Dönitz had never been very good at subterfuge. He wasn’t about to begin now. “Threat?” he replied evenly, glancing at Göring . “I think that overstates it. The Eagle has but two torpedoes, and, more importantly, she has no charts and little food and water. If she doesn’t run aground, or blunder into a mine field, her crew will be forced to give up.”
“And if not?” Hitler said, eyes sharp as flint.
“Then we will destroy her. No one can escape from the German Navy’s relentless pursuit. To resist is to die. That is the message that we will leave with our enemies.”
Göring couldn’t surpress a cackle of laughter. “Bravo,” he mocked, clapping his hands. “Your speech writers should be commended.
Hitler, however, did nothing. He stared another moment at Dönitz, and then stood “It was a wonderful plan,” he said. “I like it when my officers take risks for the glory of the Fatherland.” As he ended his words, his eyes fell on Göring , who immediately grew silent.
“Thank you, sir,” Dönitz said, cautiously.
“I’ve ordered the Generalfeldmarschall to help out as much as possible, just in case, of course, your navy is unable to capture or destroy that submarine crewed by those Polish mongrels. Amazing how resourceful animals can be when cornered, don’t you think? I can’t imagine it will be a problem, but they’ve already surprised you once. I hope they don’t do it again. I expect you to keep me informed.”
Dönitz stood, bowed and clicked his heels subserviently in response. “Yes, mein Führer.”
As Dönitz left, he paused at the door, glanced back at Göring . The fat air marshal was now leaning over the German leader’s right shoulder, eyeing maps spread out across the Führer ’s desk. Göring looked up and winked. Dönitz marched out.
A half an hour later, Dönitz was reading a message from Ritter. He was suggesting something that Dönitz was already considering. Eventually, the Eagle had only way to go and still remain part of the war: out the Baltic and west to England. Ritter was asking for a picket of ships to guard the escape from the Baltic along with a personal request to be assigned to one of them. Dönitz knew the Kriegsmarine didn’t have that many to spare, but he could probably get enough cruisers, destroyers and minelayers and then fill in any gaps by temporarily swallowing his pride and asking for Göring’s help with reconnaissance flights. Between the two of them, they should be able to spot the Eagle and sink her, if it came to that.
Dönitz glanced down at his hand, the one holding the message. It was shaking slightly. He watched it, willing it to stop, but it was no good. He set the paper down on his desk top. They had come so very close to success. He had a nagging sense that their chance was gone, and her escape would come back to haunt them in some fashion or another. And now he would never know what difference she might have made in the conflict with England.
A few hundred kilometers to the west, Churchill sat in his basement office, listening to rumble of detonating German bombs overhead. Hitler hadn’t wasted any time, he thought.
Churchill was nearly finished with a letter to the American president, Franklin Roosevelt. Of course, direct contact such as this, bypassing the Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister, and other, normal channels of communication, was fraught with its own risks, especially with American interests divided about intervening in the war against the Germans. In fact, the current American ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, was decidedly pro-German. Given the choice, Churchill didn’t doubt that Kennedy would prefer to see England lose to Germany. Most people dismissed this as simply the usual Irish antipathy toward anything British. Churchill suspected it was more complicated than that, but he had no intentions of sitting down with Kennedy and attempt to discover his true feelings. Thank God for one thing: the man wasn’t president of the United States. Not yet, anyway.
Churchill finished his last paragraph, and then signed the letter with a signature he would continue using in all future correspondence, even after being elevated to prime minister: “Naval Person.”
That done, he puffed his cigar back to life, and then returned to the note that he had just set aside. It was from the British Naval Attaché in Tallinn, Estonia. Churchill shook his head as he read the note again, grunting with pleasure. “God bless them,” he thought. There was little chance the submarine, the Eagle, would survive, but at least they would not rot in prison, and the Eagle would fight the way, and for whom she was intended.
Churchill expected Poland to fall within the week. Gdynia and the other Polish coastal cities had already been taken by the Germans. Soon Eagle would have nowhere to go. If a miracle happened, and she survived, Churchill hoped she sailed for England and not Sweden or France. The British Fleet could use her services.
He reread the note’s last line, shook his head with wonder. He couldn’t imagine a woman aboard a submarine. But leave it to an American. Curious, he wondered how she had gotten involved . The note didn’t say, but that was a story he would like to hear some day. When McBride, the naval attaché, arrived in England, he was going to make it a point to ask him about it.
Churchill had a sudden thought. He picked up his pen and added a postscript to his note to Roosevelt:
P.S. We believe two American news reporters—a man and woman (I am attempting to discover their names) —are aboard the Polish submarine Eagle now in the Baltic. She will undoubtedly be hunted by the Germans. I have no knowledge of her course or disposition, but I shall keep you informed should we come in contact with her or hear more news.
N. P.
Churchill rubbed his eyes. The bombing had stopped. He wondered where the Eagle was now. It wasn’t hard to imagine what they were experiencing. Depth charges must be a lot like what Londoners were facing. An unknown attacker from above. The click of a detonator and instant death. The inexplicable waiting from one moment to the next, wondering how much longer you might have to live.
Churchill folded the letter, set his still burning cigar to one side. He pushed back his chair, crossed to the other side of his room, unloosening his collar and belt as he went, and rolled onto his cot. He reached up and turned off the lamp on a table beside his cot. He would sleep. For a few hours, anyway. He closed his eyes, tried to clear his mind. But tonight sleep was even more difficult to find than usual. He couldn’t help wondering what it must be like to have 50 fathoms of water overhead, and the threat of someone waiting to destroy you if you surfaced. When he finally flicked the lamp back on a half an hour later, his pale forehead was damp with sweat. The bombing had started again. He quickly pulled on his shoes and slippers, his navy cap. He needed some air. The walls and ceilings in his basement office seemed to be pressing in on him from every side. He padded down the corridor followed by one of his personal guards, then started up the stairs, until he found himself on the building’s roof .
“Dangerous, sir,” the guard muttered, reminding Churchill of the obvious. “You shouldn’t be here.”