Hitler's peace

The man looked at my ID card and then handed it to one of his colleagues; finally he produced his own ID. To my surprise, he was a U.S. Treasury Agent-not from the FBI at all.

“I’m Agent Rowley,” he said. “From the Presidential Secret Service detail. We’ve come to escort you on board ship.”

Relieved that I was not going to be arrested, I laughed and waved my hand at the empty dock. “That I’d like to see, Agent Rowley. The boat is gone.”

Agent Rowley managed a sort of smile. His four teeth were small and sharp and far apart. I could see why he hadn’t put his mouth into the smile before. “I’m sorry about that, Professor. The Iowa had to offload oil to allow her draft to make it up the Chesapeake. So now she’s gone on to Hampton Roads to take on more fuel. I’m afraid you’d left home before we had a chance to inform you this morning.”

It was true. I’d left just before eight o’clock that morning. After my romantic evening in Chevy Chase, I’d made an early start. Which was easy enough, given that I hadn’t actually gone to bed.

“But that’s on the other side of the bay. Is there another boat to take us there?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. We’re going to have to drive. One of these agents will take your car back to Washington. If you don’t mind, sir, we’ll hold on to your identity card for now. It’ll make things easier for us supernumeraries when we go on board the Iowa. ”

“You’re going, too?”

“Four of us. Ahead of the president, who’s going aboard after midnight. The boss is an old Navy man and he’s kind of superstitious. Friday-night sailings are bad luck.”

“I’m not so crazy about them myself.”

Three hours later we passed through a naval security checkpoint and were directed to the quay where the Iowa was to be found. All of us fell silent as, turning onto the quay, we caught our first sight of the Iowa ’s distinctive clipper bow and, behind it, the forecastle and fire-control tower that rose a hundred feet above a deck bristling with gun batteries. But the height of the Iowa ’s superstructure looked compact compared to its enormous nine-hundred-foot length, which, together with the 212,000-horsepower engines, gave the battleship its high speed.

Alongside the battleship, last-minute stores and other supernumerary passengers were going aboard under the watchful eyes of a group of armed sailors. A couple of tugs spewing smoke were attaching lines alongside the crocodile’s nose that was the bow. Above all these, on three different decks, sailors leaned on rails observing the comings and goings below. As I walked up the port gangway underneath the massive antiaircraft battery, I felt as if I had arrived in an oceangoing shanty town built of armored steel. A strong smell of oil filled my nostrils, and somewhere above the primary conning position flue gases were venting noisily into the gray November sky. The ship felt alive.

At the end of the gangway, one of the Secret Service agents was already handing over my bags and my ID to a waiting officer. Consulting a clipboard, he ticked a sheet of paper and then waved another sailor toward me.

“Welcome aboard, sir,” the sailor said, collecting my bags. He had the kind of Brooklyn mutt’s face you got in a choir, but only if the choir was in Sing Sing. “If you’ll follow me I’ll show you to your quarters. Please watch your step-the deck is a little wet-and your head.”

The sailor led me along a passageway. “We got you in a wardroom one level below the flag and signal bridge. Just so you can remember where that is, that’s underneath the main battery detector and behind the second uptake.”

“Uptake?”

“Funnel. If you get lost, just ask for the second uptake 4A. Four A is the forty-millimeter magazine.”

“That’s a comforting thought.” I ducked to follow him through a doorway.

“Don’t you worry, sir. The face armor on this ship is seventeen inches thick, which means the Iowa is meant to go in harm’s way and take that shit.”

We ducked through another doorway, and somewhere behind us a heavy door clanged shut. I was counting myself lucky that I didn’t suffer from claustrophobia.

“Up here, sir,” the sailor said, heading up a flight of stairs. “In there you got the head. You’ll be messing forward of here, sir, with the other supernumeraries, in the captain’s pantry. That’s in front of the first uptake, underneath the secondary battery detector. Meals are 0800, 1200, and 2000. If you want to throw up, I advise you to do it in the head and not over the side. On this ship someone’s liable to get a face full if you go puking in the wrong place.”

Mutt-face put my bags down in front of a polished wooden door and knocked hard. “You’re sharing with another gentleman, sir.”

“Come,” said a voice.

The sailor opened the door and, saluting out of habit, left me to make my own introduction.

I put my head into the cabin and saw a face I recognized, a guy from the State Department named Ted Schmidt.

“Willard Mayer, isn’t it?” said Schmidt, rising from a narrow-looking bunk and advancing to shake my hand. “The philosopher.”