Water drips from my nose.
“Congratulations,” says the Second Watch Officer.
I squint to look at our foreship from the protection of the bulwark. We’re tearing along so hard that the bow is throwing out sheets of water, and broad streaks of foam boil up around the sides.
The Commander’s hands are thrust deep into the pockets of his leather trousers. His once-white, battered cap with its greentarnished insignia is pulled far down over his face. He’s searching sky and water with narrowed eyes. Again and again he urges the bridge guards to keep a sharp lookout.
He doesn’t go below, even to eat.
A full hour passes before he climbs down to have a look at developments on the chart. I go too.
The navigator is still busy calculating.
A new small pencil cross on the hydrographic chart shows the last position of the enemy. Now our own chart allows us to read off his course and speed. Another pencil cross: the intersection of his assumed course with ours. Our thoughts are drawn compulsively to this point, like a compass needle to the north.
Hour after hour goes by. Fuel racing through the pipes.
“This is burning up a pretty load!” I hear Dorian say. The Chief is supposed to be out of earshot.
The Second Watch Officer comes in with a new radiogram.
“Aha!” says the Commander with obvious anticipation. He even condescends to read it aloud. “To UA: Proceed immediately at top speed against convoy reported by UR—BdU.”
“Watch Officer: Steer three hundred forty degrees. Further orders to follow.” The repetition of the command echoes back from the helmsman in the tower.
On the chart the Commander points out first the position of the convoy, then ours. “We ought to be there tomorrow morning around six o’clock.”
Bertold dare not attack now. It’s more important to maintain contact—not to let the enemy escape, to send short signals until other boats can assemble from the far reaches of the Atlantic.
“Surely it’s going to work,” I comment cautiously.
“No wedding reception before the church service,” the Commander warns me.
Questioning faces appear in the round opening of the doorway. To their great amazement the men see their Commander hopping around and around the control room, from one foot to the other, like a bear with a sore head.
“You see!” says Dorian. “Just what I always suspected—”
The Commander takes the microphone of the public address system to announce to all compartments: “The boat is operating against a convoy located by UR. Starting at six tomorrow morning we can anticipate contact.” A crackling in the loudspeaker. Nothing more.
The Commander tilts his head way back. His elbows are propped between the spokes of the hydroplane handwheel. He frees his right arm, takes the pipe out of his mouth, makes an all-embracing gesture with the stem, and begins abruptly, “Marvelous thing, boat like this. Some people are against technology. Supposed to stultify you, impair your drive, nonsense like that!”
He pauses, and a good ten minutes pass before he takes up the thread again. “But there’s nothing more beautiful than a U-boat like this. Don’t mean to sound fanatical—god forbid!”
He takes a deep breath and produces a few snorting sounds in self-mockery, then goes on talking. “Sailing ships are marvelous too. Nothing in the world has more beautiful lines than a sailing ship! Served on a three-master years ago. Her bottom yard was forty feet above the deck. A good hundred and seventy all the way up. In bad weather no one wanted to climb up to the skysail. And if anyone fell you could hear the impact all over the ship. Happened three times on a single voyage. Special kind of thud—dull but penetrating—and everyone immediately knew what had happened.”
The Old Man pauses and lets us listen to the gurgling of his cold pipe.
“Wonderful ship, that. Each hold as big as a church—the nave of a church—probably why they call them naves. Usually had sand as ballast. A good deal of it was different from this.” The Old Man grins. “For one thing, we could stretch our legs properly!”
For a while the fist with the pipe remains poised in mid-air. Then, without putting the pipe away, he pushes his cap far back on his head. His tangled blond hair protrudes from under the peak, giving him a daredevil look. “Nothing I love more than the sound of these diesels running flat out. And some people cover their ears if they so much as hear them!” The Old Man shakes his head. “There’re some who can’t even stand the smell of gasoline. My fiancée can’t abide the smell of leather. Funny!”
He suddenly clams up, like a boy who’s let something slip.
No appropriate question occurs to me, so we both sit in silence staring at the floor plates. Then the Chief appears to ask whether the port diesel can be stopped for fifteen minutes. Reason: suspected damage to the crank shaft.
The Commander suddenly makes a face as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “Tsch, Chief—if we have no choice.”
The Chief disappears, and a few moments later the tone of the diesels slackens. The Commander bites his lower lip.
Only when a new radio message is handed to him does his face light up again. “Last observed position of enemy Square Bruno Anton—UR.”
The second watch assembles in the control room and makes ready. Safety belts are no longer in use. As the big hand of the clock approaches twelve, the four men climb up. “Course three hundred forty degrees, starboard diesel running full speed—port diesel stopped,” the helmsman reports as the watch changes.
The lookouts who have been relieved come down. Their faces are the color of boiled lobster. The navigator, who is the last to descend into the control room, comes to attention. “Reporting from watch. Light cloud cover from northwest. Wind northwest to west. Veering counterclockwise. Shipping a lot of water due to high speed.”
As though in confirmation, a surge of water lands on the floor plates.
“Thanks.” The four salute, then shake themselves like dogs. Water from their rubber coats flies all over the control room. One of them ventures a question. “How far now from the scows?”
