by Jack Finney
"Get Vic!" I yelled, and he simply nodded, already moving — running — toward the lounge doors ahead, and I swung toward the deck on the port side. I ran as fast as I could possibly move, and burst out onto the deck so fast I had to fend myself off from the rail with my free hand. The staccato clacking was loud and clear now, all around me, and for an instant I couldn't locate it. Then I was swinging around, my back to the rail, head thrown back to stare up at the source of the sound. It was several decks above me. Then I saw the searchlight-type lamp facing the sea to the west, and the seaman beside it rapidly and steadily manipulating the clattering Venetian blindlike shutters.
How long he'd been sending I didn't know, and it no longer mattered. I swung around and, leaning over the rail, stared out to sea, eyes narrowed, scanning the horizon; then I saw it. It was the merest speck, a slight imperfection marring the line dividing sea from sky. As I stared, the speck lengthened, and, straining my eyes, forcing them, I could see — either actually or in my mind — the never-to-be-mistaken sight of a destroyer, heeling over in a fast, racing turn. I knew she was heading straight for us, and I was shoving at the rail, turning to run into the ship.
The wide area here before the lounge doors was still empty of people, and I ran straight across it toward the deck and the boarding ladder on the other side. Frank and Vic might already be on it, running down its steps toward the waiting launch. In any case, I had our trunk — I never thought of abandoning it to get down those stairs — and I pounded up onto the deck on which we'd boarded the ship. Swinging the trunk over the rail onto the ladder, I swarmed over the railing myself. The ladder was empty, and the tiny launch at its foot, its exhaust muttering. Frank and Vic were still aboard, and all I could do now was hurry down those hundreds of stairs.
I tried running, but had to stop; the empty trunk bounced high off my shoulders at every running step down those stairs, the metal handle twisting in my fingers, and I very nearly lost it. I walked then, as quickly as I could, slowing each time the trunk began to bounce, and even in the panic nibbling at my nerves and the edges of my mind, I had time to understand what had happened.
The captain had done it. Standing in the lounge with his officers, he'd instructed them all; and when I'd sent one of them out to tell the rest of the ship what was happening and warn them from interfering, that officer had also passed the word from the captain. Ever since that moment someone had manned the signal lamp, glasses on the horizon, waiting for a ship that could be signaled in the one silent way our submarine — the whole bulk of the Mary between it and that ship — could not detect.
Where were Frank and Vic? The captain hadn't yet known, in the moment I'd discovered it, that a destroyer had been sighted and had answered the signal. If he had, he and his officers would have been out of that lounge to grab me as I ran past it a moment ago — holding us all till the destroyer flashed around the prow or stern of the Mary, ending all danger from the submarine. But they'd certainly know within seconds!
I was halfway down the side when I heard footsteps far above strike and then clatter down the stairs after me and heard Vic shout at me to hurry. They were gaining, pounding down after me; then I heard voices — one or two, then suddenly scores of them shouting excitedly and then a whole swelling babble. Almost lost in the sudden burst of sound I heard a woman's voice call "Hugh!" and I pictured Alice Muir among all those passengers, staring down after me, wondering desperately whether I was going to escape.
TO BE CONTINUED
The Saturday Evening Post, September 19, 1959, 232(12):50, 127, 129-130, 132-134, 137-138
The U-19's Last Kill, Conclusion
It was the strangest moment in the history of piracy: The ocean liner Queen Mary had just been robbed by an ancient German submarine.
Frank Lauffnauer and his accomplices — Moreno, Vic, Rosa, Linc and Hugh — had rehabilitated the U-19, a relic of World War I, and taken it to sea. By representing it as a disabled British experimental sub, they tricked the Queen Mary into stopping and lending them assistance. Once aboard the liner, Frank, with Vic and Hugh, issued an ultimatum: The captain must let them search for a passenger named Reinhold Kroll, once a notorious Nazi. Otherwise, the U-19 would unleash its torpedoes at the Mary. The bluff worked. The conspirators soon found Kroll and took from him a trunk which held $1,500,000 concealed in its lining. But during the search Hugh was recognized by another passenger, Alice Muir, the girl Hugh had rejected when he joined Lauffnauer's group.
