the Skaw at 0730, with Ratter and DeHaan working together on the bridge, where they’d been all night, draining mug after mug of coffee and poring over the British maps until they were sure they had it right and only then ordering the course changes. They had also, since midnight, stationed two ABs at the bow, watching the water ahead of the ship, because it never got all that dark up here this time of year-almost Midsummer’s Eve, the Scandinavian sky pale and silvery long before the sun rose. Otherwise, it seemed to DeHaan like normal commercial life in the Kattegat-two Norwegian coasters up ahead of them, a coal-burning freighter in the distance, and, the only sign of occupation, a converted trawler, flying the naval swastika, patrolling the Danish shoreline.

For the first time in fourteen hours, DeHaan relaxed, and began to think about his aching feet and the bunk in his cabin. He’d just slipped the maps back in their envelope when one of the lookouts came charging up the ladder and shouted, “Loose mine, Cap’n, off the port bow.”

“Come to full stop,” he told Ratter, then trotted after the AB, who could really run. They got up to the bow in a hurry but, he realized, he might just as well have taken his time, because the minute he saw it he knew there wasn’t a thing in the world he could do about it.

It bobbed thirty feet off the bow, a rusty iron ball, long ago painted orange, with detonator horns sticking out all over and a broken chain trailing down into the water. Not especially warlike or sinister, from the look of it, simply practical; six hundred pounds of amatol, enough to blow up a village.

Transfixed, DeHaan and the ABs stood still for a moment and watched as the thing slid past them. The engine was stopped but that didn’t matter, momentum would carry them along for quite a while, as it would despite a hard-rudder change of course. They might have used the rifle on it, DeHaan thought, but it was much too close. No, all he could do was walk back along the deck, keeping it company, waiting to see if fate would send a small wave or a little cat’s paw of wind, finally standing at the stern, by happenstance still alive, and watching as it floated away on the sun-dappled water.

The master of the Noordendam and one of his passengers were absent from dinner on the night of the twentieth. Some time early the next morning they would be off the southern coast of Sweden, no doubt a busy time for all, so he’d perhaps chosen that evening to rest, sending the mess boy to the kitchen for onion and margarine sandwiches and relieving his personal, chartroom store of two bottles of lambic beer. Rich stuff, thick and deep, brewed by merry friars-one would suppose-in the cellars of the Saint Gerlac abbey in Belgium, the saint’s emblem, a hermit in a tree, handsomely rendered on the label. Saint Gerlac came in very large bottles, with ceramic stoppers to reseal the beer if its drinking were perchance interrupted-by a rain of gold coins or an unexpected birth-and had to be finished later.

By seven-thirty they’d entered the Oresund, channel to the Baltic and the narrowest part of the Danish pinchpoint, with an occupied, blacked-out port of Helsingr on the Danish side, and pretty lights in the Swedish Hlsingborg, three miles across the sound. The Noordendam stayed well to the neutral side of the water, so passed close to Hlsingborg.

A long, slow dusk, that time of day. DeHaan’s cabin was dark, beer bottles and sandwich plates on the floor, clothes piled neatly on a chair. “Can we go and see it?” she asked, climbing out of bed. DeHaan unlatched the brass fitting on the porthole and opened it wide-a warmish evening, the air felt good on his skin. They were close in to Hlsingborg, close enough to see the wooden buildings in the harbor, all painted the same shade of red, close enough to see a long row of sailboats, and a man who’d walked his dog out to the end of the sailboat dock and waved to the freighter as it went by.

“Would be nice,” she said. To be here together.

“It would, some day.”

“Some day.” Which will likely never come, she meant. “Does something happen tonight?”

“We get where we’re going, about two in the morning, we unload a cargo, and then with a little luck we’re bound for, well, not home, but somewhere like it.”

“Ah,” she said. “I thought so.”

“You knew?”

“It’s in the air, like before a storm.”

At the municipal pier, two boys stood waist-deep in the oily water and splashed each other.

“You know how to swim?” he said, only half joking.

“You would let me?”

It took him a slow moment to understand that this was a woman’s question, not a fugitive’s question, and he put his arms around her and pulled her back against him. It felt so good he didn’t speak right away, finally said, “Never,” then added, “Also the water’s too cold.”

“This country is too cold.” The municipal dock fell away behind them, replaced by a cluster of tiny houses where the town turned back into an old village. “But what if it should happen that we could go, somewhere?”

“Then we’d go.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in the countryside.”

“Which countryside?”

“France, maybe. At the end of a little road.”

“Oh? Not by the sea?”

He smiled. “With a view of the sea.”

“Like in a book,” she said. “You would be on a terrace, with a spyglass.” Using circled thumbs and forefingers she made a pretend spyglass, pointed it at the porthole and squinted one eye. “‘Oh the sea, how I miss it.’ You would too, my sweet friend.”

Now the edge of Hlsingborg was gone, and they steamed past flat, rocky coast in gray light. “It’s like this until we get to Copenhagen,” he said.

“I was there. I like those people, the Danes, and they have good food. Very good food. Or, anyhow, they used to.”

“It’s not so bad for them, not so bad as other places.”

“Will be bad. You’ll see.”

They were quiet for a time, not happy that they’d strayed back to real life. “You feel good back there,” she said. “So interested.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” Gently, she unwrapped his arms and went to the bookshelf where he kept the wind-up Victrola. She took the album of records off the shelf, then chose one. “Is this good?”

It was the Haydn cello quartet. “I like it.”

“Can we play it while-we go back to bed?”

“For ten minutes, then it ends.”

“Let it end.”

“It will go chk-taca, chk-taca.”

She made a face, a scowl, annoyed that she couldn’t have what she wanted. “Stupid thing,” she said.

They passed a darkened Copenhagen, then the lights of Malm. A Swedish patrol boat shadowed them for a time, a little too close for comfort, then backed off without bothering to challenge. Likely they assumed the Santa Rosa was hauling war materials, down to Kiel or Rostock, and were disinclined to irritate their German neighbors, staring at them across the strait. DeHaan was back on the bridge by then, just after midnight, where he thought about her and thought about her, mostly why now thoughts, about how the world gave with one hand and took away with the other.

They rounded the Swedish coast soon after that, coming into the Baltic, and, a kind of miracle, on time. No, he thought, not a miracle. Hard work. Particularly Kovacz, down in the engine room, holding Noordendam to her best eleven knots. Fighting his war against a rickety pipe system, mending it at the elbows where the steam liked to break free and see if it could scald somebody, putting his heart’s blood into the rise and fall of the great brass piston rods. There should be a medal for them, Kovacz and his firemen and oilers, or a mention in dispatches. But there would be nothing like that, of course, because for this kind of work there were no dispatches. Perhaps a muted smile from Hallowes but they’d never see it. There would be one final, arid message from the NID, DeHaan thought, a destination, then silence.

Ratter was out on the bridge wing, shooting his stars, his Gothic Sextant With Artificial Horizon aimed up at the heavens, because they had to hit 5520?N and the longitude right on the nose. Ratter, too, deserved a medal. Andromedae, Ceti, Eridani, Arietis, Tauri, Ursae Majoris, Leonis, Crucis, and Virginis — just like Odysseus, patron saint of any captain so mother-dumb he could get lost in the Aegean. Ratter took another reading, then peered at his almanac: “Corrections for the Moon’s Upper and Lower Limbs.” At least the stars were visible, with only a few drifting shreds of moonlit cloud. Black night and driving rain would have been welcome, except that they never would have found their position. So they had to be visible, and they were, in this thin summer darkness, and too bad for them.

“Johannes?”

“Yes.”

“Getting what you need?”

“Pretty much, I am.”

“How are we doing?”

“Good. We’re just off Cuba.”

21 June, 0250 hours. Off the Smygehuk.

The Noordendam ran dark now. And silent-bell system turned off, crew ordered to be quiet, engine rumbling at dead-slow speed on a flat sea. A mile off the port beam, one fishing village, a few dim lights in the haze, then nothing, only night on a deserted coast.

On the bridge, DeHaan and Ratter, the AB Scheldt out on the wing, a green signal lamp held at his side, while Van Dyck waited with a crew at the anchor winch. DeHaan looked at his watch, he had a few minutes to wait, so called down to the radio room, using the newly installed voice tube. “Mr. Ali, everything as usual?”

Ali’s voice was excited. “It is not, sir, it is not. The whole world is transmitting! Up and down the bandwidth-one stops, another starts.”

Ratter could hear the tone but not the words. “What’s going on?”

“Heavy wireless traffic,” DeHaan said. Then, to Ali, “Anything in clear?”

“A few words in German, maybe harbor boats. But the cipher, dear me! And fast, sir, a lot that must be sent.”

“Any idea where it’s coming from?”

“How would I know? But they’re strong signals, so it could be Germany.”

What is this? Something sudden, was all he knew. Invasion? Political upheaval? The war is over. “Have you listened to the BBC?” he asked.

“At midnight. But nothing new-fighting in the Lebanon, Mr. Roosevelt speaks. Then music for dancing.”

DeHaan thanked him and hung the tube back on its hook. In the faint light of the binnacle lamp, 2:58.

“Any idea why?” Ratter said.

“No.”

2:59. 3:00. “What do you make it, Johannes?”

“Oh three hundred.”

“Scheldt?”

“Cap’n?”

“Show two, three-second signals.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n.”

A count of ten, no more, and the answer. DeHaan turned the engine telegraph to Full — Stop and told Ratter to drop anchor. As the chain began to run out, a familiar sound, echoing over the water from the east. Tonk. Tonk. Tonk. A sound he’d heard all his life-a fishing boat with a one-cylinder engine, the voice of its single stroke amplified by a long exhaust pipe run up through the roof of the wheelhouse, very resonant and loud, a Steamboat Willie cartoon honk. “Here she comes, sir,” Scheldt called out from the wing.

“Have Mr. Kees get a line on her, and lower the gangway.”

Ulla, she was called, maybe the captain’s wife or daughter, and when DeHaan climbed down to her deck he saw that she was a classic of the breed-fishy and smelly, nets hung everywhere, her scuppers, the vents that let water run out when she was hosed down, thickly crusted with a generation of dried scales. He counted eight in the crew, fishermen by the look of them, in overalls and boots and heavy beards. The captain, a hefty viking in a home-knitted blue-and-yellow watch cap, stood by the door of the wheelhouse, aloof from all these strange goings-on aboard his boat.

Two of the others were armed fishermen-one with a Sten hung on a leather strap, the other with a big pistol in a shoulder holster. This was the leader, a young British naval officer, a Scot by his accent, who identified himself as the ARCHER of the NID orders, then stood back, obviously very relieved when DeHaan offered to have the Noordendam officers manage the cargo handling. DeHaan wasted no time-Van Dyck and a few ABs boarded the Ulla, then, with Kees running the cargo crew on the ship, they soon had the first truck lowered to the deck of the fishing boat.

DeHaan and his crew stayed on for the one-mile trip to shore, where the Ulla was tied off to a piling and, after a lot of shouting and a few mashed fingers, the truck was pushed onto a ramp, then rolled down into the water sloshing at the tide line, where its engine was started and it was driven a few feet up the sand. “Well I’ll be damned,” one of the fishermen said to DeHaan. “This begins to look like it might actually work.” A rather donnish fisherman, this one, by the tone of his voice, arch, and faintly amused. He was tall and spindly, with thin red hair and beard, and tortoiseshell eyeglasses.

DeHaan looked up into the night sky. “It will take some time,” he said. “We won’t get it finished by dawn.”

“Our patrol comes a little after eight,” the man said, following DeHaan’s eyes. “He’s very regular-eight and ten-thirty and four-thirty. A Blohm and Voss spotter plane, a flying boat.”

“Is he ever, ah, early?”

“Never. Very punctual fellow, our German.”

“That’s useful.”

“It is, isn’t it. So we can work at night.”

“And what do you do?”

“Me? I’m the local boffin.”

“Boffin?”

“You know, the science chap.”

“Oh, a professor.”

“Used to be, but I’m in the navy now. It was the RAF came calling, originally, but they didn’t quite know what to do with me, so I was sent off to the navy, where they gave me a wee little rank and said, ‘Now you go to Sweden.’”

The captain reversed his engine, came about, and the Ulla tonked back out toward the freighter. “Quite a noise, that,” said the professor. “If I had a drill with a metal bit, I could turn it into a calliope, but I don’t think Sven would care for it.”

“No, I doubt he would. Is that your specialty?”

“Sound, yes. Waves and UHF and whatnot. I spent twenty years in a basement laboratory-I’m not sure the university actually knew I was there. Then the war came, and no more pings and toots for me.”

As they neared the Noordendam, Kees already had the second truck suspended from a crane. “I should tell you there’s a third truck,” DeHaan said, “but it burned up in the hold.”

“However did that happen?”

“We don’t know. Can you manage with two?”

“Oh yes, I should think, it only has to haul the towers up. We’ve got a sort of ramp to climb-you’ll see.”

“Use the burnt one for parts, maybe.”

“We shall. If we last long enough to wear something out.”

