“How does ham and eggs sound for a little something for you, Kapitän?”
“Like manna from heaven, Capitán.”
De Banderano picked up his telephone and dialed a number.
“Ham and eggs to my cabin immediately,” he ordered. Then he went to a cabinet and came back with a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch.
“I regret that when the Ciudad de Cádiz was turned over to me by the Kriegsmarine they somehow failed to ensure that she had even one bottle of schnapps in her supplies. Can you force yourself to drink this decadent English whiskey? I brought this from my previous command.”
“Under the circumstances, I think I can force myself,” von Dattenberg said.
De Banderano poured three fingers of scotch in each of two glasses and handed one to von Dattenberg.
“We found each other,” de Banderano said. “I wasn’t sure it was going to happen.”
Von Dattenberg nodded solemnly. “I was down to between six and maybe nine hours of fuel,” he said.
Their eyes met for a moment, then de Banderano touched h
is glass to von Dattenberg’s. They took healthy swallows of their drinks.
Von Dattenberg exhaled audibly, then took another healthy sip, draining his glass.
De Banderano poured more for him and asked, “At the risk of being indelicate, Kapitän, would you mind a suggestion about your uniform?”
“A decent burial at sea?” von Dattenberg said. “What do you suggest I do with it?”
“We have clothing stocks aboard. If you will give me your measurements, by the time you have a shower, the ship’s tailor will have a proper uniform for you.”
“For my crew, too?”
De Banderano nodded, then said: “I think they, too, would prefer to wait until they’ve had a little something to eat.”
“At the risk of being indelicate, Capitán, my underwear is as dirty as my outerwear. ”
De Banderano nodded.
“Once you give me your sizes,” he said, “by the time you come out of there, there will be fresh underwear.”
He pointed at a door that von Dattenberg correctly suspected led to the Master’s Bath. Then he handed von Dattenberg a pencil and a notebook so that he could write down his sizes.
Ten minutes later, Capitán de Banderano was not in his cabin when von Dattenberg came out of the shower wrapped in a towel. But there was clean white underwear on the table. And an array of plates under chrome domes.
He had not shaved, and he wasn’t sure if that was because he thought it would be impolite to use de Banderano’s razor or because he had come to like the beard.
He took the underwear back into the Master’s Bath and put it on, then went to the table. Reminding himself that if he ate like a pig he was probably going to throw up, he sat down and started carefully lifting the domes.
He ate everything the domes had concealed, and was wondering when his stomach would rebel when there was a knock at the door.
“Come.”
A steward, young and blond and in a white jacket, came into the room carrying a uniform on a hanger.
He gave a Nazi salute and barked, “Heil Hitler!”
Von Dattenberg didn’t return the salute, but asked, “You’re German?”
“Rottenführer Plinzer, Herr Kapitän,” the boy barked.