Death and Honor полностью

Whatever their reasons for opposing Hitler, for refusing to accept that the war Hitler was waging against the Communists was their own war, the fact was that England and America were fighting Germany, and that was sufficient cause for Capitán José Francisco de Banderano to do whatever he could to oppose them.

Capitán de Banderano hadn’t hesitated a moment before accepting the German offer to take command of the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico, and he had been honored by their offer for him to take command of the Ciudad de Cádiz.

[TWO]

Aboard U-boat 405 48 Degrees 85 Minutes South Latitude 59 Degrees 45 Minutes West Longitude 1250 7 July 1943

Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm von Dattenberg, twenty-six years of age, was a large but gaunt Swabian—since leaving the submarine pens at St. Nazaire four months earlier, he had lost forty of his normal 190 pounds. Von Dattenberg took his eyes from the now no-longer-resilient rubber pads of the periscope and saw that both his chief of the boat and his number one had their eyes on him.

He issued two orders by making two gestures, first signaling by pointing to the deck . . .

“Down periscope!” the chief of the boat bellowed.

... then, accompanied by a smile, jerking his thumb upward.

“Prepare to surface!” the chief of the boat bellowed.

“Signals lampman, stand by to go to the conning tower,” Kapitänleutnant von Dattenberg ordered.

“With the Herr Kapitänleutnant’s permission?” the chief of the boat asked softly.

He wants to operate the signal lamp himself?

Well, why not?

Von Dattenberg nodded.

“That’s either the Ciudad de Cádiz, Erich,” von Dattenberg said to his executive officer, Oberleutnant zur See Erich Müllenburg, “or His Brittanic Majesty’s cruiser Ajax very cleverly camouflaged.”

Müllenburg nodded and smiled, but said nothing.

He didn’t trust himself to speak. He was one of the very few aboard who knew their fuel supply was down to only ten hours of cruising. Alternate plans had already been made, in case the Ciudad de Cádiz was not at the rendezvous point. They would make for the Falklands. When close, or the fuel ran out, whichever came first, the boat would be scuttled and the crew would try to make it to the remote islands in one dinghy, what rafts they could jury-rig, and the four fifteen-man rubber boats.

“Send ‘Sorry to be late,’ ” von Dattenberg ordered.

The chief of the boat put the lamp to his shoulder and flashed the message.

There was an immediate reply from the Ciudad de Cádiz.

The chief—unnecessarily, as von Dattenberg could read Morse code— waited until the message had finished, then reported: “The reply, sir, is, ‘Better late than never.’ ”

“Send. ‘Request permission to lay alongside.’ ”

Sixty seconds later, the chief reported, “ ‘Permission granted,’ sir.”

“Put the boat alongside, Oberleutnant Müllenburg,” von Dattenberg ordered. “Carefully. We don’t want to ram her.”

As the U-405 inched carefully up to the Ciudad de Cádiz, a huge watertight door near the waterline swung outward from her hull. A cushion— a web of old truck tires—was put over the side, and a series of neatly uniformed seamen tossed lines to crewmen of U-405 standing on the submarine’s deck.

As the lines were made tight, von Dattenberg saw neatly uniformed officers lined up behind a man with the four gold stripes of a captain on his sleeves. And then he saw that all the uniforms were not naval. Three of them were black.

The SS! What the hell is that all about?

Two gangways—one a simple ribbed plank, the other with rope railings— were put out from the Ciudad de Cádiz. The gangways were nearly level with the deck of U-405, with a slight upward incline.

If there was any fuel in my tanks, there would be a slight downward incline.

“You have the conn, Erich,” von Dattenberg said. “The chief and I are going aboard that absolutely beautiful ship.”

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

Von Dattenberg and the chief of the boat climbed down from the conning tower and made their way to the gangplank with the rope railings.

The U-boat commander suddenly remembered his appearance. His beard was not neatly trimmed. He wore a sweater that was dirty and full of holes, a pair of equally dirty and worn trousers, a uniform tunic that was missing buttons, grease-soaked, oily tennis shoes, and an equally filthy brimmed cap.

He marched up the gangplank, not touching the railing, and stopped just inside the Ciudad de Cádiz. There he saluted.

"Kapitänleutnant von Dattenberg, commanding U-boat 405,” he announced. “Request permission to come aboard.”

He saw that everyone was saluting as he had, by touching the brims of their uniform caps. Everyone but the SS officers—they gave the Nazi straight-armed salute.