The Last Eagle

by Michael Wenberg

  The radiator in the corner of Dönitz’s office creaked and grumbled, struggling to keep the cold at bay. He knew his staff called his office the refrigerator, as much for his icy personality as the chronic inadequacy of the building’s heating system. He didn’t mind. Icy matched his mood, particularly on this late Thursday afternoon the second week of January 1939.

  He should have been elated. The previous day he had been promoted to rear admiral —Konteradmiral —a fitting exclamation point to a career began when he stepped aboard that cramped, dank German submarine twenty-five years earlier and had a sudden premonition of its potential in the art of war making.

  Yes, indeed, the newly christened rear admiral mused. He should have been elated. But numbers did not lie. With enough U-boats, he could starve and freeze England into submission and Germany would surely triumph. Without them?…

  Of course, he had argued for delay until the end, risking even Hitler’s wrath in his persistence. He had sixty submarines, he pointed out. He needed three hundred.

  At their last meeting, Hitler had slammed his open palm on the table, ending Dönitz’s criticism once and for all. “Enough and enough,” he said, spit flying from his mouth. “You will just have to make do with what you have. If not, I will find someone who is.”

  Dönitz locked eyes with the most dangerous man on the planet, his stomach tight as a fist. Logic was on his side. And yet, logic didn’t matter with this man. “You will hear no more of it, mein Führer,” he submitted after a moment. And may God have mercy on us all.

  Hitler had appraised Dönitz shrewdly, and then smiled forgiveness. “That’s a good boy, Karl.”

  It might have gone differently if not for Göring, Dönitz thought coldly. Hitler had chosen to listen to his self-promoting boasts and wishful thinking.

  “My pilots are ready for the sacrifice to come,” the corpulent head of the German Luftwaffe reminded everyone earlier in the meeting, glancing briefly at Dönitz as he spoke.

  His argument was clear to all. Why wait for more U-boats? Now was the year to strike, not 1941 or ’42. The Luftwaffe by itself would be enough to bomb the French, English and anyone else who stood in the way into capitulation.

  Dönitz lit a cigarette—an American Camel cigarette, he was sure the Gestapo had noted somewhere in his files—and watched the wind swirl through the park, the stark gray trees shivering as it passed. Snow by nightfall. Weather forecasters said otherwise, but he trusted his nose and his aching right knee more than those pseudo-scientists. It smelled like snow, the air bitter. His knee agreed. And so, it would snow.

  It reminded him of his promise to take his granddaughter for a walk that evening. She loved to chase snowflakes across the wide lawns at his estate on the outskirts of Berlin. It was the same every year. It could not be truly winter until they each had caught a snowflake on the tip of their tongue.

  “It is a tradition!” she scolded just that morning, standing before him in her pajamas, stuffed bear under one arm. “Today is the day. Baby Bear told me. And you must catch at least one, Grandpapa,” she said, reminding him of the rules, as if nature herself needed the permission of a rear admiral, and, more importantly, a little girl, before it could continue on

  Dönitz heard the step outside of his door just before the knock. He pinched the bridge of his nose, dismissing the memories. “Enter.”

  A slick-haired aide stuck his head into his office. “Sir. Excuse my interruption.”

  “What is it?” There was a practiced edge to his voice.

  “The report you were waiting for.”

  Dönitz gestured with his hand. The aide scurried across the room, laid the folder on the admiral’s desk, and then retraced his route. Dönitz let the door close, opened the folder and began reading.

  It was dark outside when he finished. He closed the folder. Maybe this was a small part of the answer? It was a crazy, audacious plan. And if anyone could pull it off it was Peter von Ritter, the plan’s author. It would require good men in the right places to take advantage of every opportunity. But it might work. If they could seize just one of Poland’s Dutch-built submarines, it would increase Germany’s long-range U-boat fleet by 20 percent.

