Das Boot

  If only I could ask the Old Man straight out, in four plain words, “How do things stand?”

  But my mouth seems to be riveted shut, I’m incapable of thought. Head’s a volcanic crater, bubbling evilly.

  I feel thirsty. There must still be some apple juice left in the locker. I open it carefully, but shards of china fall out. All that damn banging around. Most of the cups and saucers are broken. A coffee pot has lost its spout. Looks idiotic without it. Fortunately the bottle of apple juice is intact. Apparently it was what smashed everything else. Quite right too: Smash everything around you so as to stay whole yourself.

  The framed photograph of our launching is still lying under the table, broken. Sharp slivers of glass still sticking in the frame. I must have missed it while I was cleaning up. I manage to get hold of it but can’t be bothered to loosen the glass daggers, so it goes back on its hook just as it is.

  “No more noises?” asks the Commander.

  “No, Herr Kaleun!”

  Slowly it gets to be 05.00.

  No noise. Hard to understand. Have they really given up the chase? Or are they considering us as sunk already?

  I feel my way back into the control room. The Commander is consulting in whispers with the navigator. I hear, “In twenty minutes we surface!”

  I hear it, but I can’t believe my ears. Do we have to surface? Or are we really safely out of the shit?

  The operator starts to say something; he’s about to make a report—but he stops in mid-syllable and keeps turning his wheel. He must have caught a faint sound, which he’s now trying to track by fine-tuning his apparatus.

  The Old Man stares into the operator’s face. The operator moistens his lower lip with his tongue. In a very iow voice he reports, “Noise bearing sixty degrees—very faint.”

  Abruptly the Old Man climbs through the hatch and crouches down beside him in the gangway. The operator passes him the headset. The Old Man listens and the operator turns his wheel very gently back and forth along the scale, and gradually the Old Man’s face grows stern.

  Minutes pass. The Old Man remains tied to the hydrophone by the cord of the headset. He looks like a fish on a line. His orders to the helmsman are to bring the bow around so that he can hear better.

  “Stand by to surface!”

  His voice, grating and determined, has startled others than myself. The Chief’s eyelids twitch.

  Stand by to surface! He must know what is and isn’t possible! Noises still audible in the hydrophone and he’s getting ready to go up?

  The hydroplane operators sit hunched over their tables. The navigator has finally taken off his sou’wester. His mask-like face looks years older, the lines in it carved even deeper.

  The Chief stands behind him, his left thigh resting on the chart chest, his right hand on the pillar of the sky periscope, his torso bent forward as though to bring him as close as possible to the needle of the depth manometer that is slowly moving backward over the scale. With every mark it passes we are three feet closer to the surface. It moves very slowly, as if to give us time to experience these minutes at leisure.

  “Radio clear by now?” asks the Commander.

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleun!”

  The watch is already assembled in oilskins and sou’westers under the tower hatch, Binoculars are being polished—much too vigorously, or so it seems. No one says a word.

  My breathing has steadied. I’ve regained the use of my muscles. I can stand without being afraid of staggering, but at the same time I can single out every muscle, every bone in my body. The flesh on my face feels frozen.

  The Old Man intends to surface. We’re going to breathe sea air again. We are alive. The bastards didn’t kill us.

  No sudden outbursts of joy. I’m still in the grip of terror, Letting our tense shoulders droop, holding our heads a little higher—that’s about all we can manage.

  The crew is completely exhausted. Even after the order to surface has been given, both control-room assistants sit apathetically on the flooding and bailing distributors. And as for the control-room mate, he’s trying to look casual, but I can still see the horror in his face.

  I suddenly long for a periscope ten times the length of this one. If only the Old Man could take a single quick look around from the safety of our present position, so that we would know what’s going on up there—what that damn bunch is really up to!

  The boat has risen to periscope depth. We’re close to the surface. The Chief has the boat firmly in hand. No trace of excessive buoyancy.

  The Old Man sticks the asparagus stalk out. I hear the periscope motor spring into action and stop again, and then the soft snap and click of the clutch. The Old Man is riding his merry-go-round.

