by Andrew Wood
He became aware of Riesen grumbling in his ear but raised a hand and told him to be silent. “Listen! Yes. There is someone or something in the water, coming towards us.”
They both turned and angled their heads, straining to focus on the source and direction of the noise. “You’re right, the sound is coming from the direction of the shore,” agreed Riesen, and then he identified the rhythmic squeaking. “A rowing boat.”
Chapter Fifty Two
Delaune had led the group along a path around the western perimeter of the village and out onto a promontory of rocks. These were not so much cliffs as clusters and mounds of round granite blocks. The waves slapped, sucked and hissed at them on both sides as they scrambled along the boulders and eroded rock formations, leaping from point to point towards the limit of the outcrop.
Dubus nearly slid over the side of one bulbous, rounded monolith, the steel cleats on the soles of his boots striking sparks as he rapidly pedalled to gain some grip. He had landed with a painful thump on his side, one of his weapons making a loud bang as it struck the rock hard. The other soldiers had laughed good-naturedly and mocked him for his lack of agility. Dubus had sworn back at them as he regained his feet and shuffled his shoulders to reset his load and webbing. They had to lessen the pace when they reached the end of the promontory, having to go slower on rocks that were submerged at high tide and slippery with weeds. Delaune pointed, “There, in the boat.”
They all followed the direction of his outstretched arm and saw the small cockle boat fifty metres distant, coming around the headland from the sheltered cove below the village. Graf was rowing furiously to rise up and over the breakers that were trying to push him back towards the shore, momentarily scooping air as the boat crested the peak of the wave, arms and oars wind-milling wildly until the boat flopped back down and the oar blades bit into the water once more. The light was so poor that Graf and the tiny boat were little more than silhouettes against the black water. They could not see Lemele and Marner’s heart sank. He was tempted to turn and curse Delaune for not having taken them directly to the village. Now it was too late.
Graf had been alerted to their presence by the sound of their boots scraping on the rocks. He stopped rowing, reached down in front of him towards the blunt rear of the little wooden dinghy and hauled Lemele roughly up by her collar, using his other hand to place the Walther against her head. Although Graf was unsure if his threat had been seen and understood, he was obliged to release Lemele and return his attention to the rowing as the boat was slewed sideways by an incoming wave. He placed the pistol beside him on the rough bench on which he was perched and then worked rapidly with the oars to correct their direction and drift. Satisfied that he had a break between waves, he paused again to pick up the pistol and held it to her head to demonstrate that he still had it to hand.
Despite having achieved his intended objective, he could not resist grinding the barrel end into her temple until she emitted a squeal of pain that was audible to the group on the rocks. Aware that he was still at risk from the group on the shore, he forced Lemele to kneel before him, also facing towards the stern of the boat. This left him free to row, with her acting as a shield from any possible gunfire.
Marner lunged for the rifle that Slowikowski was holding tentatively in the direction of the boat. Slowikowski was unprepared and distracted by the drama taking place in front of him and Marner easily succeeded in wresting the weapon away from him. No sooner did he have it in his hand than a boot crunched into the back of his knee causing him to fall, a clip from the stock of Dubus’ gun to the back of his head aiding him on his way down to the hard rock. Marner groaned and shook his head to clear the haze of shooting lights, then rolled over to find the barrel of Dubus’ gun in his face. “Try to take off and join your Nazi friend again and I will....”
Marner batted the barrel away. “For fucks sake, shoot him! As soon as he gets out of range of us, he’ll kill her.”
The three soldiers swivelled their heads from the prone Marner to look back out to sea, now understanding what his intent had been. Marner struggled up and punched Dubus on the arm, waving his other hand towards the boat, roaring at him, “Do it, before they are out of range.”
Dubus looked ready to do violence to Marner again, but said calmly, “I am a marksman and even I would not try that shot on that moving target, with her in the way.” He looked around. “Perhaps if we move up higher there, maybe the elevation will help, but we will be farther back and I still would not give it much chance of success. With him using the lady as a shield, I....”
Marner had no interest in listening to Dubus’ technical evaluation of the problem. He immediately turned and bounded back over the rocks that they had already crossed and then set off scrambling up to the higher bluff, leaving the others with no choice but to follow. When they finally emerged onto the higher rocky plateau, thirty metres above the level of the sea, Marner was dismayed to find that Graf had make good progress; the boat and its occupants had faded to just a vague blur against the water.
“Shit. What do we do now?”
Chapter Fifty Three
Lemele was struggling with cramp. The spars in the bottom of the dinghy were digging into her knees and the foul, cold water slopping around was adding to the discomfort.
Graf’s voice wheedled its way into her ear. As his hands pushed forward on either side of her with each new stroke of the oars, he was brushing close up against her back and his face was in her hair. She wondered if this was deliberate, provocative even. “So my dear, are you looking forward to your little adventure with me and my chums? I’m sure that they will be doubly pleased to see me when I show them the sweet little playmate that I’ve brought along to entertain them on the long voyage.”
