Michael Wenberg - The Last Eagle

“Too fucking close,” said Bergen. “What did he find?”

Ritter opened his hand. “My watch,” he said with a shake of his head. “‘Too my dear Peter,’ it reads on the back. In German. From my wife.”

Even though Ritter was his superior officer, the stocky German named Bergen couldn’t restrain a shake of his head.

“Yes, my fault,” Ritter apologized. “No excuse of it. I should have kept it on my wrist. What does that make, one beer I owe you both?”

Bergen flashed a smile. Ritter rarely made mistakes, and when he did, he quickly acknowledged them. It was one of the reasons Kolb and Bergen were willing to follow Ritter to hell if need be. It wasn’t just loyalty. It was the fierce, brotherly love felt by comrades in arms who respect each other’s abilities. “A pitcher….,” Kolb said, “And a beautiful, blonde to sit on my lap to run her hands through my hair and keep my stein filled.”

“What hair?”

Kolb reached up and rubbed his grease-stained bald head. He stifled a laugh.

“He may be missed.” Bergen decided it was time to point out the obvious.

Ritter shrugged. “I will say he was sick. You saw how he was treated by the chief and the rest of the crew. The poor fellow was friend to no one.” The German glanced at his watch. “We will be in port in ten hours. He won’t be missed before then. After that, it won’t matter.”

Kolbwas putting away some of the tools Jerzy had left scattered near one of the diesel engines when the expected announcement came over the speaker. “All hands to stations. Prepare to surface.”

The passageway began to fill with young men in various stages of undress, hair askew, yawning.

Chief K appeared, stumbling down the passageway, scratching the gray stubble on his cheeks. He stepped through the compartment opening, and into the motor room. He grunted a greeting in the direction of the three Germans. “Next stop, Tallinn,” he said with a wide grin, grabbing the pipes overhead as the floor began to tilt and the Eagle began her climb back to the surface. “And maybe we get lucky and stay a few days.”

Ritter glanced at his colleagues, returned the smile. “Be careful what you hope for, Chief,” he said with a wink, “Two days might be long enough to get yourself back into trouble again. If we hadn’t left Gdynia when we did, who knows what might have happened to you at the hands of that crone who was warming your dick….”

Chief K’s eyes crinkled. “Oh, you tease me now,” he roared a protest. “A man has his pleasures. No harm in sampling some of the local pastries. How about you join me this time?”

“Another time, perhaps,” Ritter said, chuckling.

“Say, where’s the boy?” Chief K turned a slow 360, dug at his cheek with his fingernail.

“They all look like boys to me,” Ritter said, ignoring the glances from his men. “Which one do you mean?”

“That farm boy, Jerzy, where’s he gone off to?”

“Oh, the one with pimples. Heard him complaining about nausea. Made a mess all over the floor. I saw him head forward.”

“Looked like shit,” commented Bott, nodding.

“And I saw him fuck’n with the diesels,” Bergen added. “I warned him to check with you. But he said he knew what he was doing.”

Chief K’s face paled. “Oh shit,” he said, shifting his pipe to the other side of his mouth, the loose folds on his face tightening. “Show me where he was fiddling.”

Stefan lowered the binoculars, tried to blink his eyes back into focus. He’d forgotten the last time he had had any real sleep. Three days ago? Years earlier, when he was fishing with Westling, it was not uncommon to go three, four, sometimes five days with only a snatch of sleep. But Stefan was no longer a young man, and he could tell he was approaching his limits. Push too much longer, and he would begin to make serious mistakes. Not good, especially given the condition of the captain.

The captain.

That was a problem above all others. One that could no longer be ignored. Stefan fingered the object in the pocket of his coat. He still wasn’t sure what to do about it, though it did answer many questions. Józef Sieinski, captain of Eagle , graduate of the best schools in Poland, France and England; handsome; rich, and intelligent, was addicted to opiates.

Stefan had grabbed the coat from the stack of clothes on his bunk. It would be warm. That was all that mattered. His closet-sized quarters had been vacant, Kate off interviewing crew no doubt. He shrugged into the coat as he headed for the control room, annoyed at its tightness across his well-muscled shoulders, but too preoccupied with surfacing to worry much about it. He had been first up the aluminum ladder, popping the hatch and then ducking his head like a turtle in a shell as he was inundated with seawater. He was moving even before the deluge was over, scrambling up onto the bridge deck still streaming with water, and peering over the edge of the conning tower as the prow of the Eagle creamed the surface, and then scanning the horizon even though the hydrophone operator had not detected any nearby vessels. He was immediately followed by two lookouts, Squeaky, and then the gun crews. It had all taken just seconds. A good crew, Stefan thought with satisfaction.

There was a brief pause as they switched from electric to diesel power. The engines cleared their throats, spraying seawater from the exhausts like spray from a whale’s blowhole, and then roared to life. Stefan ordered flank speed, specified the course, and then began to relax as the Eagle’s bow knifed through the choppy seas toward Tallinn.

Squeaky had been the one to notice it. “Nice coat,” he had remarked. “But might piss off the captain if he saw you wearing it.”

Stefan glanced down at the sleeves, realizing now they ended inches from his wrists. He’d grabbed the wrong coat. Simple as that. Easy enough to know how the mix-up had happened. One of the crew had taken the captain’s coat and left it in Stefan’s compartment along with a stack of his clothes, mistakenly assuming it was his. Stefan pulled up the collar. It was a nice coat. The captain had been right. More importantly, it was warm. And Stefan wasn’t about to send someone off to find a replacement right at that moment. This would do for now. Besides, the captain wouldn’t need it. He had left strict orders to not be bothered until they reach Tallinn. “Yes, it is a nice coat,” Stefan had agreed, in no mood to talk.

Squeaky knew when to leave well enough alone.

Only later, when Stefan thrust his hands into the pockets and discovered what they contained, did he realize how wrong he was about the captain. He pulled out the ornate snuff box and pried open the cover. Instead of snuff it contained a white powder. He already knew enough, but he dabbed the powder with his pinky finger and then tasted it just to be sure. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered under his breath.. Of course it made sense. The smell of opium in Sieinski’s suite. The sweats and shakes since leaving port. Obvious, now that it was more than the aftereffects of cracked skull or the flu to blame for all that.

“What the hell?” Squeaky hissed.

“Quiet,” Stefan whispered, thrusting the container back into the pocket.

“Was that?…”

Stefan whirled on Squeaky. “Tell no one about this,” he whispered into his ear. “No one, understand?”

Squeaky nodded. He was silent for minutes afterward. And then, out of the darkness, Stefan heard him whisper. “But Stef, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Stefan replied after a long pause.

That was the question that tormented him throughout the remainder of the night. What was he going to do about it? When it was time for the new watch, Stefan had remained, barely noticing when Squeaky threw the slicker around his shoulders and patted him on the back before departing below decks.