by James Thayer
The three commandos had been cysts on the commander's ship, and now they were gone. With them would go the tension and demoralizing effect they had on his crew. The commander doubted the three would ever return to German soil. At least, he had no orders to pick them up. Just as well. It was an order he could have easily misplaced or misinterpreted.
"Pass up the raft," shouted von Stihl from the bridge.
Two seamen who had lugged the deflated raft from the bow compartment hoisted it above their heads and shoved it through the conning-tower hatch, where it was passed to Graf, who one-handed it through the hatch.
"Now the compressor hose."
Up went the long rubber hose. Bracing himself against the bridge railing to prevent slipping on the bridge's treacherous plate metal, Graf unwrapped the raft from its canvas housing and shook out the folds. He attached the nozzle to the raft's nipple.
"Air," he shouted.
The hose stiffened and the raft began to inflate. Willi Lange wrapped his arms around one end of the raft to prevent it from being carried off by the wind.
"Report from the bridge," yelled the chief, relaying the commander's request.
"All clear, Chief."
The three spotters had not even glanced at the commandos. They peered into the darkness, looking for any suspicious dot or light. Then one yelled down the hatch, "Lighthouse at thirty degrees, Chief. Light's out."
The chief relayed the spotting to the commander, who was using the magnification of the sky periscope to survey the shore and had already found Owls Head Lighthouse.
After the raft was inflated, Graf and Lange held it over the bridge railing, which protected the raft from the gale. The heavy waterproof packs strapped to their backs and the wet suits made their movements awkward. Both had oilcloth bundles tied to their stomachs, the Schmeissers.
"Hand up the rope ladder," ordered von Stihl.
He deftly attached the ladder to the bridge with metal clasps and threw it overboard. The weighted end of the ladder quickly sunk alongside the sub's hull.
"Now the raft ropes."
Up came two lengths, which were quickly attached to each end of the raft. Lange and Graf released the raft and lowered it to the water. It landed upright and bobbed violently alongside U-513.
Two seamen dressed for the weather emerged from the hatch to handle the lines to the raft. Von Stihl climbed over the bridge railing and began the descent. The hull was slippery and could not be trusted for rappelling. He cautiously shoved each foot into the rope crosspieces before lowering himself another step. The wind and spray blinded him as he neared the waterline. He kicked out with one leg and hooked the raft gunwales with his foot, and then sank to his knees on the inflated tubes and steadied the rope ladder for Lange.
"Need some help, Schwachheit?" Graf yelled jeeringly over the wind.
Lange climbed over the rail without answering or looking at Graf. He arched his back forward so the package strapped to his stomach would not bang against the railing as his feet found the ladder. Von Stihl held the rope ladder slightly away from the hull, making Lange's task of placing his feet on the rope rungs easier. The swells rose and fell, lifting and lowering the raft. Lange released his grip on the ladder, but he had misjudged the swells, and he dropped six feet into the raft. One leg caught the gunwales, and he pitched wildly forward into the bottom of the raft. He heard Graf's short laugh above him.
The big German lifted a leg over the bridge railing, mockingly saluted the sailors holding the line, and grabbed the ladder. He did not use his feet, but descended the ladder hand over hand and lighted easily on the raft. Immediately, a package of provisions was lowered on a third line. Strapped to the package were two short oars. Graf unleashed them and used one to steady the raft. Von Stihl unhooked the fore and aft lines, and they were quickly withdrawn. He kicked off from the sub.
"Let's go," he commanded. They knew the routine without further orders. They had one minute to clear the submarine before it dived. If the raft was too near, it would be sucked under.
The colonel and Graf sat side by side to man the oars. As they pulled in time, the lookouts disappeared from the bridge, and von Stihl heard the dull clang of the hatch being closed. The submarine appeared and disappeared as the raft bobbed in the heavy sea.
Through the spray, the commandos saw the U-boat tilt slightly, pause, and slip beneath the surface. Not a bubble or ripple marked its departure, and not a sound reached them. They were alone in the Atlantic gale.
