Ice Brothers (65 page)

Surprise would be important. I must jump them the minute they come up from their shelters, while they're still dazed, Paul thought. I must have machine guns and mortars already trained on them, just waiting. That means I must establish a base near there just before the air raids, and the Eskimos can damn well help me to do that if they want to.

I'll hit them from both the land and the sea, Paul thought. As soon as I'm sure that their artillery has been knocked out, I'll bring the old
Arluk
into the mouth of the fjord with all guns firing. At the same time about half my crew can attack them with machine guns and mortars from the surrounding mountains. Hell, maybe we can roll fused depth charges down on the bastards. I'll find ways to give them hell, but in the end some of the
Arluk
's crew, possibly many, maybe including himself, would die—of that he was curiously certain. And the thought made him exceedingly angry. Who, after all, were those crazy Germans? Why should they be allowed to take the blood of good young men? Why not ask the army to drop poison gas on their whole malignant base? Why not find some way to spread lethal diseases among them? Why fuck around?

It was a good thought, Paul concluded, but the army air force would prefer to risk the lives of a few trawler men than to change the precarious rules of the war. The
Arluk
's crew would be ordered in and some would die. That's just the way things were.

And all Paul could do now, while he waited for Peomeenie to return, was to organize as much help from the Eskimos and the Danes as he could. The person with whom to begin that business was Brit. At least he'd get screwed, in the good sense of the word for a change, in the process. That was the one really good part of the war that Paul could see.

Before ordering the boat to take him ashore, Paul went to the wardroom to tell Nathan that he was leaving the ship in his charge. The tall, gaunt executive officer was sleeping so soundly that Paul hated to awaken him, but Nathan opened his eyes at the sound of Paul approaching his bunk.

“What's up, skipper?”

“I have to go ashore to see what help I can promote from the Eskies.”

“I'll take over, skipper. Look, do you mind if I train Flags to replace Sparks? Flags already knows Morse.”

“Fine. He hasn't had many signals to keep him busy lately.”

“I can teach him enough to monitor the important frequencies right away. If I can find the time, I can finish up some kind of walkie-talkies I've started to build for the guards with the prisoners and to carry in the whaleboat.”

“Nathan, you're a goddamn genius.”

“I'm great at inventing things that have been in production for years,” Nathan said with a straight face.

Stevens and Krater, two seamen whom Paul had never got to know well, manned the whaleboat and Paul took its helm to steer it through some fairly tricky waters to the settlement. Stevens looked as though he might have been a college boy and Krater struck Paul as though he might have been a poolroom tough before joining the service. They had become friends, however; they joked in low voices like high school boys in front of their parents and gave each other playful shoves as they sat on the middle thwart of the boat. When they came alongside the wharf, Paul said; “It's pretty cold here for you guys to wait for me and I have no idea how long I'll be. You better go back to the ship. Come and get me at two o'clock.”

“Official business, skipper?” Krater asked and Stevens grinned.

“Partly,” Paul said.

“Don't do nothing I wouldn't do,” Krater said as they pulled away in the boat.

Turning, Paul was glad to see smoke pluming up from the Charlie Noble of the little ketch on the ways. Brit heard him coming up the ladder and met him on the deck. “The Eskimos say they saw a little ski plane this morning,” she said. “I tried to get somebody in a kayak to go tell you, but they're all off seal hunting.”

“I saw it. It's no immediate danger. Brit, I have something important to talk to you about.”

When they went below he sat on a bunk after placing his cumbersome pistol and belt on the table.

“I'm out of coffee, but I can give you tea or hot chocolate,” she said.

“Later please. Brit, how do I go about organizing the biggest possible work force from the Eskimos? Do I offer to pay them? Do I preach patriotism?”

“What do you want them to do?”

“Build a temporary base near Supportup and take guns and men to it. If I can find some Eskies who want to help us fight, so much the better.”

