Alongside the boat now, she could see 'U-125' in white lettering on the tower. A metal gangplank ran from the dock to the deck of the U-boat. The officer held out his hand to guide Johanna onto the narrow walkway, following behind.
Johanna stepped onto the deck of the boat, holding onto the railing for support. The officer pointed to an opening in the surface of the deck. She could see a ladder leading from the hatch into the darkness below.
"You want me to climb down there?" she asked.
He held his finger to his lips and whispered in reply, "Yes, quickly and quietly."
She considered refusing and demanding an explanation, but then thought better of it. She gingerly put a toe on the rung of the ladder and made her way down, the officer watching her as he followed.
The inside of the U-Boat was brightly lit. Johanna could see pipes running in every direction above her head and beneath the grating that served as a floor. It had a smell that was both metallic and oily, like being inside an engine. There was not a single person inside.
The officer took her hand and led her forward down the narrow passage; both had to walk hunched over to avoid hitting the low ceiling. They passed a room with dials and valves on every square inch of the walls and stopped next to what looked like a tiny cabin that was missing a wall.
It had a low bunk with drawers underneath. A series of wooden cabinets lined the curved outer wall and stood against the slim bulkhead next to the bunk. A single light bulb with a green metal shade hung above a tiny desktop built into the bulkhead cabinets.
"Please sit down," the officer asked, indicating the bunk. "I have a pair of handcuffs that I would prefer not to use. If you will give your word that you will not leave this cabin, I won't chain you to it."
She nodded her agreement.
"If you will wait here and stay quiet until I come back, I will explain everything shortly. Understood?"
She nodded again.
"Fine. I would ask if you need to visit the ladies' room, but as you can see, there isn't one. Would you like me to take you to the head?"
"Yes, please."
He led her aft to a tiny closet half the size of a phone booth and explained how to use the toilet, demonstrating how to pump it out when finished.
When she was done, Johanna opened the door and saw the officer waiting a discreet distance away. He led her back to the cabin, repeated his instructions, and pulled a thick green curtain across, snapping it to the bulkhead. She heard him walk away, back towards the stern of the boat.
No sooner had the echoes of his footsteps faded than the sounds of a busy dock reappeared around her. She heard the loud scramble of boots on the metal ladders and the laughter, yelling and cursing of sailors and dock workers.
Lying down on the bunk, she took stock of her situation. Her first thought was of escape but she quickly dismissed it as an option, thinking of the hundreds of sailors and workers above her head. Then there was the issue of the hundreds of miles between Kiel and Stuttgart. No, escape would have to wait. In the meantime, she would try to figure out what was going on.
First question: who is my mysterious abductor?
It's unlikely he's Gestapo. The uniform, the bypassing of any Gestapo stations or headquarters would seem to argue against that. Plus, I don't think subtlety is in their vocabulary. This guy is too polite and circumspect to fit the model of the Gestapo tough.
He's clearly military of some sort, not any kind of policeman, not that anything in Germany is ever that clear cut. Nothing would surprise me in the crazy Nazi universe, but if I was under arrest, I would expect to be in a jail cell somewhere, not sitting in an officer's cabin aboard a U-boat.
OK, first question is going to have to wait until he comes back.
Second question: why am I here?
Again, if I were a suspected spy, wouldn't I be in a cell or an interrogation room somewhere? Mystery Man has gone through quite some trouble to bring me all the way to the Kiel sub base, so there must be a purpose to it. It wouldn't make any sense that he would drag me up here while he ran some errand, just to bring me back to Berlin. It also wouldn't make sense to go through all this if they were just going to shoot me.
So, why the sub base?
She looked around the cabin, hoping to find something, anything, that might give her a clue. Opening all the drawers, all she found were clothes, books and the personal effects of a Kapitanleutnant Günther Kuhnke. Nothing that would give an indication of why she would be here.
Johanna was completely at a loss, and it was a feeling that made her very uncomfortable. She had always prided herself on being able to solve puzzles others could not. Now all she could do was wait. She looked through Kuhnke's books and picked a German translation of David Copperfield, shaking her head at the irony of a U-boat captain reading British literature.
Two hours later, her abductor returned, unsnapping the curtain. Johanna got to her feet, assuming they would be leaving. He handed her an apple and a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. He nodded curtly, refastened the curtain and left.
Her fear and discomfort was turning to anger. Her captor had dragged her across the country and left her on a U-boat without explanation and without any logical reason. Johanna ate the meal and decided to try to get some sleep. She hoped that when she awoke, she would get some answers.
