Michael Wenberg - The Last Eagle

Reggie sighed. “She means, we follow you. To England or hell. Am I right?” There were nods from all of Eagle’s officers. “Looks to me like it’s settled then. Here we come, England….”

As the meeting broke up, and everyone returned to his duty, Kate stopped Stefan with a hand on his arm. “One moment, if you’ve got it.”

“Sure.”

“I think I’ve figured out how I want to do this piece.”

“Piece?”

“My story, I mean.”

“I see. Yes, go ahead.”

“Mind if I sit?”

Stefan shook his head, so he and Kate traded places. He thought she looked tired. Her hair was pulled back and gathered behind her neck. Her make up had worn off hours earlier. She still wore men’s pants beneath her skirt.

“I want your permission to interview everyone on board. From you, all the way down to the youngest sailor. I want to get everyone’s story. And Reggie, he’ll take everyone’s picture to go along with it.”

“Like an obituary,” Stefan said, flashing a crooked smile beneath his beard.

She didn’t think it was funny. “No, no, don’t even think that,” she protested wearily. “It’s just, I’ve decided I don’t want to tell what happens. I want you and the rest of your boys to tell the story, and that means talking to each and everyone of you. You don’t know how extraordinary this is. I bet you’re the last Polish naval vessel still fighting. The last Eagle . Do you realize that? And getting out of Estonia, not to mention Gdynia, why, that was next to incredible. If I didn’t see it happen, I wouldn’t have believed it. And now you want to head off to England with the entire German Navy on your tail. It is just so… so…” Words failed her. She took a deep breath, and then said, “I… I want to do it right… that’s all.” He voice faltered.

Stefan considered her proposal. Of course, he couldn’t care less about their story. Maybe later, if they survived, would the different perspective give him another opinion. But Kate and Reggie were the two people on board without duties. And writing the story, interviewing the crew, did give them something to do.

“All right,” he said. “Not an obituary, then. A history of the first crew of the Eagle and her exploits in the Baltic. How is that?”

“That’s it.”

“I only ask one thing.”

Yes?”

“Don’t forget to write about Chief K and Jerzy. And don’t forget Sieinski, either. That sonofabitch was a captain at the end, you know. Can you do that?”

Kate didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She nodded, and then turned away. For the first time since the war began, she was weeping.

Ritter finished his third cup of coffee, fought back a yawn that threatened to rip open the stitches that held the gash on his cheek together.

It had been two long days. First the flight from Tallinn to Berlin, his brief report to Dönitz with the admiral, ever the one for details, paying particular attention to where the plan had fallen apart. He made Ritter repeat the account of Sieinski running the yacht up the freighter’s ass, peppering him with questions the second time. Ritter explained that the pathetic excuse for a man had been completely broken. Seen it with his own eyes as he left him sprawled across the back seat of the wrecked Mercedes.

And yet, he had been wrong. Beneath the masks of privilege and avarice, there had remained a faint image of a man. And when he had nothing to live for, he had discarded the masks, and chosen a path of honor.

“It is what separates a few from the beasts,” Dönitz commented. “At times, we do the unexpected, what is contrary to our nature. If not for this captain, the freighter would have blocked the escape, and we would have kept our prize. You should have taken his possible actions into consideration, don’t you think?”

Ritter had just nodded in response, holding himself as close to attention as one could get while sitting as Dönitz stared at his underling for what felt like hours, though it was probably only seconds. As sweat began to trickle down Ritter’s spine, Dönitz saw something that must have satisfied him. He flicked his hand dismissively. “Learn from it, Peter.” That’s was it. No punishment. At least, not yet. Meeting over.

“Aye, aye, sir.” Ritter couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice. As he left the admiral’s office, it had taken every ounce of strength not to bolt for the door.

And then another flight to Pilawa, where he met up with the Kriegsmarine destroyer Leberecht Maass . Her captain had been less than pleased when Ritter handed him his new orders, essentially placing the destroyer under Ritter’s command. They were to patrol just beyond The Øresund the chokepoint between Sweden and Denmark, that last obstacle in the Eagle’s path before she entered the Kattegat. From there, it would be aesy for her to make the North Sea. Of course, all of this assumed she would make it as far as The Øresund. And there were a score of German ships and plans combing the Baltic, intent on making sure that didn’t happen.

As they bucked through heavy seas toward their destination, a flotilla of German ships were already laying additional minefields, to join the maze of shoals and shallows and islands and peninsulas that the Eagle would need to navigate before she could escape into the North Sea. Every Kriegsmarine fighting vessel in the Baltic had been alerted to the Eagle’s presence and given strict orders to destroy her on sight. She wouldn’t be allowed to disrupt German sea traffic. There was even a hint at rewards and decorations for the captain and crew of the vessel that managed to bag the Polish submarine. German pride was at stake.

Dönitz had swallowed his own pride and accepted Göring ’s offer to help discover the Eagle’s position. Of course, Dönitz knew the Nazi air marshal would not be content to leave it at that. The Eagle’s escape gave Göring another opportunity at oneupmanship over Dönitz in their ongoing duel. Dönitz didn’t care about that. He couldn’t allow the Eagle to escape. The humiliation of that on the eve of the Reich’s stunning victory over Poland would be too much to bear.

The side bets Ritter overheard being made among Dönitz’s staff gave the Poles little hope. A few expected them to bumble into a mine field, or run aground. Others figured they would scoot like scared chickens to a neutral port, joining other Polish fighting vessels and at last count, two submarines on the Swedish sidelines where they would spend the rest of the war. After all, they were Poles, weren’t they? And should they have second thoughts, the Swedes, unlike the Estonians, wouldn’t jeopardize their own neutrality by letting them escape.

Ritter, however, thought most of his fellow officers naïve. He knew these Poles. Grudgingly respected them, even. Of course, they were like any other: a few brave, and a few fools, and the rest just flesh and blood human beings. And the admiral’s staff conveniently chose to ignore numerous accounts of Polish bravery that had managed to sneak their way into the tightly controlled German newspapers. The recent charge of a horse cavalry against German tanks—touted as a sign of Polish futility—was one of the most noteworthy.

Ritter couldn’t help it. He made his contribution to the office pot. Of course, he had an advantage. He’d seen the Eagle’s crew in action. They were young, yes. And naïve. But they were not the bumbling fools everyone seemed to think. But what made them dangerous even was their commander, Stefan Petrofski. He would not give up, not this one. He had two torpedoes with which to fight.