DeHaan wasn’t sure. Thirty seconds passed, the Covington now heading due east, then her bow came over hard in a very sharp change of course. Now DeHaan knew exactly, and took great care that the AB saw no sign of what went on inside him.
From the Covington, a double bleat on its klaxon. A slow count to six, then the hull of the Noordendam rang, a brief, dull note, as though it had been hit with a giant rubber hammer. And, a few seconds later, twice more.
The AB’s eyes were wide.
“Depth charges,” DeHaan said.
0700. The Covington sailed away, and Noordendam was alone on the sea.
The destroyer’s attack had lasted twenty minutes, the ship quartering above the suspected submarine and, as the freighter crew watched, deploying its barrel-shaped depth charges in groups: three rolled over rails at the stern, two fired outward by deck mortars-a traditional pattern called the five of clubs. Years earlier, when DeHaan was still serving as a second mate in the Dutch East Indies trade, his first officer had explained the principle of depth charges in a way he never forgot: water had its own physics, especially where explosions were concerned. “If you’ve decided to end it all,” he’d said, “and you want to make sure, fill your mouth with water and put the muzzle of the gun in there-you’ll blow the back of your head off.”
The Covington ’s attack had evidently not succeeded-assuming it was a submarine in the first place, ASDIC was known to discover phantoms of its very own-because no oil, no debris, rose to the surface. And no giant bubbles, though German subs could, and did, send up Pillenwerfers, false bubbles meant to deceive their attackers. Therefore, likely having lost contact, the destroyer could not stay long as nursemaid to the Noordendam, so wished her well and disappeared over the horizon. The freighter was kept just under way, as Kovacz and his crew struggled in the engine room, and everyone else waited for the torpedo.
Still, the day turned out to be nice.
Not too warm, thanks to a sharpening breeze, and mostly sunny, except for some heavy cumulonimbus clouds in the southern sky. Pretty ones-thick and gray at the bottom, white and sharply curved as they rose, and wispy on top against a rich blue sky. Oh, Kees kept grumbling about a falling barometer, but trust him to see the dark side. “It’s going to blow seven bells of shit all the way up to Genoa” was the way he put it to DeHaan. But not much the captain could do about that, was there, and the Noordendam lay low and heavy in the sea, certainly a plus when iffy weather was expected.
For DeHaan, there wasn’t much to do. He wandered here and there, at one point stopping by the radio room to see if Mr. Ali had heard anything new on the BBC. As DeHaan opened the door, Ali was bent over his table and very concentrated, one hand holding a headphone to his ear, the other teasing the dial. When he saw DeHaan, he offered him the headset, saying, “We’re getting somebody’s radio-on the high-frequency band.”
Noise was all it was, initially, a transmission well beyond its calculated range, though signals were known to wander great distances if they reached the open sea. After a moment, DeHaan realized the noise was a heavy drone-interference? No, it changed octaves, then fell back, faded away to silence, but returned. With a voice, which called out “… south of you!” and sounded as though the speaker had been running. Then the signal broke up.
DeHaan started to take the headset off but Ali held up a hand, wait. He was right, the drone came back, for a moment perfectly clear. Airplane engine. “Nine-forty! Nine-forty! He’s…” Lost. A sharp burst of static, maybe static, or something in the plane. Then, seconds later, “Oh bloody hell,” said quietly, to himself. Again, the signal broke into snips of noise, then faded out. DeHaan held the headset away from his ears and said, “Where is it coming from?”
“On Crete, I think. An airplane. Working with armor perhaps, nine-forty the number on a tank.”
“Can’t really hear much,” DeHaan said. In fact he could, but didn’t like doing it, and handed the headset back to Ali. “You’ll try for the BBC?”
Ali glanced at the clock on his panel. “A few minutes yet, Captain,” he said.
