“Mishap, sir?”
“Men have been known to kill one another in close quarters. You’ve had training in interrogations, haven’t you?”
“It appears, sir, that you really have read my history, sir.”
“I like to know the background of every man serving under me.”
Hulsing nodded and took a long drag on his cigarette, saying nothing.
Lindemann crushed his half-smoked cigarette beneath his boot. “But why, Hulsing, in private life did you choose to be a detective?”
“Do you know how little work there is in Berlin for an engineer—in private life?”
“Yes, but why were you chasing criminals, lowlifes, and Jewish trash in Berlin—in the wretched ghettos and alleyways?” The captain asked snidely. “Especially with you being trained as an engineer! Plus being a fellow just educated in the new science in communications. Come to think of it, wasn’t your father a prominent man in government, before he fell under the scrutiny of the SS?”
Hulsing realized that Lindemann made it his business to know every detail of his officers backgrounds. His neck now sore from his position far below his captain, craning to speak this way, Hulsing began to rub the back of his head in nervous fashion. “Sir, there was no position in Berlin at that time for anything but as a police detective, and my father was falsely accused.”
“Ahhh… yes, of course.”
Hulsing wondered if the of course was in response to jobs or his father’s innocence. But he said no more.
“Jobs were as scarce as fresh eggs before Hitler, eh?” Lindemann thoughtfully asked.
The Third Reich had certainly created jobs—all either as military or to support the military. Hulsing knew of the hordes of German citizens depending on such as boiled cabbage, fried squirrel, or pigeon meat for the evening meal all over the country and in particular in Berlin.
As a police detective in Berlin, Erwin had dealt with more homeless deaths than any other kind. Homeless people had become a large, disparate, and desperate part of the population before Hitler’s rise to power, and the Gypsies and other groups preyed upon the homeless. The murder rate among people living on Berlin’s streets had doubled then quadrupled while Erwin was an active detective. He had continuously reported on this horrible and growing circumstance, but his reports had fallen on deaf ears. His superiors didn’t care for ripples or complexities, and in as such had tied his hands while at once telling him to do his job! The binding they used was enough red tape to bury a man.
“Please, come up to the bridge, Hulsing,” the captain invited. “Let’s talk further.”
“Yes, sir.” Hulsing wondered what his superior wanted, assuming some ulterior motive behind the sudden interest in him.
After spending months on board the new secret weapon of the Third Reich, this was the most the captain had ever spoken to him. As he made his way up the stairs to the bridge, his boots created a quick litany of metallic taps. While making his way to the catwalk, he feared that at last, Captain Lindemann knew his secrets and meant to act on that knowledge, to send him straight to the SS officer on board. Commandant Bonekemper, a man no one wanted to sit across the interview table from. Behind his back and in the mess halls, Bonekemper was known by Bismarck’s crew as ‘the Shredder’. Should there be a murder on board the Bismarck, Hulsing expected that Bonekemper would be called in to investigate, not him, regardless of his former experience as a detective. Earlier, he had been wondering what the captain was driving at, and so far, he hadn’t a clue! What Lindemann did have him pondering was why all the sudden interest in Hulsing’s past career?
“There,” said Lindemann, “better isn’t it? Being eye-to-eye, eh Erwin, man-to-man so to speak. Isn’t this better for small talk?”
“It’s definitely easier on my neck, yes, sir.” Erwin attempted some humor, trying to sound calm while inside he was quaking and wondering if the captain sensed this.
“I will get to the point, Lt. Commander as I see you are wondering what I want from you—not just some small talk.”
“Sir, I am your servant.”
“Yes and I could order you to put an end to all the ‘small talk’ about that damnable crate of oranges our beloved leader brought aboard for our admiral, but I am a firm believer that showing is better than telling.”
“Sir?”
“Follow me, Hulsing.”
When Lindemann turned his back and began toward his quarters, Hulsing sucked in a deep breath of air, trying his best to stay calm, cool, and collected. “Yes, sir,” he said to the other man’s back.
Lindemann walked past what was now his room and took the flight up to what was now Admiral Lutjens’ private quarters. It suddenly crossed Erwin’s mind that Lindemann was bringing him up on charges before Lutjens for some silly shipboard gossip. Such a thing was a minor infraction to be sure, but it would put a blemish on his record, and it seemed that men in power in the Reich appeared to thrive on putting red ink on a man’s record.
All this over a crate of stupid oranges, Hulsing angrily thought. Obviously, Captain Lindemann had heard more than he’d let on, listening in on Hulsing and Dobberhagen’s conversation from his perch above.
Hulsing gritted his teeth as he stepped inside the comparatively large private compartment for the admiral. Hulsing’s hands shook, but Lutjens was nowhere to be seen. It flashed through Erwin’s mind that Lindemann had done away with the old man, possibly in a fit of rage, which would explain all the theatrical nonsense of his being called in to investigate a theoretical murder.
Lindemann closed the door behind them. Acting quite mysteriously, the captain pointed to a dark corner of the cabin where against the wall, the orange crate sat, squat and rectangular like a menacing coffin.
“You want to look inside that crate, don’t you, Hulsing?”
“What, sir?”
“Go ahead, man, open it up; take a good look inside, and then I want you to report back to all the men on board what you’ve seen. Will you do that for me, Lt. Commander?”
Punishment, embarrass the junior officer, Erwin silently realized. He nodded, glad that this was all there was to his dressing down. “If this is your wish, Captain, of course, but we both know it is what it appears—oranges.”
“How startlingly observant you are, Detective Hulsing.” Lindemann’s smirk had turned to a full-fledged snicker. “Do it, Hulsing. Lift the lid and take a long look inside the damn box.”
Erwin took in a deep breath as he stepped toward the box. Behind him, he could feel Lindemann’s cold presence, imagining his glee, as the man’s icy stare bored a hole into his back. “Who doesn’t want to look inside a mysterious box? One brought on board Bismarck by der Fuhrer himself, eh, Lietenant-Commander Hulsing, eh?”
“Yes, sir… .yes, sir.” Hulsing listened to the irk-irk-irk sound as he snatched up the lid which had been pried open earlier. but replaced. The nails had been pried loose on all sides, making it obvious that Lutjens and Lindemann had already taken time to partake of the sweet fruit.
Erwin stared down at rows of carefully wrapped oranges, shelved within the crate, a few shaken loose from having been handled. That’s all it was—precisely as it was presented. Stacks of damned oranges. No mystery here.
Lindemann broke into a rare laugh. “Now, you are in the inner circle of the orange affair. Who best to spread the truth of the matter but a former police detective who saw to removing dead victims from Berlin streets? Perhaps we can diffuse a mutiny before it happens!” The captain was laughing as if his words were the funniest joke he’d ever told.