Cryptonomicon

Chapter 55 DÖNITZ

Once, when Bobby Shaftoe was eight years old, he went to Tennessee to visit Grandma and Grandpa. One boring afternoon he began skimming a letter that the old lady had left lying on an end table. Grandma gave him a stern talking to and then recounted the incident to Grandpa, who recognized his cue and gave him forty whacks. That and a whole series of roughly parallel childhood experiences, plus several years in the Marine Corps, have made him into one polite fellow.

So he doesn't read others' mail. It be against the rules.

But here he is. The setting: a plank-paneled room above a pub in Norrsbruck, Sweden. The pub is a sailorly kind of place, catering to fishermen, which makes it congenial for Shaftoe's friend and drinking buddy: Kapitänleutnant Günter Bischoff, Kriegsmarine of the Third Reich (retired).

Bischoff gets a lot of interesting mail, and leaves it strewn all over the room. Some of the mail is from his family in Germany, and contains money. Consequently Bischoff, unlike Shaftoe, will not have to work even if this war continues, and he remains in Sweden cooling his boilers for another ten years.

Some of the mail is from the crew of U-691, according to Bischoff. After Bischoff got them all here to Norrsbruck in one piece, his second in-command, Oberleutnant zur See Karl Beck, cut a deal with the Kriegsmarine in which the crew were allowed to return to Germany, no hard feelings, no repercussions. All of them except for Bischoff climbed on board what was left of U-691 and steamed off in the direction of Kiel.

Only days later, the mail began to pour in. Every member of the crew, to a man, sent Bischoff a letter describing the heroes' welcome they had received: Dönitz himself met them at the pier and handed out hugs and kisses and medals and other tokens in embarrassing profusion. They can't stop talking about how much they want dear Günter to come back home.

Dear Günter isn't budging; he's been sitting in his little room for a couple of months now. His world consists of pen, ink, paper, candles, cups of coffee, bottles of aquavit, the soothing beat of the surf. Every crash of wave on shore, he says, reminds him that he is above sea level now, where men were meant to live. His mind is always back there a hundred feet below the surface of the gelid Atlantic, trapped like a rat in a sewer pipe, cringing from the explosions of the depths charges. He lived a hundred years that way, and spent every moment of those hundred years dreaming of the Surface. He vowed, ten thousand times, that if he ever made it back up to the world of air and light, he would enjoy every breath, revel in every moment.

That's pretty much what he's been doing, here in Norrsbruck. He has his personal journal, and he's been going through it, page by page, filling in all of the details that he didn't have time to jot down, before he forgets them. Someday, after the war, it'll make a book: one of a million war memoirs that will clog libraries from Novosibirsk to Gander to Sequim to Batavia.

The pace of incoming mail dropped dramatically after the first weeks. Several of his men still write to him faithfully. Shaftoe is used to seeing their letters scattered around the place when he comes to visit. Most of them are written on scraps of cheap, greyish paper.

Directionless silver light infiltrates the room through Bischoff's window, illuminating what looks like a rectangular pool of heavy cream on his tabletop. It is some kind of official Hun stationery, surmounted by a raptor clenching a swastika. The letter is handwritten, not typed. When Bischoff sets his wet glass down on it, the ink dissolves.

And when Bischoff goes to empty his bladder, Shaftoe can't keep his eyes away from it. He knows that this is bad manners, but the Second World War has led him into all sorts of uncouth behavior, and there don't seem to be any angry grandpas lurking in the trenches with doubled belts; no consequences at all for the wicked, in fact. Maybe that will change in a couple of years, if the Germans and the Nips lose the war. But that reckoning will be so great and terrible that Shaftoe's glance at Bischoff's letter will probably go unnoticed.

It came in an envelope. The first line of the address is very long, and consists of “Günter BISCHOFF” preceded by a string of ranks and titles, and followed by a series of letters. The return address has been savaged by Bischoffs letter opener, but it's somewhere in Berlin.

The letter itself is an impossible snarl of Germanic cursive. It is signed, hugely, with a single word. Shaftoe spends some time trying to make out that word; he whose John Hancock this is. Must have an ego that ranks right up there with the General's.