As the three men raced for the ladder and the ship's launch reluctantly provided by the captain, they suddenly realized that a signal from the liner had summoned a United States Navy destroyer, which was racing to the scene now at flank speed. Here is Hugh's description of the chaos which followed.
CONCLUSION
Now the ladder was trembling from scores of feet pounding down it, and I knew we'd be caught, Frank and Vic bunched behind me, unless I found a way to hurry, to run as fast as the men after us. Heaving the trunk over my shoulder, catching its free end with the flat of my palm, I lifted it high overhead to throw it over the side; a million and a half dollars was no help to us now. Then, in the instant before throwing it, I ran instead, freely now, as fast as I could go, the trunk high over my head between my upraised arms, elbows bent, the muscles of my arms accepting the jogging weight of the trunk, like a set of springs.
I stumbled, almost tripping, down the last few of the stairs, then heaved the trunk into the launch, the waiting seaman, face astounded, scrambling out of its way. Then I was in the launch, pulling and yanking loose the line that held it, not wasting even a fractional instant to glance up the ladder. Crouched at the rope just as it came free in my hands, I was suddenly knocked sprawling by someone falling, pushed or leaping into the launch. Pressed against the bottom, the wriggling body on top of me jamming the side of my head against the varnished planking, I could only hope it was Vic or Frank. Then I saw Frank in the stern seat, his hand grabbing at the tiller, and just beyond him, not four steps from the bottom of the ladder, the first of a dozen officers and crewman leaping down the stairs after us.
He actually jumped, splashing into the water, his outstretched hands grasping for the gunwales. But even as he sprang, Frank had a hand on the throttle and the motor was roaring, the stern digging deep, and the man's clawed hands scraped down the sides of the launch and then along it as we moved out from the side of the Mary. It took only seconds, the body on top of me still thrashing; then an ankle dropped in front of my face, cutting the ship from view. It was a woman's ankle, in sheer nylon, and Alice Muir's voice was crying out, "Hugh! Where are you taking me?"
We untangled ourselves then, sitting up in the bottom of the launch, and Alice, sweeping a strand of hair from her face, sat staring at me. I swung around; Vic was in the bow just past the open-mouthed seaman, scrambling up onto the varnished hatch cover over the engine. Then he turned, his hands shot up, and he caught the tumbling, flashing object — the knife — which Lauffnauer had tossed to him as I turned. The spring clicked instantly under Vic's thumb, and the blade shot out, pointing at me.
For a moment we stared at each other, and I knew what had happened. They'd taken Alice from the lounge, forcing her to go with them, in the moments just before someone had burst in with the news that a destroyer had been signaled. Then they'd run down the ship's ladder behind me, Alice between them probably, forcing her to run, too — and I'd heard her call frantically, "Hugh!" and had pictured her standing at the ship's rail.
I knew what had happened now and understood why, and in a way I couldn't really blame them. But I couldn't go along with it, and I shook my head at Vic. "She's going back to the Mary in the launch," I said. We were some three hundred yards from the sub, heading straight for her; just past Vic's right shoulder I could see Rosa and Moreno staring motionless on deck, and Linc climbing up out of the tower.
"No," Lauffnauer said. "Impossible." Sitting on the stern seat, a hand on the tiller, he shook his head. "We took her from the
ship, and she will stay with us. She knows you; dozens of people saw that. She would talk; she would have to. She would identify you, Hugh, and through you they'd find us."
There was no time for words or argument; I didn't turn again to look, but I knew we must be no more than two hundred and fifty yards from the sub. By suddenly heaving my weight far to one side I might capsize the boat, I thought, but I doubted it; I'd ship water surely, but the launch was a big one, and I couldn't tip it. If I grabbed Alice and jumped— Vic's voice interrupted.
"I'll use the knife, Hugh, I'll have to," he said quietly; then the tip of the blade pricked through my sweater and touched my skin. "Don't make me do it, Hugh," he murmured. "She won't be hurt, but she's got to come along."
