Men of War (2013) Read online

  Karpov knew the matter was not going to be resolved easily; not here, not now. They had not come to any decision as to how it might be handled before their dinner was interrupted by the call to return to duty at once. Now Kapustin and Volkov were right back at it again, but the Captain decided what he had to do, so he keyed his Moskit-II and fired.

  “This is a matter of state security,” he said calmly. “Neither you, nor Captain Volkov here were privy to it. Yes, do not look so surprised, Inspector General. You do not know everything, and should you inquire about this further you will get the same reaction you received from Moscow when you went after the names on that list.” Karpov was lying, of course, but he did so with such a convincing tone that it sounded completely believable.

  “You are telling me… You mean to say these men are not dead?” Kapustin leapt to the obvious conclusion.

  “This is outrageous,” said Volkov.

  “Oh?” Karpov turned at him, missiles ready. “You are a ranking officer in the Naval Intelligence Division, and you are going to stand there and tell me that men with names but no traceable life history behind them are not sometimes very useful? Get a head on your shoulders!” He raised his voice now, then put his hands on his hips, leaning forward and staring right at Kapustin.

  “Do you know what’s going on out there now?” He pointed a stiff arm towards the unseen harbor, and the ocean beyond. “Do you have any idea what’s been happening these last weeks and months? Where the world is headed? You think you know everything and have it all written down there in your files? Has it ever entered your thick head that this ship disappeared for a reason?” He pointed to the deck. Kapustin’s eyes widened, a hint of uncertainty there. Volkov gave Karpov a sallow look, a mix of shock and disbelief.

  “Yes,” Karpov pressed on. “How does a ship like this get half way around the world without NATO knowing about it? Yes. Where is that missing special warhead? And by God what happened to the thirty-six men on the list Doctor Zolkin gave you? Well get a hold of your boots and pull them on, Inspector. To put it quite plainly, it’s none of your damn business! But it is my business, and the business of this ship and crew. Forgive me if no one bothered to inform you before we left Severomorsk, but I think you were probably busy keeping track of serial numbers on some other ship then, yes?”

  Kapustin gave Karpov a long look, thinking. He was Inspector General of the Russian Navy, and in that position he knew a great deal. He could tell you what was in the magazines and holds of nearly every ship in the fleet, and who was serving on them, and where they were berthed, and how many cans of paint they had on order and which ones were efficient and which ones were sloppy. Yes, he knew a lot about the navy, but he also knew that it was folded in on itself like a maze at times, and the pathways of power flowed through the heads of an alarming number of gray haired old men.

  Karpov’s bravado had shaken him, for the Captain had been correct—nobody knows everything. There were still dark corners into which he had never been able to peer. Men like Volkov behind him were often sent into those corners to bark and sniff and drag things out of the shadows. But there were times they went in and never came back out. There were places in the convoluted, old power structure of the Russian military where it was still very dangerous to tread.

  Now the situation developing in the Pacific came to mind and Karpov’s words began to make sense. The ship had clearly been on a very dangerous mission. He had not sorted it all through, but his careful inspection had uncovered enough to know that this ship had been in combat. It was no accident that she had a hole in her hull. That was torpedo damage. And the injury to her main mast and aft citadel was no accident either. A little scrape of a pen knife here…A sample or two in a plain plastic bag for the labs…Yes, he soon had his suspicions confirmed. The smoke and fire and residue of battle was on the ship, and the scars of combat at sea. He could see it also in the eyes and demeanor of the crew. This was a fighting ship, a man-o-war in every respect. This was a fighting crew, men of war indeed. And Karpov, he knew, was a fighting Captain, as good as any man in the fleet by the scores notched in his fleet exercise records. Now something told him clearly that Kirov had been involved in some very special mission this last month, and it was no exercise.

  Kapustin leaned back, eyes narrowed as his surprise faded and these thoughts ran through his mind. Then he simply gathered the three manila folders into a neat pile on Doctor Zolkin’s desk and stood up.

