An Honorable German (17 page)

Max stayed on the bridge till they were under way, then took leave to return to the brig and search the belongings of the
British. He found the officers standing in a loose group when he came out onto the main deck. Approaching Philbrick, he said,
“I’m afraid, Captain, that I shall have to trouble you for your binoculars.”

Philbrick gave him a bitter look. “Afraid you’re too bloody late.

One of your souvenir-hunting Nazi chums already beat you to them.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, I have no idea what you mean.”

“Well, too bloody bad for you,” Philbrick said, turning away.

Carruthers came forward, smiling weakly, and took Max’s arm. “It’s like this, old boy. Seems that after you brought along
the new fellows, two of your chaps came into our cabin and searched their luggage. Looking for contraband, that sort of thing,
they said. Captain’s orders, they said. Seems they found some whiskey, which they pinched. Then they noticed the binoculars
around Philbrick’s neck and pinched those as well. Spoils of war and that sort of thing, eh? But the whole business smelled
rotten and I’m afraid Philbrick is rather browned off. Can’t say as I blame him, either.”

Max struggled to compose his features. “They said, ‘Captain’s orders’?”

“That’s right, old boy.”

“Please come with me, Captain,” Max said. He led Carruthers below. A theft so brazen could not go unpunished. For a crewman
to steal anything from a prisoner of war was against the regulations of the Kriegsmarine and a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Such theft was a serious breach of discipline. To engage in such thievery while pretending to be under orders from the captain
was an even more serious breach of discipline. They made their way through the ship to Hauer’s cabin, whereupon Max rapped
on the door and stated their names. Immediately the captain admitted them and Max handled the translation as Carruthers repeated
his story.

Hauer sat speechless for a moment when it was over, his face red with anger. Whether his headaches and stomach trouble were
the product or the cause of his quick temper, Max had been unable to tell, but this incident drove him to fury. “Captain,
I must apologize most deeply to you and your comrades. Only Oberleutnant Brekendorf has the authority to search prisoners.

He would have given you a receipt for anything he was obliged to confiscate so your belongings could be returned to you when
we made port. The sailor responsible for this outrage will be found and punished.” He slammed his fist on the desk. “Punished
most severely.” Max repeated all of this in English for Carruthers, then Hauer gave a slight bow of his head, signifying the
interview was over. “Return after escorting Captain Carruthers to the deck, Oberleutnant.”

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

Max returned as slowly as he could to Hauer’s cabin, knowing that he was about to receive the worst dressing-down of his career.
He rapped, slipped into the cabin, and found Hauer standing with his back to the door, hands clasped behind him. The captain’s
uniform was immaculate, his steward saw to that. Like Felix, the captain was a Prussian—but a real Prussian, like Max. His
cabin reflected it. A set of books on navigation and seamanship stood on a shelf, neat as a line of grenadiers. There were
no unruly papers on his desktop; all were filed away. A water glass scrubbed clean as an angel stood near the edge of the
desk on a perfectly starched napkin, along with three tablets of bicarbonate of soda, a small pitcher of water, and a silver
spoon polished into gleaming submission. There were two pictures on the bulkhead—one of the Kaiser, one of Admiral Tirpitz—and
neither dared to be off center. Max was sure he could have bounced a five-mark coin off the bunk, so tightly were the sheets
folded.

Until this moment, Max had not attracted the captain’s fury, though once he had come close. One morning, no more than a week
after coming aboard
Meteor
, Max had sat in a deck chair during his off-duty hours, rereading
The Treasure of Silver Lake
, his favorite Karl May novel. He had just reached the end of a chapter when Hauer happened by. He caught Max folding down
the right corner of the page instead of using a bookmark and stopped short. “Oberleutnant!” the captain shouted.

Max bolted out from his chair and stood at wooden attention.

Hauer stepped up to face him at less than half a meter. “Books should never be treated with such disrespect, Oberleutnant.
Never crease a page or put a mark in a book—not on my ship, not anywhere. Books are all that separate us from the apes. Do
you understand? I should never wish to see such behavior again.”

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän,” Max barked obediently, thinking then, as he would later do on many occasions, that Captain Hauer was
truly a bastard.

