‘Down, you two!’
The lookouts had been expecting it, were already tumbling into the open, brass-rimmed hatch, their wet, oilskin-wrapped bodies temporarily occluding the soft glow of light in the tower below; von Mettendorff stooping to the voicepipe to call down, ‘Break the charge, stop engines, prepare to dive!’ UB81 battering eastward through black, white-streaked, pre-dawn sea – English sea, Lizard Point roughly fifteen nautical miles abaft the beam to port. She’d been making about six knots throughout the hours of darkness – her best surface speed being nine, nine-and-a-quarter, but had spent the night on one diesel only, the other’s power going into the necessary re-charging of her batteries; was losing way now, pitching and rolling more wildly as engine-power fell off and the sea did its best to take charge. Get down into it, in a minute you’d have peace and quiet; in fact he was diving about a quarter-hour sooner than he might have done, being this close to the enemy coast and – well, Falmouth, Plymouth; it was only a matter of common sense to sacrifice a couple of miles of faster eastward progress for a better chance of bringing his ship home intact. Meanwhile, one last binocular search of the most obvious danger-sector, from right ahead back to the port quarter: 81’s skipper a tall, lean figure bulked out by oilskins shining wet in the still near-total darkness, his Zeiss glasses gripped one-handed and sweeping slowly, steadily. Needing the other hand for hanging on with. No engine racket now, only the wind’s howl and the sea’s roar and the noise she made throwing herself around. And – nothing there, so all right, duck under… Stooping to the pipe, yelling down, ‘Motors half ahead, open main vents!’, hearing the start of acknowledgement of that order from below and cutting it short by dragging shut the voicepipe cock: thuds of the vents dropping open, rush of escaping air, Oberleutnant zu See Otto von Mettendorff by this time in the hatch – unhurried but not wasting any seconds either – dragging the heavy lid shut above his head and jamming a clip on, calling down to Claus Stahl to stop her at fifteen metres. Thinking, Some chart-work now, then breakfast… Both clips on: clambering down the ladder into the control-room. Time/date 0648, 22 October 1918.
Stahl, UB81’s first lieutenant, put down his coffee mug and looked at his skipper across the wardroom table. The messman had just left them.
‘Wilhelmshaven? And “merchant vessels not to be attacked”. A general recall – cessation of operations, in other words? Evacuating Flanders, maybe? There was a rumour of that, wasn’t there, before we sailed? But recalling boats from everywhere else as well – bloody surrender?’
Otto shook his head, glancing through into the control-room. ‘Keep your voice down, man. In any case, evacuation of the Flanders bases does not necessarily mean surrender.’
They’d had the signal last night via Nauen, the German Navy’s long-range wireless transmitter. Long-range transmission being needed of course because it was a general recall of U-boats from patrol – some in mid-Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as in the Channel and North Sea. And Stahl was right – evacuation of Bruges, this boat’s Flanders base, had been on the cards before they’d left for this patrol. Hence presumably their recall now to Wilhelmshaven, the main fleet base, home to the High Seas Fleet.
Background hum of electric motors; atmosphere soporific in the warmth they generated and the stillness of the boat rock-steady at her depth of fifteen metres. To use the periscope she’d have to be at less than ten: in this sort of weather more like eight for that top lens to reach above the waves. In any case it was still dark up there, you weren’t missing anything. Anything that was there – please God – you’d pick up on the hydrophones.
Gasse or Schuchardt would, whichever of them was on watch.
Wilhelmshaven, though: Helena was at Wilhelmshaven, and on his September visit there she’d promised… Otto with his eyes shut, hands over his face, promising himself that whatever the hell this recall was going to lead to, the first free minute he had he’d be on the line to her.
Which was – something else entirely. Something – to put it mildly – thrilling. Nothing to do with the questions crowding his mind and Stahl’s. Stahl’s darkly unshaven, rather pudgy face creased with foreboding as he muttered, ‘Those whispers about the Army beaten to its knees—’
‘Oh, come on…’
‘Run out of steam, then. Either way, ourselves as the only weapon could pull chestnuts out of the fire.’
‘If the war’s lost, Stahl, we didn’t lose it. And the Army is not “beaten to its knees”.’ Skipper almost whispering. ‘Over-extended lines of communication is one thing – and exhaustion, look at the distance we’ve advanced since April – and the damned Americans in it now is something else again. Guessing’s no help though, Stahl, nor’s defeatism. Or listening to propaganda from our enemies, including left-wing politicians and revolutionaries. Anyway, looking on a very much brighter side, I must say the prospect of a spell in Wilhelmshaven – well…’ A smile suddenly on his blond-bearded face, hands lifting as if in – what, revelation, hope? ‘Tell you frankly, far as I’m concerned—’
‘Wilhelmshaven by way of the Dover mine barrage, skipper?’
Chief Hintenberger, the boat’s engineer, joining them at the table, squeezing himself in beside Stahl. Coastals weren’t all that roomy – although these UBIIs were a hell of a lot more so than the originals, the little UBIs. Hintenberger was a small man anyway – paper-white bony face, black beard and quick, hard eyes, in contrast to his captain’s tallness and blondness, or Stahl’s crumpled, flabby look. Otto told the engineer – answering his question about the Dover passage – ‘By the same route we took coming south. A route which incidentally Franz Winter in U201 assured me was safe enough.’
