‘So what?’ said Peters. ‘What does that prove? He was a black. They don’t feel pain like us.’
‘Shut up, Peters,’ said Ziegler. ‘Is that true? He didn’t make a sound?’
‘Not a whimper,’ said Schmidt. ‘I often wonder where he is. I’d like to think he found a woman who wasn’t put off by his stump and that he went on to raise a family. Perhaps he’s sitting in some African village right now, bouncing children on his knee, telling them all about how he would have drowned that day, had it not been for a courageous German boy.’
‘A nice thought,’ said Lorenz from behind his green curtain.
‘Oh, I didn’t realize you were there, Kaleun,’ said Schmidt.
‘He’ll very probably get to know more Germans in the fullness of time,’ said Lorenz. ‘But I can’t help feeling he’ll be disappointed. You may have given him unrealistic expectations, Schmidt.’
Lorenz couldn’t sleep. Loud snoring issued from the crew quarters: a horrible, liquid respiration that came in short bursts separated by crackling, pulmonary interludes. Something in the food had caused many of the men to complain of abdominal pain, and the heads had been in constant use throughout the previous day. A foul, cesspit smell hung in the air — rank, heavy, and strong. Lorenz felt hot and agitated. The curtain that separated his nook from the rest of the boat gave him no real privacy. He wanted to get away from the snoring and the stink, to be on his own, to still his mind and order his thoughts. Sitting up, he swung his legs off the mattress, rested his elbows on his knees, and lowered his head into his hands. Perspiration lacquered his forehead, and when he massaged his temples he could feel salty granules beneath his fingertips. He felt nauseous and wondered if he had also eaten food that was going to make his stomach cramp and loosen his bowels. Gradually, the queasiness subsided, and he stood up.
In the control room, a small number of men were at their posts keeping the boat on a steady course at a depth of thirty meters. Earlier, headquarters had sent an aircraft warning: Catalinas — probably out of Reykjavik. Lorenz examined the charts, exchanged a few words with the helmsman, and climbed up the ladder into the conning tower. He shut the hatch at his feet and experienced a sense of relief: quiet, stillness, solitude. His gaze took in the computer, the attack periscope, the narrowness of the space he occupied. Leaning against the ladder for support, he closed his eyes and an image formed in his mind — a miniature U-330, gliding through darkness. It was something he did routinely when the boat was being depth-charged, in order to visualize his position in relation to enemy destroyers. He dissolved the starboard armor plating, achieving a cut-away diagram effect that afforded him interior views of every compartment. Homunculi moved around the control room, and above them he saw a tiny silhouette, himself, in a bubble of yellow light.
The temperature was dropping and his breath produced white clouds in the air. Something was about to happen. He could sense inevitability, identical to the foreshadowing that had preceded the strange occurrences in Brest, when U-330 had been undergoing repairs. Lorenz felt dissociated, as if he were sitting in a theatre, watching a play that he had already seen. The future was no longer free to deviate. A palpitation in his chest signaled danger. This impression of peril was incontestable, almost overwhelming, and he was certain that it did not represent a psychological threat — something fantastic that might untether the mind, but rather the drawing near of a real, existential threat. A simple phrase clarified his intuitions: death is coming.
An irregular rhythm captured his attention; stopping and starting again, a faint squealing like a rusty hinge. It was difficult to locate at first, but in due course Lorenz raised his eyes. Several seconds elapsed before his brain identified the source of the sound. His eyes focused on the phenomenon and the full horror of its significance delayed his reaction. He remained completely still, looking upward, in a state of frozen disbelief. Above Lorenz’s head, the wheel that locked the bridge hatch was slowly turning. The miniature U-330 came into his mind again. He did not consider its illuminated interior, but rather the surrounding darkness, the immense weight of water pressing down on the other side of the hatch. A glistening rivulet progressed around the seal and droplets began to fall on his face. Icy detonations made him spring into action, and he raced up the ladder and grabbed the wheel. He tried to reverse its rotation. After the first failed attempt, a second followed, and when he tried a third time his muscles weakened, and the wheel slipped beneath his fingers. He tightened his grip and found some further reserve of power, but he could not sustain the effort. The nausea he had experienced earlier returned, and he began to feel dizzy. Suddenly the wheel was receding, and the conning tower went black.
When he opened his eyes he was in his nook and Ziegler and Graf were bending over him. His head was throbbing. He tried to prop himself up, but Ziegler said, ‘No, Kaleun — lie down. You fainted in the conning tower.’
‘Chief, go and check the bridge hatch.’
‘For what?’
‘It was making water.’
‘Kaleun?’
‘Just go, will you?’
‘Please…’ Ziegler encouraged Lorenz to lie back again.
‘Very well,’ said Graf. When the engineer returned he spoke with respectful neutrality. ‘A little condensation, but everything’s in order.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, Kaleun.’
Ziegler mopped Lorenz’s brow with a damp cloth. ‘I think your temperature’s running high, sir. You’ve probably got the stomach complaint.’
The radio operator was right. It took two days for Lorenz to recover.
Leaning out of the radio shack Brandt called, ‘Officer’s signal.’ Juhl excused himself from a card game and went to collect the decoding machine. He set it up in the officers’ mess and Lorenz handed him the code for that day. After adjusting the settings, Juhl exhibited his customary tendency to exploit the dramatic possibilities of his role by cracking his knuckles and wiggling his fingers over the keyboard. He started tapping the keys and each strike made a letter on the lamp board glow. Eventually, he laid his pencil aside and glanced back at Lorenz: ‘For the commander only.’
‘Ah.’ Lorenz responded. ‘I see.’ He went to his nook to collect his special instructions. On his return he made a brushing movement in the air indicating that Juhl should move aside, and after taking Juhl’s place he reset the machine. The whispering that traveled through the compartments was like the soughing of the wind through branches, words carried on a breeze. Letters flashed, and when the decryption was complete he stared long and hard at what he had written. U-330 was to rendezvous with U-807 as a matter of utmost urgency. No explanation was given and the coordinates (which Lorenz double-checked) were for a location above the 70th parallel. U-807 was a Type IXB, a heavier, larger submarine armed with twenty-two torpedoes. He wondered why such a rendezvous was necessary. The collection and transfer of prisoners seemed unlikely. If U-807 was carrying prisoners then it should proceed directly to its destination. A transfer would only cause additional delay. But what else could it be? And why so far north? At the end of the message were the code names assigned to U-807 and U-330. They were typically bombastic—‘Verdandi’ and ‘Skuld’—two of the three Personifications of fate from Nordic legend.
Lorenz stood and walked to the control room where the men seemed to withdraw, stepping away as he came through the hatchway as if he were surrounded by a repulsive energy. He stepped over to the chart table and, folding the piece of paper so that only the coordinates were visible, he showed them to Müller. The navigator’s eyebrows drew closer together. ‘Can they be serious?’ He pawed at his charts and when he had found the one he wanted he laid it out on the table. Dislodging some mold with his fingernail, Müller fussed with a torn edge. Lorenz lowered the lamp and both men leaned into its beam. The crew was listening intently. Müller pointed at a spot on the chart roughly between the north coast of Iceland and the east coast of Greenland. ‘Why in God’s name do they want us to go there?’