Alan Furst: Dark Voyage

Slowly, the Noordendam came back to life. Kees, hobbling with the aid of a stick, led Van Dyck and a crew of ABs in the repair of the stern hull-a length of sheet tin cut to fit, then welded on. It looked awful but it would keep the water out. There was coffee in the wardroom at 0800, and when DeHaan mentioned the absent Kolb, Shtern said that he’d left, during the air raid.

“Where the hell did he find to go?” Ratter said.

Shtern didn’t know.

“He went back to work,” Kovacz said.

“What will become of us now?” Mr. Ali said.

“First we get out of here,” DeHaan said. “And then, part of the Soviet merchant fleet.”

Many the silences that had descended over wardroom tables in DeHaan’s years at sea, but this one had quite a heft to it. Certainly they’d foreseen this, individually. Now, however, it was said among them, and that made it worse. Because they’d all thought that somebody would have an idea, because somebody always did. But not now. Finally Kees said, “Maybe they’ll send us to Britain.”

“With what?” Kovacz said.

“Wheat, cattle.”

“They can’t feed their own,” Maria Bromen said. “How to feed Britain?”

“And we can’t get there,” Ratter said. “We can go north to Estonia, then Kronstadt, the naval base off Leningrad, but that’s it. The Germans will mine the whole Baltic now-if they haven’t already.”

“They claim they have,” Mr. Ali said. “In clear. On the radio.”

“Trying to scare the Russian submarines,” Poulsen said.

“What scares me,” Shtern said, “is years. In Russia.”

Cornelius came to the door and said, “Captain, sir? You are needed on the pier, sir.”

“Now, Cornelius?”

“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.