Ice Reich (7 page)

"Otto seems to introduce everyone."

Drexler laughed again.

"And what's your background, Jürgen?"

He grew serious. "I grew up in the German nightmare. You have no idea how disastrous for us the Weimar Republic was, how huge a failure democracy was. Money worth nothing, morality worth nothing, honor worth nothing. I was alone too, my father dead in the war, my mother... ill. In an institution. And then came the Party. My new family. My new father. My new hope! I know it looks strange to you outsiders, the torches, the marches, but the Führer has touched the very soul of the German people. The
soul."
 

Hart nodded, considering. He searched for the right question. "Jürgen, I'm puzzled by so much cargo. Boxes and boxes of it. I don't know what it is, where it goes, the sailors keep mum."

"Well, we're going to a place far away, thousands of miles from resupply. It's better to be over- than underprepared. And if we find a site for a future base, we may cache supplies."

"So this is more than just an aerial survey?"

"In essence this is an
opportunity,
the dimensions of which none of us can guess as yet."

"I just feel I could be more help if I understood more."

Drexler took another sip. "I understand your American curiosity, Owen. But it's best not to ask too many questions. You'll be told everything you need to know to perform your job, and believe me, it will be easier not having to worry about what you
don't
need to know. I mean no disrespect by this. It's simply the way we Germans prefer to do things. I trust you understand."

Hart didn't but decided not to press the point. He had to live with these people for the next three months.

Later he asked Fritz to come to his cabin, presenting some bottled beers he'd liberated from the officer's mess. "For our philosophic musings," he explained.

Fritz pulled out some schnapps from his coat. "For our philharmonic bitching. You can tell me about Alaska and I'll tell you about this ship. Unfortunately for you, I have opinions on everyone and everything: loud and obnoxious ones if we toast enough times."

Owen summarized his conversation with Drexler, including the German's admonition.

"You should be flattered. If you were a German he'd simply tell you to shut up. They spoil you, Owen. Are you tired of it yet?"

Hart took a swig. "It's a cozy ship," he assessed. "And I like Germans. They're enthusiastic, energetic. Like Americans."

"Ha! As if that were a compliment!" Fritz tilted the schnapps bottle. "Well. Heiden is okay. He knows his seamanship, I'm told. Had some problems on an earlier voyage up to the Arctic— lost a ship— but the story is that it was ice and bad luck. We learn from our mistakes. Drexler I'm more suspicious of. Ambitious, the kind of ambition that gets other people hurt. The type of arrogant young prick they seem to stamp out of some Reich factory by the thousands these days. I tell you, Hart, the Party has put people to work— I grant them that— but they also attract the biggest collection of self-important pig-heads I've ever seen. And I never said that, by the way!" he shouted at a vent opening.

"Jürgen simply strikes me as serious. Committed."

"Or pretentious." Fritz stood stiffly, trying to comb his curly hair to one side with his fingers to approximate Drexler's straight blond cut. "We sail for the glory of Greater Germany! Crap. I sail for three months' good wages and to get out of this lunatic asylum, and you sail to erase your past. Drexler to curry favor, Heiden to make up for the ship he lost in the Arctic in 1912, this woman Heinz I bet to find a husband, or escape one. Ach, we all have one reason and pretend another, we lie so desperately we believe ourselves. We look for chance and call it purpose. What a lot of pompous asses all people are, Hart—
all
of us." He belched. "Probably me no better than him."

* * *

At lunch the next day Hart asked Drexler about his enthusiasm for a leader many Americans regarded with apprehension.

"Adolf Hitler has succeeded for one simple reason," the political liaison replied, pointing with his fork. "He's extraordinary. A man of vision who is above common appetites, but who recognizes those appetites in others. There is an oft-told story: Hitler goes to a small village inn and the mayor and notables assemble at a table with him. When the waiter comes, Hitler orders mineral water. All the others hastily do too, except one absentminded fellow at the end of the table who orders beer. The other men look aghast, but Hitler smiles. 'It seems you and I are the only two honest men in this village.' "

Feder barked a laugh.

"So why is the world so uneasy with him?" Hart asked.

