“Yes, sir. I think you better come. Russian soldiers, sir.”
DeHaan left, taking Kovacz with him as translator. At the foot of the gangway, an oiler and an AB stood sheepishly in the custody of a squad of Soviet marines. Called black devils, for their uniform caps, they wore striped sailor’s jerseys beneath army blouses in honor of their service.
The sergeant stepped forward as DeHaan and Kovacz came down the gangway. He spoke briefly, then Kovacz said, “‘Here are your sailors,’ he says. ‘Out last night after the raid.’”
“Thank them,” DeHaan said. “We’re grateful.”
Kovacz translated the answer as “Please to keep them where they belong, from now on.”
“Tell him we will. And we mean it.”
“One missing,” Kovacz said.
“It’s Xanos, sir,” the AB said.
“What happened?”
“Press-ganged. We went looking for a bar and he wandered off, and they told us he’d been grabbed by seamen from one of the ships in port.”
“Stas, ask them if they can find our sailor.”
Kovacz tried. “They say they can’t. Can’t search all the ships. They regret.”
The marines went off, and DeHaan sent the crewmen back to the quarters. “If you leave this ship again,” he told them, “don’t come back.”
2040 hours. Port of Liepaja.
In the cabin, DeHaan and Maria Bromen waited. Tried to read, tried to talk, but they could hear the fighting now, south of the city, faint but steady, like a distant thunderstorm. A German reconnaissance plane flew high above the port and some of the gunners tried their luck but he was too far above the flak burst. Then the cruiser started up, with its heavy turret guns, the detonations echoing off the waterfront buildings.
“Who are they shooting at?” Maria Bromen said.
“Helping their army, trying to.”
“How far, then, the battle?”
“Big guns like that? Maybe five miles.”
“Not so far.”
“No.”
She rose from the bed and went to look out the porthole, at the dock and the city. “We are leaving soon, I think.”
“We are?”
She beckoned him to the porthole. There was an army truck parked by the gangway. The canvas top was turned back and a few soldiers were wrestling with a bulky shape, pushing it toward the tailgate, while others waited on the pier to ease it to the ground. After a moment, DeHaan saw that what they were fighting with was a grand piano. Too heavy-when the weight shifted, the piano dropped the last two feet onto the stone quay. One of the soldiers in the truck picked up a piano bench, shouted something, and tossed it to the others.
With a sigh, DeHaan went up to the deck, where Van Dyck and some of the crew had gathered to watch the show. “Where do you want it, Cap’n?” Van Dyck said.
“Forward hold. Get a sling on it, then cover it with canvas.”
The soldiers had apparently intended to carry the piano up the gangway, but Van Dyck waved them off, pointed to the cargo derricks, and the soldiers smiled and nodded.
DeHaan went back to the cabin.
“So now,” she said, “we go north.”
“The Russian officer said Tallinn, the naval base.”
“How far?”
“A day, twenty-four hours.”
“Well,” she said, “you warned me, in Lisbon.”
“Are you sorry, that you didn’t stay?”
She smoothed his hair. “No,” she said. “No. It’s better like this. Better to do what you want, and then what will happen will happen.”
“It may not be so bad, up there.”
“No, not too bad.”
“They’re at war now, and we are their allies.”
She smiled, her fingers touching his face. “You don’t know them,” she said. “You want to think it’s a good world.” She stood, started to unbutton the shirt. “For me, a shower. I don’t know what else to do.” Looking out the porthole, she said, “And for you-out there.”
On the pier a crowd, twenty or so, men and women, peering up at the ship and milling around their leader, a man with a dramatic beard, a fedora, a cape. Some of them carried suitcases, while others pushed wardrobe trunks on little wheels.
DeHaan grabbed his hat and said, “I’ll be back.”
By the time he reached the deck, the bearded man had already climbed the gangway. “Good evening,” he said to DeHaan, in English. “Is this the Noordenstadt?”
“The Noordendam.”
“It says Santa Rosa.”
“Even so, it’s the Noordendam.”
“Ah, good. We’re the Kiev.”
“Which is what?”
“The Kiev. The Kiev Ballet, the touring company. We are expected, no?”
DeHaan started to laugh and raised his hands, meaning he didn’t know a thing, and the bearded man relaxed. “Kherzhensky,” he said, extending a hand. “The impresario. And you are?”
“DeHaan, I’m the captain. Was that your piano?”
“We don’t have a piano, and the orchestra is on the Burya, the destroyer. Where do we go, Captain?”
“Anywhere you can find, Mr. Kherzhensky. Maybe the wardroom would be best, I’ll show you.”
Kherzhensky turned to the crowd of dancers and clapped his hands. “Come along now,” he said. “We’re going to a wardroom.”
Twenty minutes later, two companies of marines showed up, singing as they climbed the gangway. Then came a truckload of office furniture, and a Grosser Mercedes automobile with a stove in the backseat, then three naval lieutenants with wives and children, two dogs and two cats. The deputy mayor of Liepaja brought his mother, her maid, and a commissar. A dozen trunks followed, their loading supervised by two mustached men in suits who carried submachine guns. A family of Jews, the men in skullcaps, arrived in a Liepaja taxi. The driver parked his taxi and followed them up the gangway. There followed a generator, then six railway conductors, and four wives, with children. “They are coming,” one of the conductors said to DeHaan. He took off his hat, and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. It was one in the morning when Shalakov arrived, looking very harassed, with his tie loosened. He found DeHaan on the bridge.
“I see you’ve got steam up,” he said.
“It seems we’re leaving.”
Shalakov looked around, the deck was full of wandering people, the mustached men sat on their trunks, smoking cigarettes and talking. “Did the messenger reach you?”
“No. Just, all this.”
“It’s a madhouse. We’ve had Latvian gangs in the city, and Wehrmacht commandos.” He took a deep breath, then gave DeHaan a grim smile. “Will be a bad war,” he said. “And long. Anyhow, here is a list of the ships in your convoy.” A typed sheet of paper, the names of the ships transliterated into the Roman alphabet. “Communicate by radio, at six point five, don’t worry about code-not tonight. We’re going to the naval base at Tallinn, there’s no point in trying for Riga now. You’ll wait for the Burya, the lead destroyer, to sound her siren, and follow her. All ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on the minelayer Tsiklon — cyclone. So then, good luck to you, and I’ll see you in Tallinn.”
