The Passenger

by F. R. Tallis

  ‘Do you believe all this? Powers, magic . . . spells.’

  Pullman closed his notebook. ‘I do not think a man of vision like Reichsführer Himmler would concern himself with such things without good reason.’

  ‘I’m not asking about Reichsführer Himmler, I’m asking you.’

  ‘We should use all the powers at our disposal to further our cause.’

  ‘But when you talk of the channeling of malice, spite, hatred—what do you mean?’

  ‘The mental direction of destructive power.’

  ‘Yes, but how would that actually work?’

  ‘It was once believed that spirit agents could be harnessed and commanded to do one’s bidding. They might be bound, and forced to perform a service.’

  Lorenz recalled Grimstad waking from his trance, the triangle he had traced in the air with one hand while clutching the merkstave in the other. Did he know that Sutherland was carrying a gun and how the British commander intended to use it?

  ‘And you really believe that is possible?’

  ‘I believe that the universe is large enough to accommodate many secrets, Herr Kaleun.’

  Had Grimstad trapped Sutherland’s spirit on the boat? Released him from corporeal limitations and set him on the crew like a hunting dog? The fetters will burst and the wolf run free, much do I know and more can see. The SS were obsessed with the occult. Himmler and his friends sat in their storybook castle at Wewelsburg, presiding over ceremonies in which muscular blond-haired youths processed around sacred fires and invoked Teutonic deities. Of course the SS would be interested in a man like Grimstad. He knew things—that’s what Friedrich had said—valuable things. Lorenz walked away from Pullman without acknowledging his final, creedal affirmation.

  THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED WAS warmer, and at midday one of the fissures in the ice field had widened and reached the rear of the boat. By late afternoon the surface of the sea to the south was full of separated floes with uneven edges. The crew came onto the deck in large numbers with hammers and whatever tools they could use to smash the thick, glassy mantle. When the underlying metal was exposed they rushed back into the boat and assembled at their diving stations.

  Lorenz gave the order to flood, and to everybody’s amazement the vents opened. There were a number of cracking sounds as the bow broke free from the melting crust; the manometer began to move, and the motors started up. The boat was a little unstable but with some skilful trimming it soon leveled out at forty meters.

  Four hours later they surfaced, completely free of ice, and the radio started to work again. Brandt sent a message to headquarters explaining that they had lost contact because of solar activity, and that they had been trapped in pack ice. Headquarters replied with an officer’s signal that Juhl was obliged to pass on to Lorenz: ‘Commander only’. When Lorenz unscrambled the brief communication he couldn’t stop himself from swearing out aloud. It said: ABORT SPECIAL MISSION. Soon after, a standard message was picked up containing new coordinates—thankfully well below the 70th parallel.

  ‘Well,’ Lorenz said to Graf. ‘That was an interesting excursion.’

  ‘Yes,’ Graf replied. ‘A truly inspired deployment. I wonder how things would have turned out if we hadn’t got stuck? What they had in store for us?’

  ‘Who can say? But I’m prepared to guess that, whatever it might have been, our safety wasn’t very high on their list of considerations.’

  Lorenz wandered through the compartments, talking to the men and making sure that everything was running smoothly. He found Falk in the torpedo room.

  ‘All good?’ asked Lorenz.

  ‘All good, sir.’ Falk replied.

  Pullman appeared and raised his camera. ‘Herr Kaleun?’

  There were some flashes, and Lorenz said irritably, ‘Not now!’

  The photographer apologized and withdrew.

  Lorenz rose early the following day. He went to the bridge to see dawn breaking. Pink-and-lemon bands appeared above the eastern horizon. It was a welcome return to normality. After the mineral glow of the Northern Lights, the rising sun, even when dulled by cloud, seemed humane and benevolent. The leeward ocean was dark grey and divided by wavering belts of silver, and although the wind was freezing it was not vindictive.

  WAR DIARY

  12.00Day’s run: 139 nm on the surface, 0 nm submerged. Moderate swell, showers, variable visibility. Wind veering gradually to starboard.

  12.38–

  13.22Test dive. Minor manometer problems.

