25
Click.
The hammer struck, but didn’t hit the detonator of the cartridge.
Kirchner looked foolishly at the pistol in his hand, trying to figure out what had happened. He blinked as Jack lunged at him and pinned him to the ground, making him drop the weapon.
“Bastard!” He shook him by the lapels. “You pulled the trigger and almost killed her!”
“I . . .” Kirchner stammered. “I didn’t do anything. I . . .”
“Because you didn’t take the safety off! But you were going to kill her!” Jack said, standing up, dragging Kirchner along with him. “You pulled the fucking trigger!”
“But . . .”
When Jack was about to punch him, there was a terrible explosion, and he dove to the ground instinctively, pulling Kirchner down too.
The deck of the Pingarrón shook, and Jack realized Högel had decided not to wait any longer. They were being shelled.
It’s over.
He looked up, expecting to see the superstructure of the Pingarrón in flames, but it wasn’t.
Getting up with difficulty, he looked over the deck, trying to see where they’d been hit. He didn’t see anything. No twisted metal, no fire, not even smoke. They couldn’t have missed from that distance, he thought. Unless it was a warning shot . . .
“Look!” Elsa’s yell snapped him out of it.
He’d forgotten about her, but there she was, leaning over the side and pointing at the German U-boat like she’d never been on the brink of death.
“The submarine!” she shouted.
Jack looked. “What the hell . . . ?”
He thought he was watching a scene from A Night at the Opera reenacted by a dozen German sailors, Marx Brothers fans running across the deck of the submarine, bumping into each other, abandoning their posts and getting stuck in a bunch at the hatch as a group of officers shouted from the tower, trying to bring order to the madhouse.
Jack didn’t know German, but it didn’t take a genius to know they were shouting alarm. Along with the loud siren that started blaring, it seemed they were in serious trouble. The stern of the submarine started to tip and sink quickly. The remaining officers barely got inside and closed the hatch behind them before the boat was fully under.
The last one in was Högel, who looked at Jack with a mix of hatred and bewilderment. He seemed to say something, but between the siren and the gushing ballast, Jack couldn’t hear him. His gesture was unmistakable, however—a thumb dragging across his neck.
Thirty seconds later, after the running and cries on deck started, the top of the periscope sank in an eruption of bubbles. All traces of the boat’s presence vanished in a final swirl of water as if it had never been there.
Jack, Kirchner, and Elsa looked over the side with the same expression of disbelief, having no idea what had just happened. The nearly thousand-ton sub from a minute ago had been replaced by a calm surface, a harrowing sight. They were so absorbed they didn’t see César and Julie come over from the superstructure with the Thompson submachine gun and automatic handgun.
“Where’d they go?” César asked, confused, looking over the horizon.
It took Jack a second to react. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said. “I ordered you to abandon ship.”
“With all due respect, Jack,” César said, a handkerchief now tied around his wound, “your plan was completely idiotic, so we decided to go into Marco’s cabin to get his guns and face them.”
“I see . . . Face the Nazi sub with a machine gun and a pistol, real smart. Did you realize your wife could’ve been killed or injured?”
“Actually, it was her idea.”
Jack was about to lecture Julie when she asked the question on all their minds. “What happened? Où est le sous-marin?”
Jack pointed his thumb down like an emperor giving a verdict. “They went under. And don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. They had us by the balls and then . . . Shit, that’s it! The explosion!”
“The explosion?”
“Of course!” he yelled, smacking his forehead. “I thought it was a cannon, but now I realize it wasn’t. It must have been an explosion on the sub!” He scanned the horizon, then looked up with his hand blocking the sun. “It must have been a British torpedo or an antisubmarine aircraft.”
“Well, I don’t see any,” César said, imitating him by looking around for a trail in the water or a point in the sky.
Elsa, just snapping out of it, cried out as she looked over the bulwark and saw six German soldiers and an officer stuck in a launch a few yards away. It hadn’t had the time to make it back, and looked as though it’d stopped halfway between the Pingarrón and the Nazi sub.
They looked down at the sorry faces of the soldiers. Knowing they were stuck in a horrible position, they threw their weapons overboard and raised their hands in surrender.
“What do we do?” César asked, pointing at them with the Thompson. “Shoot?”
Jack leaned over the bulwark to decide the fate of the six defenseless men who’d been sent to kill them.
“From what I’ve heard,” César said, “the Nazis don’t like people of my race very much. Maybe I should give them a taste of their own medicine.”
“Not all Germans are Nazis, Mr. Moreira,” Kirchner said, breaking his silence with annoyance. “Or all German soldiers.”
“So let’s ask them.” He leaned overboard. “Hey! You on the boat! Are you Nazis? Heil Hitler?”
The soldiers exchanged a few words between them and quickly shouted back, “Nein! Wir sind keine Nazis! Hitler kaput!”
“Do you need me to translate?” Elsa asked. “They’d disown their own mothers to save themselves. I say we kill them.”
“Elsa!” Kirchner said. “They’re Germans like us!”
“I don’t think that mattered to them.”
“But we’re not like that!”
“Maybe it’s time we change.”
