Dark Voyage (20 page)

“Done for, I’m afraid.”

“Really.”

“Yes, burned to the waterline, in Campeche.”

“You’re sure?”

“’Fraid so.”

“You don’t say.”

“Mm. A few days ago. And just about to sail, after repair.”

“Campeche?”

“That’s right. If you can hold on for two weeks, I might have the
Almera
.”

“It will have to do, I suppose.”

This was very odd indeed, Barnes thought. He paid great attention to shipping intelligence, and he’d heard, on the exchange floor, that the
Santa Rosa
had called at Alexandria. And that word had come from on high, from one of the magnificent old lions of the Baltic, a grizzled, fully bearded Scot, decorated twice in the last war, a man whose sources were everywhere, east and west, a man who had never been wrong. But he said nothing of this to Burton, the floor was not the place to contradict one’s colleagues.

Still, he fretted about it on his way back to the office. Walking along St. Mary Axe, where the Widows and Orphans Assurance Society was now a bombed-out shell, he was sharply reminded that it was 1941, and the days of the ghost ship were long gone. Only in boys’ books now,
Strange Tales of the Sea,
the old clipper ship seen entering a fog bank and never coming out—until ten years later. No, someone was simply mistaken, badly mistaken. Who?

Back at the office, he told the story to his secretary. “Doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Burton certainly seemed to know what he was talking about.”

“Maybe there are two of them,” she said. “Anyhow, why don’t you ask somebody else?”

By God he would! And, that very afternoon, sent a wireless message to an old friend, who ran a trading company in Alexandria.

He had an answer the next day. His friend had asked around, in the port, and the Spanish freighter
Santa Rosa
had, in fact, called there, one week earlier. His man at the ship chandler’s recalled the colors, and they’d had a look at
Brown’s Flags and Funnels
so, no doubt,
Santa Rosa
.

Just about there, Barnes began to suspect what was going on. Monkey business. Something to do with insurance, maybe—the shipping world had more than its share of rogues—or, even, government monkey business. Really, why not?
Damned ingenious,
he thought, and let the matter drop. As to which government, friend or foe or in between, he couldn’t say, but, at the end of the day, he was a cargo man, not a shipping man, and best not to pursue these sorts of things.

And nothing would have come of it, even though the listeners at the German
B-Dienst
transcribed the cable, which was in clear, and filed a report. A report of little interest—who cared that the British had chartered a Spanish tramp? No one would have bothered with it, but for the fact that the German NID man in Alexandria reported that the
Santa Rosa
had come into port. And hadn’t come out. Now that
was
interesting. So then, where was she? Or, better, who was she?

DeHaan woke at dawn on the morning of the sixth. The sparrows were back, down in the courtyard, otherwise the hotel was pleasantly silent. By then, he’d virtually memorized the NID order, had taken it apart—the dates, the locations, the nautical miles from one port to the next, and found it tight, but possible. Everything would work as they’d directed—as long as everything worked. True, they’d left him a little time for breakdown or weather, but very damn little—it was Royal Navy time, not merchant marine time. Still, Kovacz and the sea gods willing, they could do it.

Would have to.

Because they did not have the traditional three-day opportunity for contact—that was timed to the hour. Which it had to be, because this was a bold, a brazen, operation. The southern coast of Sweden, particularly the barren beaches of the Smygehuk, were a hundred miles from the German naval bases at Kiel and Rostock, and he could expect patrols, by air and sea, so it was no place for
Noordendam
—as
Santa Rosa
or what-you-like—to be steaming back and forth.
Dear God,
he thought,
let there be fog
.

He looked at his watch on the night table, 5:10. So he’d be sailing in less than twenty-four hours. Better that way, less time to tie himself in knots. As for
Noordendam,
she was ready as she’d ever be—well bunkered and victualed, freshwater tanks topped up, new medical officer, and, now that they’d been shot at and survived, a veteran crew aboard.