  Of course, it was hard to imagine how one more submarine would make much difference in the upcoming conflict. And yet, Dönitz was enough of a student of history to realize that the fate of wars had turned on much less. And the submarine the Dutch had built for the Poles was the best in the world. It would be another six months before Germany had anything close to its capabilities.

  In any case, Hitler’s mind was set and Dönitz would have to play the game as best he could with the cards he had in hand: five German long range submarines, a fistful of others and if they were lucky, a Polish wildcard thrown in to the mix.

  He gave one last glance out the window then stood, stretching stiffness from his aching back. He slipped the folder into a well-traveled attaché case, a gift from his father on his eighteenth birthday, shrugged into a leather overcoat, slowly pulled on his gloves, and then put on his cap. He stared at his visage for a moment in the mirror by the door. Hawkish nose. Strong chin. Perfectly composed. Stern but not haughty. A man completely in control. “Never let them hear you fart,” his first captain was fond of quoting. “And if you do, make sure they think it stinks like French perfume or are too afraid to say otherwise.” It was one of the best pieces of advice he ever received from the man.

  Dönitz grasped the doorknob and hesitated. Best to keep the plan quiet. For now. But he would make sure Ritter’s team was in place with plenty of time to spare just in case Hitler changed his mind once again and decided to attack even earlier.

  In the meantime, he had more important matters to attend: an urgent appointment at home chasing snowflakes with his granddaughter. Truth be told, he regretted disappointing her above all. Perhaps this year, he would catch more than one.

  Chapter Three

  Nearly nine months after his plan had been dropped on the desk of Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz, Peter von Ritter moved steadily up the rain-slick dirt path that snaked its way beneath the thick canopy of trees in the woodland above the Polish port city of Gdynia.

  The clouds on the western horizon were ablaze, as if the sun, fleeing in the face of yet another defeat, had chosen to ignite them instead of surrendering. The flare of orange and red that leaked through the shadows above revealed the sharp planes of the man’s face, thin lips and white dueling scar that curled as if drawn by the caress of a beautiful woman from the edge of his eye to the tip of chin. He was dressed in the clothes of an outdoorsman: fine wool pants and Norwegian wool sweater. On his feet were the kind of leather hiking boots you might find a man of leisure and wealth wearing on holiday in the Swiss Alps.

  Though aspects of Ritter’s plan had changed over the months, its main objective had always remained the same: Ritter and his men were going to take the Eagle from the Poles—steal her. And if they couldn’t have her, no one would.

  Ritter had vowed to himself that it wouldn’t come to that.

  Breathing easily through his nose, he scrambled up a steep embankment. All his years at sea had failed to completely disguise the sure steps of an experienced woodsman.

  The evening air was sharp with the smell of decaying leaves and burning coal from the nearby town. The scent reminded him of the small Prussian village his family had called home for nearly over five hundred years.

  He wondered what would become of it. It had survived countless invaders: Swede. French. German. Russian. The walls of the family castle were dominated with the brooding portraits of his ancestors—warriors all—while the outside still bore the scars of time and weather, cannon balls and bullets.

  And now it was his turn. A new war was about to begin. Or, as his crippled father, the ex–general, would snort with derision, his voice thickened with brandy and regret: “It won’t be new. Just a continuation of the Kaiser’s last bollix.”

  Ritter glanced at his Rolex. A few more hour
s.

  The telegram awaiting him in his room earlier had been innocuous enough: “Baby and I are fine. Hope you are having a good time. We miss you. Love, Greta.” Once decoded, it relayed the message he had been waiting for. Tomorrow, the war and his part in it, would begin.

  He quickened his pace, feeling the steady thump in his chest, his legs burning. Though he looked younger, he was approaching thirty-five. His close-cropped blond hair was already beginning to whiten at the temples. No longer a young man. And yet, he refused to slow down, refused to yield to weakness and age.

  Of course, he was not senior enough to be privy to the overall German plans, just his small, unimportant piece of the conflict. But that had been augmented with occasional comments and knowing laughter from friends in places and positions to know.

