Serebin the Hero

Anya Taylor

I keep falling back to Alan Furst's stories about espionage in Europe on the brink of WW2, I'm just in that kind of mood. I see this picture and I realize this is exactly the kind of thing you would run into in his stories.

The book I'm reading right now, for the second or third (or fourth time?), Blood of Victory, follows one Serebin on his travels around Europe, running errands for the big shots (his betters?) who are plotting to disrupt the flow of oil from the Ploesti oil fields in Romania to the factories in Germany.

Serebin gets an allowance that is like three times the average clerk's wages, so he's fairly comfortable. He's not a big shot, but he's well supported. He spends his time going to meetings or one sort of another. Some are in a community hall, some are in bars and cafes, some are in private residences, and some of those meetings are with girls, like you might see in the picture above. Funny thing is I didn't really have any idea of what those girls might look like until I saw this picture, possibly because I don't recall Mr. Furst mentioning anything about furs. But I think this is the caliber of people we are dealing with. Beware, because grading caliber by appearance is only valid on a couple of scales, and really has no bearing on their loyalty or honesty which are really the only measures that count. But if you are operating at this level, at least some of the players are going to have this caliber of appearance. And certainly all the girls Serebin has relationships with.

So Serebin's life goes on, he travels across Europe, mostly on trains, and he meets people, stays at hotels and eats in restaurants, much like any traveling salesmen does now. (Are there still traveling salesmen?*) But eventually the big shots decide they have enough information and decide on a course of action. And who do they ask to do the job? Well, none other than their man on the spot, Serebin. Up till now he hasn't done anything really dangerous. Mostly he's just had to endure the normal bureaucratic hassles of having his papers checked by Nazi thugs every time he crosses a border. Remember, technically we aren't at war with Germany. Yet. He has traveled using false papers, but very good false papers. Remember, this isn't a budget operation. The powers that be are pouring a veritable waterfall of money into this venture because if it succeeds it could bring this war to a close before it really gets started.

Things are different now. There are liable to be people with guns who are going to try and stop him, if they somehow get wind of what he's doing, and because the people with guns are very aware of how critical this supply of oil is, are going to be very sensitive to the least little whiff of trouble coming their way.

But for Serebin, there is no hesitation. This is what he signed up for. Everything up till now has just been the equivalent of cleaning your gun and filling your magazines. Here we go. He's really just like James Bond - he's one of the good guys, he's competent, he's got a mission and he's going to do his duty. He doesn't plan on getting killed or seriously injured, but he realizes that is a real possibility, and he's okay with it and he goes ahead on.

* They cover less territory, see more clients, spend more money, earn more money and stay away from home less. Now, there are more customers than before with more income and more buying impulses and, as a result, there are now more traveling salesmen, an estimated one million according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. - The New York Times in 1971!

P. S. Anya Taylor was the star of Queen's Gambit.

Iron Gates

I'm reading Blood of Victory by Alan Furst. On page 168 he mentions the Dezvrin Ship Canal on the Danube River, built to bypass the Iron Gates. I go looking for this canal, but Google has never heard of Dezvrin. A little more searching turns up several pages that mention this canal.

"special undertaking" - Zorica Janković:

SIPS CANAL : Four decades earlier, all the world's press brought the news that on Sunday, September 27, 1896, three sovereigns of the neighboring states, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Francis Joseph, the Romanian King Carol I and the Serbian King Aleksandar Obrenović, ceremonially opened the Danube Sip Canal in the Iron Gate area. With the thunder of cannons and the applause of those present, the steamship "Franz Joseph I" (with three sovereigns on board) passed through the canal first, cutting the flower ribbon that was strung across the canal exactly at 10 o'clock. Its passage ended the dangerous passage of vessels through the Djerdap gorge, which until then had been done with great effort, avoiding underwater rocks and eddies, by experienced Danube oarsmen, called locs (the name Djerdap comes from the Persian word girdab and the Turkish girdap, which means whirlpool, whirlpool or rapid). On the same day, on the occasion of the opening of the canal, the three sovereigns received congratulations from the Pope of Rome, the German and Russian emperors, and the Italian king.

To regulate the large river, seven canals with a total length of 16.9 km were cut along the bank, the largest of which was Sipski (named after the nearby village), 2,133 m long, 73 m wide and 3.9 m deep, cut along the right bank of the river. Over time, the ships, for upstream navigation through this channel, will receive an additional cable traction, driven first by a powerful tugboat (1899), and then by a locomotive (1916), which moved on rails on the coastal embankment.

