The Last Eagle (2011) Read online

  Stefan couldn’t imagine his own captain sleeping through this din. But he supposed that all depended. If Stefan had to guess, by this time in the early morning, Józef Sieinski, second son of one of the wealthiest men in all of Poland, had long ago left his dinner party, retiring to the suite his father provided for him, free of charge, of course, while the Eagle was in port. If he wasn’t still drinking or pawing one of his companions, he was probably passed out, snoring heavily while the woman who thought it might be advantageous to accompany him to bed, had turned to something more interesting than he. A magazine perhaps, or painting her nails.

  Stefan had to admit that there were times when Sieinski wasn’t a bad sort. Life and people were rarely as clear-cut as one hoped. His captain seemed smart enough to know when he needed help, charming enough to get it willingly, most of the time. The young sailors aboard the Eagle nearly worshiped him. He certainly looked the part of a captain. And after this stint in the Navy, he would join his father’s company, quickly assuming some senior position.

  And that’s where the problem began and ended. The Navy was just a stop along the way for him. He didn’t want any bumps in the road, no risks, and he had been born to expect obedience. Money meant Sieinski had been obeyed all of his life. As he grew older, he assumed that obedience was a result of his own leadership. He couldn’t have been more mistaken. Despite all of his advantages, Sieinski knew nothing about leadership and treating men with dignity and respect unless it was in the pursuit of his own interests.

  But a ship needed its captain. That’s how it had always been. And though the mere thought of it made Stefan quiver with barely suppressed rage, Sieinski was the Eagle’s captain, and it was his duty, as second in command, to get him back to his ship. In the end, there was always duty.

  As Stefan trotted across the street and up to the front of the Royal Hotel, the doorman standing at attention took one look at Stefan’s sweat-streaked face and rough clothes, and said stiffly, “Please wait here.” He put out his white-gloved hand like a police officer stopping traffic.

  Stefan didn’t even bother to break stride. He shoved the man aside and shouldered his way through the gleaming doors.

  The front desk was crowded ten deep with haphazardly dressed guests all competing for the clerk’s attention to check out, though Stefan wondered where they could flee once they checked out. If what he suspected was true, it was already too late. German troops were surging over the border, and any traffic on the roads would be an easy target from the air. He continued across the marble floor of the foyer, directly for the elevator, his sea boots pounding out a steady rhythm.

  The operator, an old man with nose hairs sprouting like daisies out of each nostril, jumped up from his stool and saluted. “Where to, sir?”

  “Name your last posting, Chief?” Stefan asked, recognizing in the salute a fellow seaman.

  The old man’s smile revealed more gum than teeth. “We called her Mazur.”

  “Ah, yes. Good, stout ship as I recall.” Of course, Stefan couldn’t place her, but the lie was worth it when he saw the sudden stiffening of the man’s back.

  “Yes she was, sir,” the old man replied, his pale gray eyes, watering with appreciation. “Our Navy’s first ship after the war. But that was long ago. How can I serve?”

  “Captain Sieinski?”

  The elevator operator touched the side of his nose, motioned Stefan inside, pushed the door closed, and then rotated the brass control handle burnished to a warm yellow, engaging the lift’s motors. He ignored half a dozen angry rings on the way up and brought the elevator to an easy stop at the sixteenth floor. “I’ll wait,” he said, grinning as he pulled open the door. “You’ll find your captain in the suite at the end of the hall.”

  The thick rugs that covered the floor muffled the sound of Stefan’s approach. He paused at the door, considered for a moment using the heel of his boot to kick the beautiful walnut wood door off its hinges. Of course that would require some explaining on the off chance the captain wasn’t unconscious. More importantly, it would also ruin a perfectly good door. Stefan glowered at his reflection, and then raised his fist and knocked.

  He waited a moment, and then pounded the door again, harder this time.