24
Johanna managed to fall asleep on the short bunk, her feet hanging off the side. She dreamt that she was safe at her parents in New York. In her dream, she had never gone to Germany and had taken a real teaching job at NYU. Before she could show up for her first day on the job, Gestapo agents started appearing in her parent's apartment, on the street and then on campus. She was about to be chased by them when a taxi squealed to a stop next to her and began revving its engine. Thinking the driver was there to rescue her, she thanked him, but all he did was rev the engine louder and louder, ignoring her.
She woke to hear that same revving sound. In her grogginess, it took her a second to realize what it was: the U-boat had started its engines. Though they sounded far away, the very structure of the sub was vibrating with their power.
The low chugging of the diesel engines turned to a higher pitch and produced a slight dip in the boat, bow to stern and then back again.
They were moving.
Tinny and distorted voices echoed from an intercom in the room outside the cabin.
"Increase power to fifty percent."
"Increasing to fifty percent."
"Change heading to One-Five-Six on my mark…mark."
The vibration from the engines changed to a low and steady thrum and the boat began a more pronounced rocking as if going bow-first into larger waves.
Larger waves mean we're going out to sea! That's it, I've had enough. When I see Mystery Man again, I will beg, cry, threaten or do whatever I have to do to get some answers. This doesn't make any goddamned sense and I'm tired of being in the dark.
She listened as the voice she assumed to be the captain's gave orders to increase speed and change direction several times until the sub was humming along and the ride had become smoother.
The green divider curtain unsnapped from the outside and her abductor came in, closing it behind him. He had changed into a mechanic's coverall.
Johanna stood up and was about to demand answers when he put his finger to his lips and pointed to the bunk. She glared at him and sat.
"I'm sure you have questions," he said in a low voice as he sat next to her. "I'll give you what answers I can."
"Who are you?" she asked.
"My name is Erich Hagen." Johanna looked him over. He was tall and muscular, but more lean than muscle-bound. With his uniform cap off, she noticed how blond his hair was, almost white.
"That's nice, but I mean who are you?" She was afraid this was going to turn into Twenty Questions and was not in the mood for it.
"That's all I can tell you for now. All I can say is that I promise to tell you more later."
She narro
wed her eyes. A name was better than nothing, but not by much.
"You're not Gestapo."
He shook his head, smiling.
"Am I under some kind of arrest?"
"No, no nothing of the sort."
"Then what the hell am I doing going out to sea on a goddamned U-boat?" she asked, her voice rising in anger.
Hagen's lips tightened and he nodded.
"I'm sorry for my mysterious behavior. I promise.…"
"Yes, yes, you will tell me more later," she interrupted. She shook her head and looked away from him. Her fear that she was in danger had subsided a bit. Now she was angry at being kidnapped by a man who wouldn't tell her why.
"Obviously," he continued, "the chances of escaping from a U-boat at sea are zero, but the captain won't allow you to move freely about the boat. I'm sorry, but you are to remain here in this cabin for the duration of our voyage."
She was about to ask what that duration was going to be, but stopped herself, seeing the futility of the question, or any question.
"You must stay in the cabin not only because you would get in the way, but you should know that submariners are a very suspicious lot. They have a saying that 'a long hair fouls the screw', meaning that a woman aboard a U-boat is very bad luck. Not even the captain's wife is allowed on board."
Johanna rubbed her eyes in exasperation. We could be in here for days for all I know, and I'm stuck in this tiny coffin.
As if reading her thoughts, Hagen promised to visit her regularly and bring food and water. He promised that trips to the head could be arranged, but said that due to the logistics of clearing the aft sections of the boat in order to keep her presence secret, these trips would have to be kept to a minimum.
She threw up her hands in surrender.
"Whatever you say. We can't have sailors getting superstitious about my hair."
Hagen produced a small parcel of food wrapped in brown paper and handed it to her. He said he would find out what they had in the officer's mess and try to give her a choice of what to eat.
"Thanks," she sighed, tearing into the package.
He nodded and slipped out of the cabin. Each snap of the curtain sounded like the locks of a cell door slamming shut.
For the next few days, Johanna spent her time reading the captain's selection of novels and listening at the curtain for clues to their location or destination. Every command and conversation seemed to be in jargon, making it impossible for her to even hazard a guess. Several times she heard barking announcements of ship sightings, followed by brief dives beneath the surface. Each time she felt a rush of fear that British ships were circling overhead waiting to drop depth charges that would send them to the bottom. She was equally worried that the U-boat would be the attacker.
Sitting in the cramped captain's cabin, which was undoubtedly luxurious compared to the crew's quarters, she decided that submariners had to be an odd bunch. Spending the war inside this narrow tube out on the open sea, hundreds of miles from land seemed like the height of madness.
