Alone on the sea with the Anubis. Slothrop has begun to sweat, unpleasantly. The green rocky coast of Rügen backdrops them, rising and falling through the squall. Zonggg another shot rattlesnaking off of a bulkhead. “Ram,” orders the Springer. The storm comes down in earnest. Gleeful Frau Gnahb, humming through her teeth, spins the wheel, spokes blurring, prow swinging over aiming for midships. The blank side of the Anubis rushes in—is the Frau gonna bust on through it like a paper hoop? Faces behind portholes, cook peeling potatoes outside the galley, drunk in a frock coat sleeping on the rainy deck and sliding as the ship rolls… ah—ja, ja, a huge blue-flowered bowl of shredded potatoes at her elbow, a window, cast-iron flowers on spiral vine all painted white, a mild smell of cabbage and dishrags from under the sink, an apron bow snug and tight above her kidneys and lambs about her legs and ja little, oh, ja, here comes little—ah—here comes here-comes LITTLE—AHH—

OTTO! slams her boat into the Anubis, a most godawful earsplitting Otto….

“Stand by.” Springer’s on his feet. Procalowski is turning away and increasing engine speed. Frau Gnahb moves up again on the yacht’s starboard quarter, wallowing in her wake. Otto passes out grappling hooks, long in Hanseatic service, iron, pitted, functional-looking, as Mutti puts it all ahead full. Couples have wandered out under awnings on the Anubis to watch the fun, pointing, laughing, gaily waving. Girls, their nude breasts beaded with rain, blow kisses while the band plays a Guy Lombardo arrangement of “Running Between the Raindrops.”

Up the slippery ladder goes salty and buccaneering Slothrop, hefting his grappling hook, letting out line, keeping an eye on that Otto—wind up, spin like a lasso, wheeee—clank. Springer and Otto at bow and stern are grappling on at the same time, hauling in as the vessels hit, bounce, hit… but the Anubis, softwhite, has slowed, sprawled, allowed… Otto gets line around chocks forward and up around the scrimshawed railing of the yacht—then dashes aft, sneakers splashing, ribbed footprints left behind then rained out, to repeat the lashing there. A newly-arranged river roars, white and violent, backward between the two ships. Springer is already up on the yacht’s main deck. Slothrop tucks Luger in belt and follows.

Springer with the classic gangster head-move gestures him up to the bridge. Slothrop moves through groping hands, greetings in broken Russian, puffs of alcoholic breath, around to the ladder on the port side—climbing, edging quietly onto the bridge. But Procalowski is only sitting in the captain’s chair smoking one of Springer’s amis with his cap tilted back, and Springer’s just at the punch line to one of his giant repertoire of German toilet jokes.

“What the devil, Gerhardt,” Procalowski waving a thumb. “The Red Army’s working for you too?”