When Shaftoe figures out the signature belongs to Dönitz, he gets all tingly. That Dönitz is an important guy—Shaftoe's even seen him on a newsreel, congratulating a grimy U-boat crew, fresh from a salty spree.

Why's he writing love notes to Bischoff? Shaftoe can't read this stuff any better than he could Nipponese. But he can see a few figures. Dönitz is talking numbers. Perhaps tons of shipping sunk, or casualties on the Eastern Front. Perhaps money.

“Oh, yes!” Bischoff says, having somehow reappeared in the room without making any noise. When you're down in a U-boat, running silent, you learn how to walk quietly. “I have come up with a hypothesis on the gold.”

“What gold?” Shaftoe says. He knows, of course, but having been caught in an act of flagrant naughtiness, his instinct is to play innocent.

“That you saw down in the batteries of U-553,” Bischoff says. “You see, my friend, anyone else would say that you are simply a crazy jughead.”

“The correct term is Jarhead.”

“They would say, first of all, that U-553 sank many months before you claim to have seen it. Secondly, they would say that such a boat could not have been loaded with gold. But I believe that you saw it.”

“So?”

Bischoff glances at the letter from Dönitz looking mildly seasick. “I must tell you something about the Wehrmacht of which I am ashamed, first.”

“What? That they invaded Poland and France?”

“No.”

“That they invaded Russia and Norway?”

“No, not that.”

“That they bombed England and… ”

“No, no, no,” Bischoff says, the very model of forbearance. “Something you did not know about.”

“What?”

“It seems that, while I have been sneaking around the Atlantic, doing my duty—the Führer has come up with a little incentive program.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that duty and loyalty are not enough for certain high-ranking officers. That they will not carry out their orders to the fullest unless they receive… special awards.”

“You mean, like medals?”

Bischoff is smiling nervously. “Some generals on the Eastern Front have been given estates in Russia. Very, very large estates.”

“Oh.”

“But not everyone can be bribed with land. Some people require a more liquid form of compensation.”

“Booze?”

“No, I mean liquid in the financial sense. Something you can carry with you, and that is accepted in any whorehouse on the planet.”

“Gold,” says Shaftoe, quietly.

“Gold would suffice,” Bischoff says. It has been a long time since he looked Shaftoe in the eye. He's staring out the window instead. His green eyes might be a little moist. He takes a deep breath, blinks, and gets the bitter irony under control before continuing: “Since Stalingrad, it has not gone well on the Eastern Front. Let us say that Ukrainian real estate is no longer worth what it used to be, if the deed to the land happens to be written in German and issued in Berlin.”

“It's getting harder to bribe a general by promising him a chunk of Russian land,” Shaftoe translates. “So Hitler needs lots of gold.”

“Yes. Now, the Japanese have lots of gold—consider that they sacked China. As well as many other places. But they are lacking in certain things. They need wolframite. Mercury. Uranium.”

“What's uranium?”

“Who the hell knows? The Japanese want it, we provide it. We provide them technology too—blueprints for new turbines. Enigma machines.” At this point Bischoff breaks off and laughs, painfully and darkly, for a long time. When he gets it under control, he continues: “So we have been shipping them these things, in U-boats.”

“And the Nips pay you in gold.”

“Yes. It is a dark economy, hidden beneath the ocean, trading small but valuable items over vast distances. You got a glimpse of it.”

“You knew this was going on but you didn't know about U-553,” Shaftoe points out.

“Ah, Bobby, there are many, many things going on in the Third Reich that a mere U-boat captain does not know about. You are a soldier, you know this is true.”

“Yes,” Shaftoe says, recalling the peculiarities of Detachment 2702. He looks down at the letter. “Why is Dönitz telling you all of this now?”

“He is not telling me anything,” Bischoff says reprovingly. “I have figured this out myself” He gnaws on a lip for a while. “Dönitz is making me a proposition.”

“I thought you'd retired.”

Bischoff considers it. “I have retired from killing people. But the other day I sailed a little sloop around the inlet.”

“So?”

“So it seems that I have not retired from going down to the sea in ships.” Bischoff heaves a sigh. “Unfortunately, all of the really interesting ships are owned by major governments.”

Bischoff is getting a little spooky, so Shaftoe opts for a little change in the subject. “Hey, speaking of really interesting things…” and he tells the story of the Heavenly Apparition that he saw while he was walking down here.

