An Honorable German (22 page)

Tossing his towel aside, he slid into bed beside Mareth and fell into a heavy sleep. The maid awakened them at noon. She smiled
at the two of them, apologized, began to slink out of the room. Max told her to come back in two hours.

Mareth grinned. “Why two hours?”

Max worked his hands down her flanks, bent to kiss her stomach, her hip, the inside of her thigh. Glancing up through her
blond fleece, he said, “Maybe you’d rather make it three?”

“If you can last that long, Herr Oberleutnant.”

“Endurance is the hallmark of a naval officer.”

Mareth laughed and put his head in a scissor lock between her soft thighs. “Then we shall have to test this officer.”

The maid never did get to clean the room that day.

Toward evening Max dressed in his new uniform, creases pressed to a sharp edge by the hall porter. He had been forced to go
to a French military tailor and pay for the uniform with his own money, and it hadn’t been cheap. Fortunately, he was able
to pay with occupation francs, a currency the Germans printed and forced the French to accept.

A Kriegsmarine staff car called for Max at 1900 hours. The streets of Paris were quiet. The only vehicles Max saw also belonged
to the Wehrmacht. Sidewalk cafés were open and filled with German soldiers having drinks, the lucky ones with French girlfriends.
Others, weary of drinking or out of money, queued at the Deutsches Soldatenkino, special movie theaters set up for the German
military and off-limits to civilians. In some of these theaters, Max had heard, bicyclists from the Tour de France earned
extra ration coupons by pedaling stationary bikes to charge the batteries that powered the projectors.

He saw Parisian gendarmes patrolling the city as they normally did, although they were supported by heavily armed contingents
of German military police, distinctive with their gorgets hung round their necks, the word
Feldgendarmerie
picked out in luminescent paint.

At every major intersection, wooden supports had been erected to hold the numerous small signs that gave directions to the
various German military installations in the city. When the Feldgendarmerie stopped them to allow a small convoy of horse-drawn
army wagons to pass, Max saw a mishmash of wooden arrows pointing to, among others, General der Luftwaffe Paris, the Reichsbahn,
the Organisation Todt, and the Army Remount Service, which worked to find the several million horses needed each year by the
Wehrmacht to pull wagons and guns. They went through the intersection and drove down the Place de l’Opéra, past the Kommandantur,
headquarters of the military governor, where armed troops stood a watchful guard.

Max smoked quietly in the backseat. He had never met General Admiral Saalwächter, although his book on naval warfare was required
reading for every cadet at the Marineschule Mürwik. The dinner invitation had come as a surprise, and though it was an honor,
Max felt nervous, almost lightheaded. He didn’t know why the Oberfelshaber der Marinegruppenkommando West would personally
wish to see a mere Oberleutnant, no matter what kind of tribulations Max had survived. “Will we be on time?” he asked the
driver.

“Time? Seven and fifteen,” the driver said in heavily accented German.

“No, are we going to be on time? We have to be there by seven-thirty.” Max said the last two words loud and slow—“se-ven-thir-ty”—as
if he were speaking to someone completely daft.

“Ja, ja, mein Herr. Not be late.”

What was his accent? Russian? How could that be? They were at war with Russia. “Are you Russian?”

The driver smiled in the rearview mirror, showing off a mouthful of steel teeth. “All drivers for Herr Admiral, Russia,” he
said. “White Russias, hate Communists. Kill Communists.” His teeth flashed in the mirror as he drew a finger slowly across
his throat.

Max nodded and leaned back. It was a long way from the Bolshevik Revolution to driving a Kriegsmarine staff car in Paris twenty-five
years later. At least he still had all his teeth.

Saalwächter’s office and the headquarters of Marinegruppenkommando West occupied the French Ministry of Marine on the Place
de la Concorde, commandeered by the navy from the French government. But the admiral had invited Max to his official residence
nearby and the car arrived at 1925.

“Time, mein Herr.”

“Danke,” Max said. He tipped the driver—probably against regulations, but who cared?

He took the salute of the two German sailors in the striped sentry boxes, went up the stairs, and rang the bell. An orderly
admitted him. “Oberleutnant zur See Maximilian Brekendorf reporting as ordered to Herr General Admiral Saalwächter.”