After WW1, the ships were towed upstream through the Sip Canal with the help of the locomotive. This practice continued up to 1969 when the Canal was flooded in course of construction of the hydroelectric power plants Iron Gates 1 and 2. Afterwards, the towing was no more needed. - Igor Bačkalov

Iron Gates Museum: 

The Iron Gates is the traditional name for the gorge by which the River Danube passes through the Transylvania Alps, where it now forms the boundary between Romania and Serbia. The ‘cataract region’ extends from Moldova Island, 130 km downstream from Belgrade, for 120 km. Over that distance the natural fall of the river is 30 m, and in places its width contracts from 2 km to less than 100m, while the highest cliffs rise 683 f from the surface. A towing path, partly cut from the rocks and partly cantilevered on wooden beams was cut through the gorge by the Emperor Trajan and his successors between AD28 and 102. The first steamship passed through the Iron Gates in 1834.

From 1878 the river navigation was improved by the Hungarian government under the supervision of the International Danube Commission. A 2.5 km canal with a fall of 3.7 m was built on the southern side of the river in 1895-98, with a railway track alongside. The haulage upstream of heavy barges by steam locomotives being driven at maximum power was spectacular.

After the Second World War the governments of Romania and what was then Yugoslavia built a hydro-electric dam at the Iron Gates with pairs of locks on either side. The scheme was completed in 1972 and the passage of boats along the river is quieter than in the days of steam locomotive haulage.

Second Separate Pontoon Bridge Regiment:

The history of the river and of the communities on its banks is illustrated in the regional museum at Drobeta Jurnu-Severin.The holiday was celebrated on November 7, 1944 by the sixth company on the Danube River raid in the Bulgarian city of Rusa. The march of the company and the battalion in tow to the "Iron Gate" roll was normal. At one time, a channel with a length of 1600 meters and a width of 30-35 meters was built on the right bank of this river for the ships going up the Danube River. The flow velocity in the channel reached 30 meters per second. A railway track was laid along the mainland shore of the channel, along which a steam locomotive plied, designed to tow ships along the channel. The convoy of the sixth company was divided in half, i.e. three ferries, a tow rope from the locomotive was put in tow - and safely passed the channel. But when leaving the canal, when the tow rope was given, one diesel engine on the “Zhiul” stalled, and the whole convoy was pulled back into the channel, which threatened a big accident. The emergency situation was saved by the team servicing the channel. The cable was again put in tow and the locomotive held the convoy in the channel until the launch of the second diesel engine in tow. The second part of the convoy was pulled through the roll by another, more powerful tug of 2,400 horsepower, which carried the remaining ferries. The “Iron Gate” is a very artful  rolling. There due to the confusion of the helmsman, even the armored boat of the Danube flotilla was sunk. The same fate during the passage of one of the companies of the 1st battalion befell a hydroplane with the personal belongings of Battalion Commander Major Falin.

ICON OF IDENTITY: THE ILE DE FRANCE ON THE WORLD STAGE - Christian Roden

Joining two friends in Vienna, Ted ventured on a Danube River journey aboard the Russian riverboat AMUR, built by the Austrians as war reparations, while watching a variety of river traffic including vintage sidewheel towboats and ferries. A highlight of the river trip was his experience at the Iron Gate, a powerful and dangerous stretch of the Danube where steam engines had to tow the riverboats upstream for a few miles due to the treacherous currents. Ted pointed out that the Orient Line’s ORSOVA was named after the town where the Iron Gate is located and included a stylized Iron Gate as part of her bow decoration. All Orient Line ship names started with OR.

Simplon Tunnel

1908 poster for the train between Paris and Milan

I'm rereading Blood of Victory by Alan Furst, a novel of espionage during WW2. Serebin, our hero, is a writer living in Paris but he's visiting Istanbul and on his return trip (page 56) he takes the Istanbul-Paris train which goes through the Simplon Tunnel. In ordinary times it would be called the Orient Express, but that service has been shut down because of the war. Not sure what's going on, it might just be literary license.

Various Orient Express Routes
X marks the Simplon Tunnel

Simplon Tunnel Profile

The tunnel is an engineering marvel and considering when it was built it ranked as one of the great wonders of the modern world. Opened in 1906, it's 12 miles long. There is 2,000 meters of rock overhead, which means the temperature inside can get up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit.