Flowers From Berlin

by Noel Hynd

  She cut a solitary figure with a walking stick. Sometimes she was slightly bent, as if the weight of some ponderous emotion hung invisibly upon her. From a distance, she appeared to be a woman of twice or even three times her age.

  In the home, there was little mystery. Nigel Worthington knew the sadness of a young woman resigned to falling out of love. He came to her one evening in the parlor and set a firm hand on her shoulder as she buried herself in a newly published volume of T. S. Eliot.

  She looked upward from her reading and searched his eyes. Then her hand drifted to his.

  "You know, Laura," he said, "the door to this house is always open to you. But you've a husband and a life somewhere else."

  "Do I?” she asked.

  Nigel Worthington nodded. "You did once. You will again. A man doesn't fall out of love quite so quickly. Not if there was anything there in the first place."

  "Papa," she said. "I don't know if there ever was anything."

  "Only one way to know for certain, Laura."

  Laura was crying quietly now. She avoided her father's gaze, the tears trickling down her rain- and wind-reddened cheeks.

  "Go back to Stephen," her father said. "Try to find what was there. Build on it."

  Her grasp tightened on her father's hand.

  "Do you think a good marriage doesn't take dedication and work?" he asked. "Do you think it just happens? Do you think your mother and I never had a bad moment?"

  "I don't know."

  "I do," he insisted. "A marriage is something two people build. I want you to go home and try to make it work again. If Stephen Fowler is such a bullheaded, insensitive, stupid young man, then you'll find someone else. But try to repair what you have before you look for something new."

  The tears were steadier now. She knew her father, as usual, spoke both from reason and experience.

  "Is your doddering old Papa making any sense?" he asked.

  She nodded, not speaking for fear that her voice would break. Then, in one motion, she was standing and reaching for him, hugging him as if she would never let him get away. And Dr. Worthington was patting his grown daughter on her shoulders and along the back of her head. He embraced her, saying inconsequential things like, "There, there, my dear," and he let the affection pour out with her tears.

  "I love you, Papa," she said.

  "I love you, too, angel," he answered.

  Although it went unspoken, this was one of those moments in life that was comprised of more emotion than could be fully lived. It occurred to Laura that men like her father did not exist within her own generation. And it further occurred to Dr. Worthington that a young man like Fowler who could cause such misery to such a lovely young lady must be carrying something very small and mean at his core, rather than Christian theology.

  But then, just as quickly as the thought had been upon him, Worthington dismissed it. He had after all met Laura's husband upon several occasions, knew the young man's family, and instinctively had liked him. Why else would he send his only daughter back to him?

  "There's one other item to discuss," Nigel Worthington said at length. "I haven't brought it up until now. I didn't think the time was right."

  Laura waited.

  "Peter Whiteside insists upon seeing you," he said. "Says it's vitally important."

  Laura drew a long sigh. "Tell him," she answered, "that he knows where he can find me."

  *

  Thirty-six hundred miles away, in the county and city of Baltimore, there was general consternation at the F.B.I.'s local outpost. Cochrane's recall papers to Washington had landed with a loud thump. Idle gossip concerning Bureau affairs was definitely against handbook regulations: an employee would have to be mad to murmur even the slightest syllable of hearsay. So naturally, rumors abounded madly concerning why Cochrane, formerly the Bureau's number one leper, had been summoned to grace by none other than the Chief himself. Such drastic turnabouts were never without reason.

  The clerical employees held that Cochrane had once been involved in a dodgy operation in New York in which the give and take with local racketeers had included a little too much of both on Bill Cochrane's part. He was subsequently returning to Washington to face a federal indictment.

  Among the field agents, however, an entirely different account was common currency. There was a major scandal brewing at Treasury, the stories maintained, and Cochrane was being called in to blow the Democrats out of the White House in November of 1940. What the Roosevelt administration lacked most with an election year coming, the Republican field agents suggested hopefully, was a good Teapot Dome-style scandal, complete with soiled money and soiled laundry. Cochrane eventually heard both rumors and broke out laughing at each. Meanwhile, he spent three days turning over his own investigative work-in-progress to two younger agents.

