Michael Wenberg - The Last Eagle

Ever since they had taken delivery of the boat from its Dutch builders, it had been hampered by a series of problems. First the torpedo tubes, then the engines, then the ballast tanks, and now hydraulics. They had finally brought in Stefan. No one in the fleet was better with submarines, with any ship for the matter.

As for the Eagle’s captain, the pull of his family name had put him at the helm. In Poland, that was enough. And once Stefan had trained the crew, including the captain, solved her nagging mechanical problems, he would be in the way. There were rumors that a desk job was waiting for him. For a man like Stefan, that would be the equivalent of a death sentence, and perhaps that was part of the plan.

Pertek leaned his chair against the back wall, signaled for another beer. No sense letting Stefan’s mood and his certainty about the war to come ruin the entire evening. And besides, he had just received another letter from his brother in Chicago.

When the waitress cruised by with his beer, he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her onto his lap. “Let me tell you about my brother in Chicago, America,” he cooed.

At a nearby table, Peter von Ritter watched the Eagle’s second-in-command leave the pub. An unhappy man. That was clear enough. But no fool. That was also clear. They would need to be careful around him or find a way to get him out of the way. If that meant killing him, so be it.

He looked at his wristwatch. His men were late. He had been sipping from the same beer for an hour. In the crowded, smoke-filled pub, no one had noticed except for the waitress. He had waved her off twice. After that, she quit bothering him.

He raised his hand as two men in dark wool jackets and knit caps pushed through the door. About time. The sudden pulse of fresh air dropped the temperature and momentarily cleared the air. Conversations paused as the pair were quickly appraised and then recognized: the Dutch engineers working on the Eagle . They had been regular visitors to the pub since their arrival in town, weeks earlier. Nothing special about them. They kept to themselves. The noise returned to its normal, ear-throbbing level.

The two men spotted Ritter, crossed the room to join him. When beers arrived on the table a moment later, they made no move to drink them. Ritter, however, took a long draught, and then wiped the foam from his mouth. “I hate warm beer,” he said softly in German.

The two men looked at each other with puzzled expressions.

Ritter knew what they were thinking and couldn’t hold back a laugh. No, he wanted to tell them, this wasn’t a new code. They hadn’t been missed. There had been no mistake. He lightly touched the scar on his face with his index finger and then gave them the command words they had been waiting to hear: “We go with God.”

Broad smiles. They reached for their beers, raised them in a toast.

“To a swift victory,” Ritter said.

The three clinked mugs. Ritter took another long drink, he frowned and swallowed with difficultly. “Still don’t like warm beer,” he said, slamming down his mug, motioning for another. Across the room, the waitress caught his gesture, raised her eyebrows with surprise. Ritter nodded confirmation.

The American woman with the broken nose had been watching the newcomers with casual interest, noticing the instant change in their expressions as the man with the scar mouthed some words. She was too far away to hear anything. Even so, she felt a stir of excitement. The reporter in her recognized the hint of a story in the sudden set in their jaws, the narrowing of their eyes. Hunters. The word came unbidden to her mind.

She watched as the trio finished their beers, ordered again and then finished those. Twenty minutes later, the newcomers rose, brief nods enough of a goodbye to their leader. Yes, thought Kate, he was their leader. You could see it in the way the men had watched him, the posture of their bodies, the faint expressions that flickered across their faces. And now the man with the scar was alone once again. She noticed the faint smile on his face, realizing that he was now watching her. He tipped his beer mug in salute, drank deeply, and then rose to follow his companions out the door.

“And what is your story, you ugly, well dressed bastard?” Kate McLendon said to herself, as she watched him step through the doors and out into the night.

“What’s that?” the man at her left elbow asked, stubbing out his cigarette in the remnants of dinner.

“Oh nothing,” Kate said.

“Say again, dear? It is just so bloody noisy in here, someone could yell ‘fire’ and no one would pay the slightest bit of attention.”

“Doesn’t matter. Be a sport and walk me back to the hotel?” she yelled.

“You’ve never needed any help before.”

“No, I mean it, Reggie,” she said, grabbing his sleeve, surprised by a sudden shiver. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Me, I hope.”

“Not if you were the last…”

“All right, all right,” Reggie interrupted, helping Kate slip into her coat, and then pulling on his own.

As they left the pub, Kate couldn’t help wondering about the man with the scar. “Creepy,” she said softly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Kate shivered again. As they stepped out the door, she glanced at her watch. Already one o’clock.

That made it the first day of September, 1939.

“Halt, who goes there?”

“Adolf Fucking Hitler,” Stefan grumbled sourly, stepping out of the shadows and pausing in front of the boy guarding the end of the gangplank. The walk from the pub back to the quay where the Eagle was docked had taken fifteen minutes. His only entertainment along the way had been pausing to watch a pair of rats dig through the contents of an overturned garbage barrel. It wasn’t enough to keep his thoughts from taking their usual turn of late, wondering how he could stomach another day of reporting to his current captain without punching him in the face, berating himself for drinking too much (realizing, of course, that the two were most likely linked) and then drifting off to something more pleasant, trying to find the perfect name for the red–haired American woman with the broken nose. He had come up empty and doubted he would ever get the chance to ask her himself.

“Oh, it’s you, sir,” the seaman replied with relief.

Stefan gingerly pushed aside the barrel of the Mauser knock-off that was pointing at the middle of his chest. “Yes, it’s me. No boogeyman or German. You can relax. What’s your name?”

“Henryk Stachofski, sir.”

Stefan looked the young man—really no more than a boy—up and down. “You like submarines?”

A shrug. “It isn’t a chicken coop,” he said, adding the word, “sir,” after moment.

Stefan smiled. All it had taken was an honest comment from this boy to flip his mood to the better. “For me, it was a fishing boat. Not sure which stinks worse. I was about your age when I joined up. Something to be said for change, eh?”

The boy nodded.

Well, Stachofski. I’m going to do you a favor. You’re on watch until when?”

“Six.”

“Oh-six-hundred you mean.”

The young seaman sputtered. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Always have trouble with that.”

Stefan held up his hand. “Don’t spoil it or I may change my mind. Here’s the favor. Go crawl into your warm bunk with a teddy bear or one of your girlie magazines. I’ll finish your watch.”

Stachofski’s face reddened. “Thank you, sir. But I’ll need to check with the chief first, make sure it’s okay?”

Stefan repressed a smile. “And who does the chief report to?”

The boy thought for a moment. “Ahh, I see your point.”