Along with the second truck, the Ulla was loaded with three of the long crates. It was well after four, by then, with summer dawn just getting started. Looking up at the sky, DeHaan saw fading stars and wisps of distant cloud to the west, with darkish, troubled sky beyond. Rain by midday. He’d know for certain as soon as he could check the barometer. Not good news, Baltic weather was famously treacherous-bad storms came suddenly, in all seasons.

DeHaan sat in the back of the lead truck, with the professor, Van Dyck, and the front ends of the crates. Behind them, the second truck drove in reverse, the same system they’d used on the Lisbon dock. Their progress over the sand, then through low scrub, was, with the geared-down engines, very slow but very steady. Finally, some two miles inland, the driver signaled back to the second truck, they rolled to a halt, and the engines were turned off.

They’d stopped at the front yard of what looked like an abandoned farmstead. DeHaan got down from the truck, took his hat off, ran his fingers back through his hair. Somebody’s dream, he thought, once upon a time. A burned-out cottage, the sagging remains of an old fence. There was nothing else, only the wind, sighing across empty fields and rustling the weeds of the dead garden.

The British officer and one of the fishermen walked some way beyond the cottage, then rolled back a large camouflage net. DeHaan was impressed, he hadn’t seen it at all. “For the spotter planes,” the professor said. “What do you think of it?”

“Well done.”

“The best film company in England made that.”

As they walked toward a squared-off entry to a tunnel, maybe twenty by thirty feet, the professor said, “Had your breakfast?”

“Not yet.”

“Good.”

DeHaan soon enough understood why. As he entered the tunnel, the smell very nearly made him retch. “Damn, what is it?”

“Never smelled a mushroom cellar, have you.”

“No.”

“We think this may have been a mine, a long time ago, though what they were mining remains a mystery. Then old somebody came along, built himself a little house, and decided to use the chamber for growing mushrooms. It’s the growing medium that smells-mushrooms feed on rot. Now, as to what the medium may have been, that’s a topic for discussion, and here we split into three camps: there’s the pig-manure faction, the rotten-potatoes crowd, and a compromise party-pig manure and rotten potatoes. What are your views?”

“I’ll never eat another mushroom.”

“Maybe get it from the woods, if you’re a fatalist. Come along, then.” They walked down the tunnel, then the professor took a lantern from a peg on the wall and lit it by flicking a match with his thumbnail. An immense gallery, like a great ballroom-its sides and ceiling braced with boards, extended far beyond the lamplight.

“You sleep down here?”

“Not in decent weather, but, when winter comes…” He shrugged, nothing to be done about it. “We’re working on our heraldic crest-a silver dragon rampant, holding his nose with thumb-claw and forefinger, below the scrolled motto, Phoo! Anyhow, you see how it works, we keep the towers flat in here, then haul ’em out at night with trucks. Once we get them seated on cement pads and pulled upright, we can listen to Adolf’s submarine and ship transmissions. The whole band, everything, even the medium-wattage stuff, military housekeeping, mostly, but you get quite a lot en clair.”

“And you have electricity? Out here?”

“Oh no, that’s the beauty of it. We have generators, or, rather, you have them. You do have them, don’t you?”

“Everything they shipped,” DeHaan said.

They worked hard as a red sun came over the horizon and lit the sea. Loading the Ulla with more and more weight as she sank lower and lower and the captain glared at them through slitted eyes. But she had calm water and only a mile to go and, by 0650 hours, the Noordendam had offloaded the last of the cargo. “We’re grateful for your help”-a Scottish growl from the commanding officer, and a handshake, then DeHaan climbed back up the gangway. Most of the crew were on deck, watching as the Ulla made its final run to the beach. Some of them waved, and the fishermen waved back and made vee signs.

Kees took the bridge and got them quickly under way-they couldn’t be seen to be anchored-while DeHaan and Ratter went down to the wardroom. Once they were seated at the table, Cornelius brought up a pot of coffee and what turned out to be toast. “If you have to be in a war,” Ratter said, “you might as well do this. Think it will matter?”

DeHaan couldn’t say. It might, the NID thought it would, and Noordendam wasn’t the only freighter in the world that day, unloading God-knew-what cargo on a desolate shore. You had to add it all up, he thought, maybe then it meant something. He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment, then took a North State from its packet and drew the ashtray to him, lit a match, lit the small cigar, then burned the NID orders.

The Blohm and Voss flying boat appeared at 0810, heading east along the Swedish coast, so passing a few miles north of Noordendam. The plane never wavered from its course, the rough drone of its engines loud for a moment, then fading away into silence. And if the observers noticed them at all, they saw no more than an old Spanish freighter, making slow way beneath them, coming from Riga or Tallinn, going about its ordinary business.

By then, DeHaan was in his cabin, sprawled on his bunk and sound asleep. He did not hear the German patrol, he barely-three hours later-heard the alarm clock, which jangled proudly for a time, then wound down to a tinny cough before it died. Normally, he would have reached over and shut the thing off, but he couldn’t move his hand. Slowly, the world came back to him, one piece at a time-where he was, what he had to do-and he forced his legs to swing over the edge of the bed, went to the sink, bathed his face with handfuls of warm water, decided not to shave, and shaved.

Then he went looking for Maria Bromen, but she wasn’t in her cabin. Eventually he found her on the afterdeck, sitting with back braced against the housing of a steam winch, face raised to the sun. She opened one eye and squinted up at him, then said good morning. “I came to visit, earlier, but you slept like the dead.”

“You were there?”

“For a little, yes.”

A smile of apology. “I could use some more,” he said. “After the noon watch.” If you’d care to join me for a sleep.

“We’ll be then in Malm?”

“We should be. Waiting to load cargo.”

“How long, will we stay there?”

“Two or three days, if they work straight through, but it’s different in every port-some fast, some not. There was one time, when we took on coal in Calcutta, we were loaded by bearers, hundreds of them, men and women, walking up the gangways with baskets of coal on their heads. That took two weeks.”

“Swedes don’t do that.”

“Not for a long time, no.”

She was pensive for a moment, and he suspected that she was counting days, the days they had left. Two or three at Malm, maybe a week more as they steamed to Ireland.

Finally she said, “Still, they might take their time.”

Yes, maybe.

Shtern and Kolb appeared, taking a turn around the deck together, hands clasped behind their backs, as though they were passengers on an ocean liner.

“Good morning, Captain,” Kolb said. “Pleasant weather, today.”

“It is. One should enjoy it.”

1220 hours. Off Falsterbo headland.

Course north-northwest, to swing around the peninsula that jutted south and west from the Swedish coast. Sky turning gray, with dark blue patches and low scud to the west. So, soon enough, rain, but not yet. DeHaan rubbed his eyes, smoked, and drank coffee to stay alert. From the lookout on the port wing: “Ship approaching, Cap’n.”

“What kind?”

“Small coal-burner, sir, from the smoke. She’s about three miles to port, on a course to meet us.”

Coming from the Danish coast?

DeHaan got her in his binoculars-black smoke from a stack behind the wheelhouse, aerials on the roof, single cannon mounted on the foredeck, M 56 painted on the bow, red and black swastika flying at the masthead. “Come to two twenty-five,” he told the helmsman. “Hard rudder left, and smartly.”

“South to two twenty-five,” the helmsman said, spinning the wheel. They would, if they maintained this course, pass astern of her.

Slowly, the Noordendam answered her rudder, swung her bow to port, then steadied as the helmsman brought the wheel back. After thirty seconds, an elated DeHaan thought the tactic had worked but then, punching through the low swell, the prow of M 56 shifted south-a sharp turn, that brought her image, in DeHaan’s binoculars, to a narrow, dead-on profile. From the wing, the lookout’s voice was tense and sharp. “Changing course, Cap’n. Meeting us.”

DeHaan used the whistle to call down to the engine room. When Kovacz answered, DeHaan said, “Come to the bridge, Stas. Right away, please.”

In less than a minute he came puffing onto the bridge, breathless from running up ladderways, his denim shirt sweated dark at the armpits and across the belly from the heat of the engine room. “Eric?” he said. “What is it?” DeHaan handed him the binoculars and pointed out to sea. Using his big thumb to adjust the focus, Kovacz tracked the approaching ship for a few seconds, then said, “Shit.”

“What is she?”

“Minesweeper, M class. Could be French or Norwegian, originally, an old thing, built just after the war, 1919, maybe 1920. They use them for coast patrol, mostly, but if there’s a mine they can take care of it.” He handed the binoculars back to DeHaan and said, “And they are going to challenge.”

“Doing it now,” DeHaan said, looking through the binoculars. A sailor at the rail had an Aldis lamp going, blinking Morse at him, his hand fast and expert on the shutter. What ship? DeHaan kept the glasses trained. “But they’re not in any hurry,” he said, gauging the rate of closure between the two ships.

“The hell they aren’t-she’s only got ten, maybe twelve knots in her and she’s using every bit of it.”

“Stay at three-quarter speed,” he told Kovacz. “And we’ll see what happens.” Had they read his course change as evasion? Maybe he’d made a mistake.

Kovacz went to the door, then stopped and turned back to DeHaan. “I won’t be taken prisoner, Eric.”

DeHaan lowered the binoculars and met Kovacz’s eyes. “Easy does it, for now. All right?”

“Just so you understand.”

As he left, DeHaan called to the lookout on the starboard wing. “Have Mr. Ratter come to the bridge, and find AB Amado and bring him up here. Fast!” Sliding his hands down the railings, the AB went down the ladderway in three hops. Meanwhile, from the port lookout, “They’re signaling again, sir.”

“Very well, get the Aldis lamp and make back, ‘ Santa Rosa, Valencia,’ but take your time.”

“Aye-aye, sir. I can’t go very fast.”

“Good. And get the letters wrong.”

“Count on me, sir.”

Under a mile now, and closing. DeHaan looked at his watch. 12:48. On the M 56, sailors moving around on deck, and an officer, sweeping his binoculars back and forth across the Noordendam. Full uniform for the crew-some of them in navy crew caps, almost berets, with ribbon on the back-and the officer, blue jacket and trousers, white shirt, black tie. On this chunky, coal-burning old pot? DeHaan didn’t like it. From the speaker tube to the radio room, three clicks from Mr. Ali. DeHaan picked up the tube and said, “Yes?”

“Do I send anything?” Ali said.

“No, stay silent.”

As DeHaan returned the speaker tube to its hook, Ratter hurried through the door. He’d apparently been taking a shower; his hair was wet, his shirt was hanging outside his trousers, and he was barefoot. DeHaan found himself looking at the eye patch-was it dry? Did he take it off to shower? Ratter raised his binoculars, focused on the German ship, and swore under his breath. “They’ve run up a Stand To signal,” he said.

DeHaan saw that he was right. “Go down to the chartroom, Johannes, and find the minefield maps, in the third drawer in the cabinet to the left, slipped into the chart for the Mozambique Channel.”

“If we burn them we’ll never get out.”

“I know. But put them somewhere-in a ventilator duct, somewhere like that.”

“Aren’t we in Swedish waters?”

“Would you do it now, please?”

“Make a run for the coast-why not?”

“Now?”

As Ratter left, Kees appeared, followed by the AB and Amado, who looked pale and frightened. DeHaan turned the engine telegraph to Full — Stop. “Think he’ll challenge?” Kees said.

“He already has. We’re waiting for him.”

From Kees, the sigh of the man who’d known this would happen. The engine-room telegraph rang, confirming the order to stop, and DeHaan heard the engine shut down. Kees said, “So then, we use Amado.”

“Give him some answers-we’ve got a few minutes yet. We’re steaming in ballast from Riga, where we delivered Portuguese cotton and bagged jute. And we’re headed up to Malm for sawn boards.”

“Might as well try it,” Kees said. “Maybe we’ll be lucky a second time.” From his voice, he didn’t believe it.

“Maybe we will.”

Kees shook his head, looking very sour and dispirited. “Paint and a flag,” he said. “Not much.”

“No,” DeHaan said. “Not much.”

With the engine shut down, Noordendam began to lose way, rocking gently in the swell. Paint and a flag. Of course the NID could’ve done more, but they hadn’t. Because if the Noordendam had been caught with the secret cargo, what clandestine apparatus would’ve made any difference? And, now that they’d completed their mission, it didn’t matter what happened to them. They just had to keep quiet. Would they? Forty-one souls, plus Maria Bromen and S. Kolb?

Kees had taken Amado to a corner of the bridge house and was, slowly and carefully, explaining what he should say. Amado’s head jerked up and down-yes-he understood-but he was plainly terrified. DeHaan fixed his binoculars on the M 56, the officer now stood at the rail. He was young, in his early twenties, chin held at a certain angle, back stiff as a board. As DeHaan watched, he put a hand on either side of his officer’s hat and made sure it was on straight.

The M 56, engine idling in neutral, stood off their port beam, a sailor now seated behind the iron shield that held a long-barreled machine gun. When the officer stepped to the railing, loud-hailer in hand, DeHaan and Kees walked Amado, now wearing the captain’s hat, out to the bridge wing, then down to the deck, where DeHaan handed him their own loud-hailer.

“What is your destination?” The German words boomed out over the water.

Amado said, “Habla usted espaol?” DeHaan barely heard him. Amado looked for the switch, found it, turned the device on, and tried again.

The officer lowered the loud-hailer for a moment, then raised it and repeated the question-slower, and more forcefully. That was the way with foreigners, you had to make them understand you.

