Das Boot

  Now the sou’wester. Inside, it’s sopping wet. The cold on my scalp makes me shudder. The straps have been left tied, and the damp has swollen the knots so much that they can’t be undone.

  The Commander stops composing his telegraphese, gets up, stretches, sees me struggling with the straps, and needles me. “Hard life at sea, isn’t it?”

  Everything that was hanging is now standing straight out from the walls. A pair of seaboots slides from one side of the compartment to the other. I climb elegantly through the hatch, only to be caught in the control room by the reverse roll. I grab for the low railing on the chart table and miss, lose my balance completely, and sit down hard on the flooding and pumping distributor. The Old Man’s intoning his damnfool refrain: “Take care, my pretty pet, you’ll lose your balance yet!” Must have been a hit before my time.

  The room tips to port. I’m sent flying against the rounded housing of the gyrocompass but manage to grab onto the ladder. The Old Man swears he once saw a Cuban rumba that was absolutely amateurish compared to my performance. Derisively he acknowledges my balletic gifts… and my obvious predilection for national and native dances.

  You have to admit that he’s never caught off balance. He’ll start to stagger, and quick as a flash he’ll be looking for a suitable landing place. Taking advantage of the impetus he’s given by the rolling of the boat, he steers himself so as to end up in a dignified sitting position. Then he usually looks around calmly, as though the one thing he’d had in mind was to rest his backside on the chart chest.

  The Second Watch Officer comes down dripping. A great shower shoots in behind him. “A hogfish leaped straight over our cannon—right over it! We had one of those steep waves at an angle to port, and the hogfish jumped out of it as if it was a wall, straight over the cannon! Could hardly believe it!”

  I sling the broad safety belt with its heavy snap hook around me and climb up after him. It’s dark in the tower, except for the pale gleam of the helmsman’s instrument dials. Above us there’s a gurgling sound on the bridge. I wait a few seconds until it lets up, then force the heavy hatch cover up as fast as I can, climb out, and slam the cover down again. Success! But instantly I have to duck behind the bridge bulwark along with the rest of them to avoid the next hissing wave. The waterfall crashes on my back, and eddies tug at my legs. Before they can pull me off my feet, I attach the snap of my safety belt to the TBT post and jam myself between the periscope housing and the bridge partition.

  Now I can venture my first glance over the bulwark. My god, that’s no ocean out there! What meets my eyes is a quivering graywhite snow landscape; with the wind stripping a blizzard of foam from its hills. Dark fissures run through the white: black bands that heave this way and that, constantly creating new shapes and patterns. No vault of sky, just a flat gray plate that’s almost resting on the gray-white wasteland.

  The air is a fog of flying salt water—an overpowering fog that reddens the eyes, stiffens the hands, and quickly sucks all warmth out of the body.

  The rounded form of our saddle tank rolls lazily out of a foaming eddy. The wave that bore us up begins to sink, the boat heels farther and farther to port and remains there for seconds at a time at an extreme angle, dropping deeper and deeper.

  One white-fluted wave after another moves indolently toward the boat. Now and again there’s one that towers over the rest with a mighty crest of foam. Immediately in front of the boat the wall of water begins to curve, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until it breaks on the foreship with a crash like a monstrous hammer.

  “Stand by, danger ahead!” roars the navigator. A geyser foams up the side of the tower—and breaks over us. A blow on the shoulders, then water that whirls up from below to rise as high as your belly. The bridge quivers and quakes. The boat is racked by a violent shudder. Finally the foreship emerges. The navigator shouts, “Look out—one of those—tear you right out of the bridge!”

  For a couple of seconds the boat is racing through a valley. Mountainous white waves cut off the view. Then we are lifted once more, gliding up a gigantic slope. Our circle of vision widens as the boat rises higher and higher, until it reaches the foaming crest of the wave, and we look out over the stormy sea as if from a watchtower; it’s no longer the old dark-green Atlantic out there but the ocean of some planet that’s still being torn by the pangs of creation.