The orderly led Max to a small dining room. “Herr Admiral Saalwächter will be with you shortly, Herr Oberleutnant.”

The table was set for only two. Max hoped he remembered what all the forks and spoons were for. Part of the entrance exam
to the Marineschule Mürwik had included a formal dinner for the candidates with naval officers and their wives, this last
intended to restrict admittance to proper gentlemen. Fortunately for Max, the headwaiter from one of the large hotels in Kiel
had retired to Bad Wilhelm. For the price of one rabbit per week, he gave Max lessons in table manners: which fork to use
for fish, which for salad; which glass for white wine and which for red; when to drink brandy and when to drink schnapps;
how to eat shellfish; how to serve a cake or pie; how to carve a goose. And that was just the beginning. There were also long
hours of instruction in social deportment: when to wear gloves and when to remove them; how and when to bow; to offer your
hand; present your calling card; reply to invitations; thank the hostess; talk with your dinner partner; sit while wearing
your sword. Later, when he had become a cadet at the Marineschule Mürwik, there were mandatory ballroom dancing lessons for
all the Seekadetten—not that he or any of his crewkameraden had been called upon to waltz in the last few years.

Max waited only a few minutes before the admiral came in. Saalwächter was tall and lean, with gray hair receding from the
temples. His perfectly tailored blue uniform with his many decorations sparkled in the soft light of the dining room. Max
immediately came to attention. “Oberleutnant zur See Brekendorf, reporting as ordered, sir.”

Saalwächter looked him over and smiled. “At ease, Oberleutnant.” He shook Max’s hand. “It is an honor to meet such a brave
young man.”

Max could feel the blood flushing his cheeks. “Thank you, Herr Admiral.”

“You have had many adventures since leaving Germany.”

“A great many, sir.”

“I hope you will join me in an apéritif?”

“It would be my sincere pleasure, sir.”

A white-jacketed steward entered with two glasses of champagne.

Saalwächter raised his glass. “A toast to the young lieutenant, and to his survival.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

They drank.

“Come, my young friend, be seated, be seated.”

The steward reappeared with a cheese soufflé, followed by baby lobster in champagne sauce, then steak with sauce béarnaise,
white wine, red wine, a dessert wine. Strawberries with heavy cream. Espresso. Max felt himself becoming groggy as he made
his way from course to course, but each dish was better than the one before; he wondered at the admiral’s trim physique. Saalwächter
kept the conversation light throughout the meal, asking after Max’s home and family, getting all the details about Mareth
once the romance had been uncovered. Afterward he showed Max to a study at the rear of the house furnished with overstuffed
chairs, a phonograph player, and shelves of leather-bound books.

“Cognac? Cigar?”

Max took both from the steward, who then withdrew.

Saalwächter put a record on the phonograph—an aria from
La Bohème
, he explained. “Opera is the West’s highest art form, Oberleutnant. Have you been?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah, you must go, young man, you must go. I keep a box but have so little time to use it. If you ever want to attend, just
call my adjutant and he will make the arrangements.”

Max couldn’t imagine anything worse. “The admiral is very kind.”

Saalwächter sat and lit his cigar. His mouth drew down at the edges and his manner seemed to change. He said, “When did you
leave the Marineschule Mürwik, Oberleutnant?”

“Thirty-seven, sir. I am a member of Crew 33.”

Saalwächter shook his head. “So few thoroughly trained men are available now. We’ve cut training time by half, two-thirds
in some cases. Prewar officers like you with combat experience are a

tremendous asset to the service.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Max’s cigar had gone out and the admiral offered him another light from the heavy ornamental lighter on the end table. “Were
the circumstances of Captain Langsdorff’s suicide the same as those reported to the Naval War Staff?”

“I presume so, Herr Admiral. I did not make the report myself, as you must know.”

Saalwächter looked away and puffed his cigar. It was a good smoke; Langsdorff would have approved. Quality cigars were becoming
rare on the continent because none from the Americas made it through the British blockade, unless they came from Spain via
the black market. “Tell me about it, Oberleutnant, if you would. You are the first officer of
Graf Spee
I have had the opportunity to speak with in person.”

