‘Full ahead,’ shouted Lorenz.
They all scanned the sky, tense, and ready for the appearance of a third plane, but no more came. Some smoking wreckage bobbed up and down on the sea.
Falk pointed beyond their frothy wake. ‘Remarkable!’ The great dark back of the whale was still visible. They could hear the blast of its waterspout before the massive tail sprung up and fanned the air. ‘We shouldn’t let that monster distract us again.’
‘Quite,’ said Lorenz. ‘Perhaps he’s working for the British.’
‘Why didn’t the bombs scare him?’
‘Perhaps he’s deaf.’
‘I’ve a good mind to blow it out of the water. Werner could do with some fresh meat.’ Falk rotated the flak canon. ‘Let’s have a feast tonight.’
‘No,’ said Engel. ‘Don’t do that, sir. Poor beast: he doesn’t mean us any harm. He probably thinks our boat is a female, that’s all.’
‘Really, Engel,’ said Falk. ‘You’re completely preoccupied with sex!’
‘When I was Rylander’s first watch officer,’ said Lorenz, ‘we shot a polar bear and ate it.’
‘Did it taste any good?’ asked Falk.
‘I’ve had worse meals in Hamburg,’ said Lorenz. ‘Well done, Falk. Good shooting.’
‘That fourth bomb,’ said Sauer, still trying to make sense of its provident failure to explode. ’Unbelievable. That’s what I call lucky.’
‘Like I always say,’ said Falk. ‘When your number’s up, your number’s up.’ He secured the flak canon and tapped the rail a few times. ‘Our number wasn’t up.’
12.50 Light swell. Cloudy but clear. Reasonable visibility. Smoke shadow bearing 115° true. Course around 120°. An aircraft in sight at bearing 115° true, roughly the same course.
13.30 Aircraft in sight, possibly a Sunderland. Bearing 180° true, course 130°. The aircraft turns and retraces its course.
13.40 A U-boat in sight at bearing 60° true. Closing.
15.03 Plume of smoke at bearing 100° true. Within minutes further plumes of smoke appear over the horizon. A total of six.
15.50 Some distance away, an aircraft in sight bearing 130°.
16.30 The convoy’s air escort has been flying over with some regularity. On one occasion two Martlet fighters were observed together. There is a British carrier escorting this convoy; identity unknown.
23.21 Minimal wind and sea, sporadic clouds, night rather dark. Advance to attack. Battle stations. Our intention to fire four bow torpedoes, and, after turning, to fire a stern torpedo; however, the bow caps for tubes I and II do not open.
23.31 We fire with tubes III and IV at two steamers, and then, after turning, we fire a third torpedo from tube V at another steamer separated from its column. No detonations heard. We withdraw to reload torpedoes and reposition on the opposite side of the convoy. The escorts are firing star shells but these are so poorly directed there is no danger of being detected.
Explosions. Tanker ablaze.
00.10 Run in for second attack. Just before we are about to reach our firing position a U-boat appears between us and the convoy. We turn away because the field of fire is obstructed. As we retreat we see a burning tanker. In front of it is a damaged steamer listing badly. Destroyers continue to launch star shells indiscriminately and the horizon is well lit. We see the convoy sailing past the burning tanker. 23 vessels.
03.32 We run in to attack once again.
03.40 Two torpedoes fired from tubes II and IV. After 3 minutes and 20 seconds we see a torpedo detonation and a great flash. A burst of star shells follows. This time they are directed with greater accuracy but our boat is still unobserved.
03.50 I withdraw from the convoy. As we head off we hear the sound of depth charges.
04.15 No more torpedoes. Report to B.d.U. via W/T, requesting permission to return to port.
All of the bunks and hammocks in the bow compartment were occupied by sleeping sailors whose constant growling, huffing, and wheezing confirmed the fundamental brutishness of the human condition. The effect suggested a cave of hibernating bears. In the last of the starboard bunks, Richter was raised up slightly on some pillows, looking at Lorenz with the aid of his single, serviceable eye. A yellow-brown stain had seeped through the mold-speckled dressing that had been wrapped diagonally around his head. The wound underneath, Lorenz supposed, was probably infected and would take a long time to heal. Richter might not survive, especially if the infection was spreading through his body or blood was clotting in his brain. The air was noisome, sulphurous, like rotten eggs, and what remained of the suspended foodstuffs had turned black. Incessant dripping made everything permanently damp.
Lorenz shifted his gaze from Richter to Graf. ‘The caps are working now?’
‘Yes,’ Graf replied, ‘one and two, fully operational.’
‘This is getting ridiculous.’
‘I really have no idea—’
‘—what went wrong,’ Lorenz cut in, making a dismissive gesture.
‘I’m sorry, Herr Kaleun.’ Graf’s apology received no acknowledgement.
The torpedo doors were arranged squarely like the four dots on a die. Surrounding them was a chaotic arrangement of large and small conduits, wheels, and metal boxes.
‘So,’ said Lorenz, turning to speak to Kruger and Dressel, the two torpedo men. ‘What happened to our first batch of torpedoes?’
‘They were properly maintained, Herr Kaleun’ said Kruger. His unsightly rashes were particularly vivid and his nose was misshapen by outcrops of boils.
‘What about the calculator connection?’ Lorenz asked.
‘No problems there, sir,’ Dressel answered. Like his colleague, his skin had been disfigured by exposure to toxic chemicals.
‘They missed altogether — or didn’t explode?’ Lorenz raised his eyebrows, inviting the two torpedo men to offer an opinion.
Kruger cleared his throat and said, ‘I’d checked the gyros, and — with respect, sir — as you know — with these torpedoes premature detonation is the more common problem.’
The boat rolled and the hoist chains rattled. Dressel raised his finger to indicate that he wished to speak. ‘They say there’s a tendency for the G7e Type II to fail if you go too far north. Once you’ve crossed the sixty-second parallel you can expect trouble, something to do with the earth’s magnetic field.’
‘That’s all very interesting, Dressel, but we weren’t above the sixty-second parallel.’
Dressel pulled off his hat and toyed with the badges that he had attached to the material. One of them was the boat’s emblem, a crudely cut scorpion that he had fashioned himself from a tin can. ‘It’s not clear yet, sir. The science…’
Lorenz saw that Dressel was uncomfortable and adopted a less challenging tone of voice. ‘True.’
‘The firing pins could have been damaged,’ said Kruger.
‘Three of them?’
Graf nodded. ‘Abnormally high interior pressure — that could have damaged the pins.’
‘And the tubes haven’t been watertight since we got hammered that last time,’ said Kruger.
‘Disturbed depth-regulation mechanisms?’ Dressel addressed Kruger.
‘If so,’ Kruger continued, ‘the torpedoes could have run so far under the targets the pistols wouldn’t have fired.’
One of the sleeping sailors made a fearful cry, called out a name, and sank back into his nightmare.
‘We’ve been at sea for thirty-eight days,’ said Dressel. ‘Storing torpedoes for too long can cause difficulties, even if they are well-maintained.’