Alan Furst - Dark Voyage

“Anybody joining me?”

There were no takers. “Just for me, then, Patapouf.”

“Aye, Captain,” he said, and waddled off.

The meeting lasted another twenty minutes, then DeHaan went back up to the bridge for a quiet watch. At 0400, when he returned to his cabin, he cranked the handle of his Victrola and put on his record of Mozart string quartets. He opened one of the drawers built into his bunk and, from beneath a sweater, withdrew a belt and holster, well spotted with mildew, which held a Browning GP35 automatic, made in Belgium. Firing a 9-millimeter Parabellum round, it was the standard-issue sidearm for the Dutch military, and served as the captain’s weapon, always to be found on a merchant ship. Three years earlier, when it had replaced an ancient revolver, DeHaan had thrown an empty tomato-sauce can off the stern and banged away at it until, evidently unharmed, it disappeared beneath the waves.

He took a box of ammunition from the drawer, disengaged the magazine, and began pressing the oily bullets into the clip. Ratter had the other weapon on board-that he knew of, at any rate-a. 303 Enfield rifle, which was kept in a locker in his cabin. When attacked by an enemy vessel, a freighter had only one tactic-to turn stern to, where it could accept the most damage without sinking, and try to run away. That, and the pistol and the rifle, completed the ship’s defensive array. Some British merchantmen were being outfitted with antiaircraft guns and small cannon but such martial measures were not for the likes of the Noordendam, and most certainly not for Santa Rosa. The Mozart, however, was scratchy but pleasant against the sound of the sea, and DeHaan found himself calm and contemplative as he armed for war.

11 May, 2300 hours. Off Mostaganem, Algeria.

DeHaan was sound asleep when somebody pounded on his door.

“Yes? What?”

A lookout opened the door and said, “Mr. Kees says for you to come to the bridge, sir. Right away, sir.”

DeHaan managed to get his shirt and pants on, and went barefoot up to the bridge, the ladderway cold and wet as he climbed. Kees was waiting for him on the wing.

“There’s some damn thing out there,” Kees said.

DeHaan stared out into the rain and darkness, saw nothing. But, somewhere out to port, just astern, was the low rumble of an engine.

“Smell it?” Kees said. “Diesel fumes, and no outline I can see.”

A ship low to the water, with big engines that ran on diesel. DeHaan swore to himself-that could only be a submarine. Which could hide and fight beneath the sea but by preference attacked at night, at speed, on the surface, where it could run at sixteen knots instead of the underwater five. Kees and DeHaan walked to the stern and peered out into the gloom.

“He’s stalking us,” Kees said.

“We’re a neutral ship.”

“He may not care, DeHaan, or maybe he knows better.”

“Then he’ll demand surrender, and, if we try to run, he won’t waste a torpedo, he’ll sink us with his gun.”

“What can we do?” Kees’s voice was unsteady, and querulous.

“We can refuse,” DeHaan said. “And do our best with what comes next.” He’d played this moment out in his mind a thousand times but now he realized he would not surrender. The presence of a British commando unit gave him an excuse, but that’s all it was. Final orders, he thought. Firefighting crew, distress call, lower boats, abandon ship.

It was a fine rain, almost a mist, but he was soaked, water running down his face. A minute went by, and another, long minutes, then Kees said, “My God,” as a dim shape, gray and low, emerged from the darkness beyond the Noordendam ’s lights. A moment later, a hatch opened at the top of the conning tower and a man’s upper body, in silhouette, appeared above it. A searchlight came on, the beam swept back and forth across the deck. Then, amplified by a loud- hailer, a challenge, an Italian version of the standard “What ship?” An Italian submarine, then. Perhaps, DeHaan thought, the Leonardo da Vinci — fine job of naming there-infamous for attacks on British convoys. The challenge was repeated, the officer, likely the captain himself, clearly growing impatient.

DeHaan held his open hands on either side of his mouth and shouted, “Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa!” He was blinded by the light shining in his face. It moved to Kees, who shielded his eyes with his hand, then it shifted forward to the bridge. Turning to Kees, he said, “Go get Amado. Do it yourself.” He saw that several crewmen had come aft, and were milling about in small groups. “And get those people below, ” he said. Then he called out, “Momentito, per piacere, capitn vene, capitn vene!” Which was pretty much the extent of his Spanish, or Italian, or whatever he’d said. Maybe some Latin in there, in case they were monks. The captain’s hat he’d always imagined Amado wearing was in his cabin, on a peg behind the door.

The figure with the loud-hailer climbed down the conning tower and walked up to the bow. DeHaan was suddenly conscious of his bare feet-but maybe that wasn’t so bad. Here on this rusty old whore of a Spanish tramp. DeHaan tried for an ingratiating smile, said “Momentito,” and raised helpless hands. The figure, in full naval uniform, stared at him as though he were a bug.

Now both of them stood there, watching each other, until DeHaan heard footsteps on the deck and Kees appeared, with his arm around Amado’s waist. In an undertone, Kees said, “Oh Christ,” and half-carried Amado to the edge of the deck where, DeHaan could see, he dared not let him go. Amado, roused from his bunk in the crew’s quarters, was shirtless and, a loopy half smile on his face, drunk as a lord. “You’re the captain of the Santa Rosa, remember?”

Amado nodded fervently, ah yes, of course. He closed one conspiratorial eye.

The officer shouted in Italian, angrier by the minute, and Amado shouted back in Spanish, the words Santa Rosa repeated several times.

Another question.

From Amado, “Cmo?”

Tried again.

Kees said something to Amado, who yelled, his words well slurred, some sentence that included the words Izmir and tobacco.

Another figure appeared next to the officer, a big, burly fellow with full beard and black turtleneck, a submachine gun carried carelessly at his side. The officer asked another question, Amado tilted his head-what’s he saying?

“Tell him ‘Valencia,’” DeHaan said. Better, he thought, to answer some question.

Amado did it, then stumbled and, but for Kees, would have pitched into the water. Kees, out of the side of his mouth, said, “I think he’s going to be sick.”

The man with the beard began to laugh, and, a moment later, the officer joined in. And the captain was dead drunk!

The officer shook his head, then dismissed the whole stupid business with a cavalier wave of his hand. The two returned to the conning tower and disappeared, the engine rose in pitch, and, with its exhaust vents pumping clouds of black smoke, the submarine rumbled away into the night.

DeHaan wanted a drink, he had a personal bottle of cognac in his cabin. He left Kees to deal with Amado, who’d fallen to his knees, and headed back toward the bridge. There was, on the way, a ventilating fan built into a louvered housing, some four feet high. As DeHaan went past, he saw that Sims and one of his men were kneeling in its shadow. The soldier held a rifle with a sniper scope, the weapon’s strap circled tight on his upper arm to keep the gun steady, a practice common to the target shooter, and the sniper.

DeHaan raised his eyebrows as he went past, and Sims gave him a smile in return, and a brisk little salute.

12 May, 1830 hours. Off Bizerta.

Twice that day they’d been looked over. First by a reconnaissance flying boat, flat-bottomed cabin suspended below wings with pontoons, French roundels on wings and fuselage. Sims guessed it might be a Breguet 730, but admitted he’d only seen photographs. He was sure, however, of the one that showed up in the late afternoon, an Italian Savoia-Marchetti in desert camouflage with a white cross on its tail, called the Gobbo, “the Hunchback,” Sims said, for the bulbous shape of its cabin.