"Because he represents change. Or, rather, correction. Hitler seeks only to correct the errors in the treachery at Versailles that followed the Great War. The Allied politicians, seeking their revenge, put Germans in France, Germans in Austria, Germans in Czechoslovakia— a bastard creation of a country that didn't even exist!—and Germans in Poland. Christ, Poland! Another geographic monstrosity! Another historical aberration! And that's supposed to solve something? Give Germany Germany. That's all Hitler is asking. Can't you agree?"

Hart was cautious. "European history is confusing to Americans, I'm afraid."

"Justice is not, I hope."

"And flags are irrelevant in an Antarctic storm."

The German smiled thinly. "Then why does every nation take them there?"

* * *

The docks were beginning to empty and the ship to settle lower in the water. Departure was drawing near. One night a gray military truck pulled onto the dock and a dozen muscular young men leaped off, shouldered seabags, and bounded up the gangplank to disappear without a word into the forecastle. They wouldn't appear on deck again until the ship had entered the North Sea, went the rumor around ship. Drexler was closeted with them.

"Naval marines, I'll bet," Fritz offered. "Or something worse."

Marines had never been discussed in conversations about the provisioning of the expedition, so Hart mentioned their sudden appearance to the political liaison. Drexler looked faintly disapproving.

"Those men are not your concern."

"But why marines in the Antarctic?"

"I didn't say they were marines."

"Then what are they?"

Drexler sighed. "Those men are simply security, Hart, specialists from the
Schutzstaffel,
the SS. Elite troops."

"Then they are
your
men?"

"They are my responsibility. But I'm a civilian in the SS, not a soldier. An advisor, not a general. They take guidance from me."

"Why soldiers in Antarctica?"

"They're mountaineers trained for extreme conditions, a precaution against rash action by Norwegian whalers or anyone else we might encounter. You know better than I how far we'll be from civilization. It would be imprudent not to include such protection to ensure the safety of our mission."

"We won't encounter anyone. There's no one down there."

"That's not true. Half the world is ahead of us down there. Really, Hart, this is exactly the kind of situation we discussed in the galley. Our polar flight is your business. The makeup of our complement is not." And with that he walked away.

* * *

Greta arrived a day later, only one day prior to sailing. Hart encountered her in a passageway, trailing another seaman who was carrying a seabag to her cabin.

"Ah, so I see they let the other oddball on board," she said brightly. "First an American horns in, now I arrive. What do you think— is there room enough on this ship for a woman?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll have no problem," said Hart. "They'll soon be admiring your gumption."

"Gumption?"
She was puzzled.

"Guts.
Courage. It takes a lot of both to be going where you're going."

"Oh, I have my chaperon. Jürgen is determined to look after me." She laughed, but Hart wasn't sure she found that idea unappealing or ridiculous. "And a pilot guide from America!" she added. "You won't let me get lost, will you?"

He smiled uncertainly. "You seem to know your way."

"Hardly!" She laughed again and was off down a passageway, calling over her shoulder, "I can barely find my way around this ship!"

Women are bad luck, he reminded himself as he stared after her. Remembering her smile.

The
Schwabenland
left Hamburg at six in the morning on December 1, 1938, casting off in a chill drizzle. Europe was electric with tension as Czechoslovakia was absorbed into the Reich and civil war neared its climax in Spain, a war the fascists appeared destined to win. Hart was largely oblivious to such events, engrossed in the details of expedition preparation. With Teutonic efficiency, the aircraft mechanics had stocked two of everything. Hart suggested they get three. The pilots had requested two weeks' emergency rations on each plane; Hart had them double it to four. He also convinced Heiden to bring on board sixty parachutes attached to enough emergency food, water, and fuel to last a downed aircraft a month.

Soon they were plowing through snow squalls in the North Sea. Hart had a flier's stomach and little problem with the motion, but Feder and Greta were sick and stayed away from the officer's mess for the first few days. The seaplane tender soon turned down the Channel and passed other freighters, their running lights glowing in the gloom. None seemed to take special note of the German passing despite the Dornier seaplanes lashed to the catapults. Off Calais, however, a British destroyer emerged from a bank of fog and rounded on the
Schwabenland
's flag, following for a few miles like a dog sniffing scent. Drexler ran out on the bridge wing and studied the warship through binoculars, as no doubt its officers were studying the German vessel. Then the British ship pulled away.