Max shifted to the edge of his chair. Speaking quietly, he related the events in Montevideo harbor, and the scuttling of
Spee
in the Rio Plata. “We went upriver to Buenos Aires afterwards so we would be interned by the Argentines. Captain Langsdorff
regarded it as his duty to see the crew through to safety, and to negotiate the terms of our internment himself. Otherwise,
I’m certain he would have gone down with the ship.”

Max paused to sip his cognac. The confusion and disappointment of those days still registered in his gut. “They bunked us
in the old Naval Arsenal in Buenos Aires when we arrived. I went to my quarters early the next evening because I was tired.
The captain’s steward woke me around zero six hundred and asked me to come to the captain’s room. I thought he was sick, but
when we got there, I saw that he’d killed himself.”

Saalwächter was gazing intently over the rim of his glass. “And was there anything unusual?”

Max nodded. “Captain Langsdorff had wrapped himself in the ensign of the Imperial Navy before shooting himself.” Max knew
this had been omitted from the official report; it was a gesture of which the Nazis would not have approved. Certainly Langsdorff
intended it as a slight toward Hitler and the party. The captain was not alone in feeling that the interests and advice of
the navy were being disregarded by the party leadership. Langsdorff had also been photographed at the funeral of the German
sailors killed during the battle, giving the naval salute, hand to forehead, while all the German embassy officials and German
civilians around him gave the Deutsche Gruss, the Nazi salute. The photograph had been on the front page of every major newspaper
in the world. Berlin was not pleased.

The admiral stood and poured himself another cognac. “Whoever wrote the report was wise to leave that out. Did others know?”

“Only a few of us, Herr Admiral. We unwrapped the body—that is, the doctor and myself—before notifying the Argentine navy
of the incident.”

“You have much presence of mind, Brekendorf. A valuable trait in a naval officer. Of course we will keep this conversation
to ourselves. There is Captain Langsdorff’s family to consider. I’m sure you understand.”

“More and more, sir.”

“We in the navy must be careful, too, Oberleutnant. Old Academy men like you and me do not wield all the power, I’m afraid.
Langsdorff wished to express his disapproval of this situation, but his family are not the only ones for whom it might make
trouble if word got out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Saalwächter went to the phonograph. He turned the record over and replaced the needle. “You agreed with his decision about
the ship?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

“No?”

“No, sir. We had a chance to break out. We should have taken it.”

“Fought to the death for Volk and Vaterland?”

“Something like that, Herr Admiral.”

Saalwächter gave him a long gaze. Finally he said, “I like your spirit, young man. We will need more officers like you if
we are to win this war. Where will you go next, Maximilian? We have lost
Bismarck
, but
Prinz Eugen
fought beside her with great courage at Denmark Strait when they sank
Hood
. Or perhaps
Gneisenau
? Any ship in the fleet would be grateful to have you.”

Max paused a moment. He must choose his words carefully. Saalwächter commanded a large percentage of the German navy’s surface
units, plus the hundreds of minesweepers, patrol boats, and fast attack boats deployed off the French coast. Max did not want
to offend him, but he had decided that Germany’s surface forces were so small, they could do little more than annoy the British.
“With all due respect, Herr Admiral, I would like to volunteer for the U-boat force. I feel that I can best serve my country
in that capacity—and best strike at England, sir.”

“The English are a damnable people.”

“Yes, sir. They caused us to sink our own ship in the Rio Plata, then sank
Meteor
out from under me, killed my friends; they…”

The admiral held up his hand. “I understand, Maximilian. Dönitz will be happy to have you, of that I am sure, and you will
have my blessing. I shall ring him tomorrow and personally recommend you. With your training and experience, I shouldn’t wonder
if they give you a boat of your own. We’re turning out thirty to forty every month now and experienced seagoing officers are
in desperately short supply. It’s tough training. Three or four months to work the boat up at the construction yard, then
six or seven more in the Baltic to train. You’ll be there in winter.”

“I survived the Marineschule Mürwik, sir.”