Von Stihl and Graf pulled against the sea. Lange alternately searched the shoreline and bailed with a half-liter tin. Sea spray steadily blew into the raft. Bailing was as exhausting as rowing. The shore was a black smudge on the horizon, visible only when the raft crested a swell. They pulled and bailed, pulled and bailed, and the smudge seemed to draw no closer.
"Christ," Graf shouted into the wind, "if I had wanted to row, I would have joined the Italian Navy." He laughed merrily, oblivious of the freezing spray.
Lange's dark eyes riveted to the shore each time the boat rose. It would be his job to track down any unfortunate soul walking on the beach who Lange would assume saw the raft. Not that their craft or its crew would be easily spotted. The raft had been colored black to blend with the night. The three stormtroopers were wearing black rubber diving suits, both for camouflage and for warmth. Warmth, thought von Stihl, what a laugh.
Tests by the German Navy showed that such a raft and crew were almost invisible at night one hundred yards away. And the foul weather ensured their invisibility. Only when they were almost to shore, when the black raft contrasted with white surf, would they be in danger of being spotted. But the chances anyone was braving the inclement November weather for a walk along the beach were remote. Their landing point, three hundred yards north of Dodge Point, on the head, was not populated, so no one would be inconveniently looking out a window at the surf.
They rowed and bailed, rowed and bailed. Trying to exclude the cold, von Stihl concentrated on the mechanical back-and-forth motion. His pumping arms began a satisfying burn as the muscles worked to and fro. The scab covering the infected sore on his tailbone, which had rubbed raw the first day of training and had not healed, was already torn off by the raft seat. The wet suit ground saltwater into the sore with each stroke.
Willi Lange bailed frantically but was losing. As they neared shore, the swells began to crest and pour white water into the raft's stern. Lange scooped water like an automaton, and his arms were on fire. It was little solace that the inflated raft would not sink even if filled with water to the top of the gunwales. No forward progress would be made. If they were to make it to land, Lange had to bail out more water than swept in. The water was gaining, and the exhausted Lange pushed back the pain and redoubled his efforts.
Minute after freezing minute passed. Von Stihl fought the desperate need to let his body crank back and forth on its own volition so he could turn his mind off and shut out the cold and the gnawing ache in his arms, which seemingly evolved from the pleasant burn hours ago. At every stroke, his biceps convulsed with effort, and pain shot up his arms and into his shoulders. The training is never sufficient. The thought pleased him, and he focused on it. Never sufficient. Stroke, forward. Never sufficient. Stroke, forward.
"Fifty meters to shore," Willi Lange yelled through a cold blast of spray. He pointed a new tack designed to bring the raft to shore at a ninety-degree angle to the crashing waves. Von Stihl lifted his oar out of the water while Graf took two extra strokes to turn the raft. Von Stihl's back muscles immediately cramped, and he almost shouted with pain as he dipped his oars and pulled again.
The swells gained momentum and size as they approached the beach. Now the wave crests were not frothing cold nuisances blown over by the wind, but were a force unto themselves. Tons of water spilled off the crests as the undertow from the beach topped the swells. The colonel and Graf stroked with renewed urgency as the raft was caught by the foaming surf. Bailing was useless now. Willi
Lange threw away his tin bailer and grasped the gunwale straps with both hands. Despite his fear, his eyes did not stop scanning the beach. He gripped fiercely as a crest of turbulent white water spilled over his shoulders and into the raft, where it rushed over the sodden rowers. The craft dived into the trough of the wave and rushed up the backside of the next watery giant. Neither von Stihl nor Graf lost a stroke as they fought to keep the raft facing the shore. Another wave and another ton of seawater boiled into the raft. The noise was deafening. Lange glanced at the pack tied tightly around his stomach and prayed that the saltwater had not breached the oilskin and soaked its contents.
"Shore's twenty meters," Lange yelled.