Hart liked the sea. It offered the same combination of freedom and simple emptiness as the air. And the ship was a cocoon, a refuge of warmth from the elements outside. The American's quarters were with the expedition leaders and pilots, high in the midcastle housing. Ordinary seamen were on decks below. The mysteriously ensconced SS mountaineers were housed in the uncomfortable forecastle, where the ship's motion and noise from pounding waves was at an extreme. True to prediction, the soldiers did emerge after the ship left Hamburg but they kept to themselves, clinging to the bow area of the
Schwabenland
as if an invisible leash kept them from roaming. Twice a day they assembled on the forward deck in shorts and T-shirts and did calisthenics. They looked like white, blond machines.

Hart prowled the vessel's passageways until he had a mental map of its layout, then scouted cozy places on deck shielded from wind. From there, catching the warmth of the occasional winter sun like a cat, he could watch the cresting swells for hours. Under dark skies the waves were like hills of obsidian, glassy but opaque. When the sun shone they turned molten emerald. The air outside was cold and refreshing, a contrast to the interior's smell of oil and cigarette smoke and overcooked German food.

Eventually Greta emerged on deck and remained there as long as possible, using the wind to blow away her nausea. At first she seemed to prefer to be alone with her thoughts. Sometimes Drexler would approach her, Hart would surreptitiously observe, and she would give a quiet shake of her head. But later she would chat with him for a bit and the other officers would occasionally join her too, sometimes making a joke to cover their awkwardness. Her gender made her exotic and her quiet beauty— it was more evident here at sea, away from the calculated flash of Göring's actresses— a magnet.

Without effort she became, along with Heiden as captain and Drexler as German philosopher, a focal point in the officer's mess. She would arrive for dinner dressed in practical working clothes— wool pants, boots, and a sweater, her red hair pulled back into a ponytail— and gamely enter the male conversation. Sometimes she smelled of perfume and sometimes of formaldehyde, but she had a light, gentle laugh that sounded in the dark and overheated mess like a bell in a cave. Her effect was amusing: the men would unconsciously straighten a bit, voices would quiet and soften, eyes would quickly dart her way and then turn to a studious examination of a salt shaker or coffee mug. She was aware of this and careful to let her own gaze flit from face to face, democratically pleasant. The woman was an antidote to coarseness, and Hart guessed most of the men in the officer's mess were secretly grateful for her presence. Yet he knew her position was not easy. She was trying to assert a place as an equal and yet adhere to the feminine reticence expected in 1938 Germany.

Her relationship with Jürgen Drexler seemed as "unsettled" as she'd described herself to be. Clearly she enjoyed his company: he was handsome, self-assured, and flattering in his attentions. The German was a man on the make, a comer who might go far in the new regime if this expedition was a success. An alliance with a bright, pathbreaking woman like Greta would likely make them a celebrity couple back home. And he was a dogged campaigner for her affection. Whenever possible, Hart noticed, Drexler would take the seat next to her in the mess. The others often left it empty as if waiting for his arrival. Yet the pilot wasn't sure what the woman made of this presumption. On a few occasions she made a point of sitting between two other men, reminding him of her move at Karinhall. The change, it seemed to Hart, gave her a bit of relief: Jürgen Drexler could be relentlessly persistent. Yet when Drexler talked late in the evening about their expedition— "to the crystal towers of Antarctica!"—he'd lose himself in romanticism and the biologist's eyes would take on a certain shine.

Still, Hart didn't see in Greta's manner an emotional commitment to the German. There was none of the easy partnership of a romance or affair or betrothal. Her fingers were empty of rings and she retained the cautious aloofness attractive women sometimes adopt as a necessary shield. Drexler was clearly seeking an intimacy beyond simple friendship but she had a way of both admitting him and yet putting him off. All this was the subject of idle gossip, of course— it was assumed the presence of both on board was far from coincidental— yet no one claimed firm knowledge. The couple deflected curiosity.