Michael Wenberg - The Last Eagle

“Someone will have hell to pay,” Reggie said, nodding. “What a mistake. I’d hate to be in his shoes when they find out.”

“Me too,” Stefan growled happily. He whispered into the speaker tube, and the Eagle resumed her course. The rest of the night unfolded as if they were all held captive in a dream. As the fog began to lighten, the course ahead opened up, the shorelines on either side curving away to the east and west, and the Eagle cruised out into the Kattegat. Stefan ordered the decks cleared, listened to the dive klaxon begin to pulse, took one last look around, and then slipped below.

“What did you say?” Ritter exclaimed.

He was in the dining room, finishing breakfast, listening to the clump of officers at the other end of the table relate the night’s activities.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I want you to repeat what you just said.”

“You mean, about the Swedish submarine?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Nothing to tell. We came upon some trawlers, inspected them per orders, and then noticed a Swedish submarine behind them. We check them out, too. Saw the Swedish flag, talked to their captain…”

“You talked to the captain?”

“Yeah. He yelled something at us in Swedish, waved all friendly, like. And that was that. Nothing more to tell.”

Ritter flung his plate across the dining room, scattering eggs and potatoes in every direction. “You fools,” he shrieked. “The one time I’m not looking over your shoulders and you let it go by. Why didn’t someone get me? Or the captain even?”

“It seemed routine,” retorted the young officer, his face suddenly white.

“There were no Swedish submarines out last night. That was the Eagle . We had her, and you let her go!”

Ritter raced out of the dining room, up the steps to the bridge. The captain was nowhere to be seen. “Helm, bring us about. Take us into the Kattegat. Flank speed.”

The man at the wheel looked confused. He didn’t move. “Sir, the captain?…”

“To hell with your captain. Do as I say now, or you’ll spend the rest of your career on a barge.”

The helmsman nodded, spinning the wheel counterclockwise. Ritter gestured at a nearby seaman standing at attention. “You, come here!” He hurriedly scribbled a message on a scrap piece of paper he pulled from his pocket. “Have this sent to Admiral Dönitz immediately. Schnell!”

The seaman wasn’t about to argue. He dashed off, barely stepping aside at the doorway in time as the captain stormed onto the bridge from the other direction. The front of his uniform was dark with coffee. The ship’s sudden turn had spilled most of a cup of coffee, along with a forkful of eggs, down his front.

“Ritter, what the hell is the meaning?…”

“The Eagle slipped by last night,” Ritter said sharply, cutting him off. “She’s probably hiding somewhere in the Kattegat by now. I’ve sent a message to Dönitz requesting spotter aircraft and additional vessels. If she surfaces, we still have a chance. In the meantime, we should wait for her off The Skaw. We won’t get another opportunity.”

The Eagle surfaced after dark, water streaming from her deck. The engines coughed awake, and she immediately surged ahead like a salmon heading for home. She had made nearly 40 kilometers submerged during the day, Stefan deciding to press ahead after Cooky announced they were out of food and would be out of water by nightfall.

Unlike the chokepoint of the passage at The Øresund, the Kattegat was nearly 80 kilometers wide and nearly twice that long. Even though the Kriegsmarine had fifty ships looking for the Eagle and dozens of airplanes patrolling the skies overhead, that still left plenty of places for the Eagle to hide, and deep water to run.

Stefan scanned the horizon and then the waters ahead of them, half listening as the gun crew and the lookouts scrambled into position.

He already knew that Kate was staying below. She wanted to finish her story before they met up with the British. Stefan took it as a good sign.

There was a steady breeze whistling out of the north, already roughing the water into 10-foot swells. Stefan didn’t need a weather report to tell him there would be no fog this night. But there was a black line along the horizon ahead. The wind was being pushed along by a storm front. He sniffed the air again. More help was on its way.

Hour after hour, the Eagle burrowed through swells of ever-increasing size. And with every passing moment, Stefan began to believe that they would make it after all. As the band of darkness seeped across the night sky, the stars were swept away and the wind continued to increase. By midnight, the sky was as dark as a sack full of black cats and the wind was now howling like an enraged witch, whipping spray off the top of the waves and driving it hard against the conning tower. Bundled into his oilskin slicker, Stefan glanced down a the foredeck, awash in water, felt the Eagle buck beneath his legs and almost shouted in glee. With this weather, Eagle was like a Polish needle in a haystack.

The Germans would never be able to find her.

By 5 a.m., Stefan estimated their position northeast of The Skaw. The storm had moderated, though the sea was white-capped and angry, and a steady wind continued to blow in his face. He decided it was time to begin the turn west into the North Sea. As he leaned into the speaker tube, one of the lookouts screamed. After hours of wind and waves, the sound of a human voice seemed unnatural.

He looked aft, and stared dumbfounded as the destroyer slid dimly into view, bobbing and dancing in the surf behind them.

She was already too close for the Eagle to dive, so Stefan yelled, “Full speed ahead,” realizing even as he said it that they were already going at maximum speed.

He watched the destroyer’s signal lamp began to flick off and on.

“She’s the Leberecht Maass ,” cried one of the lookouts who did double duty as the signal operator aboard the Eagle . “German. She’s ordering us to surrender or she’ll fire.”

Stefan watched the destroyer’s bow wave leap into the air it began to gain on them.

“Where the hell did they come from?” Squeaky said.

“Does it matter?” Stefan said evenly. Under the circumstances, he was strangely calm, part of him watching the events unfold like it was a scene unfolding on the sidewalk outside a café. They were nearly free, and now this one last challenge. It was almost if God was checking to make sure that they were still worthy. Or worse, he had changed his mind in the infernal chess match he seemed to play with happenstance and human life and was now curious to see how the crew would deal with dashed hope and despair.

“I guess not,” Squeaky said.

“Sir, what do you want me to tell them?” The signalman had been in the conning tower nearly as long as Stefan. He was as soaked as a wet poodle and shaking so violently from the chill he looked like a spastic.

Stefan struggled to think of some pithy response he could have the boy relay back. Even wide awake, and well-rested, he was never one for the quick comeback. And right at the moment, he was so tired that he feared that if he closed his eyes for just a moment, he would fall asleep right where he stood. Nothing came to mind. “Just send, ‘Long live Poland.’”

The boy began clicking the signal lamp, still shaking so hard Stefan wondered how many additional letters and words he was adding to the message.

“You think they’ll get the message?” Squeaky asked when he was done.

The destroyer’s forward deck gun was already swinging toward them. There was a flash of light, then a sharp crack, as the sound lagged behind. White water erupted skyward ahead of them, the wind tearing it apart as it fell back.