Dark Voyage (11 page)

Instead, the Sea Otter circled above the
Noordendam
and, clumsy as it was, tilted itself left and right, which at least suggested, to the waving crew below, a jubilant waggle of the wings. As it left, flying due north, DeHaan understood that it could only have come from a destroyer, watching them on radar from over the horizon, and receiving their radio signal. A poor man’s aircraft carrier—lowering its seaplane to the water for takeoff, then hauling it back up after a landing at sea. DeHaan ran his binoculars across the northern horizon. Empty, nothing to be seen. Still, they were out there somewhere, the Royal Navy, themselves in dangerous waters, keeping watch on their boxes and wires.

She woke, slightly damp, and sent him to open the window. A warm night, the sea dead calm, some cloud, some stars, and the silence of a darkened city in time of war.

“What time is it?” she said.

He went to look at his watch on top of the bureau, said “Ten after three,” and returned to the window, conscious of her eyes following him as he walked across the room.

“How lovely, I was afraid I’d slept too long.” She leaned over and turned off the lamp, got out of bed and came up behind him, skin lightly touching his, and reached around his waist.

“In front of the window?”

“Why not? Nobody can see me.”

Everywhere, her touch was light as air, and he closed his eyes. “I don’t think you mind being teased,” she whispered. “No, I don’t think you do. Of course, if you do, you must tell me. Or, even, if you don’t mind, you may tell me that. May say, ‘Demetria, I like you to do this to me,’ or maybe there are other things, you need only say them, I am a very understanding sort of person.”

Later, back in bed, he asked, “What did it mean—the Greek word you said?”

“Yassou?”

“Yes.”

“Means ‘hello.’”

“Oh.”

They were quiet for a time, then she said, “Are you married, Eric?”

“I’m not,” he said. “I almost was, when I was twenty, just out of the naval college. I was engaged, to a nice girl, very pretty. We were in love, most of the way, anyhow, enough, and she was willing to be the wife of a sailor—never at home, but . . .          I didn’t.”

He’d grown up amid the families of merchant officers, the wives eternally alone, raising children, knitting miles of sweaters. He was often in their homes—perfectly kept, the air thick with the smells of wax and cooking, and thick also with sacrifice, absence, clocks ticking in every room. And, in the end, though he couldn’t say what else he wanted, he knew it wasn’t that.

“And your family?”

“In Holland, my mother and sister. I can only hope they are surviving the occupation. I can’t contact them.”

“Can’t?”

“Mustn’t. The Germans read everything, and they don’t like families with relatives in the free forces. Better, especially for someone like me, not to remind them you exist. They are vengeful, you know, will bring people in for questioning, lower their rations, force them to move.”

“Still, at least they are in Holland. The Dutch are decent people, I think, with sensible politics.”

“Most, but not all. We have our Nazis.”

“Everyone has
some, chri,
like cockroaches, you see them only at night. And, if they come out in daylight, then you know you have to do something about it.”

“More than some. There is a Dutch Nazi party. Its symbol is a wolf trap.”

She thought about it, then said, “How utterly horrible.”

He nodded.

“And you? Perhaps a bit to the left?”

“Not much of anything, I’m afraid.” This was no time to talk about the unions, the Comintern, the brutality—the knives and iron pipes—of politics on the docks. “I believe in kindness,” he said. “Compassion. We don’t have a party.”

“You’re a Christian?” she said. “You seem to, ah, like the bed a little too much for that.”

“Small
c
perhaps. Actually, as master of a ship, I have to give a sermon on Sunday morning. Pure agony, for me, telling people what to do. Be good, you evil bastards, or you’ll fry in hell.”

“You actually say such things?”

“I’d rather not, but it’s in the book we use. So, I mumble.”

“You have a good heart,” she said, “God help you.” She put a hand on his face, turned it toward her and kissed him, a warm kiss for being who he was, and for what would become of him.

He wondered, later on, about this conversation. Was it just conversation, or something more? Interrogation? Of a sort? Bare-assed, perhaps, but, even so, revealing. His life, his politics, who he was. That did hurt him, that idea, since for a time, while she was asleep, his heart ached because dawn would turn them into pumpkins. Why could not this be his usual life? People did live such lives, why was his fate different? Because it was, period. And not so bad; there was, at least, the occasional
amour,
the chance encounter. But was it chance?
Stop,
he told himself,
you think too much
. Lovers ask questions, nothing new there. But meeting her was, well, fortuitous, and he had come to understand, after only a few weeks and the barest touch of experience, that a clandestine world was corrosive in just that way. It made you wonder.

