“One good thing, anyhow,” Lemp said. “That damned SD pigdog with the manners of a wall lizard is still back in Wilhelmshaven-or I hope like blazes he is, anyhow.” Beilharz nodded. He’d spent plenty of time listening to his skipper vent his spleen on the subject of the security-mad Sicherheitsdienst man.
A petty officer with a megaphone bawled, “Continue your slow approach. Make no sudden, dangerous-looking maneuvers. Your crew will be taken off the boat for interrogation and evaluation before being released for liberty.”
Lemp waved to show he heard. Somebody from the boat would get fed up and tell the interrogators where to head in. He could see that coming like a rash. Then the blackshirts would jug the poor, pissed-off fool, and they’d sneak a spy aboard to take his place … assuming they didn’t already have one or several on the boat (an assumption Lemp didn’t hold).
Unless he felt like making a mutiny, he couldn’t do anything about this. What the goons who gave that petty officer and more men like him their orders didn’t understand, though, was that such orders were almost an open invitation to making a mutiny. And when it came-oh, not from the U-30, not now, but from somewhere, and soon-the goons would have the gall to act surprised.
Or perhaps they wouldn’t. Those smoke plumes climbing into the sky argued that the nation had already mutinied against the government, regardless of whether the armed forces had.
One of the armed sailors who boarded the U-30 to take off the crew had an accident. All kinds of fittings on the boat stuck out or hung down where a careless man could bang his head on them and knock himself cold. So Lemp assured the excitable ensign who was thinking more along the lines of felonious assault.
Since the ensign couldn’t prove anything, and since Lemp outranked him and was almost old enough to be his father, he calmed down. He had to. Lemp smiled, but only behind the puppy’s back.
His men went off for their grillings. He expected to face the usual board of senior officers himself. They might not quiet down so fast about the poor naval infantryman’s “accident”-they were harder to con than an ensign not dry behind the ears.
Instead, Lemp found himself escorted into the presence of Admiral Karl Dönitz. He saluted less sloppily than he had in years. “Sir!” he said to the commander of the U-boat force.
“At ease, Commander,” Dönitz answered, his voice mild. His cheeks and forehead were broad, his chin narrow and pointed. But for a blade of a nose, he had flattish features. Most of the time, he was among the calmest of men. He tried to use that now, but in spite of himself his voice held a certain edge as he asked, “And how did you like your reception?”
Because Lemp trusted the admiral, he answered honestly: “Sir, I think the Royal Navy would have been friendlier.” It was Beilharz’s line, but it summed up what Lemp thought.
Dönitz’s narrow, gray-blue eyes assessed him. “The Royal Navy would know what you are,” the admiral said. “At the moment, all we have in Germany are suspicions.”
“Yes, sir. I can see that,” Lemp said. “And if you keep showing them this way, plenty of people will decide they should give you something to suspect.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Dönitz murmured.
Lemp hadn’t trotted out his schoolboy Latin for years. He would have thought he’d forgotten it all, but he understood what that meant, both literally and in the words behind the words. “Sir, if the government is trying to make everyone in the Reich hate it, it’s doing a good job,” he said.
“The government is trying to win the war.” Dönitz sounded as if he’d had this argument many times before, certainly with others and possibly with himself as well. “If treason springs up, the state has to put it down so the fight against the foreign foe can go forward.”
“If the government makes things so bad that no one wants to fight for it, how can it win against England and France and Russia, sir?” Lemp said.
Admiral Dönitz’s arched nostrils flared. “And you’ve been out at sea on patrol,” he muttered, more to himself than to the man standing in front of his desk. What did he think Lemp might have done had he been ashore all this time? Pulled a grenade off his belt and chucked it into the officers’ club? That was what it sounded like, that or something worse. Dönitz went on, “You need to be careful with that kind of talk, you know.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Lemp replied. “But if you’re going to report me to Himmler’s bully boys, we’re already ruined past the hope of fixing.” Dönitz waved him out of the office. He felt as if he’d just survived a depth-charging.
CHAPTER 15
Chaim Weinberg heard a man wailing behind a barn. He trotted over to see what was going on. Two Republican soldiers were kicking the farmer here and slamming him with their rifle butts. If nobody stopped them, they were plainly going to beat him to death.
“What’s going on?” Chaim didn’t quite point his rifle at them, but the idea was there.
They scowled at him: a couple of kids, one with a wispy excuse for a mustache. “Who are you?” that kid asked.
“And what business is it of yours?” the other one added.
“I’m an Abe Lincoln, that’s who I am,” Chaim answered. Saint Paul could have sounded no prouder when he said I am a Roman citizen. Chaim added, “I’ve been fighting over here since before you punks had hair on your balls. I guess that makes it my business. So, one more time-¿qué pasó?”
“We’re punishing this rotten counterrevolutionary,” the soldier with the mustache said. “He was feeding the reactionary forces until we liberated this area.”
“And so? What was he going to do? Tell them no, he couldn’t do that? Tell them he was a Marxist-Leninist?” Chaim rolled his eyes. “They would have given him what you’re giving him, only they would’ve done it sooner.”
“He did it for years,” the kid with the mustache said, only now with uncertainty in his voice.
“Who was running things here all this time?” Chaim returned. “We only just got here, you know. And you really went and made him love the Republic, didn’t you?”
“¡Viva la República!” the farmer said, staggering to his feet. He was about fifty. He had a big mouse under one eye. Blood ran down his forehead and face from a scalp wound. More dripped onto his collarless shirt from another.
No matter what he said, chances were he wished the Devil would stick his pitchfork in the Republic’s ass. But he had sense enough to know saying that would get him killed. In Spain, you had to be for or against. Lukewarm was right out. With great dignity, the man wiped his face on his sleeve. He grimaced at the bloodstains.
“Go on. Get lost,” Chaim told the Republican soldiers. “You’ve done your good deed for the day.” He gestured with the rifle to put some oomph in the order.
He didn’t think he would have plugged them had they said no. But they weren’t so sure about that. They also weren’t sure, however, that they’d been doing what they were supposed to when they started stomping the farmer. So they did take off, leaving only black looks and an obscene gesture to remember them by.
“Muchas gracias, Señor,” the farmer said. “You have saved my life, for whatever it may be worth to you.” He put a hand on his ribcage and winced. If he didn’t have a busted slat or two, Chaim would have been amazed. The kids hadn’t been playing when they punted him-not even close. His life might not be worth much even to him for the next little while.
“De nada,” Chaim answered. “I wanted you to know that not everybody from the Republic is a son of a whore.”
“Bueno. That is worth knowing,” the farmer said gravely. “Now it appears the Republic will be in charge here.”