Now the waves were monsters lifting the raft into the air and dropping it to the troughs in stomach-wrenching descents. Lange stood precariously in the back of the raft and spotted the wave behind him that they would ride to shore. The most dangerous seconds of their three-thousand-mile journey were at hand.
The giant wave, their wave, crested and began its onslaught. Unlike others before it, their wave was propelled by human anger and purpose, wanting to terrify, to humble, and finally to crush its trespassers. It thundered to them.
"Now. Stroke," shrieked Lange.
The oars bit into the water as the immense wave lifted the raft up its crest. The seething crest hovered in the black sky above them and then violently cascaded down. Whirling water smothered the raft.
Where there had been air was now bubbling, freezing, swirling water. The oar was ripped from von Stihl's grasp. He inhaled saltwater and gagged and convulsed and swallowed more water. He was vaguely aware of being thrown upside down, and then something heavy smashed into his jaw. He rolled over and over in the turbulence. Flailing his arms against the onrush had no effect. In mid-somersault, the colonel slammed into the abrasive ocean floor and felt skin on the back of his hand scrape away. Over and over he was flung. Where's the surface? Where's the shore? The questions were drowned in the overpowering, frothing tumult.
Water dropped away, and von Stihl's butt hit the pebbly beach. He blinked burning grains of sand from his eyes and saw the water rush back to the sea, preparing for the next assault. He rolled to his hands and knees and crawled up the beach just as the next wave lapped his legs, trying to pull him back to sea.
Over the roar of the waves, von Stihl heard a hacking cough. Graf was thirty yards north, bent on all fours, retching saltwater. The colonel weakly stood and looked for Lange. He saw nothing but driftwood and boulders and crashing water. He waded into the surf and felt the sand under his feet being pulled to sea by the undertow. Von Stihl looked frantically. The mission required three men. He had to find Lange. The colonel waded to his knees and stupidly tried to part the water with his hands.
Another wave swamped the shore, and a submerged body plowed into von Stihl's legs and dropped him to his knees. He plunged his hands about until he grabbed Lange's pack. Von Stihl backpedaled to firmer ground and lifted Lange above the water. The diminutive, waterlogged German spasmodically coughed and inhaled great quaffs of air. Only after a dozen breaths did Lange open his eyes and try to firm his rubbery legs. Von Stihl put an arm around Lange's waist and led him to shore.
Hans Graf had climbed onto a boulder and lay on his pack propped by his elbows. He was spitting water, and his chest rose and fell like a furnace bellows. Von Stihl helped Lange onto the rock and lowered him near Graf. The colonel sat heavily and waited for his head to stop spinning.
"And if I had wanted to swim, I would've joined the French Navy," said Graf. His face assumed its evil leer. "Nice job guiding us to shore, Schwachheit. Without you, I probably would have gotten wet."
"That's enough, Graf. From this moment we speak English. No German. Understood?" asked von Stihl in accent-free Midwestern American English.
"Aye, aye, Skipper. Would ye have me talkin' with me Irish brogue," Graf said in a thick Emerald Isle accent, "or like a bloody cockney sailor 'ome after two months a' sea?" The latter sounded as if Graf had been born within earshot of Big Bend. Graf's ability at shading his perfect English into a variety of accents was duly noted in his SS file, which von Stihl had studied.
"American, Graf, just American."
"Would yew all want me ta be from the sovereign South?" he drawled in Piedmont North Carolinian, and continued in Iowan, "or from the corn belt up north?"
"Corn belt, Herr Obersturmführer."
"Aw, shucks."
Von Stihl rose to his feet, saw the raft bouncing in the surf fifty feet north. "Graf, get the raft and deflate it. Lange, dig a hole somewhere in those woods."
Von Stihl slipped off his pack, broke the watertight seal, and produced a map of the Owls Head and Rockford area. Not that he really needed it. He had committed the map to memory a month before. He knew precisely where they had landed—midway between the lighthouse and Dodge Point on the tip of the head. A rough dirt road just up the hill would lead them to the tiny shoreline village of Owls Head, a little over a half-mile away. Four miles beyond was Rockland and the rail spur.