  Still no response, he tried the knob. It was unlocked. “When in Budapest,” Stefan murmured to himself as he pushed open the door and stepped into the suite.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, every light in the sitting room was ablaze. A half-dozen silver serving plates piled high with fruit, meat, cheeses and pastries crowded a table in the center of the room. A special place of honor in the center of the grouping had been devoted to a sterling silver bowl filled with black, gleaming caviar. Stefan couldn’t even guess what it had cost—more than a month’s wages, to be sure. Nothing had been touched.

  “Captain?” Stefan yelled, crossing the room, using a hunk of bread as a scoop for some fish eggs, and then stuffing it all in his mouth.

  No sounds. Stefan tried again. “Captain?”

  As he waited, he helped himself to some cheese, stuffing meat and bread into the pockets of his coat, some practical part of him realizing that Christ only knew when he might get a chance to eat again. When his pockets were filled, he began flinging open doors and yelling the captain’s name, his hope growing with each vacant room. If he didn’t find him soon, it would be only reasonable to return to the ship without him. By all rights, command of the Eagle would be his.

  He found Sieinski behind the fourth door. He was face down across the bed, snoring pleasantly, wearing nothing but black, knee high socks and a soiled undershirt. A sweet smell tainted the air. The stench took Stefan back to his one and only visit to a Chinese opium den during a long ago visit to Hong Kong.

  “How long has he been out?” he asked the woman sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, staring with a blank face out the window at the distant fires. She was naked, long black hair draped over her shoulders like a scarf, her skin pale as a newborn child’s.

  The woman turned her head slowly and stared at Stefan with black eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything? I yelled.”

  “Oh, was that what I heard?” the woman sighed, her voice soft, the words sounding as clear and musical as notes on a piano. “It just sounded like war.”

  She saved him the effort of a response. “It has begun?”

  Stefan nodded.

  “Who?”

  “Germans.”

  “Again?” The woman took a long draw on her cigarette, hollows forming in her cheeks as she sucked the smoke deeply into her lungs. “And so, what is to become of us all?”

  Stefan had never seen the woman before, knew he would he would never see her again. If there was a next time, she would be clothed, and that would provide enough of a disguise to make her unrecognizable. But as he stared at the woman, noting her perfect, heart shaped face, he was less taken with how she looked, and more curious about where she had learned to speak Polish. Her accent was almost flawless.

  “French, in case you’re wondering,” she said, reading his mind. “My dear auntie was Polish. She raised me from an infant after my mother killed herself. And yes, it was my fault, they all said. Are you from his boat?”

  “Eagle,” Stefan said.

  “Ah, yes, and an Eagle needs her captain.”

  When Stefan didn’t reply, the woman smiled. “I see,” she said. “Did you realize you are so transparent? The conflict of duty and desire. That is always a torment of a life afflicted by opposites. In the East, they call it yin and yang. It afflicts you, and also my Józef.” She gestured at the bed. “He has the same problem. Of course, for all of us, the names of duty and desire are different, but at their heart they are the same.” She took another greedy pull from her cigarette. “You know he hates that thing, that Eagle? But his father expects it, and ever the dutiful son, he complies. But it will never end, these demands.”

  The c
aptain of the Eagle, his bare ass sticking like a surrender flag into the air, shifted position and farted.

  “So much like a baby,” the woman said.

  “I need to get him back to the ship,” Stefan said, rubbing his eyes, suddenly feeling wearier than ever before. Get him dressed. Please. I need to make a phone call. And then we will be off.”

  “So polite, and you don’t look like a gentleman, but I see that looks are deceiving, at least in your case.”

  “No they aren’t,” Stefan said, scratching his beard with a thick finger. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a hunk of bread, tore off a mouthful “I’ll be back to get him in five minutes. And I’ll take him then however he is.”