So, down to the port, take the launch out to the ship, and farewell Tangier, native maidens waving from the shore. One maiden who would not be waving was the Russian journalist, and for that he was thankful. Because he had been wondering about her. Something wrong with that letter, he thought. What’s she doing here, really? Of course he did have
some
time, maybe the morning, to do whatever he wanted—rare pleasure, for him. But no time for
that,
surely.
That
meaning the typical Soviet nonsense. What do you think about the world situation? Would you work for peace and justice? Maybe you’ll talk to us now and again. Need money? No, with all the details he had to think about, he didn’t need to subject himself to that. Though if he were honest with himself he would have to admit she’d been perfectly correct the last time they’d met. Straight as a stick, she was. Slavic and serious. What else?

6 June, 0820 hours. Hotel Alhadar.

Hard to find, in an alley off an alley, grim and dirty and cheap. The desk clerk sat behind a wire cage, worry beads in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and, beneath his tasseled fez, a mean eye—
who the hell are you
? “She is not here,” he said.

DeHaan retreated, feeling foolish and betrayed and annoyed with himself. Then she appeared, as if by magic, catching up to him as he hurried down the alley. “Captain DeHaan,” she said, out of breath. “I saw you go into hotel.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, good morning.”

“We go in here,” she said. A few steps led down to a tiny coffee shop, dark and deserted. DeHaan hesitated, he didn’t like it.

“Please,” she said. “I must get off street.”

What? He followed her in, they sat down, a young boy came to the table, and DeHaan ordered two coffees. “I hoped you would come,” she said. It wasn’t courtesy, she meant it.

Across the little table, she was much as he remembered her, though now he realized she was older than she was in his memory. No one would ever call her pretty, he thought. But you would look at her. A broad, determined forehead, high cheekbones, eyes a severe shade of green, almost harsh, a small mouth, down-curved, ready for anger or disappointment, thick hair, a dulled shade of brown, like brown smoke, swept across her forehead and pinned up in back. She wore a pale gray suit and a dark gray shirt with a wide collar—shapeless and lax, as though worn for a long time—and carried a heavy leather purse on a shoulder strap. But the detail that stood out, above everything else, was the presence of some inexpensive and very powerful scent, the sort of thing to use if you were unable to bathe.

He took out his packet of North States and offered her one. “Yes, thank you,” she said. Even in the cellar gloom of the coffee shop he could see shadows beneath her eyes, and, when she held the small cigar to his match, her hand trembled.

“Is there to be an interview?” he said.

“If you like.” For a moment she pressed her lips together, then turned her face away.

“Miss Bromen,” he said.

“A moment, please.”

She concentrated for a few seconds, then pushed the hair back off her forehead. “I read your ship was in Tangier, and I remembered it. I remembered you.”

“Yes? From Rotterdam.”

“Yes, Rotterdam.”

He waited for more, but she inhaled her North State and said, “It’s hard, not to have cigarettes.”

Silence. Finally, DeHaan said, “You’re writing stories, in Tangier?”

Slowly, she shook her head.

“Then . . .”

The coffee arrived, thick and black, in tiny cups, with a bowl of brown, crystalline sugar in broken lumps. She put one in her cup and stirred it as it fell apart, started to take a second, then didn’t. “I am running away,” she said, her voice casual, without melodrama. “It is not easy. Have you ever done it?”

“No,” he said. Then, with a smile, “Not yet.”

“Better you don’t.”

“I’m sure of that.”

“You must take me away from here, Captain, on your ship.”

“Yes,” he said. When her face changed, he hurried to add, “I mean, I understand. Of course there’s no possibility of my doing that.”

She nodded—she knew that perfectly well.

“You do understand,” he said.

“Yes, I know.” She paused, then lowered her voice and said, “Is there some thing, some thing I could do? I don’t care what.”

“Well . . .”

“I will work. They have women, who work, on Russian ships.”

“And sometimes in Holland as well, on the tugboats and barges. But
Noordendam
is a freighter, Miss Bromen.”

She began to answer him, to argue, then gave up, he saw it happen. After a moment she said, “Is there food here, maybe?”

That he could do. He signaled to the boy and asked him for something to eat.

“Beignets?”
the boy said. “There is a bakery nearby.”

