Das Boot

  Once more I use the binoculars to grope my way through the smoke. There! No doubt of it: people! Crowded together on the stern. For a second I see them sharp against the blazing backdrop. Now some are jumping into the water; only two or three are left, still running about up there on the deck. One of them is hurled into the air. I see him clearly, like a disjointed doll, against the reddishyellow glare.

  The navigator roars, “There are some over there, too!” and points to the water in front of the burning tanker. I snatch up my glasses: a raft with two people on it.

  I keep my binoculars on them for half a minute. No sign of movement. Undoubtedly dead.

  But there! The black humps—they must be swimmers!

  The Second Watch Officer turns his glasses in that direction too. The Old Man explodes. “Look out! For god’s sake, you’re supposed to be keeping watch astern.”

  Aren’t those screams I’m hearing through the crackling? One of the swimmers raises an arm for an instant. The others, seven—no, ten—men are recognizable only as floating black balls.

  The wind forces the banners of oily smoke down once more and I lose sight of the swimmers. Then they’re there again. No doubt about it—they’re making for our boat. Behind them the red tongues of spreading oil reach out in an ever-widening front.

  I glance sideways at the Commander. “Damn risky,” I hear him murmur, and I know what he means, We’ve come too close. It’s getting hot.

  For two or three minutes he says nothing. He picks up his binoculars, puts them down again, struggling to come to a decision; then in a voice so husky it almost cracks he calls down the order for both diesels to be reversed.

  The men in the engine room will be wide-eyed. Reverse—we haven’t had that one before. Nasty: Now we can’t crash dive—the boat has no steerageway.

  The burning oil spreads faster than the men can swim. They haven’t a chance. The fire on the water devours the oxygen. To suffocate, to burn to death, to drown—whoever is caught will die in all three ways at once.

  Luckily the crackling of the conflagration and the dull roar of minor explosions render their screams inaudible.

  The red-tinged face of the Second Watch Officer wears a look of horror.

  “Can’t understand it,” the Old Man says dully. “No one came to pick them up I too find it incomprehensible. All those hours! Were they trying at first to save the ship? Perhaps she was still manageable after the hit; perhaps the engines were still good for a few knots. Possibly they tried to put the fire out in the hope that they could still escape an enemy submarine. I shudder at what that crew must have gone through.

  “Now we won’t even find out her name!” I hear the Old Man say. He’s trying to be ironic.

  Nausea in my throat. I have a vision of the man I helped to rescue out of the huge pool of fuel oil in the harbor basin after an air attack. He stood there on the pier, vomiting and shaken with convulsive cramps and groans. The burning oil had scorched his eyes. Luckily a sailor appeared with a fire hose. He washed off the slime at such high pressure that the poor wretch was knocked down and rolled over the stones like a shapeless black bundle.

  Suddenly the stern of the tanker rises, looming up as if it were being thrust out of the water from underneath. For a while it stands, steep as a cliff, in the burning sea; then with two or three muffled explosions it plunges, roaring, out of sight.

  In seconds the sea closes over the spot where it sank, sucking in the huge ship as though it had never existed. Of the swimmers there is nothing more to be seen.

  Our men who are below must now be able to hear the music of destruction, the terrifying groaning, cracking, and tearing, the explosions of the boilers, the breaking up of the holds. How deep is the Atlantic here? Sixteen thousand feet? Thirteen thousand at least.

  The Commander orders us to turn away.

  “Nothing more for us to do here!”

  The bridge lookouts are back in their usual positions, motionless, their binoculars to their eyes. Forward above the horizon there’s a dim reddish glow, such as big cities cast against the sky at night. And now in the southwest something brightens and flares almost up to the zenith.

  “Navigator, take this down. ‘Glow of flames visible at two hundred thirty degrees.’ And add ship’s time. Other boats are in action over there. We’ll just take a look and see what kind of neon sign it is,” he mutters in my direction and orders the bow turned toward the flickering light.

