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Only one small incident disturbed Stanley Smith during the landing. The navigator of the submarine was not a Russian, but a German, a former officer of the German Navy. This man, Karl Schiller, was chosen for the mission because he had been a Leutnant on a U-boat that had landed eight German saboteurs at exactly the same spot, on the same coast, in 1942. Schiller and Smith both enjoyed chess and they had become friendly, and Schiller had sometimes invited Smith topside for a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of the stars when they ran on the surface, nights. Schiller often related, with pride, the details of the previous voyage. It had been a much more difficult undertaking, he assured Smith, with the British and American navies to dodge and the coast itself patrolled. Now it would be simple, with the world basking in peace.

It was Schiller who commanded the landing craft in its run for the beach, and it had been Schiller who ran down the beach to the car and shook his hand. At that moment Smith asked a question that had been troubling him. "By the way," he said, "you never told me what happened to the sabotage team."