  The duty period for those on bridge watch has been cut in half. More would be unendurable. Two hours of ducking down, staring, and ducking down again, and you’re finished. I’m glad I can still move sufficiently, when my time is up, to get myself below.

  I’m so exhausted that I’d be glad to let myself drop onto the floor plates, wet clothes and all. I’m only vaguely, foggily aware of what I’m doing.

  My eyelids are inflamed. I feel it every time I close them. Best thing to do is shut your eyes, let yourself go, stretch out. Right here in the control room. But I’m still conscious enough to make my way aft. As I lift my right leg to climb through the hatch I almost scream with pain.

  Undressing is only possible given long pauses to get my breath. Again and again I have to clench my teeth to keep from groaning aloud. And now the worst, the gymnastics of hoisting myself into my bunk. No ladder like those in sleeping cars. That final push with the toes of the left foot, like mounting a horse. My eyes are wet when I finally lie down.

  A whole week of storm! How long is this going to last? Incredible that our bodies adjust to these torments. No rheumatism, no sciatica, no lumbago, no scurvy, no diarrhea, no colic, no gastritis, no serious inflammations. Apparently we are as sound as a bell, as resistant as our racing diesels.

  Friday. Another day of depressed dozing and laborious attempts to read. I’m lying in my bunk. I can hear the sharp splash of water landing in the control room. The tower hatch must be closed but not made fast, so when the cockpit is flooded a gush of water always pours through.

  The navigator appears from forward and announces that a new man in his watch has been hit hard. “He’s sitting on the floor plates vomiting nonstop…”

  To our amazement he accompanies this with vivid pantomime. We also learn from him that one of the stokers has come up with an invention that’s catching on fast: he’s hung a tin can around his neck like a gas mask. Three men are already following his example and running around with “vomit cans,” he tells me without a trace of malice.

  I can’t stay in the same position for more than five minutes at a time. I use my left hand to hold on to one of the bars of the bunk railing and twist my body so that I can brace myself against the wall. But the cold of the iron soon penetrates the thin wood and even the bunk railing sends icy chills into my hand.

  The hatch to the galley opens. I feel the pressure on my ears and every sound goes flat. The diesel intake doors have gone underwater in the heavy sea, so the diesels can no longer draw their air through the outboard pipes. Low pressure—high pressure. Eardrums in, eardrums out—and you’re supposed to be able to sleep. I turn on my stomach and push my left arm over the edge of the bunk for added support. Before long a stoker coming off duty lurches in and bangs my arm with the full weight of his body.

  “Ouch!”

  “What’s that?—Oh! Sorry.”

  The bunk, which at first sight had seemed too narrow, is now much too wide. However many different positions I try, I can’t find any firm hold. Finally I remain on my stomach, legs spread wide like a wrestler trying not to be turned over on his back. Sleep is out of the question.

  Hours later I hit on the idea of jamming my bolster between my body and the bunk railing. Broadside it won’t fit but with the narrow end it works. I now lie firmly wedged between the wooden wall and the bunk railing.

  I see myself as an illustration in my anatomy textbook, printed in red, in an affected pose, with numbers showing the various muscle groups. The practical advantage of my anatomy course is that now at least I can name each muscle that’s hurting me. Ordinarily I carry these fibrous bundl
es of flesh around on my bones, conscious at most of satisfaction at the way they contract and relax—a selfsufficient, practical system intelligently arranged and operating flawlessly. But now the system will no longer function; it rebels, makes trouble, sends warning signals: a stitch here, a tearing pain there. For the first time in my life I become aware of the component parts of this apparatus of mine: the platysma that I need to move my head; the psoas muscle for moving the bones in my hip. I have the least trouble with my biceps—they’re in training. But my pectoral muscles are a real problem. I must have been lying all cramped up—otherwise why should they hurt like this?

  Saturday. A note in my blue exercise book: “Senseless—joyriding around in mid-Atlantic. No sign of the enemy. Feels as if we’re the only ship in existence. Stench of bilge and vomit. The Commander finds the weather perfectly normal. Talks like a veteran of Cape Horn.”

