cold, two seamen deserted in Alexandria, when they saw the cargo, and our assistant cook was shot during the raid.”
“Morale good, even so?”
“Yes, even so.”
“Ready for more, then.”
“I’d say we are. Is it all over now, Crete?”
“Yes, all over. We evacuated everybody we could, but more than ten thousand were taken prisoner. However, they lost seven thousand men, so it was quite expensive for them. They took a chance, because they feared we’d use the airbases to raid the Roumanian oilfields, and they got what they wanted, but they did pay dearly. We hope that means they won’t try the same thing on Malta, because we really must have it-if we can’t disrupt their supply lines, there’ll be hell to pay in North Africa.”
Outside, a gardener in a straw hat began to sprinkle water on a potted geranium.
“Speaking of airbases,” DeHaan said, “we thought we’d have air cover, in Crete.”
“Yes, well, that’s the problem-the Mediterranean problem. It was difficult on Crete, but, frankly, it’s worse on Malta. All they had there, the first year, were three Gloster Gladiators, little biplanes, and much cherished, called Faith, Hope, and Charity. They’d been discovered in crates, in the hold of an aircraft carrier, and they were valiant. Unfortunately, only Faith survives.”
“Can you get a convoy in?”
“We’ve tried, and will again, but the rate of loss is fifty percent. In any event, that’s not where you’re going- we have bigger things in mind for you. To begin with, we plan to turn you back into the Santa Rosa. At the stroke of midnight, you know, abracadabra.”
It wasn’t much of a joke, but DeHaan managed a smile. “Isn’t somebody going to notice, one of these days? That there are two of us?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t concern myself about that,” Hallowes said. “Anyhow, this will be the Santa Rosa ’s final voyage, and, when it’s over, well, then we’ll see. What comes next.”
Hallowes waited, but DeHaan just finished his drink. He had, for a moment, a whiff of dj vu, as though this had happened before, perhaps the Dutch captain of a seventy-four-gun ship-of-the-line meeting with a British admiral, as they laid plans to fight Germany, Spain, France, whoever it was that year. Finally DeHaan said, “This voyage, in the Mediterranean?”
“Baltic.”
“Up there.”
“Yes, that’s right. Part of our scheme of high-frequency direction finding, HF/DF, we say, or Huff-Duff, like the Americans. Silly sounding but very real, and crucial now, for my people. We can destroy them, if we can find them, and we’ve got to get better at that, and right away. The numbers are ‘most secret’-that’s always the way with numbers isn’t it-but I don’t mind telling you that we’ve lost over sixteen hundred merchant ships since 1939, half to submarines, and if we can’t get our fixes, on their planes, U-boats, warships, faster and better, we’ll starve as the guns go silent.”
Hallowes finished his drink and called out, “Escobar?”
DeHaan could hear him, shuffling through the adjoining rooms. Hallowes ordered two more aperitifs. “I mean, why not, right?”
When the servant had left, DeHaan said, “And the details?”
“Being made final, as we sit here. To be transmitted by courier-no W/T for this operation, so expect him. Meanwhile, make sure you’re well fitted out: oil, water, food, everything. And if the Tangier chandlers can’t help you, let us know about it.”
“We can top off. We will have to, for the Baltic, that’s thirty-five hundred miles, but they took good care of us in Alexandria, your people saw to that, Dickie, and so forth.”
“I’m sure they did,” he said, pleased. Then, “And so forth?”
“Well, the people at the base.”
“Oh.”
“Out of curiosity, why are you using a freighter? Isn’t this sort of thing done by airdrop?”
“What we’re moving is too big, Captain. Antenna masts, forty feet high, specially fitted trucks, and the reception equipment itself is delicate, and heavy, the worst of all combinations, so it can’t be trusted to parachutes. And, there is a lot of it-we want a coastal observation station, fully mounted. That means they’ll listen to all the frequencies, not only HF, but VHF, UHF-produced by sparks from spark plugs jumping to magnetos in aircraft engines, and the low end as well, because some German ships, disguised merchant raiders, are using Hagenuk radio, an ultra-shortwave system with a range of only a hundred miles, and, with our present stations, we can’t hear them. Anyhow, even at night, it would be difficult for intrusion aircraft. Big German radars, up in that part of the world, so what we need is the rusty old tramp, rusty old neutral tramp, helpless and slow, wandering the seven seas to make a few pesetas for the owner.”
DeHaan was silent for a moment, then said, “All right, the Baltic. Not a big sea, as they go, but it takes in quite a few countries.”
“It does, and all of them difficult, at the present moment.”
Yes, DeHaan thought, that’s the word. The USSR, and Finland, a German ally, just defeated in a war with the Russians, who’d occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia a year earlier, Sweden neutral, Denmark occupied, and Germany itself. Difficult.
“But it’s wiser just now,” Hallowes went on, “not to give out coordinates. If I were you, I’d expect the courier in a week or so, then you’ll know. You may even be, surprised.”
And far enough away so that if I yell you won’t hear it.
The servant arrived with the drinks, and Hallowes said, “You’ll stay for lunch?”
“ Espadon, they call it.”
DeHaan took a second helping-a sweet, white-fleshed fish. “Best I’ve had in a long time,” he said. “Though, when it’s fresh caught, there isn’t much in the Mediterranean that isn’t good.”
“No, not much. Do you care for sea bream?”
“It can be strong.”
“That’s polite, Captain. A woman friend of mine calls it ‘Neptune’s terrible secret.’”
“Well, after a couple of months of canned herring…”
They went on, from this to that, luncheon talk, until they’d made their way through the second glass of wine and started on the third, then DeHaan said, “When I was in Alexandria, in fact with your man there, I happened to meet a woman.” He paused, waited for Hallowes.
Whose “Yes?”-when it finally arrived-was a little ragged at the edges.
“Ah, nobody you know, I suppose. Know about.”
Hallowes was relieved, the subject was espionage, not, not God-only-knew-what. “No, Captain, not our style, but not a bad idea to wonder, the way the world goes these days.”
“Well, I did wonder.”
“Not German, was she? Russian? Hungarian?”
“Local, I believe.”
“Mm. Still…”
The ferry wasn’t in when DeHaan was driven back to Algeciras, so Hallowes’s driver left him at the Reina Cristina, the city’s good hotel, where he could wait in the bar. DeHaan would have liked to walk around, but the infamous Andalusian wind was swirling dust in the streets and the city was poor and grim and vaguely sinister, so, the barman promising to let him know when the ferry made port, he sat at the bar, ordered a beer, and lit up a North State.
It had been foolish to ask Hallowes about Demetria, he realized, on two counts. First of all, Hallowes could easily have lied, maybe had lied, and second of all, she was lost, no matter who she was or what he felt. Still, he would have liked to know, because the night they’d spent together had stirred him and he wanted more.
But she was in the past, now, would remain a memory. When they’d told him at Sphakia that he’d be in convoy back to Tangier, not Alexandria, he’d understood that he would never see her again. He might have found a way to get a letter to her, if he’d been clever and had eight weeks, but what would he have said? Book passage on a local destroyer and come see me in Tangier? No, their morning coffee in the room at the Hotel Cecil, when at last