  What now? Is this going to go on until we’re left drifting somewhere with empty tanks? Haven’t we had enough? The Old Man’s probably itching to pull himself down a destroyer. As repayment, revenge for our ordeal.

  The Chief disappears from the bridge.

  “So it goes,” says the Old Man. “But it’s high time we sent that signal! Navigator—paper and pencil. We’d better begin again. Now we can describe the whole thing properly…”

  I know what he means: the risk of being spotted if we send more than a brief radio signal is now irrelevant. By this time the Tommies are well aware that we’re active in this vicinity. No further need to worry about their taking bearings on our transmitter.

  “Just take it down—as follows: ‘Depth charge pursuit—by destroyers.’ ‘Sophisticated depth bomb pursuit’ might be better. ‘Numerous attacks’—but who cares about that? They can just as well find it in the war log; So let’s leave it at that: ‘Numerous attacks.’ They’re a lot more interested in what we sank, navigator, so we’ll keep it absolutely simple: ‘Depth charge pursuit by destroyers.’ Leave out the ‘numerous attacks’ as well. To continue: ‘Depth bomb attack. Five torpedoes fired. Four hits. Passenger liner eight thousand GRT and freighter five thousand five hundred GRT. Sinkings clearly audible. Hit on eight thousand GRT tanker. Sinking observed—UA.”

  “Passenger liner,” the Old Man had dictated. Was that one of the ones re-equipped as troop transports? I don’t want to picture the effect of a torpedo hitting a fully loaded troop transport… The drunken loudmouth in the Bar Royal: “Destroy the enemy, not just his ships!”

  From below comes the report that the radioman has picked up SOS calls from British steamers. “Well, well,” says the Old Man. Not a word more.

  At 07.30 hours we pick up a signal from one of our own boats. The navigator reads it aloud, quite carried away. “Sank three steamers. Fourth ship probable. Four hours depth charge pursuit during attack. Convoy broken into groups and lone ships. Contact broken off. Pursuing southwest—UZ.”

  I stare at the glow over the horizon, which is punctuated now and again by bright flashes.

  A frenetic jumble of sequences races through my mind: The projector’s running too fast. Pieces of film have been spliced together meaninglessly, at random, and there are a lot of double exposures. Again and again I see clouds from explosions, which remain frozen for a few instants and then collapse, dropping a rain of planks and fragments of iron. I see the black smoke of oil darkening the sky like a gigantic skein of wool. Then the crackling of the blaze, the flame of oil on water—and the struggling black balls in front of it.

  I’m overwhelmed with horror at what we have done with our torpedoes. Delayed reaction. One stab at the firing lever! I close my eyes to blot out the haunting visions, but I continue to see the sea of flames spreading out over the water and men swimming for their lives.

  How does the Old Man feel when he visualizes the mass of ships that he himself has destroyed? And when he thinks of the crowds of men who were traveling on those ships and went down with them, or were blown up by the torpedoes—scalded, maimed, dismembered, burned to death, smothered, drowned, smashed. Or half scalded and half smothered and then drowned. Almost two hundred thousand tons: a medium-sized harborful of ships chalked up by him alone.

  After a while there’s a report from below that messages have been received. Kupsch is in contact with the same convoy; Stackmann has scored a hit on a six thousand GRT.

  I’m hit by waves of weariness. I must not lean against the bulwark or
the TBT—otherwise I’ll go to sleep standing up. Dull emptiness in my skull. And I can feel a spastic writhing in my guts. And pressure in my bladder. Stiff-legged, I climb down into the boat.

  The chief mechanic Franz is not in the Quarters. Since making such a fool of himself, he’s kept out of sight. Actually this ought to be his time off. He’s probably afraid to set foot out of the engine room.

  As I emerge from the head, the Second Watch Officer is at the door. So he feels the same need. My god, what a sight: the face of an elderly dwarf, creased and petulant. Has the stubble of his beard actually turned darker? I stare at him disconcertedly until I realize it’s an illusion—the result of his chalk-white skin. The stubble simply stands out more than before.

  When he reappears, he asks the steward for coffee.

  “I think lemonade might be better,” I say.

