Das Boot

  I hear the electric motors being put into gear. The pounding of the diesels stops; now we’re running on the surface with our motors, something we’ve never done before.

  “Ship’s time?” the Commander calls down.

  “20.30 hours,” the helmsman calls back.

  I remain in the control room. A half hour passes. The motors run with so little noise that all I have to do is stand under the tower, and I can hear everything the Commander says.

  “Good god—the Tommies’ve actually called up half the fleet! They can’t all be going to the casino in Tangier! Watch that one over there, Kriechbaum. Let’s hope we don’t run anyone over.”

  The Chief appears beside me, also glancing upward.

  “Damned difficult!” he says.

  Going by nothing but their navigation lights, the Old Man has to figure out the course and speed of the enemy ships, present our narrow silhouette to one patroling vessel after another and try to outmaneuver them. Damn hard to know at once which light belongs to which ship, whether the scow has stopped or is going away at an angle of a hundred ten degrees—or perhaps coming toward us at seventy.

  Nor can the helmsman relax for an instant. He makes his return report in hushed tones. But the Old Man’s voice has relaxed. I know him: He’s in his element now.

  “Such a decent bunch of people; they’ve set their navigation lights properly—nice of them! Kriechbaum, what’s your little tub doing? Getting closer?”

  The boat seems to be going round in circles. I must pay more attention to the orders to the helmsman.

  “Shit! That was a close one!”

  The Commander is silent for a while. Sticky work. A pulse beats high in my throat.

  “That’s right, my boy, just run along that way!” I hear at last. “What a mob! But they’re doing the best they can! Whoops, who’s that coming over there? Steer ninety degrees to port.”

  I’d give a lot to be on the bridge now.

  “Navigator, keep your eye on that vessel headed across our bow—yes, that one over therel—report if she changes course!”

  Suddenly he orders both motors stopped. I strain my ears. The Chief snorts. What now?

  The slapping of the waves against the buoyancy tanks sounds much too loud. Like wet wash cloths. The boat rocks back and forth. My questioning glance at the Chief remains unanswered. All the lights in the control room have been shaded, so I can only see his face as a pale slab.

  I hear him shift his weight twice in sheer excitement.

  Tschjumm—tschjumm: the waves slap against the side.

  Relief: the Old Man finally has the port motor started. For a good ten minutes we make very little headway; we seem to be sneaking along on tiptoe.

  “We’d have caught that one!” comes from above. The Chief lets out his breath.

  The Old Man orders the starboard motor started too. Have we already wormed our way through the heavy outer defenses? And what if the Tommies have set up a whole series of systems, not just one? “They can hardly have set up boom blockades,” says the Old Man. “Far too much current.” Where are we anyway? A glance at the chart? No, not now. No time for it.

  “Well, Kriechbaum, exciting, isn’t it?”

  The Old Man is talking loudly up there, totally unconcerned.

  “Steady as we are! What’s our interloper doing now?”

  Unfortunately, I can barely hear the navigator. Tension must have constricted his breathing; he answers in a whisper.

  The Old Man changes course yet again. “Just a little closer! It’s working out all right. They probably aren’t reckoning on us turning up! Be sure the scow over there stays well clear of us—okay?”

  For a good five minutes there’s nothing from above but two orders to the helmsman.

  Then: “In ten minutes we dive!”

  “All right with me,” murmurs the Chief.

  For the time being, however, despite the Old Man’s announcement, the Chief stays put. Is he trying to demonstrate how sure of himself he is? There’s no question about it: the boat has been perfectly trimmed. All the systems that are his responsibility have been carefully tested during the last few hours. The control-room mate hasn’t had any rest at all.

  “…well, who says… that’s the way… now behave yourselves…”

  The Old Man sounds as if he’s talking to a child who won’t finish his food.

  “Well, we’ll just take a look!” says the Chief at last and disappears.

  I have a sudden thought: Quick! Get to the can! Opportunities may become rare.

  I’m in luck—stateroom H is free.

