(At that moment I wondered, had my mother and Reese Mac Isaac ever danced to French popular songs? One summer night, through the open kitchen window, I'd heard Reese play some.)
"Rigolo's, then?" Tom said.
We started back down Bliss Street, Hermione in the middle. Rain hats on, collars up. "French war bride or not," she said, "I bet I could've fit right in. I'm a good dancer."
We got to Rigolo's Pub between eight-thirty and nine. We'd just found a table when in walks our foreman, Charles Blakemore. Charles is a big man, about six feet five inches tall, with a handlebar mustache. He's been my foreman for twelve years now. He walked right up to our table and said, "I thought I might find you three here."
"Well, here we are, then," Hermione said. "Sit down and share a mug with us, Charles."
"No time," Charles said.
"What, are you late for a different pub?" Tom said.
"You look on edge," Hermione said.
"Any of you want triple overtime?" Charles asked.
"When?" I said.
"Tonight — now."
"In theory, yes, I'd want overtime," Hermione said. "But it's pretty nasty out. What's the deal, anyway? This time of night."
"What the Navy's telling us," Charles said, "is that a German U-boat's floated to the surface. Off Hartlen Point. It's lolling on its side out there."
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Hermione said.
"It's all rusted up inside a length of antisubmarine chain," Charles said. "Remember the sort that was laid in the harbor?"
"For the most part it did the job," Tom said.
"Well, it did the job on this U-boat," Charles said. "Already there's any number of gawkers out there in private boats, and the newspapers got wind of it. There's two tugs on their way. They're going to try and tow it in."
"It's got to be one big coffin, though, right?" Tom said.
"Got to be," Charles said.
"So, what's there for us to do?" Hermione said.
"When the thing gained the surface," Charles said, "a section of it burst apart. I don't know, release of pressure or some such thing."
"Is this some sort of rare phenomenon or something?" Tom asked.
"Off the record, the Navy says this has been happening since the war ended. All over the Atlantic, apparently. Off the coast of France. Off the coast of England and such. U-boats popping up, and the Navy said that just last year one showed up in a Norwegian fjord. Some guy pissing off the rail of his trawler under a full moon got a once-in-a-lifetime surprise, eh?"
"Our U-boat, Charles, was sunk when?" Hermione asked. "Is that for the public?"
"Late 1944. It's sat at the bottom of the harbor since late 1944. Probably it filled with gases and buoyed up. But part of the hull blew open, and we're told there's all sorts of things been jettisoned."
"And that's where we come in," Tom said.
"There's items distributing themselves far and wide, some already washed up to Dartmouth, we're told," Charles said. "And that's why they called us, and that's what the triple overtime's about."
"Look, Charlie, say we volunteer," Hermione said. "Tell us straight out, are there bodies?"
"I wasn't told," Charles said.
"There has to be bodies inside the U-boat," Tom said.
"Doesn't mean they've got out into the water," Charles said.
Finally, all three of us said okay, finished our beers, took handfuls of crackers from the basket at our table for a little sustenance, seeing as we hadn't had supper, and followed our foreman to his car, parked not more than a block from Rigolo's. In twenty minutes we were out in the harbor again.
Good Lord, what a spectacle, Marlais. What a spectacle of history. In 1960, the City of Halifax purchased two new tugboats, equipped with all the latest gadgetry and sporting twice as many running lights as the old tugs. They still had truck tires secured all around just below the railing, to protect the tug from blows — that much hadn't changed. When Hermione, Tom and I motored out a ways, we saw that tugs were on either side of the U-boat and eight crewmen were standing on the thing itself, fixing hooks and ropes. By my quick calculation, there were no fewer than fifteen private boats out there, too, including a small cabin cruiser. Harbor police in a launch were warning them with a bullhorn to keep a safe distance. Cameras flashed, mostly from a boat owned and operated by the Mail. As we got closer, we could see, through binoculars, at the rail of the closest tugboat, two representatives from the coroner's office, with official identification badges hung around their necks. A uniformed RNC officer and a half-dozen sailors were on deck, too.
Closer yet, we could see patches of the U-boat's original black color, but in general the paint had gone to leprosy and rust. The entire hull was covered with barnacles, the conning tower as well. As we watched, one of the tug's crew crowbarred open the hatch. The hatch cover was now upright, and three men shone flashlights and gazed down into the hole. Their mouths were covered with what looked like surgical masks.
Faded but legible on the bow was U–99. The loud, incessant whine of an industrial saw started up as a man in protective gear and wearing goggles attempted to cut the fence. In a few minutes we saw a link break apart and a length of fence fall into the water. When the saw had started up, dozens of gulls scattered, flew off and back, then swirled overhead as if they'd been drawn by a carcass, the likes of which they'd never seen, in Halifax Harbor at least.
When the RCN officer waved us away, we veered off, and just as we got out of range of the tugboat lights and into dark water, we saw a decomposed body, or what shapeless stuff was left of a body, inside a German uniform, contorting and changing shape with the movement of the water. Tom cut the engine and we drifted.
Really, the only thing that looked at all solid was the belt buckle. I'd seen the buckle glint, and now I shined my flashlight on it and—whoosh! — in swooped a gull, which nabbed the buckle. The gull tried to rise with it but was pulled back down, and the bird refused to let go. It sort of half fluttered above and half sat on the uniform, lifting it a little, attempting to dislodge the buckle. Eventually the gull abandoned the effort and coursed back up into the black rainy sky.
The three of us had drifted close to the body, and when Tom poked it with his gaffing hook, Hermione said, "If you keep doing that, I'll vomit on your shoes."
Tom pulled in his gaff and said, "Guess what? I vote against attending to these remains. Let's leave them alone."
"Me, too," I said.
"It's unanimous, then," Hermione said.
"Too bad that German sailor in the water there didn't live to see our example just now," Tom said, "of Canada being a country where everyone gets a vote, eh?"
We looked over at the U-boat. All that macabre industry. Sparks spraying off the industrial saw. I felt we were out among some madness or other.
"We should've grabbed some sandwiches or something," I said.
"I didn't think of it, either," Tom said.
We spent another five hours out there — wallets, shoes, plates, not much else. One logbook. One album of family photographs. Many items of clothing. Hour after hour, peering through binoculars, we followed the progress of the salvage crew and then, near dawn, saw U–99 towed in to Purdy's Wharf. It had taken the entire night, but they'd done it.
"Let's head in, too," Tom said. "We've done enough."
Hermione pointed to the five burlap sacks we'd filled. "Not all that much loot," she said. "Except for triple overtime, it's been a pretty useless night. But we won't tell anyone that, now will we?"
"Next time Charles tells us one of these bastards pops up in our harbor," Tom said, "we should bargain. Immediate retirement at full salary, plus we each get a house in Cape Breton, plus medical for the rest of our lives. Or else the answer's no."