‘Safe enough then, no doubt. Things change, don’t they. Are changing – aren’t I right? For one thing the barrage is a lot deeper than it was – you’ll agree you can’t just paddle under it now, cocking snooks, like we used to do, eh? Remember, skipper, we discussed it in Bruges, you and I, and—’
‘Are you suggesting I should take her back through the Irish Sea and round the Scottish islands?’
‘No.’ A shrug. ‘Wouldn’t presume so far. Although that was the intention, wasn’t it, earlier on?’
‘When we were expecting to be shifted up that way in any case. And who knows what’s happening on that coast now – now the English have pulled their socks up… Anyway, since we’re where we are, and have received immediate recall – and have a way through that’s been checked out and found safe—’
‘Found passable then—’
‘Chief.’ Otto’s cold stare held the engineer’s. ‘Having known each other as long as we have, and you being as damned ancient as you are, one has tended to allow a certain degree of – self-expression, you might call it—’
‘I beg your pardon – sir.’
‘It would be better to keep things in proportion.’ His expression hadn’t softened, although his tone was still quiet. ‘For instance, d’you agree that this – er – reminder to you should not be necessary?’
‘I do. And I beg your pardon, mein Kommandant!’
‘Good.’ He asked Stahl, ‘Battery right up, did you say?’
‘Could have done with another half-hour’s charging, sir.’
‘Something else that can’t be helped.’ He leant back, stretching. ‘Take a peek up top now, perhaps.’ He turned his head, raising his voice: ‘Happy in your work there, Hofbauer?’
Rudolf Hofbauer, Leutnant zu See, nineteen years of age, the boat’s navigator and currently officer of the watch, was leaning over the chart-table, figuring out distances and dead-reckoning positions from UB81’s present location to the Dover Strait and the dogleg from there to Wilhelmshaven. He said, straightening, scratching his lightly furred jaw with a pencil stub, ‘Looks like three-and-a-half days, sir, into Schillig Roads. That’s calling it twelve hours’ daylight and twelve dark, nine knots surfaced and five dived.’
‘Average seven, so about a hundred and sixty miles a day, and’ – Otto muttering this, thinking in nautical miles as he walked dividers across the chart – ‘allowing for diversions here and there – including avoidance of reportedly new minefields.’
‘Say four days?’
‘More like it. As a rough estimate. And today’s October twenty-second, so – arrival twenty-sixth.’ Turning away, adding, ‘Maybe. Let’s have a gander up there now. Bring her to ten metres.’
‘Ten, sir.’ Hofbauer moved further into the control-room. ‘Klein…’
The for’ard hydroplane operator, a leading seaman, muttered acknowledgement as he tilted the fore ’planes’ control. The after ’planesman, Freimann, at the same time angling her stern-down, bow-up, while Hofbauer passed orders over the electric telegraph for a slight adjustment of the boat’s trim, allowing for transition into less dense water closer to the surface. Von Mettendorff pausing and turning back to the chart, checking on how long the passage to Wilhelmshaven might have taken if he’d opted for the Irish Sea route. Well, at a glance, seven or eight days, say. Twice as long – and that would be cutting all the corners. Four days longer to get to Helena – while Franz Winter in U201, having by now left his patrol area – Biscay or thereabouts, Azores-Canaries – would be several days ahead of him; with that ocean-going boat’s superior speed, even a week ahead.
Whereas now they’d be about neck and neck.
It was Winter, oddly enough, who’d introduced him to Helena, despite having a keen interest in her himself, apparently. Not that she took him very seriously. He was too old for her, for one thing, too set in his ways. A dedicated, highly successful submarine commander, but in other respects – well, on dry land, you might say, a fish out of water. Certainly no ladies’ man – more the crusty bachelor. Origins obscure at that – table manners appalling, for instance: one had known dogs one would sooner feed with. All right, so he’d done a lot for Otto von Mettendorff at one time and another – pushing him through for command at an unusually early stage had been the end result of it. Rough diamond selecting the aristo as protégé, getting some kind of satisfaction out of that?
Frowning, with his eyes on the chart – on the Dover Strait – but still with his mind on Helena. Reminding himself then, All’s fair in love and war… Even if the war was on the point of petering out. Make the most of it while it lasts, is all… And now back to business: moving into the centre of the control-room as Hofbauer reported, ‘Depth ten metres, sir.’
A grunt of acknowledgement and the customary signal: movement of both hands palms upward. Boese, mechanician of the watch, long-faced and already balding although not yet out of his twenties, stooped to the control levers of the periscopes and inched one of them upward. Thump of applied hydraulic pressure, then the scope hissing up out of its well, steel-wire hoist purring around deckhead sheaves. The larger of 81’s two periscopes this was, bifocal and providing low- or high-power; the other, the ‘attack’ scope, unifocal and operated from up there in the conning-tower, was as slim as a broomstick and gave one-and-a-half times magnification, non-adjustable. Otto was waiting for the big one, jerked its handles down as the eyepieces rose level with his face, murmured, ‘All the way up, Boese.’ With a fair suspicion that from this depth he wasn’t going to see anything but the insides of waves in close-up – as now, indeed, a confusion of green and white, kaleidoscopic motion in the glittery light of this new day. He told Hofbauer without taking his eyes far off the lenses, ‘Nine-and-a-half metres’, and heard the order repeated by the fore ’planesman Klein, whose wife had given birth to a baby girl less than a month ago. It would most likely be necessary to come up to nearer eight or eight-and-a-half metres to get any decent all-round view, but on principle you didn’t show more stick than you had to, especially when the sea-state made depth-keeping difficult. There was even the risk of breaking surface, exposing periscope standards – the structure that housed the periscopes – or even the bridge itself, in a great flurry of seething foam visible for miles, with the danger then of being spotted by one of the Royal Navy’s dirigible airships that patrolled these inshore waters, and which if they weren’t themselves in a position to drop bombs would whistle up destroyers.
