Das Boot

  I notice that both Watch Officers have disappeared. I can hardly stay on my feet either. Fewer orders to the helmsman. So we must have got through the circle of patrols unscathed.

  “Permission to come on the bridge?” I ask.

  “Jawohl,” from the Old Man.

  I can hardly move a muscle. Been standing so long. Painfully I climb past the helmsman—the Berliner. Wind strikes me in the face before I can look over the bulwark.

  “Well-l-l?” the Old Man asks in a drawl.

  I can’t say a word. Peer around—no shadows—nothing. Thereon the port side a string of lights: nine or ten. What can that be? The African coast? Hard to believe!

  I push myself up and take a look at the foreship. It shimmers in the pale moonlight. The upper deck looks so empty. Despite the darkness I can see that the gratings have been ripped apart in some bizarre fashion. Of the cannon nothing remains but the mounting. How must the forward side of our tower look? The fairing has certainly been torn to bits.

  The Old Man, standing beside me, says, “Rather impressive, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Impressive—all that.” His voice subsides into a murmur. All I can hear is, “Jesus and his flock… sheep may safely graze.”

  The navigator interrupts. “Thought He was always with the Tommies—they’re the ones with the whiskey.”

  Bad jokes! At a time like this!

  More lights. The Old Man gives orders. We weave to and fro while maintaining a generally westerly course. First, just get away. Put space between us and them.

  “How long can we keep it up, navigator?”

  “A good hour still, Herr Kaleun!”

  All I want to do is stand here and breathe easily, listen to the beating of my heart, let my eyes roam over the horizon, hear the hissing of the bow wave. I receive a dash of spray and taste it on my tongue: salty. Seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling the night air. Feeling the motion of the boat. Responding with all my senses—I am alive!

  I tip my head back. Here and there a few stars. Torn cloud cover that barely moves and shades the sickle moon. For us, resurrection has dawned—except that it was by night, and nobody else is even aware of it. In Kernével we count as sunk. The Tommies will have certainly reported that much promptly. They can use their radio as much as they like. We can’t. Admittedly someone said that our transmitter might work, but we have to be very careful not to call attention to ourselves. The Tommies are too much on the alert; they can get bearings from even the briefest radio messages.

  “All right then,” mutters the Old Man. “Another hour and we’ll pack it up! I think we can let the watch come on deck—eh, navigator?”

  “Think so, Herr Kaleun!”

  “Second watch, stand by!” the Commander calls below. “Well,” he says to me.

  “I can’t understand it!”

  “What can’t you understand?”

  “That they’re letting us ramble around this way.”

  “Nor can I,” the Old Man says dryly. “But it’s typical of them. My old rule is: Keep going! This would never have happened with me.”

  “What wouldn’t?”

  “We wouldn’t—be sailing around again, that is! Don’t stop till the Commander’s cap floats up—old rule.”

  My jaws drop open in sheer amazement. Professional criticism of enemy technique. If the Tommies had done things the Old Man’s way, we’d have been totally wiped out by now.

  “You ought to hit the sack for a while,” he says. He sounds slurred, like one drunk giving another drunk advice, convinced that he’s sober.

  “I’m all right for a while,” I say casually, but when I hear that the second watch is ready, I report down from the bridge all the same.

  The stinking buckets have disappeared. The calcium chloride too. Situation normal. The ventilators are humming. Everything cleaned up. For a wonder, stateroom H is free.

  All’s quiet in the petty officers’ compartment. Three curtains drawn. I clamber into my bunk just as I am, fully dressed, and push the escape gear to the foot of the bunk without repacking it. Now the potash cartridge and its pig snout are in my way. Where will it go? Overboard, preferably! I never want to see this aluminum box again. Where have the others stowed theirs? Up on edge against the wall. Yes, that works.

  Explosions in my dreams. “What’s that?” I stammer, pushing aside the curtain. Another three, four dull, echoing booms.