It didn’t work with Amado, who asked, once again, if the officer spoke Spanish.

The officer took a long look at DeHaan and Kees, then said, “Can your officers speak German?”

What? Amado shook his head and spread his hands.

The officer pointed to Kees, thrusting his finger, three or four times, for emphasis, then called out, “ Officer, officer. ”

Kees put out a hand and Amado gave him the loud-hailer. “Bound for Malm,” he said, in German.

“Who are you?”

“Second mate.”

“What was your last port?”

“Riga.”

“What cargo do you carry?”

“In ballast.”

And now we can all be on our way.

The officer held the loud-hailer at his side and took a long, thoughtful look at the freighter, bow to stern and back again. Then he called out, “Remain stood to,” and walked back to the bridge house. He was, DeHaan thought, the executive officer of M 56, and was going to consult with the captain on the bridge. Could he somehow check their story? DeHaan doubted it-the Russians had occupied Latvia a year earlier, and, despite being the nominal ally of Germany, wouldn’t be in a hurry to answer questions. And the M 56 couldn’t just wire to the Port of Riga-that would require a long journey up through the layers of Kriegsmarine administration.

“What’s he doing?” Kees said.

“Arguing with his captain. He wants to board.”

“Why would he?”

DeHaan smiled. “I could start with early days in school and go on from there, but it would all come down to who he is. Has always been.”

“We are in Swedish waters,” Kees said. “You can see Falsterbo. Should we point that out?”

“I don’t think they care.”

“Bastards.”

On the M 56, the sailors, most of them not yet out of their teens, stared curiously at the Santa Rosa, and the three men on her deck, awaiting the pleasure of their officer.

“How long do we stand here?” Kees said.

“Until he decides what he wants to do.”

Finally, an older man in officer’s uniform, with a well-kept gray beard, stepped out of the bridge house. Brought back out of retirement? Stuck on a minesweeper with a teenaged crew. DeHaan met his eyes, then thought, merchant captain? Did he shake his head? Just very subtly? Can’t do a thing with him? No, probably not, probably just his imagination. The man returned to the bridge and, a moment later, the young officer walked back to the railing, looking proud and pleased with himself, a holstered pistol now worn on a web belt around his waist. He raised the loud-hailer and, speaking slowly, called out, “Stand by and prepare to be boarded.”

“Send Amado below,” he told Kees. “Then go to the radio room, have Ali send the coded message, twice, and burn the paper. Then, put the BAMS codebook in the weighted bag and dump it off the starboard beam.”

“They’ll see!”

“Put it under your shirt, on the side away from them.”

“What if they figure it out?”

“Then they’ll shoot you.”

They were, he saw, well drilled, and well practiced. Two of them stayed in their cutter, and he counted eight in the boarding party that climbed the gangway-five armed with infantry rifles, one with a carbine, one a steel submachine gun with box magazine and fold-down shoulder brace. Once on deck they fanned out in pairs-to the radio office, the crew’s quarters, the engine room-while the officer marched to the bridge, shadowed by a dark, hulking bully with a heavy brow- his personal ape, as DeHaan put it to himself-who carried the submachine gun.

At close range, the officer was tall and fair-skinned, with a pale frizz from sideburn to sideburn that was meant to be a beard. Bright-eyed and eager, mouth set in a permanent, meaningless smile, he was a young man in love with power, with command, with salutes and uniforms, orders and punishments. Facing DeHaan on the bridge, he stood at attention and announced himself as “Leutnant zur See Schumpel. Schumpel.” Remember that name. Only a sublieutenant, Schumpel, but not for long. All it would take was one success, one lucky moment, and he would be on his way upwards. And today, DeHaan thought, was his day, though he didn’t yet know it. “Do you also speak German?” he asked DeHaan.

“I do.”

“And you are?”

“DeHaan.”

“What rank?”

Not yet. “First officer.”

“So you are able to locate the ship’s papers, logbook, roster of seamen and officers.”

“I am.”

“You will bring them to the wardroom.”

Well, that was that. The ghost ship was about to lose its sheet, and all DeHaan could do was obey orders. He took the logbook from the bridge, stopped at the chartroom-Schumpel’s ape two steps behind him-and collected the rest. Of course he could have handed it over, but that wasn’t the form. Better for him to carry his guilt in his own two hands, that was the way Schumpel wanted it.

Once they were seated at the wardroom table, Schumpel said, “Is it you who are the captain of this ship? Or is that your colleague?”

DeHaan didn’t answer.

“Sir, be reasonable. That little Spanish man is not the captain of anything. Or perhaps, like the English poem, he is the captain of his soul, but no more than that.”

“I’m the captain,” DeHaan said.

“Good! Progress. Now, the logbook and ship’s papers.”

Schumpel, it turned out, was a lively reader. He ran his finger along a line until it stopped, delighted at what it found, and went no further until it received a verbal confirmation-“Mm? Mm”-from its master. Who said, when he looked up from the papers, “The ship I am aboard would appear to be Dutch, and properly called the NV Noordendam. Is that correct?”

“It is.”

“May one ask, then, why you are painted like a Spanish freighter?”

“Because a Dutch ship cannot enter the Baltic.”

“And at whose direction was this done?”

“At the direction of the owner.”

“Yes? And what exactly did he have in mind, do you think?”

“Disguise, Leutnant Schumpel.”

“It would seem so, but what would he gain, by doing that?”

“Money. More money than he would make from British convoys, much more.”

“For doing what? Some sort of secret mission?”

“Oh, that’s rather a grand way to put it. Smuggling, that’s a better word.”

“Smuggling what?”

“Alcohol, what else?”

“Guns, agents.”

“Not us. We carried wine and brandy, without tax stamps, first to Denmark, then to Riga.”

“To Denmark. You are aware that Denmark is a German ally, currently under our supervision?”

“Drink is drink, Leutnant Schumpel. In hard times, times of war, say, it helps men to bear up. And they will have it.”

“And exactly where, on the Danish coast, did you deliver this wine and brandy?”

“Off Hanstholm, on the west coast. To Danish fishing smacks.”

“Called?”

“They did not have names-not that night, they didn’t.”

“Unlikely, Captain, for Danish fishermen, but we’ll let that pass for the moment. More important: I presume, that when my men interrogate your crew, they will tell the same story.”

“They will tell you every kind of story-anything but that. They are merchant seamen, a vocation, I’m sure you know, given to sea stories and lies to authority. One will say this, the other that, a third something else.”

Schumpel stared at him, DeHaan stared back. “You will of course lose your ship, Captain, and you can look forward to spending some time in prison.”

“It’s not my ship, Leutnant, and the money we made smuggling is not mine either.”

“It belongs to…”

“The Netherlands Hyperion Line, formerly of Rotterdam. Owned by the Terhouven family.”

“And the idea of prison, does not bother you?”

“Of course it does. I must say, however, it is preferable to the bottom of the sea.”

“Perhaps.” He took a moment to square up the papers in front of him. “We will collect, from your crew, all the seaman’s books. We do discover the most curious people, sometimes, sailing in our territory. Do you, by the way, have weapons aboard this ship?”

“No. I can’t vouch for the crew, of course, but nothing that I know about.”

“On your honor, Captain? We will search, you know.”

“On my honor.”

“You don’t have passengers, do you? Not listed on this roster?”

“We have two. A Swiss businessman, the traveling representative of industrial firms in Zurich, and a woman, a Russian journalist.”

“A woman? A Russian journalist?”

“She is traveling with me, Leutnant Schumpel.”

DeHaan waited for a complicit smile, but it didn’t come. Instead, Schumpel pursed his lips, as though nagged by uncertainty, and, again, stared at DeHaan. Yes, freighter captains could be scoundrels, smugglers, whoremasters-but, this captain? “May I see your passport?” he said.

DeHaan had it ready for him, from its drawer in the chartroom.

Schumpel took a long look at it, comparing DeHaan to the faded photograph taken years earlier. “I like the Dutch,” he said. “Very upright and honorable people, as a rule. It pains me to encounter another sort.”

A bad type, yes, how right you are. DeHaan looked down at his shoes and said nothing.

As for Schumpel, he snapped back to his former self, the bright smile back in place. Brighter than ever, now, because this was a great day, a glorious day. He had distinguished himself-the unmasking of this criminal ship, an enemy vessel, after all, in German waters, more or less, would shine on his record like a brilliant star.

A long, melancholy afternoon with, now, a slow, steady rain. The Noordendam dropped anchor, Schumpel returned to M 56, for consultation and a W/T report to headquarters, then came back to the ship and told DeHaan the freighter would be taken under guard to the naval base at Dragr on the Danish coast.

DeHaan remained in the wardroom as the ship was searched, waiting for them to find the weapons-the Browning automatic and the rifle-and wondering what they’d do to him when they were discovered. Of course he’d had some vague notion of retaking the ship, had lied instinctively-a foolish way to lie-and now regretted it. Still, what did it matter? They might beat him up a little, but not too much-he was, after all, a prize fish in their net. What else would they find? Not much. After all, you couldn’t really search a ship like the Noordendam unless you had a week and fifty clever men with screwdrivers, it was nothing but hiding places.

They did, of course, using the ship’s roster, find the officers, and the wardroom became a holding cell, guarded by a sailor with a rifle. First came Ratter, still barefoot, then Kees and Mr. Ali, followed by Poulsen. Kovacz did not appear, neither did Kolb. They’d evidently hidden themselves, for the time being, as had Shtern, who was brought to the wardroom with his hands tied behind his back and a swelling bruise under one eye. As for the German communists and Republican Spaniards, DeHaan could only speculate. Safe for the moment, he thought-there were no politics in seamen’s papers-though investigation in Denmark might tell another story. As prisoners of the Kriegsmarine they had at least a chance of survival but, if the Gestapo chose to involve itself, they were finished. And, DeHaan had to admit to himself, once that happened, the station at Smygehuk was also finished. The crew of the Noordendam was brave but, under the Gestapo’s methods of interrogation, the truth would be told.

It was Schumpel himself who escorted Maria Bromen to the wardroom, and his irritated glance at DeHaan said more than he realized. Had she worked on him? Maybe. As she came through the door their eyes met, for an instant, but not to say farewell. It’s not over, she meant, even though, and they both knew it, once they were taken off the Noordendam, they would never see each other again.

1550 hours. Off Falsterbo headland.

DeHaan was led up to the bridge, in preparation for the voyage to Dragr, and it was there that Schumpel confronted him with a list of Noordendam ’s sins. Item one: they’d found a pistol in the locker of the fireman Hemstra. If the Leutnant expected a reaction to this he was disappointed, because DeHaan was mystified and showed it. Hemstra? Plain, quiet, hardworking Hemstra? So, the Leutnant said, DeHaan had nothing to say? Very well, then item two: the chief engineer, Kovacz, was missing, as was the passenger S. Kolb. Any idea where they might be? Quite truthfully, DeHaan said he didn’t know.

“We shall find them,” Schumpel said. “Unless they’ve jumped into the sea. In which case, good riddance.”

From here, Schumpel proceeded to item three. “We are unable to find your codebook,” he said.

“I ordered it thrown overboard,” DeHaan said. “As captain of an allied merchant vessel, that was my obligation.”

“Ordered who, Captain, the radio officer?”

DeHaan did not speak.

“If you say nothing, we will assume that to be the case.”

“I acted under the rules of war, Leutnant. A German officer would behave no differently.”

That made Schumpel angry, the skin over his cheekbones turning pink-a captured codebook would have been the cherry on top of his triumph. But he could only say, “So, it’s the radio officer. We’ll let him know you told us.” He had more to add, but one of the German sailors came to the bridge and handed him a message, saying, “The cutter brought it over, sir.”

Schumpel read his message, then said to DeHaan, “You will remain on the bridge,” and, to the ape, “Watch him carefully.”

So, the two of them stood there, while Schumpel went off toward the gangway. And stood there. From the bridge, DeHaan could see the Leutnant, sitting at attention in the stern of the cutter as it made its way through the rain back to M 56. And, twenty minutes later, after the ape had rejected a very tentative attempt at conversation, DeHaan discovered how Kolb had managed to disappear.

With some admiration. Kolb, accompanied by a German guard, was walking along the deck, headed, perhaps, for the crew’s quarters. Or, more likely, for the galley, because Kolb was wearing the filthiest cook’s apron DeHaan had ever seen and, on his head, a freighter cook’s traditional headgear-a paper bag with the rim folded up.

In rain, beneath overcast skies, the afternoon had turned to early dusk by the time Schumpel returned. When he reached the bridge, DeHaan saw that he was virtually glowing with excitement. “We are going to Germany,” he said.

It took some effort, but DeHaan showed no reaction.

“To the naval base at Warnemnde.” To heaven, to be serenaded by a chorus of angels. “It turns out that this Noordendam is”-he paused, looking for the right words-“of interest,” he said at last. “To certain people.”

Again, DeHaan didn’t answer, but Schumpel was observant.

“Don’t like it, do you,” he said. “If you would care to guess why, some reason for this interest, I will do for you one favor.”

The bar in Algeciras, Hoek in his office, S. Kolb. “I don’t know why,” DeHaan said.

“This level of interest, is not usual.”