At eight-and-a-half metres he had a good enough perspective, could even bring the ’scope down a little. Stooping, shuffling hunched around the well, while the men around him saw daylight reflected brightly in his eyes, his own view being of grey-green heaving sea ribbed and whorled with the broken white and backed by low, grey cloud. Circling first with the ’scope in low power, then again, more slowly, with four-power magnification. And – nothing anywhere. Which was fine, since in the present unexplained circumstances you weren’t looking for targets anyway, only for dangers that might be threatening. He straightened, snapped the handles up, told Boese, ‘Down periscope’, and Hofbauer ‘Fifteen metres.’ The ’scope already hissing down, oil and droplets of salt water from the deckhead gland shimmering on its bright and greasy barrel. Otto telling both Hofbauer and Claus Stahl as he headed for the wardroom and his bunk, ‘If I’m still asleep at noon, give me a shake.’
The Dover mine barrage was scary. Hintenberger – now snoring in his bunk – was right as far as that went. Otto had been in the game long enough to have his senses, instincts, tuned to the realities – including the plain fact that a U-boat man couldn’t expect to live for ever, even if for his own comfort he had to believe he might. The engineer was several years older than himself, and conscious of it, not only in terms of submarine experience, but in plain maturity – and in his own view, probably, wisdom.
Comparative youth, for a commander, wasn’t all beer and skittles. You saw the envy, resentment in contemporaries who hadn’t got on so fast and asked themselves why they hadn’t, what von Mettendorff had that they did not.
The professional and personal support of Franz Winter, who despite his rough manners was now well established as one of the ‘Ace’ COs, having at the last count 160,000 tons of British and Allied shipping under his belt, had certainly been a major factor in one’s advancement. Otto had been Winter’s first lieutenant in U53: had been appointed to her originally as navigator, been advanced by Winter to the position of second-in-command when that job had fallen vacant. U53 had been Hans Rose’s boat earlier on – the Hans Rose – so that joining her as a junior lieutenant, with comparatively little submarine experience of his own at that stage, he’d had a sense of walking with the gods. And with that came determination to follow in their footsteps, an ambition that made for ruthlessness, which Franz Winter had duly noted and approved, and in due course – really very little time at all – had recommended him for command. For the command course, naturally – which he’d come through with flying colours and been rewarded with one of the original coastals, the little UBIs – single screw and only one periscope, no for’ard hydroplanes, top surface speed six knots, crew of fourteen, and designed to be deliverable by rail: five wagons per boat, assembly at Hoboken and Antwerp, then towed through the Scheldt and the Ghent-Bruges canal. So cramped that if you’d wanted to sign on a ship’s cat you’d only have got it in with a shoehorn, and would not have tried to swing it round. But he’d been reasonably successful in her, operating from Bruges – had become a top-scorer, in fact – and after only a few months graduated from her to this UBII, taking her over from Reinhold Salzwedel, who’d moved to command of one of the minelayers, the UCs.
Franz Winter, who’d made a similar move when U53 had gone in for a major re-fit, had returned almost at once to an ocean-going boat – U201 – and his advice to Otto had been to stay clear of minelaying if he could; there was a lot of it going on, and the UCs’ mines were sinking a lot of English ships in the approaches to their harbours, but it was more nerve-racking, he said, than anything in his previous experience.
More recently – very recently – he’d given him quite a different warning.
‘You’ve been doing a good job, from as much as one hears. Regrettably, one also hears that you’ve been throwing your weight about. As you’ll recall, in days gone by I’ve had occasion to caution you about that sort of thing?’
‘Too big for my boots is the expression I recall, sir.’ Taken by surprise, and trying to make light of it, but Winter hadn’t been standing for that, had added, ‘Arguing the toss with men greatly senior to yourself. Eh?’
He’d sprung this on him on the fore-casing of U201, of which he, Winter, had just assumed command and would be taking out on patrol in a few days’ time. Standing on her grey steel casing with booted legs apart and hands clasped behind his back, head up, peak of his cap jutting skyward, jaw out-thrust. He was a head shorter than Otto: sturdy, gruffly self-confident, well aware of his own social disadvantages while still robustly certain of his value to – and future in – the U-boat arm, which in fact was all he cared about; and cautious in his personal relationships, typically would have given a lot of thought prior to issuing such a reprimand. While the last thing Otto had expected had been to be hauled over the coals like this. He’d been invited to a party, for God’s sake, a small celebratory shindig that Winter had been throwing, the guests mostly fellow COs but a few others too – shore staff and some of their wives. Otto’s feeling was that he’d been ambushed: was only thankful that no-one else was in range to hear any of it. Winter adding, having seen a group of late arrivals approaching his boat’s gangplank, ‘Point is, von Mettendorff, you don’t need any of that. Gets you disliked, certainly wins no-one’s admiration. You’re a talented, capable young officer with a sound future ahead of you, maybe even a great one – as long as you keep your head screwed on. Don’t ruin it for yourself – or for the Service, which is a hell of a lot more important, although – understand this – I’m drawing it to your attention in your own best interests.’
‘I appreciate that, sir. I’m grateful.’