Now Max stood quietly at attention, knowing Hauer would eventually take notice of him. At length the captain turned and stared
at him for a very long moment. “Oberleutnant Brekendorf, you are a disgrace to the service and I shall have no choice but
to bring your appalling dereliction of duty to the attention of the Naval War Staff when I submit my final report. That
you
, a trained and experienced regular officer, should so fail in your duty by forgetting,
forgetting
, your explicit standing orders to search prisoners is so shocking to me I am speechless!” Hauer banged the table with his
fist. “I am speechless! Speechless!” Then be quiet, Max thought. “But the situation aboard this ship, which you made infinitely
worse by your reprehensible dereliction of duty, the situation is so delicate that I have no choice but to continue to rely
on you and I will pray to Almighty God that you remember your duty in the brief period of time you have left in the navy.
Consider yourself fortunate that I am not going to confine you to the brig.”

Hauer looked away from Max and said nothing for a few minutes, letting the curtain fall on act one. Then he began to speak,
acting as if nothing had been said heretofore. “There are three regular naval officers on this ship. Three. Only three. Before
you and Leutnant Falkenheyn came aboard, there was only me. That’s why the two of you were sent here at such great risk—the
navy didn’t smuggle you out of Buenos Aires for a holiday. I require officers I can rely on implicitly.”

Hauer stared at him. Max didn’t flinch. He feared one word from him would push the captain over the edge. It wasn’t only the
crew who were in need of leave. Max wanted to suggest that Hauer go ahead and drink the bicarbonate of soda.

“Would you shoot someone if I ordered you to?”

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

“A German?”

Max hesitated.

“A simple question, Oberleutnant Brekendorf! Answer. Would you shoot a German sailor engaged in mutiny aboard a German man-o’-war
in a time of war?”

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

Around them the ship rolled slightly in the seaway. With all of her wooden paneling and wooden doors from her days in the
passenger trade, she creaked like an old house as she steamed. The captain said, “I will announce to the crew that the defaulters
have twenty-four hours to turn themselves in. If they do not—and I do not expect they shall—I will order you and Leutnant
Falkenheyn to search the crew quarters. Some of the troublemakers on board may resist this. You will have me and a party of
armed officers with you…” Hauer paused. “I asked for the best crew they could give me and they cleaned out the brig, thinking
I’d be sunk in a fortnight.” He glanced around his cabin. “I will not have a mutiny on my ship, do you understand? I will
not!”

Max continued to stand at rigid attention.

“At ease, Oberleutnant,” the captain said, fatigue in his voice. He pulled a key from his pocket and opened a cabinet next
to his desk, from which he withdrew two pistols in polished leather holsters. “One for you and one for Leutnant Falkenheyn.
I will have one as well. The guard contingent will have truncheons. Questions?”

Max spoke with caution. To question the captain’s orders directly could be taken as mutiny itself. “Must it come to this,
Herr Kapitän?”

Hauer stared him down. “Thirteen months at sea. No women.

No leave. Short rations. Not enough alcohol. The crew becomes a tinderbox. One spark and they will ignite. I saw it at Kiel
in 1918. One spark and a whole damn crew became Bolsheviks, Red Bolsheviks—actually killed the first officer. They spat on
me—spat on me! But not on my ship. There will not be mutiny on my ship!”

Max came to attention. “At your command, Herr Kapitän.”

“I will not have prisoners mistreated under my watch. Just as there are rules in peacetime, there are rules in war. The men
who have violated those rules will be found and discipline will be restored.” Hauer emphasized the last word by striking the
desk again. “You are dismissed.”

Max saluted and took his leave.

Over dinner, he spoke to Dieter about this very unpleasant encounter with the captain. As usual, Dieter was unfazed. “First,
El Maximo, don’t worry about what Hauer will say about you. Do you think the Naval War Staff is going to give any credence
to what the man says? He’s mad as a March hare. As to the thieves who took the binoculars, a show of force and the shits will
give way,” he said. They were eating blood sausage and bread—a heavy meal to stomach in the heat of the Indian Ocean—and drinking
Sapporo beer, which they couldn’t abide. Watered-down horse piss mixed with medicinal alcohol would taste better, but they
didn’t have any of that. All they had was the Sapporo. Dieter upended his bottle, then sat back. “I’ve seen this sort of thing
before. Nothing to it.”

