by F. R. Tallis
‘I’ll deal with it.’ The control room mate leaped up and with the assistance of Müller, they endeavored to repair the rupture.
Before calm had been restored a diesel-hand appeared. ‘Herr Kaleun, air valve leaking badly.’
Lorenz looked at Graf. ‘What’s happening? It feels like we’re in the cellar.’ The cellar was the term that they used to describe depths below 250 meters; depths at which the metal casing between the armored sections of the boat would buckle.
Two thin sprays discharged into the atmosphere. The air misted, and halos appeared around the lights. Graf found the source and beckoned Richter. ‘Secure this rivet—quick as you can. If it shoots out it’ll travel faster than a bullet.’
Another shout from astern: ‘Breach in the diesel room.’
Lorenz struck the conning tower ladder with his fist and swore. ‘Shit.’
The pointer of the manometer was quivering slightly. Lorenz leaned closer and, reaching out, tapped the glass with his finger. It was an action that resonated with a distant memory of his grandfather. The old fellow had been in the habit of coaxing a sluggish barometer into life by employing the same technique—a dial mounted on carved wood, a brass rim that had blackened with age—Lorenz could remember the object in minute detail.
The quivering pointer suddenly jumped.
One hundred and fifteen . . .
Yet, the boat clearly wasn’t sinking.
‘Fuck,’ said Graf. ‘The pointer must have been stuck.’
They looked on in horror as their actual depth was revealed.
One hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty meters . . .
The pointer on the dial face moved from the orange arc into the red.
One hundred and eighty meters, one hundred and ninety meters . . .
An eternity seemed to elapse before the pointer finally came to rest at 210 meters—well over twice the depth of the shipyard’s safety guarantee.
Lorenz was surrounded by bloodless faces, waxy death masks floating in space. They were all thinking the same thing: so much water above them, so much weight. One of the men was nervously clawing at his skin, and another had developed a tic. Yet, none of those gathered around the manometer lost control. The veneer of competence and firmness of purpose did not fracture. Vice Admiral Dönitz’s dictum had been drummed into them: the men of a U-boat crew were a ‘community of fate’—their lives were in each other’s hands.
Joint responsibility strengthened their determination, but every commander understood that indoctrination, even when thorough, could not prohibit fear indefinitely. There would always be a breaking point.
‘Prepare to surface,’ said Lorenz.
The watch reassembled beneath the tower. Graf issued instructions to the hydroplane operators, and compressed air was released into the buoyancy tanks. The manometer pointer remained fixed at 210 meters. ‘Come on!’ Lorenz growled. He rapped his knuckle against the glass. Metal moaned and the hull shivered. Every member of the crew was willing the boat to rise. The manometer pointer started to move, so slowly at first that its progress was barely discernible.
One hundred and eighty-five, One hundred and eighty . . .
The men in the control room closed their eyes and sighed with relief, and those among them who believed in a watchful intercessory God offered silent thanks.
Lorenz grinned at Graf.
The chief engineer frowned and said, ‘We’re not there yet, Kaleun.’ His forehead was glistening with perspiration.
‘Ever the optimist,’ Lorenz replied. ‘Take her up to forty-five meters.’ He ordered the helmsman to zigzag at this depth before calling out, ‘Twenty-five.’ Then, Lorenz swung through the fore bulkhead hatchway and crouched outside the sound room. Lehmann was turning his hand wheel this way, then that, and listening intently through his headphones. He was leaning forward, eyes raised, as if he could see through the overhead and all the way to the surface. This looking heavenward might have suggested religious transport, but his gaunt features were lit from below, producing a rather sinister, ghoulish effect.
‘Can you hear anything?’ asked Lorenz.
‘No,’ Lehmann replied, ‘nothing at all.’
