by D. A. Rayner
“Time to turn to course two-one-oh, Herr Kapitän.” It was the navigator speaking. With an effort von Stolberg returned from his visionary fancy.
“Very well.”
He heard the order given. But was it “very well”? Was the course the best for him? He was free of the Britisher, who had either gone away to look at something else or had hopelessly misjudged the German’s actions. If the Kapitän kept on steering toward the southeast, the chances of being found were very remote indeed. For even if the destroyer did come down that way, he would hear the transmission of her asdic long before she was close enough to detect an echo, and he would be able to avoid her. At extreme range a U-boat could nearly always avoid a single ship. An escort group, searching in line abreast, was a very different matter from the lone hunter. To the southeast lay safety, and who would ever be able to question seriously the wisdom of his decision? One of his paramount duties was to see to the safety of his ship. Would honor be satisfied if he steered to the southeast until dusk and then surfaced to go on to the rendezvous on his diesels? If he adopted that course, he thought he could just make it in time. But it would be very very tight, and he would have nothing to spare if anything were to go wrong. A sailor must always have something in hand of time or speed, and he would have neither.
“Very well, Herr Oberleutnant. Steer two-one-oh.” His mouth was compressed. Deep lines had etched themselves on his pale face. Forming a triangle, the lines ran from the corners of his nose to the edge of his lips. If he had instinctively drawn himself up, as though standing to attention on the parade ground, his men paid no attention—they were far too busy watching their instruments. In making his decision he had performed his duty as it presented itself to him. To make the rendezvous was vital, both to his personal honor and the success of the Fatherland—for the prize was colossal. If he were to achieve his object, the photocopies of the precious ciphers would be in the hands of the High Command at least fourteen days earlier than the originals brought back by the Cecilie, and, with luck, a day or two before they were due to be brought into force. Ahead of the surface ship lay a long dangerous and circuitous route that would take her from the warm Equator to the cold mists of the northern passage beyond Iceland. Often she would be forced to dodge backward and forward, for when sighted by any other ship she must pretend to be a fast merchantman sailing independently between the American continent and the British Isles. Her chances of escaping the vigilance of the Allied navies and their infernally efficient Coastal Command aircraft were by no means sure. It was quite possible that she would never reach Bremen at all; and in that case the copies taken back to Brest by U-121 would be the only record.
However lucky, or unlucky, the Cecilie might be in her dash for the Denmark strait and the northern route, it would be at least five weeks before she could hope to make a German harbor. He, von Stolberg, could deliver the documents in three weeks. Two vital weeks would be saved—two weeks during which the Allied naval messages would be deciphered as readily by the Reich as by her enemies, who would still think that many hours or days must elapse before their complicated ciphers could be broken down and their messages read. The effect of the speedily acquired knowledge would be of immediate benefit, and the damage that might be inflicted on the enemy would be enormous. It could even be catastrophic.
At all costs he, Peter von Stolberg, would make the rendezvous. Somehow he would outwit the Britisher who seemed to be a man of a mercurial twist of mind. Temporarily he was free of him. Once again the Kapitän wondered why, after such a painstaking chase through the night—an operation that his professional ability could recognize and approve—the destroyer had suddenly taken itself off at high speed. Putting himself in his enemy’s place, he envisaged a slow, thorough appraisal of all the factors, and the final production of a carefully devised search plan that would have kept the destroyer going round and round the same spot in ever-widening circles for the rest of the day.
He was more than ever sure that his decision had been the right one.
It was also a decision that had brought with it a sense of self-congratulation, and that in its turn engendered self-confidence. The latter condition was, he knew, a most necessary one for a U-boat commander—for a lack of confidence in his own ability to outwit the enemy was the equivalent of a lack of nerve. But there was something else that he would have found incapable of definition, for he worked and planned by inbred instinct and not by introspection. It was not his duty to his Führer—whom privately he still thought of as Herr Schickelgruber—that had helped him to his decision. It was not even the loyalty he owed to the submarine command in general, and to Grand Admiral Donitz in particular. It went further back, into the dim but heroic German past.