  In the can it’s like squatting inside a machine. There’s no woodwork in here to conceal the mind-boggling tangle of pipes. You can barely move between the narrow walls. And to make things even more difficult, the bosun has crammed canned goods from the Weser into every inch of space between the mops and pails.

  While I’m exerting myself, I remember the description of a seaman in the latrine of a damaged vessel during a storm, whose job was to keep slowly pouring oil: This oil would flow out through the drain and supposedly calm the surface of the waves. The steamer was listing heavily, so the latrine lay just about at the water line. Whenever the ship heeled too far over, water rushed through the drain into the latrine and kept on rising. The door wouldn’t open, because a bolt on the outside had slid shut, and the seaman knew that he would drown if the ship rolled any farther. He couldn’t even hope that air would be trapped near the ceiling and resist the water pressure, for latrines are traditionally well ventilated—normal ships’ latrines, that is, not a U-boat’s.

  So there he was, caught like a mouse in a trap, and he went on pouring oil whenever the drainpipe stopped spouting sea water: a lonely man on an abandoned post fighting for his ship.

  Instantly I’m seized by the most humiliating claustrophobia. We might have a diving accident. The batteries might explode, and this damned heavy iron catch never open again—bent by the explosion. I see myself banging on the door in despair: no one to hear me.

  Scenes from movies flash through my mind: a car hurtling into a river, trapping its passengers. Agonized faces behind the bars of a burning penitentiary. A theater gangway jammed withpanic-stricken mobs. My bowels seize up; I get to my feet and try to concentrate on the drips of condensation hanging from the lower edge of a gleaming silver potash cartridge that’s stored in a container behind the toilet.

  I pretend to be calm and pull up my trousers with deliberate slowness. But then my hands begin to work faster than I want them to, pumping the toilet empty. Get the door open fast! Get out! Breathe deep! Jesus!

  Fear? Was that just fear, common, ordinary fear, or was it claustrophobia? When have I experienced real fear? In the air raid shelter? Not really. After all, there was no question but that we’d be dug out eventually. Once in Brest—when the bombers suddenly came—I ran like a rabbit. It was quite a performance. But genuine fear?

  In Dieppe, on the mine sweeper? That crazy rise and fall of the tide. We’d already picked up one mine; when the alarm suddenly went off, the wall of the pier was as high as a four-story house, and we were lying in the mud on the bottom of the harbor basin, with the bombs beginning to fall and nowhere to go.

  But all of that was nothing compared to my fear in the endless echoing corridors of the boarding school on Sundays, when most of the students had gone home—hardly anyone in the huge building. People chasing me, knives in their hands, fingers curling to seize me by the neck from behind. Pursuing footsteps pounding after me in the corridor. Horror behind my back—unceasing fear. The torment of school: In the middle of the night I’d start up out of my sleep, sticky between my thighs, positive I must be bleeding to death. No light. There I’d lie, rigid with terror, paralyzed by the fear that I’d be murdered if I so much as moved.

  X GIBRALTAR

  Changeover. There’s a lot of pushing and shoving because men from the second watch are still standing around in the control room, while those on the
third are beginning to turn up. The Berliner can’t understand why we still haven’t dived. “With the Old Man it’s all or nothing. No half measures!”

  Tension has loosened their tongues. Three or four of them are talking at once. “Boy, that’s quite an idea!”—“It’s really working out!”—“How are things in the shop?”—“We’re making out.”

  Zeitler runs his comb through his hair.

  “That’s it—fix yourself up,” says the Berliner. “They say a lot of the Tommies are queer.”

  Zeitler pays no attention.

  Turbo sings softly to himself.

  I stand under the hatchway, sou’wester fastened under my chin, right hand on the ladder, looking up. “Permission to come on the bridge?”

  But the Commander roars, “ALARM!”

  The navigator comes sliding down the ladder. His seaboots land close beside me with a bang. Uproar from above.

  The Commander—where in the world is the Commander?

  I’m about to open my mouth when a dreadful explosion catches me in the knees. God, my eardrums! I stagger against the chart chest. Someone shouts, “The Commander! The Commander!” And someone else, “We’ve been hit! Artillery shell!”