“I can’t help you, Leutnant.”

Schumpel was disappointed. “Very well,” he said. “I have ordered a helmsman sent to the bridge, and a crew to the engine room. Your course is south-southwest, compass bearing one nine zero. What is your best speed?”

“Eleven knots. In calm seas.”

“You will go ten, my ship will escort us.”

DeHaan calculated quickly. Under a hundred nautical miles to the Baltic coast of Germany, ten hours. A lot could happen in ten hours. DeHaan looked at his watch, it was ten minutes after five.

The helmsman appeared a few minutes later, as DeHaan signaled to the engine room. “Hello, Scheldt,” he said.

“Cap’n.”

“We’ll come about, then bear south-southwest at one nine zero.” Outside, the sound of a winch engine, and the anchor being hauled in. “For Warnemnde, Scheldt.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Back to normal, life on the bridge of the Noordendam. Scheldt giving the wheel a quarter turn every few minutes in order to stay on course, the engine drumming away down below, DeHaan smoking one of his small cigars. No ships sighted. All well on board. Schumpel paced the bridge, making sure, now and again, that the compass bearing was as he’d ordered, then looking out at the M 56, black smoke streaming from her funnel as she chugged along in escort position, some three hundred yards off their stern quarter. The ape with the submachine gun leaned against the bulkhead, bored, with long hours of voyage ahead of him.

For DeHaan, the hours were even longer. He’d done his best, but the odds had caught up with them and what had begun in Tangier, two months earlier, was now finished. He said this to himself again and again, though he knew it meant surrender, true surrender, the end of hope. And he fought it-his imagination produced a coast watcher on Falsterbo, alerting the Royal Navy, who just then had a submarine beneath this Baltic sea-lane. A sudden storm, an exploding boiler. Or Ratter, and the officers in the wardroom, who rushed their guard, then retook the ship with the hidden weapons. That last was not beyond possibility, though, if it was somehow accomplished, they would soon enough be blown to pieces by the minesweeper’s 105-millimeter cannon. But this was, at least, an honorable end, better than what awaited them in Germany. Interrogation, execution.

So his mind wandered, this way and that, from salvation to despair and back again. No point, really, except that it sometimes kept him from thinking about Maria Bromen, which, every time, brought with it a very bitter truth. Which was not that he had loved and lost her, but that he could not save her.

2035 hours. At sea.

“Where did you grow up, Captain?” Schumpel said.

“In Rotterdam.”

“Oh? I have never been there.”

“It’s a port city, typical, like many others.”

“Like Hamburg.”

“Yes, or Le Havre.”

“Perhaps you will see Rostock, where there is a central administration.”

“I’ve put in there-up the estuary from Warnemnde.”

“I suspect you won’t go by ship, this time. Perhaps by automobile.”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, I think you will.”

He was quiet after that, pacing back and forth, looking at his watch, while, on the bridge, life went on as usual-the green glow of the binnacle light, the helmsman at the wheel, the mess boy bringing coffee.

But not the everyday service. Now that they had guests, Cornelius had brought up a full pot of coffee though, true to his Corneliusian soul, he had forgotten the lid, so the coffee steamed in the damp air. But, at least, for a change, hot coffee. And Cornelius was not alone-he was assisted by Xanos, the Greek stowaway from Crete, poor little man, who wore a grimy white steward’s jacket and carried a tray of cups and saucers, and who was so nervous at this new job that his hands shook and the china rattled.

Schumpel was delighted. “Ah now, here you are more civilized than I thought.”

“Coffee, sir?” Xanos said. For this important occasion, someone had taught him the German words.

“Yes, thank you, I’ll have a cup.”

Xanos held out the tray, Schumpel took a cup and saucer, then Cornelius filled it with coffee. The aroma was strong and delicious on the smoky bridge. Schumpel turned to DeHaan and said, “You will join me?”

DeHaan said he would, but Xanos’s nerves got the best of him, and the tray slipped from his hands and the crockery went clattering to the deck. A startling event, to Schumpel, very startling, because he said, “Hah!” as though he’d been slapped on the back, and threw his cup and saucer in the air, the coffee splashing on his white shirt. But he didn’t care so much about the shirt, because he turned his head and looked over his shoulder and, as Xanos leapt away, drew in a long breath through clenched teeth and twisted his head back the other way, his eyes wide with panic. Xanos stepped behind him and did something with his hand, then Schumpel said, “Ach,” sank to his knees, tilted slowly, and toppled forward, with a loud thump as his forehead hit the deck.

On the other side of the bridge, the ape shouted, and DeHaan turned toward him. Head steaming, he howled and pressed his free hand to his eyes, while Cornelius stood gaping at him, the empty coffeepot dangling upside down from his fingers. Then the submachine gun swung toward him and he dropped the pot and grabbed the barrel with both hands and hung on for dear life, shoes sliding across the deck as he was spun around. The two of them circled twice before DeHaan and Scheldt got there. DeHaan drew his fist back but Scheldt shoved him aside and did it himself, three or four shots, bone on bone and loud. The last one worked, and as Cornelius fell backward with the gun clutched to his chest, the ape mumbled, “Leave me alone,” and sat down.

Scheldt stood over him, shaking his hand and grimacing with pain. “Pardon, Cap’n,” he said.

“Get the wheel,” DeHaan said. If they drifted off course, the captain on M 56 would know something had gone wrong. DeHaan went over to Schumpel, who was still kneeling, his forehead resting on the deck, the hilt of a knife fixed between his shoulder blades. A kitchen knife? No, DeHaan saw that the handle was wrapped with tape, a killing weapon. “Thank you, Xanos,” DeHaan said. “Also you, Cornelius.”

“It was the little passenger,” Cornelius said. “He drew it on a piece of paper. Just like you told him to.”

“Where is he?”

“In the galley. He’s peeling potatoes. For hours, Cap’n, pounds and pounds of ’em.”

“Where are the other Germans, Cornelius, do you know?”

Cornelius’s face knotted with concentration and he licked his lips. “He said to tell you, if the plan worked out, that there’s one in the radio room.” He thought for a moment, then said, “A signalman-he told me to tell you that. And I know there’s two of them in the crew’s quarters.”

And one in the wardroom, and certainly two in the engine room. DeHaan looked aft. Out in the darkness, the lights of M 56 bobbed up and down in the swell, keeping station off their starboard quarter. DeHaan knelt beside Schumpel’s body and slid his pistol, a heavy automatic with a short barrel, out of its holster. Xanos said a Greek word and pointed-the ape was trying to crawl out the door. DeHaan and Cornelius stopped him, then Cornelius got a length of line from the signal-flag rack and DeHaan tied his hands and feet, wrapping a signal flag around his head and knotting its cord in back. “If you move, we’ll throw you overboard. Understood?”

“Yes,” the man said, his voice muffled by the flag.

DeHaan put the pistol in his pocket, then picked up the submachine gun and handed it to Scheldt, who stood it on its stock by the helm. For DeHaan, there was a strong temptation to free the captives in the wardroom, but he couldn’t take the chance. So far, there’d been no gunfire, which meant that the signalman in the radio room had not been alerted, so communication between the Noordendam and M 56 was the next problem that had to be solved. And, eventually, they would have to deal with M 56 itself, by force or by subterfuge. Board it? Ram it? Somehow, he told himself. “Stay sharp on one nine zero,” he told Scheldt. “I’m leaving you and Xanos in charge of the prisoner, and the bridge. So, if any German shows up here, you can use that weapon. You better have a look at it.”

Beckoning Cornelius to follow him, DeHaan left the bridge on the port wing-the side concealed from the view of the M 56. Quietly, they moved along the deck to the door of the radio office. It was closed. Locked? He wouldn’t know until he tried. But, if he had to shoot the man inside, the wardroom guard would be alerted. DeHaan took the pistol from his pocket and examined it. J. P. Sauer amp; Sohn, Suhl was stamped on the barrel, then CAL 7,65, and it had a safety, operated by a thumb lever. He pushed the lever up, so the safety was off, then found a catch behind the trigger. What did it do? He didn’t know. This didn’t work like his Browning, but he assumed that with the safety off, the weapon would fire when he pulled the trigger. He detached the magazine, counted eight rounds in the clip, then snapped it back in place. “Stay behind me,” he told Cornelius.

DeHaan approached the door, listened, then pressed his ear against the iron surface. Silence. He put two fingers on the metal lever that worked as a doorknob, steadied the automatic in his right hand, and held the barrel up. Slowly, he applied pressure to the lever. It gave. Then he took a breath, pushed down hard on the lever, aimed the pistol at the interior, and threw the door open.

The signalman was sitting tilted back in Mr. Ali’s swivel chair with his feet up on the work desk and his hands clasped behind his head. He’d been staring at the ceiling, maybe dozing, but he was awake now. Eyes wide, he stared at the automatic aimed at his chest, then tried to sit upright, as the chair hung dangerously on its back wheel for an instant, then righted itself as he kicked his legs. He raised his hands in the air and said, “I surrender, understand? Surrender.” He waved his hands so that DeHaan would see them.

“Did you call your ship?”

“No. I was just sitting here. Please.”

“They call you?”

“An hour ago. I answered back, so they knew I was receiving, that’s all.”

“What’s their call signal?”

“Seven-eight-zero, five-five-six. At six point nine megahertz.”

DeHaan looked him over. In his early twenties, just somebody caught up in a war who’d joined the Kriegsmarine, then was lucky or clever enough to get duty on a minesweeper patrolling the Danish coast- M 56, scourge of the herring boats.

DeHaan checked the radio, found nothing to provoke his interest, then walked the signalman back up to the bridge. “So, that’s two,” Scheldt said. Then glanced at Schumpel’s body and added, “Three, I mean.” DeHaan sat the signalman down next to the other prisoner, and tied his hands and feet. “I’m going to the wardroom,” he told Scheldt.

“Let me come with you, Cap’n. With the submachine gun.”

DeHaan thought about it, then said, “No, I’ll take Cornelius.”

On the main deck, one level below the bridge, the wardroom was next to the officers’ mess, down a passageway past the chartroom and the officers’ cabins. DeHaan paused out on deck, in front of the heavy door. “Cornelius, I want you to go the wardroom. Look around, see what’s going on in there, and where the guard is.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Cornelius said. He was being brave, the fighting on the bridge had shaken him.

“You can do it,” DeHaan said. “It’s easy, just do what you always do, you don’t have to be quiet, or clever. Take a walk down the passageway, tell the guard that Leutnant Schumpel sent you.”

“Why did he send me, sir?”

“You’re the mess boy-you’re going to bring up something to eat. They haven’t had any food for a long time, so you’re there to, to count how many, and the cook is going to send up sandwiches and coffee.”

Cornelius nodded. “Sandwiches.”

“And coffee. Don’t be scared.”

“Aye, sir.”

When Cornelius reached for the door lever, DeHaan realized that he had to know what happened in the wardroom-in case the guard didn’t believe the story. He’d intended to wait for Cornelius on deck, but now realized he’d have to go inside. “I’ll be right down the corridor,” he said.

Cornelius hauled the door open and went inside. Behind him, DeHaan slammed it, and Cornelius, clomping down the passageway, made plenty of noise. He was halfway down the corridor, nearing the corner which led to the wardroom, when a German voice called out, “Who’s that?”

“Mess boy!”

DeHaan went down on one knee, making himself a smaller target, and held the wrist of his gun hand to keep it steady. If the guard put his head around the corner…

Cornelius turned right and disappeared. Then, from the wardroom, voices, but very faint. DeHaan glanced at his watch-eight-fifty, the radio had been left unattended for fifteen minutes. More voices. What was there to talk about? Come on, Cornelius, count heads and leave.

Finally, footsteps. And a voice, just around the corner, where the guard would not lose sight of his captives. “Hey, mess boy.”

“Yes?” Cornelius’s voice was close to a squeak.

“Bring me two of them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And hurry it up.”

Cornelius did as he was told, trotting down the corridor. DeHaan followed him out on deck and slammed the door for effect.

“Well?” he said.

“He’s got them lying down, on their stomachs, with their hands behind their heads.”

“One guard?”

“Yes.”

Undermanned. He realized Schumpel had made a mistake-this was a boarding crew, not a prize crew. “What does he look like?”

“A sailor, sir. With a mustache, like Hitler. He pointed his rifle at me the whole time I was there.”

“Anybody say anything?”

“No, the guard asked if I’d talked to anybody, from the ship.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“Just the German officer.”

“Did he believe it?”

“He looked at me, Cap’n, scared me, the way he looked.”

DeHaan didn’t dare to send Cornelius to the galley-he needed someone to man the radio, and the mess boy’s normal round trip never took less than half an hour. So he waited, standing on deck in the slow rain, with Cornelius beside him. Eight fifty-five, eight fifty-eight.

“Now we’ll go back,” he said, checking the automatic one last time.

“To ask again?”

“No,” DeHaan said. “Just say who you are, as you go down the passageway, and run past the door. Quick. Understand?”

“Aye, sir. Are you going to kill him?”

“Yes.”

DeHaan opened the door, and followed Cornelius down the corridor. Such familiar territory; the chartroom, his cabin, Ratter’s cabin-strange and alien to him now.

In a whisper, DeHaan said, “Call out to him.”

