Death and Honor

“I’ve been making do with none,” Cranz said charmingly. “If you could spare me two, Herr Kapitänleutnant, I really would be grateful.”

Von Dattenberg raised his voice.

“Everybody into one boat, we’re leaving two here!”

A seaman replied, “Ja, Kapitän.”

“And you’d better show someone how to deflate them,” von Dattenberg said.

The sailor replied by taking a wicked-looking knife from his boot and waving it menacingly.

“No, you idiot,” von Dattenberg said, laughing. “Open the valves.”

“I can do that, Willi,” Boltitz said. “I think it would be a good idea for you to put to sea.”

Von Dattenberg popped to attention. “Jawohl, Herr Fregattenkapitän. By your leave, sir?”

“Resume your conn, Kapitänleutnant.”

“Jawohl, Herr Fregattenkapitän.”

Von Dattenberg then saluted, clicked his heels, and took a step backward.

He turned to von Wachtstein.

“Hansel, if you remember to take a bath every day and stop trying to screw every female over the age of thirteen, maybe they’ll give you a real airplane again.”

“Go fuck yourself, Willi,” von Wachtstein said smiling, and wrapped his arms around him again.

Von Dattenberg looked at Cranz and Schmidt, nodded his head, said, “Herr Schmidt, Herr Standartenführer,” then trotted to where his sailors were about to launch the rubber boat back into the sea.

“Smooth seas!” Cranz called a moment later.

“I’ll help you deflate the rafts,” von Wachtstein said to Boltitz.

There was a flicker of surprise in Boltitz’s eyes, but he said nothing.

They went to the rafts. Boltitz got in and began unlashing the cover of the exhaust valve.

Von Wachtstein leaned in, as if to see what he was doing.

“Karl, if you’ve got a pistol, give it to me,” he said softly. “And don’t let anyone see.”

Boltitz looked at him long enough to see that he was serious, then said, “Get in here and give me a hand, please.”

Von Wachtstein climbed into the rubber boat.

Below the gunwale, out of the view of others, Boltitz handed him a Luger P-08. Von Wachtstein stuffed it in the below-knee pocket of his flight suit, then shoved a scarf into the pocket so the outline of the pistol wouldn’t be seen.

“Why?” Boltitz asked.

“I think Cranz is going to kill me as soon as we’re back at El Palomar.”

“Why?” Boltitz asked softly.

“My skin crawled a while back,” von Wachtstein said. “I’m not sure whether he’s intentionally trying to make me afraid, or whether he’s really going to get rid of me on the general principle of covering his ass and making himself look good. So, better safe than sorry.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“If he killed me, he would have to explain that he found out about me. That would get my father hung on a meat hook.”

“So would your killing him.”

Von Wachtstein nodded.

“The choice, Karl, is either two dead von Wachtsteins—which would mean the end of the bloodline—or one von Wachtstein left alive and one SS sonofabitch dead. And more of them dead later.”

“Hans, don’t do anything impetuously,” Boltitz said, then, really surprising von Wachtstein, added: “I will pray for you.” He raised his voice. “Now just stand on it to force the air out, von Wachtstein. Don’t jump; that will puncture the fabric.”

Cranz walked up a moment later.

“Is there a reason Schmidt’s men can’t stand on there?” he asked. “We should be getting back to El Palomar, von Wachtstein.”

“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer.”

“That sounded good, von Wachtstein, but from this moment, I again am Commercial Attaché Cranz.”

Von Wachtstein nodded.

“We’ll see you back in Buenos Aires, Boltitz. Make it in the morning. I think we have all done enough for the day.”

[SIX]

It was a three-hundred-meter walk up an incline from the shoreline to where the Storch was parked beside the trucks. Cranz walked behind von Wachtstein, and all the way von Wachtstein was very much aware of how the Luger P-08 in the low pocket was banging against his leg.

Not because it was uncomfortable—that too, of course—but because he didn’t see how Cranz could not notice it.

As they approached the trucks, the first of them moved off, and by the time they got to the Storch, only two were left.

“Good!” Cranz said, and a moment later von Wachtstein took his meaning. One of the soldiers in blue coveralls was standing ten feet away from the Storch. Beside the soldier were two twenty-liter gasoline cans.

Herr Standartenführer wants to make sure we don’t run out of benzene on the way to Buenos Aires.

As von Wachtstein topped off the tanks, he was afraid the swinging bulge on his right leg would attract Cranz’s attention. It didn’t. Cranz was watching one of the last two trucks drive off.

The last, its doors open, was just about empty. This truck apparently would carry the rubber boats and what men remained. The others had carried off the half-dozen wooden crates and the rest of the soldiers, both those uniformed and those wearing the blue coveralls.