Madness was a subject on which Johanna was beginning to feel like an expert. Still in the same clothes she was wearing in Stuttgart and feeling claustrophobic, she was reduced to faking a need to use the head, simply for a chance to stretch her legs and get some 'fresh air.' The constant hum of the diesel engines alternated between white noise she hardly noticed and an ever-present annoyance she couldn't get away from. Her body clock was her only connection to day or night. She forced herself to keep to a regular sleep schedule; the days were hard enough to keep track of.
She asked Hagen to provide her with a pot of water every day, which she used to bathe, partly for the sake of cleanliness, but mostly just for something to do. The top of the captain's desk flipped up to reveal a porcelain sink underneath, which she used to wash.
Once, when Hagen came by to deliver her dinner, Johanna tried again to get some answers from him. She invited him to sit down as she ate her meal of sausage and canned fruit.
"We've been at sea for quite a while now," she said in a conversational tone.
"Yes, and I still can not tell you where we are going or why," he replied.
Johanna kept her frustration at bay. You catch more bees with honey…
"I'm sure you have very good reasons for not telling me, but don't you think you're being a little over-cautious? What can I do trapped on a U-boat?"
"Right now, it's not a matter of what you can do. I can't risk anyone overhearing the truth, nor can I risk telling you. If you were to be exposed to the crew, I couldn't take the chance of you saying the wrong thing. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you. What would your husband say?"
Johanna gave him a puzzled look.
"I don't have a husband," she replied. She didn't understand until she saw his face brighten at her answer.
"Ah! So much the better." He slapped his thigh. "Very surprising, such a pretty girl and not married. How can this be?"
"None of your business."
"Ah, yes. A woman's prerogative."
Johanna shook her head.
"This conversation is pointless. I want you to tell me what we're doing here."
"And I will," Hagen replied. Before she could respond, he got up to leave. "Please, no more questions."
Johanna finished her food and pondered what she had just learned.
He just told me something without meaning to. He said he can't risk anyone overhearing 'the truth.' Leaving aside the question about what 'the truth' is supposed to mean, he just told me that this whole mystery is supposed to be a secret kept from the crew, not just from me. Why?
She thought about that for a moment as she speared a canned pear with her fork.
Of course, military secrets had to be kept secret from the lower ranks. What military secret could possibly involve me? That can't be it. If I've been found out as an American agent, I can't imagine they would have me anywhere near military secrets.
She had learned enough about espionage from Brotherton at the BSC to know that identified spies were usually kept in place to pass disinformation back to their handlers. That relied on giving the spy a false sense of security. Kidnapping them at gunpoint and putting them aboard a U-boat in the middle of the night didn't fit that scenario.
There was another possibility. Hagen was a spy.
Fine, he's a spy. What does that have to do with me?
25
On the evening of her sixth day aboard U-125, Johanna waited for Hagen to arrive with her dinner. Seven o'clock came and went without a sign of him. Part of her thought it was just as well. After nearly a week of being stuck on this sub, she was ready to start screaming until he either told her what was he was up to or let her off. Her patience was exhausted and she had run out of things to do to occupy her mind in her green-curtained prison cell.
At eight o'clock, Hagen, who normally opened the curtain just enough to slip inside, threw it all the way open. He had changed back into a naval cap and overcoat.
"Our journey is at an end," he announced. "Please put on the cap and coat you wore in Kiel."
"Oh, thank God," she exclaimed. She retrieved them from a cabinet on the bulkhead and put them on.
Hagen put her collar up and told her to tuck her hair under the cap. He turned her around and looked her over.
"That will do. Please keep your head down so no one can see your face."
She stuck out a silk-stocking foot in a high-heeled shoe and gave him a wry look.
Hagen grunted. "Let's go."
He led her aft to the room adjacent to the captain's cabin where Johanna had spent the last few days. As she had learned from overhearing the crewmen, it was the control room, the one covered in dials, valves and pipes from floor to ceiling. In the center, there was a white column with a ladder leading up to a hatch. As usual when Johanna was out of the captain's cabin, the room was deserted, but she could hear voices coming through the hatch up above.
Hagen climbed the ladder and went through the hatch,
helping Johanna up as she followed.
She found herself in a small compartment that she guessed must be the tower that stuck out above the deck of the sub. She had heard the term 'conning tower' used several times, and she assumed this was it. There were two brass periscopes that came down from the top of the tower. She took care not to bump her head on them. Just like the control room, the walls here were covered in dials, levers and conduits.
"Quickly, please." Hagen was continuing on up the ladder to a hatch at the top of the conning tower. He waved for her to follow him.
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