‘Permission denied, Hoffmann.’ Lorenz responded. ‘You’re dead.’
‘I know, sir.’
‘Then be reasonable. Surely you must understand that I can’t let the dead onto my ship.’
‘But sir, you already have.’
The storm had subsided and all that remained was a squally wind that made the sea choppy and filled the air with twisting braids of spume. Juhl looked through his binoculars and tried to fight off the drowsiness that made his eyelids feel heavy. Endless rocking, somber light, and the unrelieved tedium of the flat horizon had already induced a temporary absence, but luckily this brief dereliction of duty had not attracted anyone’s notice. Juhl had remained standing even though he had effectively abandoned his post for a minute or perhaps even more. It was unacceptable behavior for a watch officer and he endeavored to make sure that there would be no further lapses by sinking his front teeth into his lower lip until the pain made him alert.
‘Aircraft dead astern,’ cried Voigt. Juhl wheeled around and saw the approaching silhouette, which was sizeable, and immediately screamed ‘Alarm!’ The bell rang and the watchmen leaped through the hatch. When Juhl landed in the control room the stampede to the foreward torpedo room was already underway. Graf was at his post behind the hydroplane operators, issuing orders. ‘Clear air-release vents.’
Lorenz found Juhl and asked, ‘What was it?’
‘A Sunderland.’ Juhl steadied himself by grabbing the halyard of the observation periscope.
Graf was hollering ‘Flood!’
‘Good,’ Lorenz grunted.
‘Good, Kaleun?’ Juhl queried.
‘Yes. Nothing to worry about — they’re very slow…’ But before he could continue his sentence there were several explosions and the hull was jolted by the shock waves. The pens and instruments on the chart table fell to the matting and a light bulb shattered. Lorenz stepped over Danzer, who had lost his balance, and positioned himself next to Graf. ‘Take her down to seventy meters.’ The manometer pointer revolved at a steady rate—forty, fifty, sixty, seventy—and when the boat leveled out Lorenz ordered two course changes. Two more explosions followed but they were distant and caused no damage. Müller picked up the items that had fallen from the chart table, and the control-room mate, now back on his feet, started clearing the broken glass.
They waited for the Sunderland to return, and more bombs to explode, but the silence continued.
‘Is that it?’ said Graf, puzzled, almost disappointed.
‘I believe so,’ said Lorenz. ‘They just wanted to annoy us. Even so, we’d better stay submerged for a short time at least.’ Perspiration prickled on his forehead. He still wasn’t feeling very well.
Thirty minutes passed, and Lorenz ordered Graf to take the boat up to periscope depth. He unfolded the handgrips, looked through the eyepiece, and saw only green water. The tube was vibrating too much. ‘Dead slow. Up scope…’ A moment later he could see an expanse of sea and sky. He changed the viewing angle and increased the magnification but the boat dropped again. ‘Watch your trim! Right so. Down — no, too much! Up-up-up… down, right so.’
His view consisted entirely of cloud, a pale grey canopy crossed by streaks of darker grey. When he had studied each quadrant and was satisfied that there were no aircraft he said, ‘All clear. Prepare to surface.’ He could hear the watch assembling, Juhl chivvying one of the ratings. Just as he was about to raise the handgrips, Lorenz noticed a tiny black speck flying low over the sea. It only took him a few seconds to determine that he was looking at a bird, most probably a seagull, and not a Sunderland in the distance.
‘Kaleun?’ Graf had noticed Lorenz’s hesitation.
‘It’s all right. Go ahead — surface.’
The buoyancy tanks hissed and the boat began to rise.
‘Bow planes up ten, stern planes up five.’ There was a great splashing sound and Graf added, ‘Conning tower free.’
Lorenz was about to raise the handgrips for the second time, when he experienced a troubling qualm. Was the black speck really a seagull? Had he been too hasty? He undertook a final, cursory sweep of the horizon, and it was only after the bow had flashed past that he paused and tried to make sense of what he had seen. His heart was expanding uncomfortably in his chest and his blood quickened. Even though he had received little more than a fleeting, blurred impression, there had been sufficient detail to permit interpretation; however, Lorenz concluded that he must be mistaken, because what he thought he had seen was clearly an impossibility. His intellect proffered a rational alternative: an illusion created by spray and perfidious light? But logical platitudes could not persuade his gut that there was nothing to fear. The periscope motor hummed as the objective rotated back so that he could view the bow once again. Waves slapped against both sides of the hull creating spires of foam. Lorenz could see the forward deck, receding, slightly raised above the horizon by the swell, and situated about halfway between the 8.8 cm gun and the prow was a man, dressed in a long coat, standing with his legs apart, facing away. He was wearing a cap and his hands were deep in his pockets. Lorenz closed his eyes, but when he opened them again the man was still there — a lone figure, inexplicably undisturbed by the boat’s motion, the swash and backwash of the dismal sea. A panicky sensation spread through Lorenz’s body, weakening his limbs and threatening to find expression in an involuntary cry. Words formed in his head, I must be losing my mind. He was suddenly seized by a desire to confront the phantom, regardless of its provenance.