  Someone is sitting at the table. He turns his face toward me. I blink and recognize the diesel mate Kleinschmidt.

  “They’re after someone!”

  “Fucking bastards!”

  “They can’t be after us—it’s been going on for half an hour!”

  “How late is it now?”

  “11.30 hours!”

  “What’s that? What did you say?”

  “11.30 hours—right on the nose!”

  With a twisting motion Kleinschmidt raises his right arm, so that I can see his watch.

  Then I notice that I have my own watch again.

  Chasing someone! But it must be daylight up there. 11.30—that’s a.m. Can’t rely on my feeling for time. I’m completely confused. Surely no one would try to get through during the day?

  Another series of detonations! “Scare bombs perhaps,” I say to Kleinschmidt. “I wish they’d be good enough to stop; it’s driving me crazy!”

  I push myself up, roll over the guardrail, and head for the control room to find out what’s happening.

  The control-room mate has taken over the job of keeping count of the depth charges, because the navigator’s asleep.

  “Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-eight.”

  The last two were simultaneous.

  The First Watch Officer is there too. Sitting on the chart chest listening intently. In a drill-monkey jacket. Where in the world did he get that? It’s not what we’re used to seeing on him. His beard is still sprouting too. The light from the chart table makes deep shadowy hollows out of his eyes—a death’s head. To complete the image, all he’d have to do is bare his teeth.

  “Forty, forty-two, forty-four—that does it!”

  “How far off?”

  “Way off,” says the control-room mate.

  “At least fifteen miles,” says the First Watch Officer.

  “Thank you so much!”

  The fact that the Commander is not in the control room makes me uneasy. And the Chief? Is he in the engine room? Or is he finally asleep? The two hydroplane operators perch motionless in front of their control buttons. Indifferent, as though they’d long since gone to sleep.

  A whole series of detonations in a single grumbling drone.

  “Way off!” I hear the Commander growl behind me. Wearing nothing but shirt and trousers. His face is twisted in professional disapproval. Behind him I see the navigator. And now the Chief.

  “Shit!” mutters the Chief in every pause between bombs. “Shit—shit—-shit!” Like a defiant child.

  Have they by any chance been working over our oil slick? The bombs could hardly be intended for another boat. After all, it’s broad daylight!

  “Coming nearer,” says the navigator.

  That’s all we need! The rudder motor is making much too much noise. Everything in this boat is too loud.

  The Old Man dismisses this with a flick of his hand. “Foolishness!”

  Just then the rumbling suddenly stops. You’d think the Old Man’s hand had put an end to it.

  “Probably unloading their surplus!” he says bitingly. “Had to get rid of them! So they’re littering.”

  He disappears again.

  I take a look at the chart. Amazing—the navigator has patched the hole in our course. It wouldn’t surprise me if the ship’s position, which was entered at 06.00, had been derived from astronomical observation. If I know him, he took a few quick shots at the stars before he left the bridge.

  On the chart, everything looks quite simple. We’ve certainly perfo
rmed more complicated maneuvers before: This is a mere reverse tack. I see by the Papenberg that we’re sixty feet down.

  Herrmann’s on duty in the sound room. He favors me with a blank, owlish stare. I almost say “Good morning” into his empty face. But it’s already midday. And I mustn’t disturb him. He’s supposed to be listening in all directions at once. His two earphones have to take the place of four pairs of binoculars; his two eardrums, eight eyes.

  What was it the control-room mate said? “Limping home on crutches—not exactly my line.” Back from the Beresina on crutches. And the Lord smote them with men and with horses, and with chariots. Faith, hope, and charity, these three. But the greatest of these is hope.

  The Commander has closed his curtain. I tiptoe past.

  In the Officers’ Mess the Second Watch Officer is flat out. But the Chief isn’t in his bunk. If he hasn’t slept at all yet, he must be about ready for the madhouse. Twelve hours ago he was already practically a dead man. And this is the time his wife is due. A pretty state of affairs: his wife in a clinic in Flensburg, and the Chief in the Atlantic surrounded by demolished machinery, sixty feet down and on the verge of madness.

