Chapter 28

After nearly three weeks at sea, everyone grew tired of the endless expanse of gray water and gunmetal gray paint on deck. Even Hamble complained of the “bloomin’ boredom.” With many still in sickbay, the recovered crew members worked double shifts. Weak and underslept, they were jumpy. One gunner mistook the wake of a school of fish for a torpedo and rang the alarm. Another time, when a hydrophone picked up vibrations beneath them and the men prepared to fire a depth charge, they discovered at the last minute it was a rock and not a German U-boat. There was lots of teasing after these incidents, as the men, still in the middle of the ocean, were not ready to get serious until the ship approached land. So it was that when a sleeping ensign was awakened in the instrument room at 0400 hours by the signal of a nearby submarine, he at first discounted it. Scapa Flow now was within the ship’s sight and he reasoned the electric waves were provoked by the thousands of land mines and sunken concrete barriers protecting the base. By the time the USS Leviathan’s C.O. determined that the signal was real, the submarine was closing in.

There were a dozen mines nearby, each filled with three hundred pounds of TNT. The ship’s wireless operator radioed to shore for the mine closest to the U-boat to be detonated, but the land operator radioed back that the submarine was approaching the Leviathan so quickly that triggering a mine could seriously damage the ship as well. Sam was sent to fetch Hamble out of sickbay. Only he knew these waters well enough to guide the U.S. destroyer safely into Scapa Flow’s harbour.

“Either way, we’ll go phut,” Hamble said, “so trip the fucker before Gerry gets closer.”

The underwater blast released waves so high that those on deck knotted ropes around their waists and lashed themselves to any fixed object to keep from being washed overboard. When the waves subsided, Sam peered through the railing, expecting to see submarine debris and body parts littering the sea’s surface. There was nothing there, however, only the sickening realization that the U-boat and its men had sunk to the ocean floor. As the Leviathan continued to roll wildly, Sam remembered the heaving stomachs of the men still in the infirmary and hurried below deck.

He heard vomiting long before he reached the doorway. The medic, struggling to stay upright himself, raced from rack to rack, emptying buckets and mopping the floor. Pots of water boiled on the stove to sterilize the towels he’d used to wipe the men’s mouths and butts. As a sudden aftershock sent the prow of the ship skyward, the flames on the burners leapt sideways, igniting a stack of dirty towels waiting to be washed. Sam quickly swept them into the steaming puddles on the floor and stomped out the fire. He’d barely extinguished the blaze, however, when a crazed Mikovski staggered out of his bed and raced past him, heading for the stairway up to the deck. The lieutenant would rather drown than burn, Sam realized, racing to stop him.

Mikovski’s upper body was halfway over the rail when Sam got to him. If the pitching of the ship hadn’t thrown the lieutenant backward, he would have hurled himself overboard. As the waves rolled the Leviathan upright once more, Mikovski was again poised to jump into the water. Sam crawled across the deck and grabbed his legs. The lieutenant tried to shake him off. He might have succeeded if his limbs weren’t weak from his prolonged bout of food poisoning. Even flat on the floor, however, Mikovski continued to struggle. He clawed at Sam’s arms and tried to knee him in the groin. When Sam pinned him down, the lieutenant spat in his face.

The other sailors froze. At first they thought Mikovski had come on deck to gloat over the sinking of the U-boat. Then they thought Sam was attacking the lieutenant and tried to pull him off. Only Hamble, who, like Sam, had seen Mikovski’s ashen face when he heard of the men in the Lutzow’s boiler room burning to death, sized up the situation. He flung off the sailors piling on top of Sam, and together they held the lieutenant down. Eventually Mikovski grew limp, threw up, and passed out. With Sam carrying his arms and Hamble his feet, they returned Mikovski to sickbay.

“I’m napoo,” said Hamble, crawling back into his own rack. “Done, used up.” Tomorrow he’d need all his strength and wits to help navigate them into port. Sam knew he should let Hamble sleep, but he had to ask whether the Brit had any idea what made some men so terrified of fire, especially one with the iron guts of Mikovski. Hamble closed his eyes. Sam thought he’d nodded off until he said, “It’s the angry blokes who are obsessed with fire. Some are drawn to it, itching to strike the match themselves. Others run from it, afraid of what’s burning up inside them.”

They listened to Mikovski’s staccato breathing for a minute before Sam left Hamble’s bedside. The lieutenant returned to duty the next day, never saying a word about what happened.

***

It was evening when the Leviathan eased into port at Scapa Flow, the sailors amassed on deck for their first sight of land in twenty-one days. From dawn to near dusk, Hamble had slowly guided the ship past hundreds of mines and around concrete barriers that left no ripples on the water’s surface. As they approached the pier, the men saw a French steamer wrecked after crashing into one of the barriers. Half of it was below the water, the rest grounded on the shore like a beached whale. Sam said a silent thanks to the able Brit who would soon board a merchant marine vessel bound for New York to guide the next American ship back through these waters of war.

British boats lining the harbour dipped their flags as the U.S. destroyer slid past. “Don’t often see the Union Jack saluting a ship not its own,” Hamble said, and was surprised when Sam asked why the exception. “You boys are risking your lives to save us. Or have you forgotten that’s why you’re here?” Sam hadn’t forgotten, although his reason for enlisting was more to prove he was an American than to save Europe. Now he wasn’t sure what had made him cross the Atlantic.

The closer they got to land, the more the wind picked up. The sailors’ hats were blown overboard and floated on the water like a small flotilla of lifeboats. Tomasio, the colour back in his cheeks, stood at the railing as if defying the wind. His hat flew off his head, then stopped in mid-air. Tomasio reached for the string hidden inside his jersey, which he’d tied to the brim, and reeled it back in. The others, including Sam, roared with laughter. Those who hadn’t already lost their hats tossed them into the sea. Tomasio was the now the only one left wearing a hat.

Sam stood bare-headed with the rest. His hair was growing back, but the strawberry mark was still quite visible. At this moment, it didn’t matter. No one on the shore noticed. To them, he was another brave American who’d prevented an attack by a German U-boat. He was more of an American in Scapa Flow than he’d been in New York.