kes his mind up soonest,
but even he has to think about it. "Of course not!" he says.
"Sergeant Shaftoe? Do you have an opinion?" Root asks, fixing Shaftoe
with a sober and serious gaze.
Shaftoe says, "This code business is some tricky shit."
Monkberg's turn. "I ... I think... I believe I could come up with a
hypothetical situation in which someone could die, yes."
"How about you, Lieutenant Root?" Shaftoe asks.
Root does not say anything for a long time now. He just works with his
silk and his needles. It seems like several minutes go by. Perhaps it's not
that long. Everyone is nervous about the Germans.
"Lieutenant Monkberg asks me to believe that it will prevent Allied
soldiers from dying if we turn over the Allied merchant shipping code books
to. the Germans today," Root finally says. Everyone jumps nervously at the
sound of his voice. "Actually, since we must use a sort of calculus of death
in these situations, the real question is, will this some how save more
lives than it will lose?"
"You lost me there, padre," says Shaftoe. "I didn't even make it
through algebra."
"Then let's start with what we know: turning over the codes will lose
lives because it will enable the Germans to figure out where our convoys
are, and sink them. Right?"
"Right!" Corporal Benjamin says. Root seems to be leaning his way.
"That will be true," Root continues, "until such time as the Allies
change the code systems which they will probably do as soon as possible. So,
on the negative side of the calculus of death, we have some convoy sinkings
in the short term. What about the positive side?" Root asks, raising his
eyebrows in contemplation even as he stares down into Monkberg's wound. "How
might turning over the codes save some lives? Well, that is an
imponderable."
"A what?" Shaftoe says.
"Suppose, for example, that there is a secret convoy about to cross
over from New York, and it contains thousands of troops, and some new weapon
that will turn the tide in the war and save thousands of lives. And suppose
that it is using a different code system, so that even after the Germans get
our code books today they will not know about it. The Germans will focus
their energies on sinking the convoys that they do know about killing,
perhaps, a few hundred crew members. But while their attention is on those
convoys, the secret convoy will slip through and deliver its precious cargo
and save thousands of lives."
Another long silence. They can hear the rest of Detachment 2702
shouting now, down in the lifeboats, probably having a detailed discussion
of their own: if we leave all of the fucking officers behind on a grounded
ship, does it qualify as mutiny?
"That's just hypothetical," Root says. "But it demonstrates that it is
at least theoretically possible that there might be a positive side to the
calculus of death. And now that I think about it, there might not even be a
negative side."
"What do you mean?" Benjamin says. "Of course there's a negative side!"
"You are assuming that the Germans have not already broken that code,"
Root says, pointing a bloody and accusing finger at Benjamin's big tome of
gibberish. "But maybe they have. They've been sinking our convoys left and
right, you know. If that's the case, then there is no negative in letting it
fall into their hands."
"But that contradicts your theory about the secret convoy!" Benjamin
says.
"The secret convoy was just a Gedankenexperiment," Root says.
Corporal Benjamin rolls his eyes; apparently, he actually knows what
that means. "If they've already broken it, then why are we going to all of
this trouble, and risking our lives to GIVE IT TO THEM!?"
Root ponders that one for a while. "I don't know."
"Well, what do you think, Lieutenant Root?" Bobby Shaftoe asks a few
excruciatingly silent minutes later.
"I think that in spite of my Gedankenexperiment, that Corporal
Benjamin's explanation i.e., that Lieutenant Monkberg is a German spy is
more plausible."
Benjamin lets out a sigh of relief. Monkberg stares up into Root's
face, paralyzed with horror.
"But implausible things happen all the time," Root continues.
"Oh, for pete's sake!" Benjamin shouts, and slams his hand down on the
book.
"Lieutenant Root?" Shaftoe says.
"Yes, Sergeant Shaftoe?"
"Lieutenant Monkberg's injury was an accident. I seen it happen."
Root looks up into Shaftoe's eyes. He finds this interesting. "Really?"
"Yes, sir. It was an accident all the way."
Root breaks open a package of sterile gauze and begins to wind it
around Monkberg's leg; the blood soaks through immediately, faster than he
can wind new layers around it. But gradually, Root starts to get the better
of it, and the gauze stays white and clean. "Guess it's time to make a
command decision," he says. "I say we leave the code books behind, just like
Lieutenant Monkberg says."