  The steward pauses, irritated. The Second Watch Officer sprawls in the corner of the sofa without bothering to reply.

  “Lemonade,” I decide. “For me too.”

  Sleep would do us both good. So what’s the point of coffee?

  I’m just stretching, seeing what it feels like, when the Old Man appears and says, “Quick, something to eat!”

  The steward comes in with the lemonade and two cups.

  “Strong coffee and cold cuts for me, and make it fast!” says the Old Man.

  The steward is back in no time. The cook must have had the food ready and waiting.

  The Old Man chews, pauses, and chews some more, staring straight ahead. The silence becomes oppressive.

  “Three more ships gone,” he says, but without a trace of triumph in his voice; on the contrary, it sounds sullen and grating.

  “Damn nearly us too!” The words slip out.

  “Rubbish,” says the Old Man and stares holes in the air. He chews for a minute or two and then I hear him say, “At least we always carry our own respectable coffin around with us. We’re just like snails.”

  This banal image seems to please him. “Just like snails,” he repeats, nodding to himself with a weary grin.

  So that’s all there was to it: the enemy—just a few shadows above the horizon. Firing the torpedoes—not even a perceptible jolt. The unearthly flames—our victory bonfire, Nothing seems to fit together any more: first the hunting fever, then the attack, the depth charges, the hours of torture. But even before that the sounds of the sinking ships—and then when we surfaced, the burning hulk—the third victim! Four torpedoes scored direct hits—and we’re deep in depression.

  The Old Man seems to come out of a kind of trance. He straightens up and shouts into the gangway, “Ship’s time?”

  “07.50 hours!”

  “Navigator!”

  He appears instantly from the control room.

  “Can we get at them again?”

  “Difficult!” says the navigator. “Unless…” The navigator pauses and begins again. “That is, unless they change their general course.”

  “We can hardly count on that…”

  The Old Man follows him into the control room. I hear fragments of dialogue and the Old Man thinking aloud. “Dived at 22.53 hours, let’s say 23.00—now it’s 07.50, so we’ve lost a good eight hours. How fast are they moving? Probably about eight knots, so they’ve made sixty-four miles—at a very rough guess. To get where they are now we’d need more than four hours at full speed. But the fuel situation! It’s too long at full speed; and, besides, the convoy will be that much farther ahead.”

  Nevertheless, he still seems unwilling to make any preparations to reverse our course.

  The Chief turns up in the control room. He doesn’t say a word, but the very way he stands there is a question in itself: When do we turn back?

  Despite my exhaustion I can’t sleep. I might as well be full of pep pills. Excitement is making me restless. No one in the Quarters. Uproar in the bow compartment. Must be some sort of half-hearted victory celebration, I push the hatch open. In the murky light I can make out a circle of men sitting on the floor plates, which are now back in place. I hear ragged singing. They drag out the last line until it sounds like a chorale. It’s all very well for them to holler—they didn’t see a thing, poor devils.

  If they hadn’t been told that the detonations and shrieking of rending metal came from the water pressure smashing the sides and holds of sinking ships—our targets—they wouldn’t have been able to make head or tail of the deafening underwater uproar.

  The navigator is on watch. The glow has died down but is still clearly visible. Suddenly he calls, “Something moving!” His right arm is pointing out over the dark sea ahead. He sends word below. Within seconds the Old Man is on the bridge.

  It looks like a raft, with a bunch of men on it.

  “Megaphone on deck,” orders the Old Man and then, “Closer!” He props himself high against the bulwark and roars, “What’s the name of your ship?” in English.

  The men down there are quick to answer, as if this might buy them the reward of a rescuing hand: “Arthur Allee!”

  “Just as well to know,” says the Old Man.

  One of the men tries to cling on to our boat, but we’ve already picked up speed. He hangs between us and the raft, And then he lets go and sinks into our foaming wake. Teeth—all I can make out is two rows of teeth, not even the whites of his eyes.

  Will anyone find the others?

