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.”