  He didn’t need their help or the skills of a fortune-teller to imagine how it would begin. A trumped-up provocation on the frontier. Some poor son-of-a-bitch of a Polish commander, his troops suddenly under fire, wondering why hell itself has been revealed, trying to raise his superiors, lamely explaining that he had done nothing to provoke the massive German response. And then the wire would go dead, the commander and his men soon to follow.

  That lucky fool corporal. Over the years, Ritter had watched with amazement as no one had called his bluff. Oh, they had blustered and barked, like poodles in the arms of their masters. He had continued to take, and take again. The German High Command, waiting for a response, an excuse to get rid of him and step into power, and yet hoping beyond hope that he would not be stopped. Who could have imagined that none would strike back? And now he was untouchable, and they were stuck with him whatever the end might bring.

  Ritter slipped on a patch of exposed clay, his knee striking hard against a rock. He gasped from the pain, but pulled himself up and continued on, barely limping though his leg was numb. In some strange way, he was glad for the pain and what it told him. He was alive.

  That wise old bulldog, Churchill, Ritter thought, knew what was to come. And yet, he had been discarded by the English like an old can of peas.

  What had Dönitz said? Churchill was off painting landscapes? How British of him. He probably wrote poetry, as well, and ate dainty little cakes while sipping tea with his pinky raised like a surrender flag in the air. Members of the British aristocracy were not known for their masculine vigor. What little they had came from mating with vigorous German royalty the previous century.

  Despite his infatuation with watercolors, Churchill was not so distracted that he hadn’t warned of the coming whirlwind or recognized the primal roar of the German people in the background of Hitler’s speeches for what it was. But no one had listened to him. He was alone. The English preferred the soothing words of Chamberlain.

  The French were even more foolish. It was understandable. They had left 1.5 million of their best men on the shattered battlefields of France twenty years earlier. The idea of another war was too soon, nightmares and memories still too fresh in so many minds. Ritter was confident that when confronted by the combined might of the German Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, their resolve would vanish like smoke before a Teutonic gale.

  As the trail crested a final rise, Ritter began to jog, the pain in his knee finally subsiding. He hurried along the trail as it headed toward his destination, anxious now to get to the prow of land that gave a panoramic view of the city and the harbor.

  He stepped out onto a huge rock discarded by a receding glacier 12,000 years earlier, and looked out. Below him, the lights of Gdynia twinkled in the dusk. A dozen ships hung on their anchors in the harbor. Assorted freighters and fishing boats, mostly. The Baltic beyond lay black and quiet and smooth, a mist already beginning to erase the horizon. Closer in, however, huddled next to the quay, was a Polish submarine.

  He had wanted one last look, remembering the De Schelde shipyards and the first time he had gazed at the Eagle, remembering how it felt.

  Early tomorrow, hundreds of kilometers to the west, the dying would begin, but if luck held, he and his men would soon be in possession of what he and Admiral Dönitz desired most.

  After he seized command, his first order as her new captain would be to replace the Polish flag flying above her bridge with one bearing the German swastika. Eagle, however, she would remain.

  Chapter Four

  “It’s not fair,” Sublieutenant Eryk Pertek of the Polish Navy’s submarine Eagle said pointedly, slapping the scarred tabletop for emphasis.

  His boss, Lieutenant Commander Stefan Petrofski, scratched the side of his beard and shrugged in the direction of his navigator and friend. As second in command of the Eagle, he knew he shouldn’t have another beer. In addition to Pertek, there were a dozen other members of the Eagle’s crew scattered throughout the pub. Part of Stefan’s job as a Polish naval officer was to be a good example to his men. And that meant staying reasonably sober when he was out in public. Tonight, he didn’t care. He drained his mug, and then roared “Beer!” in a voice that demanded obedience.

  His shout was like a slap on the bottom of the plump waitress behind the bar. She filled another mug to overflowing and began waddling in their direction, not bothering to stop and apologize to the customers she wet with spilled beer along the way.