  14.30Mast emerges from squall bearing 50° true, quite prominent on the horizon. It is no longer safe to proceed on surface. We decide to attack without delay and dive. Periscope useless because of strong swell. Lose sight of enemy but hydrophone operator reports propeller noises at ship’s bearing 180°. Also Asdic-type pulses described as sounding like ‘drops of water falling onto a hotplate.’ We assume a course of 50° and at 14.55 reestablish visual contact, inclination 0°. The approach of the vessel in our wake and the fact that the inclination of 0° remains constant suggests that were we were discovered on the surface by their hydrophones and that they are now attempting to establish an underwater fix. We withdraw at 140° to create some distance on her surface beam and then change course to a parallel 230°. Extremely difficult to keep the boat steady in the heavy swells but in the end able to identify the vessel’s principal features: a cargo steamer with passenger decks. Two 10.5 cm forecastle guns. Forward of the bridge on both port and starboard sides there is what appears to be a platform on which anti-aircraft guns are mounted. It is not possible to determine the number of aft guns. The ship has camouflage painting. I believe it is an auxiliary naval vessel stationed here to perform combined roles of armed merchant cruiser, U-boat hunter, and weather-reporting vessel.

  15.10Change to an attack course of 320°. Asdic-type pulses have ceased.

  15.16We fire a spread of three torpedoes from a range of 800m. Strong, erratic swell, less cloud. The periscope dips beneath the surface. After 50 seconds we hear two detonations. When the periscope reemerges only the stern of the steamer can be seen. The boat dips below the surface again. Two powerful detonations separated by 30 seconds. The first is probably the boiler (after which can be heard the sound of collapsing bulkheads). The second is very likely the armed depth charges. Severe turbulence. Temporary loss of control; however the trim is soon restored. Through periscope no sign of the steamer nor any traces on the water.

  16.00We surface close to where the ship went down. Three men have managed to escape in a small rubber dinghy. The rest are struggling for their lives. There is virtually no wreckage to cling to.

  16.10Strong swell, cloud. I scoff at the raging gales, Scorn the fury of the flood . . .

  6.30We haul away to carry out patrol sweeps.

  21.05Calm sea. Moon, bright night, very good visibility. We have returned to the location of the sinking. A massive oil slick extends for several miles. We come across two rubber dinghies tied together. Inside are eight survivors. Two white men. The others are black. Americans. They are all wearing overalls with built in life-jackets. Some wear helmets (members of the gun crew?). We attempt to carry out an interrogation but it is hopeless. They all try to answer at the same time or shout each other down. Their ship was called the Arapo—Arapaho—or something similar. When asked about tonnage their answers range from 3,000 to 7,000 grt.

  22.05Again we haul away.

  22.20Aircraft with searchlights flying low over sea. Alarm!

  23.10Hydrophone contact at bearing 170° true and then another at 200°. Silent speed.

  23.15Hydroplane making loud grating noise which is remedied by lubrication.

  23.35Contact lost.

  23.40So thunder down the mountainside

  23.50And rage at me, you storms

  23.58So that rock shatters on rock!

  00.00I am a lost man.

  Siegfried Lorenz

  Storm clouds gathered in clumps around the horizon; they bubbled and climbed
until it seemed that the ocean was hemmed in by huge mountains. Rutted, lumpy peaks were rising and expanding. The upper circle of the sky, still grey and luminous, shrank until its disappearance plunged the world into darkness. Seismic rumblings promised formidable violence, lightning flowed into the sea, and the wind whipped up great spirals of foam that spun in the air until they were torn apart by their own wild energies. Soon the boat was laboring to ascend twenty-meter waves and the lookouts were being battered to the point of insensibility.

  Lorenz sealed the hatch, dropped into the control room, and did not let go of the ladder. The boat heeled, and he heard crashes and moans and the smack and splash of vomit. A metal bucket rolled out from behind the master gyrocompass. Müller, Schulze, Keller, and Arnold, who had preceded him, were lying on the matting in their oilskins. They had all been thrown off their feet. Water sloshed in the bilges as everything tilted to the left. ‘That’s it!’ Lorenz shouted at Graf. ‘Enough! Take us to forty meters—sixty if necessary. Flood the tanks!’

  The customary orders and confirmations followed.

  ‘Clear air-release vents.’

  ‘Clear air-release vents.’