  “Thank you, Captain. I think that settles the matter for the moment.” He had been struck amidships and had fires to put out. The smoke of uncertainty was now thick, and his gunners could not range on the target. He had to fall off and come about, just as Admiral Da Zara had in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and just like Admiral Iachino had at the Bonifacio Strait. Something told him, an inner instinct that had served him well for many long years, that this was not the place and time to fight his battle over this matter. If he pursued it, he might sail into hidden shoals and reefs that lay unseen in the murky waters surrounding this incident. Sanji Iwabuchi might have told him to beware of impetuosity in this regard, though he knew nothing of that man’s sad fate.

  “What are you saying?” said Volkov pointing at Karpov, an incredulous look on his face. “You mean to say you’re going to let them get away with this insubordination? What about Orel? I’ll tell you where the missing warhead went! What about Orel?”

  Karpov gave him a murderous stare, and Kapustin quickly intervened, like someone pulling on a heavy leash. “Mister Volkov,” he said sharply. “Insubordination? Either you were not listening to what Captain Karpov just said, or you were not smart enough to hear what I just heard in his words. I am going to flatter you and assume you are not stupid. So I will say it again—this matter is closed for the moment. I believe I have enough information to complete my report, but I may be some weeks writing it.” He looked askance at Karpov and Fedorov now, then fixed his attention fully on Volkov again. “In the meantime, our work here is done, and I believe these officers have other matters to attend to.”

  “But—”

  Volkov fought his own quick inner battle between his eagerness to make the kill and his instinct for caution. It was fight or flight, and he had always been the attack dog when it came to situations like this. But he could feel the hard chain on his neck now, and saw how the leash was firmly in Kapustin’s hand, and so he stifled his protest, deciding he could deal with this some other way through Naval Intelligence.

  “Very well,” he growled. “I will make arrangements for our departure at once.” It was clear that Volkov was not happy, and he strode out, giving Karpov an evil eye as he went.

  Kapustin composed himself, then looked from Zolkin, to Fedorov where he sat silently on the chair by the wall, and then to Karpov. The Captain stood, stiff backed, arms folded, eyes narrowed.

  “Do you know I had a very good dog once,” said the inspector. “A Belgian Tervuren I called Chang. He was a magnificent animal. You know they have the thickest ruff of any breed I have ever seen. They can handle a German Shepherd with no trouble, because the other dog just can’t get its teeth through that ruff.” He clenched his fingers to illustrate the frustrated bite. “You are correct, Captain. Nobody knows everything, do they? Not even the Inspector General of the Russian Navy, though I may know quite a bit more than you realize, and enough to know I am not going to get my teeth through your ruff this time either. Perhaps we will talk again another day, but I think you are correct about one more thing, and that is why I leave you here to attend to it. The world is going to hell faster than we know, and I, for one, do not look forward to the trip. We’re going to need your sort at the helm of ships like this, and so I leave you to more important matters.”

  Kapustin smiled, picked up his black felt fedora, and walked slowly out of the room. They listened to the echo of his footsteps fade to silence before anyone said another word.

  Part VII

  Devil in the Details

  “A mountai
n is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences, whether good or bad, of even the least of them are far-reaching.”

  —Sivananda

  Chapter 19

  The fishing boat slipped away from the rocky shore, off the northeast of Gibraltar, soon joining fifteen others just like it where brown skinned fishermen with gnarled hands tended to their nets and lines, hoping to bring in enough to feed themselves and their family, and still have some left over to sell in the local markets.

  Orlov was tired, and settled into a small room below deck to get some sleep. Hours later he found that the small boat had hove to next to a weathered old steamer and soon the three men and their very important charge were scrambling up rope nets and onto the decks of the Sarkoy, and heading east across the Mediterranean Sea.

  Neutral Turkey enjoyed a rare privilege in the Med, as both the Axis and Allied forces were interested in bringing her into their respective alliances to gain possession of the vital Turkish Straits. The Vichy French even tried to occasionally dress out their own merchantmen as Turkish ships so they could slip past the watchful eyes of the British at Gibraltar, and a few did exactly that while others were unmasked and caught by wary Royal Navy sea captains. Thankfully, Sarkoy made it all the way through to Istanbul with only one close call when two Italian planes made a low overflight in the Sicilian narrows. One shadowed the ship for some time until it was well past Malta, then vanished in the overhead mist, leaving the hapless steamer to its own fate.