  The tension in the room is almost unbearable. Without intending to, I hold my breath until I have to gasp for air like a drowning man. No word from above.

  So things do look bad! If it were all clear, the Old Man would tell us at once.

  “Take this down!”

  Thank god, the Old Man’s voice.

  The navigator thinks the words are for him. He reaches for a pencil. My god, are we going to have this all over again? Literary composition for the war log?

  “Here we go: ‘Periscope reveals—destroyer, corrected bearing one hundred degrees, lying motionless—range about sixty-five hundred yards.’ Got that?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleun!”

  “’Moon still very bright.’ Got that?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleun!”

  “’Remaining submerged.’” So that’s that!

  No further word from above.

  Three or four minutes pass, then the Commander gropes his way down. “Thought they could fool us! Same old tricks! Idiots! Every time they think we’ll bite. Chief, take her down to two hundred feet again! We’ll just move a little to one side and reload the torpedoes in our own good time.”

  The Old Man is behaving as if everything were going according to plan. I want to grasp my head in my hands: he sounds as if he’s reading some boring company report from the business section of a newspaper. “Navigator, take this down: ‘Running silent to get clear of destroyer. Presume that destroyer—that destroyer has lost us… No sound in immediate vicinity.”

  “Presume” is good! So he doesn’t even know for sure. He narrows his eyes. Apparently he’s not yet through with his dictation.

  “Navigator!”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleun!”

  “Add this. ‘Conflagration—brilliant conflagration, corrected bearing two hundred fifty degrees. Assume it to be tanker hit by us.” The Old Man gives an order to the helmsman. “Steer two hundred fifty degrees!”

  I stare around from one to another and see nothing but impassive faces. Only the Second Watch Officer betrays a slight frown. The First Watch Officer is gazing expressionlessly into space. The navigator is writing at the chart table.

  Aft, and in the bow compartment, they’re making repairs. Now and then a man comes through the control room with oil-smeared hands and reports to the First Watch Officer, who has taken charge of the hydroplanes. They always do it in a whisper. No one apart from the Old Man dares use his normal voice.

  “Another half hour and we’ll reload the torpedoes,” he says, and then to me, “This would be a good time for a drink.”

  He makes no move to leave the control room, so I hurriedly go in search of a bottle of apple juice. I don’t seem to want to move. Every muscle aches as I clamber through the hatch. Limping past Herrmann, I see that he’s totally intent on his hydrophone wheel. But right now I don’t give a damn what he picks up with it.

  Whatever the report was, after half an hour the Old Man gives the order to reload the torpedoes.

  They’re working like madmen in the bow compartment. Wet clothes, sweaters, leather suits, and all kinds of junk are piled up close to the hatch, and the floor boards are gone.

  “Praise the Lord with trumpets and cymbals,” intones the torpedo mechanic Hacker. “Finally we’ll
get some room in here,” he adds for my benefit, wiping the sweat from his neck with a filthy rag of a towel. He urges his coolies on. “Get with it, boys, get with it—up with the hoists!”

  “A smear of Vaseline and straight into the crack!” Ario hangs suspended from the chains of the hoist in mock ecstasy, as he hauls away in time to Hacker’s calls of hau-ruck. “Fuck me—fuck me—you horny goat, oh, oh, oh, you bastard—oh, you—that’s it—deeper—go on! More—more!”

  I’m amazed that he can find the breath for it in this madhouse. A seaman who’s also hauling away at the tackle, has an embittered expression on his face. He’s pretending to be deaf.

  When the first torpedo is in its tube, the Berliner spreads his legs and dries the sweat from his torso with a hand towel, then hands the dirty rag to Ario.

  The First Watch Officer appears to check the time. The men work on doggedly. Aside from Hacker’s hau-rucks and subdued curses there’s nothing to be heard.

  Back in the Officers’ Mess I see the Old Man in his usual corner of the Chief’s bunk, legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back at an angle like a man at the end of a very long train ride. His face is upturned, his mouth half open. A thread of saliva dangles from one corner, disappearing into his beard.