“Swan won't let the Eskimos have anything to do with you. He doesn't want to get them involved in the war at all. He's mad as hell about Peomeenie.”

“What can he do about it?”

“He'll just tell the Eskimos not to talk to you at all. They'll do what he says. They respect him.”

“Can we talk him out of that?”

“Paul, Swan's whole life has been a love affair with the Eskimos. He came out here when he was twenty-one years old to bring them religion, and has never been home once since. They're his children; a few of them literally. He doesn't really give a damn about anyone else.”

“So he'll fight me when I try to get their help.”

“If he thought you were going to get them shot up, I think he'd kill you.”

“Well, that makes it clear enough. I'll have to lock him up.”

“Paul, he's an old man! He's practically a saint to the Eskimos. What are you saying?”

“I'll put him with the other prisoners out on the island and tell the Eskies the Krauts got him. Maybe that will make them fight for me—”

“Paul, what kind of a mind have you got?”

“A German mind. It's simple. If I'm going to save my own men, I have to get as much help as I can from the Eskies. Anyone who tries to stop me is my enemy. Any lies I have to tell to get the help I need to save the lives of my men won't bother me.”

“And you don't worry about saving the lives of the Eskies?”

“I worry about them just as much but no more than I worry about my own life. I thought you knew something about war, Brit.”

“I'm learning more all the time. Can't you put the old man under guard in his own house? You'll kill him if you put him out there in those huts with all those Germans.”

“I can't afford enough guards to stand duty in different places. As you say, Swanson is old. I'd rather have him die than someone who's hardly had a chance to live at all.”

“Well, you talk cold reason,” Brit said. “I can't deny that.” Her voice was cold.

She was standing near the table looking down at the pistol. “Men with guns all sound about the same,” she said.

“I thought you were on my side.”

“Oh, I am. I'm on your side and I hope you're on my side. I promise never to fight you. It's rather nice to have the man with the gun on my side for a change.”

“Good. I'll take Swanson out to the island and leave him with the other prisoners at two this afternoon when my boat comes to get me.”

“Then I better go tell him. He'll have to get ready.”

“We'll tell him nothing in advance. I don't want him turning the Eskimos against me.”

“You'll just grab him and march him to your boat at gunpoint?”

“Not so the Eskimos can see me. You can bring him down to the boat in friendly fashion.”

“I won't do it. You're as bad as the bloody Germans.”

“There's only one big difference between me and your bloody Germans. They started this war and I'm doing my bit to help finish it with as little loss of blood as possible.”

“So you want me to trick an old man who saved my life once into letting you take him prisoner without his people knowing.”

“Sorry, but I can't afford to be sentimental. I have two dead men lying up there by your church. That's enough for me.”

“What will you do if I don't help you?”

“I wouldn't like it, but I'd have to put you out there with the other prisoners. If I post guards all over the place, I'll have no one to run my ship—”

“Is this a test for me, making me betray Swan? Are you doing this because I slept with Swan? Are you punishing him or trying to see if I still love him?”

“You can't understand that I don't give a damn about anything right now except keeping as many of my men alive as I can while we're killing Germans.”

“I'm beginning to understand.”

“Brit, if I let my personal feelings stop me from protecting my men and wiping out the Germans—”

“I understand … I've just never known a man like you before. I'm sure we should have had more like you in Denmark.”

With her forefinger she touched the handle of the automatic, delicately caressing the roughness of its grip and the smooth steel at its edge. “We can't let my father have guns,” she said. “He's been in a very bad depression ever since we left Denmark. He tried to kill himself twice.”

“I'm sorry.”

“My husband hated guns. He taught biology at the University of Copenhagen. He called it the science of life. He said guns are instruments of death, and he wouldn't have one in the house.”

“I can respect that.”

“But the Germans didn't. They shot him, without knowing it was him, of course. They just strafed our little boat because we wandered into an area where they were supposed to strafe everything. It was quite a foggy morning. When they saw that we were just a little sailboat, they actually stopped firing.”