  Sunday. The daily test dives, usually a bore, have become a blessing. We long for every minute of relaxation they bring. To be able to stretch, go limp, breathe deeply and freely for a while instead of ducking and grasping for handholds; to stand safely, upright and relaxed.

  With the command “Stand by to dive!” the ritual begins. “Stand by to blow tanks!” is next. The Chief has stationed himself behind the two hydroplane operators. The control-room mates at the compressed-air controls report, “One!”—“Three, both sides!”—“Five!”

  The Chief shouts up to the tower, “Ready to blow!”

  “Flood!” comes the voice of the Second Watch Officer from above.

  “Flood!” the Chief repeats. The control-room mates open the valves.

  “Forward hard down—aft neutral!” The Chief. At “neutral” he has to raise his voice to be heard over the roar of the water rushing into the diving cells. At fifty feet he has the trim cells emptied. Instead of the crashing of the waves we hear the hiss of compressed air and then at once the roar of water being forced out of the trim cells. At a hundred feet the hand of the depth manometer stops. The boat is almost on an even keel but is still rocking so violently that a pencil on the chart table rolls back and forth.

  The Chief has the blowing of the diving cells stopped and the Commander orders, “Take her down and level off at a hundred forty feet.” But even at that depth the boat is still not at rest. The Old Man takes up his customary position with his back against the periscope housing. “Take her to a hundred seventy!” And after a while, “So, peace at last!”

  Thank god! The torture has stopped, this time for at least an hour, as I learn from the Old Man’s directions to the Chief.

  My head is still full of roaring and crashing, as if I were holding big seashells to my ears. Quiet only gradually reasserts itself in my echoing skull.

  Now, not a single minute to waste! Quick, up on the bunk. Jesus God, these pains! I go heavy all over—my stiffly outstretched arms laid parallel to my body with my hands palm down on the mattress. With my chin drawn in I can see my ribcage rising and falling. Although I haven’t yet been on the bridge today, my eyes are burning. After all, they’re not fish eyes, designed to peer through salt water. I suck my lips between my teeth and taste the salt. I lick around my mouth and taste more salt. Very likely my whole body is covered with it. Sea water has managed to creep in everywhere. I’m as salty as a well-cured ham or Kasseler Rippchen. Kasseler Rippchen—with sauerkraut, bay leaves, peppercorns, and lots of garlic. With goose fat, even better, and with a glass of champagne, a feast. Funny thing: the moment the stomach-churning and jouncing stops, my appetite comes back. How long has it been, in point of fact, since I last ate?

  It’s beautiful in my bunk. I’ve never known how magnificent it can be just to be here. I make myself as flat as a board and feel the mattress with every square inch of my back, the back of my head, the inside of my arms, the palms of my hands. I curl the toes of my right foot and then the left, stretch out first one leg, then the other. I’m growing, getting longer all the time. In the loudspeaker there’s a sound like sizzling fat, then a gurgle, and, finally, a record the Old Man brought aboard:

  Sons ma porte cochère

  chante un accordéon,

  musique familière

  des anciennes chansons.

  Et j'oublie la misère

  quand vient l'accordéon

  sous la porte cochère

  de ma vieille maison…

  I bet this record wasn’t a present from his donna, the lady of the green ink. Where it came from I can only guess. The Old Man?—Still waters run deep.

  Here comes Isenberg to report that lunch is served.

  “So early?”

  I learn that the Old Man has advanced the midday meal by an hour so that the men can eat in peace.

  At once I begin to worry about the other end of this process. Eating in peace is all very well—but how are we going to get rid of what we’ve digested? I shudder at the thought of the head.

  My hesitation is certainly not shared by the Old Man. He consumes gigantic slices of head cheese spread with thick layers of mustard, with pickles, sliced onions, and canned bread on the side. The First Watch Officer painstakingly excises a piece of rind that has a couple of white bristles in it from his head cheese and pushes it disgustedly to the edge of his plate.

  “Whiskery bastard, isn’t it!” says the Old Man, and then, chewing vigorously, “What we need is beer—and fried potatoes.”