Bischoff is delighted by the story, which revives the hunger for excitement that he has kept pickled in salt and alcohol ever since reaching Norrsbruck. “You are sure it was manmade?” he asks.

“It whined. Chunks of shit were falling out of it. But I've never seen a meteor so I don't know.”

“How far away?”

“It crashed seven kilometers from where I was standing. So, ten clicks from here.”

“But ten kilometers is nothing for an Eagle Scout and a Hitler Youth!”

“You weren't a Hitler Youth.”

Bischoff broods over this for a moment. “Hitler—so embarrassing. I hoped that if I ignored him he would go away. Perhaps if I had joined the Hitler Youth, they would have given me a surface ship.”

“Then you'd be dead.”

“Right!” Bischoff's mood brightens considerably. “Ten kilometers is still nothing. Let's go!”

“It's already dark.”

“We will follow the flames.”

“They will have gone out.”

“We will follow the trail of debris, like Hansel and Gretel.”

“It didn't work for Hansel and Gretel. Didn't you even read the fucking story?”

“Don't be such a defeatist, Bobby,” says Bischoff, diving into a hearty fisherman's sweater. “Normally you are not like this. What is troubling you?”

Glory. It is October and the days are growing short. Shaftoe and Bischoff, both mired in the yet-to-be-discovered emotional dumps of Seasonal Affective Disorder, are like two brothers trapped in the same pit of quicksand, each keeping a sharp eye on the other.

“Eh? Was ist los, buddy?”

“Guess I'm just feeling at loose ends.”

“You need an adventure. Let's go!”

“I need an adventure like Hitler needs an ugly little toothbrush mustache,” says Bobby Shaftoe. But he drags himself up out of his chair and follows Bischoff out the door.

Shaftoe and Bischoff are trudging through the dark Swedish woods like a pair of lost souls trying to find the side entrance to Limbo. They take turns carrying the kerosene lantern, which has an effective range about as long as a grown man's arm. Sometimes they go for a whole hour without talking, each man alone with his own struggle against suicidal depression. Then one of them (usually Bischoff) will perk up and say something, like:

“Haven't seen Enoch Root recently. What has he been up to since he finished curing you of your morphine addiction?” Bischoff asks.

“Don't know. He was such a fucking pain in the ass during that project that I never wanted to see him again. But I think he got a Russian radio transmitter from Otto and took it into that church basement where he lives; he's been messing around with it ever since.”

“Yes. I remember. He was changing the frequencies. Did he ever get it to work?”

“Beats me,” Shaftoe says, “but when big pieces of burning shit start falling out of the sky in my neighborhood, makes me wonder.”

“Yes. Also he goes to the post office quite frequently,” Bischoff says. “I chatted with him there once. He is carrying on a heavy correspondence with others around the world.”

“Other what?”

“That is my question, too.”

Eventually they find the wreck only by following the sound of a hacksaw, which reverberates through the pines like the shriek of some extraordinarily stupid and horny bird. This enables them to home in on it in a general way. Final coordinates are provided by a sudden, strobelike flashing light, devastating noise, and a sap-scented rain of amputated foliage. Shaftoe and Bischoff both hit the dirt and lie there listening to fat pistol slugs ricocheting from tree trunk to tree trunk. The hacksawing noise continues with no break in rhythm.

Bischoff starts talking Swedish, but Shaftoe shushes him. “That was a Suomi,” he says. “Hey, Julieta! Knock it off! It's just me and Günter.”

There is no answer. Then, Shaftoe remembers that he has recently fucked Julieta, and therefore needs to remember his manners. “Excuse me, ma'am,” he says, “but I gather from the sound of your weapon that you are of the Finnish nation, for which I have unbounded admiration, and I wanted to let you know that I, former Sergeant Robert Shaftoe, and my friend, former Kapitänleutnant Günter Bischoff, mean you no harm.”

Julieta, homing in on the sound of his voice in the darkness, responds with a controlled burst of fire that passes about a foot over Bobby Shaftoe's head. “Don't you belong in Manila?” she asks.

Shaftoe groans, and rolls over on his back as if he has been shot in the gut.

