You are a good electrician,” Kapitan-Leutnant Schwieger told his newest crew member. “You know your wires and batteries, but the job leaves you idle during hostile action. Therefore, Voegele, I am reassigning your battle station. From now on it will be right here in the command room.”
“Hier, Herr Kapitan?”
The Alsatian was, as Schwieger expected, taken by surprise. As a draftee, a near-foreigner from the French-German corridor so recently restored to the Fatherland, Voegele was all but shunned aboard the U-20. The captain knew that he must find his assignment lonely. It was time to bring the man into the crew, test his loyalty and, as the Anglischer saying went, make or break him.
“Jawohl, Voegele,” Schwieger said, clapping a hand on his crewman’s shoulder. “During an attack I can use you here. It will give you valuable combat experience.”
“Combat, sir?”
The electrician’s quavering tone made others in the cramped compartment laugh aloud.
“Herr Kapitan,” the pilot Lanz called from his seat astern, “does that mean you will no longer be needing him as ballast?”
The joking term, greeted by more laughter, was in reference to the duty of most crewmen to run forward during a crash dive in order to weigh down the nose of the craft and make it sink faster, out of sight of attackers on the surface. Knowing this, Herr Kapitan Schwieger still regarded the question as impertinent. But then, his longtime, reliable pilot was technically a civilian, not subject to the harshest military discipline, so he let it pass.
“Indeed,” Schwieger announced, “Herr Voegele’s duty will be right here, to listen for my orders from the conning tower—” the captain gestured up to the tiny turret, ladder and hatchway that stood open above them “—and then repeat the commands so that they can clearly be heard here below. In a combat situation, I don’t like to rely on the speaking tubes. So you, Voegele, will be my speaking tube…I promote you to Obersteuermann.”
The humble steersman rank, only equivalent to quartermaster in the land army, nevertheless had the effect of silencing the crew’s snickers.
“If my firing order is made to one of the torpedo rooms,” Schwieger pointedly instructed Voegele, “you will run forward or aft to convey it, see that it is carried out, and immediately report back to me.”
The electrician looked puzzled and less than enthusiastic—hardly the fitting demeanor for a U-boat officer.
“But sir,” the Alsatian said, “once a torpedo is armed and the tube flooded, you also have a Fire button in the conning tower. Wouldn’t it be quicker to use that?”
As electrician he would know this, of course. And indeed, failing an instant response to his speaking-tube command, Schwieger fully intended to use the electronic link rather than relying on this weak-livered draftee. By waiting, he would possibly miss the shot. But Voegele didn’t need to know all that.
The Kapitan responded, “Since you ask, Herr Voegele…yes, indeed it would be quicker, assuming that the electric circuit works. But it is the teamwork that I am interested in, and prompt obedience.”
Schwieger also knew it was important, given enough time, to exercise the crew in their appointed duties, the jobs they’d trained so tirelessly for. They valued that and saw it as a privilege. It was good for the boat, good for morale, and there should be no need to tell a raw recruit this.
“And because it is my order,” the Kapitan finished curtly. “Any more questions? Enough, then, you are dismissed.”
As Voegele half-heartedly saluted and turned away, Schwieger listened for more jeers but heard none. Now the Alsatian was put on notice, as was the entire crew…or soon would be, once the word got around. These morale-building duties were tiresome and sometimes embarrassing, but they were a necessary part of his command…at least on a fogbound homeward journey, when there was little to be done, and the men might so easily get into mischief.
Returning to his charts on the map table, Schwieger silently cursed the fog. He cursed England too, and the poor luck that forced him now to turn his course homeward without notable success so far. True, he had sunk the sister ships Centurion and Candidate—along with one puny Irish sailboat armed only with cheese and chickens. Wartime provisions, and the means of transporting them, had been destroyed—a token revenge, at least, for the British sea blockade that was crippling Germany and threatening to slow the progress of the Der Kaiser’s armies. He and his crew had done their duty.
Still, this double sinking was hardly the kind of achievement that would advance his career in the Kaiserliche Marine, or win admiration from his fellow captains. It was no great feat, such as taking on a warship or some of the troopships setting out from these same ports, carrying new hordes of English invaders to Churchill’s Turkish Delight in Gallipoli—or, as was rumored lately, to the very beaches of Northern Germany. It was nothing like sinking one of the great ocean liners that, under a pretense of ferrying passengers and mail, smuggled the munitions used to prosecute this devious war of encirclement against his homeland. The chances of any such accomplishment on this voyage grew slimmer by the hour.
Slim indeed, now that he had abandoned the rich hunting grounds of the Irish Channel and pointed his craft westward, back toward the Atlantic. The fog, at least, allowed them to cruise on the surface and restore their batteries and air, with less risk of being sighted from the south coast of Ireland.
But that ended in mid-morning, when the thinning mist revealed a trawler heading out to sea. Schwieger ordered a dive, since you couldn’t tell nowadays whether such a fishing boat might be cruising in service to the Royal Navy, carrying a wireless set or a 2-pounder gun.
He then kept U-20 on their westward course, but submerged. And wisely so, for within two hours they heard the thudding engines of a large, fast vessel passing overhead, possibly a destroyer or something bigger.
Could it be Lusitania? The temptation was delicious. Schwieger ordered the sub to maximum periscope depth, clambered up into the conning tower, and raised the tube. As its lens cleared the bright, calm surface, he saw tall smokestacks and masts bearing two massive crow’s nests. Those were gunnery control stations set above the smoke of battle, he knew, not tourist lookouts. It was a warship, a cruiser of respectable size built late in the last century. That kind of vessel would make an easy target, providing she was torpedoed from beneath the surface and unable to bring her gun batteries into play. Otto in U-9 had sunk three of these white elephants in an hour’s work last September. The Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressey were now names that echoed Germany’s naval might.
Elated at the prospect of an easy kill, Schwieger ordered a course change in pursuit, and he called Lanz up to identify the target. The new Obersteuermann Voegele was nowhere in sight, but there was no time for that now.
“An old cruiser, Eclipse class, top speed 17 knots or so, Herr Kapitan,” Lanz reported from beside him.
Following around with his periscope to compensate for the U-20’s turn, the pilot spoke assuredly.
“Must be Juno of the south Ireland fleet, likely running back into Queenstown. A poor torpedo shot from this angle.” Lanz surrendered the scope back to Schwieger.
“Yes, and they know we’re in these waters,” the captain said with a sigh. “Maybe that trawler spotted us and got off a wireless message. They certainly have news by now of the two Harrison Liners we sank.”
This Juno was heading for port at top speed, and after a moment it became clear that she was zigzagging as well. A giddy experience for the warship’s crew, Schwieger thought, swerving at high speed. Yet such an evasive tactic made it all but impossible to plot a torpedo track that would intercept the ship’s course at the proper angle. He could not waste his last three “eels” taking pot-shots, so he called off the chase and resumed his westward course.
They’ll all be running for shelter now, he thought, keeping his disappointment to himself. A dismal voyage ahead. Warships, cruise ships, freighters and dairy boats, all have reason to fear us.