And it was certainly true that, only an hour after he docked at the port of Alexandria, they were after him. First a staff intelligence officer, a captain, sweating in a little office. Thanking him for what he’d done, then asking him to write out a description of what had happened, a report. This was conventional, the captain said, and, if he didn’t mind, he could do the bloody thing right now and they’d chat about it and that would be that.

But that wasn’t that. Because just as they finished, there appeared a sort of Victorian apparition, a phantom materialized from the halcyon days of the British Empire. Heavy and red-faced, with china-blue eyes and an enormous, white, handlebar mustache, and even a hyphenated name—Something-Somethington—followed by “Call me Dickie, everybody does!”

Dickie had heard all about the
Noordendam
mission—“But must say
Santa Rosa,
eh?”—and wanted to shake DeHaan’s hand, which, heartily, he did. Then insisted on drinks, and more drinks, at a rather sinister bar buried in the backstreets behind the waterfront, then “a damned nuisance of a tea,” at the khedivial yacht club, founded, he told DeHaan, when the Turkish viceroys ruled the city. The tea was offered by the British overseas arts council, or something like that—so very many drinks—where he was introduced to Demetria. Who stood close to him, with lavish glances, and put a hand on his arm while they talked and, eventually, mentioned supper. So it was off to a restaurant, where nobody ate much, and then, soon enough, the dear old Cecil, DeHaan feeling, somewhere in his astrology, the pull of exceptional stars. Or, put another way, too good to be true.

But so good he didn’t care if it was true. And, he reasoned, she could have done what she needed to do in the little Greek restaurant—table chat would’ve sufficed, it didn’t really need to be pillow chat.

Did it?

The daylight
Noordendam,
when night finally had to end in Room 38, was not easy on DeHaan. To technicolor memories and a head throbbing with Dickie’s drinks, the freighter added its scent of burnt oil and boiled steam, fresh paint cooking in the sun, fierce clanging and shouting, gray ducts and bulkheads, and the whole thing, topped off by a plate of canned herring in cold tomato mush, pretty well did him in. “I’m going to my cabin,” he told Ratter. “If the ship sinks, don’t call me.”

Ratter didn’t, but Mr. Ali did. With a discreet but persistent tapping at DeHaan’s door.
Go to hell,
DeHaan thought, rolling off his bunk.
And whatever it is, take it with you.

“Forgive me, please,” Mr. Ali said. “But a most urgent message for you, Captain. Most urgent.”

He handed DeHaan a W/T message in plain text, which required his presence at a certain room in Building D-9, “this
A.M.
, at 0900 hours.” DeHaan swore, dressed, and set off down the gangway to find Building D-9. Everywhere in the harbor was the British Mediterranean fleet, countless ships of every sort, all of them, that morning, doing work that needed jackhammers. The sun blazed down, DeHaan wandered among a forest of low buildings and quonset huts, where nobody seemed to have heard of D-9 until a Royal Marine guarding a barracks said, “Are you looking for the registry people?”

“D-9, is all I know.”

“They’re in Scovill Hall, some of them anyhow, temporarily. It’s the Old Stables building.”

“Stables? For horses?”

“Well, fifty years ago, maybe.”

“Where is it?”

“Quite a way, sir. Down this road a quarter mile, then turn left at the machine shop. Then, ah, then you’d best ask. For Scovill Hall, sir, or the Old Stables.”

“Thank you,” DeHaan said.

“Good luck, sir.”

It took a half hour, by which time his head ached miserably and his shirt was soaked through, to find Scovill Hall, and several false trails before he reached the right room where, in the outer office, three WRENs were talking on telephones. One of them put a hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Sorry, rotten morning, you’ll have to wait.” He sat next to an officer from the Royal Greek Navy, based in Alexandria, along with the government in exile, since the fall of Greece at the end of April. “Very hot, today,” DeHaan said to the officer.

Who raised his hands helplessly, smiled, and said, “No speak.”

They waited together while the phones rang relentlessly—came back to life almost immediately after the receiver was put back in the cradle. A messenger hurried in, then another, cursing under his breath. “Be nice, Harry,” one of the WRENs said.

For forty minutes, it never slowed.