The thought of being trapped in the submarine with this brute and his accomplices, of what they might do to her, shook her and she was filled with nausea. She considered it more likely that he would kill her before they reached the submarine. Since she knew of his plans to forcibly take over the vessel, it did not seem likely that he would risk taking her aboard, where she could warn the crew. Or had his co-conspirators already taken control?
Recognising that she had no choice but to make a move before they got too far out, Lemele shrugged off the icy tentacles of shock and fear that had wrapped themselves around her brain, that were strangling her thoughts and logic, her free will. Plans to capture Graf fled her mind. The only thought process running in her head now was simple: Survive. Live.
----
Lemele was not a strong or confident swimmer, had only ever swum in the sea on one occasion and had found the waves fatiguing, disorientating. Despite her fear of going into the water, she knew that it was her only possibility of escaping from this monster.
Timing her move for when Graf was leaning forward to take a new stroke, she watched the oar tips break the surface on either side of the boat in her peripheral vision. She waited for one, two counts and then violently snapped her head back into his face that was dipping towards her as he pushed the handles forward. There was a painful and yet satisfying jolt as the back of her head crunched into his nose. Graf roared with pain and reflexively released the oar handles to reach for his face. Lemele tried to stand up, intending to dive over the side but her cramped knees failed her and instead she stumbled. Her hip struck painfully onto the side of the boat as she fell, but at least she was going over into the water, to freedom. Just as she believed that she was free, head down in the water and her legs sliding the last few centimetres over the gunwale, she felt his hand clamp onto her trouser leg.
Graf had lunged for her with one hand and for the gun with the other. She was causing the boat to tilt over alarmingly and the gun slid away, his fingertips only brushing it as it tumbled off the bench and plopped into the slime in the bottom of the boat. His grab for Lemele was more successful. Due to her slow and ungainly exit from the boat, his fingers snagged and secured on the hem of her trousers. He realised at the las
t moment before the boat capsized that he should have released her and thrown his weight in the opposite direction to try to right the dinghy, but the agony in his face was demanding a brutal revenge and he stubbornly refused to let go of his prize. Her weight dragged him towards the side of the boat that was already dipping too close to the water and their joint momentum and the already teetering boat proved to be too much.
Lemele had been prepared for her leap. Half submerged, she instinctively kicked out to break Graf’s grip. Once released, she kicked hard again and broke the surface, her arms and legs already in motion, already sure of the direction that she should be moving in. She was dismayed at how heavy her saturated boots and clothes were, how much they were going to slow and tire her. For a moment she considered trying to shed them, but was not confident of being able to complete the manoeuvre whilst trying to tread water. Graf’s roar and splutter as he surfaced behind her forced the decision and she continued ploughing towards the shore, away from her tormentor.
Unlike Lemele, who had taken a breath before going in, Graf had not been prepared for the capsizing of the dinghy. He surfaced coughing and retching the water that he had swallowed. Hearing splashing to his left, he turned and saw that she was only ten metres away. The ache in his bruised nose had evolved into rage, a desire to kill. The gun was lost, but in a way that was better; he would savour the pleasure of tightening his hands around her throat, holding her head under the surface and feeling her twitching out her last spasms.
He was about to strike out after her when the sound of water slapping on something behind him made him pause. He rotated around in the water, towards the open sea. As he rode a swell he beheld the glorious silhouette of the U-180, only one hundred metres away. In his concentration on rowing, in putting distance between himself and the shore, he had not realised how close he had approached.
Graf hesitated. He knew that he could easily catch the woman, but that would mean heading back towards the shore. To hell with the bitch, he thought, she had served her purpose. He set off towards the U-180 and as he closed to within fifty metres he could discern the outline of heads and shoulders on the tower. Overjoyed at the conclusion of his escape and above all his dreams for his future, he called out, “Otto!”
Chapter Fifty Four
“Willi?” breathed Otto, his discipline for silence and the presence of his Captain making him hesitant to shout in response.
“Who?” asked Riesen. They had listened with growing unease to the splashes and shouts that had come to them out of the gloom. Riesen had become alarmed and had ordered the other officer on deck to summon up a rifle from below. No sooner had it arrived than Otto had uttered his startling revelation. “You think that that is Graf out there? What the hell is he...?”
Too late they heard the deep drone of the motors. They had become entirely focussed on whatever drama was being played out unseen between them and the shore. Now they strained to locate the source and direction of this new disturbance and in moments it became clear that it was coming directly towards them.
“Oh shit!” cried Otto, his bowels turning to ice water.
Riesen screamed down the open hatch in the floor to the deck below, “Crash Dive!”
Otto gasped, trying to make his vocal chords function. “No, wait! That’s Willi in the water, we have to...”
“Get below now!” hurled Riesen, pushing Otto hard towards the hatch, spittle spraying into his face. “Or stay up here and swim with him!”
Otto heard the explosion of air as the ballast tanks were vented. He knew that this submarine was now irreversibly committed to diving, would be fully submerged in maybe thirty seconds, with or without him. He had no doubt that Riesen would close the hatch and leave him up. In fact, Riesen would have no choice.