"But if he's a German spy " Benjamin begins.
"Then his ass is grass when we get back on friendly soil," Root says.
"But you said yourself the chances of that were slim."
"I shouldn't have said that," Enoch Root says apologetically. "It was
not a wise or a thoughtful comment. It did not reflect the true spirit of
Detachment 2702. I am convinced that we will prevail in the face of our
little problem here. I am convinced that we will make it to Sweden and that
we will bring Lieutenant Monkberg along with us."
"That's the spirit!" Monkberg says.
"If at any point, Lieutenant Monkberg shows signs of malingering, or
volunteers to be left behind, or in any way behaves so as to increase our
risk of capture by the Germans, then we can all safely assume that he is a
German spy."
Monkberg seems completely unfazed. "Well, let's get the fuck out of
here, then!" he blurts, and gets to his feet, somewhat unsteady from blood
loss.
"Wait!" Sergeant Shaftoe says.
"What is it now, Shaftoe?" Monkberg shouts, back in command again.
"How are we going to know if he's increasing our risk of capture?"
"What do you mean, Sergeant Shaftoe?" Root says.
"Maybe it won't be obvious," Shaftoe says. "Maybe there's a German
detachment waiting to capture us at a certain location in the woods. And
maybe Lieutenant Monkberg is going to lead us directly to the trap."
"Atta boy, Sarge!" Corporal Benjamin says.
"Lieutenant Monkberg," says Enoch Root, "as the closest thing we have
to a ship's doctor, I am relieving you of your command on medical grounds."
"What medical grounds!?" Monkberg shouts, horrified.
"You are short on blood, and what blood you do have is tainted with
morphine," says Lieutenant Enoch Root. "So the second in command will have
to take over for you and make all decisions as to which direction we will
take."
"But you're the only other officer!" Shaftoe says. "Except for the
skipper, and he can't be a skipper without a boat."
"Sergeant Shaftoe!" Root barks, doing such an effective impersonation
of a Marine that Shaftoe and Benjamin both stiffen to attention.
"Sir! Yes sir!" Shaftoe returns.
"This is the first and last order I am going to give you, so listen
carefully!" Root insists.
"Sir! Yes sir!"
"Sergeant Shaftoe, take me and the rest of this unit to Sweden!"
"Sir! Yes sir!" Shaftoe hollers, and marches out of the cabin,
practically knocking Monkberg aside. The others soon follow, leaving the
code books behind.
After about half an hour of screwing around with lifeboats, Detachment
2702 finds itself on the ground again, in Norway. The snowline is about
fifty feet above sea level; it is fortunate that Bobby Shaftoe knows what to
do with a pair of skis. The SAS blokes also know this particular drill, and
they even know how to rig up a sort of sled arrangement that they can use to
pull Lieutenant Monkberg. Within a few hours, they are deep in the woods,
headed east, not having seen a single human being, German or Norwegian,
since they ran aground. Snow begins to fall, filling in their tracks.
Monkberg is behaving himself not demanding to be left behind, not sending up
flares. Shaftoe begins to think that making it out to Sweden might be one of
Detachment 2702's easier missions. The only hard part, as usual, is
understanding what the fuck is going on.
Chapter 31 DILIGENCE
Maps of Southeast Asia are up on the walls, and even covering the
windows, lending a bunkerlike ambience to Avi's hotel room. Epiphyte Corp.
has assembled for its first full on shareholder's meeting in two months. Avi
Halaby, Randy Waterhouse, Tom Howard, Eberhard Föhr, John Cantrell, and
Beryl Hagen crowd into the room and pillage the minibar for snacks and soft
drinks. Some of them sit on the bed. Eberhard sits barefoot and crosslegged
on the floor with his laptop up on a footstool. Avi remains standing. He
crosses his arms and leans back, eyes closed, against the endangered
mahogany doors of his entertainment center. He is wearing a brilliantly
laundered white shirt, so freshly and heavily starched that it still cracks
when he moves. Until fifteen minutes ago he was wearing a t shirt he hadn't
taken off his body for forty eight hours.
Randy thinks for a minute that Avi may have fallen asleep in the
unorthodox standing position. But "Look at that map," Avi says suddenly, in
a quiet voice. He opens his eyes and swivels them in their sockets towards
same, not wasting precious energy by turning his head. "Singapore, the
southern tip of Taiwan, and the northernmost point of Australia form a
triangle."