The hell he was. Could guess where that ‘arguing the toss’ bit had come from, too. A kapitan-leutnant in the Flanders flotilla who didn’t know his arse from his bloody elbow… Winter now waving him away: ‘Go on down. My first lieutenant, Neureuther, is looking forward to making your acquaintance. I have to greet these friends.’
Friends who included a sensationally attractive girl in an orange summer frock. Glossy chestnut hair, wide-set blue eyes, at this moment on him, Otto von Mettendorff. She was with an older woman and a grey-haired Wehrmacht captain, and was looking now in what might be mock trepidation at the narrow gangplank with its single rope handrail. Winter calling laughingly, ‘The handrail’s especially for you, Helena. We don’t usually provide one, we simply run across. Frau Lukesch, Captain, how splendid that you could come…’
Otto had rattled down the ladder from the torpedo hatch and turned aft. In Wilhelmshaven, submarine crews were accommodated in barracks, and there were only a few duty-men on board. The party in the wardroom, spilling over into other accommodation space and the control-room, was already noisy, and there were several familiar faces, including those of one or two particularly good friends. Neureuther, who’d got him a brandy and soda from a sailor acting as barman, he hadn’t met before; nor Kantelberg, Winter’s young navigator. But Max Valentiner – very much an ‘Ace’ – was there, and greeted him pleasantly; also Otto Steinbrinck, another close friend of Winter’s. Steinbrinck had built up his impressive score mainly in command of UBs, but was driving a minelayer now, and professed to be enjoying it. And Hans Dittrich of U42 with his wooden-looking countenance. There’d been plenty to talk about – other men’s achievements as well as their own – and Otto had made a point of being modestly reticent when questioned about his own successes – which he could see went down well, and was something to bear in mind. To thank old Dutch-uncle Franz Winter for, maybe. Speaking of whom – well, it must have been thirty or forty minutes and several brandies later that Otto found himself virtually alone in the crowd with Helena Becht, who’d been practically glued to Franz W. all that time, in a group which had included Valentiner and Steinbrinck. Otto had exchanged glances with her more than once, over the heads of others – but no more than that, and not sure what he could do about it, in all the circumstances, until to his surprise Winter had brought her to him, hauling her through the crowd with an arm around her and telling her as they reached him, ‘Otto von Mettendorff here was once my first lieutenant. Now he has his own command and he’s been knocking ’em down in heaps. Otto – Fraulein Helena Becht – a very special friend of mine. But Helena, if you’d excuse me…’
Face to face and very close, they had a sort of privacy by virtue of the crowd itself, having to duck down and speak close to her ear, then offer her one of his, and so forth. After a few minutes of this he’d taken her arm: ‘More room next door. The central control-room, it’s called.’ She’d acquiesced, and they’d edged through, Otto getting a wink from Hans Graischer as he passed him. Telling her – as if conducting a tour – ‘There is also the CO’s control-room – up there in the conning-tower, up that ladder. Above that, up a second ladder, is the bridge…’ She’d stopped and turned to face him, he guessed not all that riveted by what he’d been saying. He smiled: ‘End of lecture. So. If I heard you correctly, you’re special assistant to a brigadier by name of Hartmann and you’re based in Oldenburg. May I ask what it is you do?’
‘Intelligence liaison. My section is concerned with links or – well, known contacts – between certain elements in the Hochseeflotte – High Seas Fleet – and individuals and groups in – oh, military units, primarily.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not supposed to talk shop, though.’
‘Something to do with last year’s mutiny?’
A smile: ‘Don’t you mean last year’s strike?’
‘One of the few “strikes” ever to have been settled by a firing-squad!’
They’d shot two men – a youngster by the name of Reichpietsch, and another – Kobis, Albin Kobis. Pour encourager les autres. Helena suggesting, ‘Perhaps we should avoid that subject, anyway?’
‘I only asked about your work because I’m interested in you, Fraulein. To be completely honest with you, I’m indifferent to what brings you here. All that matters is you are here – the most beautiful girl I ever met in my life – may I tell you this?’
‘I hear you say it, Herr Oberleutnant zu See—’
‘Say it and mean it. How did you meet Franz Winter?’
‘Through Brigitte and her husband – Captain and Frau Lukesch – the couple with whom I arrived? – and he met them through the deputy to Kommodore Michelsen – Kapitan zu See Schwaeble. Hans Lukesch is in the same field that I am, you see.’
And Kommodore Michelsen was U-boat chief in Wilhelmshaven. Short title FdU, the ‘F’ standing for Fuhrer, ‘U’ for Unterseeboote. Otto had been introduced to him on one formal occasion, but he’d never met the deputy. He told her, ducking closer to that small ear again, ‘I’d bet a lot of money you’d find no subversion amongst U-boat crews. Wasting your time – or his. We have the best, the crème de la crème. I’m sure Schwaeble would have told him so – it’s a fact, always has been.’ He touched her arm: ‘I’m sorry – talking shop. When all I really want to talk about is you. You’re by far the most beautiful girl I ever stood this close to, d’you know that?’
‘I know when I hear that kind of thing to tell myself hey, watch out!’
‘When you’re paid a little compliment reflecting nothing but the truth? Tell me – Franz Winter – is it as he says a very special friendship?’
‘Oh, he’s – a character. And such a lonely man. Don’t you think so?’
‘I’m sure – if you say so… But – not all that special?’
‘Well – it’s conceivable that from his point of view…’ Looking for him in the throng around them and not seeing him. Eyes back on Otto: ‘I don’t know what you’re asking, really. Did you say your family’s from Dresden?’