Had Kunz had the thinking to do, he would have ended with the words, “Heil Hitler” In a like case Schwachofer would have thought, “Heil dem Vaterland” Deep within himself the Kapitän’s real self had whispered, Heil von Stolberg.”
The Kapitän bent his face to the voice pipe that led to the hydrophone cabinet. “Braun, can you hear anything?”
“Nothing, Herr Kapitän. Absolutely nothing.”
What could the Britisher be up to? He was very tempted to go to periscope depth and take a look round. If the enemy had gone, he was quite safe. If the destroyer should return at anything like the speed at which it had left, then the hydrophone would detect it when it was at least four miles away.
To Schwachofer he said, “Bring her up to fourteen meters. I wish to use the periscope.”
The compressed air hissed as the water was expelled from the ballast tanks. The needle of the depth gauge rose quickly, then steadied for a moment as it touched twenty meters. Here the final trim was adjusted until the boat was quite level before the needle began a steady creep past nineteen, eighteen, to fourteen meters.
“Fourteen meters. Depth steady,” Schwachofer reported.
“Good.” Von Stolberg appreciated the quiet efficiency of his junior. Whatever happened, Schwachofer never permitted his emotions to show outwardly.
Once more the periscope rose smoothly from its well. One hand-grip controlled an angling mirror that allowed the sky to be searched. Instinctively the Kapitän carried out the antiaircraft search that years of training under North Atlantic conditions had laid down as the first protective glance on surfacing—afterward he would look for the initially less dangerous surface ship.
But neither in the sky above nor on the surface could he see anything. No mast that waved above a rolling hull broke the horizon—a horizon that, now wind and sea were decreasing, was becoming hard and firm and only very slightly notched by waves. The thought crossed the Kapitän’s mind that he might surface and try to run away on the diesels. He had already been dived for two hours. With even a few minutes on the engines he could refresh the air in the boat, replace the charge in the batteries that he had used, and put a few more miles between himself and the destroyer. In the bright light of day he would see her at least as soon as she saw him—possibly ten miles away or even more. At that distance the surface craft might well fail to gain asdic contact.
While he stayed down below, his horizon was limited by the height of his periscope above the water and was not much more than five miles. Fully surfaced, it was fifteen miles. At best such a course might lead to his escape; at worst it would give him two more hours submerged on the following day.
“Prepare to surface.”
“Herr Kapitän, Herr Kapitän!” The voice was Braun’s from the hydrophone cabinet.
“Answer it, Otto,” the Kapitän said, his eye still glued to the slowly revolving periscope. He was aware of a hurried and excited colloquy behind him. “What is it?” He took his eyes from the periscope.
“Herr Kapitän, Braun reports high-speed propellers, distant, getting nearer.”
The Kapitän left the periscope and pushed past von Holem to speak down the tube himself.
“How fast, Braun?”
“Very fast indeed, Herr Kapit�
�n. I have never heard faster.”
“What bearing?”
“On the starboard beam.”
Back at the periscope, he swung it round to the starboard bearing and sank his forehead to rest against the thick rubber pad.
“Gott in Himmel!” In the center of the horizon two white plumes of water were visible. Between them swayed the destroyer’s delicate mast and pale gray upperworks. It was useless to try to fire torpedoes at a destroyer traveling at that speed. Angrily he pushed the button that sent the periscope down into its well.
“Emergency dive to eighty meters.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän. Emergency dive to eighty meters,” Schwachofer repeated.
The boat dipped steeply by the bow, and the engine hum increased. Schwachofer was flooding the forward tanks first in order to increase the angle of dive and make it easier for the propellers to send her hurtling into the depths. The valves would be shut off in the reverse order so that she would steady up on an even keel. The officer was—and had to be—an artist at catching her in her dizzy plunge downward; one false move on his part and she would go on down to a depth that would crush even her strong hull.
With one hand grasping the now-housed periscope to steady himself and with the other on the edge of Kunz’s plotting table, von Stolberg swore softly and fluently to himself. How the devil could you fight a madman like this? Madmen were more dangerous than even the most skillful of men—because it was impossible to gauge what they would do next.