And on the other side of the Mary the destroyer was slamming through the water at this instant, full speed. Any least delay now — seconds counted — and the sub could be just barely under, just beginning her dive when the destroyer flashed around the Mary's stern or prow to begin lobbing depth charges. It was an agonizing understanding to accept, but I knew the only thing I could do for the terrified girl who sat staring at me was actually to co-operate, as fast as we could move, in getting her down into the U-19. The launch's stern rose, the propeller reversing; then Moreno's hand slapped onto the prow, and we were stopping, scraping the side of the sub, and "I'm sorry" was all I could say to Alice.
Then we moved fast. "Destroyer!" Vic was shouting. "We've got to dive, dive!" and I was scrambling up over the bow onto the sub, moving well away from the launch; there was no time to be lost in leaving anyone in doubt about my intentions. Then Vic was dragging the trunk over the varnished bow of the launch, handing it up to Moreno; and Frank, a hand on Alice's elbow, was both urging and helping her out of the launch. Rosa put an arm around Alice's shoulder and led her to the conning tower, no one wasting time with questions, and Linc was grabbing a handle of the trunk. Frank shoved the prow of the launch away from the side; then the seaman came to life, scrambling back toward the tiller.
Alice and Rosa were climbing down, and even before they reached the bottom of the ladder I'd grabbed the trunk, yanking it out of Moreno's and Linc's hands and I heaved it over into the tower, jumped in after it, upended it and thrust the bottom into the hatch opening to let it drop down through. But it jammed, and I squatted beside it to force it through. Then I saw that the width of that trunk was a single inch greater than the diameter of the open hatch. Two of the brass-bound corners were wedged in the hole; the other two projected just beyond its rim: there was no possibility of getting it through.
"What's wrong!" Moreno yelled it and I looked up at the four bearded faces staring down at me. But they could see what was wrong, and Moreno grabbed the trunk's upper handle, yanked the trunk out, and then the four of them — two on each side of the trunk, open now — were tugging, their feet sliding on the deck gratings, trying to wrench that trunk apart, to break it into its two halves by brute force. They couldn't do it. It simply would not yield; they only twisted its heavy brass hinges, and that very slightly. With a chisel, with a hammer or even an ax, we could have smashed it apart; but all we had was a knife. Vic was springing it open, and Frank grabbed it from his hands, cursing in German in a steady, vicious monotone. As I climbed out of the tower, he jammed it into the hole he'd made on the inside of the trunk, heaved on the handle — and snapped off the blade. There was a moment when we stood in motionless silence there on the deck of the U-19, looking down at that trunk. Then we glanced up at one another, stared for a moment, and almost in the same instant our heads swung to look off at the Mary, around which the prow of the destroyer might flash any instant.
There was nothing else to do; I knew it, but for one more last instant my mind would not accept it. Then I snatched up the trunk, lifting it high, straight overhead, and with all the strength of my arms I heaved it over the side as far as I could throw it. It struck with a small splash, floated high for a moment, lying open and slowly revolving. Then it lowered, pulled down by the weight of the water seeping into it, its two halves slowly closing in a V. Still revolving, it sank an inch, then another; then suddenly it filled and sank out of sight. "Move!" I yelled, so loudly it strained my throat, and my voice broke and went husky. "We've got to dive, dive!" I croaked, and I swung a leg over into the tower, then simply dropped down the hatch, not even touching the ladder. Then I was on my feet, Alice staring at me, and as I raced through the sub back toward my engines, I heard the clatter of the others swarming down the ladder, then the clang of the hatch slamming shut.
It can take even a modern submarine with a trained and full crew many seconds to dive and more long seconds to get any real depth between her and the surface; and as I ran I was picturing the destroyer, screws flashing at full speed, ripping through the surface of the water on the other side of the Mary. "Dive! Dive!" Moreno was shrieking, and I heard the periscope heaving up from the well. Then I was throwing the clutch, disconnecting the engines from the shaft and connecting the motor. Running back toward my switchboard, I could hear the sub's air-intake valves clamping shut, then the heavy clatter of the hand levers opening the ballast-tank air vents.
