Alan Furst - Dark Voyage

A third flash. Noordendam shivered and rocked forward as the shell tore into her stern.

As Scheldt took the wheel, DeHaan ran out to the bridge wing, heading for the stern, to get a look at the damage. Just let it be above the waterline. Then, from somewhere in the ship, gunfire, a series of muffled pops from down below. DeHaan froze-that was coming from the passageway outside the crew quarters. He listened hard, but all he heard was M 56, firing again. He had no idea where the shell went-somewhere in the smoke to their starboard he thought, where they would have been if they hadn’t changed course. Far to the stern, he could just make out the searchlight, desperate now, sweeping back and forth, blinded by the smoke.

He made a decision and ran aft, lying on his belly and hanging out over the deck in order to see the ship’s stern below him. Midway down the curve of the hull, he saw the hole, three feet across, smoke trickling from the ragged edge, gouts of water washing out as the ship rose and fell-the ballast in the aft hold. Nothing vital. The minesweeper fired again and again, he heard the reports, but couldn’t see the flashes.

As he got back up to his feet, Ratter arrived. “What happened?” DeHaan said.

“It’s done. But it wasn’t clean. Kees was shot-in the leg, not bad but bad enough, Shtern is with him now. And Amado was hit, in the throat. He’s unconscious.”

“Will he live?”

Ratter shook his head. “Shtern did what he could.”

M 56 fired once more, the shot far away and remote. Ratter stared back into the darkness. “Gone,” he said. “Now we have until dawn.”

Far above them, another flight of bombers headed east.

0230 hours. At sea.

Kovacz had readjusted the furnaces, so there was no smoke now. But they still ran hard, at fourteen knots, headed a few points north of east, to bypass the naval base at Memel and make port at Liepaja. Or Lipava-the merchant seaman’s name for it. DeHaan had been in and out of there over the years; Latvia shipped wood and imported coal, and that meant tramp freighters. To the Germans it was Libau. They’d owned the country for centuries, calling themselves Brothers of the Sword-in the Baltic Crusade, Teutonic Knights, the Hanseatic League, then came 1918, independence, and the name changed. Then came 1940 and everything changed-in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Latvia.

Russia. Where Maria Bromen had better not go, maybe others on board as well, he wasn’t sure. But then, there wasn’t a harbor in the world where they weren’t waiting to arrest somebody. Well, she wouldn’t set foot on a pier as her true self, he’d make sure of that. He’d found her, as Ratter walked him back to the bridge, waiting at the lifeboats as he’d asked. He’d told her where they were going, then sent her back to the cabin-they could scheme later, for now she might as well sleep. God, I wish I could. Not until 0400, when Ratter would relieve him. He yawned, raised his binoculars, and stared out into the empty darkness. He had a new helmsman now, Scheldt relieved and sent back to crew quarters. Poor Amado. They would bury him at sea at daybreak, along with the two Germans-if Noordendam was still afloat. Eight times, over the years, he’d led the burial service. The body in canvas laid on a bed of braced planks, which was held at the rail by six men, then tilted as the captain said, “One, two, three, in God’s name.”

“Captain DeHaan? Captain?” Mr. Ali, calling from the radio room.

“Yes?”

“BBC, Captain.”

“Yes? Roosevelt speaks?”

“Germany invades Russia.”

22 June, 0410 hours. At sea.

In the cabin, the lamp was on, and Maria Bromen sat cross-legged on the bed, wearing only his denim shirt. “Is done,” she said. He followed her eyes to the night table, and a small mound of blackened flakes in the ashtray. “Very sad,” she said. “After all I did.”

“And the photograph?”

“Yes, that too, because of the stamp.” She almost smiled. “Such a photograph-this crazywoman is angry.” Then she said, “Oh well, goodby. Should be, maybe, a ceremony for such things.”

“Burning a passport?”

“Yes. Maybe the Jewish have it.”

He sat next to her, rested a hand on her ankle.

“So, stateless person,” she said.

“You’ll need a name, a story.”

“The name will be Natalya, I think. Natalya Pavlova, like a ballerina.”

“And we met in Tangier?”

“Thanks God. Husband left, French husband. Good-for-nothing.”

“You’ve made up the story.”

“Oh yes, a long story. I am good at that, my love.”

0715 hours. At sea.

No search planes. Only a flight of returning bombers, coming out of the rising sun-the men on deck shaded their eyes and watched them fly over. At the tail of the formation, a straggler, flying low, smoke trailing from one of its engines, the propeller turning lazily in the wind.

Where were the search planes? By noon they still hadn’t appeared. Maybe the captain of the minesweeper had reported that he sank the Noordendam, to save his own skin, maybe the search planes had other orders, once the invasion started. Or maybe they searched north. Much speculation on the bridge, but nobody showed up. So, DeHaan thought, we might just make it to Liepaja, and began to plan for that. “You better go burn the minefield maps,” he told Ratter. “And get the officers to come to a wardroom meeting. In one hour.”

Where they worked out a story, then went off to tell the crew. “We could be there for a long time,” they said. “So watch what you say.”

1740 hours. Off Liepaja.

They’d crossed the picket line of Russian patrol boats, but were still a long way out when they saw Liepaja. Not the port itself, but a column of brown smoke that climbed high into the air, a well-fed column, thick and sturdy. DeHaan radioed to the port office and a pair of Russian naval tugboats came out and took them under tow, docking the ship at the commercial harbor, on a stone quay lined with grain elevators and an enormous tractor plant. On its roof, soldiers had installed two antiaircraft guns and were busily stacking a wall of sandbags around them. And, passing the military harbor, they saw a small part of the Soviet Baltic Fleet-destroyers, minelayers, tenders, and one light cruiser, with steam up. “See the gun turrets?” Ratter said, standing by DeHaan on the bridge. “Facing inland.”

As the gangway was lowered, the reception committee had already gathered-welcome to Liepaja! Two of them in stiff Russian suits, shirts buttoned at the neck, and three in naval uniform. An efficient committee; they looked down into the holds, checked the bridge and the ship’s papers, had the German prisoners taken away, and made notes as DeHaan told them the story of Noordendam ’s capture and escape. “Well done,” one of the naval officers said. “Now let’s go somewhere and have a talk.”

He walked DeHaan down the gangway and along the quay, past a thirty-foot bomb crater, and up to an office in the port building. Not the men in suits, DeHaan thought. And not in a cellar. The office had only a bare desk and two chairs and a framed photograph of Stalin, hung from a nail that had broken the plaster when it was hammered in. “You may smoke if you like.” The officer spoke German, and introduced himself as “Kapitn Leutnant Shalakov.” A lieutenant commander. He was in his forties, with thinning hair, a broad nose-long ago broken, and lively green eyes. A Russian Jew? DeHaan thought he might be. “On the naval staff of the Baltic Fleet,” he added. Which meant, to DeHaan, that he was in the same business as Leiden, and Hallowes.

DeHaan took him up on the invitation to smoke. “Care for one of these?” Shalakov peered at the box, declined-with some courtesy, lit one of his own, and threw the match on the floor.