by Andrew Wood
Marner noted that Dubus’ support was primarily out of interest for the combat situation, not for Lemele. But no matter; the important issue was to take action, to go and find Lemele. Delaune said nothing; he could even have been asleep except that Marner could just see the whites of his eyes. Eventually Slowikowski added his support to Dubus. After a few moments further reflection Delaune grunted and stood up, signalling that the decision was made and that they were to move off.
To Marner’s dismay, Delaune led them north, directly towards the cliffs. This track would mean that they would entirely bypass the village. As they moved at a rapid pace across a field, Marner tried to argue, “We should go to the village and find Inspector Lemele. She may be in danger,” he insisted, hoping that the reminder of Lemele’s function and rank might raise her status and importance beyond being a mere female nuisance to these military men.
Delaune was not in agreement. “You heard what she said. She will meet us at the rendezvous. If she has been captured, then sooner or later she will turn up where we are going. Besides, we do not have the numbers to search the habitation and we do not know if there are any Germans or sympathisers there.”
“But...”
“Enough, Lieutenant. This is my operation and we focus on the objective. The lady knew the risks when she volunteered to go down there.”
Chapter Fifty
Captain Riesen was the first up onto the dripping deck of the conning tower of the U-180, moments after it breached the surface. Closely behind him, almost shoving at his heels as he hurried up the ladder was Otto Kurtz and then a third seaman. Even before the water had finished sluicing off the hull, they had rapidly searched the sea and sky around them, eyes and ears straining through the darkness for any hint of danger or ambush, any sign of whomever or whatever they were supposed to pick up.
Riesen, intently scanning the dark outline of the rugged low bluffs that were just three hundred metres away, was jumpy and very unhappy. He had been obliged to eschew the preferred operating procedure for clandestine pick-ups, which involved a periscope check from at least one thousand metres from the defined position and then to dash in and surface at the specified coordinates. Instead, due to the very shallow depth and rocky coastline, they had slowly reversed the U-180 towards the coast at periscope depth to reach the current position. He was extremely uncomfortable at being forced to a rendezvous point in such treacherous waters, one that would leave them precious little depth to dive in an emergency. Therefore, he had specifically maintained the orientation of the vessel directly towards the open sea. If the need arose, they would make full speed straight ahead towards deeper water whilst crash-diving. It would not gain them much depth, but it might make the crucial difference.
They had picked up the mysterious Kriegsmarine signal ten days earlier, during their voyage from Kiel to Bordeaux. It had come with no message, only the coordinates and time for a rendezvous. But for the fact that it originated directly from Kriegsmarine OKM centre, as verified by the codes and transmitted at the correct hour, Riesen would have ignored it. He had in fact considered ignoring it. This whole mission had been bizarre and he wondered what else might be in store, could possibly surpass what had taken place so far.
Riesen had been enraged and dismayed in equal measures when he had been ordered to take command of the U-180 in February. He had wondered what grievous error he could have committed to have been placed in charge of a cargo vessel like this. Having achieved high grades during training and excellent appraisals during his first posting as the second-in-command of the U-326, he had naturally expected that he would qualify for a prestigious attack submarine as his first command. His senior officer had managed to calm and mollify him with the hint that a very special mission was being planned for the U-180 and that Riesen had been specifically selected for it. Therefore the U-180 was not quite the ‘lame duck’ assignment that it appeared to be.
His first task had been to take the submarine to Kiel to pick up an essential part of the cargo and have the U-180 fitted with the new Schnorchel system, then return to Bordeaux for final preparations. The trip had given him the opportunity to become acquainted with the capabilities of the U-180 and her crew. The promise of an extra three weeks shore leave whilst in Kiel during the refit had gone some way to compensating for the time and risk involved in the journey.
The Schnorchel was essentially a type of exhaust system that permitted the venting of fresh air to, and the exhaust gases from, the diesel motors whilst the submarine was submerged. Submarines were hampered by the limitation of being forced to run on batteries whilst underwater, which restricted their range and speed, as well as being obliged to remain surfaced for long periods of time running the diesels to recharge the batteries. Therefore, the Schnorchel system permitted the U-180 to run on diesels below the surface on an almost permanent basis, only having to come up to refresh the air tanks and jettison rubbish. For Riesen, this was an invaluable modification to the U-180 in that a significant portion of its batteries had been removed in favour of liberating more cargo space.
His misgivings, however, had set in when he had been fully briefed on the technical aspects, and in particular the limitations, of the Schnorchel system at Kiel. The main problem was that they would be unable to go faster than six knots submerged because the drag of the water could cause the Schnorchel funnel to shear off. In addition, the restricted diving depth with the Schnorchel, barely ten metres below the surface, would mean that they could only safely use it at night; during the day the outline of the U-180 would potentially be visible to allied anti-submarine aircraft at such a shallow depth. And last, but not least, the non-return valve fitted to the top of the Schnorchel mast had demonstrated a potential to jam closed. In the event of this mishap, the diesel motors would suck the air from within the submarine instead of air from above the surface. To date, at least two u-boat losses had been confirmed as attributable to Schnorchel malfunction. No wonder that the system had initially been rejected by both the Germans and the Allies when they had discovered it fitted aboard the Dutch submarines that each had impounded or captured at the beginning of the war. In spite of the known drawbacks, the increasing success of the Allies at detecting and sinking submarines whilst exposed on the surface recharging batteries had forced a reversal of Kriegsmarine doctrine on the system.