By 0850, Kovacz had the engine back up to full steam. DeHaan calculated that the convoy had gained, in three and a half hours, twenty-one miles, which the Noordendam could make up-eleven knots to the convoy’s eight- in seven hours. For that time, they would sail alone. An inviting target, for anybody who happened to be in the neighborhood, but if they hadn’t been attacked by now, DeHaan guessed, they were probably safe. Either Covington ’s ASDIC sounding had been a false contact-a sunken ship, perhaps-or the submarine had been driven off. Meanwhile, the storm was gaining on them; heavy clouds turned the morning dark, and a curtain of rain spanned the southern sky where dazzling forks of lightning fired off two and three at a time, with distant claps of thunder. The wind was rising, but they had also a following current, which added speed as they chased the convoy.
DeHaan, unable to fight Germans or weather, and running as fast as he could, had to do something, so turned his attention to morale. They’d taken on fresh beef at Alexandria, and he ordered it served for lunch, with mustard sauce-the cook’s one good trick-and potatoes, a double beer ration, and fresh pineapple for dessert. Then he had the officers rounded up for coffee.
Kees had to remain on forenoon watch, as did the Danish fireman, Poulsen, now serving as apprentice second engineer, but Ratter, Kovacz, Ali, and Shtern-the creases still evident in his work shirt and trousers, a blue officer’s cap set squarely on his head-all gathered in the wardroom.
When they were settled, DeHaan announced that by 1600 hours they should be rejoining the convoy.
“Didn’t you tell me,” Ratter said, “that we would have air cover?”
“I did. But, as you see…”
“They’re in trouble,” Kovacz said. “We’re lucky to have anything.”
“True,” Mr. Ali said. “The eight o’clock BBC had that certain sound to it.”
“What sound?” Shtern said.
“The sound of losing. ‘Enemy attacks in great strength.’ ‘British forces making a stand.’ What they said about France in ’40.”
“What if they lose Sphakia?” Ratter said.
“They’ll let us know,” DeHaan said.
Ratter’s grin meant are you sure?
“Better be ready for it,” Kovacz said. “What they have on Crete are British and Greek troops evacuated from the Peloponnesus, three weeks ago. Some of them ran all the way from Albania, and you know what retreat is, it’s chaos, lost weapons, missing officers, busted vehicles-this isn’t a stand on Crete, it’s a last stand.”
“You saw it, Mr. Kovacz, in ’39?” Shtern said.
“Some of it, yes. All I wanted.”
“They might hang on,” DeHaan said. “ They don’t think they’re finished. More coffee, Dr. Shtern?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“There’s cream and sugar-better enjoy it while it lasts.”
Shtern took a spoonful of sugar. DeHaan asked Ratter how Cornelius was coming along-the mess boy had replaced Patapouf as assistant cook.
“Can’t say. The cook mumbles to himself all day, but then, he always did. Food’s the same.”
“This cook,” Shtern said, then wasn’t quite sure how to put it.
Mr. Ali laughed. “May I smoke?” he said.
“Below deck, certainly,” DeHaan said.
Ali fitted a cigarette into his holder. “Life at sea, Dr. Shtern, you’ll get used to it.”
A knock at the wardroom door produced one of the AB lookouts, binoculars around his neck. “Mr. Kees wants you, Captain.”
The AB was badly shaken, and everyone looked at DeHaan. Who wanted to sigh, but couldn’t, so said, “I’ll be back,” and put his saucer on top of his cup. Rising, he checked his watch-life had returned to something like normal for one hour, no more.
On deck, a dozen crewmen stared silently out to sea, where a tower of black smoke rose two hundred feet in the darkened sky, thick smoke, stronger than the wind, driven by heavy orange flame that boiled and rolled at its base. DeHaan held out his hand and the AB gave him the binoculars. It was the Greek tanker Evdokia, down at the stern.
When he reached the bridge, Kees said, “That was our torpedo, you know. I’ve been wondering where it was.”
“Any survivors?”
“Haven’t seen any. Navy would’ve picked up what was left.”
