Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom) Page 52

  Chapter Two

  May 6, 1941 aboard Germany’s Bismarck

  On the day after Adolf Hitler had been aboard Bismarck, Erwin Hulsing stood in the area where Hitler had addressed the seamen of Bismarck. He was halfway up a set of stairs leading to Admiral Lutjens’ quarters when he noticed the door hidden in dark shadow. This was the same door where Hitler had re-emerged to inspect the crew after his earlier visit with the admiral now bathed in darkness. Erwin stared at the doorway for a long time as he thought he saw something move there, but no he was alone. He chalked it up to looking through the smoke from his fast-burning, Turkish cigarette. He’d picked up the smokes in Poland at a dingy little shop, bought them while the ship awaited orders. He’d wandered the cramped and narrow streets of the Polish town of Gotenhafen. As he did so, he had sized up the Polish people—bakers, beer-makers, sausage grinders, comparing them to the people of his homeland and to the people of Great Britain, who he’d met while attending Oxford University. What he found most odd in Poland except for the monster battleship in the harbor, was the sheer lack of any sign in Gotenhafen that a war was even going on.

  Erwin’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a hatchway opening and the approach of an officer’s boots over the metal catwalk. Heinrich Dobberhagen joined him at the starboard side of the ship near the bridge, begging for a smoke.

  “They’re absolutely black,” Erwin warned, shaking a single cigarette from its pack, handing it to Dobberhagen, and lighting it for the seaman.

  “Are you off duty?”

  “What do you think?”

  The sound of laughter between them wafted across the water, but it was quickly drowned out by Bismarck’s cutting through the waves as it moved in and out of the Balkan Islands, creating a frothy wake along with the roar. They’d made good time and were already out of the tricky straits between Germany and Sweden. They’d soon be in the North Sea, followed by the Denmark Straits, and from to the North Atlantic.

  “So peaceful aboard at night here; did I catch you looking out over the sea?” asked Dobberhagen.

  “I love the being at sea. Can’t stand all the time we spend in port, especially that town we just left.” Erwin took a deep drag on his cigarette and shook his head. “Thought I’d go out of my mind; I was that bored.”

  “At least you had the engines to tend to. That bastard Hessman had me on 12-hour shift.”

  “Painting the camouflage, I saw. It’s not right that a junior officer should be put on such duty. Why does he have it in for you?”

  “He’s an ass, and I guess he knows that I know he’s an ass.”

  “Ahhh, yes,that would definitely make you fair game, but at least now you get to play with the Marconi.” Dobberhagen was one of several radiomen who rotated in the nearby radio room.

  “We all sent off messages to home. Me, I sent one—just one—to my girlfriend, Greta.”

  “And I’m guessing you were the one caught?”

  “Yes, afraid so. How ’bout you? Did you get a message off?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Erwin lied. He had no one to send a message to, but Dobberhagen, who lived up to his profession as communicator, would have it all over the ship if he told him he had no one back home. His grandfather had died in ’38, and his mother had contracted a horrible disease that took her far too quickly—a brain cancer. She died pleading for her husband to end her life. She attempted several suicides until she was successful. She left a note asking that she be cremated and her ashes spread over the ocean, but his father, in the end, could not grant such a wish, and she was buried at the cemetery beside the church in the meadow near their home. Erwin was only glad that she was now out of pain and together with her parents in eternity, buried alongside them. Meanwhile, his father was in a cell in Berlin, placed there by the damnable SS, suspected of sedition.

  Part of the old home’s tree-studded acreage had been sold to pay off a series of bad debts, the last being his mother’s funeral costs. Next Erwin had lost a good portion of the family estate to the Nazi Party, confiscated ‘for the good of the Third Reich’, but more so due to his father’s politics. In recent years, much of the Hulsing family estate had been turned into a Hitler Youth camp where young boys and girls were ‘properly raised’ in the understanding of the Nazi Party. Many such camps were popping up all over Germany—the children being taken from their parents and placed on farms and fed a daily dose of propaganda. Erwin had thought it wrong then, and his beliefs hadn’t changed since. By this time, many of the boys who had been raised in the Hitler Youth movement were now enlisted in Hitler’s land and naval forces.

