Hart nodded. "And Elmer was right."
She slumped in the bottom of the boat, huddling against the cold. "I wish he was but I don't see this angel, Owen. The angels have deserted me, I suspect."
"No they haven't." He pointed. "I can see it."
She didn't bother to look this time. Her eyes closed.
"Greta?" he said impatiently.
"Hmmmm?"
"Please get out the flare gun you packed."
"What?" Her eyes opened wide.
"For your angel." He pointed again. And this time she swung to look.
There was a gray shape on the horizon. Another ship.
"My God. It's true!"
Owen was beaming now, his face stung with spray, his hair whipping in the wind. "Of course it's true. Because of the person I'm with, I suspect." He leaned and seized and kissed her, passionately happy. "Get out the flare, dammit!"
She did so and a red star shot skyward in the gloom. They waited a few minutes. Then another.
The ship began pointing toward them.
Owen whooped, waving his hand wildly as if they could see it at such a distance. Then he beamed at his companion. "Did I ever tell you that women are good luck?"
The American destroyer Reuben Gray picked them up at dusk. Greta went up the rope ladder first, sailors eagerly lifting her the last few feet and marveling at the novelty of a woman.
Then a sailor pointed to the ladder urgently and gestured at Hart.
"Speak English, kid!" the pilot asked.
His mouth dropped open. "You sound American!"
"Montanan. Never thought I'd see so much fucking water in my life." The Norwegian lifeboat was heavy with it, he realized, accumulated spray sloshing under the floorboards. They wouldn't have lasted the night. He grabbed the ladder and hoisted himself aboard.
"Where'd you come from?" The sailor's wide eyes looked out at an empty sea.
"Heaven. And hell."
Hart looked down at the lifeboat a last time with appreciation. On its second chance it had done its job.
"Big wave!" someone called from the deck, pointing. The two men looked. A dark hill was mounding, aiming for the destroyer's stern quarter.
"Hang on!" the sailor shouted, shoving Hart. The pilot needed no encouragement. He wrapped an arm around a metal rack. The stern of the ship dipped, a mountain of gray water looming over it. Then the wave broke, spray crashing against the stern like breakers on a rocky coast.
There was a splintering crack. The stern rose, twisted, dropped again. The destroyer tilted as it sought equilibrium.
Hart let go and looked back over the side. The Norwegian lifeboat had been hurled against the steel ship's side and shattered. It was gone, except for a scrap of wood attached to one line. The destroyer began to accelerate and steered a more favorable course into the waves, steadying. And at last the island seemed reassuringly remote. They were safe. But what was an American destroyer doing way down here?
Owen walked across the fantail to a hatchway where yellow light beckoned. Greta was there, her hood down and a halo of illumination around her hair. And there was someone else too.
"Fortune is curious, isn't it, Mr. Hart?"
"I don't believe it."
Otto Kohl smiled like the proprietor of a private yacht. "You're lucky we found you in time. And I'm lucky you found us. I think the captain was ready to pitch me overboard if I didn't find a submarine to sink or an island to invade. And I feared I was going to help him kill the two of you. Instead I saved you. Now perhaps you can convince him of the truth of what I've been saying."
Hart stepped inside, feeling himself sagging in the relative warmth. "I'll try. But what are you doing here?"
"I went to the Americans. I confessed all. They didn't believe me until they intercepted a radio signal from your U-boat. Then they made me a captive guide, exhibiting a sorry mistrust I've only slowly been overcoming."
"Well, it's too late to guide them, Otto. They're all dead, even Jürgen. The submarine is gone, the island volcano erupting, the disease and cure lost. Forever, I hope. It would be insane to go back there."
"The submarine… gone?"
"It was full of plague and slowly sinking the last time we saw it. This destroyer can look in hopes of practicing its naval gunnery, but I don't think they'll find it."
"And was anything salvaged from this vessel?"
"Of course not. You want a souvenir?"
Kohl sighed. "No. Just that Jürgen was holding some… papers of mine."
"Ah. I saw those come aboard. Important?"
The German thought about that. Then he shook his head. "No. Not important. Not anymore. Because life goes on, I think. Because it's time to start over and make up for the past, no?"
Hart nodded. "Admiral Byrd once remarked that Antarctica can provide a man with a chance to remake himself. Maybe he was right. But I'm sorry about your papers, Otto. I don't know what other evidence we have to back up your story."
He shrugged. "Yourselves, certainly. How else did you come to be down here in an open boat?"
The pilot nodded. "There's that."
"And one other thing." Greta fished into her clothes and pulled out her bottle. "An algae or a sponge, a strange organism. Perhaps some scientist will confirm its novelty."
"Greta! You saved some?" The pilot was surprised.
"Just this raw sample, when I destroyed the rest. I'm curious. As a scientist, you know."
Otto peered. "This is what all the fuss has been about?"
"This and how humans could misuse it."
Kohl nodded. "That I understand." He paused then, considering the way the couple looked at each other. "Well. Would an engagement present be appropriate?"
"It would be very appropriate," Hart said. Greta smiled.
"Good. Because I've been carrying this halfway around the world and don't have a clue as to why." He reached into a pocket and took out a scrap of soiled ribbon, handing it to Greta. "But I kept it as you asked."
She looked happy as she unwrapped the pebble.
"What the devil is that rock?"
She lifted the locket out of her clothes and unsnapped it. "It's memory, Papa." She slipped the pebble in and closed the tiny container. "It goes here, near the heart."
Her father nodded. "And now you two go on to…?"
"California, I hope." Greta looked shyly at Owen. "It's warmer than Montana, I hear. And I want to be near the sea to study whales. Not to hunt them, but to learn from them."
"And you, Owen?"
"I think commercial aviation is going to increase after the war. I want to fly and I suspect California will be as good a place to start as any. I once spent some time there."
"Good. And I think I want to help rebuild some of what we destroyed after the Reich finally dies. They will need Otto Kohl, I think."
An ensign stepped into the room. "The captain wants to talk to you three. You have a lot of explaining to do."
"Of course, of course!" Kohl nodded. "What a story we have to tell! Lead the way, young man!" He put a cautious hand on Hart's shoulder. "Captain Reynolds and I are slowly becoming the best of friends," he whispered. "It's taking time but he's warming to me, I think. So you, of course, must let me do most of the talking."
As the trio climbed toward the vessel's bridge, Owen Hart slipped his arm around the woman he loved.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This book was inspired by a true incident. In 1938–39, Germany's Hermann Göring did send an expedition to Antarctica on the seaplane tender Schwabenland. Its pilots were the first to fly over the coastal ranges of Queen Maud Land and they assigned some names to the region that persist today. The Germans did drop swastika-engraved darts from their flying boats to establish a claim to the continent, and did greet curious penguins with a "Heil Hitler!" They named the area New Schwabenland.