Please accept this gift - can be read during the hall-time show - as a teaser to tempt you to read the full, expurgated story...later.
Except
from 'The Jekyll Island Enigma' by Jack Owen
(gift-read between plays)
Bremen
Departs
Konig
wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell of burning oil and cordite
filtering into the grimy, camouflaged car as it approached Lorient.
“This
is worse than my cigar, eh ?” he rubbed sleep from his eyes,
peering at shipyards smoldering from another English bombing raid.
Dockyard workers ignored the car bumpily edging through their midst.
German uniforms and military vehicles were a common sight to battered
and bewildered Frenchmen following the country’s defeat in June,
1940.
Konig
glanced back toward the other passenger, Gerhardt Muni, perched on
the back seat with him. He braced himself when the car swayed to
skirt bomb craters which had turned the road into a perilous
patchwork of holes.
Muni
merely nodded and shrugged, following an established pattern to
Konig’s friendly conversational attempts. Muni only voluntarily
spoke once during the long drive, to protest when Konig lit up a
cigar.
“Is
that necessary ?” Muni asked petulantly, winding down his window.
The draft disturbed his carefully coifed flaxen hair, depositing dust
motes, which he fastidiously flicked off the surface of an
immaculately pressed new navy uniform.
“Yes.”
Konig said curtly. “When you have spent most of the war under
water, breathing in the stench of hot machinery and unwashed bodies,
you seize every opportunity to enjoy the little comforts life has to
offer.”
Muni
coughed delicately into a fresh linen handkerchief extracted, like a
magician, from the sleeve of his uniform jacket. “That may be, but
put it out,” he ordered.
Konig’s
eyes narrowed briefly and a slight tremor flecked his cheek. He drew
a deep breath, slowly shaking his head before he exhaled and tapped
the single gold stripe on Muni’s arm before glancing down at the
two gold rings of command on his own sleeve.
“I
suggest you read up on Naval insignia, and rank, if you’re going to
wear the uniform,” Konig said softly.
Muni’s
mouth opened to reply before he saw Konig’s lopsided smile was not
reflected in his dark eyes. Muni clamped his mouth shut and shifted
to the far end of the seat. Konig took advantage of the hours of
chilled silence to doze, not waking until they reached Lorient.
In
the distance Konig saw the mouth of a tunnel leading to the protected
submarine pens, beyond the gauntlet of civilian road laborers and
dockyard workers.
One
of the French workers casually glanced up from his mundane task of
sizing cobblestones at the curb-edge, closely observing the car’s
occupants when it swept past. He noted their uniforms and rank,
turning his head slowly to follow the direction of Konig’s pointed
finger.
The
submariner was oblivious to the workman’s curiosity.
His
attention was riveted by the sight of three sea-going tugs
maneuvering a badly shelled half-submerged U-boat, into a fortified
basin containing several other battered Boots.
“Mein
Gott, look at that!” Konig cried.
“You
won’t find what you’re looking for there Captain.”
Muni
spoke up from his corner, carefully straightening his double-breasted
jacket to fasten the buttons.
“I
think I can recognize my own boot, Leutnant, even in that scrapheap.
I can’t imagine what dumpkoff left those boots out in the open like
sitting ducks for air-attack.”
Konig
spun around to face Muni who was busy adjusting his high-peaked cap
at a jaunty angle. “You can forget your mission now, I think.”
“I
think not Captain. What you are looking for is not there.” Muni
responded haughtily, adding smugly, “Admiral Canaris will no doubt
be amused at your description of him. He ordered the pens emptied for
my mission.”
“That
wreck is my boat!” Konig, ignoring the comment, thrust a
leather-gloved finger at the submarine being supported, pushed and
towed by the tugs.
“Your
command is in the bunker, safe beneath 15-feet of reinforced concrete
and steel.” Muni curled back his lip in a smiling sneer at the
puzzled look on Konig’s face. “You’ll see.”
Konig
clenched his fist so tightly his knuckles threatened to burst out of
his gloves. Muni represented the power and authority of a man held in
high esteem by Der Fuhrer, and Konig obeyed orders. But that did not
mean he liked it.
The
French workman’s eyes followed the car’s progress until it
reached the tunnel entrance, while his hands automatically maintained
their mechanical task. Beneath the shabbily dressed, unshaven man, a
mind schooled in the minutia of espionage logged the non-incident to
memory for his next intelligence report to England, along with the
damage caused by the air-raid, and number of trucks entering
Lorient’s marine arsenal.