"Avi," says Eb solemnly, "any three points form a triangle." Generally
they don't look to Eberhard to leaven the proceedings with humor, but a
chuckle passes around the room, and Avi grins not so much because it's funny
as because it's evidence of good morale.
"What's in the middle of the triangle?"
Everyone looks again. The correct answer is a point in the middle of
the Sulu Sea, but it's clear what Avi is getting at. "We are," Randy says.
"That's correct," Avi says. "Kinakuta is ideally situated to act as an
electronic crossroads. The perfect place to put big routers."
"You're talking shareholderese," Randy warns.
Avi ignores him. "Really it makes a lot more sense this way."
"What way?" Eb asks sharply.
"I've become aware that there are other cable people here. There is a
group from Singapore and a consortium from Australia and New Zealand. In
other words: we used to be the sole carriers into the Crypt. As of later
today, I suspect we will be one of three."
Tom Howard grins triumphantly: he works in the Crypt, he probably knew
before anyone. Randy and John Cantrell exchange a look.
Eb sits up stiffly. "How long have you known about this?" he asks,
Randy sees a look of annoyance flash across Beryl's face. She does not like
being probed.
"Would the rest of you excuse Eb and me for a minute?" Randy says,
getting to his feet.
Dr. Eberhard Föhr looks startled, then gets up and follows Randy out of
the room. "Where are we going?"
"Leave your laptop," Randy says, escorting him out into the hallway.
"We're just going here."
"Why?"
"It's like this," Randy says, pulling the door closed but not letting
it lock. "People like Avi and Beryl, who have been in business a lot, have
this noticeable preference for two person conversations like the one you and
I are having right now. Not only that, they rarely write things down."
"Explain."
"It's kind of an information theory thing. See, if worse comes to
worst, and there is some kind of legal action "
"Legal action? What are you talking about?"
Eb came from a small city near the border with Denmark. His father was
a high school mathematics teacher, his mother an English teacher. His
appearance would probably make him an outcast in his home town, but like
many of the people who still live there, he believes that things should be
done in a plain, open, and logical fashion.
"I don't mean to alarm you," Randy says, "I'm not implying that any
such thing is happening, or about to. But America being the way it is right
now, you'd be amazed how often business ventures lead to lawsuits. When that
happens, any and all documents are disclosable. So people like Avi and Beryl
never write anything down that they wouldn't want to see in open court.
Furthermore, anyone can be asked, under oath, to testify about what
happened. That's why two person conversations, like this one, are best."
"One person's word against another. I understand this."
"I know you do."
"We should anyway have been discreetly told."
"The reason that Avi and Beryl didn't tell us about this until now was
that they wanted to work out the problem face to face, in two person
conversations. In other words, they did it to protect us not to hide
anything from us. Now they are formally presenting us with the news."
Eberhard is no longer suspicious. Now he is irked, which is worse. Like
a lot of techies, he can become obstreperous when he decides that others are
not being logical. Randy holds up his hands, palms out, in surrender.
"I stipulate that this does not make sense," Randy says.
Eb glares into the distance, not mollified.
"Will you agree with me that the world is full of irrational people,
and crazy situations?"
"Jaaaa " Eb says guardedly.
"If you and I are going to hack and get paid for it, people have to
hire us, right?"
Eb considers it carefully. "Yes."
"That means dealing with those people, at some level, unpleasant as it
may be. And accepting a whole lot of other nonsense, like lawyers and PR
people and marketroids. And if you or I tried to deal with them, we would go
out of our minds. True?"
"Most likely, yes."
"It is good, then, that people like Avi and Beryl have come into
existence, because they are our interface." An image from the Cold War comes
into Randy's head. He reaches out with both hands and gropes in the air.
"Like those glove boxes that they use to handle plutonium. See?"
Eberhard nods. An encouraging sign.
"But that doesn't mean that it's going to be like programming
computers. They can only filter and soften the irrational nature of the
world beyond, so Avi and Beryl may still do things that seem a little
crazy."
Eb has been getting a more and more faraway look in his eyes. "It would
be interesting to approach this as a problem in information theory," he
announces. "How can data flow back and forth between nodes in an internal
network" Randy knows that by this Eb means people in a small corporation
– "but not exist to a person outside?"