  We haven’t been going another quarter hour before a strange twinkling appears on the water in the pale light. Tiny flashing points—like fireflies. As we approach, they turn out to be little lamps dancing up and down. More survivors, hanging in their life preservers. I can clearly see them waving their arms. Trying to attract our attention? They’re probably shouting too, but none of it reaches us because the wind is against them,

  Stony-faced, the Old Man orders reduce speed and gives commands to the helmsman that will prevent the boat from coming too close to the drifting men. But we’re still moving so fast that our bow wave catches two or three of them, slamming them up and then down again. Are they really waving at us or is that a threat, a last impotent gesture against the enemy who has turned them over to the deadly grasp of the sea?

  We all stand there frozen—six men with fear clawing at our hearts, each knowing that any one of those men thrashing in the sea might be us. What will become of them? They escaped immediate catastrophe when their ship sank. But is there any hope for them? How cold is the water in December? Does the Gulf Stream reach this far? How long have they already been floating there? It’s hard to believe: the ships guarding the convoy’s rear must have passed the disaster area hours ago.

  The Old Man stands motionless: a sailor who dares not help another in distress because an order from the C-in-C forbids rescuing surviving personnel! There’s only one exception: flyers who have been shot down. They have valuable information. Apparently they’re worth their weight in gold.

  I can still see the little lights like will-o’-the-wisps. “Port five!” the Old Man orders. “Those were Navy men, probably from a corvette.”

  The Second Watch Officer appears. “Looks like an erupting volcano,” he says to himself, meaning the fiery glow. The little lights have vanished.

  There’s a flash through the smoke. After a while an explosion rolls across the water like dull thunder, followed by yet another. A report comes up: “Sound room to bridge: Depth charges at two hundred sixty degrees!”

  All hell must have broken loose in the convoy. The wind brings us the smell of burning oil: the stench of death.

  Pale morning light is rising over the horizon. The glow of the fire gradually subsides.

  I’m dead on my feet, almost ready to drop, when the bridge reports, “Burning vessel ahead!” It’s 09.00. No choice but to struggle up to the bridge again.

  “She’s been hit,” says the Old Man. “A straggler. We’ll finish her off!”

  He puts the binoculars to his eyes and his voice emerges from between gloved hands as he addresses the navigator
. “First get a forward position. She’s probably slowed down. About five knots, I’d say.”

  The Old Man gives a change of course: “Two points to port.” The cloud of smoke grows rapidly larger and slowly moves to starboard. We should be able to see masts and even superstructures by now, but the smoke has shrouded everything.

  Another five minutes, then the Old Man orders the boat to dive and level off at periscope depth: forty-five feet.

  After a while he gives a kind of battle report from the tower: “Mustn’t let her get away—she’s tacking—well, if we hold on for a while, she’ll tack again—just wait… Ship has two masts, four loading hatches, nice little scow—about eight thousand_riding low at the stern—fire aft. Think she’s also been burning amidships.”

  His voice becomes a snarl. “Chief! She’s turning this way!” The periscope must have been underwater for a moment, blocking his view.

  The Chief makes a face. Now it’s up to him to trim ship precisely so that the Commander can operate as much as possible without moving the periscope. The Chief cocks his head forward and to one side, toward the Papenberg.

  A series of rudder maneuvers. Suddenly the Old Man has the motors run full speed. The boat gives a palpable leap forward.

  Then I hear the First Watch Officer above me reporting that the tubes are ready. The lateral directional angles are being transmitted to the lead-angle calculator in the tower, and from the lead-angle calculator to the torpedoes.

  The First Watch Officer has long since pulled the safety catch from the firing mechanism. He’s waiting there in the tower for the Old Man to get us lined up for the shot.

  Is all this never to end? My mind is reeling. Am I dreaming? Did I hear: “Open torpedo doors”?

  “Tube one stand by!” Two seconds pause: “Tube one fire!”—“Connect tube two!”

  I seem to be living in some vivid waking dream. The sound of dull detonations, immediately followed by a much sharper one.

  The Commander’s voice seems to be coming from a great distance. “Lying dead in the water now!”