The ice was producing odd sounds, creaks, and cracks; however, these relatively inconsequential noises were subsequently augmented by moans, groans, and even a howl. Lorenz could sense Wessel’s unease. The sounds continued, becoming increasingly reminiscent of human vocalizations. It was such a compelling illusion, Lorenz imagined that he could hear his own name being called. He did not expect Wessel to react, but the young man gasped, ‘Kaleun?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you hear it?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘It sounded just like a person, shouting.’
‘There’s no one out there, Wessel. How could there be?’
‘An animal perhaps?’
‘We’re too far away from the coast of Greenland. Nothing could make it out here.’ Lorenz traced a horizontal arc over the bulwark with his extended arm. ‘This is pack ice.’
‘A polar bear?’
‘No.’
‘I thought…’ The young seaman’s sentence trailed off.
‘What, Wessel?’
The young man muttered a few words and added, ‘Nothing, Kaleun.’
Lorenz peered into the swirling fog and the flickering of the Northern Lights broke the continuous movement into a sequence of halted images, each one slightly different from its predecessor.
‘Kaleun?’ Wessel’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘Over there.’ Lorenz turned abruptly and raised his binoculars. The mouth of a tunnel had opened in the wall of a fog bank and its vault was penetrated by shafts of silver light. Pools of luminescence mottled the ice. Lorenz couldn’t see anything remarkable, and certainly nothing that merited apprehension. ‘There! Kaleun!’ Wessel’s voice was urgent, ascending to panic.
‘What?’ Lorenz demanded, glancing at his companion.
‘There!’ Wessel jabbed his finger at the tunnel. ‘Something dark.’
‘Where?’
‘There!’ The young man was emphatic. ‘Coming toward us.’
Lorenz lowered his binoculars. ‘I can’t see—’
Wessel cut in, ‘On the ice!’ Suddenly the young man was less sure. ‘It’s… I…’ The vault of the tunnel collapsed creating slowly rotating vortices. Eventually, the uniformity of the fog bank was restored, and it acquired the appearance of a low chalk bluff. The two men gazed at the inscrutable whiteness, willing it to give up whatever secrets it was harboring. ‘I did see something,’ Wessel added, more to himself than to his commander.
‘Was it big? Small?’
‘It’s difficult to judge. There’s nothing out there to make a comparison with. You lose perspective, sir.’
‘Could it have been a periscope?’
‘No, it was traveling on top of the ice.’
‘The floes are still separated by water that way. We’re at the very edge of the ice shelf.’
‘It wasn’t a periscope, Kaleun. It didn’t move like a periscope; it moved like…’ Wessel hesitated. He looked confused and alarmed. ‘It moved like something alive.’
‘A seal, perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ Wessel allowed with edgy impatience. ‘Perhaps, Herr Kaleun.’
The air was filled with semitransparent wisps and filaments. They collected together and twisted into loose braids or spiraled into snail-shell patterns. The atmosphere around the conning tower seemed to be in a state of restless agitation. High above, the distant, muted ordnance of the Northern Lights was unnerving; as if the contagious madness of war had now reached the citadels of heaven. At the very limits of audition he could hear muffled bangs, sputters, and claps. Lorenz imagined the bloodied down of angel’s wings descending and settling around the deck gun. The fog bank thinned and became diaphanous. Through the transparent escarpment the ice plate receded into an obscure distance dotted with sapphire and diamond glimmerings. Wessel breathed in sharply. ‘There! Coming toward us.’ He was gesticulating frantically, and his protuberant eyes were wide open. Lorenz looked through his binoculars but was unable to detect the cause of Wessel’s excitement.
‘Calm down, Wessel,’ Lorenz barked.
The young man stopped waving his arms around but he was breathing heavily, and each forceful exhalation clouded the space between them. ‘There! Kaleun! Surely you can see it.’
‘There’s nothing there, Wessel!’
The young man stepped past the flak cannon and leaned over the rear railings, his head craning forward. Tense cords of muscle had raised the taut skin of his neck. Lorenz looked through his binoculars again but all he could see was surging fog. When he turned to challenge Wessel, the boy looked desperate and bewildered. ‘There’s a man out there.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Wessel.’
‘I saw him, Kaleun!’
‘You couldn’t have.’
‘He was wearing a long coat and striding toward us.’
Lorenz experienced a chill that superseded the polar cold and penetrated his very essence. He addressed Wessel sternly: ‘Pull yourself together, Wessel.’
The young man, chastened, stood at attention, pushing out his chest. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘I think you should get back inside the boat, Wessel.’
‘But Kaleun…’
‘It’s all right, Wessel.’ The tone of Lorenz’s voice was conciliatory. He reached out and gripped the boy’s arm. ‘It’s all right, Wessel, really. You’ve been up here for too long. The cold — the dark — this… landscape. Sometimes it all proves too much for the brain.’
‘I could have sworn…’
Lorenz pulled the hatch open. ‘Yes, of course. Get some rest, eh? Ask Ziegler to give you a dose of something to help you sleep.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And ask Leutnant Juhl to come up.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Wessel began his descent. Their eyes met for a moment, and Lorenz was perplexed by Wessel’s expression. Did it show frustration or was it resentment? He couldn’t tell.
While Lorenz waited for Juhl he noticed that his heart was beating faster. The fog bank had become fully opaque again.
Juhl appeared: ‘What happened? What’s wrong with Wessel? He looks terrible.’
‘I don’t know, he had some sort of… panic. He started seeing things.’
‘Do you want me to come up again?’
‘No, send Voigt. I want you to organize a two-man rotation. Let’s not have anybody exposed to this cold for more than an hour.’
‘The cold doesn’t make you see things, sir.’
‘Where did you study medicine, Juhl?’
‘I haven’t studied medicine.’
‘That’s what I thought. We can go back to a four-man rota when the fog lifts.’
Werner had managed to prepare a surprisingly tasty stew from tinned meat and the last bag of potatoes. Condensation trickled down the wooden panels and the spicy fragrance that filled every compartment briefly masked the underlying stench of body odor and mold. Everyone in the officers’ mess agreed that a good cook was a godsend, and Pullman, visualizing a heart-warming magazine feature on the unsung heroes of the navy, hurried off to the galley in order to memorialize Werner on film.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Graf.
Lorenz glanced at Falk. ‘Are you still praying?’
‘Yes,’ Falk replied.
‘Keep it up. And while you’re at it, ask God to make the North-Atlantic Drift a little warmer. A degree or two should suffice.’
‘I don’t think God responds to specific requests, Herr Kaleun,’ said Falk.
‘Is that your plan?’ asked Graf, looking over at Lorenz.
‘We’re stuck in pack ice,’ Lorenz replied. ‘That’s all. If the North-Atlantic Drift brings us a little more heat then there will be a thaw and we’ll be free.’