The house was so quiet that he stood stock-still within feet of the open door. Without looking further he knew it was empty. The sunlight which streamed through the back windows was dusty, and there were dead flowers in a vase near the framed picutre taken on their wedding day. He paused by it, off-balance, uncertain what to do. He stared at the photo, her arm through his, the faces in the background. That one was Willi, who was lost in the Atlantic two years back.
Theil put down his case and flexed his fingers. What did he feel? Angry, cheated, worried? All and none of them.
Perhaps she had gone away? He stared at the dead flowers. Where? He turned away, a sick feeling running through him. She had left him.
He walked about the house, opening doors, shutting them again, then went upstairs and looked out at the neighbours' house. So quiet and deathly still.
He opened a wardrobe and touched her clothes, remembering her looking up at him as he had undressed her.
What was she thinking of? He tried to contain it, as he would aboard ship when some stupid seaman had made a mistake. Did she think it could do anything but harm to behave like this? He touched a curtain which was pulled aside. Untidy. Again, out of character, or was it deliberate?
Theil went slowly downstairs and then saw some letters neatly piled on a hall-table where she kept her gloves.
He recognised the official stamps, his own writing. Unopened. She had not even read them.
He looked fixedly at his case by the front door. Abandoned, as if someone else had just arrived, or was about to leave.
What the hell had she done? There was no point in calling the police or the hospital. He would have been told long ago. An army truck rolled past, some soldiers singing and swaying about on the rutted road. How sad their song sounded.
He thrust the letters into his pocket and after a momentary hesitation picked up the heavy case once more.
He would ask the neighbours; they were decent people and had always liked Britta.
But he hesitated in the doorway and looked back at the silence. He thought of the future, the ship lying there waiting for him, for all of them, and was both apprehensive and bitter.
He needed her, just as she had once needed him, and she was gone.
Theil slammed the door and locked it and walked down the drive and then round to the next house.
Once he glanced over at his own home and pictured her in a window, laughing and w'aving. It had all been a joke, and now she wanted him.
The doorbell echoed into the far distance and he waited, knowing somehow that nobody would answer. But as he walked down to the road again he felt someone was watching him.
What should he do? He thought of his friend the doctor and walked all the way to his house, ignoring the weight of his case, his mind snapping at explanations like an angry dog.
The doctor was pleased to see him, although he had to leave for an urgent visit almost immediately.
He listened to Theil's story impassively and then said, 'I think you must face up to it, Viktor. She has left you.' He raised one hand as Theil made to protest. 'She will be in touch, be certain of that, but she has to sort things out in her own way, d'you see? Women are like that. All these years, and they still surprise me!'
Theil made to leave. Britta had some other relatives somewhere. He would check through his address book. He looked at the heavy case. 'You take it, Doctor. For old time's sake, eh?'
The doctor opened it and gazed at the array of food.
Thank you, Viktor. Some of my patients -'
Theil nodded and tried to grin. 'Of course.'
Outside, the shadows of evening were already making purple patterns on the road. Theil did not look towards his house. If he went back now he knew' he would go crazy.
She had left him, had not given him a chance to make things right. He compensated by telling himself that she had no warning of his coming.
But all this time? Another man? He hastened towards the main road and did not even see two saluting soldiers as they went past. Never, not Britta. No matter what. Then back to Denmark? He looked at his watch. What should he do?
He felt his fingers touch the black cross on his jacket; like his other decorations it had always given him pride and confidence. For a few moments longer he stared unseeingly around him, hurt and then angry when he thought of what might have been, could have been. Because of Britta's anguish over her parents his own advancement and career had been scarred for all time. He had lost the Prinz because of it, because of her.
When she did come back, pleading for understanding, what would he do?
Theil turned towards the railway station. There was nowhere else he wanted to go now.
To some members of Prinz Luitpold's ship's company the seven days' leave were as varied as the men themselves. To many of the lucky ones it was a lifeline, something precious and yet unreal against the harsh background of war. For others it might have been better if they had stayed with the ship, men who eventually returned from leave with the feeling they had lost everything.
Amongst those who remained aboard there was one who, after a quick visit to a dockside telephone, made the most of each day and night in Vejle.
Korvettenkapitan Josef Gudegast, the cruiser's navigating officer, not only knew the ways of the sea and the landmarks which he had used in peace and wartime, he also hoarded a comfortable knowledge of harbours and what they could offer. When he had earned his living in timber ships he had often visited Danish ports, and Vejle was one of his favourite places for a run ashore.
On the last day but one of his leave he sat in a big chair, his reddened face tight with concentration as he completed a charcoal sketch of the woman who lounged opposite him, on a couch, her naked body pale in the lamplight.
The small house was quiet, more so because of the shutters and dark curtains across the windows. The place had always been his haven, stocked with food and drink, some of which he had carried with him from the ship to which he returned every morning, keeping an eye on his department and the work done by his assistants.
The room was very hot, and he sat in his shirtsleeves, his jacket with its three tarnished gold stripes hanging carelessly from the door, a reminder, if he needed it, that his time of freedom was almost over.
'There.' He sat back and eyed his work critically. 'Not bad.'