‘Good.’ Lorenz returned to the control room through the hatchway and called out, ‘Periscope depth.’ Graf reduced speed to minimize vibrations, and Lorenz sat on the periscope saddle. He unfolded the hand grips, closed his left eye, and pressed the orbit of his right eye against the rubber circlet of the ocular lens. After adjusting the magnification and the angle of the mirror he studied the dark bands of clouds. The sky vanished as the periscope dipped beneath the surface. ‘Depth-keeping, please,’ said Lorenz, mildly irritated. Graf apologized, and a few moments later the top of the periscope cleared the waves once again. Visibility could have been better, but Lorenz was fairly confident that the aircraft had gone. ‘We live to fight another day. Surface!’ Over the hissing of compressed air the crew began conversing normally. ‘Equalize pressure,’ said Graf. ‘Man the bilge pumps.’ The dispersal of tension was the cause of much hysterical laughter. Eventually, the sea could be heard outside and the diesel engines were engaged. Lorenz ascended the conning tower ladder and opened the hatch. Fresh air poured into the boat, dispelling the stink of fear. He could hear Juhl coming up behind him, singing ‘Embrasse-moi.’
When the boat was back on course, and all the routine procedures restored, Lorenz summoned Graf: ‘Well? What are we going to do about that manometer?’
‘I’ll check it, Kaleun,’ said the chief engineer.
‘Yes,’ said Lorenz, ‘I think you’d better.’
Later, Lorenz retired to his nook. The entry he made in his war diary was telegraphic and devoid of drama: ‘15.35 Attacked by aircraft. Four depth charges. Minor damage.’ He lay back on the mattress and remembered the lights going out in the control room, the hand landing heavily on his shoulder. Another sensation had registered at the time, but since then he’d been far too distracted to think about it. Now he closed his eyes and recreated the moment, acknowledging a host of memories that had hitherto been competing for attention among the marginalia of consciousness. The hand had been cold. He had felt frozen tendrils taking root in his flesh and curling around his bones, and the coldness had intensified as the long fingers tensed.
The peculiarity of the memory made him doubt its fidelity. It was common knowledge that the brain was an unreliable record-keeper in extreme situations. Everything could become sharp and hard-edged or distant and dreamlike. He pieced together a reassuring scenario: in the darkness one of the crew had mistakenly laid a hand on his shoulder, and the coldness of Lorenz’s own fear had become localized at the point of contact. Realizing his mistake, the embarrassed crewman, most probably Krausse, had slipped away before the emergency lights had come on. Yes, Lorenz thought. He snapped the war diary shut. That’s it. That’s what must have happened. Yet he wasn’t wholly persuaded, and a feeling of unease persisted.
THE SWELL WAS HIGH AND the boat rolled. Two books tumbled onto the rubber matting and the chart chest slipped a few inches. Through the circle of the open hatch it was possible to see black clouds. Howling squalls were accompanied by a rattling assault of hailstones. Lorenz lurched down the gangway to the officers’ mess where he found Falk and Graf. Falk was serving potato soup from a tureen suspended above the table. It was impossible to ladle the thin gruel into the bowls without spilling any. The grey liquid collected in wide pools, and when the boat heeled it flowed under the rails and slopped onto the officers’ laps. None of them reacted.
‘So,’ Lorenz addressed Graf. ‘Is the manometer working?’
‘Yes, Kaleun.’ Graf replied. ‘It’s fine.’
‘What do you mean, fine?’ Lorenz protested. By the time the soup spoon had reached his mouth it was already empty.
‘I’ve checked everything.’
‘And . . . ?’
‘It’s in perfect working order.’
‘Then why did it malfunction?’
>
‘I don’t know, Kaleun—just one of those things.’
‘One of those things,’ Lorenz repeated, shaking his head. The steward appeared and tried to wipe the table with a rag. ‘Not now, Keller.’ The steward retreated. Above their heads, the tureen swung away from the hull and more potato soup splashed onto their trousers.
‘I’ve been thinking about our guests,’ said Falk.
‘Really?’ said Lorenz, finally transferring some soup from the bowl to his mouth.
‘Have you had a chance to look through the old man’s notebook?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did you find anything of interest, apart from the runes, I mean?’
‘That’s all there is—runes. Perhaps those rumors about death rays and the big bomb are all wrong. Perhaps the SS intend to win this war using magic.’
More soup rained down on the table. Graf swore at the tureen and then said, ‘Maybe he put a curse on the manometer.’
It was a flippant remark, but it caused discomfort rather than amusement.
‘We were . . . unlucky,’ said Falk, eager to fill the uncomfortable silence. ‘That’s all. Like you said—one of those things.’
‘Yes,’ Graf’s head moved up and down emphatically, ‘one of those things.’
