by John Day
Walter tried to formulate a plan to get aboard. He refused to consider the possibility Ellen and Alan stayed on deck. If they could raise the conning tower hatch, they would have taken shelter inside the hull. That prompted many questions. What would it be like inside, in the dark, being thrown around for hours on end and without fresh air?
Walter knew Ellen had issues about the dark that stemmed from her early childhood. Her frequent male attacker pinned her down in her bed, the man’s large hand over her mouth to stifle her screams. As if the shock of puberty hadn’t been enough to deal with, now sexual assault by a trusted warden in the children’s home was being forced on her. Only he could understand her terror. There was no way she would confide in anyone else.
He prayed the pair of them were inside the hull. Being so low down and most likely in the control room, the movement might be bearable, but where would breathable air come from?
Walter saw a possible solution to boarding. “Sarah, can you steer into the waves just in front of the sub’s bow. Adjust your speed as slow as possible, but maintain steerage. I plan to throw the small anchor, like a grappling hook, onto the deck of U-159 and hope to snag it.
“Then when I signal, come hard about and head back to land under power so we pull the sub’s bow around and keep the rope under tension. I will take equipment aboard and rescue Ellen and Alan. I will also take a rope and tie on to the sub, so we can release and pull in the anchor. We might need it later.
“Benny, I want you to work with Sarah. Do whatever she says, immediately.”
Sarah found the instructions daunting. She could sail a boat very well, but this was way beyond her skills. As for Benny, he was a liability.
“OK Walter, I will do my best, if you set everything up.” Sarah replied.
He realised he was asking too much from her and needed to give her attainable goals, or they were all going to die.
“I will bring her about and get her stable before you take over. Sorry, I am so desperate to save Ellen, I was not being realistic.” She rolled her eyes in relief.
Could this be the moment to head for the shore, while he still could, Benny wondered.
***
Walter dashed off to gather the equipment he anticipated he would need.
When he returned, he changed anchors from large to small and spooled out the rope. It was then he realised the flaw in his plan…
Back on the bridge he explained his revised plan to Sarah and Benny. “We can’t come about because the anchor rope is attached to the bow. We will have to just go in reverse. Keep the tension in the rope so the sub turns and follows you. There is not enough power to tow the sub, just enough to keep it turned.
“When I slide along the line, I need to be kept out of the sea as much as possible. Apply too much power though, and the line may snap. Don’t forget, there will be a massive tug on the rope as you pull the sub through a wave.” Sarah nodded, but had no idea what tension would be right.
Walter took the catamaran within 3 metres of the sub’s bow. Far too close for safety, but nothing about this plan was remotely safe.
“Over to you Sarah, head slightly away from the bow and slow right down. I am going out to snag a sub.”
He headed out with life belts, kit bag and carrying a long rope, tied off on the stern.
With a leg curled around the pulpit nearest the sub’s bow, Walter swung the anchor rope with his makeshift grappling iron, and let it fly. Wind and motion spoiled the throw. The next hit the deck and pulled free. The third was lucky and seemed to snag. The winch pulled in the line and it grew tighter than a guitar string.
Would the anchor hold?
Would the rope snap under the strain?
Walter gave Sarah the thumbs up. He clipped onto the line and fell over the side into the sea.
Hand over hand Walter hauled himself along. The line slackened, dunking him deep under the waves. With the weight of his kit, he could never swim up. As the tension between vessels pulled the line tight it yanked him out, and he could feel the twang and vibration along the rope as it approached breaking point.
His only thought was to reach Ellen. As he hauled his way along the rope, the U-159’s bow swung around, and the dunking and tension became so violent he thought his arms would be pulled out of their sockets.
He hung on for the sweet spot as the catamaran crested and the sub bow plunged. He had 20 seconds to travel down the rope, then hang on with every fibre of his being.
He reached the bow as it dropped and clawed his way aboard. Seconds later he was deep under water, waiting for the bow to rise again.
It surfaced like a bucking horse, cascading water off the deck in all directions.
Staggering to his feet and unclipping from the rope, he waved back to Sarah, then headed along the slippery deck for the conning tower. By now, U-159 no longer rolled from side to side, it pitched up and down.
The conning tower hatch was a bad choice to make. The sea swept along from the stern and flooded the faring, burying the hatch waist deep in water. Even if he could lift the hatch, he could never close it before the next surge.
He looked towards the deck hatch ahead of the conning tower. Water swirled around it, but it was not deeper than the rim. The curved hatch cover and wheel lock were exposed. That had to be the way in, he thought.
He tried to lift the large hatch cover, but the weight compensating spring had broken and it was a remarkably heavy dead weight. He realised that, by the time he started to climb down into the hull, sea would flood in with him. Seawater would also fill the dished cover so he couldn’t pull it up and shut it behind him.
Pulling out his walky-talky, he called Sarah and explained. “I will need your help to get the hatch open and shut it again as I go in. I will go to the sub’s bow. You click onto the anchor line and tie the second line to yourself. You will need to pull back on the second line about 6 metres for some slack, so I can pull you over to me.
“Set the auto pilot for your current speed and course and Benny must watch over the controls. He will have to react to problems as they occur.