She got up and stood beside him, one arm around his massive shoulder. He could feel her body against his, her warmth and the affection which they had shared with passion and quiet desperation in turn. Soon they would lie together again and later they would sleep, wrapped around one another like young lovers.
Gudegast was forty, and felt every year of it. He tugged at his ragged beard and murmured, 'You're still a bloody fine woman, Cerda.' He gave her a squeeze. 'I've never forgotten you.'
She touched his hair. It was getting very thin, and without his uniform cap he looked his age, she thought. She could remember him as the bright-eyed mate of a visiting ship, the way that they had hit it off from the start.
She said, 'Get away with you. I'm sagging everywhere.' She peered at the picture. You've made me look nice.'
He covered it with some paper and said abruptly, 'It's yours.'
She stared at him. 'But you've never given -'
Gudegast stood up and glanced towards the bedroom door. 'I'll be off soon. Something to remind you of old Josef, eh?'
She gripped his arm, disturbed by his mood. 'It'll be all right, won't it?'
‘All right?' He took his pipe from the mantelpiece and filled it with slow deliberation. It gave him time.
He was surprised that he cared that much. At the same time he did not want to alarm her.
He said slowly, 'No, I don't think it will, as a matter of fact.'
She sat on the couch and dragged a shawl over her naked shoulders.
Gudegast added, 'Did you see the way they buggered us about in the cafe this afternoon?'
She replied uneasily, 'They said they were full up.'
He frowned. 'Said.' He lit his pipe and took several deep puffs. Little bastards. I had to put my foot down.'
She watched him and smiled. 'You got us a lovely table.'
'Not the point.' Puff, puff. They're more scared of the bloody Resistance now than they are of us, don't you see?' He studied her full mouth and barely covered breasts. She had been such a pretty girl. He should have married her, instead - he turned his mind away from his wife in Hamburg. It was all a mess. Like the bloody war.
He tried again. 'What will you do, Gerda, when it's all over?'
I - I shall be here
He moved to her side and ruffled her hair. 'We're losing. Can't you face it either?'
'You mustn't say things like that, Jo! If anyone heard you -'
He grinned, his whole face crinkling. Christ, you care, don't you?'
'You know I do.'
All these years.' He stroked her hair with one big hand while he gripped his pipe with the other. 'I know you're Danish, but there'll be plenty who'll remember you had German friends when it's all over.' He felt her stiffen and almost regretted saying it.
A few more days and he'd be off again. Probably for good, if the mad bastards at headquarters had anything to do with it. What sort of a war was it becoming? He was not even allowed to see his new charts. He felt angry just thinking about it so that when he spoke again his voice was unexpectedly hard.
You must get out, girl. You've relatives in Sweden, go there if you can.'
She clung to his arm. 'Surely it won't come to that, Jo?'
He grinned, the rumble running through his massive frame. 'I expect our high command have it all worked out, some sort of treaty, a compromise. We've only wiped out half the bloody world, so who cares?'
She stood and looked up at him, her eyes misty. '1 never thought -'
He smiled at her gently. Too many German friends. No, they'd not forget. He had seen it in Spain after the Civil War. All the heroes who show7ed up after the fighting was finished. Brave lads who proved it by shearing the hair and raping girls who had backed the wrong side. It would be a damned sight worse here.
He held her against him and ran his big hands across her buttocks. Neither noticed that his fingers had left charcoal marks on her bare skin.
Their eyes met. He said, 'Bed.'
She picked up a bottle of schnapps which he had brought and two glasses. Gudegast stood back and watched her march into the other room with a kind of defiance. She would not leave. Perhaps she would find a nice officer to look after her when the Tommies marched in. He felt sweat on his back. God, you could get shot for even thinking such things.
He pushed through the door and stared at her, the abandoned way her legs were thrown on the crumpled sheets, unmade from that morning, and probably from all the rest.
He would do another sketch tomorrow. If he got time he might try and paint her in oils when he was at sea again. He shivered and then stepped out of his trousers.
She put out her arms and then knelt over him as he flopped down on the bed. He was huge, and when he lay on top of her it was like being crushed.
He watched her and said, 'I wish we'd wed, Gerda.'
She laughed but there was only sadness there. She took him in her hand and lowered herself on to him, gasping aloud as he entered her.
It was as if she knew they would never see each other again.
The cinema screen flickered and with a blare of trumpets yet another interminable newsreel began.
Hans Stoecker tried to concentrate but it was difficult to see anything clearly. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The cinema had been commandeered from the town, and he guessed it had once been a church hall or something of the kind. Between him and the screen were rows and rows of square sailors' collars, broken only ocasionally by the field-grey of the army.
The newsreel was concerned mainly with the Eastern Front and showed thousands of prisoners being marched to the rear of the lines by waving, grinning soldiers. The commentator touched only lightly on France, but there were several good aerial shots of I ighter bombers strafing a convoy of lorries, and some of burning American tanks.
The major part of the reel was taken up with the Bombardment of London. The usual barracking and whistles from the audience faded as the camera panned across the great rocket, the V-2, as it spewed fire and dense smoke before rising from its launching gantry and streaking straight up into the sky.