"What do you mean, not exist?"
"How could a court subpoena a document if, from their reference frame,
it had never existed?"
"Are you talking about encrypting it?"
Eb looks slightly pained by Randy's simple mindedness. "We are already
doing that. But someone could still prove that a document, of a certain
size, had been sent out at a certain time, to a certain mailbox."
"Traffic analysis."
"Yes. But what if one jams it? Why couldn't I fill my hard drive with
random bytes, so that individual files would not be discernible? Their very
existence would be hidden in the noise, like a striped tiger in tall grass.
And we could continually stream random noise back and forth to each other."
"That would be expensive."
Eberhard waves his hand dismissively. "Bandwidth is cheap."
"That is more an article of faith than a statement of fact," Randy
says, "but it might be true in the future."
"But the rest of our lives will happen in the future, Randy, so we
might as well get with the program now.
"Well," Randy says, "could we continue this discussion later?"
"Of course."
They go back into the room. Tom, who has spent the most time here, is
saying: "The five footers with yellowish brown spots on an aqua background
are harmless and make great pets. The six footers with brownish yellow spots
on a turquoise background kill you with a single bite, in ten minutes,
unless you commit suicide in the meantime to escape the intolerable pain."
This is all a way of letting Randy and Eb know that the others have not
been discussing business while they were out of the room.
"Okay," Avi says, "the upshot is that the Crypt is going to be
potentially much bigger than we thought at first, so this is good news. But
there is one thing that we have to deal with." Avi has known Randy forever,
and knows that Randy won't really be bothered by what is to come.
All eyes turn towards Randy, and Beryl picks up the thread. She has
arrogated to herself the role of worrying about people's feelings, since the
other people in the company are so manifestly unqualified, and she speaks
regretfully. "The work Randy's been doing in the Philippines, which is very
fine work, is no longer a critical part of this corporation's activities."
"I accept that," Randy says. "Hey, at least I got my first tan in ten
years."
Everyone seems immediately relieved that Randy is not pissed off.
Tom, typically, gets right to brass tacks: "Can we pull out of our
relationship with the Dentist? Just make a clean break?"
The rhythm of the conversation is abruptly lost. It's like a power
failure in a discotheque.
"Unknown," Avi finally says. "We looked at the contracts. But they were
written by the Dentist's lawyers."
"Aren't some of his partners lawyers?" Cantrell asks.
Avi shrugs impatiently, as if that's not the half of it. "His partners.
His investors. His neighbors, friends, golfing buddies. His plumber is
probably a lawyer."
"The point being that he is famously litigious," Randy says.
"The other potential problem," Beryl says, "is that, if we did find a
way to extract ourselves from the deal with AVCLA, we would then lose the
short term cash flow that we were counting on from the Philippines network.
The ramifications of that turn out to be uglier than we had expected."
"Damn!" Randy says, "I was afraid of that."
"What are the ramifications?" Tom says, hewing as ever to the bottom
line.
"We would have to raise some more money to cover the shortfall," Avi
says. "Diluting our stock."
"Diluting it how much?" John asks.
"Below fifty percent."
This magic figure touches off an epidemic of sighing, groaning and
shifting around among the officers of Epiphyte Corp., who collectively hold
over fifty percent of the company's stock. As they work through the
ramifications in their heads, they begin to look significantly at Randy.
Finally Randy stands, and holds out his hands as if warding them off.
"Okay, okay, okay," he says. "Where does this take us? The business plan
states, over and over, that the Philippines network makes sense in and of
itself that it could be spun off into an independent business at any time
and still make money. As far as we know, that's still true, right?"
Avi thinks this over before issuing the carefully engineered statement:
"It is as true as it ever was."
This elicits a titter, and a bit of sarcastic applause, from the
others. Clever Avi! Where would we be without him?
"Okay," Randy says. "So if we stick with the Dentist even though his
project is now irrelevant to us we hopefully make enough money that we don't
need to sell any more stock. We can retain control over the company. On the
other hand, if we break our relationship with AVCLA, the Dentist's partners
start to hammer us with lawsuits which they can do at virtually no cost, or
risk. We get mired in court in L.A. We have to fly back there and testify
and give depositions. We spend a ton of money on lawyers."
