by Ward Wagher
Abe put the phone down and moved to the front of the wheelhouse. He peered in front of the ship, as did the lookouts. One of them shouted and pointed to the sea. Now, Abe could see the track of the torpedo as it headed towards them. He threw his cigarette on the deck and stamped it out.
“Now, we get to thread the needle. Helm, come two degrees starboard.”
“Two degrees starboard, Sir.”
He continued studying the sea as the destroyer plunged forward, accelerating. The lookout pointed again. He had spotted the second torpedo.
“Very well,” Abe called. “Helm, come five degrees port on my mark.”
“Five degrees port on your mark, Sir.”
Abe studied the incoming torpedoes. The first would miss to their left by a comfortable margin. The second would be close.
“Annnddd…. Mark!” he called.
The helmsman swung the wheel to the left.
“Ten degrees starboard, now, helmsman,” Abe ordered.
The front of the destroyer would miss the torpedo, and now he was trying to swing the stern out of the way. A huge gout of water erupted along the right side, and the whole ship shuddered. He waited, sensing with his feet the condition of the ship. Everything seemed normal.
“Starboard 90, Helm.”
“Starboard 90, Sir.”
“Turns for steerage, Helm”
The helm acknowledged and Hokaze began slowing down. Abe walked back over to his chair and picked up the phone again. He punched the button for damage control, and the engineer answered.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“We have a few leaks midships, but other than that we are fully functional.”
Abe nodded to himself. They had been lucky. “Put a crew on those leaks. We are not done up here, yet.”
He then connected to the hydrophone operator.
“Riichi, what do we have?”
“The submarine has gone quiet, again. We seem to be headed south of him.”
“I did not want him to take another shot while we were dealing with the first two.”
He looked in front. “Helm, come to course… 20 should do it for now. Make turns for ten knots.”
“Course 20, 10 knots, Sir,” the helmsman repeated.
Abe lit another cigarette and watched as the exec picked up another phone, and was apparently talking to the damage control parties. He then stepped back over to the captain.
“Do we know where the submarine is?”
“Not precisely. We lost him when we maneuvered to avoid the torpedoes. But not to worry, Exec,” Abe said with a smile, “we have all day to hunt this gaijin.”
“Maybe we can run his batteries down, and force him to the surface,” the exec said.
“That one is cagey,” Abe replied. “I do not think he would be so foolish as to drain his batteries. He will probably try to wait us out until after dark, and then slink away.”
“Possible periscope port midships,” a lookout called.
Abe grabbed his phone. “Riichi, what you have on our port 90?”
“Nothing, Sir.”
“Could he have gotten past us?” the exec asked.
“I don’t think so.” Abe walked over to the chart table, where one of the ratings updated their course and track with a grease pencil. “I think he is somewhere around here,” he said, drawing a circle with his finger ahead and to the right of the current course.
“Does that not make us a target?” the exec asked.
Abe raised an eyebrow. “You are, of course, correct. Do you have a suggestion?”
The executive officer pointed to the map. “We go up through here at twenty knots, and drop a few depth charges.”
“As to stampede him?” Abe asked. “Why not? And who knows, we might even get him.”
The captain turned back to the front of the bridge. “Helm, come starboard about fifteen degrees. Give me turns for twenty knots.”
“Starboard fifteen turns for twenty knots, Sir.”
“Stand by for depth charge run,” Abe continued. “I want to drop three. Set the depth for one-hundred feet.”
He walked back to his chair and picked up the phone again. “Riichi, we are staring a depth charge run. I plan to drop three. Let me know if we can scare him off his nest.”
The Hokaze roiled the waters with three depth charges, and the then circled back to the north.
“Anything, Riichi?”
“No, Sir.”
“Perhaps he really was off the port side,” the exec suggested.
“Perhaps,” Abe replied. “But I don’t think so. You had a good idea, but we must not have been close enough to cause panic. We will patrol this area at five knots for the rest of the day.”
“And so, we just give up?” the exec asked.
“This fish slipped the hook,” Abe said with a smile. “There will be others.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
August 1, 1942; 11 AM
Bavarian Alps
South of Munich
Germany
“What a fun place, Papa,” Hans-Friedrich yelled as he ran up the path from the car to the timbered cabin.
Schloss grinned as he helped Anna-Lisa and Gisela from the car. “You can run along, if you want to, Anna-Lisa.”
He watched as the little girl pelted up the path. He felt Gisela slip her arm through his.
“This was a good idea to bring the children,” she said. “They do remarkably well living in the Reich Chancellery, but I think it is very good to get them out into the real world from time to time.”
“I worry about them not having a normal life,” he said.
He turned to check on the guards. Two of them were removing luggage from the back of the car, and the others had formed a perimeter. When he and Gisela had decided to take a weekend in the south part of the country, Karl Rainer had immediately dispatched a team to the cabin to manage security. Based on previous experiences, no one took liberties where the security of the Reich Chancellor and his wife were concerned.
