U-124 left the rendezvous crammed, like the others, with fresh eggs. Her crew ate eggs morning, noon, and night to use them up before they spoiled—fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, omelets—until they, like the crews of all the other ships that shared in this bounty, were so thoroughly sick of eggs they never wanted to see another one.
On March 22, three days after leaving the rendezvous, U-124 was approaching the African coast when one of the diesel machinists came to Brinker with the ominous report, "No oil pressure in the starboard diesel."
Brinker hurried to the engine room and opened the side panels under the pistons. Oil was pouring out. Each diesel had nine pistons and 11 bearings, and in this engine, only two bearings were intact. Two were totally destroyed, and the rest partially destroyed.
Brinker shut off the engine, and reported to Schulz that the starboard diesel was out of order and could not be used at all until it was repaired. They would have to stop immediately.
Schulz made no effort to conceal his anger and disgust, but he clearly had no choice. He fretted and stewed on the bridge, anxiously watching for planes and ships while his boat lay dead in the water, a sitting duck.
"Ship on the starboard beam, sir," a lookout reported.
Schulz studied the tiny shadow on the horizon. Then he grabbed the speaking tube. "Kommandant to L.I.!" he said.
A few seconds later, Brinker's voice came up to him. "L.I. here."
"Brinker," Schulz told him, "I want all the speed I can get on the port diesel. I'm going after this ship."
"I'll do the best I can, Herr Kaleu," Brinker answered, turning away with a shrug.
Schulz worked for hours to bring his crippled boat into position to fire, but the ship, apparently a liner of the Highland class, had too much speed for him and escaped before he could get off a shot.
Again they lay stopped while the L.I. and his gang worked on the starboard diesel.
Finally Brinker's head appeared at the hatch. "Permission to come on the bridge?"
"Permission granted. Come on up." Schulz waited impatiently while Brinker climbed up. "Well, come on," he said. "Is the engine fixed yet?"
Brinker hesitated. Then he said slowly, "Herr Kommandant, the starboard engine is not fixed. And now the same thing has happened to the port engine. We can't use either one."
For a moment Schulz seemed stunned by the news. Then he said, "How long will it take to fix them?"
"They can't be fixed, Herr Kaleu," Brinker replied. "We'll have to scuttle the boat."
"We will certainly not scuttle my boat, L.I.!" Schulz snapped angrily. "We'll sit here till you fix those engines!"
"But Herr Kommandant," wailed Brinker, "there are eight bearings totally destroyed, to say nothing of the ones partially destroyed, and we have only four bearings in reserve. I don't have anything to make new ones out of, and without the diesels, we can't even recharge the batteries!"
"Don't you think I know that?" shouted Schulz. "And I also know this area is full of British planes and destroyers just looking for a nice fat target like us!"
Brinker started to reply, but was cut off by a torrent of words from his furious commander. "And you stand here telling me you don't have enough bearings! Well, make them! I don't give a damn how you do it, but fix those diesels and that's an order!"
He stopped, out of breath, and Brinker took advantage of the pause to beat a hasty retreat. He had merely informed the commander of the facts, and had not expected any such explosion on the part of the usually reasonable Schulz. He started back to the engine room, half his mind cursing the commander for a stubborn, obstinate, bull-headed Prussian, the other half casting about frantically for a solution to his apparently insoluble problem.
Certainly he could make the bearings, if he had the right kind of metal. But he didn't have it, and there was simply no way of getting it.
His men looked up anxiously as he stumbled swearing into the engine room.
"The Old Man says to fix the diesels," he announced, "We are to make new bearings."
"Out of what, Herr Brinker?" asked Dieselmaschinist Richter.
"Herr Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Georg Schulz didn't tell me that," Brinker answered sarcastically. "Old socks, perhaps. Or we could send out to the nearest metal dealer and order what we want."
He thrust his hands belligerently into his pockets. Most any thin lightweight metal would do, one that could be shaped to the proper form. His fingers closed around the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.