"And we might even lose," Avi says.
Everyone laughs.
"So we have to stay in," Randy concludes. "We have to work with the
Dentist whether we want to or not."
No one says anything.
It's not that they disagree with Randy; on the contrary. It's just that
Randy is the guy who's been doing the Philippines stuff, and who is going to
end up handling this unfortunate situation. Randy's going to take all the
force of this blow personally. It is better that he volunteer than that it
be forced on him. He is volunteering now, loudly and publicly, putting on a
performance. The other actors in the ensemble are Avi, Beryl, Tom, John, and
Eb. The audience consists of Epiphyte Corp.'s minority shareholders, the
Dentist, and various yet to be empaneled juries. It is a performance that
will never come to light unless someone files a lawsuit against them and
brings them all to the witness box to recount it under oath.
John decides to trowel it on a little thicker. "AVCLA's financing the
Philippines on spec, right?"
"Correct," Avi says authoritatively, playing directly to the
hypothetical juries of the future. "In the old days, cable layers would sell
capacity first to raise capital. AVCLA's building it with their own capital.
When it's finished, they'll own it outright, and they'll sell the capacity
to the highest bidder."
"It's not all AVCLA's money they're not that rich," Beryl says. "They
got a big wad from NOHGI."
"Which is?" Eb asks.
"Niigata Overseas Holding Group Inc.," three people say in unison.
Eb looks baffled.
"NOHGI laid the deep sea cable from Taiwan to Luzon," Randy says.
"Anyway," John says, "my point is that since the Dentist is wiring the
Philippines on spec, he is highly exposed. Anything that delays the
completion of that system is going to cause him enormous problems. It
behooves us to honor our obligations."
John is saying to the hypothetical jury in Dentist v. Epiphyte Corp.:
we carefully observed the terms of our contract with AVCLA.
But this is not necessarily going to look so good to the hypothetical
jury in the other hypothetical minority shareholder lawsuit, Springboard
Group v. Epiphyte Corp. So Avi hastens to add, "As I think we've
established, through a careful discussion of the issues, honoring our
obligations to the Dentist is part and parcel of our obligation to our own
shareholders. These two goals dovetail."
Beryl rolls her eyes and heaves a deep sigh of relief.
"Let us therefore go forth and wire the Philippines," Randy says.
Avi addresses him in formal tones, as if his hand were resting, even
now, on a Gideon Bible. "Randy, do you feel that the resources allotted to
you are sufficient for you to meet our contractual obligations to the
Dentist?"
"We need to have a meeting about that," Randy says.
"Can it wait until after tomorrow?" Avi says.
"Of course. Why shouldn't it?"
"I have to use the bathroom," Avi says.
This is a signal that Avi and Randy have used many times in the past.
Avi gets up and goes into the bathroom. A moment later, Randy says, "Come to
think of it . . ." and follows him in there.
He is startled to find that Avi is actually pissing. On the spur of the
moment, Randy unzips and starts pissing right along with him. It doesn't
occur to him how remarkable this is until he's well into it.
"What's up?" Randy asks.
"I went down to the lobby to change money this morning," Avi says, "and
guess who came stalking into the hotel, fresh from the airport?"
"Oh, shit," Randy says.
"The Dentist himself."
"No yacht?"
"The yacht's following him."
"Did he have anyone with him?"
"No, but he might later."
"Why is he here?"
"He must have heard."
"God. He's the last guy I want to run into tomorrow."
"Why? Is there a problem?"
"Nothing I can put my finger on," Randy says. "Nothing dramatic."
"Nothing that, if it came to light later, would make you look
negligent?"
"I don't think so," Randy says. "It's just that this Philippines thing
is complicated and we need to talk about it."
"Well, for God's sake," Avi says, "if you run into the Dentist
tomorrow, don't say anything about your work. Keep it social."
"Got it," Randy says, and zips up. But what he's really thinking is:
why did I waste all those years in academia when I could have been doing
great shit like this?
Which then reminds him of something: "Oh, yeah. Got a weird e mail."
Avi immediately says "From Andy?"
"How'd you guess?"
"You said it was weird. Did you really get e mail from him?"
"I don't really know who it was from. Probably not Andy. It wasn't
weird in that way."
"Did you respond to it?"
"No. But dwarf@siblings.net did."
