Jake stopped beside Karl and leaned into the ship’s rails. “Nice to be going somewhere warm for a change, eh?”
Karl kept his focus on the view through his binoculars. They were three days out of Liverpool, heading south to Freetown in British West Africa. “I believe we have been in plenty of warm convoys as of late, if by warm you mean close to action that is likely to result in our collective deaths. If you mean the weather instead, then, yes, I’m glad the crew of the Hillingdon wasn’t issued Arctic gear like members of a few other crews were.”
“I hear a man is unconscious in minutes if he falls in the water on the Murmansk Run.”
“And in the summer, there’s enough light for the German bombers to find you all day long, because it never gets dark.”
Jake grunted as he pushed off from the rails. “Yes, indeed. I much prefer Africa to the Arctic. Other than the sharks.”
Karl glanced at Jake for just a moment. “Are there a lot of sharks toward Freetown?”
Jake shrugged. “Not sure. But I gather Billy Scarlett is a bit nervous about them, so I’ve been telling him all the horror stories I’ve heard about the Arctic Convoys in the hopes that he’ll appreciate our current assignment. Could backfire if the Hillingdon is sent to Murmansk instead next time.”
“About that, Jake . . .”
“About Murmansk?”
“No, about the next voyage.” Karl had no obligation to tell Jake his plans for the future. But Jake wasn’t just the third officer on Karl’s steamer. He was also a friend. “Millie’s uncle is a rear admiral. He thinks the Royal Navy might start being a little less picky about the birthplace of their recruits.”
“Ah.” Jake folded his arms. “Especially with a good word from an officer whose niece is marrying the recruit in question.”
“She hasn’t said she’ll marry me yet.”
“And you think she would have said yes if you were in uniform instead?”
Karl shrugged. Her uncle, brother, and brother’s friend wore uniforms, as had her father during the last war. But Karl didn’t think his status as a merchant seaman was the problem. “I think she would have said yes if we weren’t in the middle of a war.”
“So, you want to join the navy but not to impress a girl. Maybe because you think you’re too good to be an ordinary sailor on an ordinary ship?”
“It’s not that, Jake.”
“Then what is it?”
Karl internally cursed the difficulties of having a heated discussion with someone while trying to keep a lookout for enemy planes or periscopes. “I want to hunt U-boats instead of always being the one who’s hunted.”
“You want revenge?”
“Something like that.”
Jake huffed. “Didn’t you read Moby Dick when it got passed around a few voyages ago? Hunger for revenge doesn’t end well.”
“That’s just one book. And anyway, service on a steamer was never my first plan.”
“Yeah, I remember. We were your only choice when you were down and out and had no other option besides us or heading for an internment camp. We were there for you when no one else was. But I guess I’m not surprised that a spoiled rich kid like you would drop us as soon as something better came along.”
“Jake!” But the third officer had stalked away, and Karl had another hour before his watch ended.
He kept his eyes on the blue-gray waves that surrounded the SS Hillingdon. Was it wrong that he wanted to join the Royal Navy instead of being content in the Merchant Navy? The crew of the Gracechurch had taken him in. How long did he owe them his loyalty? A year after the ship was sunk? Two years? The makeup of a crew changed every time they were in port, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Couldn’t he be loyal to their common cause on a warship? It would take sailors of all kinds, plus soldiers and airmen, to defeat the Nazis, and defeating the Nazi evil had been his first desire and driving motivation since the day he’d left Falcon Point. It remained a factor in all his work, all his decisions, but there were new motivations too.
Karl usually thought in terms of plans, but maybe today he needed to think in terms of goals. Goal the first: defeat the Nazis. He could contribute to that as an employee of the Torlin Line or as part of the Royal Navy. Both performed vital jobs, and Karl was confident he could do either task competently. Goal the second: find Ingrid. He couldn’t judge which choice would better help him in that pursuit, so he moved on to goal the third: convince Millie to marry him. She seemed to care for him regardless of who employed him, but if they married, her family would become his family, and he’d fit in better if he wore a uniform. After that, goal the fourth: be a good husband. That included providing for her, especially if children came along. As a merchant sailor, he might earn more on a voyage than someone in the Royal Navy did on the same journey, but pay in the Royal Navy didn’t end while a sailor was in port, and should something happen to him, widows of Royal Navy sailors were entitled to government benefits. Goal the fifth: live up to the Lang name. The Langs were officers, professors, innovators, philanthropists, and gentlemen. His duty became even more important if he never found Ingrid, if he was the last of his family. It wasn’t just pride or a thirst for prestige; it was a drive to improve oneself. Great things had always been expected of him, and deep inside, he knew he could be more than an ordinary seaman.
Maybe that was his answer. For his past and future families, and for himself, he wanted to give service in the Royal Navy a try. If Millie’s uncle could make it happen, Karl would make the change.
* * *
Rolf finished his third fried egg of the meal. Pity he couldn’t send some to Frieda and baby Ilsa, because eggs were getting harder for civilians to find. Ilsa was probably old enough to try them now. For the last week, everyone on the U-115 was eating as many eggs as they liked, and Rolf was starting to get sick of them. During their patrols in the North Atlantic, eggs would stay fresh for a few months, but they’d been ordered farther south this time, and the warmer waters meant the eggs would spoil if they weren’t eaten soon.
The angle of the U-boat changed, and a torpedo mechanic’s plate slid down the table before the man caught it. They’d been spending most days submerged, out of sight of the Short Sunderland Mark Vs that patrolled the air on the approaches to Freetown. They surfaced at night to do their hunting, and the change in angle meant U-115 was going up. Rolf gulped the last of his coffee and headed to his wireless set. The man currently manning the airwaves was new. Rolf wasn’t on duty yet, but he would be in fifteen minutes, and he wanted to get an update and check in on Wolfram before the watches changed.
The U-115 leveled at what Rolf assumed was periscope depth. If all was clear, they’d surface for a chance to recharge the electric engine’s batteries and take advantage of the better speed.
“Any transmissions?” Rolf asked.
Wolfram huffed. “We’ve been too deep.”
They’d been forty meters below the surface. The depth certainly made it harder to hear the dots and dashes, but Rolf had picked out messages while they’d been that deep before when weather and sea conditions were favorable. Anything from U-boat headquarters was repeated two, six, twelve, and twenty-four hours after the first transmission. Given yesterday’s transmissions, a repeat message should have come through during Wolfram’s watch, but maybe current conditions meant Rolf would have missed the message too.
When Wolfram went off duty, Rolf settled in, listening. Halfway through his watch, he heard something on the hydrophone.
“Kommandant?” Rolf called. “New contact. Slow engine—sounds damaged because it’s not turning evenly.”
Baumann came inside the radio shack. “Direction? Visibility tonight is poor. Clouds and no moon.”
Rolf manipulated the hydrophone speakers to where he could best hear the noise. “Ahead and to port. That’s the best I can give you.”
Baumann nodded. “I’ll add men to the lookout and adjust course.”
An hour later, the ship, a moderate-sized steamer, was within range.
From the radio shack, Rolf heard the orders relayed down from the conning tower.
“Torpedoes los.”
The torpedo mechanic released the weapons. The engineer adjusted the trim to compensate for the loss of the torpedo’s weight. And on the hydrophone, Rolf listened to the sound of the torpedoes’ engines racing forward at forty knots.