  When Stefan returned, Sieinski was completely dressed, lying flat on his back on the bed, snoring softly. The woman had pulled on a robe, sheer enough that Stefan noticed her nipples hard against the fabric. For some reason, that was more erotic than when she was completely naked, and Stefan felt a response in his groin, surprised that the instinct to copulate could surface even under these circumstances. He noticed a sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

  “What is your name?”

  “Stefan …. and yours?”

  The woman frowned. “It does not matter. We will never meet again.”

  “Then why did you ask my name?”

  The woman stared at him. “I wanted to remember you in my prayers to the Black Virgin of Czstochowa,” she said.

  Stefan blinked, embarrassed now by what he had been thinking. “I’m sorry to say I can’t return the favor,” Stefan said. The shake in his voice was a surprise.

  “You give up on God?” the woman said.

  Stefan gave a wry smile.

  The woman bowed her head briefly. When she looked up again, she was crying. “My name is Marie,” she said.

  With that, they both knew there was nothing more to say. Stefan flung the captain over his shoulder. He felt a tug on his sleeve as he stepped through the doorway. Before he could turn, Marie brushed her lips against his cheek. “God be with you,” she said.

  Stefan was stricken once again by the sweetness of her voice and her words.

  “Promise you’ll take care of him,” she whispered.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  The woman released him.

  True to his word, the old man hadn’t left, despite the well-dressed crowd shouting in his face and the angry rings from the floors above and blow.

  “Out of order,” repeated the old man, shaking his head back and forth like an obstinate ox. “Take the stairs.”

  His eyes darkened with disappointment at Stefan’s approach. “Clear a path,” he bellowed, “Important business.” Then he stepped back into the elevator, followed closely behind by Stefan and the captain.

  “I thought you said out of order?” one woman cried, clutching a fossilized poodle to her chest.

  “Just fixed itself,” the old man chirped. He pulled the door closed, and gave everyone a gummy grin.

  “Full speed ahead, Chief.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  On the return trip, the streets were even more chaotic. Soldiers with packs and rifles hustled to waiting trucks, engines roaring, headlights doused for fear it would attract more attacks from the air. Sirens continued to wail and nervous gunners occasionally probed the night sky with tracers. It had been at least a half an hour since the last Stuka had disappeared into the black sky.

  “Did you hear the news, Navy?” cried an officer, standing on the running board of a truck, when he spied Stefan.

  “Which one?” Stefan said, shifting his load to the other shoulder and slowing as he passed.

  “Germans are attacking on the western front. There’s been a general mobilization.”

  “Heard that,” Stefan quipped. While Marie had dressed the captain, he had managed to get through to Polish Navy headquarters at Hel, surprised when the phone had been answered on the first ring. Once he’d identified himself, he’d received a quick update from the senior officer on staff, one of the few he was actually friendly with. “Early reports are that the Germans attacking across a wide front. We’re trying to get everything out to sea. That’s all I know. What about the Eagle?”

  “We’ll be gone in a few hours,” Stefan had promised.

  “How?” the officer had started to say, and then he caught himself. “OK, I don’t want to know how. Use a couple of fishing boats, and tow her out of the harbor for all I care.”

  “That thought had crossed my mind,” Stefan quipped, eliciting a bark of laughter on the other end of the line. “Any word on the Reds?” Stefan asked.

  “None. All quiet.”

  Stefan heard a yell on the other end of the line. “At once, sir,” his friend said. “I’ve been ordered to do something important—get coffee for them.” The softness in his voice underscored the bitterness of his words. “Take care,” he said, and then the line went dead.

  Stefan shook his head. If that was how Poland’s leaders were reacting to the crisis, then they were in more trouble than he dared imagine. “Heard anything about the Russians?” he called to the officer on the truck.

  The man frowned, scratched his unshaven chin. “That would be bad on a night of bad news. No one has said anything to me. I don’t see much of a problem with those German dogs, but if Stalin’s boys get into the fray at the same time …”

  “We’re done,” Stefan finished for him. He gave a wave of goodbye, lowered his head and resumed his trek to the harbor. “Of course,” he continued to himself, breathing heavily, “we’re finished anyway. And what do you think my dear, sweet, darling captain?” Stefan jiggled his load, but there was no reply.