  A heavy cascade descends on us. No more light. Ears deafened. Fear.

  The boat has already started to tilt. Then the Commander lands smack in the middle of us like a heavy sack. Groaning with pain, all he manages to say is, “Hit, right beside the tower!”

  In the beam of a flashlight I see him bent over backward, his hands pressed against his kidneys.

  “Cannon’s gone!—Almost blew me out!”

  Somewhere in the darkness in the after half of the control room, someone is screaming shrilly—like a woman.

  “It was a bee—direct attack,” the Commander gasps.

  I feel the boat sinking fast. A bee? A bee? In the middle of the night? Not an artillery shell but a plane—impossible!

  An emergency light goes on.

  “Blow the tanks!” roars the Commander. “Blow them all!” And then in a whiplash voice, “Surface at once! Break out life-saving gear!”

  I stop breathing. Two, three terrified faces in the half darkness of the after-hatch frame. All movement ceases,

  The Commander groans, panting.

  In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace … A bee—that’s impossible!

  Bow heavy? Much too bow heavy? Cannon gone! How can the cannon have vanished?

  “A hit beside the tower,” like an oath from the Old Man, and then louder, “What’s wrong now? God Almighty! When am I going to get some reports?”

  In answer there’s a chorus of cries from astern. “Breach in the diesel room!”—“Breach in the motor room!”—Four, five times the dread word “breach” in the hubbub of shouting, half drowned by the hissing of compressed air streaming into the tanks.

  Finally the hand of the depth manometer stops, trembles violently, and then slowly moves backward. We’re rising.

  The Commander is now standing under the tower. “Move it, Chief! Surface immediately! No periscope survey! I’m going onto the bridge alone. Keep everything at the ready!”

  Icy terror. I don’t have my escape gear with me. I stagger toward the after hatch, force my way between two men who don’t want to move, then my hands reach the foot of my bunk and seize the thing.

  The compressed air goes on hissing and there’s wild confusion in the control room. So as not to be in the way, I crouch beside the forward hatch.

  “Boat breaking surface—tower hatch free!” the Chief reports, his head tilted upward, so matter of factly he might as well be out on maneuvers. The Old Man is already in the tower. He pushes the hatch open and the commands begin. “Both diesels full speed ahead! Hard a-starboard! Steer one hundred eighty degrees!” His voice is harsh and grating.

  Go overboard? Swim? I fasten my compressed-air tank, hastily fumble about with the catches on my life jacket. The diesels! This noise! How long can things keep on like this? I count the seconds half aloud amid the babble of voices coming through the after hatch.

  What’s the Old Man got in mind? One hundred eighty degrees—south! We’re running straight for the African coast.

  Someone roars, “Port diesel’s failed!” All that mad noise of machinery—is it really just one diesel?

  A sudden flash in the circle of the tower hatch makes me look up. Beside me the Chief’s face is illuminated by the blinding magnesium glare.

  “Star shells!” he snaps. It sounds like a bark.

  The roar of the diesel is driving me mad. I want to block my ears and drown out the hammering of the explosions in the cylinders. Better still, open my mouth, the way I learned in the artillery; there may be another shot at any moment.

  I hear myself counting. While I’m murmuring numbers, a new panic cry comes from astern. “E-motor bilge making water fast…”

  I’ve never swum with escape gear. Not even in practice. How close are the patrol boats? Much too dark—no one will see us in the water. As for the current—it’s powerful; the Old Man has said so himself. It’ll drive us apart. If we have to swim, we’ve had it. The surface current flows out of the Mediterranean, so that means straight into the Atlantic. And no one will find us there. Nonsense. I’m all wrong: It pushes us into the Mediterranean. Surface current… undercurrent. Count—go on counting! Seagulls. Those hooked beaks. Gelatinous flesh. Skulls picked white and covered in slime…

  Reeling off numbers I get to three hundred eighty when the Commanders roars “ALARM!” again.