‘Between Dresden and Leipzig. Hundred and fifty kilometres south of Berlin, say.’
‘Brothers, sisters?’
‘One sister. Listen – will you dine with me tomorrow night?’
‘I’ll be working until late in Oldenburg. But in any case I’m not sure—’
‘We could meet at Rastede, perhaps?’
‘No – thank you.’ She began to laugh. ‘Thanks very much, but—’
‘What’s wrong – or funny? They say the food’s superb – huh?’
‘It may be. But it’s not called the Snake Pit for nothing, is it? Although to me I must say it’s a new slant on snakes.’ She thought this was funny. Laughing, shaking her head: ‘Thank you again, but no.’
‘Happens to be on the road between us, is why I suggested it. But if you have something against it—’
‘As if in our innocence we didn’t know. Simple sailor-boy, uh?’
‘What?’
‘Simply stunned, is what. You are absolutely lovely!’
‘Not a complete idiot, anyway. What’s that?’
‘That machine?’
‘Oh, that. A calculator – for the aiming and firing of torpedoes. The navigating officer works it during an attack. Have you ever been to the Snake Pit?’
‘Once, yes. Downstairs only. Someone told me – or hinted – what happens upstairs. You’re not the first who’s asked me, I may say. Although – well, never before on such very brief acquaintance. It’s usually some time before they try it on.’
‘I thought the dining-room was upstairs. Am I wrong? I’ve only been downstairs myself, stopped there for a drink – oh, an age ago.’
‘We have restaurants in Oldenburg – in case that interests you. If all you wanted was for us to have a meal together. One place called Kramer’s, for instance – if ever you should be passing through—’
‘Dine with me at Kramer’s tomorrow night? Would eight-thirty suit you?’
Gazing up at him. The tip of her tongue visible for a moment, as if taking a crumb from her lips. Fascinating lips – in memory or dream – shaping to ask him, ‘How would you get there?’
‘Why, borrow a motor. But the day after tomorrow, you see, I’m off again, so – will you?’
‘You’re very persistent, Herr Oberleutnant. But I’m not certain. I half-promised Brigitte Lukesch I’d make up a four. She and Hans will want to be on their way home at any minute now, incidentally.’
‘You could ask to be excused. From tomorrow’s arrangement, I mean. Tell her that since it’ll be my last night in Wilhelmshaven – you’re certain they’ll understand – and that it might be tactful not to mention it to Franz Winter?’
‘Perhaps it might be. Yes.’
‘“Yes” that you’ll dine with me?’
‘Would you collect me at my apartment?’
‘If you’ll give me the address – of course!’
‘The house is owned by an elderly couple who never go out in the evenings. I just have two rooms, and live – well, cheek by jowl with them, you might say.’
‘So?’
‘So no Snake Pit business, is what I think I’m saying.’
‘Still don’t follow you on that. I must make enquiries, catch up on what you know and I don’t. But at this Kramer’s, would you book the table in my name? Since you know the place?’
‘All right.’ She nodded towards the ladder that led up into the tower. ‘You were telling me what happens up there? Is it the conning-tower?’
He nodded. ‘And in it, the CO’s control-room. Above that, the bridge. Like to see it?’
‘Well—’
‘Lovely night, breath of fresh air after this fug?’
Small smile, and a second’s hesitation: ‘If it doesn’t take too long. It is smoky, isn’t it. Although as I said, Brigitte and—’
‘We’ll be quick.’ They were under the hatch by this time, looking up. ‘We’ll go straight up into the bridge, I think. You don’t have any great interest in periscopes and so forth, do you?’
‘Not all that much.’
‘Well, then.’ Glancing round as he put a foot on the ladder and reached up, he found old Graischer’s eye on him again. Or on them. Graischer had some medical problem, was on the Staff now. Otto nodded to him – letting him know that everything was normal, under control – and smiled at the girl. ‘Follow me?’
Through the tower, continuing up into the bridge and then crouching to more or less lift her out. The September evening was cool, already darkening but not cold. Helena gazing around, breathing deeply; the dress was close-fitting and distinctly décolleté.
‘Lovely cool!’
‘Why I thought to bring you up here. Helena—’
‘Oh…’
‘Meeting you has made this the night of my life. Truly, I swear it. Here I was just killing an evening – thought that was all—’
In his arms, first allowing and then returning his kiss – and more… Otto stooping to her, nuzzling, murmuring her name, kissing her throat, the hollow inside one shoulder, the swell of her breasts. On this side of the bridge the bulk of the periscope standards shielded them from anyone on the dockside, while from the basin’s other side, across water reflecting the first stars – well, distance as well as fading light…
‘Otto, pet, we mustn’t—’
‘Mustn’t what?’
‘Mess me up. Or – heavens, what they’ll—’
‘You are exquisite!’
And not unwilling. Making as it were a bit of a joke of it – as was natural enough in the circumstances and her innocence – well, the place, and the speed of it, her surprise – all that. And not wanting to be ‘messed up’. Although given a few minutes, and if one had dared and she’d got over being scared—
‘Otto – enough. Please. Please?'