  Orlov was content to stay where he was for the moment, though he had already considered how he would kill the three men who kept a watchful eye on him now. He noted their habits, shift rotations, and thought it would be quite easy to slip away whenever he had a mind. In time he actually came to like the tall Russian, Sergei Kamkov, and the two spent long nights talking, smoking cigarettes, and drinking vodka that Kamkov had produced from haversack. Orlov could not help but do a little boasting in those conversations, even though he suspected that Kamkov was working for the Soviet intelligence.

  “The British almost had you,” Kamkov had teased. They were going to fly you off to London on plane and go over you with a fine toothed comb. Tell me, Orlov, why are they so interested in you?”

  “Why? I suppose because I know so much.” He took another swig of his vodka.

  “Oh, what is it you know? Loban is usually very careful. He has never once risked blowing his cover to pass a man over as he did with you. He must have thought you were a really big fish, yes?’

  “Big as they come,” said Orlov. “I can tell you things that will amaze you, my friend.”

  “Tell me this, then. What’s in the pouch?”

  “What pouch?”

  “The diplomatic pouch Loban gave me. What’s so special, eh? We were told not to open it or we’d have our fingers snapped off one by one, and with Loban, you believe what he says.”

  “Well Loban said nothing to me about it. Let me see it and I’ll have a look inside.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Kamkov. “We’ll leave it safe in the haversack for now. So you don’t know much after all, it seems.”

  “Bullshit,” said Orlov. “He’s probably got my wireless in there.”

  “Wireless? You were wearing a wireless device? A radio set? Where? How could you?”

  “We’ve learned how to make things very small where I come from. I had some ear plugs with a microphone and a little speaker. That’s most likely what he stuck in that pouch.”

  “Ear plugs? Impossible. That small? Who made this for you.”

  “Never mind who made it, Kamkov. Just play your hand.”

  If anything, this lot was a far better circumstance than being locked away in a cave beneath that accursed Rock, thought Orlov. The Bosporus would be an easy place to jump ship, when they got there and he wondered where he might go next.

  Orlov wanted nothing to do with the war on the east front. He knew that no matter where he went there he would likely be picked up and pressed into service in the nearest Russian company, battalion or regiment at hand. The Germans already controlled the Crimea, and Sevastopol, and were fighting for Novorossiysk by the time Orlov found himself approaching Istanbul.

  There, to his great surprise, the Sarkoy was met by a small trawler on foggy night in the Bosporus. Three more men came aboard, wearing black leather jackets, and dark Ushanka caps with insignia, and Orlov realized, much to his chagrin, that he was now being turned over to the Soviet authorities in the Black Sea. So much for his plan to jump ship, he thought with some regret. Kamkov transferred over to the trawler with these newcomers. As he stepped down the ladder Orlov looked around, thinking he might make a jump into the water, but quickly discarding the notion. So far the Russians had handled him a lot better than the Spanish or British might have. As he jumped the last few feet down to the old wooden deck of the trawler he noted the number T-492 on its rusting hull.

  The other two men stayed behind on the Turkish ship, and he noted that Kamkov had carefully taken the haversack with the diplomatic pouch. This was a coastal lighter, and Orlov watched his stars to make out their heading, soon realizing that they were gradually working their way along the northern coast of Turkey and over towards Georgia. Of course, he thought. A boat like this would be too small to risk crossing the heart of the Black Sea, particularly with the German Luftwaffe hovering about like black crows. No. They’ll work their way all along this coast to Poti and beyond.

  That would be his last chance, he thought. If I let these fur hats get me any farther up that coast they’ll likely drop me at Sochi or Tuapse, right in the middle of the damn war again. If these men are NKVD they’ll soon want to know who I am, and why they have no record on my name in their recruitment books. Yet this has been an easy cruise so far. If the food is good on this trawler I just may stick around a while longer. At least we don’t have to worry about the God cursed German U-Boats out here. And this boat looks like a minesweeper, so there’s little to fear from that as well.