“Sorry, he can’t come to the phone.”

“He’ll call you back, sir.”

“Yes, we’ve heard.”

“No, their number is six forty, we’re six fifty . . . No, it’s another building, sir . . . Sorry, sir, I can’t. I’m sure they’ll answer when they can.”

“Captain DeHaan?”

“What? Oh, yes, that’s me.”

“He’ll see you now, Captain, that door to the left . . . No, that’s the loo. There you are, Captain, that’s him, just go right in.”

Behind a gray metal desk, a naval lieutenant: university face and white tropical uniform—open collar, knee-length shorts, and high socks. Not yet thirty, DeHaan thought. The lieutenant, trying to finish up a phone call, pointed to a chair without missing a beat. “We really don’t know much over here, it’s coming in a little at a time. Total confusion, since yesterday. . . .          I certainly will. . . .          Yes, absolutely. Must ring off, Edwin, try me after lunch, will you? Count on it, goodby.”

When he hung up, the phone rang again but he just shook his head and looked at DeHaan. “Not going well,” he said.

“No?”

“Surely you’ve heard. They’re on Crete, since yesterday, an air assault. Thousands and thousands of them, by parachute and glider. We got a lot of them before they hit the ground but still, they’re holding. Extraordinary, you know, never been done before. Anyhow, you are?”

“Captain DeHaan, of the Dutch freighter
Noordendam
.”

“Oh? Well, congratulations then.”

He went to an open safe, and began to page through a sheaf of papers. Didn’t find what he was looking for, and tried again. “Right,” he said, relieved, “here you are.” He had DeHaan sign his name in a book, with the date and time, then handed him a single sheet of yellow teleprinter paper.

MOST SECRET

For
The
Personal
Use
Of
The
Addressee
Only

NID JJP/JJPL/0447

OAMT/95-0447                                                                        R 01 296 3B - 1600/18/5/41

From: Deputy Director/OAMT

To: E. M. DeHaan

Master/NV Noordendam

Most immediate

Subj: Hyperion-Lijn NV Noordendam

Amendment to status: All cargos, routes and ports of call to be directed henceforth, as of the date above, by this office

0047/1400/21/5/41+++DD/OAMT

“All clear?” the lieutenant said. The phone rang, then stopped.

“The message, yes. The rest”—DeHaan shrugged. “Who, exactly, is telling me this?”

“Well, NID is Naval Intelligence Division.”

“And OAMT?”

“OAMT. Yes, certainly, that’s an easy one.” He pulled out the extendable shelf below the edge of the desk and ran a finger up one side of a list. “That is”—he hunted—“why that’s the good old Office of Allied Marine Transport, that is. Fine chaps, over there.”

This was very dry, and DeHaan, despite everything, almost laughed. “Who?”

“Can’t say more. Now logically, Captain, you’d belong to the Ministry of War Transport, the convoy people, but logic’s taken a hell of a beating since ’39, so you’ll just have to make do with those OAMT rascals.”

“Ah, any particular rascal, that you know about?”

“I suspect there is, and I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you. Meanwhile, anything you need, I’d suggest the people at the port office.”

He came around the desk, DeHaan stood, they shook hands, and the lieutenant said, “Well, success, they say, always brings change, right? So, all for the best. Right?”

22 May. Campeche, Mexico.

A quiet port, on the northern coast of the Yucatn peninsula, looking out over the Gulf of Campeche. Not much happened here—now and then the local revolutionaries shot up the bank, and the occasional freighter called, but there was never very much money in the bank, and a high sandbar and the
temporales,
autumn storms, sent much of the merchant trade elsewhere, to Mrida or Veracruz. Otherwise, the region was known for fearsome vampire bats and tasty bananas, and that was about it.

But there was some considerable excitement on the night of the twenty-second, which drew a crowd to the waterfront, which in turn drew a mariachi band, so the evening, despite the disaster, was festive. And the presence of a certain couple, vaguely middle-aged and well dressed, of obscure European origin, was noted, but not much discussed. They sat at an outdoor table at the Cantina Las Flores, on the leafy square that opened to the quay, the man tall and distinguished, with silvered temples beneath a straw hat, the woman in a colorful skirt and gold hoop earrings. They were from Mexico City, somebody said, and had made their way to the town by train and taxi, arriving two days before the excitement, before the Spanish freighter, called the
Santa Rosa,
caught fire at the end of the pier.