  “Did you see the size of that box of oranges that Herr Hitler brought to the Admiral?” asked Dobberhagen in a near whisper. “Imagine it, getting a present like that from our Fuhrer.”

  “Yeah, I saw it. Hell, everyone of consequence saw it. We all saw the damn oranges, but don’t expect any to trickle down to you, Dobberhagen.”

  “I think we have oranges in the galley, just not like those; I mean given to you from—”

  “I get it, der Fuhrer, der Fuhrer—some special oranges. Maybe he irrigated them personally with his own piss.”

  “Watch that sarcastic tongue, sir; it could get you into trouble.”

  “Oranges are oranges.”

  “I just thought maybe they’re from America… from the place they call Florida.”

  Erwin clammed up, not wishing to hear more about the bloody oranges when Dobberhagen moved in closer to him and whispered, “Do you suspect something else might just be in the orange crate?”

  “I suspect nothing.”

  “Of course you do. You know it, and I know it.”

  “Know what, Dobberhagen?”

  “Don’t try to say otherwise. I came to suspect something was up while watching you watching that peculiar box!”

  “You did, eh?”

  “How? How can you possibly know there’s something other than oranges hidden in that box, sir?”

  “It required four men to carry it.”

  “True, but then Hitler is a careful man if nothing else.”

  “And the four of them were straining as they moved it along while sweating profusely.”

  “Veins popping in the necks, yes.”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s more than meets the eye… more than just oranges.”

  Dobberhagen’s eyes turned to saucers at this. “Ahhh… I knew it!”

  “Ahhh, forget about it! I’m just joking with you, Dobberhagen.” Erwin laughed, and the other man joined him in laughter. Erwin suspected the younger fellow of having been recruited by Bonekemper, the SS Officer, as another pair of eyes and ears. He could not be certain of this, but he could not be too careful. Diverting the other man’s attention to the odd crate seemed a good ploy for the moment. Making the other man laugh was not such a bad ploy either, he reasoned when he heard someone above them, fully expecting it to be Bonekemper.

  “What is so humorous?” asked this someone standing on the overhead catwalk that took a man to the bridge.

  Erwin and Dobberhagen looked up to see Captain Lindemann standing over them. Dusk was coming on, and the sky over Lindemann’s stark, tall, angular form was a blood-orange swirl of strange light.

  The two men came to instant attention, saluting Lindemann whose features always included a slight smirk. Erwin was unsure what the curl to the captain’s lips might mean. It remained inscrutable.

  “What is so humorous?” Lindemann repeated without returning either man’s salute. “I could use a good laugh.”

  The captain of the Bismarck, who only answered to one man aboard, Admiral Lutjens, wanted to share a joke with Erwin and Dobberhagen. It stunned both the communications operator and the Lt. Commander in charge of Engineering. “So have you two men gone deaf and dumb? Speak!”

  Dobberhagen shook beside Erwin who could feel the other man’s nerve coming unglued. Dobberhagen had prided himself in never catching the eye of either the captain or the admiral.
Erwin shrugged to indicate it was nothing, and then he spoke the word, “It was nothing. Sir, just ahhh small talk, sir.”

  “Ahhh… I recall that, small talk. I’ve nearly forgotten it exists. Funny the things a man gets homesick for, eh, Lt. Commander?”

  Lonely at the top, Erwin imagined. “It was nothing of importance, sir.”

  “Just those oranges,” blurted out Dobberhagen, a goofy grin on his face. “The ones gifted to the admiral.”

  “Der Fuhrer had no prize for you, sir?” asked Erwin, instantly mentally kicking himself for asking such a stupid question.

  “No, no, afraid not.”

  An awkward silence filled the space between them like an invisible chasm unlikely ever to be breached. A flash of insight filled Hulsing. He simply knew why Lindemann was so sullen. The man had expected to be calling the shots aboard Bismarck, and at the 13th hour, they placed the admiral of the fleet aboard, so that Captain Lindemann must clear every order, every step through the admiral, to say nothing of who would be on the bridge in the heat of battle giving the orders—calling the shots, as the Americans liked to say. Every bloody order given by Lutjens, Lindemann must repeat like a parrot to his men, his crew. Not to mention the captain had to vacate his quarters for the admiral’s comfort aboard.