At Kiel, the anticipated shore-leave had not materialised. The U-180 had been directed to berth at a remote and closely guarded hangar at the eastern quay of the Kiel dockyards. Riesen and his entire crew had been confined to the hangar under intense security during the three weeks. They had been allowed to get off the U-180 and move around the quayside to escape the confinement of the boat and to exercise, but any attempt to venture outside of the hangar had resulted in them being turned back by the guards. Whatever item or goods that they cited as their reason for wanting to leave had been supplied to them, be it mechanical spares or consumables.
Having realised this, the crew had turned the boredom of their restriction into a game, ordering ever more fanciful items. Only the arrival of three live pigs that had then been turned loose in the hangar had brought an end to the forbearance of the security personnel. Due to the overabundance of liquor that had been ordered, Riesen had taken care to round up as much of it as he could at the last minute before they cast off to commence the return journey, leaving it stacked on the quayside.
Loading of the cargo had taken place during the final week of the Schnorchel installation. He had easily been able to identify the component parts of the V2 rocket that had been loaded aboard the U-180 and he presumed that something about this object held the key to the puzzle of the special mission.
----
The route to and from Kiel, which lay on the Baltic coast of Germany, had required them to navigate the treacherous ninety kilometres of the Kiel Canal that stretched east-west across the entire border between Germany and the peninsula that was Denmark. The canal was a shorter route than going around the Danish coast via
the heavily mined Jutland peninsula, but it was subjected to almost daily attacks by the Allied air forces, both direct bomb and torpedo attacks, as well as mines. To Riesen it had felt like being bottled up in a narrow and shallow tube with no opportunity to dive or manoeuvre. They had been entirely dependent upon the anti-aircraft defences and mine sweepers along the length of the canal for their protection.
The attacks had been especially intense after their departure from Kiel. And once released back into the North Sea, they had repeatedly been harried by British destroyers, such that the ‘ping’ of the active ASDIC sonar systems used by the enemy became their constant companion. Riesen had had to repeatedly dive the U-180 silent and deep, descending through the layers of different water temperature to confuse the ASDIC.
The most astonishing moment had come in the early hours of one morning when he had been dragged from a brief and fitful sleep by Otto. In the command room he had clamped the sonar operator’s headphones to his ears, trying to decipher the howl of static. “I have never heard so much noise!” whispered the operator, the wide eyes in his pasty face amply conveying the youth’s confusion and alarm. After further minutes of listening and conferring, they had agreed that whatever was making the noise was probably not close. They could not be absolutely sure because their crude, passive sonar was unable to define distance or the direction.
Finally Riesen had made the decision to take them up to periscope depth so that he could determine the source. The crew on the command deck had watched him intently as he peered into the periscope eyepiece. When he suddenly stopped rotating and his jaw fell open, followed a few moments later by an involuntary ‘Mein Gott!’ the sonar operator, exhausted from the hours of intense concentration, crossed himself and began to moan. Otto cuffed the young fool across the back of the head to silence him; any sign of hysteria or panic in the close confines of the submarine could spread like wildfire amongst the stressed crew.
The moment had been broken by a sudden pinging and Riesen had not hesitated. He had snapped shut the periscope handles and punched the button to retract the apparatus, barking an order to dive, full speed ahead, with no shift in their direction. Otto had echoed the command and moved around the cabin, checking with each operator to ensure that the order had been correctly translated into the appropriate actions. Once verified, Otto had turned to look at Riesen with a questioning look on his face; to make no change in direction was atypical. Usually any emergency evasive action included hard turns to confuse and shake off the predators above. Riesen had caught and understood Otto’s glance but simply given a quick shake of his head; he would explain later.
What he had seen through the periscope he had scarcely been able to believe or rationalise himself. The early morning sun had illuminated a massed flotilla of ships steaming south. So many ships, that even in the gaps between them he had seen only more ships and yet more beyond. There was no horizon, only this mass of naval vessels filling the periscope lens, the sky turned entirely black by the smoke from their engines and turbines. He guessed that they must number hundreds. He did not want to guess at what it might signify.
The reason for the excessively intense destroyer activity above them over the past twenty four hours had become clear. The hunter ships were working to protect this armada, an effort to sweep out and keep out any German submarines from their course. But the mass of enemy vessels, just three thousand metres away, would be the saviour of the U-180. Riesen’s planning had been simple; dive directly towards and under them and navigate a course westwards to their far side, which by luck happened to be the direction in which the U-180 was headed. He had seen that the ships were densely clustered and that would cause difficulty for any hunter above from being able to navigate in and out of them, let alone fire depth charges in such close proximity. His only concern had been about how far they would have to travel to reach the far side of the group. The batteries were already relatively depleted due to having spent much of the last twenty four hours submerged whilst they had been making evasive manoeuvres.