“See you on this side.” Stunned, Sarah looked at Benny. The man seemed unreasonably calm and accepted the challenge without his usual porcine squeal of objection.
She knew Alan was depending on her, as were Walter and Ellen. Grabbing the secondary line attached to the stern and sub, she pulled in 6 metres of rope and tied a loop to her waist.
Steadying herself on hands and knees at the bow, she reached down and clipped her lifebelt onto the taught anchor line. A wave to Walter and over the side she plunged. The water hardly closed over her when the line tensed and yanked her up like a doll on elastic.
Walter pulled in the secondary rope, hand over hand with the fury of a madman and she was clambering up the sub’s bow as it plunged deep. She had watched Walter and knew what to expect, but it didn’t feel any less frightening because of that. Just as she thought it was never coming up, Walter grabbed her. He unclipped her from the anchor rope, fed her secondary rope into a cleat and dragged her back to the more stable deck hatch region.
“Sarah, I will lift the hatch, you stop it falling back. Kneel behind it and keep it upright. When I drop down inside the hull, you shut the hatch again. When I want to come out, I will bang the cover and push from inside as you lift.”
Sarah was scared and crying with the overwhelming responsibility. Fortunately, Walter would never see her tears in all this spray. She just nodded.
Walter gave a heave. Up came the hatch and Sarah took the weight as she knelt behind it. Walter dropped down inside and tugged the hatch. It slammed shut as sea gushed in around him.
***
Now inside, his dangling torch showed the water ingress was small. Its light shone brightly, reflecting from the filthy wet surfaces around him. Catching his breath, he realised the air was foul. A choking mix of greased machinery and charred burger fat. What have they been breathing down here, he wondered?
Dropping to th
e steel deck and clinging on to solid fittings, Walter held his breath and pulled out the black oxygen bottle with its white collar, from his back pack. It was part of the dive safety equipment. He took several deep breaths from its mask and vowed to keep using it. Having come this far, it would be crass stupidity to risk falling unconscious from bad air, when he had the oxygen available.
Looking around, he recognised where he was and decided to search from the control room section first. Staggering from handhold to handhold, he headed aft, towards it.
The dim pimples of flames from the makeshift ‘Kaltman candle’, wedged hard between machinery, was overwhelmed by Walter’s bright torch. The air quality in the control room was so bad, they were about to go out.
Flashing the beam around and shouting “Ellen, Alan, are you in here?” he spotted the two sprawled bodies, still locked together. It shocked him that Ellen would allow it. He rushed over and felt for her pulse. It was there, strong, but irregular and fast. Ripping off his mask, he put it over her face and pushed Alan away, so he could pump her chest and get the oxygen into her.
She stirred.
Alan’s pulse was much the same and Walter swapped the mask to him. He pumped Alan’s chest a few times until he stirred.
After a few deep breathes to keep himself fully functioning, Walter switched it back to Ellen until she sat up. Now back to Alan.
At last, they were both fully alert. They wanted to know how he had managed to get in and were they safe….
They told him about the map and dragged the four gold bars from a nearby blanket to show him. He slipped them into his back pack and struggled to stand under their weight, as he carried the bars back to where he had come in.
He dumped the heavy bag at the bottom of the ladder to the forward hatch and carried back the two life jackets for Ellen and Alan. Ellen was still dazed from the bad air and had difficulty standing because of the wildly pitching deck. Walter helped her put on her life jacket.
Walter looked around and realised the home-made candle was glowing brightly again with life giving oxygen. The cylinder had rolled towards the flames. The regulator had snapped off when it forcibly struck something and the gas was flooding out.
Too late, a gush of the gas drifted in a cloud into the flame. Instantly the fatty fuel ignited in a blinding explosion. The gas bottle rebounded off the metalwork and landed amid the flame.
Now the conflagration was igniting anything combustible nearby and would soon reach a temperature where metal itself would burn. The instant the oxygen bottle exploded, it would incinerate everything inside, especially the three of them.
Walter and Alan grabbed Ellen, dragging her at a run to the watertight door on the way to Sarah’s hatch. Dumping Ellen on the deck, both men slammed and dogged the watertight compartment door.
They quickly helped Ellen up again and continued towards the deck hatch. As they reached it, an explosion rocked the submarine when the metal in the control room flared like magnesium.
The 6 rear torpedoes were in prime condition, coated with grease and secured in their racks and had never been immersed in water. They would be next to catch fire and detonate.
Walter shouted a warning. “We have to push open the hatch and battle through the sea as it rushes in. Follow on behind Ellen will you Alan, in case she needs help getting out. Sarah is up there on deck, waiting for us.”
Alan leapt into action at the mention of Sarah up on deck, all alone.
Walter raced up the steel ladder and pounded with the torch on the cover. He let the torch drop on its lanyard and put every ounce of muscle he could muster in lifting the hatch, but Sarah wasn’t there to help...
Deceitful act.
The moment Sarah went over the side of Lady Jane, hauled along by Walter to the U-159, Benny saw his chance. He made his plans carefully, before taking any action.
The four friends were never coming back, the sub was going down at any moment. He was on his own now and had to save himself.