Pushing at him: her elbows up between them, and twisting her head away. ‘We must be sensible, now…’
An echo of that, a repetition of sensible, now… Dreamlike, or had become so – deliberately sought, provoked by memory – all right, self-indulgence, a dream out of memory. Lost in it now – in the warmth and the motors’ hum – the dream losing both its own origins and his control, the focus on a different girl entirely. Taller, darker, hair not up as Helena’s had been, but long and loose, she’d been naked but trying to cover herself with a négligée or nightdress, whatever. Hair so dark he remembered it as blue-black, silky blue-black, glorious… Pale, oval face, well-shaped nose, mouth rather wide and full for the narrowness of her face, magnificent breasts. Gasping, telling him – a long forefinger pointing – ‘Otto, you are shameless!’
He’d got it suddenly. The English girl.
‘Captain, sir!’
Male voice – urgent tone, loud – and a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, Claus Stahl telling him, ‘Propeller noises ahead of us, sir – fast, reciprocating, more than one of them…’
Not easy to make out – even in high power. UB81 at eight metres, back in trim with her crew at torpedo action stations, motors at slow speed now he had the big ’scope up. Although in such a disturbed sea there was no likelihood of being spotted; at this range in fact virtually none. Target fine on the bow to port, no more than five degrees off – own course being 087, which it had been since dawn – and making no more than – oh, three knots, say. UB81 must have been very slowly overhauling this lot, which consisted of – he said it aloud for the benefit of those around him, where he hung with his arms crooked over the spread handles of the periscope while making sense of the picture in its lenses – ‘Large ship in tow of a small one – tug, most likely. Two destroyer escorts – one to starboard, other’s ahead at times and out of my sight, otherwise out to port. Yep, one on each bow. Enemy course is within a degree or two of ours. Set it as 085 degrees.’ This instruction was for Hofbauer at his plotting diagram and calculator. Continuing, ‘Masthead height, say, thirty-five metres. Vertical angle is – that!’
The signalman, Wassmann, read figures off the little window displaying that angle, and after a few seconds Hofbauer interpreted it as: ‘Range two thousand metres, sir.’ Otto told him – circling, searching – ‘Start your plot. Set enemy speed three knots… Down periscope.’ Addressing that to the mechanician, Boese. To Stahl and others then, ‘Fifteen metres. Full ahead both motors. Steer 090 degrees.’
All of it happening then, and all logged by Beyer, ginger-headed wardroom messman, diminutive on his stool beside the helmsman, mouth twisted in concentration as he scribbled. Such a grimace, it could have been pain. Helmsman Riesterer, who was also the gunlayer, reporting, ‘Course 090, sir.’ For’ard hydroplanes with ten degrees of ‘dive’ on them; the coxswain, CPO Honeck, who apart from having short legs was built like a prizefighter, had used his after ’planes to put angle on her but had them levelled now. Depthgauge needle circling as speeding propellers drove her deeper. In the motor-room, LTOs (electrical ratings) Schachtschneider and Freimann would be watching gauges – volts, amps and revs – in the hot stink that electrics conjured up; while up for’ard in the tube space, Leading Seaman Bausch muttered, ‘Thought we was ordered not to attack the swine?’, and Stroebel, torpedo CPO, told him, ‘Maybe won’t, lad. Depends what we got there, don’t it. Only merchantmen we was to leave alone – right?’
The question was in other minds as well, including Stahl’s and Hofbauer’s, Hofbauer having on the skipper’s instruction got out the German-language edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships 1914 and opened it at the Royal Navy section; Otto telling him, ‘Depot ship of some kind. Single funnel, I think. Can’t be sure from this angle, but – think so.’ Hearing Stahl’s report of ‘Depth fifteen metres, sir’; Hofbauer pushing the book’s pages over hurriedly. ‘Depot ships. Here, sir.’ Depot ships could be motherships either for submarine or destroyer flotillas, those for destroyers being listed as ‘Torpedo Depot Ships’ for some reason. Pointing at the photos, with the skipper at his elbow: ‘Here’s some single funnels, if—’
‘Neither of those. Nor these.’ With a brush of fingers he’d dismissed Tyne, Woolwich, Adamant, Maidstone and Electo. Shake of the head: ‘Bigger than them.’
‘Here, maybe. Torpedo Depot Ship St George. Near eight thousand tons, length three hundred feet – hundred metres. No picture of her, though.’ Thinking, Could be any old steamer up there, skipper calling her a depot ship because he’s been told to leave merchantmen alone, here’s a sitting duck and he wants to build up his score. Don’t blame him either, really… Skipper peering at the book more closely now: ‘What’s this?’
In the dim lighting Hofbauer read her name as Hecla. And in smaller print, ‘Six thousand six hundred tons, length three-ninety feet, sir.’
‘Thirty metres. That’s her. Does it give her draught?’
‘Mean draught, twenty-three feet.’
‘Torpedo settings five metres, then.’ Beyer passed this over the telephone to the tube space, while also recording it in the log. Otto meanwhile checking the time – however many minutes he was giving it before going up for another look, by then obviously from much closer range.
Touch wood, it would be. Unless in this interval the little convoy had turned away. Its present course would take it past the Eddystone lighthouse and eventually to Start Point; and from Start Point – well, on a little north of east to – maybe Portsmouth, their destination?
Telling them mentally as he checked the time again, Won’t get as far as the Eddystone, boys, let alone your bloody Portsmouth.
‘Gasse – what now?’
‘Sir.’ The leading telegraphist, currently hydrophone operator, pulled one ’phone of the headset off that ear – although he’d have known what his skipper was asking – told him, ‘One of ’em’s gone out to starboard. Bearing now – 108. Revs for maybe ten, twelve knots… Oh – moving back again – 106 – 105—’
‘All right.’ Destroyer doing a little sweep, he thought. Bored stiff with that snail-like progress – and hoping his hydrophones might pick something up. Otto asked Gasse – giving him a moment to move the earphone off – ‘Hearing all three now?’
