'Yes.'
'If I ever get married,' Private Sudema said, 'she'll have to look like Aunt Gyske.'
'She came out better,' de Gier said, 'because of your pure Frisian soil. Tell me about this copper.'
Sudema sighed. 'The copper was used to manufacture cartridge casing for the guns of the Air Force. The jets drop them above the islands, when they exercise on their range. Copper is expensive and the Air Force wants it back, so the Air Force soldiers pick them up, in their own time, at a quarter a casing. Because we patrol around here, we take the soldiers along, or they can hitch a ride with the Water Police or the Navy. Water Inspection will take them too. The Air Force lets us ride their planes at times, if we can think of an excuse. It helps to relieve stress.'
'Do the pickers-up of Air Force cartridge casings make a lot of dough?'
'It all adds up,' Private Sudema said. 'But it takes a while before they get it, because we're all military and nothing ever comes at once. The casings are stored in shacks, and the shacks are emptied only once in so many months. Then they get their pay. The Air Force sends a vessel for the casings.'
'An Air Force vessel?' de Gier asked.
'No, Marines. They ride their armored vehicles on the islands' beaches, and one of their ferries will be lent to the Air Force, but the ferry is really Army.'
'The Wet Engineers?'
'The Dry Engineers,' Private Sudema said. 'The ferries are built to transport tanks, and tanks are dry, but the Dry Engineers don't have boats, so they borrow them from the Wet Engineers and run them temporarily-but that can take forever-for the Air Force.'
'The ferry picks up the cartridge casings?'
'If things go right. Last time things went wrong.' Private Sudema made his pipe gurgle. 'All the shacks were empty.'
The vessel cut through mirror-images of clouds. The sign reading ROYAL MILITARY POLICE reflected a thick ray of bright sunlight and became a blue and white symbol of joyful energy above the gray engine room's powerful hum. Fishing vessels heading for the mainland greeted authority by blowing their horns briefly. Sudema saluted stiffly to acknowledge their respect. The ship followed the channel indicated by buoys and by branches, most of them still with their leaves, stuck into the water at the edge of mudbanks. 'A service tendered by Water Inspection,' Sudema said, 'or rather by Forestry. They have their own boat too, but registered in the name of Water Inspection.' Sudema's pipe erupted in sparks. 'No, let's see now, maybe the Pilot Service plants those branches, in a boat that belongs to the Port.'
De Gier's cigarette smoke went down the wrong way. He coughed and frantically waved his arms. 'You should change to a pipe,' Private Sudema said. 'Pipe tobacco calms the mind.' He blew a smoke ring that was torn up by the wind.
A seal appeared and watched de Gier curiously from innocent round eyes, sunk in his round head. 'Morning,' de Gier said. The seal looked away shyly. The round head changed into a pointed snout as it sank backwards into the waves.
'That deserter,' Sudema said. 'He sails a nice boat. Made it himself, I believe, a copy of an antique flat- bottomed sloop. Must have nosed past the islands one dark night and darted in and out before disappearing with the loot.'
A patrol boat of the Water Police came by, sinister and low in the water, with a sharp prow like a warship and painted light gray, with large white numbers.
'Well armed, I suppose?' de Gier asked.
'Not as far as I know,' Sudema said. 'A carbine, maybe. We own a few too, but they stay in the barracks.'
A larger vessel came by, of the same gray color, again with square white numbers.
'Navy,' Sudema said. A cannon without a barrel stood on the foredeck of the boat.
'Does that work?' de Gier asked.
'Used to,' Sudema said. 'But they lost the barrel years ago. I sometimes ask the sailors about it, but they prefer not to discuss the matter. The barrel cracked during an exercise. They're trying to replace it, but so far nothing seems to fit very well.'
The warship crossed the wakes of Water Police and Military Police vessels.
'Quite a show of strength,' de Gier said. 'To what purpose, do you think? Any smuggling here?'
'Only on weekends,' Sudema said, 'but we aren't around then. The harbormaster of Ameland reported a suspicious boat some weekends ago, when he was out here fishing. He phoned, and one of us happened to be in the barracks and he might have wanted to go out, but he couldn't raise the skipper. Wouldn't have been any good anyway. Smugglers use flat-bottomed craft so that they can operate outside the channel.'
'So you did nothing?'
'We did something,' Sudema said. 'Our man phoned the alarm stations and an Air Force helicopter went out to take a look. Couldn't see anything. By then the fog had come in.
De Gier rubbed bis eyes. 'Yes,' Sudema said, 'I noticed it just now. You have a nervous tremor in both eyelids. Should watch that, you know. When I had that, it was diagnosed as stress; a week's leave and it got much better.'
'Stress?' de Gier asked. 'You were working too hard?'
'That too,' Sudema said. 'Long hours, but I think it was my engagement. Aunt Gyske had her birthday, and Jymke and I were invited to the party. Uncle Sjurd kept going to his tomatoes in the greenhouse, and Aunt Gyske kept dancing with me. She had this record, slow blues, and the stereo was switched to automatic so the tune kept coming back at us. Jymke got bored and went home, but I didn't notice.'
'End of the engagement?'
'I did take her some tulips,' Sudema said, 'from Aunt Gyske's garden, but she didn't want them, it seemed. Wouldn't come to the door.'
Ameland showed as a thin yellow line, dotted with green. De Gier practiced deep breathing on the after deck. A soldier came to fetch him to have coffee in the skipper's cabin. The other soldier was in charge of the bridge. The skipper and Sudema were waiting at the table.
'An exciting life,' the skipper said. 'I'm due to retire next year, but they won't get me to stay at home. I'm building my own boat on weekends. I'll just keep going.'
'Here?' de Gier asked.
'Where else?' The skipper pounded the table. 'This is where I belong. I'll be here until doomsday.'
The harbormaster welcomed the ship, telling the skipper that he came in too fast again.
'Can't go any slower,' the skipper said. 'If I did, I'd be in reverse.'
'That bow wave of yours is mining my dock.'
'Next time I'll come straight through it.'
'I'll report you to your boss.'
'Why don't you?' the skipper asked. 'You'd do me a favor. I don't think I have a boss, but if I have, I would like to meet him.'
'We brought some very nice fresh tomatoes,' Private Sudema said kindly.
The soldiers carried two cases of tomatoes ashore and walked back lugging a crate filled with sole.
'Your own catch?' de Gier asked.
'No time for that,' the harbormaster said. 'You have no idea how busy they keep me here. The fishermen bring in the sole. Undersized, but each fishing boat can bring in two crates, by permission of the Fishing Inspection.'
'Are they around here too?'
'Not in their own boat,' Sudema said. 'They're using a NATO vessel now, temporarily registered with our Navy.'
Two State Police officers drove down the jetty and parked their Land Rover near the harbormaster's office. The harbormaster invited them in for coffee. There was time for conversation, on the subject of tennis. The State Police officers played a lot of tennis on weekdays, they said, for they were off duty over the weekends.
'Do you close down your station during weekends?' de Gier asked.
'Yes,' said the officer in charge, 'but we could still be reached by phone through headquarters ashore.