Max had known Dieter since April of 1933, when they had begun their first year as Seekadetten. They were crewkameraden, had
drilled together, furled sails together, been aboard the training cruiser
Emden
together, exploring together the various American cities
Emden
visited from New York to New Orleans to San Diego. They had learned navigation together, gotten drunk together, served aboard
Graf Spee
together, gotten stuck in Argentina together, and finally come here. Max looked at his friend.

“Now exactly when and where have you seen this kind of thing before?”

“Well, I haven’t, El Maximo, but I can’t worry about it. Cigarette?”

That night, in his bunk, Max worried about it. Just shoot whomever the captain pointed out? Mutiny was a serious crime—a capital
offense in any navy, and rightly so—but a sailor pinching a pair of binoculars did not constitute a Bolshevik revolt. A certain
tension was evident throughout the ship: furtive looks, muttered curses, a hand slow to salute. But there was hardly an open
rebellion.
Meteor
did have more than her share of brig rats, but to shoot a German sailor in cold blood?

By the twenty-four-hour mark, an air of expectation hung over the ship. Crewmen stopped working and even the helmsman became
inattentive and had to be reprimanded by the watch officer. Captain Hauer, in full dress uniform, pistol holstered, stood
on the main deck at parade rest, waiting for the binoculars and whiskey to be returned. The deadline expired. Five minutes
went by. Then ten. Time moved slowly as it always did when one wanted it to move faster. Thirty minutes past the deadline,
he called for the guard. Max and Dieter, also with holstered pistols, led four reliable men onto the deck. Each of the four
had a truncheon. Max wanted to say something, anything, that might head off this confrontation, but the look on Hauer’s face
did not suggest an openness to compromise.

Hauer led the way belowdecks, striding into the crew quarters. Sailors crowded around, some menacing, many fearful. But they
presented themselves in solidarity as a group. Crowded together in this heat, sweat dripped from the men. Max felt himself
sweating through his uniform.

Hauer pushed through the men to a row of lockers. “Open it,” he said, pointing to the first locker.

No one moved.

The captain turned to one of the junior petty officers. “What kind of German sailor are you? Call these men to attention.”

The petty officer hesitated, then stepped forward and bellowed, “Achtung!”

The response varied; a handful snapped to, but without conviction. The rest stood as they were.

“You.” Hauer jabbed his finger at one of the older seamen—Harslager, who sported a pale knife scar across his left cheek.

“Which is your locker?”

“Nine.”

Max could see the captain’s nostrils flare at the omission of “Herr Kapitän.” Harslager’s own face was tight and defiant,
though his hands nervously grasped and ungrasped the seams of his trousers.

“Open it!”

Harslager stood his ground. Max wondered what had happened to the man who gave him that scar.

“Open it now!” the captain shouted.

Nothing.

“Oberleutnant.”

“Ja, Herr Kapitän?”

“Cover this man with your pistol.”

Max pulled the pistol from its holster and pointed it at Harslager’s belly. The wooden grip was damp in his hand from sweat.

“I will count to five,” Hauer said, speaking slowly to Harslager. “If you do not open the locker, I will order the Oberleutnant
to shoot you. He is a regular naval officer and understands what it means to obey orders.”

Max could see the sailors staring at him. Most had gone white in the face. Harslager looked down at the deck.

“One.”

No one moved. No one even seemed to breathe—as if the air itself had been sucked from the room.

“Two!”

Max pulled the Luger’s slide back, forcing a shell into the breech, the sound loud and metallic.

“Three.”

Harslager looked up and stared Max straight in the eye.

“Four.”

Sweat beaded on Max’s forehead and ran down his chin.

“Five!”

Harslager stayed motionless. Max’s finger curled around the trigger.

“Fire!” Hauer yelled.

Slowly Max lowered the pistol. He might be court-martialed, but he wasn’t going to shoot a German sailor in cold blood. Seeing
them killed in battle was bad enough; he still had nightmares about the dead signalmen he had stepped over during the battle
off the Rio Plata. Captain Hauer stared at him with rage, face twitching, looking as if he might use his fists to strike Max.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the loudspeaker interrupted: “Feindlicher Kreuzer in sicht!” Enemy cruiser in sight!