“Enough,” Jack said. “We’re not going to shoot anyone unarmed. Helmut, tell them they have five minutes before we start using them for target practice, so they’d better hurry and jump overboard and swim ashore.”
“Are you really going to shoot them?” Kirchner asked, confused. “You said you wouldn’t.”
“And I won’t,” he said, and as he was about to turn, he seemed to think of something. “Oh, and also tell them,” he added with a malicious smile, “to take off all their clothes before they jump and leave them in the boat. Let’s see how they explain themselves to the Berbers when they show up naked.”
Forgetting the soldiers, Jack looked around to figure out what kind of shape the ship was in. Unfortunately, only one phrase came to mind: absolute disaster.
The Pingarrón looked like Swiss cheese, full of bullet holes from the large-caliber machine gun. All the portholes on the starboard side were broken, and the deck was covered in broken glass. The superstructure had so many holes, the cabins looked uninhabitable; the upper half of the smokestack was gone.
The hull had also been hit by bullets; some had made holes in the steel that needed to be repaired immediately. Just a few inches from the waterline, they could be a serious problem in a swell. Worst of all was the bridge, which had been reduced to a jumble of broken wood as if someone had detonated a grenade inside. The wheel, radio, and navigation instruments would be done for.
He looked at the crane and winch, which seemed intact. Then he went up to the air compressor, which had been busted from a direct hit. He didn’t need to ask César to know it was now just a piece of junk.
The terrible consequence was on all their minds, and they gathered around it like around a coffin at a funeral.
Elsa was the first to break the silence. “Is there any chance,” she asked, “that they . . . ?”
“None,” César said. “At that depth, the reserve air wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of minutes.”
She looked at Jack pleadingly. Incapable of facing her,
he shook his head.
“What are we going to do now?” Julie said.
Jack, now the new captain of the Pingarrón, was silent for a while. “I don’t know, Julie. I don’t know.”
“You could start by giving me a hand!” a voice called from the bow.
They all turned their heads, astonished to see a tall, soaking-wet man with black hair, a thick turtleneck sweater, and wool pants trying to climb aboard the port bow with a sack on his back.
A strange sailor version of Santa Claus, but without a red suit or reindeer.
26
Five pairs of shocked eyes fixed on him as he pulled himself on deck and grinned from ear to ear, enjoying the astonished expressions of his crew as a big puddle formed under his feet.
“So, what’s up with you guys?” Riley asked, opening his arms.
That seemed to break the spell—and convince them he wasn’t a ghost—so they all pounced on him amid questions and shouts of joy.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“How are you still alive?”
“How’d you get to the surface?”
“How’d you breathe without the compressor?”
“What took you so long?”
“Later, later,” he said, putting his hands up. “I’ll explain everything later. First, is everyone okay?”
“Barely,” Jack said, glancing at the others. “You have no idea what happened up here.”
“I know, I was in the water when they fired.”
“In the water?” Elsa asked. “Where?”
“I’ll tell you the details later,” he said. “Now help Marco get on deck. We have to get out of here fast.”
“Marco’s alive too?” César asked.
“Of course he’s alive, but he’s still in the water, pissed, waiting for us to help him bring the bags up.”
“Wait, what bags?” Jack asked. “You mean you . . . you . . .”
“Oh yes, of course. I didn’t tell you?” he said, playing it cool. “We have the machine.”
Skeptical silence fell upon the deck. They’d heard him perfectly well, but they couldn’t believe it, especially since he said it so cavalierly, like it’d just happened by chance. Only minutes before, they’d all thought they would soon be corpses. Now, a man they thought they’d never see again was back from the dead, telling them they were about to be happy millionaires.
“Don’t joke like that, Captain,” Julie said, pointing at him.
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Well, yes.”
“We don’t have time for this,” he said, shaking his head. He motioned to the water and started to give orders. “Come on, help Marco for God’s sake, then raise anchor. I’m going to go change in my cabin, and by the time I’m out, I want to be on our way to Tangier. Got it?”
He headed toward the superstructure, trailing water and ignoring the broken glass and metal on the ground. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew glanced over the side and saw Marco, looking grumpy and using two waterproof bags as a life raft.
As soon as he was on board, César and Jack weighed anchor, and Julie set sail for Tangier. The ship was already on its way when Riley entered the half-destroyed bridge and scanned the horizon with binoculars.
Holding what was left of the wheel, Julie spoke from the bridge deck, which was now outside. “If you’re looking for the submarine, it sunk suddenly after an explosion. We think a torpedo or British plane attacked it from Gibraltar.”
Riley lowered the binoculars, looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and grinned slyly. “Oh yeah? A British plane?”
“Well, we couldn’t see it, but c’est the only reasonable explanation . . . Oh! It must have been you!” she shouted, jumping back from the wheel. “I knew it! Don’t ask me why, but I knew it!”
“Actually,” he said, “it was me and Marco. And to be fair, he deserves most of the credit.”
“But how? When?”
“Later,” he repeated. “As soon as we dock and Jack’s done looking through the bags, we’ll have a nice dinner, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know. For now,” he said, bringing the binoculars up to his eyes again, “I just want to get to port before anyone else shows up.”