  Solemn voices and repetition imbued the procedure with a liturgical quality.

  ‘Forward plane hard down.’

  ‘Forward plane hard down.’

  The pounding and roaring receded and the boat leveled off.

  ‘Forty meters,’ said Graf. Everyone stood still, gauging the boat’s stability. There was no rolling or lurching. ‘That should do it.’

  ‘Saint Nicholas preserve us,’ muttered Müller. He removed his sou’wester and raked back his soaking hair. ‘That was hell.’

  Two hours later most of the exhausted crew were in their bunks.

  Lorenz slipped beneath his damp, mold-covered blanket and closed his eyes. He pictured U-330 sailing over submerged summits and valleys; the seabed strewn with rotting galleons and broken hulks; a creature with heavy claws scuttling into a crevice; fish disturbed by the sound of the boat’s rotating screws. Most of the men had fallen asleep and would be dreaming. Where were they, Lorenz wondered? Where had they gone? Kruger would be enjoying the expert ministrations of a whore in the Casino Bar, Berger would be whispering endearments into the ear of his sweetheart, Müller would be walking in the woods with his wife (a carpet of dried pine needles underfoot, the air fragrant with resin), and Pullman would be attending a function at the Chancellery.

  The boat was not only carrying men through the deep, but also their dreams.

  Lorenz turned on his side and opened his eyes. He was facing one of the wooden panels, and even though the lights were dim something caught his attention. He sensed its significance before his brain had fully comprehended what he was looking at. Someone had scratched the letters L and S into the varnish. Inevitably the name Lawrence Sutherland sprang to mind. The scoring was so superficial the signatory might have employed the point of a pin to leave his mark. Lorenz traced over the L and the S with the tip of his finger. He hadn’t thought about it before, but his initials and Sutherland’s shared the same two letters. The fact that they were reversed had uncomfortable resonances—reflections, mirrors, alter egos. He remembered Faustine’s bedroom, the pile of creased paperback books on the sill, Fantômas, Arsène Lupin, Sherlock Holmes, and The Double. Lorenz could hear the movement of blood in his ears, the acceleration of his heart. A shred of fear fluttered through his soul.

  He tried to persuade himself that the similarity between the scratches and the letters of the alphabet was accidental, but the L was so carefully executed, the vertical and horizontal strokes forming a perfect right angle.

  Lorenz sat up, reached for his jacket and removed his penknife. He placed the blade on the wood and with a single movement removed a sliver of varnish. The letters were no longer visible.

  TWO DAYS AFTER THE STORM a message was received from headquarters: PROCEED INTO AL 59. CONVOY EXPECTED GENERAL COURSE EAST-NORTHEAST TWELVE KNOTS. LIGHT DEFENSE. GOOD HUNTING. Lorenz went to the chart table and consulted Müller.

  ‘Not too far,’ said the navigator, opening a compass on the warped, mildewed paper.

  ‘We could be there by tomorrow morning,’ Lorenz remarked.

  Müller picked up a pencil, the end of which had been heinously chewed, and made a few calculations in the margins. ‘Only if the weather stays calm and we can maintain maximum speed.’

  Lorenz looked at Graf who nodded and said, ‘I’ll go and see Fischer.’

  U-330 raced through the night, bouncing from one foamy crest to the next, the noise of the engines penetrating all compartments: thumping, straining—pistons, crossheads, connecting rods, cranks—intake, compression, combustion, exhaust—prodigious mechanical power pushing the bow forward. The sea had the appearance of ruckled silk, and a crescent moon was encircled by stars. They arrived at their designated position earlier than expected, just as the sun (still buried and burning beneath the ocean) began to hemorrhage crimson light into a clear sky. Only a few rounded heaps of cloud floated above the horizon. Lorenz was just finishing a strong, bitter coffee when Juhl called down from the bridge, ‘Smoke, bearing three hundred.’ Leaving his empty cup on the chart table, Lorenz climbed up the ladder and inhaled the fresh, antiseptic breeze. He aimed his binoculars dead ahead and saw an indistinct smudge. As they drew closer the smudge broadened, becoming a thick charcoal band, and soon after, it was possible to discern mastheads and stacks.

