Dominik saw the captain approaching, holding out a tarnished silver flask. Although the man didn't appear dangerous, he pushed Zofia behind him out of instinct.
“Go on, take it.”
Reluctantly, Dominik did. He unscrewed the cap and took a swallow, wincing at the acid inside. As soon as he was done, the captain took the flask back and drank with no reaction whatsoever.
“I saw you were admiring my ax earlier.”
“What?”
“My ax,” Heinrich said, pointing to the bow. “You were looking at it.”
Dominik turned and saw the oak handle and huge red blade mounted beneath the rails. Before he had noticed Lucja on the walk, he had indeed been looking at it.
“A smart man like you, I'm sure you've read stories in your monster books.”
“I don't know about that.”
“Oh, come on. You know Poseidon's sea monster of Troy, and The Midgard Serpent, and The Leviathan. All that nonsense, right?”
“I'm sure I've heard of them.”
“I guarantee you, my friend, they're nothing compared to the ones we hunt.”
“Is that right?”
“We go to the coldest waters on earth. They're lined with these little islands that could tear the ship apart. One wrong turn, and we're dead. If a man falls overboard, he's beyond saving. The shock, you see, it makes his body go rigid and sink. If he keeps his head above water, the air is so cold it'll freeze the water in his beard.” He pointed out to sea. “We spot them maybe a hundred meters away, maybe less. Gray mounds that mist ice up into the sky. They're nearly twenty meters long, and they swim in groups. You've lived in a city all your life, boy, you ever imagine a thing like that? If they liked the taste of metal, they could open their mouths wide enough to swallow us. You believe that?”
“Listen,” Dominik said, trying to extricate himself. “I—”
“You'll sit down and listen,” Heinrich said angrily. “You shut up when the captain's talking.”
“Papa,” Zofia said.
“It's all right, honey.” Dominik sat down and pulled her onto his lap. When the captain looked at him, he wasn't sure whether to be enthralled or insulted.
“You know how we control it? We blow it's goddamned guts.” Heinrich pointed to the harpoon gun. “Those crazy goddamned Swedes are the ones who thought of it, putting a grenade on the end of the hooks. We shoot straight into the belly, and poof!”
Dominik wasn't sure, but he thought it was the Norwegians who revolutionized the industry, not the Swedes.
“We don't kill it, mind you, it'll sink. Ever hear the sound of a dozen men screaming as they're dragged down into the water? You don't want to. Anyway, the wound is just enough to make it sick in its guts. Just enough to make it weak. If the harpoon goes too high, it'll bounce off. If it goes too low, it'll shoot right through the tail. Even if it all goes right, sometimes the thing doesn't play along. That's where the ax comes in.”
“You mean you actually… chop it?”
Heinrich laughed. “No, my boy. No! It's for the rope. The harpoon rope! If it swims the wrong way and the rope gets hung up, we cut it. The rope is as thick as your wrist. No butter knife will cut a thing like that. It's the ax. The ax, or the ship gets pulled under by the beast.”
Dominik looked at the massive weapon again. “Tell me about the rope.”
Heinrich passed the bottle. Dominik had another drink.
“The rope starts on the weapon, then goes under the deck here.” The captain pointed to a spot below their feet, then to a hole in the deck where it reemerged. “It comes out there, then goes up to a pulley on the mast. It goes back from that pulley to a winch at the stern of the ship. Do you see it?” The entire rear end of the ship was occluded by the smokestacks and the wheelhouse, but Dominik nodded anyways. “It forms a triangle. Do you get me? The top of the triangle is on the mast. That's the key. The rope connects to a steel cable, the cable connects to another pulley, then runs to a steel accumulator spring below deck.” There was a slur on this last: steel ac-coom-oolater. But Dominik got the idea.
“The mast is the anchor,” Heinrich said. “The force goes down. No matter how hard it pulls, the weight goes down. Without the cable, and without the mast…” He snapped his fingers, letting the image hang. “Crazy goddamned Swedes,” he said again, spitting over the side of the deck.
Dominik, who had only been to the Berlin zoo once as a youth, and who had never seen anything larger than a seal living in the ocean, found the entire idea ludicrous. One thing was for certain, and that was Heinrich didn't just get into the business for profit margins on blubber and ambergris. There was a kind of mania in what he did. It made Dominik think back to the captain's role in their abduction, and he wondered how much of an enemy the man really was.
“How do you feel about all this?”
“What?”
“This,” Dominik said indicating the ship and himself. “They've hijacked your boat.”
The captain shrugged. “It's good money, but I have no love for The Reich, if that's what you mean. I suspect you have even less, even before you ended up here.” He took another drink and laughed.
Dominik shuddered. It wasn't a cruel laugh, but it wasn't a joke he could share, either.
“And what will you do after?”
The captain shrugged again. “Go fishing.”
This struck Dominik cold, and he had the sudden urge to leave. When he stood up, however, his head swam. Whatever was in Heinrich's little flask was strong stuff. He was struck that the other man could still talk, let alone sound coherent.
“You're starting to look pale, my friend. Sit down. Sit with me and have another drink.”
“Why do you drink so much?” Dominik asked.
“There are terrible things out here, my friend. Things no man should have to face sober.”
A little while later, the captain got up to check on his crew, leaving an air of salt and body odor behind. Dominik watched him go, patting Zofia's head with one hand. It was only when Heinrich was out of sight that he realized what else was concealed beneath the walk: a row boat. He had noticed it the night before, but it hadn't really registered. Up until a few minutes ago, he would have thought stealing a rowboat and heading towards land might have been a good idea. But whether or not Heinrich's intent was to scare the shit out of him, that's exactly what he had done.
It was a long time before he got to sleep that night. When he finally did, his dreams were filled with ice and chaos and large, formless things under the sea.
3
The following night, he left the girls with Ari and then waited until no one was watching. He began to walk towards the stern of the ship, passing under the rear stairs and circling behind the smokestacks. He listened, but all was silent save for the lapping of the water and the flap of the ropes leading to the aft mast. Then, he saw it: the only life raft on this God-forsaken ship. The second rowboat, usually found on the port side, had been removed for reasons he didn't know. No prison, no boat, no man can hold us, he thought again.
“It's not much, but it would probably float,” a voice said. Dominik jumped. He peered through the shadows and saw the orange glow of a cigarette. How he hadn't seen it before, he didn't know. Wishful thinking, perhaps.
“The question is, where would you go? You don't have the faintest idea where land is, or how far.” The tall soldier Jan stepped out of the shadows with an eerie silence.
“A man can look, I suppose.”
Jan nodded, turning towards the railing and looking out to the sea. “You have a lot to live for, sir. I wouldn't go getting any ideas.”
Dominik stared at him. He figured the other man would either offer him a smoke or haul him off to the lieutenant for insubordination, but he didn't do either. Instead, Jan flicked his spent butt over the railing and turned to leave.