Three hours later, they were docked on the south pier. As night descended on the Port of Tangier, the five men and two women laughed loudly, drinking and toasting in the dining room, around a table covered in plates and dishes.
“To our captain!” Jack shouted, red-faced from the alcohol, lifting a full glass of contraband champagne. “To the man who’s made us all rich!”
Kirchner imitated the gesture, looking at him out of the corner of his eye and coughing loudly.
“Well, almost all of us!” Jack said with a smile as he gave Elsa a knowing look, which in his drunken haze he thought was reciprocated.
“To the captain!” came the drunken call from Julie, César, and even Marco, who was unusually cheerful. It was, after all, his success too.
“To you,” Riley said raising his glass as he looked at each of them with the straight face he always wore when he drank. “The best and bravest crew a ship’s ever seen.”
“Woo!” Julie yelled, finishing her glass in one gulp and slamming it down. “We’re rich! Rich!” She turned to her husband and gave him a kiss on the lips that nearly knocked him out of his chair. Everyone laughed.
“Polynesia,” roared Jack, who had already filled his glass again and raised it above his head, “here I come!”
“We are thinking of going to Brazil until the war ends,” César announced, looking at his wife as he straightened up. “And when France is free again, I promised Julie we’ll buy a house in Nice, by the sea.”
“That’s a good plan,” Jack said, nodding. “Hope it works out.”
“I’ll go back to my country,” Marco said quietly, staring at his full, somehow untouched glass. “I’ll buy a house for my parents, another for my brothers, fix up our old farm, raise pigs and cows . . . and divide what’s left among the needy in my village.”
They were all dumbstruck to hear the good intentions of the man they would have believed capable of selling his mom for a pack of cigarettes.
“That . . . that’s very beautiful,” Julie said, moved. “I never thought you . . .”
Marco looked up with a grin. “Of course,” he added seriously, “that’s if I have anything left after screwing every whore from here to Belgrade.” Then he burst out laughing.
“Bastard,” Jack muttered, shaking his head. “I almost thought you were a decent person.”
“Look who’s talking,” Marco said. “Mr. Polynesia. Are you going to share your fortune with the natives, or just the ladies?” He glanced at Elsa.
“With your bitch mother,” Jack said, standing up shakily.
“Enough,” Riley said, lifting his hand in a plea for peace. “It’s stupid to argue about money we don’t have yet.”
“What do you mean?” César asked. “You think we’ll have problems?”
“No, I hope not, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch. We’ll have time to count them tomorrow when we finish business.”
“Did you get a time and place from March’s contact?”
“Better,” he said. “I contacted Ahmed El Fassi, and he said March is already here in Tangier. He assured me he has the money, and tomorrow night we’ll meet him personally for the exchange.”
“And how are we going to do it?” Jack asked. “The exchange, I mean.”
“I’ll give you the details tomorrow,” Riley said. “Now let’s celebrate that we’re all alive, which is something given what we were up against.”
“I want to hear the story of how you saved us,” Julie said, leaning on the table.
“Again? I just told you!”
“I was stamping entry documents with the authorities!” she said. “Tell it again!”
“Again, again!” the others said with drunken laughter.
Riley took a big
gulp, emptying his glass and scratching his stubble. “Anyway,” he began, as if talking about something that happened a long time ago, “like I told you before, Marco and I were about to leave the cabin when we heard a propeller nearby. I looked out a porthole and saw the sub.”
“You already knew it was the one from before?” Julie asked.
“How would I know that? Either way it was a threat, especially when it stopped and started to go up. Our chances of survival in that ship ninety feet under near the end of a dive were going down every second, and I couldn’t think of any way to avoid it. But then when I thought we were dead, Marco told me he’d disobeyed my orders and brought dynamite in his suit.”
“You’d have to be an idiot,” Jack grumbled. “Under pressure, dynamite is extremely volatile.”
“That’s what I said,” Riley went on. “But according to him, he brought it in case the saw broke again. Stupid as it was, it ended up saving us all, and it’s only right that we recognize that.”
A burst of more or less enthusiastic thanks rang out. Not used to that kind of attention, Marco curled his lips in something that might have passed for a smile.
“The point is,” Riley continued, “we thought of sticking it on the sub’s ballast tank, where the hull is thinnest, and it’d sink right away. The problem, of course, was how to get there.”
“And then,” Kirchner said, “you decided to shed your diving suits.”
“Well, shed isn’t the word I’d use. We didn’t really have time to do it, so we just cut them in half with our knives and left them there. Then we had to swim underwater with the bags, which we took as much air out of as possible to keep them out of the way. In less than three minutes we were at the surface, just behind the sub.”
“Hold on,” Julie said. “How’d you hold your breath for so long? Didn’t you run out of air?”
“The problem was the opposite—too much air.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember, the air we were breathing was in the cabin, at four atmospheres of pressure. So when we started to come up, the air in our lungs started expanding rapidly, to four times the volume, ready to pop them like balloons.”
Captain Riley (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 1) Page 17