  ‘They didn’t tell us it was going to be an armada,’ said Juhl. Lorenz counted the destroyers. There were three of them zigzagging ahead of the convoy. Juhl’s voice shook with frustration. ‘The message from U-boat command said they were lightly defended.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lorenz replied, ‘excellent intelligence.’

  ‘Perhaps we were given the wrong coordinates?’

  ‘Ah!’ Lorenz extended the exclamation enough to communicate not only surprise but also apprehension. ‘To starboard, thirty-three degrees relative. If I’m not mistaken that’s a fourth destroyer.’

  ‘What? Over there?’ Juhl raised his binoculars and made a whistling sound through his teeth. ‘Yes, that is a fourth destroyer.’ After a thoughtful pause he added, ‘And we’re on our own?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘No more messages from headquarters?’

  ‘No more messages.’ Lorenz called down the hatch. ‘Half speed.’

  U-330 was low in the water and approaching from the east. The rising sun would hide the conning tower in its glare. Lorenz considered the situation to be relatively safe and judged that he had sufficient time to establish positions and identify targets before diving. The sun duly appeared and was obligingly bright. He was keeping a judicious eye trained on the fourth destroyer when Juhl said, ‘God, they’re fast.’ The other three warships were considerably closer and producing high bow waves.

  ‘Yes,’ Lorenz answered, revising his plan and deciding to err on the side of caution. ‘Perhaps we’d better get out of their way.’

  ‘Shit!’ The voice belonged to Voigt, and its tone was incredulous.

  Lorenz wheeled around and saw a thick black cloud rising from the back of the boat. Below, men were coughing and shouting: more smoke started to rise out of the hatch. Lorenz drew back and watched a swirling cyclone of smuts twist high above his head.

  ‘They’ll see us,’ said Juhl, looking anxiously over the bulwark.

  More smoke welled up from the hatch, almost liquid in its consistency. Lorenz watched it flowing through the rails and cascading onto the deck. It ran over the sides of the boat and dispersed over the water. The air became inky and opaque. Lorenz could hardly see Juhl, Voigt, and the other two lookouts, and within seconds his eyes were blind and stinging. The boat was still traveling toward the convoy and the shouts from below were beginning to explore new registers of desperation. Lorenz snatched the communications pipe, removed the stopper, and hollered, ‘Chief? Chief? What’s happening?’ There was no reply, the hull juddered and
the engines fell silent. Lorenz waved his hand impotently from side to side, trying to create an opening in the obfuscation through which he might see the destroyers. ‘They’ll fire at us soon as we’re in range.’ Only one course of action would prevent them from being utterly obliterated by heavy shelling. He leaned over the hatch and cried ‘Alarm!’

  Voigt was just about to jump into the tower when Graf’s head appeared at his feet like a ghoulish creature emerging from a cauldron. The engineer’s face was coated with filth. ‘Kaleun, the boat’s unfit to dive!’

  ‘Unfit to dive?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a fire.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere aft—the engine room, I think. I was trying to get there when you called.’

  ‘We’ve got to dive!’

  ‘But we’re on fire.’

  ‘Listen: there are four destroyers heading our way. We can’t just sit here sending up smoke signals. We’ll just have to put the fire out when we’re submerged.’

  ‘But we need to keep the hatch open, Kaleun. The men will suffocate.’

  ‘Then distribute the emergency breathing apparatus!’

  When Lorenz landed in the control room he could see very little. The lights were glimmering weakly, emitting a dull brownish glow. Men were holding handkerchiefs or hats over their mouths. Everyone was coughing or retching. Contorted faces, eyes streaming, came forward out of the darkness and vanished again. The atmosphere became even more impenetrable now that the bridge hatch was closed. Lorenz grabbed Sauer. ‘Where’s the breathing apparatus?’ For a moment Sauer appeared to have lost the ability to comprehend German. Lorenz shook him and said firmly, ‘Number One! Distribute the breathing apparatus. Do you understand me?’ Sauer nodded and as he stumbled away the smoke closed behind him like two stage curtains. Lorenz’s mouth tasted of oil and his lungs felt as if they had been filled with concrete. A fit of coughing seemed to dislodge an obstruction from his throat and he was finally able to shout ‘Flood!’ He hoped that the crew had returned to their posts.