Their new head of the guard force, Lieutenant Felix Grossmann had been carefully vetted by the SS, and then Rainer had personally reviewed his capabilities in the management of security. Schloss was satisfied that Rainer had done his job. Grossmann seemed competent. Both Schloss and Rainer fervently hoped never to put Grossmann’s skills to the test.
“We will take care of the luggage, Herr Reich Chancellor,” Grossmann said. “The cabin has been prepared for you.”
“He is carefully telling us to head for the cabin,” Schloss murmured to Gisela.
She stuck an elbow in his side. “Stop that. The poor man is simply doing his job.”
“Of course, he is.”
The rustic cabin was much the same as from their previous visit. Schloss had quietly approached the owner about purchasing the property. The owner was a member of the party from Munich. He had told Schloss that the property had been in the family for several generations, and he did not feel he could sell it. However, Schloss had use of the place any time he desired.
After walking into the cabin, Gisela took his hand. “Come, Darling, let’s go sit on the porch until the lunch is ready.”
There was always competition between and various armed services and the SS as to who would provide the cooking during one of the Reich Chancellor’s trips. This time a Luftwaffe sergeant had claimed ownership of the kitchen and was working hard to prepare a lunch that would impress Schloss and his family.
They sat in a pair of Adirondack chairs and held hands as they watched the children playing in the small yard behind the cabin. The woods were close, but the phalanx of guards was paying close attention to the children and to the surroundings.
“I could tell it was time for you to get away,” Gisela said, as she played with his fingers.
“How could you tell?” he asked.
“You were beginning to get grouchy with Peter.”
“I don’t get grouchy with Peter.”
She gazed at him, an
d he finally spoke again. “What?”
“I heard you tell Peter to quit screwing around get the new propaganda initiative rolling.”
“I was simply trying to impress on him a sense of urgency.”
“Of course, Darling,” she replied with a hint of bite in her voice. “I think Peter’s sense of urgency is just fine.”
“Okay, so maybe I am a little tired.”
“Not thinking about work for the weekend will do you good,” she said.
“I have a meeting tomorrow morning to talk about the situation in Iraq. The council is flying down for it.”
“And I think you should cancel it before they have to trek all the way down here. It can wait until Monday, and you don’t need to think about it.”
“Gisela, this is an urgent matter. We must attend to it”
“The coup was a week ago. Why is it suddenly urgent now?”
“This is the first chance I’ve had to get everybody together to talk about it.”
“In other words, you are going to have the meeting, anyway,” she made the flat statement.
“We are going to have the meeting,” he said.
She quickly jumped up and walked into the cabin. He shook his head and leaned back in the chair. He could tell she was tired, as well. She normally did not demur when he had to deal with government business. There was no way he could take the entire weekend away from work, and she would have to deal with it.
On the other hand, he had come down to this place to relax, and he thought he should get started. As he watched the children, he heard the breeze sweep through the forest. The background birdsong was pleasant, and he felt himself start to relax. He awakened when Gisela touched his shoulder.
“I thought you might like to come to lunch, sleepyhead,” she said with a broad smile.
He looked around quickly. The children were no longer in the yard, he could hear them now in the dining area of the cabin.
“I should not keep everyone waiting, then,” Schloss said as he worked his way out of the chair. “You know, My Dear, there is no graceful way to get out of one of these chairs.”
She giggled as she took his hand. He thought once again how much he enjoyed hearing her laugh. He considered himself the luckiest man on Earth. Lunch was sublime. While no one could match Frau Marsden’s skill in the kitchen, the Luftwaffe sergeant was at the top of his class in culinary skills. The roast beef sandwiches were very good.
After encouraging the children to have a short nap, Schloss and Gisela retreated to the porch where they indulged in inconsequential conversation. She made one more attempt to postpone the meeting scheduled for the following day, but he would not budge. Recognizing his intransigence, she dropped it. Eventually, he dropped off to sleep again and managed another hour before he awakened again.
“This is really a nice way to spend a weekend,” he told her. “Just sleep and eat. Two of my three favorite things.”
“What’s your third?” she asked, innocently.
“I’ll show you tonight,” he leered.
“You are an animal,” she accused.
“Me? I’m a nice guy.”
“Right. That’s what they all say.”
“All who?” he asked.
“All my boyfriends.”
“Ha! There’s no way you could sneak your boyfriends into the chancellery.”
She laughed. “Karl takes care of it for me.”
Now, Schloss laughed at the incongruence of her statements.
§ § §
August 1, 1942; 1 PM
Bavarian Alps
South of Munich
Germany
“Kind of an out-of-the-way place for our meeting, Herr Schloss,” Goering commented as they gathered around the table the guards set up in the main room of the cabin.
“It’s merely an opportunity for you to get some fresh air and relax for a bit, Hermann,” Schloss replied.
“I must admit Emmy and Edda were excited to get out of Berlin,” he replied. “I reserved a suite in Munich and left them there.”
Schloss, Goering, and Schreiber were dressed more casually. Ribbentrop was wearing his normal suit, as was Willem Kirche.
