We didn’t run into any trouble crossing the Straits of Florida, the sort of dividing line between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, which took us back to the shipping lanes for the return trip up the East Coast. Lieutenant Talley must have gotten some kind of warning in Key West, because he seemed worried and walked the deck constantly, confirming everybody’s positions, double-checking weapons and ammo, haunting the sonar room. I half expected him to climb up to the lookout platform where I spent most of my watches. He stood on the bridge and stared at me a lot, though, as if just waiting for me to sight something and initiate the call to general quarters.

The merchant ships were loaded with tons of sugar and bananas and coffee and frozen meats from all around the Caribbean and South America, bound for New York and then probably with another convoy over to England. There were also dozens of civilians whose passenger ship had been sunk by U-boats out in the Caribbean the week before. Only half of those on board had survived. My heart sank watching them board the ship for the voyage back north. All they had was the clothes they were wearing and blankets. Everything else they owned must have been lost when their ship went down—along with their friends and their families. Their faces looked drained of color. Nobody smiled. Hardly any of them spoke. They trudged up the gangway as if they were going away to prison.

We were halfway up the Florida coast when word came from the sonar room that there were U-boats stalking the convoy. Our patrol craft was the usual blur of activity as everybody raced to battle stations. I was in the crow’s nest and warned the other ships about the danger with the signal flags because we’d been maintaining radio silence since leaving port.

A minute later our PC surged ahead, peeling off from the convoy to where the sonar guys had spotted a U-boat lying in wait. So far I hadn’t seen a thing, but I trained my binoculars ahead, hoping to see something that might help.

One of the other PCs on our side of the convoy took off as well in pursuit of a second U-boat, while the third escort stayed on course. All the ships increased their speed, but that still wasn’t very fast with all the cargo they carried. They also began the zigzag pattern to make it at least a little harder for the U-boats to aim their torpedoes, though as slow as they traveled it was hard to believe it would help very much.

After five minutes giving chase, Lieutenant Talley issued another order and the battery crew launched a couple of depth charges. I held on to the rail, bracing myself for the blast, and once again it felt as if the ship was lifted high out of the water, landing with such force that it was a wonder we didn’t break apart right then and there. No sooner did we settle than the second depth charge went off. I was grinding my teeth so hard that my jaw ached.

Oil and debris came to the surface, and guys all over the PC started shouting that we’d made a direct hit. They were practically dancing all over the deck until Chief Kerr jumped off the bridge and stormed up and down yelling at them all to knock it off. “Back to your stations!” he bellowed. “We didn’t hit nothing! It’s an old sub trick!”

I remembered the training back in Miami and he was right. U-boats had been known to intentionally release oil, mattresses, and clothes through their torpedo chutes—anything that might convince us that they’d been hit. But what they were really doing was either getting away, or hiding on the bottom, or lining up for another torpedo shot—maybe even at the ship that was in pursuit.

Maybe even at us.

Lieutenant Talley ordered another depth charge launched, and we went through the whole thing again, only no more oil and no more debris came up this time, so it probably had been a case of the U-boat pulling a trick and getting away, like Chief said. And it had worked. It was the third time we’d chased a U-boat, and we still didn’t have anything to show for it.

As we pulled back toward the convoy I could see the other PC far forward of our position still in pursuit of the second U-boat. They must have spotted something because they seemed to be giving chase. I wondered where the others in the wolf pack might be, and suddenly I had my terrible answer as an explosion erupted at the fantail of one of the merchant ships, an arc of fire shooting up like a rocket. Seconds later there was another explosion farther forward on the ship, and more flames and smoke billowed up into the clear afternoon sky.

It was the same ship all the civilians were on! I couldn’t believe it was happening to them again. The escort PC that had stayed back with the convoy fired its cannon at the spot where the torpedoes had first been spotted as we raced back to join them in defending the cargo ships. The one that had been hit listed hard to starboard, and I could see the lifeboats being lowered and people climbing in. The air smelled like diesel fuel and burning oil. Small bits of metal debris rained down on us, and I had to climb from the crow’s nest to safety.

We all wanted to go help the survivors—it was a rescue operation now—but we still had to be wary of the rest of the wolf pack, and soon we were off again in pursuit of yet another U-boat. I joined one of the battery crews this time, loading shells into the forward cannon, and we flew over the water at full throttle, hammering the tops of the waves but not slowing down. Behind us, the other cargo ships were taking on the survivors, and the second PC was returning from what must have been a failed U-boat pursuit.

This time we weren’t going to miss our target. Lieutenant Talley gave the order to reverse engines to slow us down once we got to a certain point, near enough to the U-boat we were chasing, according to our sonar, and then we unleashed everything—depth charges from the K- and Y-guns, rocket bombs from Hedgehogs. Explosions blew geysers a hundred feet in the air all around us, and our PC rocked wildly. Guys were flung around worse than in the storm a week earlier. Damage control crews raced belowdecks again. And gunnery crews kept at the ready in case a U-boat surfaced and we could use the deck guns on it.

Behind us, the wounded cargo ship rolled farther onto its side, and then, with a loud groan and the grinding sound of twisting metal, broke in half. Both halves went down within minutes, and I prayed that everyone had gotten off safely—especially the survivors from before.

We repaired damaged bulkheads and reloaded the depth charges and rocket bombs. We stared at the ocean, the water calmer now that the explosions were over. We studied the sonar, pinging off what had to be a sub, now motionless below us. And we waited to see what would come up from the bottom.

“What do you think?” Straub asked me, as the waiting stretched on for what felt like an hour.

We were back at the forward gun, the 3"/50-caliber, ready with more shells.

I’d just come up from the sonar room. “It’s not moving, and it’s definitely a sub,” I said. “Just can’t tell from the sonar if we hit it.”

“Concussion from the depth charges and those rockets could have blown bolts out, could have caused leaks all over that U-boat,” the gunnery chief said. “They could be drowned inside of there.”

I shuddered at the thought of that. Then I shuddered at the thought of any of the submarine crew dying in any way under the ocean.

“I hope they are all dead,” I muttered, though I knew in my heart I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know why, either. For months all I had wanted was revenge for what they’d done to Danny. But now that there was a pretty good chance we’d sunk a sub, I hated the thought of a whole crew of men who were alive just half an hour ago now being, well, not alive. What if it had been our ship that had been hit by a torpedo instead—and what if we were all trapped on board as we sank?

“I don’t know,” Straub said. “I kind of hope they surface and just surrender and we take them prisoner. That way they’re out of the war for good, but, you know, we didn’t kill them or anything.”

“Only good Kraut is a dead Kraut,” said another guy on our crew. I knew Kraut was something they called German people, but Mama wouldn’t ever let Danny and me use a word like that.

I said maybe Straub was right, but even as I said it, I wasn’t so sure I believed that, either. I wanted to bury all the Germans and their U-boats. But at the same time I didn’t want them to die. It was so complicated.

Maybe what I wanted was for everything to just be back the way it was with Mama and Dad and Danny and me, and nobody trying to blow anybody up in the ocean anymore, and no crazy, stupid war.