Glancing over the controls and checking the towed submarine, Benny ran down into the galley and grabbed a sharp knife.
Resolutely he headed back to the controls and rehearsed in his mind the moves he would have to make. Satisfied, he made his way outside and braving the wind, rain, and waves, he headed to the bow.
One swift slash and he could head home, alone, and with no witnesses. Cutting the rope had to be done. When the sub goes down, he thought, the rope will pull the Lady Jane with it. His conscience was clear.
He cut, and the super tense rope parted. Like snapped elastic, the short end sprang back smashing into his chest, knocking the breath out of him. He lay there on the pitching bow, clutching the pulpit supports, praying he was not dying and would live to deal another day.
The Lady Jane, freed of the load from the submarine, pulled away from the bow of U-159. The secondary line tied to Lady Jane’s stern payed out until the slack was taken up by the parting vessels.
Suddenly, the rope still tied around Sarah’s waist, dragged her inexorably along the deck of U-159. It was pulling her towards its bow, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
In the light of the torch hung from her wrist, she pointed it along the deck and could see the rope feeding through a massive steel cleat on the sub’s bow.
She screamed in terror, the rope was tied around her waist and when she reached the cleat, it would try and pull her through it. The rope would simply slice her in half like a steel wire cheese cutter.
Picking herself up, she raced to the bow and wound the rope around the cleat. She prayed it would hold and give her time to free herself from the rope’s fatal embrace.
As the tension between the stern connection with the Lady Jane and the bow cleat of U-159 increased, the catamaran lurched to a stop and started to turn. Benny was thrown out of the pulpit and found himself dangling in an angry sea. Charged with adrenaline and the sheer terror of drowning, he found the strength to haul himself back on board.
Confused, he wondered what had gone wrong with his simple plan. Then it dawned on him, there in the darkness was another rope to cut.
By now, the catamaran was turning side on to the waves and Benny’s first priority was to go from full astern to full ahead and turn towards the very distant shore. Then he could cut the other rope and be done with them. At that moment, the Lady Jane was arcing round on its tether and would reverse into the oncoming bow of the submarine.
He staggered back to the bridge. Even above the shriek of the wind tearing through the rigging, the crash of breaking waves and revving engine, he heard a muffled explosion from deep inside the submarine.
“What the hell was that?” he shouted to no one. There were no flames, so he quickly put it out of his thoughts.
Back at the controls, Benny spun the helm and wrenched the gear lever to forward. The machinery squealed in protest but recovered and Lady Jane spun round, stern on to following waves. The autopilot was re-engaged and the load caused the stern to settle deep as the props dug in under load.
Benny raced back to the galley, grabbed another knife and crossed the saloon, heading to the stern. A wave swamped the vessel, throwing Benny across the room and into a wall. Slumping unconscious to the floor, Benny was out cold.
***
The explosion deep in the submarine was enough to send a shudder through the steel and a loud thump that overpowered the storm crashing around her.
Spurred on by the urgency to return to the hatch, Sarah frantically tugged apart the knot tying the loop of rope around her waist. A couple of loops to another cleat tied off the rope and as the rope tension increased, the tow continued.
Crawling on hands and knees, gripping anything fixed down that came to hand, she made her way back to the hatch. The lock wheel was moving and she was certain someone was trying to push up. Heaving with all her might, it lifted and she leapt sideways, to avoid it falling on her as it fell open on the deck.
“What happened to you Sarah, take a lunch break di
d you?” Walter’s face twisted in anger.
“The tow rope broke and I was dragged to the bow. You are lucky, you nearly ended up with two of me.” Walter frowned as he processed what she said. It made little sense and he refocussed on their predicament.
“The sub is about to blow up, big time, we need to escape within the next few seconds.” Walter heaved himself out of the hatch, ignoring the water rushing in. He turned and knelt down offering his hand to Ellen and heaved her out too. As soon as she had a firm handhold, he turned to help Alan who was struggling to climb out with the weight of the four gold bars. As he fell out on the deck, Walter explained what he planned to do.
Reaching for his Walkie-talky he called Benny. There was no reply.
“What the heck is the daft fool up to, is he deaf?”
Walter kept trying, he had no choice.
***
Benny wondered which way was up as the saloon floor pitched and heaved. Blood ran from his split scalp and ran into his eyes making them sting and leaving him with blurred red vision. A shiver of fear ran through him as the voice of Walter Norris reached his ears.
Had the man come back from the dead to punish him?
Woozy and unable to reason, he knew the voice was real and calling for him personally. It could only mean his life was hanging by a thread. Somehow the man would get him, he had to escape. Easing himself up from the floor, he picked up the knife and staggered to the bridge. The voice was coming from the radio.
What was Norris saying?
They have the map showing the cave, and four bars of gold!
Oh, well! That changed everything.
Walter’s desperate voice jerked Benny into action. “Benny, come in please, press the button down on the mike and speak, release to listen.”
Benny grabbed the microphone and spoke. “Benny here, sorry, I was knocked out and just came around. Go ahead please.”
“Benny, put the gear lever into neutral and let the tow line go slack. When we jump into the sea, veer off to starboard and haul us in.