“Very well,” Schloss said formally, “we should get started. Willem has placed the agenda before you.”
“The only item is the Iraq situation,” Goering commented. “We have quite a mess there.”
“Unfortunately, I think we need to take some action,” Schloss said. “But, I am at a bit of a loss as to what the right thing to do should be. Joachim, suppose you give us a brief summary of the events of the past week.”
“Very well,” Ribbentrop said. “As you know, Colonel Amidad Muhammod executed a coup d’état against King Ghazi. He has the king under house arrest in his palace, and has assumed control of the governing functions.”
“Was this a military coup?” Goering asked.
“Yes. He has the support or at least the acquiescence of the military leadership. One of his first acts was to abrogate our agreement to extend the railroad to the Persian Gulf. He has also asked the oilfield engineers to leave the country. We flew them to Haifa, where they wait for the time being.”
“Did the English set this off?” Rainer asked. “They have been pretty quiet in that area since Montgomery surrendered.”
“We don’t know.”
“What assets do we have in that area?” Schloss asked.
“Gehlen has a string of agents down through Turkey, the Levant, and in Baghdad,” Rainer said. “I have not had a chance to talk to him about that. We’ve been busy on… other things recently.”
Goering raised his eyebrows. “That is perhaps the understatement of the week, Herr Rainer.”
“The Foreign Office has protested in the strongest terms,” Ribbentrop said. “So far Muhammod is ignoring us.”
“Who does the military respect?” Schloss asked.
“We had thought they were solidly behind the king,” Ribbentrop said. “That was clearly a misjudgment on our part.”
“These things happen,” Schloss said. “We need to determine what we are going to do about it. Could we march in there and take control of the country?”
Peter looked up with shock on his face. “You’re talking about invading Iraq?”
“I’m asking the question, Peter,” Schloss said. “This is not something I would like to do, but we need to examine all of the options.”
“I think we could have Rommel march across the Transjordan. Taking Iraq would not be a big problem. Their army is a joke.
“But, are there people, besides the king, we could turn the country over to, and not have the army come back the next week and undo everything?”
It was quiet in the room. Rainer looked around and said, “That is the crux of the problem, isn’t it?”
“I think Ghazi would be happy if we could rescue him,” Ribbentrop said. “As to the army, I couldn’t speak to that.”
“What other options do we have?” Schloss asked.
Peter shrugged. “We simply walk away from it. We have several teams in Libya prospecting for oil.”
“That’s our long shot,” Schloss replied. “I really do not want to trade a sure thing for fervent hopes in Libya.”
The group around the table chuckled.
“In Libya, there would not be much that could bother us,” Goering commented.
“Very true,” Schloss said, “and I haven’t forgotten that. If I was sure we could pull oil from the ground in northern Africa, I wouldn’t be so concerned with Iraq.”
“What would the Americans think if we marched into Iraq?” Peter asked.
Schloss looked around the room with raised eyebrows. “Anybody?”
“Would the Americans even care?” Goering asked.
“I had some conversations with Minister Knabenshue at the American Embassy in Baghdad,” Ribbentrop said. “I would describe him as distantly friendly to the Reich. He had no problem with our original agreement.”
&n
bsp; “That’s a long way from the Wehrmacht marching into the country, however,” Rainer commented.
“Very true. I suppose we could sound out the Americans to see if they had any objections to our restoring Ghazi and his government.”
“That’s an idea,” Schloss said. “Karl, is this something you might be able to take care of for us?”
“Yes, I would be happy to do so. It might take a few days.”
“It’s been a week, so I guess we can take a little more time,” Schloss replied. “Now, we should probably make some contingency plans. What is the distance between Rommel’s army group in Egypt and Baghdad?”
“I thought you might ask that, Herr Reich Chancellor,” Goering said dryly. “It is the next best thing to two-thousand kilometers across the desert. A better idea would be to send an army group by rail. The railhead is only two-hundred kilometers from Bagdad. They could be there in a couple of days from when they disembarked.”
“That is assuming they weren’t stopped at the Iraqi border,” Rainer said.
“We are specialists at the lightning strike,” Goering stated. “With a little careful planning, I think we could easily accomplish the task.”
“Are we in a position to carefully plan this?” Schloss asked, looking directly at Goering.
“I have had discussions with General von Weichs of the Second Army Group. As you know, he was very successful in France. We have a corps in Romania. They could get to Belgrade, and take the railroad from there.”
“Would the Turks allow us to send an entire army through their land?” Schloss asked.
Ribbentrop shook his head. “The Turks have stayed rigorously neutral in the war. I do not think Kemal would give permission for something like that.”
“They had no objection to any commerce we send down the railroad,” Goering said. “We could suggest they simply look the other way. Maybe if we put some gold in Kemal’s coffers. Besides, the Turks have to know that there is no one to help them if they try to stop us.”
“What is the result of creating a new enemy in the Middle East?” Peter asked. “They might not be able to do anything about it, but they would not forget, either.”
“Could we send a force by sea down the canal and past the horn of Africa?” Schloss wondered.
