Ratter didn’t, but Mr. Ali did. With a discreet but persistent tapping at DeHaan’s door. Go to hell, DeHaan thought, rolling off his bunk. And whatever it is, take it with you.
“Forgive me, please,” Mr. Ali said. “But a most urgent message for you, Captain. Most urgent.”
He handed DeHaan a W/T message in plain text, which required his presence at a certain room in Building D-9, “this A.M., at 0900 hours.” DeHaan swore, dressed, and set off down the gangway to find Building D-9. Everywhere in the harbor was the British Mediterranean fleet, countless ships of every sort, all of them, that morning, doing work that needed jackhammers. The sun blazed down, DeHaan wandered among a forest of low buildings and quonset huts, where nobody seemed to have heard of D-9 until a Royal Marine guarding a barracks said, “Are you looking for the registry people?”
“D-9, is all I know.”
“They’re in Scovill Hall, some of them anyhow, temporarily. It’s the Old Stables building.”
“Stables? For horses?”
“Well, fifty years ago, maybe.”
“Where is it?”
“Quite a way, sir. Down this road a quarter mile, then turn left at the machine shop. Then, ah, then you’d best ask. For Scovill Hall, sir, or the Old Stables.”
“Thank you,” DeHaan said.
“Good luck, sir.”
It took a half hour, by which time his head ached miserably and his shirt was soaked through, to find Scovill Hall, and several false trails before he reached the right room where, in the outer office, three WRENs were talking on telephones. One of them put a hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Sorry, rotten morning, you’ll have to wait.” He sat next to an officer from the Royal Greek Navy, based in Alexandria, along with the government in exile, since the fall of Greece at the end of April. “Very hot, today,” DeHaan said to the officer.
Who raised his hands helplessly, smiled, and said, “No speak.”
They waited together while the phones rang relentlessly-came back to life almost immediately after the receiver was put back in the cradle. A messenger hurried in, then another, cursing under his breath. “Be nice, Harry,” one of the WRENs said.
For forty minutes, it never slowed.
“Sorry, he can’t come to the phone.”
“He’ll call you back, sir.”
“Yes, we’ve heard.”
“No, their number is six forty, we’re six fifty… No, it’s another building, sir… Sorry, sir, I can’t. I’m sure they’ll answer when they can.”
“Captain DeHaan?”
“What? Oh, yes, that’s me.”
“He’ll see you now, Captain, that door to the left… No, that’s the loo. There you are, Captain, that’s him, just go right in.”
Behind a gray metal desk, a naval lieutenant: university face and white tropical uniform-open collar, knee- length shorts, and high socks. Not yet thirty, DeHaan thought. The lieutenant, trying to finish up a phone call, pointed to a chair without missing a beat. “We really don’t know much over here, it’s coming in a little at a time. Total confusion, since yesterday… I certainly will…. Yes, absolutely. Must ring off, Edwin, try me after lunch, will you? Count on it, goodby.”
When he hung up, the phone rang again but he just shook his head and looked at DeHaan. “Not going well,” he said.
“No?”
“Surely you’ve heard. They’re on Crete, since yesterday, an air assault. Thousands and thousands of them, by parachute and glider. We got a lot of them before they hit the ground but still, they’re holding. Extraordinary, you know, never been done before. Anyhow, you are?”
“Captain DeHaan, of the Dutch freighter Noordendam.”
“Oh? Well, congratulations then.”
He went to an open safe, and began to page through a sheaf of papers. Didn’t find what he was looking for, and tried again. “Right,” he said, relieved, “here you are.” He had DeHaan sign his name in a book, with the date and time, then handed him a single sheet of yellow teleprinter paper.
MOST SECRET
For The Personal Use Of The Addressee Only
NID JJP/JJPL/0447
OAMT/95-0447
R 01 296 3B — 1600/18/5/41
From: Deputy Director/OAMT
To: E. M. DeHaan
Master/NV Noordendam
Most immediate
Subj: Hyperion-Lijn NV Noordendam
Amendment to status: All cargos, routes and ports of call to be directed henceforth, as of the date above, by this office
0047/1400/21/5/41+++DD/OAMT
“All clear?” the lieutenant said. The phone rang, then stopped.
“The message, yes. The rest”-DeHaan shrugged. “Who, exactly, is telling me this?”
“Well, NID is Naval Intelligence Division.”
“And OAMT?”
“OAMT. Yes, certainly, that’s an easy one.” He pulled out the extendable shelf below the edge of the desk and ran a finger up one side of a list. “That is”-he hunted-“why that’s the good old Office of Allied Marine Transport, that is. Fine chaps, over there.”
This was very dry, and DeHaan, despite everything, almost laughed. “Who?”
“Can’t say more. Now logically, Captain, you’d belong to the Ministry of War Transport, the convoy people, but logic’s taken a hell of a beating since ’39, so you’ll just have to make do with those OAMT rascals.”
“Ah, any particular rascal, that you know about?”
“I suspect there is, and I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you. Meanwhile, anything you need, I’d suggest the people at the port office.”
He came around the desk, DeHaan stood, they shook hands, and the lieutenant said, “Well, success, they say, always brings change, right? So, all for the best. Right?”
22 May. Campeche, Mexico.
A quiet port, on the northern coast of the Yucatn peninsula, looking out over the Gulf of Campeche. Not much happened here-now and then the local revolutionaries shot up the bank, and the occasional freighter called, but there was never very much money in the bank, and a high sandbar and the temporales, autumn storms, sent much of the merchant trade elsewhere, to Mrida or Veracruz. Otherwise, the region was known for fearsome vampire bats and tasty bananas, and that was about it.
But there was some considerable excitement on the night of the twenty-second, which drew a crowd to the waterfront, which in turn drew a mariachi band, so the evening, despite the disaster, was festive. And the presence of a certain couple, vaguely middle-aged and well dressed, of obscure European origin, was noted, but not much discussed. They sat at an outdoor table at the Cantina Las Flores, on the leafy square that opened to the quay, the man tall and distinguished, with silvered temples beneath a straw hat, the woman in a colorful skirt and gold hoop earrings. They were from Mexico City, somebody said, and had made their way to the town by train and taxi, arriving two days before the excitement, before the Spanish freighter, called the Santa Rosa, caught fire at the end of the pier.
The Santa Rosa, having delivered drums of chemicals and crates of bicycles and sewing machines at Veracruz, had taken on a cargo of henequen-sisal hemp, raw cotton, and bananas, bound for Spain, then broken