“Hello! It’s the mess boy.”

“Now what?”

“Mess boy.”

They reached the corner, Cornelius hesitated, DeHaan let the guard have a look, then pushed him hard so that he went stumbling down the passageway. In three strides, DeHaan reached the open door of the wardroom, found the German sailor, pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. It was a double-action trigger so the shot didn’t come immediately, and in that tenth of a second DeHaan realized the man wasn’t who Cornelius said he was-yes he had a Hitler mustache but that was all. Tall and thin and nervous, he sat on the deck with the rifle resting across his lap. His mouth opened when he saw what DeHaan meant to do, then the automatic flared, and he yelped and threw the rifle out in front of him as blood poured down his face.

It was a mle after that, the officers struggling to their feet, Kees grabbing the rifle, Poulsen and Ratter grabbing the sailor-more because he’d held them captive than anything else, he was no threat to them now, breathing hard with his eyes closed. Dying, he thought. But he was wrong about that-DeHaan had aimed at his heart and clipped off a piece of his left ear.

2140 hours. At sea.

They now held the bridge and the top deck of the ship. Five and a half hours from Warnemnde, with the engine room and the crew’s quarters still under the control of the four remaining sailors from M 56. DeHaan saw Maria Bromen only for a moment, in the wardroom, as she stamped her feet and rubbed her legs to get the circulation back. “You have the ship?” she said.

“Part of it.”

“What will you do now?”

“Take the rest, then deal with the minesweeper. We may be shelled, it’s likely, so I want you to stay in my cabin, and be ready to go to the lifeboats. On the first shot, go and wait there.”

“You plan this?”

“It’s one idea. In the darkness, one of the boats might get away, and make for Sweden.”

“Better than going like sheep,” she said.

Meanwhile, Shtern had torn the guard’s undershirt into strips, and patched up his ear, then DeHaan told him to remain in the wardroom, with Poulsen, and walked the guard up to the bridge. When he was secured, DeHaan handed the automatic to Mr. Ali and told him to go to the radio room, accompanied by the German signalman. “He’ll handle communication with the minesweeper,” DeHaan said. “Shoot him if he betrays us.”

“How would I know, Captain?”

“Cannon fire.” He then translated into German for the signalman, and the two of them left the bridge. Now there was one job that remained to be done, and DeHaan and Ratter rolled Schumpel into a length of canvas, traditional sea coffin, tied the ends with rope, and dragged him out to the port side of the deck. They briefly considered sea burial, then and there, but the iron weights normally used for the ceremony were in the engine room, and they didn’t want him floating past the M 56 lookouts. When they’d sent Xanos and Cornelius down to the wardroom, to join the reserve force, DeHaan, Ratter, and Kees remained on the bridge.

“Next is the engine room,” DeHaan said. “Then the crew’s quarters.”

“Your pistol and the rifle are hidden in a duct,” Ratter said. “Along with the minefield maps. Once I get them, we’ll have a pistol, two rifles, and the submachine gun. Was the signalman armed?”

“No.”

“Well, we better get moving. I was their prisoner for one afternoon, that was enough for me.”

When he’d left, DeHaan said to Kees, “What can we do about the minesweeper? Board it? Ram it?”

“We’ll never ram-she’s too nimble. And we’d have a dozen shells in us in no time at all, with fighter planes here in twenty minutes. As for boarding, I don’t see how we can get close enough, using the cutter. They have a searchlight, and machine guns. That’s suicide, DeHaan.”

Ten minutes later, Ratter arrived with the ship’s armory. Kees took the Enfield rifle, Ratter the submachine gun, DeHaan his Browning automatic. “We’ll give the guard’s rifle to Poulsen,” Ratter said.

DeHaan said, “Any ideas about them?” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder.

“Call on the radio, tell ’em thanks for everything, we’re leaving.”

“Tell them we’re holding Schumpel and his men, and we’ll shoot them if they fire on us,” Kees said.

Ratter smiled a certain way- not worth an answer.

“That’s for later,” DeHaan said. “Now it’s the engine room.”

“Why not call them?” Ratter said. “See how they’re doing.”

Maybe not such a bad idea, DeHaan thought. He picked up the speaker tube and blew into it. When nobody answered, he used the whistle.

That produced a very hesitant “Yes? Who is it?”

“DeHaan, the captain. Feels like we’re losing way, is everything working, down there?”

A count of ten, then, “All is in order.”

“What about the engine? Working like it should?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I know these engines.”

DeHaan hung the speaker tube back on its hook. “He knows these engines.”

“Not so different than what they’ve got on the minesweeper,” Kees said.

DeHaan held the Browning out in front of him, studied it for a moment, then worked the slide. “Time to go, gentlemen.”

When they entered the wardroom, Cornelius’s eyes glowed with admiration-his officers, armed and ready to fight. Ratter handed the German rifle to Poulsen. “Ever used one of these?”

“No. We shot at rabbits, when I was a boy, but we had a little shotgun.” He hefted the rifle and said, “Bolt action-the last war, looks like. Simple enough.”

Shtern rose to his feet, as though to join them.

DeHaan appreciated the gesture, but shook his head. “Better for you to stay here, I think.”

“No, I’m coming with you.”

“Sorry, but we can’t have you shot-people may get hurt, later on.”

“They’ll get hurt now.”

“Let him come, Eric,” Ratter said.

Then Cornelius stood up, followed by Xanos. DeHaan waved them back down. “You’ve done your part,” he said.

Single file, DeHaan leading, Shtern the last in line, they stayed tight to the outside bulkhead, moving quickly along the slippery deck to the midship hatchway, then descending to the deck where the crew lived. Ghostly and silent, once they got there, nobody in sight, the crew apparently locked up in their sleeping quarters. A second hatch brought them to another ladderway, a steep one, then to a heavy sliding door. On the other side, a metal catwalk, which ran twenty feet high around the perimeter of the engine room. The beat of the engine had grown louder as they descended until, outside the sliding door, it became a giant drum, riding over the steady drone of the boiler furnaces.

DeHaan beckoned the others to come close-even so he had to raise his voice above the din below them. “You slide the door open,” he said to Kees. “Just enough.” Turning to Ratter and Poulsen, he said, “You stay behind me. If you hear a shot, go out there and return the fire. But don’t hit the boilers.” They all knew what live steam could do to anybody standing nearby. He looked at each of them, then said, “Ready?”

Ratter raised and lowered a flattened palm.

“You’re right,” DeHaan said. Better to crawl, less of a target.

Kees slung the Enfield over his shoulder, took a tight grip on the steel handle, and slid the door open. DeHaan crouched, took a breath, then scuttled through the door onto the catwalk. He crawled a few feet, to where he could get a view of the engine room below, but he never saw a thing, because the instant his silhouette broke the plane of the catwalk, something hit the rim, inches from his face, and sang off over his head. DeHaan threw himself backward, into Ratter, as a hole was punched through the space where he’d knelt a second earlier.

DeHaan came up quickly, said, “Give me that goddamn thing,” and snatched at the submachine gun. Ratter handed it over, just as the voice of Kovacz came roaring up from below. “You dumb fucking idiot! That was the fucking captain you just killed.”

As DeHaan and the others climbed down the ladder to the engine room, Kovacz was waiting for them at the bottom rung, looking very relieved, his shirt and pants stained with black grease. “Where’ve you been?” DeHaan said.

Kovacz nodded toward a shadowed area beyond the boilers, pipes, and rusted machinery abandoned during one of the ship’s refittings. “Back there,” he said. “For a long time. But I got tired of hiding, so

…” He glanced at his crew, two oilers and a fireman, who had gathered behind him, and shrugged- we did what we did.

DeHaan saw what he meant-one of the German sailors was sitting propped up against a stanchion, his ankles bound with wire, while the other lay nearby, flat and lifeless, his cap at an odd angle.

To Shtern, Kovacz said, “Take a look at him, if you want.”

Shtern walked over to the man and placed two fingers on his neck, where his pulse would have been.

“He turned around when I came out of there,” Kovacz said. “And Boda hit him.”

“I’ll say he did.” Shtern withdrew his fingers and stared down at the man, whose cap was now part of his head. “What with?”

Boda stepped forward. A massive fireman, wearing a flowered shirt with the sleeves torn off at the shoulders, he reached in his pocket and showed them a sock, stretched from the weight in its toe, which bulged with the round shapes of ball bearings. “The other one hid behind the workbench,” Kovacz said. “He had a rifle, but we talked to him a little and he gave up. He’s a Serb conscript. A Volksdeutsch, but he didn’t want to die for Germany.”

“Was that him, on the speaker tube?” DeHaan said.

Kovacz nodded. “I had him do it. When the signal came, I thought they still had the bridge.”

“And who was the marksman?”

“I went to free a valve,” Kovacz said, “so I gave the rifle to Flores.”

Flores gave DeHaan a hesitant smile-part apology, part pride. He was one of the Spanish Republican fighters who’d come aboard with Amado.

“You were in the war, Flores?”

Flores held up three fingers. “Three aos, sir. Ro Ebro, Madrid.”

A sharpshooter on board. He’d aimed and fired in a heartbeat, and come close.

“How’d you get free, up there?” Kovacz said.

DeHaan told him the story, then said, “It was Kolb who planned it. And I took the radio office, so that leaves two of them, guarding the crew.”

“They can wait,” Kovacz said. “For now, the patrol boat.” He looked at his watch, thumbing the grease off its face-every few minutes they were a mile closer to the German coast.

“What would you do, Stas?”

“Back in there, that’s all I thought about. And what I thought was, maybe we can run away. Walk away. The Serb was a storekeeper, but he says she does ten knots, which I think too. Of course if we put a weight on the safety valve and get thirteen, more maybe, they’ll shell us when they figure it out. Not right away, their people are on board, so they’ll use the W/T, loud-hailer, signal flags. It will take time, maybe too much time, because of the weather, visibility nothing, and because we have a trick.”

“What’s that?”

“Smoke.”

Of course. “You mean, close the air flaps on the furnaces.”

“They’ll smoke like hell-a lot of it, thick and black.”

Smoke had been an effective sea tactic all through the 1914 war-a destroyer with a smoke generator could lay down miles of it, then use it the way infantry used a wall; steam out to fire, then back in to hide.

Kovacz took a rag from his pocket and began to clean his hands. “So now we look at charts,” he said.

2235 hours. At sea.

They moved the three German sailors to the wardroom, with Poulsen on guard, while the signalman remained in the radio office with Mr. Ali. DeHaan returned to the bridge, stopping at the chartroom on his way, with Kees, Ratter, and Kovacz. Scheldt stayed at the helm, holding steady on the one nine zero course.

DeHaan propped the Baltic charts on the binnacle, and used the end of a pencil as a pointer. “We’re maybe here,” he said. “Southwest of Bornholm.” The Danish island held by Germany. “Johannes?”

“Close. The sea log says so, and we’re about five hours from our last position.”

“No stars to shoot.”

“No moon either, Eric. It’s black as a miner’s ass, out there.”

“They’ll expect us to run north,” DeHaan said. “To Sweden. We can’t go west to Denmark or south to Germany. So then, it has to be east. To Lithuania.” DeHaan spread his thumb and forefinger, marching east to the coast. “Oh, let’s say, about two hundred and forty nautical miles.”

“Seventeen hours, with safety valve down,” Kovacz said.

“We’ll blow the boilers,” Kees said.

“Maybe not,” Kovacz said. “But we can’t go to Lithuania. See here? That’s the German naval base, with minefields, at Klaipeda, or Memel, or whatever the hell they call it now. We’ll have to head north of that.”

“Liepaja.”

“Yes. First port in Latvia.”

“Soviet territory,” Ratter said. “Won’t they give us up to the Germans?”

“Not soon,” Kovacz said. “They will lock us up, ask questions, call Moscow-you know, Russian time.”

Ratter looked up from the chart and caught DeHaan’s eye. “What about, the passengers?”

“They’ll be all right,” DeHaan said. “And we don’t have a choice.”

“Patrol planes at dawn, DeHaan,” Kees said. “We’ll be about here, by then.” Not quite halfway.

“If they find us, we’ll fly a white flag.”

They waited, maybe somebody had a better idea, but nobody spoke. Finally, Ratter said, “What about the crew?”

“When the minesweeper fires at us, and they will, we’ll signal abandon ship, bells and siren. That’ll get the guards out of the crew quarters. So, you two”-he looked at Ratter and Kees-“with two men from Stas’s crew, will wait in the passageway, then take them as they come out. And, on your way down there, stop and tell Poulsen and Ali what’s going on.”

“When do we start?” Kees said.

“Now.”

He gave Kovacz time to get down to the engine room and close the furnace flaps, then went out on the bridge wing and looked up at the smokestack, where the smoke was its usual dirty white color against the night sky. There was a slight wind, blowing from the southwest, but that wouldn’t matter once they turned east. As he watched, the smoke grew a shadow, cleared, then turned gray. He walked to the end of the bridge house and looked aft at M 56, holding position, her running lights sharp yellow beams in the rain.

