describing the heroes' welcome they had received: Donitz himself met them at the pier and handed out hugs and kisses and medals and other tokens in embarrassing profusion. They can't stop talking about how much they want dear Gunter to come back home.
Dear Gunter isn't budging; he's been sitting in his little room for a couple of months now. His world consists of pen, ink, paper, candles, cups of coffee, bottles of aquavit, the soothing beat of the surf. Every crash of wave on shore, he says, reminds him that he is above sea level now, where men were meant to live. His mind is always back
That's pretty much what he's been doing, here in Norrsbruck. He has his personal journal, and he's been going through it, page by page, filling in all of the details that he didn't have time to jot down, before he forgets them. Someday, after the war, it'll make a book: one of a million war memoirs that will clog libraries from Novosibirsk to Gander to Sequim to Batavia.
The pace of incoming mail dropped dramatically after the first weeks. Several of his men still write to him faithfully. Shaftoe is used to seeing their letters scattered around the place when he comes to visit. Most of them are written on scraps of cheap, greyish paper.
Directionless silver light infiltrates the room through Bischoff's window, illuminating what looks like a rectangular pool of heavy cream on his tabletop. It is some kind of official Hun stationery, surmounted by a raptor clenching a swastika. The letter is handwritten, not typed. When Bischoff sets his wet glass down on it, the ink dissolves.
And when Bischoff goes to empty his bladder, Shaftoe can't keep his eyes away from it. He knows that this is bad manners, but the Second World War has led him into all sorts of uncouth behavior, and there don't seem to be any angry grandpas lurking in the trenches with doubled belts; no consequences at all for the wicked, in fact. Maybe that will change in a couple of years, if the Germans and the Nips lose the war. But that reckoning will be so great and terrible that Shaftoe's glance at Bischoff's letter will probably go unnoticed.
It came in an envelope. The first line of the address is very long, and consists of 'Gunter BISCHOFF' preceded by a string of ranks and titles, and followed by a series of letters. The return address has been savaged by Bischoffs letter opener, but it's somewhere in Berlin.
The letter itself is an impossible snarl of Germanic cursive. It is signed, hugely, with a single word. Shaftoe spends some time trying to make out that word; he whose John Hancock this is. Must have an ego that ranks right up there with the General's.
When Shaftoe figures out the signature belongs to Donitz, he gets all tingly. That Donitz is an important guy-Shaftoe's even seen him on a newsreel, congratulating a grimy U-boat crew, fresh from a salty spree.
Why's he writing love notes to Bischoff? Shaftoe can't read this stuff any better than he could Nipponese. But he can see a few figures. Donitz is talking numbers. Perhaps tons of shipping sunk, or casualties on the Eastern Front. Perhaps money.
'Oh, yes!' Bischoff says, having somehow reappeared in the room without making any noise. When you're down in a U-boat, running silent, you learn how to walk quietly. 'I have come up with a hypothesis on the gold.'
'What gold?' Shaftoe says. He knows, of course, but having been caught in an act of flagrant naughtiness, his instinct is to play innocent.
'That you saw down in the batteries of U-553,' Bischoff says. 'You see, my friend, anyone else would say that you are simply a crazy jughead.'
'The correct term is Jarhead.'
'They would say, first of all, that U-553 sank many months before you claim to have seen it. Secondly, they would say that such a boat could not have been loaded with gold. But I believe that you saw it.'
'So?'
Bischoff glances at the letter from Donitz looking mildly seasick. 'I must tell you something about the Wehrmacht of which I am ashamed, first.'
'What? That they invaded Poland and France?'
'No.
'That they invaded Russia and Norway?'
'No, not that.'
'That they bombed England and . . . '
'No, no, no,' Bischoff says, the very model of forbearance. 'Something you did not know about.'
'What?'
'It seems that, while I have been sneaking around the Atlantic, doing my duty-the Fuhrer has come up with a little incentive program.'
'What do you mean?'
'It seems that duty and loyalty are not enough for certain high-ranking officers. That they will not carry out their orders to the fullest unless they receive . . . special awards.'
'You mean, like medals?'
Bischoff is smiling nervously. 'Some generals on the Eastern Front have been given estates in Russia. Very, very large estates.'
'Oh.'
'But not everyone can be bribed with land. Some people require a more liquid form of compensation.'
'Booze?'
'No, I mean liquid in the financial sense. Something you can carry with you, and that is accepted in any whorehouse on the planet.'
'Gold,' says Shaftoe, quietly.
'Gold would suffice,' Bischoff says. It has been a long time since he looked Shaftoe in the eye. He's staring out the window instead. His green eyes might be a little moist. He takes a deep breath, blinks, and gets the bitter irony under control before continuing: 'Since Stalingrad, it has not gone well on the Eastern Front. Let us say that Ukrainian real estate is no longer worth what it used to be, if the deed to the land happens to be written in German and issued in Berlin.'
'It's getting harder to bribe a general by promising him a chunk of Russian land,' Shaftoe translates. 'So Hitler needs lots of gold.'
'Yes. Now, the Japanese have lots of gold-consider that they sacked China. As well as many other places. But they are lacking in certain things. They need wolframite. Mercury. Uranium.'
'What's uranium?'
'Who the hell knows? The Japanese want it, we provide it. We provide them technology too-blueprints for new turbines. Enigma machines.' At this point Bischoff breaks off and laughs, painfully and darkly, for a long time. When he gets it under control, he continues: 'So we have been shipping them these things, in U-boats.'
'And the Nips pay you in gold.'
'Yes. It is a dark economy, hidden beneath the ocean, trading small but valuable items over vast distances. You got a glimpse of it.'
'You knew this was going on but you didn't know about U-553,' Shaftoe points out.
'Ah, Bobby, there are many, many things going on in the Third Reich that a mere U-boat captain does not know about. You are a soldier, you know this is true.'
'Yes,' Shaftoe says, recalling the peculiarities of Detachment 2702. He looks down at the letter. 'Why is Donitz telling you all of this now?'
'He is not telling me anything,' Bischoff says reprovingly. 'I have figured this out myself' He gnaws on a lip for a while. 'Donitz is making me a proposition.'
'I thought you'd retired.'
Bischoff considers it. 'I have retired from killing people. But the other day I sailed a little sloop around the inlet.'
'So?'
'So it seems that I have not retired from going down to the sea in ships.' Bischoff heaves a sigh.