Unfortunately, there was no such metal on board, and ten commanders yelling "that's an order" on the bridge wouldn't make any. He slid his fingers glumly around the top of the cigarette pack—sheets of thin metal—suddenly he snatched the pack out of his pocket and tore it open. The foil in the package—thin metal—it just might work, if they could get enough of it. It was worth a try.
Within minutes the machinists had collected the tin foil from every pack of cigarettes on board and set about turning it into replacement bearings for the diesels. Brinker sent word to the commander that they were making the bearings, but it would take time.
The commander coldly sent word back to Brinker that time was something they might not have much of and he had better hurry. Lying dead in the water so close to an enemy base made one a poor insurance risk, and visibility was appallingly good.
While the machinists worked feverishly and the commander nervously paced his bridge, expecting the entire British navy to descend on him at any moment, the off-duty sailors fatalistically ignored the whole situation. They watched the sharks circling around the boat, dispatching them with pistol shots whenever they came within range. Then they made a large hook, baited it with fat, and managed to land five blue sharks, some of them nine and ten feet long. With a sailor's dread of the brutes, they killed them and tossed them back in the ocean, saving only a few fins which they hung on the conning tower as trophies.
Ten hours after they had stopped, Brinker came to the bridge, a broad grin on his face.
"Permission to start engines, sir?"
"Granted, L.I.!" Schulz replied. "Are they all right?"
"I can't tell till we get started, sir," Brinker said. "But Herr Kommandant, they must be run very slowly at first to see if the bearings will hold."
After 14 anxious hours of slow running, Brinker tried them at full speed.
"Looks like they're OK, sir," he told the commander. "Running good as new."
"Thank God," Schulz murmured fervently. "And you might like to know, Brinker," he added casually, "that I'm recommending you for the Knight's Cross."
On March 30, about 200 miles west of Freetown, U-124 sighted a single-traveling freighter. It was an easy target for Schulz, and he moved into firing position for a submerged attack.
It was around noon, and as he made his shooting observation, he could see the cook in his tall white cap resting his arms on the rail. They must be eating lunch, Schulz thought. How peaceful she looked, and he could vividly picture the scene on board. And how different it would all be in a few minutes! But he was looking at it through the lens of an attack periscope, and he shook off these disquieting thoughts, thoughts not permitted in a U-boat commander.
"Torpedo . . . los!"
The torpedo hit, and threw the ship into wild confusion as men ran back and forth. A boat was launched, and it pulled away from the stricken ship.
Schulz waited a few minutes. "One fish isn't going to sink her," he said. "But we'll give them time to get off before we shoot again."
"Herr Kaleu," the radio man called, "ship is signaling on the 600 meter band." He handed Schulz the signal he had copied: S O S S O S de g s d f UMONA 7 r 42 N, 14 r 40 W torpedoed.
Meantime, the men in the boat returned to their ship and came back aboard.
"What are they doing?" Schulz muttered, exasperated. "Don't they know that ship hasn't a prayer?" And he waited a little longer.
Twenty minutes after the first torpedo, he shot the second. The ship went down like a s
tone.
After watching her sink, Schulz ordered the boat down to 50 meters, and called the crew into the control room.
"Bring out the champagne," he said. "If my calculations are right, this ship brings my tonnage score up to 100,000 tons sunk, and I should get the Knight's Cross. Let's celebrate now!"
"Yes, Herr Kaleu," Brinker told him, coming into the control room. "You already have it! Uncle Karl1 figures higher than you do. Congratulations!"
Kesselheim handed a wireless message to him. "This came during the attack, sir. I couldn't disturb you then. Congratulations!"
The beaming crew broke into cheers, and presented their commander with a Knight's Cross they had already made for him. It was hung around his neck with all due ceremony, and he wore it proudly and constantly. The cook brought in the cake he had baked, lavishly decorated with a Knight's Cross in icing, and they all drank a toast in champagne as they celebrated their success.
Four days later, U-124 again crossed the position where they had sunk the Umona. They spotted one small raft with three men on it, and pulled alongside.