  When Stefan was a younger man, his nickname had been The Ox. His feats of strength were still talked about by the older seamen who had served with him. None of the younger sailors believed them, of course. “Tall tales” was the polite reply. “Bullshit” was what they said behind their backs, until, of course, they happened to see Stefan act with their own eyes.

  But Ox no longer, thought Stefan, wiping away the sweat that burned his eyes, shifting the captain’s weight from a shoulder gone numb to the other side. He turned a corner, thankful as the way began to flatten. Almost there, he thought, hustling on, hoping that any guards would challenge first and shoot second, and not the other way around.

  “What the—?” Sieinski’s words were slurred, the tongue thick. “I’m going to be—”

  Stefan felt the captain’s body convulse, the sound of vomit spattering on the pavement, and the warmth spreading across the back of his legs, Another groan, muffled profanities. Stefan’s face contorted in disgust. He angled toward the wall of the nearby building, jerked to the left as he came close. There was a thud as the captain’s skull bounced off the bricks, a moan, and then silence as his body went limp once again.

  “Won’t remember a thing,” Stefan muttered, sweat dripping from the ragged edges of his beard. He wrinkled his nose at the stink of vomit that now followed them like a bad joke. “Aren’t we a sorry sight. And you, wounded in battle. That’s what we’ll call it. Nasty bomb bounced you right out of your lover’s arms and onto that hard, hard floor.”

  Stefan talked to keep his mind off the searing pain in his arms and legs. He was half tempted to try another smack, harder this time, and then again and again until his captain’s head burst like an overripe grape. Problem solved. Drop this sorry piece of humanity right here in the gutter and then be done with it. It wouldn’t be that hard. He had killed before. Those other times, however, had been in fair fights. Sure, the first one, in that back alley in Manila, his attacker had a machete and Stefan had been stuck with the problem of finding something, anything to use against his mad rushes. He’d finally settled on the broken end of a broom sticking out of a garbage can. He’d ducked as the machete whistled by, a blow that would have surely severed his head if it had landed, and without thinking any more about it, thrust the jagged end of the stick into the l
ittle man’s belly before he had a chance to dance out of the way. And then Stefan had run like hell all the way back to his ship. But this would be different. Stefan would answer to many names, but murderer was not one of them.

  At least not yet.

  He paused to catch his breath, wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket, and then patted his captain on the rump with something that was almost affection: “Almost home,” he wheezed. “And then maybe you’ll surprise us all by your warrior qualities.” Stefan rather doubted it, but he hoped he was wrong, for all their sakes.

  Chapter Nine

  Squeaky heard them first, the sound of their footsteps echoing across the pier. There had been a bustle of activity right after Stefan had left. A lorry filled with troops, their commander stopping by, making sure everything was under control, and then racing off down the wharf in the direction of the distant fires that still raged. And then the boy sent for Chief K. Still in socks, the chief leaning heavily on him for support.

  “You smell like a brewery,” Squeaky said.

  “Dank you berry much,” the chief said, still cheerfully drunk.

  “What are your orders, sir?”

  Squeaky stared at the boy’s feet and winced. His socks were blackened with dirt and crusted with blood. They must have hurt, but the boy didn’t seem to notice. “Get him on board and pour some coffee into him. When he’s able, get him down to the engineering. He’s got to get the bow rudder hydraulics fixed. Stefan said he’d shoot him if we aren’t underway by dawn.”

  “Sir?”

  Squeaky smiled. “I wouldn’t want to find out if he was serious. So tell him that. Every word. Might help him sober up.”

  The boy pulled Chief K’s arm over his shoulder and started up the gangplank.

  “And get your feet taken care of,” Squeaky said.