When Lorenz went back to his nook he opened his drawer. He reached in for the bottle of rum but was startled by an unanticipated sensation. His fingers closed around the stone Grimstad had been holding when the old man was having his fit. It was definitely warm. Lorenz rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. He wasn’t mistaken—the stone was very warm—almost hot.
THE BBC GERMAN-LANGUAGE BROADCAST—RELAYED OVER the public-address system—began with a familiar call: ‘Attention! Attention! This is Viktor Ferdinand, the chief, speaking.’ The men responded with a communal cheer. Viktor Ferdinand purported to be a high-ranking, old guard ‘brown shirt,’ but nobody believed that. It was assumed that he was a bilingual Englishman who spoke extremely good German. He delivered his lines with the panache of a skilled actor. Ferdinand began by vilifying the upper echelons of the Party, and then pouring scorn over certain members of the SS. He accused them of dandyism, effeminacy, and cowardice. Some fictitious military blunders were reported, and Göring was accused of rank incompetence. Curiously, Ferdinand never ridiculed the Führer. Given the Messianic psychology of the German people, or at least their perceived Messianic psychology, the British may have thought that to criticize a demigod was unwise. Everyone was eagerly anticipating the final part of the program, which was typically dedicated to a salacious exposés. Some of the crew had started to laugh merely thinking about what was to come.
‘So,’ said Ferdinand, delaying his revelation, toying with his audience. ‘So . . . let us now turn our attention to the mayor of Bremen, a dear friend of Himmler and a great supporter of the Party, a man who has taken a keen interest in youth projects and has donated a considerable sum of money to the war widows’ foundation. What sort of a man is he, this fine, upstanding pillar of the community, this distinguished humanitarian and champion of high culture: this servant of the people, frequently photographed with school children, urging them, like a kind uncle, to aspire to the elevated ideals that he holds so dear—purity, duty, and valor? Ah yes, purity, purity.’ It was easy to imagine an accompanying sneer. ‘Allow me to enlighten you.’ There was another dramatic pause. ‘For many years now the mayor has been a problematic figure for his Party associates on account of his irregular appetites. Be that as it may, his political sponsors have been unstinting in their efforts to conceal his disgraceful predilections. But there is only so much you can do for a man like the mayor of Bremen, a man who has become so inflated with his own self-importance that he no longer feels obliged to exercise discretion. Our sources have revealed that only last week, the good mayor presided over an orgy in the Town Hall, in which he and his guests were excited by the obscene spectacle of five Polish fisherwomen defecating.’
Every compartment in the boat filled with laughter and a hail of swiftly interjected quips.
‘Not content with such gross depravity,’ Ferdinand’s delivery was portentous, ‘the mayor then invited several of his female guests to urinate over his manhood, and he subsequently demonstrated that his taste for expensive French wines is complemented by a weakness for an altogether less refined vintage.’
Again the crew was quick to respond. Sounds just like the Casino Bar—Perhaps we should invite him—But only if he promises to bring those Poles.
Before long the crew was laughing so much that the broadcast could no longer be heard. Only occasional words—‘degeneracy’, ‘baseness’, ‘hypocrisy’—floated above the shrieks and guffaws. Sailors were wiping away tears, slapping thighs, and falling out of bunks. In due course, Ferdinand made his final appeal. ‘Comrades, don’t let this go on! Report it to Minister Dr. Lammers in Berlin. He will be most interested to hear from you!’
Berger climbed through the bulkhead hatchway and halted outside the radio room where Lorenz was seated. ‘That was a good one, wasn’t it?’ His cheeks were glowing.
‘One of the best,’ said Ziegler.
‘Where does he broadcast from?’ asked Berger.
‘We’re supposed to believe that he operates a mobile transmitter on the European mainland,’ Ziegler replied.
‘But where is he really?’
‘The wireless monitoring service has plotted the source of the signal, and he is definitely in London.’
Lorenz smiled at the young seaman. ‘Ever been to London, Berger?’
‘No, Herr Kaleun.’
‘A very fine city: I’m particularly fond of the view from Greenwich.’
‘Perhaps I’ll visit London after we’ve won.’
Lorenz sighed with satisfaction. The chief had done it again. BBC propaganda was so prodigiously good for morale.