Back on the bridge, when he pushed the engine telegraph to Full — Ahead, Kovacz called from the engine room. “Safety valve off,” he said. “We’re trying for fourteen knots.” DeHaan waited, watching the M 56, and checking the time. 10:48. Beneath his feet, the vibration increased in the deck plate and he could feel the engine working, straining, as the pressure rose in the boilers and the pistons were driven harder, and harder. 11:15. Was M 56 farther away? Lights dimmer? Maybe. No, they were.

From the radio room, Mr. Ali came on the speaker tube. “A W/T message from the minesweeper, Captain. They wish to know if everything is all right.”

“Have the signalman send ‘Yes.’”

A minute later, Ali was back. “Now they ask, ‘Have you added speed?’”

“Tell them ‘No.’ Wait, cancel that, tell them ‘I will find out.’”

11:35. “They are asking, ‘Where are you?’”

“No answer, Mr. Ali. The signalman’s gone up to the bridge.”

11:45. DeHaan peered back at M 56-lights dim now, pinpoints. She was well behind them and the smoke was obscuring her view. Ali returned. “They want to talk to Leutnant Schumpel. On the radio, immediately.”

“Tell them Schumpel went down to the engine room. There’s some sort of problem.”

On the M 56, a searchlight went on and probed the smoky darkness, finally pinning Noordendam on her stern quarter. The powerful beam lit the smoke-a sluggish cloud, heavy, black and oily, drifting east in the wind, as the smell, burned oil, grew strong in the bridge house. Kovacz called from the engine room. “That’s all she’s got, Eric.”

“They’re falling behind,” DeHaan said.

Well aft of them, DeHaan could hear the loud-hailer. “Leutnant Schumpel, Leutnant Schumpel. Come to the stern. Immediately. This is Kapitn Horst.”

DeHaan thought about taking the role of Leutnant Schumpel, then called down to the radio room. “Tell them there’s a fire, Mr. Ali.”

“Is there, sir?”

“No, we’re making smoke.”

“Very well, sending your message.”

A minute later, he was back. “They’re sending ‘Stand to.’ Again and again, they’re sending it.”

“Acknowledge. Say you have to go up to the bridge to instruct the captain.”

After thirty seconds, Mr. Ali said, “They’re sending ‘go immediately.’”

DeHaan looked back. The Noordendam was really pounding now, and the lights of the minesweeper winked out for a moment, then reappeared. DeHaan glanced at his watch-almost midnight. When he looked up, the lights were gone. Only the searchlight beam remained, faded and gray as it lit up the smoke. DeHaan called down to the radio room. “Send, ‘Leutnant Schumpel acknowledges, ship standing to, he will call on the radio in ten minutes.’ You have that?”

“I got it!” Ali’s voice squeaked with excitement.

It took fifteen minutes. Which ended with a red flash from M 56, and a shell that whined over the ship and blew a spout of white water in the sea beyond their bow.

“Scheldt,” DeHaan said. “Come sharp to north-northeast, bearing zero five zero.”

DeHaan walked to the back wall of the bridge house and threw the switch that turned off the Noordendam ’s running lights, then, as Scheldt swung the wheel over and the bow began to move, he heard a low drone in the sky. It grew louder and louder, passing far above them and headed northeast. These were heavy engines, bombers, dozens of them, no, more, many more, wave following wave. What the hell is this? It made no sense. Flying northeast, to Russia? Why?

DeHaan went back to the speaker tube. “Mr. Ali, tell them we’re on fire, going to abandon ship.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Send it a second time. Have the signalman stop in the middle.”

“Sending, Captain. They’re calling on the radio now, in clear. Shouting, sir, and rude.”

“Send this, Ali: ‘Sinking fast. Farewell to my family. Heil Hitler.’”

DeHaan looked at his watch, time had slowed to a crawl. Another flash from astern, the shell ripping the air and landing off their starboard beam. “Scheldt. Signal abandon ship, use the bells and the siren. I’ll take the helm.” They were at zero six eight now, almost on the new course. When DeHaan grasped the wooden spokes of the wheel, he could feel the driving pistons in his hands.

A third flash. Noordendam shivered and rocked forward as the shell tore into her stern.

As Scheldt took the wheel, DeHaan ran out to the bridge wing, heading for the stern, to get a look at the damage. Just let it be above the waterline. Then, from somewhere in the ship, gunfire, a series of muffled pops from down below. DeHaan froze-that was coming from the passageway outside the crew quarters. He listened hard, but all he heard was M 56, firing again. He had no idea where the shell went-somewhere in the smoke to their starboard he thought, where they would have been if they hadn’t changed course. Far to the stern, he could just make out the searchlight, desperate now, sweeping back and forth, blinded by the smoke.

He made a decision and ran aft, lying on his belly and hanging out over the deck in order to see the ship’s stern below him. Midway down the curve of the hull, he saw the hole, three feet across, smoke trickling from the ragged edge, gouts of water washing out as the ship rose and fell-the ballast in the aft hold. Nothing vital. The minesweeper fired again and again, he heard the reports, but couldn’t see the flashes.

As he got back up to his feet, Ratter arrived. “What happened?” DeHaan said.

“It’s done. But it wasn’t clean. Kees was shot-in the leg, not bad but bad enough, Shtern is with him now. And Amado was hit, in the throat. He’s unconscious.”

“Will he live?”

Ratter shook his head. “Shtern did what he could.”

M 56 fired once more, the shot far away and remote. Ratter stared back into the darkness. “Gone,” he said. “Now we have until dawn.”

Far above them, another flight of bombers headed east.

0230 hours. At sea.

Kovacz had readjusted the furnaces, so there was no smoke now. But they still ran hard, at fourteen knots, headed a few points north of east, to bypass the naval base at Memel and make port at Liepaja. Or Lipava-the merchant seaman’s name for it. DeHaan had been in and out of there over the years; Latvia shipped wood and imported coal, and that meant tramp freighters. To the Germans it was Libau. They’d owned the country for centuries, calling themselves Brothers of the Sword-in the Baltic Crusade, Teutonic Knights, the Hanseatic League, then came 1918, independence, and the name changed. Then came 1940 and everything changed-in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Latvia.

Russia. Where Maria Bromen had better not go, maybe others on board as well, he wasn’t sure. But then, there wasn’t a harbor in the world where they weren’t waiting to arrest somebody. Well, she wouldn’t set foot on a pier as her true self, he’d make sure of that. He’d found her, as Ratter walked him back to the bridge, waiting at the lifeboats as he’d asked. He’d told her where they were going, then sent her back to the cabin-they could scheme later, for now she might as well sleep. God, I wish I could. Not until 0400, when Ratter would relieve him. He yawned, raised his binoculars, and stared out into the empty darkness. He had a new helmsman now, Scheldt relieved and sent back to crew quarters. Poor Amado. They would bury him at sea at daybreak, along with the two Germans-if Noordendam was still afloat. Eight times, over the years, he’d led the burial service. The body in canvas laid on a bed of braced planks, which was held at the rail by six men, then tilted as the captain said, “One, two, three, in God’s name.”

“Captain DeHaan? Captain?” Mr. Ali, calling from the radio room.

“Yes?”

“BBC, Captain.”

“Yes? Roosevelt speaks?”

“Germany invades Russia.”

22 June, 0410 hours. At sea.

In the cabin, the lamp was on, and Maria Bromen sat cross-legged on the bed, wearing only his denim shirt. “Is done,” she said. He followed her eyes to the night table, and a small mound of blackened flakes in the ashtray. “Very sad,” she said. “After all I did.”

“And the photograph?”

“Yes, that too, because of the stamp.” She almost smiled. “Such a photograph-this crazywoman is angry.” Then she said, “Oh well, goodby. Should be, maybe, a ceremony for such things.”

“Burning a passport?”

“Yes. Maybe the Jewish have it.”

He sat next to her, rested a hand on her ankle.

“So, stateless person,” she said.

“You’ll need a name, a story.”

“The name will be Natalya, I think. Natalya Pavlova, like a ballerina.”

“And we met in Tangier?”

“Thanks God. Husband left, French husband. Good-for-nothing.”

“You’ve made up the story.”

“Oh yes, a long story. I am good at that, my love.”

0715 hours. At sea.

No search planes. Only a flight of returning bombers, coming out of the rising sun-the men on deck shaded their eyes and watched them fly over. At the tail of the formation, a straggler, flying low, smoke trailing from one of its engines, the propeller turning lazily in the wind.

Where were the search planes? By noon they still hadn’t appeared. Maybe the captain of the minesweeper had reported that he sank the Noordendam, to save his own skin, maybe the search planes had other orders, once the invasion started. Or maybe they searched north. Much speculation on the bridge, but nobody showed up. So, DeHaan thought, we might just make it to Liepaja, and began to plan for that. “You better go burn the minefield maps,” he told Ratter. “And get the officers to come to a wardroom meeting. In one hour.”

Where they worked out a story, then went off to tell the crew. “We could be there for a long time,” they said. “So watch what you say.”

1740 hours. Off Liepaja.

They’d crossed the picket line of Russian patrol boats, but were still a long way out when they saw Liepaja. Not the port itself, but a column of brown smoke that climbed high into the air, a well-fed column, thick and sturdy. DeHaan radioed to the port office and a pair of Russian naval tugboats came out and took them under tow, docking the ship at the commercial harbor, on a stone quay lined with grain elevators and an enormous tractor plant. On its roof, soldiers had installed two antiaircraft guns and were busily stacking a wall of sandbags around them. And, passing the military harbor, they saw a small part of the Soviet Baltic Fleet-destroyers, minelayers, tenders, and one light cruiser, with steam up. “See the gun turrets?” Ratter said, standing by DeHaan on the bridge. “Facing inland.”

As the gangway was lowered, the reception committee had already gathered-welcome to Liepaja! Two of them in stiff Russian suits, shirts buttoned at the neck, and three in naval uniform. An efficient committee; they looked down into the holds, checked the bridge and the ship’s papers, had the German prisoners taken away, and made notes as DeHaan told them the story of Noordendam ’s capture and escape. “Well done,” one of the naval officers said. “Now let’s go somewhere and have a talk.”

He walked DeHaan down the gangway and along the quay, past a thirty-foot bomb crater, and up to an office in the port building. Not the men in suits, DeHaan thought. And not in a cellar. The office had only a bare desk and two chairs and a framed photograph of Stalin, hung from a nail that had broken the plaster when it was hammered in. “You may smoke if you like.” The officer spoke German, and introduced himself as “Kapitn Leutnant Shalakov.” A lieutenant commander. He was in his forties, with thinning hair, a broad nose-long ago broken, and lively green eyes. A Russian Jew? DeHaan thought he might be. “On the naval staff of the Baltic Fleet,” he added. Which meant, to DeHaan, that he was in the same business as Leiden, and Hallowes.

DeHaan took him up on the invitation to smoke. “Care for one of these?” Shalakov peered at the box, declined-with some courtesy, lit one of his own, and threw the match on the floor.

“I am also a lieutenant commander,” DeHaan said.

Shalakov was not all that surprised.

“In the Royal Dutch Navy.”

“You are out of uniform, sir.” Shalakov’s eyes were amused. “And so’s your ship.” He stood, went to the window, and looked out over the port. “We’ve already had two air raids,” he said. “Early this morning. They hit the air-force base, and the oil tanks at the port.”

“We saw the smoke.”

“How’s your fuel?”

“Not bad.”

“Because we can’t give you any.”

“Are we leaving?”

“Soviet heroes will stand and fight the fascist dogs, of course. Until Thursday, the way it looks now-should take them about four days to break in here. We can’t hold it, we have one division facing Leeb’s Army Group North, so you and your crew may have to do a little fighting, we shall see. But, for the moment, perhaps you’ll tell me what you’ve been up to, sailing around the Baltic dressed as a Spaniard.”

“A mission for the British navy.”

“Our brave allies! We’ve always admired them-since midnight, anyhow. Care to tell me what and where?”

“You will understand, Kapitn Leutnant, that I can’t.”

Shalakov nodded- yes, I do understand. “Very honorable,” he said. “And we’ll grant you that luxury, for the time being. Now, had you shown up yesterday… But it isn’t yesterday, it’s today, and today everything is different, today you’re a valued ally, and we can always use an extra cargo ship.”

“Where would we go?”

“Maybe Riga, maybe-depends how fast the Wehrmacht move. More likely, the Liepaja elements of the Baltic Fleet will withdraw up to the naval base at Tallinn, in Estonia. We’ll have to take equipment, personnel, some of the civilians-we’ll save whatever we can, and that will be your job.”

“We can do that,” DeHaan said. “What about my crew?”

“They can stay as they are-we may interview your passengers, but, as for the crew, whatever you’ve got you can keep. But they’d better remain on board. As of this morning, the Latvian gangs are back in business-digging up their rifles in the chicken coops, and waiting eagerly for their German pals.” Shalakov paused a moment, then said, “What was it, DeHaan? Agents? To Denmark? Not neutral Sweden, I hope. Dropping off agents, I would guess. Certainly not picking them up.”

“Why not?”

“I admire the British navy, and I admire daring-as a quality in special operations, and I know the Germans are kicking the hell out of British merchant shipping, but there was no way under the sun that your ship was ever coming out of the Baltic.”