  I’m ready to drop dead of exhaustion again. No strength to drag myself back to the petty officers’ compartment. Half conscious, I collapse in a corner of the Chief’s bunk.

  The steward wakes me. Apparently he’s been trying for some time. I knew someone was shaking me, but let myself float back into unconsciousness time after time. His mouth is close to my face. “Five minutes to midnight, Herr Lieutenant!”

  I squeeze my eyelids together as tight as I can, then wrench them open.

  “Yes?”

  “Five minutes to midnight, Herr Lieutenant!”

  “Is there something to eat?”

  “Jawohl!”

  I can hear the Commander next door, talking to the sound man. He’s rasping like a drunk. Now he comes in.

  “Well!” is all he has to say, as usual.

  Reddened eyes, twitching eyelids, sallow skin, glistening hair, dark glistening beard: He’s obviously put his whole head under a faucet.

  Finally he opens his mouth. “What’s on the menu?”

  “Roulade of beef with red cabbage,” the steward replies.

  Cookie—he’s a fucking genius! I’d been counting on canned sausage at best, not a Sunday dinner.

  “Hm,” says the Old Man. He’s leaned back and is blinking at the ceiling.

  “Where’s the Chief?” I ask.

  “With his beloved engines; where else? He fell asleep squatting right there between the diesels. They stretched him out on a bunk mattress. He’s to stay there for the time being.”

  Three steaming dishes appear on the table. The Old Man savors the delicious smells that come wafting toward him,

  Three, four dull detonations. Is that bombing never going to stop?

  The Commander makes a face. Gnaws at his lower lip. Two explosions later he says, “These fireworks are getting to be a bore! Anyone would think it was New Year’s Eve already!”

  He shuts his eyes and massages his face. It doesn’t improve his color for long.

  “And the Second Engineer?”

  The Commander yawns. But this one has words to it. “…In the engine room too. Seems there are still some things to be patched up there.”

  He yawns again, leans back, and pats his gaping mouth with the back of his right hand, thereby transforming the yawn into a tremolo.

  “He’s had a proper training course. Now at least he knows what it’s all about!” He spears a piece of roulade, bares his teeth, and bites on it cautiously: hot.

  “Propeller noise bearing ninety degrees!” calls the sound man.

  The Old Man is up at once and beside the sound room.

  “Louder or weaker?” he asks impatiently.

  “Constant! Turbine engines! Still rather weak—now they’re getting louder.”

  The loop of the headset arches between their two heads like a bracket as the two men share the earphones. Not a word.

  Slowly I turn to look at our table again. My half of a roulade lies between a small heap of red cabbage and a small heap of potatoes. All at once it seems ridiculous.

  “Moving away!” That was the sound man.

  Groans and the cracking of joints announce that the Old Man is getting to his feet again.

  “They might at least let us eat in peace,” he says as he pushes himself back behind the narrow end of the table.

  He’s hardly sat down when the sound man announces new noises. “One hundred seventy degrees!”

  “Just when it was getting nice and quiet,” says the Commander with reproach in his voice—and then, “We’ll just wait a bit!”

  He takes two or three bites. I decide to go on eating too—very cautiously—in case I make any unnecessary clatter with my knife and fork.

  Here we are, trying to swallow good roulades while the Tommies are playing the acoustics game. It strikes the Old Man as sheer spitefulness. “Cold,” he says disgustedly, as he bites on the next mouthful. Annoyed, he stares at his food for a few minutes longer, then pushes the plate away.

  The exploding depth charges plus the closeness of the propeller noises are making him visibly nervous. Possibly the Tommies really are focusing on our oil slick? Is there any way we can know whether we’re leaving a trail behind us?

  A couple of hours more sleep, that’s the thing! Bliss! Stretch out, curl your toes, and then straighten them out again. Given the mess we’re in, that amounts to pure happiness. I shudder at the thought that we’d have been swimming for hours by now if the Old Man hadn’t been so stubborn. That ice-cold poker player knows what a floating vessel is worth, even if it’s a wreck.