“That was nice of them.”

“At the time I wished I had a gun to shoot back, any kind of a gun at all. I threw a cup of tea I
happened to have in my hand at the plane. It wasn't a very effective defense.”

“Brit, you should understand that I have to be this way—”

“Oh, I do. I guess I hate and love you for it at the same time. My country really didn't fight the war. We just gave up. A few people talked about putting up heroic resistance, but not many. So we just let the Germans in.”

“The Danes had no choice. The United States is in quite a different position—”

“Yes. You have many guns and many men who know how to use them. I was brought up on your cowboy and gangster movies. I know they're only folk art, but you can tell a lot about a people from their folk art.”

“We're not really so bloodthirsty. Now we have to learn how. It comes hard to us too …”

She picked up the pistol in its holster. “I never held a gun before.”

“Believe it or not, I just learned how to shoot that thing today.”

“You're better with the bigger guns on your ship, I expect. Do you mind if I take this out of its case?”

“I'm afraid I do mind.”

“Why?”

“It's just a feeling. I know you'd be careful, but that's my gun. They are issued only to commissioned officers in the Coast Guard. That sounds silly, doesn't it? Anyway, I can't let anybody mess with my gun. It's just a very deep instinct.”

“So it's not just a mechanism, it's a symbol. It's too important to let a mere woman touch.”

“A mere civilian would be more like it. Put the gun down, Brit. Let's forget it.”

“It's interesting,” she said, putting the gun on the table, but still staring at it. “Someday perhaps I'll buy one for myself. Perhaps it's something every woman should have these days.”

“Brit, I have to get back to business. Will the other Danes try to turn the Eskies against me when Swanson is gone?”

“They'll do whatever you tell them to. They're good at that when they're under a gun. Only Swanson would tell you to go to hell.”

“How do you really think I should handle him?”

“You're right. You'll have to lock him up if you're not unkind enough to kill him. As a matter of fact, I can tell you how to get him out of here without a scene that would alarm the Eskimos.”

“How?”

“Tell him he can visit the prisoners on their island. He's been worried about them, not because he really sympathizes with the Nazis, but because they're people and he really is a kind of saint.”

“Sort of a horny saint for an old man?”

“That's cheap. He's a Greenlander now, not a Dane, and he lives by Greenland customs. It was I who needed him when I sailed in here alone with a crazy father.”

“I'm sorry—”

“Forget it … Anyway, he'll be glad to visit the prisoners. When he gets out on the island, you can tell him he has to stay with them. He will accept that.”

“Would the Eskies understand why I had to get rid of him?”

“The Eskimos are a very realistic people, but they won't love you for making their saint a prisoner. Tell them the Germans are keeping him out there. Most of them are simple enough to accept that.”

“Is Peomeenie?”

“Peo is not really simple at all, but he can be bought, as you found out. I'm afraid that many of them can be.”

“Will you get them together for me tomorrow morning so I can talk to them?”

“The church is our only meeting place. Do you want to use it as a recruiting station?”

“I guess … you know, victory has been prayed for in every church since Christ's time, on every side, in every war. The Lord helps those, and so forth …”

“I'll have them come to the church tomorrow. Now do you want hot chocolate or tea?”

Suddenly conversation was difficult. It seemed to him that the most revealing thing she had said was that she both loved and hated him and he could almost see the conflict vibrating in her tense, narrow face.

“Aside from Swan, I have to admit that I myself hate to think of you leading the Eskimos into some kind of battle,” she said. “It's not their war. They don't understand anything about it. It will be like you were leading some kind of children's crusade.”

“Brit, I've never really known any Eskimos. Why is everyone so sentimental about them? They're not children. They know more about survival than anyone. As you told me, when things get really bad, they leave their old people and girl babies on the ice to die. They sound pretty tough to me. I bet they'll understand me.”