One of the men seemed to he unconscious, and the other two in a state of shock. They told Schulz they were from the Umona, the only survivors as far as they knew, and asked if he were the U-boat that had sunk them.
"Yes," replied Schulz. "But why, why didn't you abandon ship? I gave the crew plenty of time to get off before I shot the second torpedo."
"I don't know," one of the men replied. "Some left, but then the captain told them to come back aboard because the ship wasn't sinking."
"But he must have known a U-boat wouldn't leave him afloat unless there were escorts around. It was stupid to just sit there and wait to be killed!" Schulz told him, angry and upset by the unnecessary loss of life.
"Keep your eyes peeled for planes," Henke gruffly told the lookouts who were staring at the pitiful survivors on the raft. "If one comes along we'll be in worse shape than they are, because God knows we won't have time to dive."
Schulz sent for cigarettes, water, and cognac for the men on the raft. "I can't take you aboard," he told them. "It's against my orders. And too, we have a long patrol ahead of us."
"Herr Kaleu'nt!" a shout from one of the lookouts interrupted him. "Ship bearing one four o!"
Schulz dropped the line back onto the raft and said, "We've got to go now, but we'll come back and give you directions to land." Then he turned and shouted to the bridge, "Come to course one four o, full speed both diesels!"
The U-boat roared away, leaving the raft and its bewildered occupants, who never expected to see it again. The chase after the ship was futile, however, and a few hours later U-124 returned to the raft.
"I'm sorry I can't take you with us," Schulz again told the survivors, "but you aren't far from land. The current will carry you in in about three days."
Brinker was standing beside the commander. "Herr Kaleu," he said in German, "we're a good 200 miles from the coast."
"I know it," Schulz replied. "But I can't tell them that. It seems so hopeless they wouldn't have the heart to even try."
"Do you think they have a chance?" Brinker asked quietly.
Schulz shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe." He paused. "But I doubt it."
He turned back to the men on the raft. "Good luck," he said in English. "I hope you make it."
The U-boat men watched silently until the raft became a tiny speck on the sea, and finally disappeared.
For the next two days, the commander was a different man, a stranger to his crew. Distant and preoccupied, he spoke little, and when he did, his tone and words were coldly cutting.
One of the younger boys, on his first cruise, came to Leo Raudzis confused and a little hurt. "Bootsmann," he said, "you know nobody can get around on a U-boat without bumping into other people. But just now when I accidentally brushed against the Old Man he nearly bit my head off."
"Forget it, kid," Raudzis told him. "It's those men on the raft. Sometimes you get sick of this business of killing. You'll find out."
"Well why couldn't we have brought them aboard?" the boy asked. "They wouldn't have taken up that much room. And you know they'll never make it to shore."
"Because it's against orders, that's why," Raudzis said flatly. "Sure you hate to leave them out there to die. We all do, the commander most of all." He shrugged. "But that's war, and you might as well get used to it."
Fritz Rafalski looked up. "Our commander knows his crew, and he knows we're with him a solid thousand percent. He'll be all right. Just try to stay out of his way for awhile."
"Did you know Willem disobeyed orders by stopping to give them provisions?" asked Kesselheim, who had been listening to the conversation. "Uncle Karl told all the commanders they couldn't stop to help survivors if it put their boats in danger, and you know this place is crawling with planes!"
Rafalski laughed shortly. "Try explaining that to the Big Lion. 'Sorry, Herr Admiral, I lost my boat and killed my crew because I stopped to help three Britishers on a life raft,' 'I see. And what were they doing on the raft in the first place?' 'Because I blew their ship out from under them with two nicely placed torpedoes.' Crazy, isn't it?"
The boy shook his head. "It's all crazy to me."
Raudzis laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "Don't let it get you down. You'll get used to it. And if you're a good boy and the Wabos don't get you, it'll all be over a hundred years from now and you can go home and live happily ever after."
"Kesselheim," the commander called. "I can't find my other glove. Have you seen it?"