  The still quiet among the men was broken when Lindemann said, “I understand that you know the English mind?”

  Hulsiing swallowed hard and hesitated answering.

  “Well, is this true, Hulsing?”

  It was the second time Lindemann had pointedly sought out Erwin’s eyes to read each nuance as if expecting some sort of coded message to pass between them. Hulsing gave out a quick laugh. “Who ever really knows the English, sir?”

  “Ah, true, but you’ve been living among them. You know something of their history, their culture, their language, yes?”

  “Somewhat, yes, sir.”

  “We go to fight the enemy, to sink the Hood, and to take control of the North Atlantic. All of the secrets of our mission seem to be known by every sailor aboard my ship, eh?”

  “Yes, I think that much is safe to say so, sir.”

  “Is it also safe to say everyone on board knows which direction we’ll take to achieve these objectives?”

  “Actually, sir… that is one secret the men are taking bets on.”

  “And the odds?”

  “The odds favor the Denmark Straits, sir!”

  “Makes more sense, yes? Listen,” Lindemann continued, changing the subject, “I read your file, Commander, that you were top of your class at Oxford.”

  “In engineering and communications, sir.”

  Dobberhagen excused himself, saluted his captain, and slipped away. Alone now with one another, Lindemann asked Hulsing, “How did you find life in England?”

  “Tolerable, sir… just tolerable.”

  “I can’t imagine living anywhere but the Homeland.” Lindemann stretched to ease the pain in his back.

  “I was only there to complete my studies, Captain.”

  “Of course, of course.” He lit a cigarette and bent low to offer it to Hulsing, who felt he must share a smoke with the man in this instance. After lighting his own cigarette, Lindemann calmly said, “What fools they are, the British, to dare stand against us! They’ll see their entire nation wiped out, and for what, to stand on some principle, eh? It’s pitiful to see an empire crumble, don’t you think?”

  “Yes sir… that they are pitiful fools, sir.”

  “Churchill? This man is a buffoon and a bloody fool. They were offered friendly overtures, and if they had any sense at the top, they wouldn’t then have to be brought to their knees.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “They could have been a powerful ally, but they chose to foolishly stand against us.”

  “The Bismarck will teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget.”

  “We will celebrate each victory, Hulsing, and when the world sees us victorious, the UK and all her allies will come ’round to our way of thinking. The superior race will rise again as in the Middle Ages, a kind of new Republic, eh? It’s only a matter of time.”

  “My god, what a pounding they’ve already taken from us.”

  Lindemann nodded. “The bombings by the Luftwaffe, yes… but it seems to only have made them more… more stubborn.”

  Hulsing hesitated answering, carefully choosing each word before doing so. “They are a pig-headed people, sir.” He ended with a shrug. “Not like the sheep we’ve taken so far.”

  But Lindemann was too quick, already speaking over him. “Your record is impressive, Hulsing. It could prove useful having a man of your abilities on board, not only engineering and communications, but a policeman as well—in the event of any sort of mishap, I mean.”

  “Mishap, sir?”

  “Men have been known to kill one another in close quarters. You’ve had training in interrogations, haven’t you?”

  “It appears, sir, that you really have read my history, sir.”

  “I like to know the background of every man serving under me.”

  Hulsing nodded and took a long drag on his cigarette, saying nothing.

  Lindemann crushed his half-smoked cigarette beneath his boot. “But why, Hulsing, in private life did you choose to be a detective?”

  “Do you know how little work there is in Berlin for an engineer—in private life?”

  “Yes, but why were you chasing criminals, lowlifes, and Jewish trash in Berlin—in the wretched ghettos and alleyways?” The captain asked snidely. “Especially with you being trained as an engineer! Plus being a fellow just educated in the new science in communications. Come to think of it, wasn’t your father a prominent man in government, before he fell under the scrutiny of the SS?”

