“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.