  But instead of the longed-for beer the steward brings tea. The Second Watch Officer gets ready to clamp the pot between his thighs as usual, then realizes that this is no longer necessary and strikes his forehead theatrically with the palm of his left hand.

  The Old Man extends the time underwater by another twenty minutes “because it’s Sunday!”

  The men in the petty officers’ quarters make use of the underwater interlude in their usual fashion. Frenssen reports that there was a bombing attack on the train during his last leave, so he only got as far as Strasbourg, where he promptly found the cathouse.

  “She said she had a specialty. Wouldn’t tell me what. I went along. She gets undressed, lies down. I think, let’s see what the surprise is, and I’m about to hump her, when she says, ‘You want a fuck, sweetheart? My god, how primitive.’ And suddenly she takes her eye out, a glass eye, naturally, and leaves a kind of red role. ‘Go ahead, now you can really eye me!’”

  “You goddam pig!”—“Tell that to your grandmother!”—“Of all the filthy buggers!”—“You make me puke!”—“They ought to cut your prick off!”

  But when the cursing has suhsided the diesel mechanic mate says equably, “Still it’s a first-rate idea, isn’t it?”

  I feel nausea rising in my throat. I stare at the ceiling and see a pale blurred face and a dark red hole in the plywood background. Was that true? I wonder. Do these things happen? Can anyone actually invent such monstrosities? Isn’t Frenssen simply putting on an act?

  I’m still in my bunk when we surface. My whole body is aware of how the boat begins to move—gently at first. Then I feel like a driver going around a curve in winter when his rear wheels start to skid. Soon the whole compartment starts to reel. I hear the first waves batting at us like huge paws. We’re on the surface, and the St. Vitus dance begins again.

  Noises from the control room. The man in there is cursing out loud because water keeps pouring down on him. I duck through the hatch. When he sees me he begins again, “Goddam mess! Soon there won’t be a safe place left.”

  Monday. The orderly has work to do. Several men have been injured. Bruises, a smashed finger, a nail turned violet, blood blisters—nothing serious. One man was flung out of his bunk, another in the control room was hurled against the ventilator. A seaman had his head banged against the sonar. It’s a puncture wound and looks nasty.

  “What a mess! I hope he can cope because otherwise I’ll have to take a hand,” says the Old Man.

  I get ready for the Second Watch Officer’s watch at 16.00. One of the lookouts is sick. I’m to take his pla
ce.

  Before I can so much as lift the hatch cover I’m soaking wet. I wedge myself between the periscope housing and the bridge bulwark as quickly as I can, and snap on the hook of my safety belt. Only then do I attempt to force my body upright so that I can look out over the bulwark.

  Another sight to take my breath away. Chaos! The waves override their own ranks, falling on one another’s backs as though to tear them apart.

  The boat is poised on the tip of a gigantic wave: a piggyback ride on a leviathan. For seconds I can look out over the age-old seascape as if I’m in the gondola of a ferris wheel. Then the boat begins to waver. The bow searches this way and that, trying to find its goal. Then the roaring downward slide begins.

  Before the boat can right itself in the valley, a second gigantic wave—tons of crushing weight—smashes down on our upper deck in furious uproar, rams us behind the knees, covering us completely, whirls and seethes around our bodies. It seems an eternity before the boat finally shakes itself free. For just a second the whole length of the foreship is visible, then the next paw strikes.

  The back of my neck is soon burning, rubbed raw by the stiff collar of the oilskins. The salt water only increases the pain; it burns like acid.

  I have a cut on the ball of my left thumb. It won’t heal as long as sea water can find its way into the wound. The brine is slowly eating us away. The hell with it all!

  And then there’s this fierce cold wind. It flays the white skin from the waves and carries it off in horizontal tatters. It turns the driven spray to buckshot. When it sweeps over the bridge we have to take shelter behind the bulwark.

  The Second Watch Officer turns around. He grins at me, his face beaten red. He wants me to see that he’s not a man easily impressed by this sort of knocking about. Above the roaring and the hissing he shouts, “Wouldn’t it be something—weather like this and no ship under your feet! And a heavy suitcase in each hand!”