‘Closer ’n they was, sir. Confused like, but—’
‘All right.’ ‘All three’ meaning two destroyers and one towing ship, say, but it probably was a tug. Not that it mattered. All that did was getting into position to attack, then wasting no time in doing so. He had a comfortable feeling, meanwhile, that once he got up there with the range and firing angle right he couldn’t really miss, with a target so slow-moving and unmanoeuvrable.
As long as the fish ran straight. They usually did, nowadays. Earlier on there’d been a lot of duds. Like the British mines you could just about have played football with. Unfortunately they’d improved a great deal in the past year or two.
He looked from his watch to Claus Stahl.
‘Ten metres. Half ahead both.’
Reducing revs in order to come up quietly, but also because high speed had been taking a lot out of the battery and he’d need power in reserve if after he’d sunk the target the destroyers gave him problems. Which you could bet they would. He’d reduce again from half to slow speed before he put the stick up. Asking Gasse, ‘Bearing now, and a guess at the range?’
‘Red two-oh to red two-five, sir. Range – I’d guess six to eight hundred metres. More than five hundred and less than a thousand, say.’
So he’d need another period of high speed on the motors before he’d be in anything like certain hitting range. Poor old battery. You wouldn’t want a third expenditure of amps at that rate. Give up the bloody ghost, like as not. Best of reasons to make as sure as possible of coming up in the right place next time.
‘Ten metres, sir.’
‘Make it eight. And slow both.’
He made certain that Stahl had the trim under control at eight metres, before nodding to Boese and gesturing for the periscope. Familiar thump then hiss as the glistening, yellowish tube slid up; he grabbed its handles, jerking them out and down. Eyes at the lenses then: daylight was strong, the sea a brighter greenish-blue, and—
There. Twenty-plus degrees on the bow, a starboard-quarter view of a destroyer making heavy weather of it, scooping the stuff up and sending it flying back like snow. Leaving that, training left, stopping on the target, which (a) was the ship he’d found in Jane’s, (b) was down by the bows – had rammed something or hit a mine, stopped a torpedo. Her forepart or some of it had to be flooded, her screws probably too high in the water to be useable – in present conditions anyway. Even right out of water, in that great pile of foam.
Aim to hit her abaft the foremast, second one no further aft than her bridge. With depth-settings as ordered, five metres. And keep to the big periscope. With the sea as lively as it is, he thought, safe as houses…
It was a tug, lugging her along. But as before, the second destroyer wasn’t in sight at this moment. Up ahead somewhere: fine on the bow, he guessed, at about 1,000 metres, probably. Target range still too great, anyway, and the angle wasn’t acceptable. Ideally you wanted your torpedoes to approach on a ninety-degree track, which meant firing from anything between say forty and seventy on her bow: and to overhaul her by that much meant a return to – well, say, twelve metres this time, for another longish spell of full power.
Nothing else for it. Sink the swine, then worry about evasion. He was about to snap the handles up and step back, telling Stahl to take her down, when he got his first indication of an impending alteration of course: a flag-hoist dropping from the target’s mainmast yardarm, and the destroyer on this side cracking on speed. Must have increased a minute or two ago, although the flag signal would still have been flying: it was already far enough ahead soon to be crossing the target’s bows.
Target about to alter to port therefore, he guessed. Training the scope left a bit now – and the other escort was in sight, pushing out northward…
He grunted, told Stahl and/or Hofbauer, ‘May be in luck. They’re going round to port.’
He’d guessed right: the depot ship was stern-on to him now. Still under helm, making a slow, wide turn, tug dragging her round, the cripple’s raised stern acting like a sail with the northwester pretty well on her beam at this stage. Starboard-side escort somewhere out of sight, beyond her, and the other – he shifted the periscope back to the left – there. Steering something like northeast or north by east.
‘Course of northeast, where’d it take ’em?’
Glancing towards Hofbauer, who came back promptly enough with, ‘Steering to pass west of Eddystone, probably on course for Plymouth, sir.’
Confirming what had been his own guess without looking at the chart. He nodded. ‘Down. Twelve metres, full ahead both. Steer 060.’
Would check that on the plotting diagram and adjust if necessary, but it had to be about right. Target and escorts on 045, UB81 cutting the corner. Own speed five-and-a-half-knots, target speed three – or maybe less now, with the weather on her beam – rate of overhauling therefore three knots or a little less.
‘Both motors full ahead, sir, depth twelve metres, course 060.’
Whine of the motors speeding, boat angling downward. He’d been lucky to have had the periscope on them at just that moment, to have seen that change of course. At the plotting diagram now, juggling figures – bearings, distances, speeds, firing angles – in his head. Hofbauer suggesting, ‘Should we give it sixteen minutes, sir?’ He had his stopwatch running. Otto told him, ‘Twelve.’ And over his shoulder, ‘Bring her to 065.’ A better course on which to intercept – cutting the high-speed period to a minimum, for the battery’s sake – and he’d run in and fire torpedoes from abaft the target’s beam, to hit him on as much as a one-twenty track. At close enough range you’d hit all right, saving several minutes of full battery power and then starting your withdrawal about half a sea-mile further from where the destroyers were likely to be at the time of firing than you would be if you held on for a ninety-degree shot. Getting in as close as 350 or even 300 metres would compensate for the obtuse firing angle.
