Fleet will withdraw up to the naval base at Tallinn, in Estonia. We’ll have to take equipment, personnel, some of the civilians-we’ll save whatever we can, and that will be your job.”
“We can do that,” DeHaan said. “What about my crew?”
“They can stay as they are-we may interview your passengers, but, as for the crew, whatever you’ve got you can keep. But they’d better remain on board. As of this morning, the Latvian gangs are back in business-digging up their rifles in the chicken coops, and waiting eagerly for their German pals.” Shalakov paused a moment, then said, “What was it, DeHaan? Agents? To Denmark? Not neutral Sweden, I hope. Dropping off agents, I would guess. Certainly not picking them up.”
“Why not?”
“I admire the British navy, and I admire daring-as a quality in special operations, and I know the Germans are kicking the hell out of British merchant shipping, but there was no way under the sun that your ship was ever coming out of the Baltic.”
After dusk, the bombers came again. From loudspeakers mounted on the streetlamps, a staticky voice called out, “Attention! Attention! Attention citizens of Liepaja, we are having an air raid. Prepare to take arms and fight the invaders!” In Russian first-Kovacz translated-and then in Lettish. DeHaan put the fire crews on alert, hoses reeled out, and had Van Dyck make sure of the pumps. Then the sirens whined, for a long time, it seemed, fifteen minutes, and then, from the south, the first bombs-muffled, deep-voiced whumps that marched north toward the city. As the antiaircraft started up, hammering away from the ships in the military harbor and the roofs of Liepaja, DeHaan looked out on the pier, at the foot of the gangway. It had been guarded since they docked, two soldiers with rifles, but they were no longer there.
As S. Kolb hurried across the quay, an incendiary hit the side of the tractor factory and a fiery river of green phosphorus came after him. He ran away from it, but the bastards wouldn’t leave him alone that night. Fallback from the antiaircraft fire came rattling down on the pavement, so Kolb held his briefcase over his head as he ran.
Nonetheless, he was gleeful, thanked his lucky stars that he was off and away from that accursed iron sea monster and her laconic Dutchmen. Beans and canned fish, the smell of oily steam up his nose as he ate, slept, read his book. Did he have it? Yes, he did, the history of Venice-three pounds of Doges, now just snuggle up to a building wall so it doesn’t get skewered by some hot metal shard from heaven. Where the hell was he? The street signs were cut in stone on the corners of the buildings, so, here it was Vitolu iela — of course! Good old Vitolu iela, what happy times we had there! Had he ever in his life seen a street map of Liepaja? No. Who had? What sort of lunatic would ever come to such a place?
He heard the bomb whistle, his knees turned to water and he tucked his head down between his shoulders and scurried into a doorway. Sucked in his breath when the thing hit, a few blocks away. Hah, missed! He tried the knob on the door, but it was locked. A tarnished brass plate said the place was an art school, ichthyological illustration their specialty. So that’s what they do here, draw fish. Above the plate, someone had printed Closed on a card tacked to the door.
Somewhere ahead of him, a building on fire. The flames threw flickering orange light on the street and, for a moment, a shadow moved. What was that? No policemen, please. Again it moved-a woman, out of one doorway and into another. He moved up two doorways, and waited. Not long. She was breathless and fat, carrying a huge bowl with a dish towel stretched over the top. Was that soup? Oh yes, by God it was. Pea soup! Nothing else smelled like that. “Good evening, madam,” he said, in German.
She made a noise, a throttled scream, one hand rising to her throat.
Kolb lowered his briefcase and-the god of inspiration came to visit-tipped his hat.
The woman put her hand back on the bowl.
“Madam, can you tell me…” Two airplanes came roaring over the street, a hundred feet up, he couldn’t hear himself think. Then they were gone. “ Madam, ” he said, raising his voice but keeping it gentle. “ Can you tell me where to find the railroad station?”
“Vuss?”
“Be calm, my dear, nothing can hurt you tonight.”
She looked at him, then pointed.
“Railroad?”
She nodded.
“How far?”
“Zwanzig minuten.” Twenty minutes.
Again, Kolb tipped his hat. Do you have, perhaps, a spoon? “Good evening, madam,” he said, and hurried away up the street.
Now train stations were a poor choice during air raids, but Kolb only needed to be close-any caf or hallway would do-because the trains wouldn’t run until the bombers got tired and went home. He had no Soviet papers, but bribery was a way of life in this empire and, with Adolf pounding on the city gates, he sensed it wouldn’t be a problem.
Local or express, he’d be on a train tonight. A short run, up to enchanting Riga, “the Paris of hell,” then a call at the British consulate. Where he’d look up the passport control officer, almost always connected to the spy people, if in fact he wasn’t running the thing himself. Also at the consulate: secure W/T transmissions-or so they thought. I say, Brown, dear boy, one of your chaps has turned up here-headed for Malm, he says, but it seems he’s gone a bit wide.
So please advise.
And the loathsome Brown would surely have something in mind. Something dangerous, of course, unspeakably difficult and dreary.
Back in the street he’d just left, an explosion, then a faade fell off a building and came crashing down in a huge cloud of dust. Hadn’t hit the woman, had it?
Bastards.
23 June, 0630 hours. Port of Liepaja.
DeHaan paced the bridge, standing a restless port watch. Too far north, he thought, every heart had its compass and his pointed far south of here. Here it was not summer-a cold early sky above the city and the marshland beyond, bending reeds, black ponds, pine forest. And some shadow of a future darkness that fell over him. He felt it.
Slowly, the Noordendam came back to life. Kees, hobbling with the aid of a stick, led Van Dyck and a crew of ABs in the repair of the stern hull-a length of sheet tin cut to fit, then welded on. It looked awful but it would keep the water out. There was coffee in the wardroom at 0800, and when DeHaan mentioned the absent Kolb, Shtern said that he’d left, during the air raid.
“Where the hell did he find to go?” Ratter said.
Shtern didn’t know.
“He went back to work,” Kovacz said.
“What will become of us now?” Mr. Ali said.
“First we get out of here,” DeHaan said. “And then, part of the Soviet merchant fleet.”
Many the silences that had descended over wardroom tables in DeHaan’s years at sea, but this one had quite a heft to it. Certainly they’d foreseen this, individually. Now, however, it was said among them, and that made it worse. Because they’d all thought that somebody would have an idea, because somebody always did. But not now. Finally Kees said, “Maybe they’ll send us to Britain.”
“With what?” Kovacz said.
“Wheat, cattle.”
“They can’t feed their own,” Maria Bromen said. “How to feed Britain?”
“And we can’t get there,” Ratter said. “We can go north to Estonia, then Kronstadt, the naval base off Leningrad, but that’s it. The Germans will mine the whole Baltic now-if they haven’t already.”
“They claim they have,” Mr. Ali said. “In clear. On the radio.”
“Trying to scare the Russian submarines,” Poulsen said.
“What scares me,” Shtern said, “is years. In Russia.”
Cornelius came to the door and said, “Captain, sir? You are needed on the pier, sir.”
“Now, Cornelius?”