As DeHaan reached into his pocket for money, he wondered how much he had. Quite a lot, actually, and of course he would give it to her. When the boy left, he said, “Miss Bromen, what happened to you? Can you tell me?”

“I am running from
Organyi,
” she said, with a sour smile—
what else?
The Russian word meant the organs of state security, secret police. “It’s a game you must play, in my work. They want to use you because you are a journalist, and journalists talk to foreigners.”

“You worked for them?”

“No, not completely. They asked me to do things, I said I would, but I did not do well, was not—clever. I did not defy them, you cannot, but I was stupid, clumsy—any Russian will understand this. And I never became important, never spoke to important people, because,
then
. . . And was better to be a woman, weak, though they wanted me to go with men. Then I would say I was virgin, would almost cry. But they never went away, until purge of 1938, then one was gone, another came, then he was gone.

“But, it did not last and, one day, in Barcelona, here comes the wrong one, for me. He did not believe I was stupid, did not believe tears, or anything. He said, ‘You will do this,’ and he said what would happen if I did not do it. With him, one and one made two. So then I ran. Left everything I had, got on train to Madrid. Maybe France was better idea, but I was not thinking. I was frightened—you know how that is? I had come to the end of my courage.”

She paused, remembering it, and drank the last of her coffee. “But they did not chase me, not right away. I think maybe the bad one in Barcelona did not want to say, to report, what happened, but later he had to, probably because there was someone above him who also knew how one and one makes two. Then, one day in Madrid, I saw them, and the one friend I had did not want to talk to me anymore. It was then second week in May, and again I ran. To Albacete. By then, I had very little money. I had sold watch, pen, Cyrillic typewriter. I learned from refugees, from Jews, how to do it. It was strange, how I found them. When you are running away you go to the city, and then to a district where you feel safe, and there they are, they have done the same thing, found the same place. Not with rich, with poor, but not too poor so that you don’t belong. Then, in the markets, in the cafs, you see them. Ghosts. And you, also, are a ghost, because the self you had is gone. So it is recognition, and you approach them, and they will help you, if they can. But I think you know all this, Captain, no?”

“It is on my ship,” DeHaan said. “Any ship—we are part of the world, after all. So most of my crewmen can’t go home. Maybe never again in their lives.”

“Can you?”

“No. Not while the war goes on.”

The boy returned from the bakery with a plate of fried twists of dough sprinkled with powdered sugar. He placed it on the table and DeHaan gave him a few more dirhams—too many, evidently, the boy’s eyes widened, and he said thank you in the most elaborate way he knew.

The
beignets
were freshly made, still warm, and smelled very good. Bromen said, “I see these every morning—they carry them through the streets on a palm leaf.” She ate carefully, leaning over the table.

“They’re good?”

She nodded with enthusiasm. He tried one, she was right. “Excuse me,” she said, licking the sugar off her fingers.

“So,” DeHaan said, “you came to Tangier.”

“A dream to the refugees, North Africa. You can go anywhere, from here, if you have a lot of money. You can even work. It’s hard in Spain, after the war they had, people are poor, very poor, and police are terrible. So I came here, my last hope, one week ago. No money, nothing left to sell, only passport. I stole, sometimes, little things—some of the refugees have the gift, but I don’t.”

“I will help you, Miss Bromen. Let me do that, at least.”

“You are kind,” she said. “This I knew in Rotterdam, but I fear it is too late now, for that.”

“Why too late?”

“I have been seen, found. Not conveniently, for them. On the avenue that comes out of Grand Socco, they were in car going the other way, and by the time they stopped, I had run away down a little street and I hid in a building.”

“How could you be sure it was them?”

“It was them. Once you know them, you can recognize.”

DeHaan found himself thinking about the Germans at the Reina Cristina.

“They saw me, Captain DeHaan, they stopped their car. Right where it was, they stopped. That was all I saw, I didn’t wait, so maybe I
was
wrong. But next time may be when I don’t see them. And then, well, you know. What will happen to people like me.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you? They will not kill me, not that minute,” she said. There was more, but she hesitated, perhaps unwilling to use the words she used with herself, then did it anyhow, her voice barely above a whisper. “They will degrade me,” she said.