"Who's that? Siblings.net is the system you used to administer, right?"
"Yeah. I still have some privileges there. I created a new account
there, name of dwarf, which can't be traced to me. Sent anonymous e mail
back to this guy telling him that until he proves otherwise, I'm assuming he
is an old enemy of mine."
"Or a new one."
Chapter 32 SPEARHEAD
The young Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, visiting his grandparents in
Dakota, follows a plow across a field. The diving blades of the plow heave
the black soil up out of the furrows and pile it into ridges, rough and
jumbled when seen up close but mathematically clean and straight, like the
grooves of a phonograph record, when viewed from a distance. A tiny
surfboard shaped object projects from the crest of one of those earthen
waves. Young Waterhouse bends down and plucks it out. It is an Indian
spearhead neatly chipped out of flint.
U 553 is a black steel spear point thrusting into the air about ten
miles north of Qwghlm. The grey rollers pick it up and slam it down, but
other than that, it does not move; it is grounded on a submerged out
cropping known to the locals as Caesar's Reef, or Viking's Grief, or the
Dutch Hammer.
On the prairie, those flint arrowheads can be found lodged in every
sort of natural matrix: soil, sod, the mud of a riverbank, the heartwood of
a tree. Waterhouse has a talent for finding them. How can he walk across a
field salted, by the retreat of the last glacier, with countless stones, and
pick out the arrowheads? Why can the human eye detect a tiny artificial form
lost in nature's torn and turbulent cosmos, a needle of data in a haystack
of noise? It is a sudden, sparking connection between minds, he supposes.
The arrowheads are human things broken loose from humanity, their organic
parts perished, their mineral forms enduring crystals of intention. It is
not the form but the lethal intent that demands the attention of a selfish
mind. It worked for young Waterhouse, hunting for arrowheads. It worked for
the pilots of the airplanes that hounded U 553 this morning. It works for
the listeners of the Beobachtung Dienst, who have trained their ears to hear
what is being said by Churchill and FDR on what are supposed to be scrambled
telephones. But it doesn't work very well with crypto. That is too bad for
everyone except the British and the Americans, who have devised mathematical
systems for picking out arrowheads amid pebbles.
Caesar's Reef gashed the underside of U 553's bow section open while
shoving the entire boat up and partly out of the water. Momentum almost
carried her over the hump, but she got hung up in the middle, stranded, a
wave battered teeter totter. Her bows have mostly filled with water now, and
so it is the sharp stern that projects up above the crests of the seas. She
has been abandoned by her crew, which means that according to the traditions
of maritime law, she is up for grabs. The Royal Navy has called dibs. A
screen of destroyers patrols the area, lest some sister U boat slip in and
torpedo the wreck.
Waterhouse had been collected from the castle in unseemly haste. Dusk
is now falling like a lead curtain, and wolf packs hunt at night. He is on
the bridge of a corvette, a tiny escort ship that, in any kind of chop, has
the exact hydrodynamics of an empty oil drum. If he stays down below he'll
never stop vomiting, and so he stands abovedecks, feet braced wide, knees
bent, holding onto a rail with both hands, watching the wreck come closer.
The number 553 is painted on her conning tower, beneath a cartoon of a polar
bear hoisting a beer stein.
"Interesting," he says to Colonel Chattan. "Five five three is the
product of two prime numbers seven and seventy nine."
Chattan manages an appreciative smile, but Waterhouse can tell that
it's nothing more than a spectacular display of breeding.
The remainder of Detachment 2702 is, meanwhile, finally arriving.
Having just finished with the successful Norway ramming mission, they were
on their way to their new base of operations on Qwghlm when they received
word of U 553's grounding. They rendezvoused with Waterhouse right here on
this boat haven't even had a chance to sit down yet, much less unpack.
Waterhouse has told them several times how much they are going to like
Qwghlm and has run out of other things to say the crew of this corvette
lacks Ultra Mega clearance, and there is nothing that Waterhouse could
conceivably talk about with Chattan and the others that is not classified at
the Ultra Mega level. So he's trying gamely with prime number chitchat.
Some of the detachment the Marine lieutenant and most of the enlisted
men were dropped off in Qwghlm so that they could settle into their new
quarters. Only Colonel Chattan and a noncom named Sergeant Robert Shaftoe
have accompanied Waterhouse to the U boat.