“What does she mean by this?” asks the bewildered Günter Bischoff. Seeing that his friend has been (emotionally) incapacitated, he tries: “This is Sweden, a peaceful and neutral country! Why are you trying to machine-gun us?”

“Go away!” Julieta must be with Otto, because they hear her talk to him before saying, “We do not want representatives of the American Marines and the Wehrmacht here. You are not welcome.”

“Sounds like you are sawing away on something that is pretty damn heavy,” Shaftoe finally retorts. “How you gonna haul it out of these woods?”

This leads to an animated conversation between Julieta and Otto. “You may approach,” Julieta finally says.

They find the Kivistiks, Julieta and Otto, standing in a pool of lantern-light around the severed, charred wing of an airplane. Most Finns are hard to tell apart from Swedes, but Otto and Julieta both have black hair and black eyes, and could pass for Turks. The tip of the airplane wing is painted with the black-and-white cross of the Luftwaffe. An engine is mounted to that wing. If Otto's hacksaw has its way, it won't be for much longer. The engine has recently been set on fire and then used to knock down a large number of pine trees. But even so Shaftoe can see it's like no engine he has ever seen before. There is no propeller, but there are a lot of little fan blades.

“It looks like a turbine,” says Bischoff, “but for air, rather than water.” Otto straightens up, squeezes his lower back theatrically, and hands Shaftoe the hacksaw. Then he hands him a bottle of benzedrine tablets for good measure. Shaftoe eats a few tablets, strips off his shirt to reveal splendid musculature, does a couple of USMC-approved stretching exercises, grabs the hacksaw, and sets to work. After a couple of minutes he looks up nonchalantly at Julieta, who is standing there holding the machine pistol and watching him with a look that is simultaneously frosty and smoldering, like baked Alaska. Bischoff stands off to the side, reveling in this.

Dawn is slapping her chapped and reddened fingers against a frostbitten sky, attempting to restore some circulation, when the remains of the turbine finally fall away from the wing. Pumped on benzedrine, Shaftoe has been operating the hacksaw for six hours; Otto has stepped in to change blades several times, a major capital investment on his part. Next, they devote half of the morning to dragging the engine through the woods and down a creek bed to the sea, where Otto's boat is waiting, and Otto and Julieta take their prize away. Bobby Shaftoe and Günter Bischoff trudge back up to the site of the wreck. They have not discussed this openly yet—it would be unnecessary—but they intend to find the part of the airplane that contains the body of the pilot, and see to it that he gets a proper burial.

“What is in Manila, Bobby?” Bischoff asks.

“Something that morphine made me forget,” Shaftoe answers, “and that Enoch Root, that fucking bastard, made me remember.”

Not fifteen minutes later they come to the gash in the woods that was carved by the plunging airplane, and hear a man's voice wailing and sobbing, completely out of his mind with grief. “Angelo! Angelo! Angelo! Mein liebchen!”

They cannot see the man who is crying out in this way, but they do see Enoch Root, standing there and brooding. He looks up alertly as they approach, and produces a semiautomatic from his leather jacket. Then he recognizes them, and relaxes.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Shaftoe says—never one to beat around in the bush. “Is that a fucking German you're with?”

“Yes, I am with a German,” Root says, “as are you.”

“Well, why is your German making such a fucking spectacle of himself?”

“Rudy is crying over the body of his lover,” Root says, “who died in an attempt to reunite with him.”

“A woman was flying that plane?” says the flabbergasted Shaftoe.

Root rolls his eyes and heaves a sigh. “You have forgotten to allow for the possibility that Rudy might be a homosexual.”

It takes Shaftoe a long time to stretch his mind around this large, inconveniently shaped concept. Bischoff, in typical European fashion, seems completely unruffled. But he still has questions to ask. “Enoch, why are you… here?”

“Why has my spirit been incarnated into a physical body in this world generally? Or specifically, why am I here in a Swedish forest, standing on the wreck of a mysterious German rocket plane while a homosexual German sobs over the cremated remains of his Italian lover?”

“Last rites,” Root answers his own question. “Angelo was Catholic.” Then, after a while, he notices that Bischoff is staring at him, looking completely unsatisfied. “Oh. I am here, in a larger sense, because Mrs. Tenney, the vicar's wife, has become sloppy, and forgotten to close her eyes when she takes the balls out of the bingo machine.”