The commentator said excitedly, 'All day, every day, our secret weapon is falling upon London. Nothing can withstand it,
I here is no defence. Already casualties and damage are mounting. No people can be expected to suffer and not break.'
There were more fanfares, and etched against a towering pall of flame and smoke the German eagle and swastika brought the news to an end.
Stoecker got up and pushed his way out of the cinema. Several voices called after him. There must be half the ship's non-duty watch here, he thought.
Outside it was dusk, with the lovely pink glow he had first seen in these waters. He thrust his hands into his jacket and walked steadily away from the harbour. There were plenty of German servicemen about, and they seemed carefree enough.
He thought again of the sinking lighter, the terrified screams of the prisoners trapped below. He had passed the place in one of the cruiser's motorboats when he had been sent on some mission ashore. It had been marked by a solitary wreck-buoy, but as one of the sentries on the jetty had told him, there had been no investigation, nor had any divers been put down. Prinz Luitpold carried her own divers but had not been asked to supply aid.
It was obvious, whichever way you looked at it. It was not sabotage. He thought of the SS major's face. It had been murder.
Stoecker crossed the street automatically and paused to peer into a shop window. He had done it merely to avoid three officers whom he would have had to salute. It was childish, but like most sailors he disliked the petty discipline which the land seemed to produce. He thought of the captain, how he had spoken to him, called him by name, from a company of nearly a thousand men. Hechler never laboured the point about discipline. He had his standards, and expected them to be met. Otherwise he was a man you always felt you could speak to. Trust.
A. hand touched his sleeve. 'Hans! It is you!'
He turned and stared at the girl who was smiling at him. It all flashed through his mind in seconds, the brown curls and laughing eyes, school uniform, but now in that of a nursing auxiliary.
'What are you doing here, Sophie?' At home she lived just three doors from his mother. A nurse too, eh?'
She fell into step beside him, the pleasure at seeing him wiping away the tiredness from her eyes.
There is a big hospital not far from here.' She glanced away. Mostly soldiers who were in Russia.'
Stoecker thought of the jubilant newsreel, and of the ship's superstructure shaking like a mad thing when they had fired on the enemy position.
Later he had heard the deputy gunnery officer, Kapitanleutnant Emmler, say angrily, 'Ivan still smashed through and decimated a whole brigade! When will we hold the bastards?'
He said quietly, 'They are lucky to be in your care, Sophie.'
She put her hand through his arm. It was so simply done that he was moved.
She said, 'They have been in hell, Hans. Some of them are she shrugged and smiled, but there were tears on her cheeks. 'Now look what you've made me do!'
He guided her from the main stream of people and traffic and together they entered a narrow street, their footsteps their only company.
They talked about home, people they had known, and the last time they had seen some of them.
He said suddenly, 'I'd like to see you again.'
She looked at him gravely. 'I have every evening off unless
He nodded and gripped her hands. Tomorrow. Where we just met. I have to get back to the ship now.' His mind was unusually confused. If he had not gone to the cinema he would have missed her, would never have k
nown.
I'll be there.' She touched his face. 'You've not changed, Hans.'
She saw his expression and asked quickly, 'What is it?'
Stoecker stared past her, his hand on her arm as if to protect her. The street name was faded and rusty and yet stood out as if I he letters were on fire. It was the same street as the one on the letter. Almost guiltily he touched his pocket as if to feel it there. I le knew it was the house even though he had never been here in his life. There was a shop beneath the living quarters, but the windows, like the rest of the building, were burned out, blackened into an empty cave. But on one remaining door post he saw I he crude daubs of paint, badly scorched but still visible. The Star of David, and the words, Dirty Jew!
The girl looked with him and whispered, 'Let's get away from here.'
They walked down the narrow street towards the main road again. Who was it, he wondered? Parent, wife, girlfriend? He lightened his hold on her arm and could almost hear the man whisper. I am going to die. We all are.
Are you sick?'
He smiled, the effort cracking his lips. 'No. It is nothing.'
They looked at each other, sharing the lie as if it was something precious and known only to them.
Tomorrow then.'
He watched her hurry towards a camouflaged van with red c r osses painted on it.
Perhaps he had imagined it all. There was only one way he would find out and he knew that he was going to read that letter, no matter what it cost.
As darkness closed in over the anchorage, the boats which plied back and forth from the shore ferried the returning sailors to their ship. The duty officer with his gangway staff watched as each returning figure walked, limped or staggered away to the security of his mess.
Like a resting tiger the Prinz Luitpold was blacked-out, with only the moonlight glinting on her scuttles and bridge-screens.
Almost the last launch to head out from the shore made a broad white wash against the other darkness, her coxswain steering skilfully between anchored lighters and a pair of patrol boats, i lechler seemed to sense that his ship was drawing near. He climbed up from the cockpit and stood beside the coxswain, the collar of his leather greatcoat raised around his ears, his cap tugged firmly down. Spray lanced over the fast-moving hull, but he did not blink as he saw the great shadow harden against the pale stars, and he felt a strange sense of relief. He saw the bowman emerge from forward, his boathook at the ready, heard the engine fade slightly as the helmsman eased the throttle.
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