Shaftoe has a wiry build, bulging Alley Oop forearms and hands, and
blond hair in a buzz cut that makes his big blue eyes look bigger. He has a
big nose and a big Adam's apple and big acne scars and some other scars
around the orbits of his eyes. The large features in the trim body give him
an intense presence; it is hard not to keep looking over in his direction.
He seems like a man with powerful emotions but an even more powerful
discipline that keeps them under control. He stares directly and
unblinkingly into the eyes of whoever is talking. When no one is talking, he
stares at the horizon and thinks. When he is thinking, he twiddles his
fingers incessantly. Everyone else is using their fingers to hold on to
something, but Shaftoe is planted on the deck like a fat geezer waiting in
line for a movie. He, like Waterhouse, but unlike Chattan, is dressed in
heavy foul weather gear that they have borrowed from the stores of this
torpedo boat.
It is known, and word has gone out to all present, that the U boat's
skipper the last man to abandon ship had the presence of mind to bring the
boat's Enigma machine with him. The RAF planes, still circling overhead,
watched the skipper rise to a precarious kneel in his life raft and fling
the wheels of the machine in different directions, into the steep pitches of
hill sized waves. Then the machine itself went overboard.
The Germans know that the machine will never be recovered. What they do
not know is that they will never even be looked for, because there is a
place called Bletchley Park that already knows all that there is to know
about the four wheel naval Enigma. The Brits will make a show of looking
anyway, in case anyone is watching.
Waterhouse is not looking for Enigma machines. He is looking for stray
arrowheads.
The corvette first approaches the U boat head on, thinks better of it
and swings far around astern of the wreck, then beats upwind towards it.
That way, Waterhouse reckons, the wind will tend to blow them away from the
reef. Seen from underneath, the U boat is actually kind of fat cheeked. The
part that's supposed to be above water, when it's surfaced, is neutral grey,
and it's as skinny as a knife. The part that's supposed to be below, when it
hasn't just crashed into a great big rock, is wide and black. She has been
boarded by adventuresome Royal Navy men who have cheekily raised a White
Ensign from her conning tower.
They have apparently reached her in a shallow draft whaler that is tied
up alongside, loosely bound to her by a sparse web of lines, kept away by
bald tires slung over the rail. The corvette carrying the members of
Detachment 2702 edges towards the U boat cautiously; each rolling wave
nearly slams the boats together.
"We're definitely in a non Euclidean spatial geometry now!" Waterhouse
says puckishly. Chattan bends towards him and cups a hand to his ear. "Not
only that but it's real time dependent, definitely something that has to be
tackled in four dimensions not three!"
"I beg your pardon?"
Any closer and they'll be grounded on the reef themselves. The sailors
launch an actual rocket that carries a line between the vessels, and devote
some time to rigging up a ship to ship transfer system. Waterhouse is afraid
they're going to put him on it. Actually he's more resentful than afraid,
because he was under the impression that he wouldn't be put in any more
danger for the rest of the war. He tries to kill time looking at the
underside of the U boat and watching the sailors. They've formed a sort of
bucket brigade to haul books and papers up out of the wreck to the conning
tower and from there down into the whaler. The conning tower has a
complicated spidery look with gun barrels and periscopes and antennas
sticking out all over the place.
Waterhouse and Shaftoe are indeed sent over to U 553 on a sort of
trolley contraption that rolls along a stretched cable. The sailors put life
jackets on them first, as a sort of hilarious token gesture, so that if they
avoid being smashed to bits they can die of hypothermia instead of drowning.
When Waterhouse is halfway across, the trough of a wave passes beneath
him, and he looks down into the sucking cavity and sees the top of Caesar's
Reef, momentarily exposed, covered with an indigo fur of mussels. You could
go down there and stand on it. For an instant. Then thousands of tons of
really cold water slams into the cavity and rises up and punches him in the
ass.
He looks up at U 553, entirely too much of which is above him. His
basic impression is that it's hollow, more colander than warship. The hull
is perforated with rows of oblong slots arranged in swirling patterns like
streamlines tattooed onto the metal. It seems impossibly flimsy. Then he
peers through the slots light is shining all the way through from more slots
in the deck and perceives the silhouette of the pressure hull nested inside,
curved and much more solid looking than the outer hull. She's got two triple
bladed brass propellers, maybe a yard across, dinged here and there from
contact with who knows what. Right now they are thrust up into the air, and
looking at them Waterhouse feels the same absurd embarrassment he felt
looking at dead guys in Pearl Harbor whose private parts were showing.