Waiting while the minutes crawled. Motors at full ahead, swallowing amps by the bucketful.
Close on ten minutes gone. Thinking, as a way of making himself relax, Back with you in just a few days, my little darling…
Kramer’s had been great, an exciting evening, and at the end of it, when they’d been kissing goodbye and taking their time about it, she’d agreed breathlessly, ‘All right, next time, Otto’ – sending his spirits soaring. It was the Snake Pit she’d been agreeing to – although as things were then, or as he’d thought they were, there was no telling whether ‘next time’ would be in two months or three or – hell, six, since at the end of this patrol and the one after – this one – he’d expected to return to the base at Bruges, not Wilhelmshaven. Driving himself back from Oldenburg in the motor he’d borrowed from old Graischer, he’d warned himself, If there does happen to be a next time…
Would be now. In only four or five days, at that. Any fool can stay alive four or five bloody days!
Touch wood…
‘Twelve minutes gone, sir.’
Hofbauer. Otto pushed himself off the panel of blows and vent levers where he’d been leaning, told them, ‘Both motors half speed. Bring her to ten metres.’ Then when she was in trim at ten – another minute gone – ‘Slow both motors.’ And to Stahl, ‘Bring her to eight.’ Relief at the slowing down smoothing out some of the furrows in Stahl’s dark-stubbled face as he acknowledged, ‘Eight metres.’ Otto glancing at Boese and lifting his hands – for the thump, then the long hiss, seconds later the light of day like an explosion in his eyes.
Sort this out now…
New bearings and ranges. ‘I am – ninety-five degrees on his bow. Target’s course 045, speed three knots. Starboard fifteen, steer one hundred degrees. Stand by both tubes.’ He stepped back: ‘Down periscope.’
At the chart table then, scanning Hofbauer’s plot, Hofbauer setting figures on the calculator and muttering, ‘Director angle at three hundred metres – fourteen degrees, sir.’
He nodded, moving back to the centre. ‘Up.’ Grabbing the ’scope and making one fast preliminary circuit, checking all round. No change, no problem. Setting the ’scope therefore on green fourteen – there was a bearing-ring on the deckhead where the periscope pierced it, the starboard half of it green, port-side bearings red. When the target’s bow crossed the hairline in the lenses he’d have a fourteen-degree aim-off and could send away the first torpedo, although his point of aim for the first one would be under the foremast, second under the leading edge of the bridge. The scope was set and he had his eyes at the lenses, waiting, seconds ticking by and range closing all the time: he’d told Beyer – the telephone link to the torpedo room and tube space – ‘Stand by tubes’, and the answer from Stroebel came back instantly as ‘Tubes ready, sir.’
Target’s sea-swamped bow crossing the hairline now. The length of the Hecla’s pitching, half-drowned foc’sl-head was the distance to the foremast-step. Slow intake of breath and – ‘Number one tube, fire!’
You felt it, heard it, felt a rise of pressure in your ears from air venting back. Gulping to clear it, then, ‘Number two – fire!’
Gasse reported a second later, ‘Both torpedoes running, sir.’
‘Down. Thirty metres. Starboard fifteen, steer 180.’
All of that happening – UB81 corkscrewing downward and the torpedoes running, in echelon and five metres below the waves. Run straight, please… Gasse was removing the headphones, to avoid having his eardrums damaged. As they might be before much longer anyway; depthcharges tended to be more damaging, if they were close enough, and the English had become rather better at it in the course of the past year or so. Hofbauer was frowning at the stopwatch, Otto seemingly studying him. UB81 angling down, depthgauge needle circling past the fifteen-metre mark, and the motors quiet, conserving amps. Up top, that old depot ship’s crew still doing whatever they’d been doing before – eating, sleeping, playing cards or—
Explosion. One hit: the sound of it distinctive enough to be clearly recognisable. Faces lighting up, mouths opening to whoop or cheer, Stahl and CPO Honeck snarling for silence. Then – same again, second hit. Unquestionably a kill – and no stopping them now: all through the boat men were cheering, hitting each other on the back, laughing. What they were here for, and they’d done it – again. Well – their skipper had, but he couldn’t have managed it on his own. UB81 had done it. Still on her way down – passing twenty-four metres, and with thirty degrees to go to get herself on the ordered course, due south. Chief Hintenberger was applauding clownishly from the entrance to his engine-room, ostentatiously clapping his hands above his head – big hands, arms as skinny and hairy as spiders’ legs – while Claus Stahl turned briefly to offer congratulations to his skipper. Hofbauer the same. There was a smile even on Boese’s long, usually gloomy face; Wassmann was beaming and chuckling; Gasse was putting his headset back on – knowing that a lot was going to depend on him and his hydrophone in the course of the next half-hour, hours, rest of the day, maybe through the night as well. You hoped for the best, prepared yourselves for the worst – at least for a bollocking. Otto telling Beyer at the telephone, ‘My congratulations to Chief Stroebel.’ The torpedo chief, whose fish had run straight. Otto heard that message passed, then called for silence: ‘Pass the word for’ard and aft – settle down, sit, lie – no-one even fart, let alone drop a spanner.’
The big hope, as always, to sneak away, not to be detected at all, have no hunt even start. It was a possibility, had been known, although recently had become more rare. Stahl, glancing round to confirm that the boat was now at thirty metres and catching his skipper with closed eyes just at that moment, wondered as he turned back to watch and adjust the trim, Long blink or quick prayer?