Joan Groves: The Last Island

But now, the very ancient scroll was his, and now it and the other were beyond worth, and he had arranged the ‘how’ of disposal. He knew the ‘why,’ and soon others—all others—would know the ‘why’ also. Yes, after eleven years the end was going to justify all his squalid, miserable, and wretched means.

Yes, it was time for a rest. He had a few moments now to catch up after eleven years of exhaustion.

“Herr Schliemann, you must hurry to your ship. The allies will be here soon. It seems a massive air attack is on the way,” a dutiful voice urged.

“Is the ship in complete readiness?”

“Nein!”

What is another night without sleep? Herr Schliemann thought to himself.

As he changed the calendar on the wall of the OSS office to Sunday, February 20, 1944, Larry spoke to Charles in businesslike fashion while walking away from the ‘in’ box by the code machine.

“Well, the second of those three giant U-Boats is destroyed,” Larry said.

“Operation Argument, Big Week, is starting and you are talking about a U-Boat.” Charles was confused

Larry continued, “Yeah, it just bothers me. Incomplete business—and all that stuff. I do not like incompleteness. We got one in January on a bombing raid and now this one has floundered in the Atlantic and gone down. The third was damaged—how bad we do not know, and where it is we do not know. It’s incomplete.”

Charles was silent. He was not interested in old news today.

Larry continued his own conversation, but he did not pick up on Charles’ indifference to his topic. “I guess we won’t know until after the war what these U-Boats were about, if then. Why? Why all the war effort to produce these ships is what I do not understand.”

Wanting to silence Larry, Charles began to speak. “Look, we know for a fact that two of the three are destroyed. The third was damaged and in all likelihood rests on the bottom, having gone down silently with all hands. Good guys three, bad guys zero—we win by a shutout. In six months everyone will know the ‘Nutzies’ secrets, and in a year no one will care.”

“You may be correct,” Larry said, “but I have a feeling that it is not a ‘three to nothing’ shutout. I think they have another ‘at bat’ in this game. And, if not in this game, then in the one after this one. I have a feeling they are going to force a squeeze at the plate. Incomplete—it is just incomplete.

“I didn’t think of it at the time because there was so much going on in preparation for the big week, but I wonder now, come to think of it, if that third U-boat was the U-boat that was seen off the coast of Ireland, a while back.” Larry kept trying to puzzle it out.

“May have been, but so what? Just some Nazi rats running for the last open rat-hole, hoping to escape,” Charles said.

“Yeah, maybe that is it, but I think there is something else. I wish I knew what it was.”

Larry shook his head in despair.

At the same time under the Atlantic, another conversation was taking place between the captain of the U-Boat and Herr Schliemann.

“I agree with you, Herr Schliemann, that this war is lost. Too many Russians and too much American steel doomed us.” The Captain’s voice was stoic, military fashion.

Herr Schliemann agreed, “That, of course, and also very bad management of the war itself by Herr Hitler, idiotic paper-pushers, and psychopathic weak-willed underlings is what doomed the war effort, captain.”

“Herr Schliemann!” The Captain was offended by the open criticism of the Reich.

“Dear Captain, we are under the Atlantic, and the Americans and Russians are going to make certain that you never see those people again. Once we get past the Atlantic narrows between Africa and Brazil, all will be better.”

The Captain was silent for a moment considering Schliemann’s words and choosing his own carefully. “Herr Schliemann, as I understand the orders, I am to enter the Pacific Ocean by going around the Cape of Good Hope. That is all that I know. If the war is lost—why?”

Herr Schliemann began, “There is no hope for Germany. The war will be over by the spring or summer at the latest, depending only on the will of the Americans and Russians—how many Germans they are willing to kill and how many Germans are willing to be killed. That is the situation in Europe.

“On the other hand, the war has some time to go in the Pacific, maybe a year or two, depending on how many Japanese are willing to die. Of course, it could end very soon if the Americans develop a war-ending super-weapon. We almost had one.

“Barring a sudden end to the war, this U-Boat will land on one of the islands that the Americans have by-passed. We have enough food and fuel to reach our destination and, once there, our noble Asian allies will provide me—excuse me, provide us—with the supplies that are needed.”

“I do not understand the purpose of it all, Herr Schliemann.”

“We will trade this ship for what we need.”

“Herr Schliemann, this is property of the Fatherland.”

“Herr Captain, the only Fatherland is what is on this ship, now.”

“But what if the allies capture it, Herr Schliemann?”

Schliemann put his argument before the captain. “What would it matter? They cannot use it to kill an already dead people. And, once they loot Berlin, they are going to find all our secrets.”

“I shall scuttle it,” the Captain said in a moment of pride.

“No, Herr Captain. This ship is useful only as a fool’s card. The Japanese will think that this ship is their super weapon that will deliver victory to the Emperor—it won’t, of course, and in exchange, I—excuse me again, we—can make new and better plans. Yes, Herr Captain.”

The Captain smiled. The very thought of another war in another year was joyful. He thought to himself, war when I was fifteen, war when I am thirty-five, and the third war in which Germany was destined to be victorious and he would only be fifty-five years of age . It was a most pleasing thought. He smiled.

Herr Schliemann also smiled. The captain had believed the lie. The thought of his personal victory made him feel like a little boy at Christmas. But now there was no Christmas, and he felt even happier. On the navigation chart, he saw the island. The island was at hand, It was at hand. What could go wrong with his perfect plan, now? He would rest now in his victory.

The calendar in the office of the OSS was packed up for transport to Washington, D.C., and the Pentagon Building, USA, as two messages came from the machines.

“Atomic bomb. Hiroshima. Success.” Charles read the message and passed it to Larry. They both nodded.

“I am going to pack up and go home,” Charles declared.

“London?” was Larry’s question.

“No, home,” Charles replied.

The second message was: “USS Vengeance. Encounters and attacks unidentified submarine. Sinks same.”

Charles, in his haste to pack up, put the first message on top of the second message, never having read the second message, and tossed them away. “War’s over, Larry,” he said.

“Yes. They’ll have to sign now. I just wish I knew what happened to that last U-Boat. Incomplete, just incomplete.”

Flying out of the South Pacific back to the States, I leaned my head on the back-rest unavoidably close to the woman in the seat beside me.

“Wishing you were back?” she asked.

It was just a whisper, but it hollered in my head.

“Back? Never left.”

She wanted to say something, but all that came out was one of those confused looks. And then, “I mean—was the vacation really that good that you are sorry to be going home?”