  Hulsing realized that Lindemann made it his business to know every detail of his officers backgrounds. His neck now sore from his position far below his captain, craning to speak this way, Hulsing began to rub the back of his head in nervous fashion. “Sir, there was no position in Berlin at that time for anything but as a police detective, and my father was falsely accused.”

  “Ahhh… yes, of course.”

  Hulsing wondered if the of course was in response to jobs or his father’s innocence. But he said no more.

  “Jobs were as scarce as fresh eggs before Hitler, eh?” Lindemann thoughtfully asked.

  The Third Reich had certainly created jobs—all either as military or to support the military. Hulsing knew of the hordes of German citizens depending on such as boiled cabbage, fried squirrel, or pigeon meat for the evening meal all over the country and in particular in Berlin.

  As a police detective in Berlin, Erwin had dealt with more homeless deaths than any other kind. Homeless people had become a large, disparate, and desperate part of the population before Hitler’s rise to power, and the Gypsies and other groups preyed upon the homeless. The murder rate among people living on Berlin’s streets had doubled then quadrupled while Erwin was an active detective. He had continuously reported on this horrible and growing circumstance, but his reports had fallen on deaf ears. His superiors didn’t care for ripples or complexities, and in as such had tied his hands while at once telling him to do his job! The binding they used was enough red tape to bury a man.

  “Please, come up to the bridge, Hulsing,” the captain invited. “Let’s talk further.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hulsing wondered what his superior wanted, assuming some ulterior motive behind the sudden interest in him.

  After spending months on board the new secret weapon of the Third Reich, this was the most the captain had ever spoken to him. As he made his way up the stairs to the bridge, his boots created a quick litany of metallic taps. While making his way to the catwalk, he feared that at last, Captain Lindemann knew his secrets and meant to act on that knowledge, to send him straight to the SS officer on board. Commandant Bonekemper, a man no one wanted to sit across the interview table from. Behind his back and in the mess halls,
Bonekemper was known by Bismarck’s crew as ‘the Shredder’. Should there be a murder on board the Bismarck, Hulsing expected that Bonekemper would be called in to investigate, not him, regardless of his former experience as a detective. Earlier, he had been wondering what the captain was driving at, and so far, he hadn’t a clue! What Lindemann did have him pondering was why all the sudden interest in Hulsing’s past career?

  “There,” said Lindemann, “better isn’t it? Being eye-to-eye, eh Erwin, man-to-man so to speak. Isn’t this better for small talk?”

  “It’s definitely easier on my neck, yes, sir.” Erwin attempted some humor, trying to sound calm while inside he was quaking and wondering if the captain sensed this.

  “I will get to the point, Lt. Commander as I see you are wondering what I want from you—not just some small talk.”

  “Sir, I am your servant.”

  “Yes and I could order you to put an end to all the ‘small talk’ about that damnable crate of oranges our beloved leader brought aboard for our admiral, but I am a firm believer that showing is better than telling.”

  “Sir?”

  “Follow me, Hulsing.”

  When Lindemann turned his back and began toward his quarters, Hulsing sucked in a deep breath of air, trying his best to stay calm, cool, and collected. “Yes, sir,” he said to the other man’s back.

  Lindemann walked past what was now his room and took the flight up to what was now Admiral Lutjens’ private quarters. It suddenly crossed Erwin’s mind that Lindemann was bringing him up on charges before Lutjens for some silly shipboard gossip. Such a thing was a minor infraction to be sure, but it would put a blemish on his record, and it seemed that men in power in the Reich appeared to thrive on putting red ink on a man’s record.

  All this over a crate of stupid oranges, Hulsing angrily thought. Obviously, Captain Lindemann had heard more than he’d let on, listening in on Hulsing and Dobberhagen’s conversation from his perch above.

  Hulsing gritted his teeth as he stepped inside the comparatively large private compartment for the admiral. Hulsing’s hands shook, but Lutjens was nowhere to be seen. It flashed through Erwin’s mind that Lindemann had done away with the old man, possibly in a fit of rage, which would explain all the theatrical nonsense of his being called in to investigate a theoretical murder.