  Stefan admired the way she wove between the tables like a skilled soccer player on the attack, avoiding slaps and pinches, twisting away from grabs and caresses, using a combination of bluster and sweetness to get her message across: look, but don’t touch. There was enough to enjoy, particularly in the bounce of her ample breasts.

  A few years earlier he might have made a try for her. Flirting was a holy obligation of every sailor. If he put his mind to it, he might have succeeded in convincing her that he was more than a worn-out sailor. He knew from experience that a smile transformed his bearded, sea-weathered face into something that some women found appealing or, at least, sympathetic. But tonight was not the night. So instead, he said “Tthank you” when she slammed his beer on the table, pushing a bill in her direction that more than covered the price of a dozen.

  “Too much,” she protested, glaring at him with suspicion, brushing aside a dark wet strand plastered to her forehead.

  “I expect nothing but a smile in return. Honest.”

  A wink coaxed a harried smile to her face followed by a throaty and giggle of appreciation she couldn’t restrain. “I suppose I could use some new silk stockings.”

  “And so!” Stefan exclaimed. “Another fair maiden pulled away from abyss. New stockings it is.”

  A shout from the bar pulled her eyes away. She slipped the bill into her blouse, nodded her thanks, and then braved another passage across the crowded pub.

  Stefan watched her leave, shaking his head regretfully. “It is done, Pablo,” he said, using his friend’s nickname and pausing to half-drain the glass. “Once I get the boat squared away for our new captain, I’ll be reassigned or booted out on my ass. He’ll want someone of his own. And so, I follow orders. That is the way it is.”

  Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Stefan knew it, and so did Eryk. No one loved submarines more than Stefan. While other officers went out of their way to avoid service aboard these dank, moldy, sour-smelling, leaking cylinders of steel, Stefan had done just the opposite. As a result, he had more firsthand knowledge of submarines than anyone in the Polish Navy. It was all the other aspects of being an officer in the Polish Navy that he didn’t handle so well.

  “But not in America,” Pertek said, leaning over his mug and pointing his thumb at a couple sitting quietly at a table in the far corner.

  At first glance, they looked English—their clothes had probably been picked up during a stopover in London—but, of course, everyone in the pub knew they were Americans all the way from New York City. At the moment, the only makeup the woman wore was a faint, amused smile. She had pushed away her plate of pork chops and steamed cabbage, but her hands kept returning to it as if they needed something to keep them out of tro
uble. The man was already working steadily, head down, on a second helping, pausing every now and then to tip back his head and take a swallow or two of beer before resuming.

  Rumors had them from Hollywood, but the owner of the hotel where they were staying had set everyone in the dockside pub straight the night before. Hollywood? No. She was a foreign correspondent for an American newspaper syndicate, traveling around the country, doing a series of articles about Polish poets and artists. He was her photographer. No more, no less.

  Definitely not less, Stefan thought, eyeing the woman. Not the most beautiful he had ever seen, but there was something about the way she looked that he found intriguing. Perhaps it was her nose. Once broken, it had been set improperly. On anyone else it would have been a distraction, but on her, this imperfection only seemed to enhance her beauty.

  He watched her scan the room, stopping for a moment when their eyes met. Did her smile brighten, perhaps recognizing in him someone like herself? And then she was distracted by a comment from her companion. She tossed back her thick red hair and laughed. Stefan wondered what made a sophisticated woman like that laugh. A subtle joke? A cynical comment? Surely not anything a rough seaman could ever say or do.

  “I tell you that two men like you and me could go far in the American Navy,” Pertek continued. “Over there, what counts is what is in here and here,” he pointed at his head, and his heart, “and not who your father or grandfather happens to be.”

  Stefan clenched his fists, feeling his fingernails bite into his palms. Don’t be fooled, my young friend, he thought. Those count, too. Even in America. It didn’t help that Pertek’s older brother had been sending letters from Chicago for six months, tormenting him with tales of abundance and promise. If only half of them were true, anyone over sixteen and younger than sixty was a fool to remain a moment longer in Poland.