Diving planes and rudders stick out of the hull downstream of the
propellers, and aft of those, near the apex of the stern, are two crude
hatchlike slabs of metal which, Waterhouse realizes, must be where the
torpedoes come out.
He slides the last twenty feet at terrifying speed and is caught and
held, in various places, by eight strong hands who lift him to what passes
for safety: the deck of the U boat, just aft of the conning tower, sort of
nestled underneath an antiaircraft gun. Way up at the boat's stern, there's
a big T shaped stanchion with cables coming out of the ends of the crossbar
and stretched tight all the way to the conning tower railing, near to hand.
Following the example of a Royal Navy officer who appears to be his
appointed guardian, Waterhouse climbs uphill i.e. towards the stern using
one of those cables as a sort of banister, and follows him down a hatch in
the afterdeck and into the interior of the boat. Shaftoe follows a few
moments later.
It is the worst place Waterhouse has ever been. Like the corvette he
has just left, it rises smoothly on each roller, but unlike the corvette it
comes down with a crash on the rocks, nearly throwing him to the deck. It is
like being sealed up in a garbage can that is being beaten with a
sledgehammer. U 553 is about half full of a rich brew of cheap wine, diesel
fuel, battery acid, and raw sewage. Because of the way she is pitched, this
soup quickly gets deeper as you go forward, but it rolls aft in a drenching
tsunami every time her midsection slams down on the rocks. Fortunately,
Waterhouse is now far beyond nausea, in some kind of transcendent state
where his mind has become even more divorced from his body than usual.
The officer in charge waits for the noise to subside and then says, in
a startlingly quiet voice, "Is there anything in particular you'd like to
inspect, sir?"
Waterhouse is still trying to get some idea of where he is by shining
his flashlight beam around the place, which is kind of like peering through
a soda straw. He can't get any synoptic view of his surroundings, just
narrow glimpses of pipes and wires. Finally he tries holding his head still
and sort of scribbling the flashlight beam around really fast. A picture
emerges: they are in a narrow crawl space, obviously designed by and for
engineers, intended to give access to a few thousand linear miles of pipes
and wires that have been forced through some kind of bottleneck.
"We are looking for the skipper's papers," Waterhouse says. The boat
goes into free fall again; he leans against something slippery, claps his
hands over his ears, closes his eyes and mouth, and exhales through his nose
so that none of the soup will force its way into his body. The thing he's
leaning against is really hard and cold and round. It's greasy. He shines
his light on it; it's made of brass. The light scribbling trick produces the
image of a brass spaceship of some sort, nestled underneath (unless he's
mistaken) a bunk. He's just on the verge of making a total ass of himself by
asking what it is, when he identifies it as a torpedo.
In the next quiet interlude, he asks, "Is there anything like a private
cabin where he might have . ."
"It's forward," the officer says. Forward is not an encouraging view.
"Fuck!" Sergeant Shaftoe says. It's the first thing he has said in
about half an hour. He begins to slosh forward, and the British officer has
to hurry to catch up. The deck falls out from beneath their feet again and
they stop and turn around so that the wave of sewage will hit them in the
backs.
They travel downhill. Every step's a pitched battle vs. prudence and
sound judgment, and they take a lot of steps. What Waterhouse had pegged as
a bottleneck goes on and on all the way, apparently, to the bow. Eventually
they find something that gives them an excuse to stop: a cabin, or maybe (at
about four by six feet) a corner of a cabin. There's a bed, a little fold
out table, and cabinets made of actual wood. These in combination with the
photographs of family and friends give it a cozy, domestic flavor which is,
however, completely ruined by the framed picture of Adolf Hitler on the
wall. Waterhouse finds this to be in shockingly poor taste until he
remembers it's a German boat. The mean high tide level of the sewage angles
across the cabin and cuts it approximately in half. Papers and other
bureaucratic detritus are floating every where, written in the occult Gothic
script that Waterhouse associates with Rudy.
"Take it all," Waterhouse says, but Shaftoe and the officer are already
sweeping their arms through the brew and bringing them up wrap