"I'm coming," Kesselheim replied. He hunted through the commander's locker, and in a few minutes came up with the missing glove in his hand.
"It had fallen in your boot," he said in reply to the puzzled look on Schulz's face.
He handed the glove to him. "Let me get you a cup of coffee, sir," he said.
Schulz started to shake his head.
"It's nice and fresh and hot," Kesselheim coaxed gently.
"All right" Schulz said. "I'll drink it in here."
A few minutes later Kesselheim returned with the coffee and a thick slice of cake, "Smutje sent you this," he said. "He just made it a little while ago. See? It's still warm."
The commander smiled. "Thanks, Kesselheim. And thank the cook for me, please."
By the next day Schulz had shaken off the depression that had engulfed him since the encounter with the men on the raft. He had done what he had to do, both in disregarding his orders when he stopped to help them, and later in leaving them to their fate in the Atlantic on an open raft. It was over now.
It was 1608 hours when the ship first came in sight. Schulz turned on a new course and began the long and exacting task of bringing his boat around for an attack.
After four hours he submerged and fired one torpedo. It missed.
The freighter, now warned, altered course and tried to escape by zig-zagging. She signaled on the 600-meter band that she was under attack by a submarine and gave her name, Marlene.
Twilight had reduced visibility, so Schulz surfaced to race ahead for another shot. It took three more hours to get in position for a surfaced attack, and Schulz fired another single shot.
He waited while the seconds ticked by, marking the progress of the sleek torpedo.
"Hit!" the bridge watch shouted in chorus.
The torpedo exploded amidships, directly under the bridge. The ship seemed to stagger momentarily as the deep-throated roar of the detonation rumbled heavily across the water. But she did not sink.
Schulz waited with growing impatience. He had already spent seven hours chasing the Marlene, and it was beginning to look as though she led a charmed life.
Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, he raised his binoculars to stare at the dark hulk now lying motionless.
"Fire three!" he ordered, fatigue giving a sharp edge to his voice.
The torpedo hit below the after mast, and the men on the U-boat's bridge waited. In spite of two gapi
ng holes torn in her hull, the ship still miraculously floated.
"Herr Kaleu . . ." Mohr said, not taking his eyes from his binoculars as he studied the water around the stopped ship.
Following his I.WO's gaze, Schulz saw the faint outline of something on the quiet sea. He stared, puzzled, at the vague shape.
"Wood," he murmured at last. "But of course!" Now he suddenly understood why the battered freighter would not sink.
"A cargo of wooden planks!" Mohr said. "So that's it."
The commander nodded grimly. "They won't sink, but by God, they'll burn."
He ordered the gun crew on deck and pumped twelve rounds of incendiaries into the stationary target.
The Marlene caught fire and burned briefly. But almost at once the fires began to dwindle and soon were merely isolated flickers on the dark hull.
"Damn!" the commander muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his fist across his eyes. "Fire another fish, Mohr."
Mohr frowned into the sights. The forlorn ship with the flames still winking an occasional red gleam across the water had put up a game fight to stay afloat.
The U-boat lurched as the fourth torpedo shot out of the tube. It hit the ship directly under her stack, and a great curtain of water rose over her.
The officers and men on the U-boat's bridge watched, silent and unmoving, as the Marlene slowly settled by the stern and slid, almost without a ripple, into the calm sea. It was past midnight.
On April 8, U-124 met the Tweed, a 2,697-ton British freighter. Schulz circled around ahead for a submerged attack, and fired one torpedo.
"She's hit!" he called out from the periscope, and he watched to see if she would sink without another shot.
Without warning, the freighter wheeled abruptly and headed straight for the U-boat.
"My God!" yelped Schulz. "She's a Q-ship! Take her down! 2A plus 60! Full speed, hard port!"
As the freighter turned toward the U-boat, Schulz was sure he had stirred up a hornet's nest. The luckless U-boat that attacked one of these decoys usually found himself with more trouble than he could handle.
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