  Late on his final evening in Maryland, Bill Cochrane had two suitcases jammed shut and a third one, nearing completion, on his bed. He had packed the clothing and personal articles he would need on his extended transfer back to the home office. Just before closing the third, his eye settled upon the picture of Heather that rested in its frame on his night table. It was August again, almost the twentieth. Bill Cochrane's nerves were always steadier after the anniversary of the accident. Each August, more times that he cared to admit, he saw the fuel truck jumping the divider on a dark Tennessee highway. And then there was always the sound and moment of impact…

  It was all in the past now, more distant with each day. When she had died, he had been a simple banker.

  Fragments of fantasy conversation came to mind as Heather listened:

  I've begun a new career. They sent me to Berlin… There is another war coming. I think we will all be in it…

  I've missed you horribly sometimes… but I'm trying to live my life again…

  Perhaps all those things, not necessarily in that order. His eyes drifted from the photograph.

  He was tired and tried to sleep. Rest, however, came with considerable difficulty.

  THIRTEEN

  Red Bank, and the United States Navy Yard that had been located there since 1933, was fifteen miles due southeast of Newark. For Siegfried, however, the distance was an exasperating drive of thirty miles, through the incessant trafficked clutter of the towns on the New Jersey side of Staten Island. The drive each way took two hours.

  Siegfried purchased a detailed road map at a Flying A station along Route One south of Perth Amboy. He filled his car with gasoline for two dollars and studied the map before proceeding. The map told him that Red Bank was located across a one-mile inlet from the Atlantic Ocean. When the spy came to the town of New Monmouth, he left the coastal road and drove directly toward the inlet. He found it easily. He then drove the length of it until he found an area in which he could park his car without causing suspicion. Thereupon, he slung a camera case over his shoulder and set out on foot, across a field which, after a walk of about a mile, led to a promontory overlooking the inlet.

  Siegfried stood overlooking a river to which he did not know the name. He scanned in every direction on his side of the water. There were no houses and no parks. He was blessedly unobserved.

  Across the river he could easily see the navy yard. The view was invigorating. So much so, that for a few seconds Siegfried lost his concentration. He mused how it might feel to stand above the Rhine or the Danube in a similar vantage point. Thoughts of Germany returned him to earth, and his work.

  The spy walked to the southeast along the bluff and made careful note of the path that he had taken. As he walked toward a slightly wooded enclave he realized that he was following an old footpath. He kept his eye to the ground.

  The grass had grown on the path in the same manner as the rest of the field. He scanned for evidence of people: discarded soda bottles. Cigarette butts. Gum wrappers. He found none. He concluded that few people came to this particular place. Yes, the view was spectacular, but it was spectacular all along this inlet. And Siegfried had purposely come to
the least accessible spot on his side of the water.

  He arrived among a clump of trees. He settled onto the ground and waited for several minutes. Convinced that he was alone, he took out his Celestron 1000 telescope and trained it across the water at Red Bank.

  On the scope's third adjustment, the navy yard came perfectly into focus. On the fifth adjustment, the spy could move in tightly enough to read the insignias on the uniforms of the sailors.

  He scanned, moving the telescope in methodical patterns up and down, left to right. He found a ship flying a Union Jack. The angle at which the vessel was berthed allowed him to read the legend off the ship's stern:

  HMS Adriana

  Sunderland

  Siegfried studied the ship. It was a frigate, probably about 120 meters from bow to stern. It was particularly hefty for a British frigate, he concluded. The Adriana was a seagoing bulldog, anxious to work but not upset over the prospects of a fight, either.

  Siegfried closely scrutinized the top deck and found it was packed with especially large guns. Normally, frigates were scaled down for escort duties in convoys. So why not the HMS Adriana?