After dusk, the bombers came again. From loudspeakers mounted on the streetlamps, a staticky voice called out, “Attention! Attention! Attention citizens of Liepaja, we are having an air raid. Prepare to take arms and fight the invaders!” In Russian first-Kovacz translated-and then in Lettish. DeHaan put the fire crews on alert, hoses reeled out, and had Van Dyck make sure of the pumps. Then the sirens whined, for a long time, it seemed, fifteen minutes, and then, from the south, the first bombs-muffled, deep-voiced whumps that marched north toward the city. As the antiaircraft started up, hammering away from the ships in the military harbor and the roofs of Liepaja, DeHaan looked out on the pier, at the foot of the gangway. It had been guarded since they docked, two soldiers with rifles, but they were no longer there.

As S. Kolb hurried across the quay, an incendiary hit the side of the tractor factory and a fiery river of green phosphorus came after him. He ran away from it, but the bastards wouldn’t leave him alone that night. Fallback from the antiaircraft fire came rattling down on the pavement, so Kolb held his briefcase over his head as he ran.

Nonetheless, he was gleeful, thanked his lucky stars that he was off and away from that accursed iron sea monster and her laconic Dutchmen. Beans and canned fish, the smell of oily steam up his nose as he ate, slept, read his book. Did he have it? Yes, he did, the history of Venice-three pounds of Doges, now just snuggle up to a building wall so it doesn’t get skewered by some hot metal shard from heaven. Where the hell was he? The street signs were cut in stone on the corners of the buildings, so, here it was Vitolu iela — of course! Good old Vitolu iela, what happy times we had there! Had he ever in his life seen a street map of Liepaja? No. Who had? What sort of lunatic would ever come to such a place?

He heard the bomb whistle, his knees turned to water and he tucked his head down between his shoulders and scurried into a doorway. Sucked in his breath when the thing hit, a few blocks away. Hah, missed! He tried the knob on the door, but it was locked. A tarnished brass plate said the place was an art school, ichthyological illustration their specialty. So that’s what they do here, draw fish. Above the plate, someone had printed Closed on a card tacked to the door.

Somewhere ahead of him, a building on fire. The flames threw flickering orange light on the street and, for a moment, a shadow moved. What was that? No policemen, please. Again it moved-a woman, out of one doorway and into another. He moved up two doorways, and waited. Not long. She was breathless and fat, carrying a huge bowl with a dish towel stretched over the top. Was that soup? Oh yes, by God it was. Pea soup! Nothing else smelled like that. “Good evening, madam,” he said, in German.

She made a noise, a throttled scream, one hand rising to her throat.

Kolb lowered his briefcase and-the god of inspiration came to visit-tipped his hat.

The woman put her hand back on the bowl.

“Madam, can you tell me…” Two airplanes came roaring over the street, a hundred feet up, he couldn’t hear himself think. Then they were gone. “ Madam, ” he said, raising his voice but keeping it gentle. “ Can you tell me where to find the railroad station?”

“Vuss?”

“Be calm, my dear, nothing can hurt you tonight.”

She looked at him, then pointed.

“Railroad?”

She nodded.

“How far?”

“Zwanzig minuten.” Twenty minutes.

Again, Kolb tipped his hat. Do you have, perhaps, a spoon? “Good evening, madam,” he said, and hurried away up the street.

Now train stations were a poor choice during air raids, but Kolb only needed to be close-any caf or hallway would do-because the trains wouldn’t run until the bombers got tired and went home. He had no Soviet papers, but bribery was a way of life in this empire and, with Adolf pounding on the city gates, he sensed it wouldn’t be a problem.

Local or express, he’d be on a train tonight. A short run, up to enchanting Riga, “the Paris of hell,” then a call at the British consulate. Where he’d look up the passport control officer, almost always connected to the spy people, if in fact he wasn’t running the thing himself. Also at the consulate: secure W/T transmissions-or so they thought. I say, Brown, dear boy, one of your chaps has turned up here-headed for Malm, he says, but it seems he’s gone a bit wide.

So please advise.

And the loathsome Brown would surely have something in mind. Something dangerous, of course, unspeakably difficult and dreary.

Back in the street he’d just left, an explosion, then a faade fell off a building and came crashing down in a huge cloud of dust. Hadn’t hit the woman, had it?

Bastards.

23 June, 0630 hours. Port of Liepaja.

DeHaan paced the bridge, standing a restless port watch. Too far north, he thought, every heart had its compass and his pointed far south of here. Here it was not summer-a cold early sky above the city and the marshland beyond, bending reeds, black ponds, pine forest. And some shadow of a future darkness that fell over him. He felt it.

Slowly, the Noordendam came back to life. Kees, hobbling with the aid of a stick, led Van Dyck and a crew of ABs in the repair of the stern hull-a length of sheet tin cut to fit, then welded on. It looked awful but it would keep the water out. There was coffee in the wardroom at 0800, and when DeHaan mentioned the absent Kolb, Shtern said that he’d left, during the air raid.

“Where the hell did he find to go?” Ratter said.

Shtern didn’t know.

“He went back to work,” Kovacz said.

“What will become of us now?” Mr. Ali said.

“First we get out of here,” DeHaan said. “And then, part of the Soviet merchant fleet.”

Many the silences that had descended over wardroom tables in DeHaan’s years at sea, but this one had quite a heft to it. Certainly they’d foreseen this, individually. Now, however, it was said among them, and that made it worse. Because they’d all thought that somebody would have an idea, because somebody always did. But not now. Finally Kees said, “Maybe they’ll send us to Britain.”

“With what?” Kovacz said.

“Wheat, cattle.”

“They can’t feed their own,” Maria Bromen said. “How to feed Britain?”

“And we can’t get there,” Ratter said. “We can go north to Estonia, then Kronstadt, the naval base off Leningrad, but that’s it. The Germans will mine the whole Baltic now-if they haven’t already.”

“They claim they have,” Mr. Ali said. “In clear. On the radio.”

“Trying to scare the Russian submarines,” Poulsen said.

“What scares me,” Shtern said, “is years. In Russia.”

Cornelius came to the door and said, “Captain, sir? You are needed on the pier, sir.”

“Now, Cornelius?”

“Yes, sir. I think you better come. Russian soldiers, sir.”

DeHaan left, taking Kovacz with him as translator. At the foot of the gangway, an oiler and an AB stood sheepishly in the custody of a squad of Soviet marines. Called black devils, for their uniform caps, they wore striped sailor’s jerseys beneath army blouses in honor of their service.

The sergeant stepped forward as DeHaan and Kovacz came down the gangway. He spoke briefly, then Kovacz said, “‘Here are your sailors,’ he says. ‘Out last night after the raid.’”

“Thank them,” DeHaan said. “We’re grateful.”

Kovacz translated the answer as “Please to keep them where they belong, from now on.”

“Tell him we will. And we mean it.”

“One missing,” Kovacz said.

“It’s Xanos, sir,” the AB said.

“What happened?”

“Press-ganged. We went looking for a bar and he wandered off, and they told us he’d been grabbed by seamen from one of the ships in port.”

“Stas, ask them if they can find our sailor.”

Kovacz tried. “They say they can’t. Can’t search all the ships. They regret.”

The marines went off, and DeHaan sent the crewmen back to the quarters. “If you leave this ship again,” he told them, “don’t come back.”

2040 hours. Port of Liepaja.

In the cabin, DeHaan and Maria Bromen waited. Tried to read, tried to talk, but they could hear the fighting now, south of the city, faint but steady, like a distant thunderstorm. A German reconnaissance plane flew high above the port and some of the gunners tried their luck but he was too far above the flak burst. Then the cruiser started up, with its heavy turret guns, the detonations echoing off the waterfront buildings.

“Who are they shooting at?” Maria Bromen said.

“Helping their army, trying to.”

“How far, then, the battle?”

“Big guns like that? Maybe five miles.”

“Not so far.”

“No.”

She rose from the bed and went to look out the porthole, at the dock and the city. “We are leaving soon, I think.”

“We are?”

She beckoned him to the porthole. There was an army truck parked by the gangway. The canvas top was turned back and a few soldiers were wrestling with a bulky shape, pushing it toward the tailgate, while others waited on the pier to ease it to the ground. After a moment, DeHaan saw that what they were fighting with was a grand piano. Too heavy-when the weight shifted, the piano dropped the last two feet onto the stone quay. One of the soldiers in the truck picked up a piano bench, shouted something, and tossed it to the others.

With a sigh, DeHaan went up to the deck, where Van Dyck and some of the crew had gathered to watch the show. “Where do you want it, Cap’n?” Van Dyck said.

“Forward hold. Get a sling on it, then cover it with canvas.”

The soldiers had apparently intended to carry the piano up the gangway, but Van Dyck waved them off, pointed to the cargo derricks, and the soldiers smiled and nodded.

DeHaan went back to the cabin.

“So now,” she said, “we go north.”

“The Russian officer said Tallinn, the naval base.”

“How far?”

“A day, twenty-four hours.”

“Well,” she said, “you warned me, in Lisbon.”

“Are you sorry, that you didn’t stay?”

She smoothed his hair. “No,” she said. “No. It’s better like this. Better to do what you want, and then what will happen will happen.”

“It may not be so bad, up there.”

“No, not too bad.”

“They’re at war now, and we are their allies.”

She smiled, her fingers touching his face. “You don’t know them,” she said. “You want to think it’s a good world.” She stood, started to unbutton the shirt. “For me, a shower. I don’t know what else to do.” Looking out the porthole, she said, “And for you-out there.”

On the pier a crowd, twenty or so, men and women, peering up at the ship and milling around their leader, a man with a dramatic beard, a fedora, a cape. Some of them carried suitcases, while others pushed wardrobe trunks on little wheels.

DeHaan grabbed his hat and said, “I’ll be back.”

By the time he reached the deck, the bearded man had already climbed the gangway. “Good evening,” he said to DeHaan, in English. “Is this the Noordenstadt?”

“The Noordendam.”

“It says Santa Rosa.”

“Even so, it’s the Noordendam.”

“Ah, good. We’re the Kiev.”

“Which is what?”

“The Kiev. The Kiev Ballet, the touring company. We are expected, no?”

DeHaan started to laugh and raised his hands, meaning he didn’t know a thing, and the bearded man relaxed. “Kherzhensky,” he said, extending a hand. “The impresario. And you are?”

“DeHaan, I’m the captain. Was that your piano?”

“We don’t have a piano, and the orchestra is on the Burya, the destroyer. Where do we go, Captain?”

“Anywhere you can find, Mr. Kherzhensky. Maybe the wardroom would be best, I’ll show you.”

Kherzhensky turned to the crowd of dancers and clapped his hands. “Come along now,” he said. “We’re going to a wardroom.”

Twenty minutes later, two companies of marines showed up, singing as they climbed the gangway. Then came a truckload of office furniture, and a Grosser Mercedes automobile with a stove in the backseat, then three naval lieutenants with wives and children, two dogs and two cats. The deputy mayor of Liepaja brought his mother, her maid, and a commissar. A dozen trunks followed, their loading supervised by two mustached men in suits who carried submachine guns. A family of Jews, the men in skullcaps, arrived in a Liepaja taxi. The driver parked his taxi and followed them up the gangway. There followed a generator, then six railway conductors, and four wives, with children. “They are coming,” one of the conductors said to DeHaan. He took off his hat, and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. It was one in the morning when Shalakov arrived, looking very harassed, with his tie loosened. He found DeHaan on the bridge.

“I see you’ve got steam up,” he said.

“It seems we’re leaving.”

Shalakov looked around, the deck was full of wandering people, the mustached men sat on their trunks, smoking cigarettes and talking. “Did the messenger reach you?”

“No. Just, all this.”

“It’s a madhouse. We’ve had Latvian gangs in the city, and Wehrmacht commandos.” He took a deep breath, then gave DeHaan a grim smile. “Will be a bad war,” he said. “And long. Anyhow, here is a list of the ships in your convoy.” A typed sheet of paper, the names of the ships transliterated into the Roman alphabet. “Communicate by radio, at six point five, don’t worry about code-not tonight. We’re going to the naval base at Tallinn, there’s no point in trying for Riga now. You’ll wait for the Burya, the lead destroyer, to sound her siren, and follow her. All ready to go?”

“Yes.”

“I’m on the minelayer Tsiklon — cyclone. So then, good luck to you, and I’ll see you in Tallinn.”

0130. Scheldt at the helm, lookouts fore and aft and on the bridge wings, Van Dyck with the fire crews, Kovacz and Poulsen in the engine room, Ratter and Kees with DeHaan on the bridge. The bombing that night was to the south and the east, above Liepaja there was only a single plane in the sky, dropping clouds of leaflets, which fluttered in the breeze as they drifted down to the port. At 0142, a couple came running along the quay, the woman dressed for an evening at a nightclub. They shouted up to the freighter, pleading in several languages, and DeHaan had the gangway lowered and took them aboard. The woman, who had run with her shoes in her hand, had tears streaming down her face, and fell to her knees when she reached the deck. One of the dancers came over and put an arm around her shoulders. They were fighting in the city now, bursts of gunfire, then silence, and from the bridge they could see lines of red tracer, streaming from the top of a lighthouse and the steeple of a waterfront church. Good firing points, DeHaan knew, though they’d been built high for other reasons.

At 0220 hours, the siren.