There are two ways a submarine can dive. The ballast tanks only partly filled, the submarine still retaining a little buoyancy, it can nevertheless dive by the power of its motors. The screws revolving and the diving planes tilting, the sub forces itself under just as an airplane, tail surfaces and ailerons tilting, forces itself lower with the power of its engines. That's the slow way to dive, the submarine gliding forward as the water creeps up its tower, sinking ever lower for a considerable distance and time. But in a crash dive, the ballast tanks completely flooded as fast as the water will pour in, all buoyancy is destroyed. Even without the motors the submarine will drop below the surface to sink to the bottom if nothing prevents it. Combine the two — use the motors and dive rudders in addition — and you are crash-diving.
Now, grabbing my switch handles and slamming them closed, I was listening for the roar of the air vents from water gushing into the tanks through the open valves at the bottom, driving the air out through the top vents. My motor began turning, almost silently except for a steady, high-pitched whine, and I felt the deck slanting under my feet and heard the tanks filling, but not in the roaring gush I'd expected. I swung to stare into the control room just beside me. Linc was at the rudder wheel, holding it steady, Vic and Frank heaving at the dive-plane wheels. Then Moreno, at the periscope, yelled, "Steady!" and Rosa, standing at the big Kingston levers, heaved them closed as Vic and Frank dropped their hands from the dive-plane wheels. We weren't crash-diving at all; we were moving slowly forward at no more than four knots, the water level outside — I could picture it — creeping slowly up our sides.
"What the devil are you doing?" I shouted at Moreno, but he didn't reply. Palms on the periscope handles, his face pressed into the eyepiece, he stood staring ahead at an angle to port, gradually lifting the periscope as the sub slowly slid under. Then he quickly walked the periscope through a hundred-and-twenty degree arc, stared for a moment and swung back again. He was watching the bow, then the stern of the Mary, alternately, I understood.
Beside him, eyes on the compass reflector, Linc sat at the big rudder wheel holding a steady course straight ahead, Vic and Lauffnauer beside him at the bow and stern dive-plane wheels. Rosa reached out to Alice, who stood, her back to a bulkhead, speechless and terrified, and put an arm around her shoulders.
"There she is, at the stern!" Moreno yelled suddenly, and his periscope steadied at a port angle for a moment. Then he began walking it slowly around, turning gradually toward the stern of the sub. Following his movement I could picture the movement of the destroyer as though I could see it too. "U.S. destroyer," Moreno muttered, and I suddenly understood why we'd dived as we had, and I knew that we'd picked a good captain.
A destroyer can move faster and turn sharper than any other large ship, but still it can't make a right-angle turn either. Moving at high s
peed, flashing around the Mary's stern — perhaps sighting us, perhaps not — it was swinging, deck slanting, rudder hard over, heading toward where she knew we must be. But the arc of its turn was nevertheless wide and was carrying it — as Moreno had understood it would have to — in a tight quarter circle around toward our stern.
Abruptly he housed the periscope; we were a dozen feet under, though the depth gauge beside him was lagging behind; it showed only seven feet. How far ahead toward the Mary we'd moved, I could only guess. "Flood!" Moreno said. Rosa swung away from Alice to slam the big levers over, and now I heard the sea gush into the tanks and the underwater gurgle of the vents. "Bow and stern planes, thirty degrees!" Moreno shouted. We heard the heavy clank and clatter of the diving mechanism, then the deck slanted, sharply this time, and Moreno's head swung to stare at the depth gauge. The destroyer placed now — watching her still in his mind's eye, I knew — Moreno was fighting for depth as we moved silently ahead under the ocean toward the huge sunken keel of the Mary — now no more than two hundred yards ahead.
I didn't know how deep the Mary lay; but I knew it could be forty feet or more. And if we didn't make that depth, if we didn't pass under her, we'd crash into her within two hundred yards and have only a few frenzied chaotic moments left to live then. Yet I knew that Moreno had done the one precisely right thing to do. Beside Rosa, Alice said, "Hugh!" and I turned my eyes from the depth gauge to smile at her and nod reassuringly. It was all I could do for her; the less she knew about what was happening now the better for her. Then I turned to stare at the depth gauge again.