They had run for twelve hours below the enemy fleet in semi-quiet running mode. There had been no need for absolute silence, since the disturbance of the water by the ships above them on the surface had drowned out any noise that the submarine might make. The crew of the U-180 had thus been able to optimise their speed against the usage of the batteries, with no concerns about enemy sonars picking up the wake from their propeller screws. Only in the last few hours, on breaching the far curtain of security on the western-most edge of the Allied battle group, had they been required to resume silent running.
----
And now here they were, a few hundred metres off the coast of northern France, not knowing if this territory might now be in enemy hands. As a result of having to lie quietly for a few days waiting for the defined date of the rendezvous, they were going to be very tight on time to reach Bordeaux by the deadline. They would have to spend at least one night moving at maximum diesel speed on the surface to make up time and distance, with all of the risks that that entailed.
Riesen was even hoping that this pick-up might be whoever it was that they were supposed to collect from Bordeaux. If so, it might obviate the need to go to there at all; they could simply head straight out into the Bay of Biscay or the Atlantic, refuelling in mid-ocean from one of the tanker subs. That would be far preferable. Navigating the Gironde estuary to Bordeaux was now a lottery with the odds worsening daily. The Allies seemingly had total freedom of the air and were dropping mines everywhere and anywhere, especially around the u-boat bases.
His train of thought was broken by Otto, who was shifting restlessly and talking to himself. Otto had begun to irritate Riesen intensely. He wondered how the man’s character could have switched so radically between the two voyages. Since leaving Kiel the second-in-command had been as jumpy as a new recruit. The man was utterly competent and reliable in the running of the U-180 and carrying out commands; after all, no one knew the vessel or the crew better than Otto. However, in the last few days he had demonstrated a nervous stutter at times and, from this and various other small signs, Riesen could tell that he was completely strung out. In the duration of the journey to and from Kiel, Riesen’s estimation of the man had swung abruptly from wondering why the immensely cool and capable Otto did not already have his own command, to having reached the decision to have him transferred off of the U-180 when they reached Bordeaux. Based upon his observations of Otto Kurtz over the last few days, Riesen no longer felt confident in having him on the U-180, never mind in such a senior and critical position. The man was on the edge of a complete breakdown and therefore a liability, not an asset. In just the few minutes since they had surfaced, Otto had been muttering and fidgeting beside him and Riesen was now on the verge of sending him below.
Chapter Fifty One
Otto was indeed in a frightful panic. He was tempted to take a swig from the hip flask tucked into his tunic, but he knew that Riesen was watching him almost as intently as he was the darkness beyond the conning tower.
The whole business with the trip to Kiel had thrown him into confusion. Willi Graf had been unable to avoid the U-180 being sent there. But wasn’t Willi supposed to be in charge of scheduling the U-180’s missions? For the first time in the years that he had known Graf, Otto’s trust in the man and his confidence in this whole scheme had been shaken. Willi had explained that the order had come down from much higher, that the Schnorchel modification was the pet project of someone in command and so it could not be avoided.
But why at Kiel? There were technical groups at the other submarine bases such as Brest and Lorient that were capable of doing the work, so why the time and risk of going to Kiel? Willi had been unable to answer this, had only tried to reassure Otto that any upgrade to their submarine – Willi had already been talking about it as their submarine when they had met in Bordeaux in early May – would be to their benefit.
Otto had argued that they should take the U-180 immediately, brea
k and run whilst they had it within their grasp. Willi had refused, insisting that they owed it to their fellow conspirators aboard the U-195 to be patient, that they should wait for the opportunity to take the full haul of gold from the U-195 too. Otto had considered that Willi was just being greedy; there was enough aboard the 180 to live like kings.
In the end, Willi had triumphed by pointing out that they would need as many of the gang as possible to take over the submarine. With only half of them, it would be more difficult and dangerous. Otto, averse to violence and conflict, had been swayed by this argument. Willi had assured him that they only needed to patient for another month, that the voyage to and from Kiel would be a simple run.
It had turned out to be anything but simple. When Riesen had recounted what he had seen through the periscope, it seemed that a full invasion of France must be underway. So now they were just a few hundred metres from what might already be enemy territory. And who were they waiting for? Could it even be Willi himself? He fervently hoped so. His nerves were jangling and he desperately needed Willi here to take over, to take charge and tell him what to do. In particular, what they should do regarding this special mission that the U-180 was now engaged upon.
Following the confusion and mystery at Kiel, the way in which they had been confined to the quay and segregated from the main docks, Riesen had revealed that they had been selected for a special mission. They had both speculated on what it might be and about the rocket and other hardware that had been loaded aboard. Riesen had genuinely been in the dark and unable to give Otto any further details. He knew only that it was top secret and of utmost priority for the war effort. Otto would have to talk with Willi about these new events. Despite the fact that he agreed with Willi on the stupidity of this war and the inevitability of defeat, Otto was still a patriot. During the long days spent idle waiting for this rendezvous, he had come to the conclusion that they should put a hold on the takeover until after this mission was completed.