  He comes down the ladder, left foot, right foot, perfectly normal—normal, that is, except for his voice. “The bastards are shooting flares—shitting them!” He brings his voice under control. “It’s like daylight up there!”

  What now? Are we not going overboard after all? What’s he got in mind? The reports from aft seem to make no impression on him.

  The bow heaviness jams me back against the forward wall of the control room. With the palms of my hands I can feel the cold damp lacquer behind me. Am I wrong, or are we descending faster than usual? Sinking like a stone!

  All hell breaks loose. Men stagger into the control room, slip, fall full length. One of them hits me in the stomach with his head as he goes down. I haul him to his feet. Don’t recognize who he is. In the confusion have I missed the order “All hands forward!”?

  The needle! It goes on turning… but the boat was balanced for a hundred feet. One hundred feet: It ought to have slowed down long ago. I concentrate on it—then it disappears into a blue haze. Puffs of smoke are forcing their way into the control room from aft.

  The Chief jerks his head around. In that fraction of a second I see real horror in his face.

  The needle… it’s moving much too fast.

  The Chief gives a hydroplane order. The old trick—hold the boat dynamically. Exert pressure on the hydroplanes with E-motors. But are they running full speed? I can’t hear the usual humming. Are they running at all?

  The nightmare pushing and sliding drowns out everything else. And the whimpering—who can that be? No one is recognizable in this miserable half-light.

  “Forward hydroplane jammed!” the hydroplane operator reports without turning round.

  The Chief is holding the beam of his inspection lamp trained on the depth manometer. Despite the smoke I can see that the pointer is moving quickly on: 160… 190… When it goes past 225 the Commander orders, “Blow the tanks!” The sharp hiss of compressed air soothes my jangled nerves. Thank god, now at last the scow will regain some of her buoyancy.

  But the pointer continues to turn. Of course, it has to—that’s normal: It’ll keep turning until the boat’s tendency to fall is changed into a tendency to rise. That always takes time.

  But now—it has to stop! My eyes close tight shut, but I force them open, stare at the depth manometer. The pointer hasn’t the slightest intention of coming to a halt. It goes rig
ht on… 250… 300 feet.

  I put all my will power into my stare, try to arrest the thin black strip of metal. No use: It passes the 325 mark and keeps going.

  Perhaps the buoyancy from our compressed-air cylinders is not enough?

  “Boat out of control, can’t hold her,” whispers the Chief.

  What was that? Can’t hold—can’t hold? The breaches in the hull… Have we become too heavy? Are we finished? I go on crouching beside the hatch.

  At what depth will the pressure hull be crushed? When will the steel skin between the ribs be ripped apart?

  The pointer passes 375. I no longer dare look at it. I push myself up, searching for handholds. Pressure. One of the lessons the Chief has drummed into me shoots through my head: At great depths the pressure of the water reduces the actual volume of the boat. Hence the boat gains excess weight compared to the water it displaces. So the more we are compressed, the heavier we get. No more buoyancy, only gravitational pull, and an increased rate of descent.

  “Six hundred!” the Chief announces. “Six twenty-five—six fifty…”

  The report echoes in my skull: six hundred fifty, and we’re still falling!

  My breathing stops. Any moment now there’ll be the screaming tear. And then the green cataracts.

  Where will it start?

  When water breaks through, something tells me, it starts with a single jet.

  The whole boat groans and cracks: a sharp report like a pistol shot, then a hollow strident singing that makes my blood run cold. It gets shriller and shriller, a hellish sound, like a high-speed circular saw.

  Again a sharp report and more cracking and groaning.

  “Passing eight hundred!” a strange voice cries. My feet go out from under me. I’m just able to catch myself by the halyard of the sky periscope. The thin wire rope cuts painfully into the palm of my hand.

  So this is the way it is.

  The pointer will soon reach 825. Another crack of the whip. Realization dawns: Those are rivets popping. The boat is welded and riveted, and this pressure is more than such rivets and welding can stand.

  The flanges! Those goddam outboard plugs!