Von Stihl walked into the woods toward the sound of Lange's scraping shovel. Tiers of overhead branches filtered out the night's dim light. He moved slowly, with his hands extended to ward off tree trunks, and carefully lifted his feet to avoid vines and roots. He caught only glimpses of shadows in the black forest.
Childhood graveyard tales shivered through von Stihl as he approached the glade where Lange was hacking at the ground like a fiend. Thin gray trickles of night light broke through the forest and bounced off Lange's shimmering wet suit.
"That's deep enough. Let's change," said von Stihl as he peeled off the wet suit. He pulled a small cotton towel from the backpack and dried himself until the towel was saturated.
Hans Graf entered the glade and dropped the deflated raft into the hole. He carried his SS Blood and Honor dagger in his huge hand. He wordlessly joined the others and stripped off his wet suit.
From von Stihl's pack came an American-made wool shirt, which was old and patched on the elbows. Two buttons were missing and the collar was frayed. Next came underwear and a dirty pair of pants with a worn leather belt already in the loops. He wiped mud off his feet and donned a pair of argyle socks and scuffed brown shoes. Last came a black winter coat that suffered a rip in the right forearm. Lange and Graf dressed in equally disheveled clothes.
After they dumped their wet suits and empty packs into the hole, Lange shoveled dirt into it until it was level with the surrounding ground. He gathered several dead branches from the edge of the glade and covered the fresh dirt. He deliberately wiped his muddy hands on the seat of his pants.
"Well," said von Stihl as he led them into the woods, "we look sufficiently disreputable."
"I feel grimy," Graf jokingly complained. "If my Standartenführer saw me now, I'd be sent to Stalingrad on the first train."
Without slowing, von Stihl said, "Colonel, not Standartenführer, Graf. Remember, if anyone overhears a single German word, we could be detected."
"Of course. Of course. Lange, I suggested to the colonel that we should use your regulation Wehrmacht uniforms for our American disguises. They're just as filthy and ragged as these clothes, don't you think?"
Graf laughed loudly. Lange said nothing as he brought up the rear of their single-file procession. I'm going to have to do something to get that idiot Graf off Lange, thought von Stihl.
They stepped from the woods across a small ditch onto the dirt road and followed the road south.
"What time is it, Lange?" the colonel asked.
"Five A.M., sir."
"We've got about four and a half miles to Rockland. The camp is on the railway spur just east of town. Let's pick up the pace. We want to get there before sunrise."
After a quarter of a mile the road was paved. The walk was easy and warming. Only four times in the hour did they jump into the woods on the side of the road as a car or truck noisily sped past. As they neared Rockland, they passed small homes lining t
he roadway. Lights shone through most windows even at this early hour, the mark of a fishing village. The wind quieted as dawn approached. A slow fog rolled onto the highway from the sea, giving the streetlights ahead a blurred halo.
The trio reached Thomaston Street and turned southeast for several blocks. They crossed vacant lots and several acres of forests, skirting Rockland until they came to the Maine Central railway line. They walked east along the tracks away from town.
Several minutes later, through the first light of false dawn, von Stihl saw the distant glow of several small fires in a field near the tracks. It was the camp.
The strains of a bawdy drinking tune sung by a husky, deep voice drifted to them through the fog. " 'Oh, Mary was my brother's wife. I loved her nearly all my life . . .' "
The song stopped, and they heard the clinking of a tin coffeecup being tapped against a rock.
" 'And Mary and me had lots of fun, 'specially when my brother was gone . . .' "
The startled singer looked up and saw the three men standing over him. His fear quickly dissipated when he saw they were his kind—men, as he liked to say, similarly situated in life.
"Ah, welcome to the Road Boy's camp, gentlemen," said the hobo. "Won't you join me in the last of the morning's coffee?"