“No,” Stefan said, holding out his palms. “You keep it. A souvenir from the Eagle. Something to remember us by when you are back in comfortable New York City, U S of A.”
Kate opened her mouth but Stefan cut in before she had a chance to get going: “You said something about a tour. That is one of my duties as first officer and I have neglected it. How about I give you the official tour now? It should take five minutes or so. Not that much to see. We’ll start forward…. follow me.” He ducked through the doorway and then moved with surprising quickness down the passageway, not bothering to glance over his shoulder to see if Kate and Reggie were following. As Kate watched him from behind, he reminded her of a soccer player dribbling through a field of defenders. He quickly outdistanced Kate and Reggie. When they caught up to him a moment later, he was waiting in the torpedo room, arm draped over one of the tubes. He gestured around the cramped room. Brass pipes and fittings and valves and cables were everywhere. It looked the insides of a cathedral organ designed by Edgar Allen Poe. Even more remarkable, there were men sleeping right among the torpedoes that lined the walls. “This is about as far forward as you can go, unless you’re dead and we decided to jettison your body out one of the tubes.”
“Cheery thought,” quipped Reggie.
“As you may or may not know, there’s sixty of us,” Stefan said. “Four officers, four ensigns, three warrant officers, 15 petty officers, and 44 seamen, mechanics, engineers, techs and machinists. We’re all crammed into this iron tube about 84 meters in length.”
Reggie interrupted Stefan’s narrative with a loud yawn. Kate had paused along the way to pick up a notepad and a pencil. She stopped writing long enough to slap him on the arm. “Ouch,” he responded.
“Hope you don’t mind if I take some notes,” she said. “Please continue.”
“That tube can be looked at three ways,” Stefan continued, “as three sections, or four pressurized compartments, or seven watertight rooms. Each room has a watertight door that can withstand pressure equal to a depth of about 130 meters.”
“What happens if you’re deeper?” Kate asked.
“One hopes it never comes to that,” Stefan said dryly.
“But what if it did?”
“You pray,” Stefan said.
“Oh God,” Reggie groaned.
“Of course, the watertight compartments are designed to isolate an area with a hull breech, enabling the crew to surface the vessel and repair the problem. We’re in the torpedo compartment now. Four tubes. We carry twenty torpedoes. Extras are stowed below.” Stefan stamped on the deck. “The rest of this section includes bunks and living quarters, the captain’s room, wardrooms, sound and radio across from the captain and next to the control room. Follow me,” Stefan ordered, leading the pair back in the direction they had come.
As he moved down the passageway, he narrated the sights like a well-practiced travel guide. “Galley, petty officer’s quarters.” When they entered the control room, he paused. “This is the heart and soul and brains of the Eagle,” he said with obvious pride, his gaze taking in the periscope, helm, compass, chart closet, valves, pipes, controls, dials, wheels, cranks, meters, and other mechanisms that controlled the ship. “And up there,” he pointed, “is the tower compartment and bridge.”
“Fascinating,” Kate said. Stefan glanced in her direction. He would take Reggie’s sarcasm, but not hers, but the bright look in her eyes and the nod she gave him indicated she meant it.
Stefan cleared his throat, tried to avoid Squeaky’s sharp gaze. He was watching the trio from the chart table, pencil tapping the enamel of his tooth. It wasn’t hard to imagine what he was thinking, Stefan thought. He’d hear all about it later, no doubt.
He waved for them to follow. “Aft section, here’s where you’ll find the motors, two diesel engines for running on the surface, and recharging batteries, two electric motors when we are submerged. There’s also one torpedo tube in case someone happens to be sniffing up our ass.”
Kate pointed to the bread in the well beneath the diesels. “Now I know why your bread tastes the way it does,” she said.
Stefan shrugged. “Not enough storage room. We find it where we can and then eat the fresh stuff in a hurry. Doesn’t take long to spoil down here.”
As Stefan lead them around a diesel motor, quiet now because they were underwater, they came across Ritter and his two comrades, Kolb and Bergen, sprawled across the deck. The two faux Dutch engineers Grimp and Grump were what the submarine crew had nicknamed them—were eating apples. Ritter was trimming his fingernails.
“What a pleasant surprise,” Ritter said, leaping to his feet, slipping his knife into his pocket, and then brushing off his grease stained khaki pants. “Finally getting the tour, I see.”
Kate nodded and Reggie nodded.
“What do you think of her?”
“Very,uh, mechanical,” Reggie mumbled.
“Amazing,” Kate said. “It reminds me of Jules Verne and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It was one of my favorite books when I was a girl. All my friends thought I was strange for loving it so. I just wish you had a few windows so we could see outside.”
“Yes, I read it, too,” Ritter said with a nod. “Fired the imagination. How about you, Commander? I bet not. Too serious. No time for fantastic stories….”
“As a matter of fact,” Stefan said evenly, “I’ve read it many times. An old friend recommended it. He never steered me wrong.” Stefan could almost hear the old Swedish fisherman, Westling, discoursing loudly on Verne’s inadequacies as a writer, let alone visionary of the fantastic. “Too much on the machine,” he had said. “It would be a better story if he focused more on this, the frailties of the human heart.” And then he pointed to his chest. Of course, Stefan had been mesmerized by descriptions of the Nautilus. It had sparked his interest in the navy as the only chance he might ever get to ride aboard a real-life Nautilus.
“Ah, something we all share,” Ritter exclaimed too loudly, like a young man trying too hard to impress a girl. Kate didn’t seem to notice it. “Now, is there anything I can do for you both?”
“You’ve done enough,” Stefan said, still smarting from the captain’s decision to head for Tallinn, and the part Ritter played in it. “I appreciate your help”
“Yes, Tallinn before morning, I suppose. Nice to get a bath, eh, and a fresh change of clothes.” He kneed Bergen in the side and tousled his hair. “I don’t mind building submarines, but serving on one is not my cup of tea. I do hope, Miss McLendon, you’ll let me buy you dinner when we get to port,” he said. “I would love to hear all about the news business.”
“I’m sure you would,” Kate said. “And I have made it a habit never to turn down a freebie.” She glanced at Reggie. “We’d be happy to join you.”
Ritter smiled broadly at the deft way she had maneuvered the conversation. Now it was his turn. “And what about you, commander?” he said, turning to Stefan. “Would you care to join us?”
Stefan opened his mouth ready to decline. What came out surprised even him. “Of course,” he said. “I will look forward to it.”
“Good,” Ritter said, clapping his hands together. “Comrades in arms sharing a meal. That is what makes life worth living. When do we get underway?”
Stefan glanced at his wristwatch. The overhead lights suddenly switched to red. “Now,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jerzy Rudzki resisted the urge to pick at one of the pimples on his face. It was a losing battle, as his inflamed skin demonstrated. He’d been lurking on the other side of the diesel engines, pretending to tinker with the valves when, in fact, he had been keeping an eye on those so-called Dutch engineers. Of course, no one had told him to watch them. In fact, since they had been on board, Chief K had ceded control of virtually every mechanical system in the aft section of the boat to them. And Jerzy didn’t understand it. He may have grown up on a farm, but that didn’t mean he was slow. In fact, watching the shrewd way his grandmother dealt with the shopkeepers and merchants during their occasional visits to town had been a perfect training. They were always quick to cheat the unsuspecting. His grandmother said you could catch them by listening to the sound of words, not the words themselves. “It is the music of the soul,” she said. “It will tell you what is in their hearts.” She was right.