“Can you hear any asdic transmissions?” he asked Braun.
“No, Herr Kapitän.”
That seemed reasonable, for what he had heard and read of the Allied asdic assured him that it could not be used above certain speeds. What then was in the British Captain’s mind? It was more than possible that the destroyer would overshoot him and go rocketing off over the other horizon. If it boded a day of alarms and excursions, at least it was better than being continuously tailed.
The boat was leveling off, and her motors were eased back to give her the slower speed of four knots now that they had done their job and driven her down.
“Silent routine,” he gave the order. This would put the her. Although both were just beyond the range of lethal damage, the shock wave between the two was appalling in intensity. It felt as if the boat had been picked up by a giant hand and thrown upon a concrete floor. Every single thing in her was flung up and down by the repeated waves. The lights went out, and in the semidarkness the little emergency lights, no bigger than flashlight bulbs, cast an eerie glow. The floor was littered and slippery with tiny fragments of shattered glass. A frostlike mantle was now all that remained of the many glass fronts to all the hundreds of dials that lined the control room.
The boat heaved and porpoised through the depths, while Schwachofer and his aides struggled desperately to regain control of her. Like a bubble in a spirit level, her trim swung backward and forward. Panting, with sweat pouring from their bodies, her crew fought for her life and theirs.
BY THE time the effect of her exploding depth charges had ceased to deafen the asdic, the Hecate’s Captain heard the joyful report from the asdic cabinet.
“Contact astern. Bearing green one-seven-oh. Range five hundred. Opening fast.”
With both contestants moving in opposite directions, the range would increase at over six hundred yards a minute. It was therefore imperative to turn the destroyer to the opposite course without delay.
“Starboard thirty, steer three-oh-oh.” The Hecate heeled sharply. Her stern, swinging around in a great arc, crossed out every ripple on the sea and left it smooth as satin on the inside of the turn; while on the other, the ship’s side skidded into the waves, and their tops fell aboard her.
“Green one-five-oh; green nine-oh; green seven-oh; green three-oh; green one-oh.” The asdic reported steadily.
“Midships. Steady on three-oh-oh.”
“Red oh-five,” the asdic said. “Bearing two-nine-five. Range seventeen hundred. Submarine. Going away.”
The Captain realized that he had barely turned in time. A minute—two minutes more—and the U-boat would have been free again. He crossed to the view plot. “What did it look like, Pilot?”
“If the depth was anywhere near right, the starboard thrower should have given him a nasty shaking, sir.”
“I hope it did.”
“Will you attack again, sir?” the First Lieutenant asked.
“Let’s give him one more while he’s feeling shaky. Only eight patterns left—that’s the real rub. After this attack there will be only seven.”
The Hecate was once more faced with a stern attack. Her last one had been from across the U-boat’s beam, but she could hardly hope to achieve such surprise again.
Rolling heavily, with the old swell on her beam, the destroyer, with waddling gait, carried out her third attack. Again the charges were set to two hundred and fifty feet, although contact had been lost ahead when they were farther away. The Captain would again have liked to alter the pattern at the last moment, but the memory of Ellis’ crushed hand had held him back until there was no time to relay his orders to stop the pattern being fired. Seventy charges left.
“Contact astern bearing one-five-oh, range five hundred,” the asdic announced.
A mercy that at any rate they were still in contact. As usual he went to the view plot. “Well, Pilot?”
“The U-boat turned to port at the last moment, sir. He’s back on his two-one-oh course, or I’m much mistaken.”
“What a fool I am! Of course he’d turn one way or the other and no need to guess which! I should have kept out on his port side. Too late now. Better luck next time. That pattern won’t have hurt him much.”
What to do? To continue attacking this wily bird until all his ammunition was exhausted or to lay astern of him and just hold contact while he thought things over? Stewards were appearing on the bridge carrying plates of food for the officers. It was all rather like a gigantic school outing. He’d drop astern. In many ways he would have liked to lie on the U-boat’s beam, about half a mile away, and steam gently along with it. But to do so was to risk a torpedo attack. The U-boat, he knew, was at the moment too far down to fire his torpedoes. But he might come up slowly until he was able to do so. The new U-boats carried torpedoes that could be angled to turn to a course at least ninety, and some said one hundred and twenty, degrees from the direction in which they were fired. Decidedly it would be better to tag along astern.