A RADIO MESSAGE FROM THE U-boat command center warned of several British destroyers in the vicinity. Lorenz gave the order to submerge, and U-330 began a silent run at forty meters—speed one and a half knots—just sufficient to maintain depth. The subdued atmosphere in the control room was intensified by the red glow of the dark-adaption light. Lorenz and Müller were leaning over the chart table, conversing in low tones, when Hoffmann interrupted them. ‘Excuse me. Kaleun? The sound man wants a word.’
Lorenz nodded and climbed through the fore bulkhead hatchway. Thomas, the younger hydrophone operator, was turning the hand wheel and looking at the large dial located above it. The pointer swept from 220 degrees to 260 degrees, stopped for a moment, then rose until it was vertical. When Thomas saw the commander he said, ‘I’ve been picking up something very odd, Herr Kaleun. I’ve never heard anything like it before.’
‘Odd?’
‘Yes. And I’ve been wondering whether it’s some kind of long-distance detection system. There’s whistling and a sort of squeaking noise.’ Thomas raised a hand and brought his fingers together. ‘Like when you squeeze a rubber toy. It’s been intermittent. There’s nothing there right now.’ Thomas offered Lorenz a pair of auxiliary headphones. The captain took off his white cap, wrapped the metal arch around the crown of his head, and pressed the circular pads against his ears. Thomas began searching for the sounds again. His hearing must have been very acute because Lorenz saw the hydrophone operator’s expression change from neutrality to excitement a few moments before he, Lorenz, detected the first faint whistle. ‘There!’ said Thomas. He continued to turn the hand wheel backward and forward, and as the range of these movements narrowed, the volume of the whistling increased.
Lorenz grinned. ‘No, Thomas. That’s not some fiendishly clever Tommy invention. We’re listening to dolphins.’ The commander was captivated by the eerie charm of the sounds: clicks, whickering, peeps, and a low churr that accelerated and rose beyond the upper limit of human audition. Occasionally there were loud thuds as the dolphins bumped against the hull. Lorenz imagined the pod weaving through the water, tracing elegant,
interlocking ellipses; playful, carefree, curious, circling their discovery. A stark contrast: the natural world, innocent and joyful, and the boat, malevolent and deadly. ‘Yes,’ Lorenz added while removing the headphones, ‘Definitely dolphins.’ He was about to leave when he noticed Thomas was frowning. ‘What?’
‘It’s just . . .’ The youth seemed about to raise some objection but changed his mind. ‘Thank you, Kaleun.’
The hydrophone operator lacked experience, and Lorenz supposed that Thomas’s natural diffidence might make him overly reticent: he might feel foolish for having mistaken dolphins for a detection system and consequently fail to report something significant. Lorenz rested his palms on both sides of the doorway and leaned forward into the sound room. ‘What’s bothering you, Thomas?’
An inner struggle was taking place, and it was only after a lengthy pause that the youth finally mumbled, ‘I thought I heard words.’
‘Words?’
‘Yes, English words.’
‘Well, that’s not possible, is it? The microphones wouldn’t have picked up a radio signal.’
‘Exactly.’ Thomas looked relieved, as though he was pleased that Lorenz had been so blunt. ‘Sometimes, when you’re concentrating hard, you start to hear things.’
‘Maybe you need a rest. Perhaps we should get Lehmann to take over?’
‘No,’ said Thomas defensively, ‘I’ll finish my watch, sir.’ His response was curt, clipped. Realizing that he had been too abrupt, he offered Lorenz a placatory smile. ‘Sorry.’
Lorenz dismissed the apology with a benign hand wave. ‘Thomas?’
‘Kaleun?’
‘Do you speak English?’
‘A little.’
‘So, what did you hear?’
‘I really can’t say, sir.’
Lorenz wasn’t sure whether Thomas was being coy because he had been unable to translate the English or because he felt foolish saying aloud words that he must have imagined. The youth’s expression had become pained. Lorenz felt a strong urge to clarify Thomas’s meaning, to resolve the ambiguity, but he was forced to query his own doubtful motivation. ‘All right,’ said Lorenz, withdrawing. ‘Carry on.’ He ducked, stepped back through the bulkhead hatchway, and surveyed the control room: ladder, periscope, torpedo-tube indicators, engine telegraph, the large white cylindrical air compressor. All was calm, the crew focused, yet he felt mildly unsettled, as if he had just walked through a spider’s web in the dark.