“Well…” The druggist put a fin on the table, which made him an extravagant tipper. He climbed to his feet. “Let me walk you back to the hotel.”
“Thanks.” Two glasses of ordinary Chianti didn’t make Peggy susceptible. She was more amused that he kept pitching than anything else.
She had no trouble shedding him in the hotel lobby. That behind the front desk stood a large, strong-jawed maiden lady who plainly disapproved of everything enjoyable under the sun only made it easier.
Up in her room all by herself, she pulled out a mystery story and read till she got sleepy. What with the wine and all that filling food, it didn’t take long. Vernon Vaughan wouldn’t have had much fun with her even if he had got past the dragon downstairs-not unless he enjoyed necrophilia, he wouldn’t.
He was there to take her back to the station the next morning. “Sorry if I got out of line last night,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Peggy told him. “I’m heading home, that’s all.”
So she was. And before long she’d look forward to getting out into the boondocks again. How smart had she been to ignore him, then? That she could wonder said not everything in Philadelphia was the way she wished it would be.
Chapter 24
Narvik again. Julius Lemp was not a happy man. Namsos would have been better. Wilhelmshaven would have been wonderful. But it was Narvik, so the U-30 could get back up to the Barents Sea as soon as possible. More fuel for the diesels, more eels for the tubes, more food for the crew, and away they’d go again.
He’d already complained to the powers that be here about Narvik’s shortcomings as a liberty port. His crew had already tried to take the place apart-and they weren’t the only gang of U-boat sailors to join the rising against authority.
Predictably, authority didn’t forget. When the U-30 tied up, she was greeted at the pier by a squad of shore patrolmen, all of them wearing Stahlhelms and all of them carrying Schmeissers.
“Well, this is a fine crock of herrings,” Lemp growled at the chief petty officer in charge of the squad. “You’d think we’d put in at Aberdeen by mistake.” He shook his head. “No, by God! The Royal Navy’d give us a better hello than this, to hell with me if it wouldn’t.”
The steel helmet’s beetling brim only made the CPO’s features seem even more wooden than they would have otherwise. He saluted stiffly. “Sir, I have my orders,” he said. “No one is going to tear Narvik up again-that’s what the people here have in mind.”
Daylight was already leaking out of the sky, though it was only midafternoon. Before long, arctic night would falclass="underline" Narvik lay north of the Arctic Circle. “Disgraceful,” Lemp snarled.
“Sir, if you didn’t lead such a pack of hooligans, there wouldn’t be a problem,” the shore patrolman answered in a gruff monotone.
“If this place weren’t a morgue-” But Lemp could see this was an argument he’d lose. The shore patrol didn’t just have the firepower. The bastards had the backing of the bigger bastards here, the ones with all the gold stripes on their sleeves.
His crewmen had been glaring at their natural foes. They reminded him of cats snarling at sheep dogs. Then one of them tipped him a wink. Did that mean they’d stay out of trouble or that they’d dive into it headfirst? Lemp didn’t know, not for sure, but he was afraid he could guess.
He let the shore patrolmen lead the U-boat sailors off to whatever passed for fun in Narvik. Then the mechanics fell on his submarine. He was glad to see them. Unlike either the high command or the shore patrol, they seemed to be on the same side as the men who actually did the fighting.
He thought about staying away from the officers’ club in sympathy for the way his men were being treated. He didn’t think about it long, though. The alternative was staying cooped up in his tiny, curtained-off cabin in the stinking, claustrophobic pressure hull.
He did make a point of repairing to the club in his grimy working togs instead of putting on a proper uniform. No one there said a word about it, though. The shorebound officers were evidently used to U-boat skippers’ eccentric ways.
Those shorebound men did let him know that plans actually were in the works for an officers’ brothel, and one ratings could patronize as well. That plans were in the works didn’t mean the brothels were working yet. Lemp thought that was a damn shame. He was a few years older than the men he commanded. He didn’t burn quite so hot as most of them. But that didn’t mean he didn’t burn at all. Oh, no-nowhere close. He would have welcomed a grapple with a nice, warm girl, even if it was purely a business transaction.
Since he couldn’t screw, he drank. He’d got to the bottom of his third stiff schnapps, hoping they would improve his attitude. All they succeeded in doing was making him dizzy. They were strong, and he was tired; they hit him hard. Only later did he stop and wonder what would happen when the U-30’s ratings started drinking. That was when he remembered the one sailor’s wink. As such things have a way of being, that was also just exactly too late.
A burst of submachine-gun fire brought silence smashing down in the officers’ club. A moment later, another burst rang out. “Good God!” somebody said. “Have the Royal Marines landed, or what?”
There was a cheerful thought. If English raiders were swooping down on Narvik, they could do a hell of a lot of damage. Most of the German forces here belonged to the Kriegsmarine. The only reason they were here at all was to go after convoys bound for Russia. Shore patrolmen wouldn’t stand much of a chance against cold-blooded professionals.
One of those shore patrolmen rushed into the officers’ club. He looked around wildly before his gaze fixed on Lemp. “Come quick,” he shouted, “before those maniacs of yours tear this whole base to shreds!”
Just what it deserves, Lemp thought. The words almost came out-such were the dangers of three strong drinks. But he managed to stifle them. Instead, he said, “If they had more ways to blow off steam without getting in trouble, they’d do that. They wouldn’t brawl.”
“They’re a pack of criminals, nothing else but,” the shore patrolman retorted. “If you don’t calm them down, they’ll get courts-martial for making a mutiny. That’s a capital crime.” By the way he spoke, he thought the U-30’s men deserved no better than a blindfold and a cigarette.
“Take me to them,” Lemp said. He had to pay close attention to where he put his feet when he followed the shore patrolman out of the officers’ club.
It was cold outside, cold and dark. The northern lights’ wavering curtains danced in the sky, now red, now gold. Lemp spared the aurora a glance, no more. It wasn’t as if he didn’t see it on a lot of frigid winter nights.
He could have found the fighting without his guide. Men were yelling and screaming. Whistles blew frantically. Things broke-often, by the sound of it, over somebody’s head. Two shore patrolmen dragged a wounded buddy from the fray. “Making a mutiny,” the man with Lemp repeated grimly.
“They’re just drunk and disorderly, and they hate this miserable place,” the U-boat skipper answered, hoping he was right. If the lads had got the bit too far between their teeth, they’d be in big trouble in spite of anything he could do. To try to convince himself things were as he wanted them to be, he added, “I do, too. Who wouldn’t?”
“You weren’t smashing up the officers’ club when I found you, though… sir,” the shore patrolman said. Lemp judged a discreet silence the best response to that.
From out of the gloom ahead came a shout: “Halt! Who comes? Friend or foe?”
It wasn’t the kind of challenge the shore patrol would issue. Not only that, Lemp recognized the voice of the rating doing the shouting. “It’s me, Willi-the skipper,” he called back. “Playtime’s over. You boys have had your fun-and you’ve made your point, too.”