ALL U-BOATS. ATTENTION ALL U-BOATS. CEASE FIRE AT ONCE. STOP ALL HOSTILE ACTION AGAINST ALLIED TARGETS. DOENITZ.
I had suspected as much. The war is over for us. I informed my crew and they are relieved. They began to sing beerhall songs. Perhaps they will not die after all.
Dr. Jaeger accompanied Decker, Manny, and myself in the dinghy. We returned to the section of the base ravaged by the explosion. Now, seeing the structures with a new understanding, my awe of the place had heightened. How old might this place be? What race of people labored here? And what destroyed them? Were we in danger of the same fate? If I dwelled on such things too much, I feared it would affect my decision-making.
Despite my wish to depart this place, I agreed to the retrieval mission for several reasons: one, it had been the order of Admiral Doenitz; and two, I wanted physical proof of what I had witnessed here — other than the photographs from our Leica. Manny and Jaeger led the way through the debris, and looked as if struck by an aerial bomb. We were looking for a surviving sample of Heisenberg’s inter-matter, and our careful inspection, while time consuming, proved eventually successful.
Decker found a small bullion-sized object. I found another just like it. Jaeger was ecstatic. The bricks were heavy. Much too heavy for their size and volume. Ultra-high density is how Jaeger described it. The scientist was convinced these objects were keys to the overall survival of the Third Reich.
A question for the historians, I believe.
After securing the two samples in a rucksack, we retraced our route through the ruins, through the pattern of streets back to the city’s edge, to the shoreline and the great quay. As we entered the dinghy, I wondered if our actions were being recorded by unseen eyes and ears.
An unsettling concept, to be sure.
As we headed back to the 5001, Jaeger pointed through the mist at a distant point along the shoreline. He said there was something there we should see before departure.
We followed his directions, and homed in on a dark object taking shape in the fog. A vaguely familiar shape. Looking at it from an angle that compressed its length I suddenly realized I was staring at the aft-end of a ship — a sailing ship.
Nineteenth century. No stacks, no steam.
The sailing vessel looked much like the whalers of the 1880s. Masts were broken. The hull cracked like the shell of a giant egg. Shreds of rigging still entangled the wreckage.
I asked Jaeger how a surface ship could have entered this underwater/underground cavern, and Jaeger grinned, promising to tell me his theory. But he again pointed at the wreck.
I continued to stare at the ship’s center beam, fractured over a rocky shoal like the vertebrae of a long-dead leviathan. The wood of the hull, blackened by rot and time, appeared thin and almost papery in spots.
We were close to the hulk, now. The once-gilded lettering across the stern was worn to its thinnest layers, but the name remained just barely visible like a message written on a frosted pane of glass: the Nebuchadenezzar.
There was no way to determine its nationality with a name like that.
Jaeger pointed to what had been a cargo hold, burst open to a scattering of barrels and crates — all split and rotted into splintered ghosts of their original shapes. Large taluses of salt spilled from several of the barrels, which looked as if they had exploded as if from a great concussive impact.
Jaeger commented on the way the ship lay molded to the shape of the shoal, the way the salt looked exploded from the barrels.
I understood immediately. The Nebuchadenezzar had not run aground. It had fallen. From the roof of the cavern. Actually through the top of the cavern. Jaeger suggested the boat had been locked in the ice above. After many years, perhaps a geologic fault such as an earthquake or a shifting crevasse could have caused temporary rift in the cavern’s ceiling. Periods of warming and cooling could have gradually sucked the boat down until its final descent.
When we pushed off again, closing the distance to the 5001, I was grateful to leave this bizarre place.
Trusting the repairs of Kress and his men, we quickly submerged into the lagoon then followed Ostermann’s carefully charted course. Our position was accurate. (Longitude 39.49 W Latitude 69.60 N) Although the response of the diving planes was stiff, we passed through the breach without incident and once more were in open sea.
Fassbaden, Hausser, and I have agreed upon a possible, alternate plan — if all goes badly.
But the best laid plans, it is said, often go awry. And as such I am afraid to even write of it. As in doing so, I curse it.
I have, like the Ancient Mariner, cast my fate to the wind.
We are underway at half-speed.
Despite the still possible dangers of American patrols, the crew felt safer in the familiar depths of the ocean. As the hours passed, placing time and distance between us and Station One Eleven, it began to feel less real to me. As though we had glimpsed for an instant a mythic place made real only by powers beyond our own.
I believe I was not alone in these feelings. I noticed none of the crew dared mention our detour under the Greenland Shelf. As if their silence might make it somehow less real. Although I had not proscribed against it, none of my exploration team volunteered details of what they had seen — especially the unforgettable statue or the mangled corpses.
Ostermann charted our course due south. Despite our delays, he calculated we could still make the rendezvous point with Sturm within the desired time window.
In the meantime:
Batteries fully charged.
Starboard dive plane showing signs of stress. Kress apologetic as he confesses possible failure at any time.
If we need to compensate for a hydroplane failure, Kress warns me the electric engines may not be up to the task without sustaining damage themselves. We could descend with no hope of ever coming up.
We advance to Full Speed.
Night surfacing successful. Batteries again recharged.
The morale of the crew is admirable. I remain on the surface because if the war is truly over, we are relatively safe. However, I may be foolish to believe all American forces have been informed of the cessation of hostilities.
Regardless, I cannot allow them to discover our deadly cargo.
Dive plane getting extremely sticky.
Near midnight. Ostermann informs me we have reached the revised rendezvous point. 300 kilometers south/southeast of New York, we await the cruiser.
We have remained on the surface the entire night, and into the morning hours. In all those hours, we see no sign of enemy planes or shipping.
Best to not rely on the dive plane unless absolutely necessary.
We receive a message from Sturm, and almost simultaneously see her clean lines break the horizon.
I have irrevocable choices ahead.
Within two hours, Sturm was along our starboard side and I rode a bo’sun’s chair to its bridge for a meeting with its young Captain Kaltenbach, who has also received the final command from Admiral Doenitz. He asked me what he was to do with the details of our secret mission, and I declined to advise him. That was the purview of Doenitz alone.
Staff meeting — Fassbaden, Massenburg, Kress, Ostermann present. They wish to return to Hamburg as soon as possible. Kress fears the fragile hydroplane will not survive the trip across the Atlantic. The U-5001 is in a precarious state. If we slip beneath the surface in rough seas, we may never surface again.