  It’s 17.30 hours when I wake up. Very odd—we’re steering a course of thirty degrees. So the Old Man must want to bring us close to the coast again. If we hold to this course we’ll run straight into Lisbon.

  How long is it since I was called to the bridge one night because we were abreast of Lisbon?

  Close under the coast is presumably the safest place for us. In case of need, run the scow ashore—that may be what he has in mind. Possible, yes. But if I know him, he’ll do anything to hold out.

  We are, after all, fully equipped. Quantities of oil—despite our losses due to leakage. Full quota of torpedoes and plenty of provisions. A provisioned boat is not something our Old Man would be likely to surrender.

  For a voyage straight across Biscay, Cape Finesterre would be the starting point. Is that what he’s after?

  “Stand by to surface!” The order echoes from mouth to mouth. Since there’s nobody moving in the next compartment, I get up, walk stiff-legged into the gangway, open the hatch to the bow compartment, and roar into the semi-darkness, “Stand by to surface!”

  The customary ritual begins. The second watch is on duty. 18.00. Only two more hours of watch.

  A crowd in the control room. Once again we have to surface blind.

  “Tower free!”

  “Equalize pressure!”

  The hatch springs open. The Commander’s the first one up. He immediately orders diesel power. The boat shudders. Course thirty degrees.

  I go up onto the bridge behind the Second Watch Officer. A quick look around: We’re alone within the circle of the horizon. The night-black sea contrasts sharply with a trace of brighter sky. Little wind.

  “We’ll soon have Lisbon abeam,” says the Old Man.

  “But this time to starboard,” I say, and all the while I’m thinking: if that were the only difference!

  The Chief appears for dinner. I hardly dare look at him, he’s so worn.

  “They must have had radar,” the Old Man says to him.

  Radar. All the big ships have it. Those huge maneuverable mattresses on the mast. The Bismarck caught the Hood with radar, before the Hood had shown so much as the tip of her mast. And now the Tommies must have succeeded in shrinking their huge systems the way the Japanese shrink tre
es. Dwarf trees, and now dwarf radars, so small the whole business fits into a cockpit. And you can bet your life we don’t have any defense against it yet.

  I’m curious to know when Simone will find out. Her people are very much on the alert. Her people? I’d give a lot to know whether she really is committed to the Maquis or not. We should have been back long ago. No boat in the last year has been out as long as this, even without the Gibraltar disaster.

  Not a word about Gibraltar. Not the slightest reference to it. The hours we spent on the bottom are taboo.

  The seamen are silent too. Gibraltar has left its mark on their faces. Naked fear is the most common expression. Everyone knows: We’re unable to dive. The boat won’t stand more than periscope depth. Many of the ribs are broken. The boat is as wobbly as a hammock, not much more than a traveling wreck. Everyone’s afraid it’s not up to the winter storms of Biscay. Our only piece of luck is that the Tommies are convinced they’ve smashed us. Which means they won’t send out a search party.

  The next day I wake up to feel a hand on my arm.

  The shock of fear. “What’s happened?”

  The control-room assistant Turbo catches my horrified expression. No sound of the diesel, not a hum from the motors. Quiet in the boat.

  “What’s going on?”

  Turbo’s still staring at me.

  “Man, can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “We’re lying dead.”

  Stopped? How can that be? Even while I was asleep, every change in speed was registering itself in my subconscious. And now the engine has stopped without my even hearing it?

  A blow like a fist on a sandbag, then a sucking smack: waves striking against the buoyancy tanks. The boat rocks placidly back and forth.

  “You’re to come to the bridge.”

  The control-room mate is a considerate man. He’s carved his news into bite-sized pieces and is waiting until I’ve swallowed the first before offering the next. “The Commander’s topside—you’re to come up too—fact is, we’ve stopped a liner.”