DeHaan turned the engine-room telegraph to Slow — Ahead, and, without the aid of tugboats, they moved cautiously out of the harbor. They could see the Burya, a half mile ahead, and fell in between a motor torpedo boat and an icebreaker. On the last pier in the winter harbor, a crowd of people, standing amid bags and bundles and suitcases, yelled and waved at the ships as they steamed past.

Following the destroyer, Noordendam made a long, slow turn to the north and the land fell away behind them. By 0245 they were well out to sea; a stiff wind, a handful of stars among the clouds, a few whitecaps. DeHaan called for Full — Ahead, the engine-room bell rang, then he said, “Mr. Ratter?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Run up the Dutch flag, Mr. Ratter.”

There were twenty ships, to begin with, strung out along the wake of the Burya. The working class of a naval fleet-supply tenders, tankers and minelayers, torpedo boats, minesweepers and icebreakers, a few old fishing trawlers made over into patrol boats, a small freighter. A little after three in the morning they lost the freighter, which broke down and had to drop anchor. The passengers stood silently on the deck and watched the convoy as it went by. An hour later, the Burya began to maneuver, a long series of course changes. By then, Maria Bromen had joined Mr. Ali in the radio room, translating the orders as they came in. Bearing two six eight, bearing two six two. Scheldt spun the wheel as DeHaan called them out. “We’re in a Russian minefield,” Ratter said.

He was right. A few minutes later a submarine tanker made an error, swung wide, was blown in half, and sank immediately, with only a few survivors swimming away from the burning oil in the water. One of the torpedo boats stopped to pick them up, then reclaimed its position in the convoy. An hour after dawn, off Pavilosta, the torpedo boat itself broke down, and drifted helplessly as the crew tried to repair the engine.

On the Noordendam, daylight revealed a deck with passengers everywhere. Some of them seasick-a crowd of Kiev dancers at the stern rail; some of them going off to the galley to help with the food-stacks of onion-and-margarine sandwiches for everybody; and some who seemed to be in shock, listless, staring into space. There were two bad falls: a marine down a ladderway, and a young boy, running along the deck, who slipped on a patch of oil. Shtern was able to take care of both.

Also with daylight: a German patrol plane. Kees tracked it with his binoculars and said it was a Focke-Wulf Condor, a long-range reconnaissance bomber. The plane circled them, flew long loops as it tracked them, staying in contact with the convoy as it crawled along at ten knots.

“Not in any hurry, are they,” Kees said.

“Back tonight,” Ratter said. “With friends.”

Night was still hours away. By ten o’clock on the morning of the twenty-fourth, they’d swung wide of the Gulf of Riga. “We’re not taking the inside passage,” DeHaan said, after orders repeated from the radio room. The inside passage, between the coast of Estonia and the islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa, was all shoals and shallows, marked by Estonian sailors with brooms mounted on buoys, a stretch of water avoided by merchant captains. So the officer on the Burya, or the fleet controllers at Tallinn, swung them to the west, into the open Baltic. By noon the Condor was back, well out of antiaircraft range, just making sure of their course and position before it flew home for lunch.

1930 hours. Off Hiiumaa island, Estonia.

Maria Bromen’s voice on the speaker tube: “They say, ‘Come to bearing zero one five degrees.’” This would lead them into the Gulf of Finland, then, in eight hours, to Tallinn. Safe passage, the first few miles, with air cover from the Russian naval base at Hang, surrendered by the Finns in March of 1940 at the end of the Russo-Finnish war. Safe passage, and a long Baltic dusk, the light fading slowly to dark blue. They were all tired now, the crew and the passengers. When DeHaan went down to the wardroom for a ten-minute break, the impresario Kherzhensky was sprawled on the banquette, wrapped in his cape and snoring away.

By 2130 they were off the Estonian island of Osmussaar. From the radio room: “They say to proceed at five knots, and they have called for minesweepers to come ahead of Burya.”

“German mines, now,” Kees said. “Or Finnish.”

“Could be anyone’s,” Ratter said. “They don’t care.”

After that, silence. Only the creak of the derricks, and the sound of ships’ engines nearby, running at dead slow, maneuvering themselves into line behind the two minesweepers. To port, DeHaan could see the minelayer Tsiklon, to starboard, a fishing trawler, its deck piled high with shipping crates. DeHaan kept looking at his watch. So, when the first ship hit a mine, somewhere up ahead, he knew it was 10:05.

They saw it. No idea what it was-had been. It was sinking by the stern, bow high in the water, some of the crew paddling a life raft with their hands. From the radio room: “Aircraft is coming now.”

They heard them, the rising drone, and the Burya ’s searchlights went on, followed by those of the other ships, bright yellow beams stabbing at the sky. “Stand by the lifeboats,” DeHaan said.

Kees swore and began to limp out toward the bridge wing. Ratter caught him by the arm. “I’ll do it,” he said.

“Hell you will.” Kees shook free and limped away.

DeHaan called down to the engine room. “Stas, we’re going to stand by lifeboats. Maybe air attack on the way.” Kovacz’s normal duty was command of the second boat.

“Number three boiler is giving problems,” Kovacz said. The run to Liepaja, DeHaan thought, had caught up with them.

“It has to be you, Stas.” With passengers everywhere on deck there would be panic, chaos.

Kovacz grumbled, then said he would be up in a minute.

False alarm? Out on the bridge wing, an AB worked the Noordendam ’s light, swinging it back and forth across an empty sky. Ratter was listening carefully to the distant drone, head cocked like a dog. “Are they circling us?”

DeHaan listened. Scheldt said, “That’s it, sir.”

At 10:20, Ratter said, “They’ve passed us by.”

“Going to hit Kronstadt,” DeHaan said.

“Or Leningrad.”

The others could hear it, their searchlights aimed forward of the Burya. “No,” DeHaan said. The sound swelled, east of them, then grew loud. From the radio room: “Attack will be…”

The lead bomber came speeding through the lights, head on to the Burya, then flew over it. In the light, they could see a round ball, suspended from a parachute, as it floated down toward the destroyer. “Dorniers,” Ratter said. “Parachute mines.”

Behind the first, seven or eight more, flying abreast. As the explosions began at the front of the convoy, a silhouette flashed over the Tsiklon and a string of mines chained together plummeted to its deck. One breath, then a hot blast of air hit the bridge, as a second plane, wings tilted, roared over the Noordendam.

There were screams from the deck, tiny balls of yellow fire flashed through the bridge house, and a flight of chained mines spun through the air as the plane roared away. Then a hatch cover blew up, boards soaring into the sky, and a great peal of thunder rang deep inside the Noordendam, which made her heel over and shudder. It knocked DeHaan backward and, when he scrambled to his knees, Ratter was sitting next to him, looking puzzled. “Can’t hear,” he said. Then he reached for DeHaan’s forehead and pulled out a triangle of broken glass. “Don’t want this there, do you?”

DeHaan felt the blood running down his face. “I can do without it.”

Ratter’s face sparkled in the light and he began to brush at it with his fingertips. Scheldt used the binnacle to haul himself upright, then took hold of the wheel. “Ahh the hell,” he said. DeHaan stood up, wobbled, steadied himself, saw that Scheldt was staring at the compass. “Two eight two?” he said.

“Back to zero nine five, south of east,” DeHaan said.

Scheldt shook his head, pulled down on one spoke of the wheel, which spun free until he stopped it. “Gone,” he said.

DeHaan looked out through the shattered windows. The Tsiklon had vanished, and in the light of the burning trawler he could see smoke pouring from the forward hold, an orange shadow flickering at its center. “Johannes, are we making way?”

Ratter went out to the bridge wing and looked over the side. “Barely.” From the radio room: “Are you alive, up there?”

“Yes.”

“We are on fire.”

“We are.”

From their port beam, the blast of a foghorn, then another. It was an icebreaker, its searchlight playing over the deck of the Noordendam, then a voice shouted Russian over a loud-hailer. DeHaan went out on the bridge wing, where the AB was staring open-mouthed at the approaching bow of the icebreaker. Which now began to move right as the captain figured out that the Noordendam ’s steering was gone. Some of the passengers were signaling with their hands, go around us. With a final angry blast on the horn, the icebreaker’s bow passed the freighter’s stern with ten feet to spare.

DeHaan turned to go back to the bridge, then saw Kovacz, staggering up the ladderway. “Damage report,” he said. “The engine-room people are done for. That thing blew in the bulkhead, two of the boilers exploded, the third is still working. We have dead and wounded, one of the lifeboats is gone, and I can’t find Kees.”

“And we’ve lost our steering,” DeHaan said. Up toward number three hold, he saw that Van Dyck had the fire crews working, which meant that steam from the remaining boiler was giving them pressure on the hoses.

What was left of the convoy was moving east. Searchlights on, antiaircraft firing as the Dorniers returned for a second attack. DeHaan looked down at his feet, money, bills he didn’t recognize, was blowing all over the place. The mustached men with the machine guns. Who had built a small fortress of stacked trunks on the hatch cover of the forward hold.

Kovacz said, “I’m going back to the engine room, Eric. I’ll get some help and do whatever I can. Is the rudder broken free?”

“Gear frozen in the steering tunnel,” DeHaan said. “I’d bet that’s what it is.”

“Can’t be fixed.”

“No.”

“So, we’re going wherever we’re pointed.”

“Yes, a point or two west of north.”

“Finland.”

The battle moved east, slowly, ships and planes fighting hard, until there were only sudden flares of fire on the horizon, distant explosions, a few last searchlights in the sky, then darkness, and the Noordendam sailed alone. Opinion on the bridge had it that the small fleet was finished off, sunk, but they were not to know that. And there was a lot to be done. They were getting maybe two knots from the poor broken Noordendam but the one boiler, with Kovacz coaxing it along, kept them under way, helped by a following sea. Shtern worked hard, the passengers and crew helped-the dead were moved up to the afterdeck and decently covered, the wounded wrapped in blankets and sheltered from the wind. They searched everywhere for Kees, two missing ABs, and two passengers, but they’d apparently gone overboard during the Dornier attack and nobody had seen them after that.

Then it was quiet on the ship, and dark, because they were running with lights off. DeHaan ordered the scramble nets and gangway lowered and the lifeboats readied, then assigned crews to help the passengers-wounded first, then women and children. When that was done, the officers and crew began to gather their possessions.

0300 hours. At sea.

At DeHaan’s direction, Mr. Ali made contact with some Finnish authority-at the port of Helsinki or a naval base, they never really discovered who it was. DeHaan got on the radio and told them they had dead and wounded aboard, and were headed for the islands west of Helsinki, on the south coast. There would be no question of resistance, the passengers and crew of the Noordendam would surrender peacefully.

And under what flag did they sail?

Under Dutch flag, as an allied merchant vessel of Britain.

Well then, he was told, the word wasn’t precisely surrender. True, Finland was at war with Russia, despite their treaty, and true, that made her an ally of Germany. Technically. But, the fact was, Finland was not at war with Britain, and those who set foot on Finnish soil would have to be considered as survivors of maritime incident.

Was Finland, DeHaan wanted to know, at war with Holland?

This produced a longish silence, then the authority cleared its throat and confessed that it didn’t know, it would have to look that up, but it didn’t think so.

0520 hours. Off the coast of Finland.

In the watery light of the northern dawn, an island.

A dark shape that rose from the sea, low and flat, mostly forest, with quiet surf breaking white on the rocks. It was not unlike the other islands, some close, some distant, but this one lay dead ahead, a mile or so away, this was their island.

DeHaan moved the telegraph to Done — With — Engines, the bells acknowledged, and, a moment later, the slow, labored beat stopped, and left only silence. He picked up the speaker tube and said, “Come up to the bridge, Stas. We’re going to beach on the rocks, so clear the engine room.”

On the bridge, Scheldt was still on watch, standing before the dead helm. “Go and get your things together,” DeHaan told him. That left Ratter, and Maria Bromen, who stood close by his side. DeHaan took the Noordendam ’s log and made a final entry: date, time, and course. “Any idea what it’s called?” he asked Ratter.

“Maybe Orslandet,” Ratter said, looking at the chart. “But who knows.”

“We’ll call it that, then,” DeHaan said. He wrote it in, added the phrase Ran aground, signed the entry, closed the log, and put it in his valise. With the engine off, the Noordendam was barely making way. Out on deck, the passengers and crew had gathered in the dawn light, standing amid their baggage, waiting. The Noordendam, very close now, caught on a sandbar, but, with the incoming tide, slid off it and headed for the island.

Maria Bromen’s hand took his arm as they hit. The bow lifted, the hull scraped up over the rocks and then, with one long grinding note, iron on stone, the NV Noordendam canted over and came to rest, and all that remained was the sound of waves, lapping at the shore.

They searched for her, some time later, once the war in that part of the world had quieted down. She was, after all, worth something, there was always money to be made in rights of salvage, and all it would take was the filing of a claim. By that time it was full autumn, when the ice fog hung in the birch forests. There were two Swiss businessmen, a man of uncertain nationality who said he was a Russian migr, several others, nobody knew who they were. They asked the people who lived along that rockbound coast, fishermen mostly, if they’d seen her, and some said they had, while others just shook their heads or shrugged. But, in the end, they found nothing, and she was never seen again.