And in some ways — some very important ways, Erich did not really care.
His main reason for ardently wishing to return home to his native Frankfurt had been torn from his life in a terror-filled night of Brit bombers. In the autumn of 1944, during one of the clockwork-like raids of Lancasters over the city, a stray 500-pounder had pulverized the home of his in-laws, who had made the fatal mistake of inviting their oldest daughter, Frieda, to dinner. Frieda had been Erich’s wife of only two years. From what he’d been able to learn, the house had taken a direct hit, and no one inside the structure could have felt a thing. Death had been instantaneous, and in that, Erich had grasped for something of comfort. His wife had not suffered, and in war, that kind of death was indeed a gift.
It had been hard to continue at first. He’d been tortured by waves of conflicting emotions for months. Guilt that he and his fellow kriegsmariners had failed to sink enough of the freighters bringing so many bombs and planes and supplies from that bottomless storehouse of America. If only the U-boat war had been more successful, maybe Frieda would still be alive.
How many times had he proposed that argument to himself? The temptation might surface to blame oneself, but he never did. How many times had he actually blamed himself?
Blame was a funny thing.
Erich had spent months contemplating the series of events and connections between them. His education in the Frankfurt Military Academy for Boys had required he be a well-read young man, and he had learned much from the scientists and the philosophers. But all the Kant and Schopenhauer and Bacon could not dull his pain, or his Nietzchian need for a powerful retribution at any cost.
But the question lingered: retribution against whom?
Although he would never admit his conclusion to anyone other than his closet friend, Manny Fassbaden, Erich blamed his own country, or more specifically its psychotic government, for killing his wife.
He knew he was not alone among career military men in feeling like that, just as he knew he must keep silent his opinion or risk hanging for treason.
His country had not given him a reason to live or even fight. When they assigned him the U-5001 mission, he willingly accepted the orders — as much because his fellow officers deemed it a suicide mission as anything else.
“…and I suspect you have not been listening to me, Captain,” said Manfred Fassbaden with a grin.
The words pulled Erich from the depths of his thoughts, and he realized he’d been far, far away from the U-5001. “I am sorry… what were you saying, Manny? I was ‘woolgathering’… thinking about something else…”
His Exec smiled, lowered his gaze. He was a big man trying to look smaller. “What I was saying was just something to pass the time. It was nothing.”
“I was thinking of things past. And how so many of us wish we could live in it,” said Erich. “But, I am beginning to believe it is not even a good idea to visit there.”
Fassbaden clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “War is a time of history. It reeks of the past. It is unavoidable.”
Erich understood what his friend was trying to say, but right now, it was not working. “I am uncertain how to put my feelings into words sometimes,” he said. “But… but I have this conviction… that this is my last cruise.”
“That sounds dire,” said Fassbaden.
“Not really. This war is nearing its end. If we win or lose, it will be decided in this year, I am certain. But regardless, the mission of this boat will end it — for me. Either we will succeed, or we won’t. And I don’t mind telling you how weary I am of all this mess. So tired of all the long, dead hours under the sea, all the inventing of ways to pass those hours. I am tired of the heroic speeches to my crews and the required reminders of what a great nation we’ve always been. All the inspiring history lessons I have delivered — I feel like I should have a professorship!”
Fassbaden grinned. He understood perfectly. Morale on the U-boats was a fragile, ephemeral thing. Without it, Erich knew, your crew consigned everyone to the bottom.
He drank deeply from his mug, placed it on the table, looked at his Executive Officer. “Sometimes I wonder if such thoughts will impair my duties.”
Fassbaden gave a suggestion of standing at attention by straightening his spine for an instant. A subtle display of respect. “You have always been the finest leader I have ever served under. That is the simple truth. It is an honor to trust my life to your decisions.”
“Thank you, Manny. You are a good friend.”
The last words of Erich’s sentence were masked in the blare of the klaxon calling them to battle stations.
“Mein Gott!” said Fassbaden. “Already?”
Dropping the coffee mug, Erich turned toward the corridor leading back to the control deck. “Let us go,” he said in an even voice.
Tension flooded the narrow enclosure of the boat, and Erich listened to the restrained panic of men running to their stations. A rhythmic chaos embraced them all, set to meter by the ugly klaxon-cry.
As they entered the control deck, everyone turned and saluted them, an odd formality suddenly gripping everyone. Erich could feel the difference in the air, a willingness among the men to die in a clean fight. It was like walking into the fetid odor of a locker room, and Erich felt a tightening in his gut.
Boot leather slapped at ladder rungs as the pilot and the watch reentered the conning tower. The hatch to the bridge clanged shut, and the two crewmen dropped to the deck and scattered to their stations.
“Status,” said Erich to anyone who had information for him.
“We have been swept by radar!” said Newton Bischoff. “Aircraft, most likely.”
“Distance?”
“Hard to say,” said Bischoff. “Ten miles at least.”
“Maintaining original course,” said the helmsman.
“Dive!” said Erich. “Twenty meters…”
His men leaned into their tasks as the main vents were opened and the cold seawater rushed in. The U-5001 tilted down at a beautiful angle, accepting her command to slip into the depths with precision and power. It was a big boat, but handled like a minnow in a pond. A slippery “ease” was the way the helmsman had described her, and Erich understood what he meant. As captain, he’d long ago learned how to sense the responsiveness of a U-boat; and some of them were silky and some were like cement wagons. You never knew until you put it under weigh, but he liked what he felt of his first impressions of the U-5001. This boat had been so well-designed, that if need arose, it could be maneuvered by only a handful of men.
“Eighteen…” said Fassbaden. “…and descending… steady as she goes.”
“Bischoff,” said Erich. “How good is that new ‘Eye’ of yours?”
Erich understood the experimental equipment was supposed to be able to detect enemy radio transmissions from a depth of twenty-five meters, but he would believe it when he witnessed it himself.
“Two Sunderlands,” said Bischoff, indicating the British “flying boats” whose radar had found them. “We got pinged and they started talking. Probably locked on us and getting their cans ready…”
The thought of suffering through a depth charge attack so early into the mission was more than depressing. A brief impulse to simply surrender and let the war pass him by streaked through his thoughts. It would be so easy…
That the Brits could catch them so quickly was frustrating, but worse — debilitating to the crew’s belief they would be successful. The net of detection maintained by the Royal Navy had been too damned good! How were they doing it?