The two men devoured their food in silence. The professor finished first and put his bowl aside. His eyes were glazed with exhaustion, but his mind was still alert.
"What is this ship?" he said.
The tall man scraped the bottom of his bowl with the last of his bread, then lit up a cigarette. "Welcome to the Wilhelm Gustloff, the pride of Germany's Strength Through Joy movement."
The movement was an ongoing propaganda stunt to demonstrate the benefits of National Socialism to German workers. Kovacs glanced around at the spartan accommodations. "I don't see much strength or joy."
"Nonetheless, the Gustloff will again one day transport happy German laborers and party faithful to sunny Italy."
"I can hardly wait. You haven't told me where we're going."
"Far beyond the reach of the Red Army. Your work is too important to fall into Russian hands. The Reich will take good care you.
"It looks as if the Reich is having trouble taking care of its own people."
"A temporary setback. Your welfare is my utmost priority."
"I'm not concerned about my welfare." Kovacs hadn't seen his wife and young son for months. Only their infrequent letters had kept hope alive.
"Your family?" The tall man regarded him with a steady gaze. "Have no worry. This will soon be over. I suggest you get some sleep. No, that's an order."
He stretched out on the bunk, hands clasped behind his head, and shut his eyes. Kovacs was not deceived. His companion seldom slept and could snap fully awake at the slightest provocation.
Kovacs examined the man's face. He could have been in his early twenties, although he looked older. He had the long head and craggy profile portrayed in propaganda posters as the Aryan ideal.
Kovacs shuddered, remembering the cold-blooded way the Russian soldier had been dispatched. The past few days had been a blur. The tall man had arrived at the lab during a snowstorm and produced a document authorizing the release of Dr. Kovacs. He had introduced himself only as Karl, and told Kovacs to gather his belongings. Then came the madcap dash across the frozen countryside and the narrow escapes from Russian patrols. Now this miserable ship.
The food had made Kovacs drowsy. His eyelids drooped, and he drifted off into a deep sleep.
While the professor slept, a squad of military police swept the Gustloff in search of deserters. The ship was cleared for departure, and a harbor pilot came aboard. At around one in the afternoon, the deckhands cast off the mooring lines. Four tugs came alongside and began to pull the ship away from the dock.
A fleet of small boats, loaded mostly with women and children, blocked the way. The ship stopped and took the refugees aboard. The Gustloff normally carried 1,465 passengers, served by a crew of four hundred. As it began this voyage, the once-elegant liner was carryi
ng eight thousand passengers.
The ship headed into the open sea, and dropped anchor late in the afternoon to rendezvous with another liner, the Hansa, to wait for their escorts. The Hansa had developed engine trouble and never showed up. Naval Command was worried that the Gustloff would be exposed to danger in open waters and told the ship to go it alone.
The liner plowed into the whitecapped waters of the Baltic, fighting a stiff northwest wind. Hailstones rattled the windows of the bridge, where Commander Zahn seethed with anger as he looked down at the two so-called escorts that had been sent to protect the liner.
The ship was built for southern climes, but, with any luck, it could survive bad weather. What it could not survive was stupidity. Naval Command had sent the liner into harm's way with an old torpedo boat called the Lowe, or "Lion," and the T19, a worn-out torpedo recovery vessel as escorts. Zahn was thinking that the situation could not get any worse when the T19 radioed that it had developed a leak and was returning to the base.
Zahn went to Captain Petersen and the other officers gathered in the bridge.
"In view of our escort situation, I suggest that we pursue a zigzag course at high speed," he said.
Petersen scoffed at the suggestion. "Impossible. The Wilhelm Gustloff is a twenty-four-thousand-ton ocean liner. We cannot go from one tack to the other like a drunken sailor."
"Then we must outrun any U-boats with our superior speed. We can take the direct, deepwater route at the full speed of sixteen knots."
"I know this ship. Even without the bomb damage to the propeller casings, there would be no way we could reach and maintain sixteen knots without blowing out our bearings," Petersen said.
Zahn could see the veins bulging in the captain's neck. He stared through the bridge windows at the old torpedo boat leading the way. "In that case," he said in a voice that seemed to echo in a tomb, "God help us all."
Professor, wake up." The voice was hard-edged, urgent.
Kovacs opened his eyes and saw Karl bending over him. He sat up and rubbed his cheeks as if he could squeeze the sleep out of them.
"What's wrong?"