  I wonder what to do. He can’t just lie here like this, with people coming and going. I cough loudly, as if to clear a frog in my throat—and instantly the Old Man is wide awake, sitting up straight again. But he says nothing, just gestures toward a seat.

  Finally he asks haltingly, “How do things look forward?”

  “One fish is already in its tube. They’re just about finished! The men, I mean—not the work.”

  “Huh. And have you been aft?”

  “No—too much work going on.”

  “Tsch, it looks pretty shitty back there. But the Chief will manage; he’s a helluva dancing master.” Then he calls into the gangway, “Food! For the officers of the watch as well.” And to me, “Never pass up the chance for a celebration—even if it’s only with a piece of bread and a sour pickle!”

  Plates and knives and forks are brought in. Soon we’re sitting around a properly set table.

  I’m blabbering away silently to myself like an idiot. “Crazy—absolutely crazy.” There in front of my eyes are a smooth clean table, plates, knives, forks, cups, the familiar lamplight. I stare at the Old Man stirring his tea with a polished spoon, the First Watch Officer dissecting a sausage, the Second Watch Officer splitting a spiced pickle lengthwise.

  The steward asks me whether I want more tea. “Me? Tea? Yes!” I stammer. A hundred depth charges are still exploding in my head. Every muscle aches from the desperate tension. I have a cramp in my right thigh; I can even feel my jaw muscles at every bite. That comes from grinding my teeth.

  “Why are you goggling like that?” the Commander asks, his mouth full, and I hastily spear a slice of sausage on my fork. Keep your eyes open. Don’t begin to think. Chew, chew thoroughly, the way you usually do. Move your eyes. Blink.

  “Another pickle?” asks the Old Man.

  “Yes, please—thanks!”

  From the gangway comes a dull thumping. Is Hinrich, who has relieved Herrmann in the sound room, trying to call attention to himself? A loud stamping of boots, then he announces, “Exploding depth charges, bearing two hundred thirty degrees.”

  His voice sounds much higher than Herrmann’s, a tenor as opposed to a bass.

  I try to relate his report to our course. Two points to port.

  “Well, it’s about time we surfaced,” says the Old Man, his mouth full. “Ship’s time?”

  “06.55 hours!” is the report from the navigator in the control room.

  The Old Man gets up, still chewing, stands there while he washes down his mouthful with a great gulp of tea, and reaches the end of gangway in three determined strides. “We surface in ten minutes. Add a note to the log: ‘06.00, torpedoes reloaded. 06.55, depth charge detonations at two hundred thirty degrees.’”

  Then he comes back and wedges himself into his corner again.

  Hacker appears, gasping for air. He has to take a couple of deep breaths before he can get a word out. My god, look at him! The sweat is pouring down him in rivulets. He can hardly stay on his feet as he stammers out his report. “Four bow torpedoes loaded. Stern tube…”

  He tries to go on, but the Old Man interrupts him. “Very good, Hacker; it’s obvious we can’t reach it for the time being.”

  Hacker tries to do a snappy about-face, but loses his balance. He’s just able to save himself from falling by clutching the top of the lockers.

  “These youngsters!” says the Old Man. “They really are amazing!” And then, “It certainly feels different having torpedoes in the tubes again!”

  I know that all he wants to do now is attack the destroyer that’s been tormenting us. He’d be betting everything on a single card again, but no doubt he has something else in mind.

  He gets up resolutely, does up three buttons on his fur-lined vest, jams his cap down harder on his head, and heads for the control room.

  The Chief appears and announces that the damages aft have been repaired with shipboard materials. Shipboard materials—that means only temporary repairs.

  I climb into the control room behind the Old Man,

  The bridge watch is already standing by. The Second Engineer has stationed himself behind the hydroplane operators. The boat is rising rapidly. We’ll soon be at periscope level.

  Without wasting a word the Old Man climbs into the tower. The periscope motor begins to run. More clicks and pauses. I have difficulty breathing again until his voice comes down loud and clear. “Surface.”