Artificial
light emphasized the strained lines etched on Konig’s face when the
car entered the tunnel. If the wreckage of U-122 was not his to
command, he wondered which of the Type IXD Class boats he had been
assigned to.
While
his brain engaged in matching captains to supply boats, his eyes
narrowed at the sight of the submarine which filled his view. It
looked like a steel anachronism from his youth: a dull-gray fat
cigar-shaped hull with a plumb bow, canoe-stern, and an open catwalk
raised along the length of its upper deck.
Deutschlander, sister-ship to lost Bremen, unloading in New London, Connecticut,1916
“Wh-what
in God’s name...?” He muttered.
“Your
new command, the late Great War blockade runner Bremen.” Muni
indicated with a disdainful hand gesture.
Konig
stared, mouth compressed into a thin tight line, at the ghost of the
legendary merchant submarine Bremen. He vaguely recalled her reported
disappearance with all hands shortly after sailing from Germany in
the summer of 1916.
When
Konig stepped out of the car the spectral ancient hull solidly
blocked his horizon.
He
turned to face Muni, dozens of questions poised to pour out in a
torrent.
“Not
now Captain, please. Your crew and command await.”
Muni
waved his hand imperially.
Konig
squinted against the lights illuminating the cavernous submarine pens
so they were brighter than a sunlit day. The uniformed men assembled
along the dock were his own crew. He swallowed hard, bracing his
shoulders and stepped forward to greet his First-Lieutenant,
Oberleutnant zur See Walter Cremer.
Several
hours later, after the formalities and inspection of crew and boat
were completed, Konig sat in the small wardroom with his second in
command, and Muni. A bottle of schnapps miraculously appeared on the
small table, with three squat stainless-steel thumb-sized tumblers.
Konig
poured with a steady hand while he directed questions at Muni. “Why
was I not warned about this tub? Didn’t think I’d take it, eh ?”
“You
would have been shot if you had refused. You knew too much. Danke!”
Muni matter of factly answered. He grasped his tumbler, raising it in
silent salute and downed its contents in one gulp.
The
others followed his lead.
Konig
refilled the glasses before firing off his next round of questions.
“Where in the world did she come from ?”
He
looked about the cramped cabin with its stark furnishings. Pipes and
valves jammed overhead and along the inner hull.
“Her
maiden voyage through the British blockade was almost her last trip,
“Muni said. “When she approached New York harbor on the surface
she was spotted by a squadron of American frigates. They refused to
accept her as a legitimate Merchant vessel. Bremen’s commander
submerged to escape capture, but was depth-charged. He managed to
escape by leaving a decoy of oil and personal items - including a
lifering with Bremen’s name on it - to fool the Americans.”
Muni
spun his tale in a bored, monosyllabic tone to the two submariners
straining forward to listen.
“Once
Bremen was far enough out in the North Atlantic, off the convoy
routes and away from enemy patrols, she re- surfaced and made a run
for Spain, a less aggressive ‘neutral’ country. Bremen was
presumed lost at sea, and Naval Intelligence used her loss to enlist
the sympathy of pro- German factions in America. Protests against the
brutal and ‘cowardly’ sinking of the unarmed Merchant submarine
proved to be a better propaganda weapon than her survival.” Muni
shrugged, holding his tumbler out again.
Konig
hesitated before pouring again. “Her survival could have been
embarrassing to the High Command, I suppose. So Bremen remained
hidden from sight in Spain for two decades and no one said anything
?”
“It
took a bit of persuasion, and a lot of palm-oil to keep it quiet.”
Muni stroked one hand across the palm of the other.
“And
the crew ?” Cremer, the pudgy, older First Officer, asked.
“They
had a long holiday in German East Africa patrolling Lake Victoria on
an armed steamer. Until a maniac Englishman sunk them with a
home-made bomb mounted on the bow of his piddling little boat, the
‘African Queen’. He, and the English slut with him, perished in
the explosion.” Muni smiled with satisfaction. His death’s-head
insignia signet ring rattled against his tumbler impatiently.
Konig
glanced briefly at Cremer, involuntarily shuddering at the fate of
the Bremen’s crew, before pouring another round of schnapps.
During
the next 48-hours Konig absorbed every facet of the ancient submarine
he could. It was a weird experience to tour a boat presumed ‘dead’
for 25 years. He felt as though he had suddenly been given command of
a salvaged ‘Titanic’.
Teaser
Ends..
Available in paperback or Kindle - you know where...
http://www.amazon.com/Jekyll-Island-Enigma-Jack-Owen-ebook/dp/B005AV9PT6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413133286&sr=1-1&keywords=the+jekyll+island+enigma
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