Suddenly the night was obliterated by the blinding white illumination of the 22 million candlepower Leigh light fitted to the belly of the MKV-GR Liberator aeroplane that was swooping down on them. Otto screwed up his eyes against the glare, now able to see Willi bobbing in the silver water just fifty metres away. His hesitation to leave his friend was dented by a hard kick from the Captain and his resistance crumbled as he heard the cannon rounds from the Liberator rake the water around them. He knew that the bombs or rockets were only seconds away. Still Otto hesitated, pointing towards Willi.
“To hell with him,” roared Riesen. “We have to go NOW!”
----
On the shore, the soldiers had heard the plane approach and had flattened themselves to the ground, unsure whether this new intruder might be friend or foe. When the night had exploded into searing white day, Graf and the submarine were perfectly illuminated in the water. “Look!” exclaimed Slowikowski. “It really is there. A fucking submarine!”
Delaune did not hesitate. He ran forward as far as he could, dropped to a prone position and began firing with his carbine, pausing only to shout, “Shut up and get that damned PIAT into action!”
Whilst Slowikowski worked frantically to get the PIAT rocket installed into the launcher tube, Dubus let his Sten drop to dangle at his side on the harness. It was useless at this range and he reached to un-shoulder his scoped rifle.
As the noise of the explosions from the rockets launched by the Liberator reached them, Marner sprang from immobility, slithering and leaping back down the rocks to the narrow strip of shingle below. Dubus yanked back up the Sten. He sighted it to bear in the centre of Marner’s back and applied pressure to the trigger, waiting patiently for his target to pause for the next leap before shooting. He backed off as he registered a flash of silver in his peripheral vision; it evolved into Lemele, thrashing her final strokes through the surf.
Satisfied that this was not an attempt by Marner to bolt and flee, that he was only going to her aid, Dubus brought the rifle back to bear. Raising the scope up to meet the direction of his aiming eye, it settled onto the head of the man swimming out there, who for some reason had poised motionless in the water. Perfect. His training and experience made him take a split second to adjust for the distance and drop of the shell, the upward movement of his target in the sea swell, then he squeezed gently and felt the satisfying recoil and crack as he sent the bullet on its way.
A moment later the night plunged around them again; the Liberator had passed overhead and extinguished the search light.
----
Graf trod water. He caught Otto’s eye for just a moment and then was dismayed to see both Otto’s head and that of the captain disappear. He too had heard the whoosh of air as the ballast tanks were blown to dive. He knew that they were not waiting for him.
The sea erupted in a trail of phosphorescent miniature fountains as the cannon shells fired by the plane raked the water between him and the submarine. He heard at least one ‘clang’ as a shell struck the hull of the U-180, thinking that she would probably be taking water from the hit when submerged. His mind reflexively ran through the standard procedure that the crew should follow in such an event. A fraction of a second after the cannon fire stopped he watched the rockets scream across the sky from right to left, one of them missing the rapidly dipping conning tower by barely a metre to explode harmlessly in the sea beyond.
Graf became aware of the sound of the sea around him plopping and fizzing and he wondered what it could be. Just as the realisation coalesced in his brain that it was gun fire and that he was the target, he received a devastating blow to his back that knocked him flat forward and face down in the water. He tried to kick with his legs, to paddle his hands to right his body, but his limbs did not seem to be working, they would not obey his commands. He strained with his neck muscles to lift his face barely clear of the surface to suck in a breath, but then even that failed him and his head flopped back into the rolling water. In his fading mind, he wondered why the water no longer felt cold. As he sank down into the inky blackness, Willi knew that the sea was finally claiming him, just as he had known she always would.
Chapter Fifty Five
Marner waded
into the foaming water up to his waist and plunged his arm below the surface, grasped, missed, and then caught a solid hold of Lemele’s arm. He hauled her limp body up and out of the surf, amazed that she seemed to have given up just as she was within wading distance of the beach. When he finally staggered out of the sucking, shifting water and lowered her onto the pebbles he realised that she was entirely spent, too exhausted to even stand or help herself. She simply lay there inert except for her spasms of coughing and rasping for air.
They were suddenly plunged into darkness and the percussion of gunfire from above and the explosions out to sea ceased, leaving them with just the gentle splashing of the waves on the shingle and rocks. Above them he heard Delaune shout at Slowikowski to get the PIAT reloaded. The sound of the plane was growing in volume again and they were anticipating a second shot at the submarine. However, when the light was switched on once more, all that was left of the submarine’s presence was a glowing trail of air bubbles in the roiling surface. Regardless, the plane opened up with its cannons, churning a long line of water and then seconds later came the retort of two explosions. Even though the aviators could not see their prey, they were continuing to try to hit it.
The three soldiers clattered down to the beach beside Lemele and Marner. Dubus was cussing at Slowikowski, though it was entirely good-natured, a release of the excess of adrenaline after the engagement. “You hauled that damn thing all the way here and then, when you actually had a go with it, you bloody well missed!”
Slowikowski laughed.
“What about Graf?” croaked Lemele, lying on her back and gulping air, “Did he make it aboard the submarine?”
“No. I nailed him full square between the shoulder blades whilst he was in the water,” confirmed Dubus, the tone of satisfaction clear in his voice. “The submarine dived without him and there is no way he is swimming back in after I plugged him.”