  But what puzzled Siegfried most was that the Adriana was a frigate at all. He had expected a military cargo ship of some sort. It would have been armed, of course. Everything that ventured beyond sight of native land was armed these days. But why, the spy asked himself as he scanned the decks closely, readjusting his telescope in the process, was a big brawny frigate parked at a U.S. Navy yard in Red Bank, New Jersey? And why were there both British and American naval personnel busy aboard the Adriana?

  Why, indeed? Siegfried reminded himself-that's what he was there to discover. The spy set his telescope onto the soft grass by his side. He smoked a Pall Mall and gazed across the river for several minutes, waiting for an explanation to emerge. None did. He smoked another cigarette and took in the view across the river with his naked eye. What in hell was he watching? What the Americans lacked in subtlety, he reminded himself, the British made up in tight-lipped trickiness. Together, what were they up to? Was he witnessing a small piece of a grander picture? If so, what was it?

  He raised the spyglass again. The Adriana was briskly taking on cargo. Several teams of sailors were conveying crated goods onto the ship. As Siegfried studied the activity, it suddenly was clear to him that the cargo fell into two groups.

  One group consisted of hundreds of large wooden coffin-sized crates that had apparently been trucked to the bow end of the ship. These crates, which seemed quite heavy from the way the sailors reacted to them, were in turn being loaded onto smaller trucks and driven into the lower hold of the ship. It took eight sailors to lift a crate onto a truck. Siegfried calculated that each crate must have weighed seven to eight hundred pounds, considering the difficulty the sailors were having.

  Why, aren't more men assigned to each crate, he wondered instinctively. Then, seeing how quickly the trucks were moving, he realized the answer. The crates were being loaded as quickly as possible.

  Why?

  There was only one possible answer. Whoever was receiving the cargo was in a hurry. The second type of cargo was being loaded every bit as quickly. But these crates were much larger, about the size of small shacks. No team of men could possibly handle these. Large, sturdy, mechanized forklifts were busy at the stern of the ship moving these crates onto steel platforms. The platforms were then lifted by derrick and deposited through a deck hatch into the stern hold of the ship.

  Siegfried set the telescope aside and calculated. These crates had to contain extremely heavy equipment, perhaps even motor vehicles of some sort.

  He looked again. The containers were much too small for tanks or trucks. Generators, maybe? But what would be the urgency for generators? Ammunition? Never. Not packed like that. Not handled like that. Parts for antiaircraft weapons? He studied the crates carefully. Possible, he concluded. But that was merely a guess. He made mental calculations over how long each type of cargo took to be loaded onto the Adriana. He wondered if he was seeing the first day of loading or the fifth. Or the last.

  The spy searched both sorts of crates for any markings that might identify the contents. There were absolutely none. Whatever the Adriana was taking on for transport back to England, she was taking it on in utmost secrecy.

  The further question posed itself to Siegfried: did the crew even know what they were loading'? Siegfried decided to find out.

  Next, Siegfried's attention focused on the navy yard, itself. He studied the patterns of work performed by the teams of sailors. He made meticulous mental notes of the ratio of officers to enlisted men. And he carefully studied the activities of the visiting British as opposed to the resident Americans.

  Then Siegfried studied the main gate. There were two sentries on duty, both with side arms. The gate was open, but could be securely shut if necessary. The spy put his Celestron 1000 on its tripod and lay flat for an hour with the lens aimed at the gate. Siegfried barely breathed as he studied the traffic that came and went from the yard, and the protocol of the main gate.

  Then, toward afternoon, he felt he had diagnosed it. Any civilians arriving had to show passes and go through a security check. Men-and a few women-in military uniform passed through with a simple salute. American naval officers came and went with the greatest ease of all.

  Siegfried finally sat up. He stretched and by force of habit reached for another Pall Mall. He looked around to make certain that he was still alone. He was. He rubbed his eyes. They were tired from staring through the telescope.

  The spy exhaled a long stream of smoke and then withdrew from his camera bag a sandwich, an apple, and a thermos filled with coffee. He lunched calmly and watched the other side of the river with his naked eye until sunset.

