Rolf and most of his crewmates were held below the water line in a crowded, Spartan room on the destroyer. The quarters weren’t any tighter than on a U-boat, but most surface ships had a bit of space to spare for comfort. He hadn’t expected to feel so cramped, but he was, after all, a prisoner.
“Has anyone seen Schmidt?” one of the machinists asked.
“He was injured. They’ve probably taken him to sick bay.” If he was still alive. Rolf had done everything he could to stop the bleeding, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough. Roughly twenty crewmen were missing. Rolf suspected those lost were the ones who had braved enemy fire while he’d been transmitting the distress signal and those who had been in the forward torpedo room when it had flooded.
Close to a day had passed since their capture. The British had given them hardtack, bully beef, and water—not much of it but enough to stay alive—and they’d given medical care to those who were injured.
“What about Krause?” the machinist asked.
“Wolfram said he set the demolition charges.” Which meant Krause would have left the ship after most of the other crew, when the British ships had stopped firing at them.
“Krause? Why would a helmsman set the demolition charges? He was one of the first ones out. I’m hoping he didn’t get hit.”
Rolf didn’t know why Krause would set the demolition charges, but perhaps the machinist was mistaken. Or Wolfram was mistaken. Between the murky emergency lighting, the leaks, and the panic of being stranded on the surface, it would have been easy to mistake one of the other men for Krause, especially if looking only at the backs of their heads. Meyer had seen the U-boat sink and reported it to the rest of the crew, so someone must have set the demolition charges. That or the damage from the depth charges had finally made the boat unseaworthy. Either way, her secrets were hidden now.
The destroyer’s engines grew louder, and Rolf swayed with the change in direction. The cabin they’d been locked inside had no portholes. U-boat men were used to that, but Rolf would have liked to see what was happening. It felt as though the enemy ship was on the chase.
Eventually, the engine slowed, and the splashes began. Strange to experience the battle between a destroyer and a U-boat from the other side. The explosions from the depth charges weren’t so loud on the surface, but he could imagine how they sounded to the U-boat crew below.
A mix of emotions swirled round: wanting the U-boat to succeed, or at least to escape. Fear of being sunk. Worry that if he were a prisoner, he could do nothing to convince Frieda to follow the law and play it safe, even when her conscience suggested otherwise. His life was on the line. And if he wasn’t coming home, he feared the future of his family was also on the line.
The hunt continued. Bursts of speed followed by moments when the destroyer’s engines ceased all noise and the ship slid over the waves in near silence. Several hours passed, according to one of the U-115’s crew, who had been lucky enough to have his watch survive the evacuation from the U-boat and the Achilles’s souvenir hunters, who had stripped more than one man of his insignia, medals, or jewelry.
Rolf was beginning to think the U-boat had escaped or been destroyed. No depth charges had been dropped for quite some time. Then an explosion ripped through the destroyer and knocked down everyone standing. The deck slanted to the side, and several of the men slid into Rolf, trapping him against the port bulkhead.
The lights blinked out.
Some of the men pounded on the bulkhead. The air tasted of panic. If the Achilles sank, would the sailors release their prisoners? Did a destroyer have enough space in her lifeboats for enemy sailors taken from the sea? Enough life jackets?
Something wet trickled along the deck where Rolf sat. He felt it with his fingers. Cold, like the ocean outside, and no doubt that was where the stream had come from. The Achilles was taking on water. Rolf stood in the darkness, feeling his way among his crewmates toward the door.
His crewmates continued their calls for help. No one answered, and the water splashed past Rolf’s feet, then to his shins, then to his knees. Maybe death while locked in a ship’s hold wasn’t so different from death in a U-boat that had fallen too deep and been crushed by the tremendous pressure of the ocean. But on a U-boat, the crew were still capable of fighting and working, even if their efforts were futile. At least they could die while trying to survive. Here, they were locked in a cage. Helpless. Impotent. Doomed.
The ship lurched, and water sloshed up to Rolf’s chest, lifting him from the deck before the water settled at his waist.
A door screeched open, and the crewmen nearest the exit ran over the British sailor who’d released them from what otherwise would have soon become a watery tomb. When Rolf’s turn to escape came, he stopped to help the man to his feet. The man said something in response, but Rolf didn’t speak English, so he couldn’t tell if it was a curse or a quiet thank-you.
Rolf followed the rest of the crew to the ladder and climbed. The sharp angle made it more difficult than it should have been, but the alternative was drowning, so he pushed onward. When he reached the deck, sunlight nearly blinded him. Already, most of the lifeboats had been launched and were rowing away from the sinking destroyer. Only a handful of British crewmen remained on board. They dropped rafts overboard and told the prisoners to climb down to them. Rolf looked around for life jackets, but the only ones he saw were on the torsos of the Achilles’s crew. Stealing one wasn’t an option; some of the British were armed.
The rafts had no provisions and wouldn’t keep anyone on board dry, but with no other choice, Rolf complied. He scrambled down the net and managed to avoid immersion in the frigid water by accepting help from one of the U-boat men already on the raft. Once the raft was full of prisoners and a few guards, they used their small oars to take their craft some distance from the sinking destroyer.
The wind ricocheted through the waves, sending a chilling spray over the men. It would take only a slight worsening of the sea to flood the raft and send all its occupants to the bottom. Perhaps that corvette would pick them up. They and the rest of the convoy couldn’t be too far away, though they might be some hours distant, given the amount of time the destroyer had spent attacking the U-boat.
Another raft made it off, a mix of British and German sailors, like the men on Rolf’s raft. Then the Achilles slipped below the surface.
The waves slapped at the raft, keeping everyone wet and cold. Rolf prayed their wait to be rescued wouldn’t be long. No one’s lips had turned blue yet, but already, some of his crewmates shivered forcefully.
Then a gnawing terror built in Rolf’s stomach. He’d forgotten all about the men in sick bay. “Does anyone know if the wounded were evacuated?” Schmidt wouldn’t have been able to escape on his own.
One of his crewmates asked the British sailors. Rolf waited for the translation, but it seemed they didn’t know. Maybe someone had rescued them. Maybe they’d survived the sinking of the U-115 only to die with the doomed destroyer. Rolf said a prayer for the men’s families, but the action did little to comfort him.
His gloom lifted only when a small white streak caught his eye. “I think that’s a periscope.” He waved his arms, and the rest of the men from U-115 followed suit. The British sailors looked horrified. The feather lingered for a few moments, then disappeared. The U-boat, or whatever it was, might not have seen them. Even if it had, the kommandant wouldn’t have any reason to suppose the men were German. No reason to rescue his brother sailors. Rolf and the rest of his crew were silent and subdued, knowing help was near but unlikely to recognize them. The British talked among themselves, sounding nervous.
A rush of white water and then a conning tower appeared about one hundred yards away. The U-boat surfaced, and a watch quickly ran out on deck to man the antiaircraft gun and keep a lookout for planes or surface ships. The U-boat maneuvered closer to the raft, and an officer called out to them from the conning tower. “What was the name of your ship?”
“U-115,” Rolf hollered.
The man seemed surprised. Another man from the U-boat threw a line to the raft, and despite protests from the British sailors, Rolf and his crewmates pulled themselves to the U-boat. An officer helped Rolf aboard.
“We were being held prisoner after our boat was sunk. U-115. Baumann’s boat. Funkmaat Rolf Denhart reporting for duty, sir.”
The officer nodded and looked at the other lifeboats and rafts. “And there are more of you?”
“Yes.”
The man looked at the clear sky. “Then we’ll take our men and leave the rest of them for the British to pick up.”