  He was very wrong.

  * * *

  Oberleutnant Klaus Peterson was the second frustrated U-Boat commander that was to become the hand of fate in this strange tale, just like Kapitan, Werner Czygan of U-118. Peterson’s boat was U-24, a sub that had inherited a very proud number, for this was the second boat to bear that designation. The first had been commissioned in 1913, and fought during the Great War with much success and many laurels. On Oct 26, 1914 she had the dubious distinction of being the first German U-Boat to ever attack an unarmed merchant ship without warning, the SS Admiral Ganteaume. Her very next kill was something a little more spectacular, and gained her real distinction when she hit and sunk the 15,000 ton dreadnaught Formidable. Before that war ended, U-24 had hit a remarkable 39 ships, sinking 34 of them, badly damaging three others and taking one more as a prize. In all she inflicted pain and death on 137,560 tons of enemy shipping.

  The U-24 of the Second World War was another ship entirely, a small Type IIB boat commissioned in 1936. Unlike her ancestor, to date U-24 had little to brag about. The boat had only one kill, the merchant steamer Carmarthen Coast hit off the shores of the UK on 9 November, 1939, and that by a mine, just as Czygan had scored his hit on the hapless Duero. Since that time three other commanders had taken their turns behind the periscope with no success, and by May 1940 she had come to be thought of as an unlucky boat, and was soon retired as a “School Boat” for training with the 21st Flotilla. Then in late 1942, U-24 had been secreted into the Black Sea by a very devious route, and transferred to the 30th Flotilla there under the command of another U-Boat Kapitän who had been caught up in this bizarre web of fate, Werner Rosenbaum, formerly of U-73.

  Kapitän Rosenbaum had just earned his Knight’s Cross in the Mediterranean while in action against the British Operation Pedestal. He was one of the very few German U-boats to claim an aircraft
carrier for a kill when he sunk the HMS Eagle, and after a strange run-in with another large enemy ship that he had never been able to identify, Rosenbaum sailed home to La Spezia and was soon transferred to Constanza on the Black Sea Coast for a new mission—command of the 30th Black Sea U-Boat flotilla, Hitler’s “lost fleet” in the inland waters of southern Europe.

  In an ingenious and daring operation, the Germans had partially disassembled a flotilla of six Type IIB Coastal U-Boats at Kiel, removing their conning towers by oxyacetylene torches before they moved them overland on the most powerful land haulers and tractors in Germany. They eventually reached the Danube where they were packed in pontoon crates and then made their way slowly by barge to the Black Sea. Originally scheduled to arrive there in October of 1942, they were two months early, and the young twenty-five year old Oberleutnant zur See Klaus Peterson would serve under Rosenbaum and be privileged to go out on some of the 30th flotilla’s very first patrols.

  He was excited about the prospect of suddenly surprising the enemy here, who had not seen a whisper of a German U-boat even in their dreams throughout the war. Peterson had trained under another well known U-Boat commander while he was on U-14, Herbert Wohlfarth and remembered the story that man had told him of how he had witnessed the tragic loss of the great battleship Bismarck. Wohlfarth had been there, watching the final battle through his periscope, yet with no torpedoes to make good his pledge to keep the great battleship safe from all harm. He had used his last torpedoes on a couple of old cargo ships days earlier, and bitterly regretted the choice for the rest of his life. Peterson never forgot the story.

  Life and fate had a very strange way of crossing life lines and making odd connections like that. For Wohlfarth trained Peterson, and now he would serve under Rosenbaum, a man who was only alive now because Anton Fedorov has recalled the KA-40 that had spotted Rosenbaum’s sub where it hid like an eel in Fornells Bay, Menorca. Fedorov’s avid interest in the Second World War had brought the men who fought it to such life in his mind that he could not bring himself to strike Rosenbaum down. His act of mercy was to have dramatic and far reaching consequences, the first of which was instilling a moment of restraint in another man, Vladimir Karpov. When Karpov had come on duty and learned that Fedorov spared the sub, his first instinct had been to go back and kill it, but he, too, stayed his hand. It would not be the first time he spared an enemy submarine.