  *

  The old man who called himself Elmer had been a fixture around Reilly's-at least for the past week. He habitually wore an old suit and on his gray head he wore a peaked cap from another era. He was bent slightly and his face was lined. He was unshaven and sometimes had difficulty speaking, as if his back teeth were missing.

  Reilly's was the murkily lit watering hole for the sailors who toiled at the Red Bank naval yard. On a busy night when the ships were in, the place jumped. The old man held court at the end of the bar and liked to play darts against the English seamen, who could always beat him. Elmer also gravitated toward young Billy Pritchard, an American ensign. Pritchard was fuzzy-cheeked and quiet, a kid from Ohio away from home for the first time. The Navy had promised him he would see the world, and so far he had seen South Carolina and New Jersey. To Elmer, Pritchard made somber comments about going AWOL, but the old man always talked sense into him. Besides, unlike the Brits who flocked around Reilly's in astonishing numbers, Billy Pritchard did not know how to grip a dart before throwing it. Elmer could always beat him.

  Buck was the bartender. He was a big porky red- haired guy with a moon-shaped face and a County Cork accent. He had rejoiced in serving booze to thirsty seamen since the bleakest days of Prohibition. Buck owned the joint and liked it when all the ships were docked. But Buck already had the bad news, courtesy of a British warrant officer.

  "English sailors'll be pullin' out next week," Buck confided to the old man. "Don't tell no one I told you. All shore leave's canceled August 27."

  "The English like it here," Elmer said, his gray brows narrowing with a mischievous glint. "They like our women. They ain't going nowhere."

  "There's a friggin' war gonna start, old man," Buck said. "These English boys'll be fightin' it."

  "Already fought a war," the old man recalled. "Won it, too."

  "There's gonna be another. In Europe, anyway." Buck blew his breath into a glass and polished the glass with his apron. He cast a jaundiced eye upon Elmer. "Lucky you're old,"

  Buck said to him. "You ain't going to fight."

  "Lucky you're middle-aged," Elmer shot back at him with considerable irritation. "I was in the last one."

  Buck took a long
look at Elmer's lined, sickly face. A new enlightenment came over the bartender, "Hey. Sorry, old-timer," he said with sudden affection. "Let me draw one for you. On the house."

  "Don't mind," the old man said, watching Buck place a beer mug beneath Elmer's favorite spigot. "Don't mind at all if I do." Elmer accepted the drink and turned with new enthusiasm toward the English sailors behind him. "Not a man in the house can beat this old man at darts!" he proclaimed boisterously.

  "Penny a point, Elmer," said an English sailor who, like the others, never bothered to collect after trouncing the aging American. "Think you can afford to lose again?" More often than not, the Englishmen bought Elmer a meal instead.

  "Never lost yet to you young saps!" Elmer said gruffly, snatching some darts from a table.

  "What about yesterday?" a sailor asked him.

  "Don't remember yesterday," Elmer said. "Here! Show you how it's done." Elmer's first shot hit the black border on the edge of the target. "That's practice," he said. "Just warmup."

  "Go get 'em now, Elmer," someone said.

  The old man's point total lagged considerably behind his opponents'. Meanwhile, Elmer caught snippets of conversation from the English sailors. The place to visit in New Jersey, they said, was Atlantic City, though the older crewmen remembered it as being much grander before the Depression. And two sailors had almost been severely injured or even killed when the gears slid on the derrick loading the crated motorcycles and sidecars from General Motors onto the Adriana. Those big crates weighed a ton and a half, complained one sailor, and one of them had tumbled fifty feet across the Two Deck.

  The brothels were better in New York than in Philadelphia, the enlisted men reached consensus, but with the latest shipment of cargo, there was no time for extended leave. The Adriana was even being loaded on weekends, as fast as the coffin-sized crates could arrive. Desmond, Baldwin, and Condon had sprained their backs loading those boxes, someone else complained. Why did Smith amp; Wesson have to pack fifty machine guns to a crate, anyway?