“Still a whole jet!” replies the control-room mate.
The steward comes through. Seems to be feeling his oats, tripping along like a headwaiter. Surprising he hasn’t got a napkin clasped under his arm.
After the steward it’s the cook on his way to the bow compartment. He has the ingratiating smile of a tavern-keeper.
“Pure play-acting today,” says the Old Man, not noticing that he himself is performing the leading role as he sits in his corner benevolently surveying his children like a contented father.
It’s as though we had broken out of a clinch and could breathe freely again. No more aimless searching, no more patroling up and down in the same area, a clear course at last, full speed ahead toward the enemy. The only one who takes no joy in the diesel roar and the hissing of the waves is the Chief. “There’s a lot of my oil gone to hell,” he growls with a look of disgust. But even he sounds satisfied when he announces that the port diesel is ready again.
“Fine, Chief, good to hear it!” says the Old Man. “Now let’s see what you can do with your second wind.”
I move off in the direction of the bow compartment. As soon as I open the door I notice that the excitement has taken hold here too. The cook appears behind me with a big pitcher of lemonade. The off-duty watch gathers around him like a horde dying of thirst.
“Here’s hoping something comes of it all this time,” Little Benjamin proclaims stoutly, almost before he’s finished drinking.
“I can wait!” says Schwalle, hard-nosed.
“Well, I’m fed up with this frigging around!”
“Hero!” jeers someone out of the half darkness farther forward.
“Don’t let your courage run away with you, little one. You’re okay the way you are!”
“You’ve probably been swilling funny water again,” says the same voice from the darkness.
“Something not suit
you? These negative types give me a pain in the ass.”
For a while there’s nothing but the sleepy thrumming of radio music to be heard over the fluctuating roar of the waves. All at once the conversation turns to the reported convoy. “If the Old Man wants to get anything done, he’s got to get there tonight,” the torpedo mechanic asserts.
“Why’s that?” the bridge johnny asks.
“Because tomorrow is Sunday, you imbecile!” Little Benjamin sputters. “It’s in the Bible. Thou must honor the Sabbath and not violate thy sister.”
I feel as if I’m in a road company. Our seagoing amateur theatricals are a play about imperturbability, coolness, and heroism; the actors are also talking away their fear.
The sea grows rougher during the night. I can feel it clearly as I doze.
Shortly after five o’clock I climb up to the bridge. The Second Watch Officer is in charge. The Commander’s there too. Morning half light. The boat buffets the dark waves. Streamers rise like smoke from their crests, and more watery smoke fills the valleys between. An agony of watchfulness: if the convoy has tacked in this direction, we may intercept its course at any instant.
The sun rises astern, a milky disk. Ahead of us the sky is blocked by black walls of cloud. Very slowly they free themselves from the horizon as though drawn out of a sail loft: patches that are no further use. It remains misty.
“Damned poor visibility,” growls the Second Watch Officer.
Soon more dark cloud cover comes creeping toward us just above the water, draped like a dingy curtain. Immediately in front of us it begins to fray out. The strands are black-gray like the clouds themselves, and stretch down to the water. The horizon disappears.
Another cloud a few points to port can no longer hold its burden of rain. Before long the trailing fringes of the two come together. Already a few drops are falling. They make little pecking sounds on our sou’westers and jackets. The rain front swells out on both sides. Larger and larger sections of the horizon vanish into the blinding mist. A dark net is being thrown around the boat; it’s already closing behind us; now there’s no range of vision at all.
Intently, inch by inch, we search the gray curtain for some sign of the enemy. Every gray wall may hide a destroyer, every racing cloud a diving plane.
Spray comes flying over the bulwark; my tongue tastes of salt. My sou’wester is a roof. The rain pounds down on it, and I can feel the sharp blows of each drop on my scalp. Our blue-green oilskins glitter in the wet, and rain shoots down the folds in torrents. We stand like blocks of stone while the sky empties itself over us.
Must be seven o’clock now. We should have made contact with the convoy around six.
I hear Dorian cursing. “This weather is for the birds. I’m fed to the teeth with it!” The Second Watch Officer immediately turns on him to shout, “Look out, man, you’re meant to be on watch.”
Despite the Turkish hand towel wrapped around my neck, the water has soaked down as far as my belly.
I climb inside, and the control-room mate greets me expectantly. To his disappointment I produce nothing but a sigh of resignation. I go off to change my clothes and put the wet things in the E-room.
“Wind northwest five, sea running four, sky overcast, visibility poor,” runs the text prepared for the war log. The rolling of the boat is getting steadily worse.
The last reported contact is now three hours old. “Enemy changing course to one hundred ten degrees. Proceeding in wide formation. Four columns. About thirty steamers.” Since then no further news. Our diesels are still running full speed.
I hear the sea firing salvo after salvo against the tower. We seem to be caught in the aftermath of a high groundswell and the wind is whipping it up again.
At eight o’clock the watch is changed.
“What’s it look like?” Isenberg asks the Berliner.
“Well, the light rain’s gone. Now it’s just pouring buckets!”