  The equalization of pressure is like a blow. I want to roar and gulp all at once, instead of which I simply stand there like all the others. Only my lungs are in action, pumping in the fresh sea air. Down comes the voice of the Commander, “Both diesels!”

  Astern in the diesel room the compressed air rushes into the cylinders. The pistons begin to move up and down. And now the ignition! The diesels fire. A shudder runs through the boat as violent as the first jerk of a tractor. The bilge pumps hum, the ventilators pump aid through the boat—a stream of sound to make the nerves relax—like a soothing bath.

  I climb onto the bridge behind the lookouts.

  Christ! A monstrous conflagration over the horizon.

  “That must be the third steamer!” roars the Commander.

  Against the dark heavens I can make out a black cloud above the red inferno: smoke winding upward like a gigantic worm. We head toward it. Soon the bow and stern of the vessel grow clearly visible, but her midship is almost invisible.

  The wind brings the acrid, suffocating smell of fuel oil.

  “Broke their back,” the Commander raps out. He orders full speed ahead and changes course. Our bow is now pointing straight at the conflagration.

  The glare of the fire flickers, lighting the gigantic smoke clouds from underneath, and through the smog we can make out tongues of flame.

  Now and again the entire cloud is shot through from inside with flashes of yellow, and individual bursts soar up into the darkness like star shells. Real rockets explode, rose-blood red, through the welter of smoke. Their reflections snake across the dark water between us and the burning ship.

  A single mast stands out black against the reflection of the fire, rising up out of the flames like an admonitory finger. The wind forces the smoke in our direction, as if the ship wanted to shroud herself and go down unseen. Only the stern of the tanker is visible as a dark hulk. It must have heeled toward us; when the wind blows the smoke away I recognize the tilted deck, a few superstructures, the stump of what was once a loading crane.

  “No need to fire again!” The Commander’s voice is harsh and husky. His words turn into a hoarse gurgle which seems to die away in drunken laughter.

  Nevertheless, he doesn’t order the boat to turn aside; on the contrary, we slowly draw closer and closer to the
inferno.

  All around the stern of the tanker dark-red flames are licking up out of the sea: the water itself is on fire. Spilled fuel oil.

  “Perhaps we can find out her name!” says the Commander.

  The rumbling and cracking of a brush fire reaches us, followed by a sharp hissing and snapping. The sea is now yellow with the reflection of the burning stern and red from the flaming oil.

  Then we in turn are flooded with the same crimson glare. Every slit in the grating stands out in the light of the leaping flames.

  I turn my head. Everyone’s face is red—distorted red masks.

  Now there is the thud of another explosion. And then—I prick up my ears—wasn’t that a hoarse cry? Could there still be people on board? Didn’t I just see a gesticulating arm? I squint—but there’s nothing in the binoculars but flames and smoke. Nonsense, no human sound could make itself heard through this inferno.

  What will the Old Man do? Now and again he gives an order to the helmsman. I know: stay head on—don’t be silhouetted against the conflagration. “Look sharp!” says the Old Man, and then, “She’ll be going down any minute now!”

  I barely hear him, We stand there rooted. Madmen, desperadoes, staring into a hell of flames.

  How far is it? Eight hundred yards?

  The significance of its being such a big ship gnaws at me. How many men would such a vessel carry as minimum crew? How many dead this time?—twenty, thirty? British ships are certainly sailing with as few men as possible these days. Perhaps they even divide their watches in two instead of three. But they couldn’t manage with less than ten seamen, plus eight for engines, wireless, officers, and stewards. Has a destroyer picked them up? But to do that it would have to stop—can a destroyer run such a risk, with a U-boat in the immediate vicinity?

  Over there a cluster of glaring red beams of fire shoots into the sky: the still-floating stern spits out trails of sparks. And then a distress rocket. So there are still people on board! God in heaven—in that inferno!

  “That went off by itself. There’s no one left on board. It’s impossible!” the Old Man says in his ordinary voice.