He went to the compass platform. “All right, Number One. I’ll take her while you have your breakfast. I’m going to take station half a mile astern of him for a bit.”
The Hecate settled down to wait, like a great dog at the bottom of a tree. The U-boat plodded on her course of two-one-oh degrees. Astern of her, with slow speed on her engines, lazily wallowed the destroyer, her men basking in the sunshine and going to their breakfast in watches. The bridge sweepers appeared and swept away the night’s litter of cigarette papers, the wrappers of chocolate bars, and the extraordinary amount of real dust that would accumulate on the open bridge in the middle of the Atlantic. Every five minutes the asdic cabinet reported the range and bearing: “Bearing two-one-oh, range one thousand.”
The Captain went down to his sea cabin for a shave. Afterward he went down to the sick bay to see Ellis.
“I’m sorry about that hand of yours.”
“Me own fault, sir.”
“Not entirely, Ellis. I asked a hell of a lot, to change the depth settings at the last moment.”
“Will you sink the bastard, sir?”
“I hope so, Ellis.”
“I hope so too, sir. I shouldn’t feel at all bad about it if you do.”
“I’ll try and get you flown back as soon as we get into Freetown. The plastic surgeons at home are wonderful fellows.”
“So I’ve heard, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“What’s your job in civvy-street, Ellis?”
“Wood-turner, sir.”
“Oh!” The Captain had hoped he was in some measure making amends, but Ellis would never turn wood again. The plastic surgeons were only surgeons—not magicians.
“Well, don’t let it get you down, Ellis.”
“I won’t let it do that, sir. Not so be as you sink yon bloody sub.”
“I’ll do my best, Ellis—so will the ship.” The Captain went sadly back to the bridge.
On the bridge he noticed the tidy atmosphere at once.
“Well done, Number One. She looks a bit more like our Hecate now.” How quickly a Captain had to change his manner.
The navigator, hearing his return, called him from the plot. “Permission to hand over plot to Sublieutenant Willis, sir, while I take my nine a.m. sight and wind the chronometer.”
“Carry on, Pilot.” Then to the First Lieutenant: “Number One, collect the Coxswain, the senior asdic rating, and Mr. Grain up here. I think we’ll have a little conference.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The navigator came on the bridge carrying his sextant and accompanied by a sailor with the deck watch in its brown mahogany case.
“As soon as you’ve shot your sun, Pilot, I want you to join my party and discuss the situation. I’m afraid we are in for a long, long battle,” the Captain addressed the men who had gathered in a sheltered corner of the bridge. “I don’t think I ever realized before at what a disadvantage a single destroyer is. The U-boat can turn more quickly than we can, and will always give us his stern to attack. We’ve already expended a third of our charges, and the U-boat need not surface for twenty-four hours. That is the crux of the position. In twenty-four hours, or thereabouts, he will have exhausted his air and, if I can’t break his hull, at least I hope to shatter his nerve. Now that’s a long battle and you can’t keep on all the time. Not you, Pilot, on the plot, nor you, Thomson, on the asdic, nor you, Coxswain, on the wheel. We may have to be on the top line at any moment—suddenly, and with very little warning. So I want you all to get somewhere comfortable near your own particular part of the ship, and sit down and rest. We’ve a lot of well-trained ratings, and they are quite capable of doing the routine jobs, so long as the first team is ready to take over in an emergency. It won’t be exactly pleasant, but it will be a damn sight worse for the Hun. I’ve got seven patterns left and there are six watches before his twenty-four hours are up. We’ll attack him at eleven-thirty, three-thirty, five-thirty, seven-thirty, eleven-thirty, three-thirty and the last one at dawn tomorrow. After a bit he’ll get to know the drill; and my bet is that when he tumbles to what we’ve got in store for him, it will shake him as much as, if not more than, we will with our charges.”