“Cut the crap—what’s really happening?”
“Blown itself out—nothing doing—fog.”
Suddenly the Old Man begins swearing. “Damn and fuck this filthy weather! Always just when we don’t need it. Could easily go racing past and miss them by a couple of miles. Goddam pea soup!” And then, “If only Bertold would make a move!”
No new signal arrives.
Without another contact report we’re up the creek: our calculations were never that accurate to begin with. The boat that made contact can’t have had the chance to take an astronomical fix in the last forty-eight hours. The sky must certainly have been as constantly overcast for them as for us. So they’ve reported a position arrived at by dead reckoning. Even if the navigator on Bertold’s boat has calculated exactly, he can only guess at the displacement of the boat by the sea and the wind.
Silence from headquarters. Has Bertold been forced to dive? Surprised by a destroyer?
No chance of getting a sighting from the other boats sent after the convoy. After all, they were farther away than we were; it’s natural enough that they have nothing to contribute. But Bertold, the contact boat—surely he ought to know something.
“Must be stuck in the same pea soup,” says the Old Man.
The engines throb steadily. There isn’t much for the Chief to do now. “This weather must be giving our colleagues a bad time.”
It takes me a while to realize he’s sympathizing with the crews of the enemy ships. Then he adds, “Those destroyer crews really take a beating—tin cans.”
He sees my startled expression and continues: “It’s true. Our own destroyers no longer put out to sea if there’s the slightest storm cloud outside the harbor wall.”
The control room is filling up. Everyone with any kind of legitimate excuse to be there seems to have appeared. In addition to the Commander, the navigator, and the control-room mate with his two assistants, I see the First Watch Officer, the Second Engineer, and Dorian.
“We’ve had it! Take it from me!” says Dorian, but so softly that only I can hear. The others are silent—they seem to be suddenly struck dumb.
The Old Man jerks up his head and orders, “Prepare to dive!”
I know what he has in mind: a sonar search. The sounds of enemy engines and propellers carry farther in deep water than we can possibly see on the surface.
The usual series of orders and maneuvers follows. I glance at the depth manometer. The pointer begins to turn and suddenly the roaring of the waves ceases.
The Commander has the boat level off at a hundred feet and crouches in the passageway beside the sound room. The face of the hydrophone operator, lit from below, looks absolutely expressionless. His eyes are empty. With the headpiece clamped over his ears, he’s conducting a search in every direction to pick out some trace of the enemy from the general underwater sounds.
“No target?” The Commander asks again and again. And after a while, impatient and tense, “Nothing at all?”
For a moment he presses one of the earpieces to his own head, then passes the instrument to me. I hear nothing but a surging hum like the noise from a conch shell when you press it against your ear.
The boat has been running underwater for an hour. No hydrophone directional bearing. “That’s the way it goes,” murmurs the Chief, who keeps running his fingers nervously through his hair.
“Fucked!” says someone half under his breath.
The Commander is about to pull himself to his feet and give the order to the Chief to surface when he catches sight of the hydrophone operator: eyes closed, mouth tight shut, and face contracted as if in pain. He swings his equipment slowly right, then left. Finally he moves the wheel a fraction of an inch: a noise! Struggling to control his excitement, he announces, “Sound bearing sixty degrees—very weak!”
The Commander straightens up with a jerk and grabs one of the earpieces. His face takes on an intense expectancy.
Suddenly the operator gives an almost imperceptible shudder and the Commander sucks his lips between his teeth.
“Seventy degrees—moving astern—long way off!” The Commander climbs through the circular door into the control room. His voice is harsh: “Course fifty degrees! Prepare to surface!” And then to the navigator, “Note for the war log: ‘Despite condition of weather decided to proceed on surface against convoy.’”
The weather has grown even worse. Low-hanging squalls of rain darken the sky around us. All the daylight is gone: It might as well be evening. Wind-driven spray covers the watery landscape with a pale mist.
The boat’s rolling heavily. Waves coming from the port beam. Water spurts through the open hatch, but we have to keep this open because the enemy may surprise the boat at any moment.
The propellers race, the diesels are running flat out. The Commander is rooted to the bridge. Under the rain-slicked, downturned brim of his sou’wester he searches the sea. He stands motionless; only his head pivots slowly from side to side.
After a quarter of an hour I climb down to inspect developments on the chart table. The navigator is hard at work calculating. Without lifting his eyes he says, “Here we are—and here’s where we can expect the convoy. Unless it’s tacked again.”
Standing around aimlessly embarrasses me. I already have my left hand on the aluminum ladder when I tell myself that all this climbing up and down makes me look nervous. Just take it easy: relax. Whatever’s happening, I’ll find out in good time. How late is it really? Past twelve? Well, I just have to act as though none of this is out of the ordinary, so I peel off my wet things.
I sit in the mess, trying to read a book, until the steward finally brings in plates and cups for lunch. The Commander doesn’t appear.
We’ve scarcely sat down at the table—the Chief, the Second Engineer, and I—when there’s a roar from the control room. The Chief looks up quickly. A report comes down from the bridge. “Masthead off the port bow!”
Das Boot Page 20