An instant later the noises of the submarine rushed into his ears, and it was Sauer who was standing in front of him, saying, ‘Kaleun, Kaleun — the breathing apparatus.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lorenz.
The boat tilted, and Graf called out, ‘Bow planes down fifteen, stern up ten.’
‘Keep going,’ said Lorenz. He couldn’t see the manometer, so he had to estimate the boat’s depth by listening to its creaks and groans. ‘Hard a-port.’ When they reached what he guessed was fifty or sixty meters, he added, ‘Level the boat, chief.’
‘Planes at zero,’ said Graf.
Lorenz bit on the mouthpiece of the breathing apparatus. The vision of Sutherland had left him feeling stunned and vacant. He felt as if he had just received a hard blow to the head. The smoke seemed to be clearing and the lights were like yellow orbs suspended in the gloom. There was a sense of a crisis having passed, but this was very short-lived. Within a few minutes Thomas had called out—‘Propellers, getting louder’—and soon they could all hear the thrashing of the destroyer’s approach.
After removing his mouthpiece Lorenz responded: ‘Ahead slow.’
Men were still spluttering, heaving, and retching. The more distant coughs were sharp and clear like the repetitive chipping of a stonemason’s chisel. Percussive sounds such as these would carry. Lorenz hissed, ‘Shut up! Control yourselves.’ Others repeated his command in hushed, anxious tones and the hacking was replaced by muffled grunts and whimpers. A desperate, childlike sob floated through one of the hatchways, but everyone was too focused on inner visions of detonations and surging water to be concerned about its source.
The thrashing was right above them and they tensed when the first icy pulse of the ship’s underwater detection system chilled their blood and invited them to contemplate oblivion. It sounded like a wetted finger moving around the rim of a wine glass and pausing after each revolution. The crew awaited the inevitable: splashes, the ticking descent of depth charges, bowel-loosening thunder. But the inevitable never came. Instead, both the thrashing propellers and the Asdic pulses faded. The smoke had cleared sufficiently for Lorenz to see across the control room. He climbed through the forward bulkhead, knelt beside Thomas, and looked up at him quizzically. Thomas shrugged and whispered, ‘They’ve gone right over us. And they’re not turning around.’ Stepping back into the control room Lorenz caught Graf’s attention, ‘Carry on, Chief. Steady on course.’
‘What happened?’ said Graf softly. ‘Why didn’t they hammer us?’
‘They must have been following the smoke we left behind. Perhaps the wind blew it away and they’re still chasing it.’
‘But the Asdic? They knew we were right beneath them!’
A depth charge exploded — then another — and another. The boat rolled a little; however, they were no longer in any danger. Charges continued to explode but the roaring diminished as they pulled away at two knots.
After forty-five minutes the air was hazy and foul-tasting but breathable. Every pipe and dial and valve wheel was covered in black soot. After consulting Thomas, Lorenz looked through the observation periscope and called out, ‘Prepare to surface.’ They ventilated the boat for twenty minutes and then, because the convoy was still in view, submerged again for another hour, during which cleaning materials were distributed, and the crew set about making the boat habitable once more.
An investigation followed and Neumann, one of the mechanics, offered an explanation for what had caused the fire. ‘I’d left some oily rags on the ledge over where the exhaust pipe bends. I do it all the time. Well, we all do — it’s not just me, Herr Kaleun.’ A note of defiant indignation hardened his voice. Lorenz gestured for him to proceed. ‘I can remember the exhaust was really hot,’ Neumann continued, ‘because we’d been going so fast for so long. In fact the bend in the exhaust pipe was glowing. Red hot, it was. I think the rags must have fallen onto the pipe, caught fire, and dropped into the bilges. There’s a lot of oil swilling around in the diesel room.’ He made a silent, wide-eyed appeal to Lorenz and Graf. ‘It can’t be helped.’
‘When we opened the outside ventilation valve,’ said Fischer, the chief mechanic, ‘and we flooded the bilges, the blaze went out immediately. In fact, the fire only lasted a few seconds but it produced a huge quantity of smoke.’
‘So why did the engines cut out?’ asked Lorenz.
‘They didn’t,’ said Fischer. ‘It was chaos back there,’ he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the diesel room, ‘so I switched everything off. It was unsafe to leave the engines running when we couldn’t see anything. Someone could have got trapped in the machinery — lost a limb — or worse, sir.’
‘And what Neumann just said,’ Lorenz frowned. ‘Is that true? Your men always leave dirty rags on the ledge above the exhaust pipe?’
‘Not always,’ said Fischer. ‘But it happens.’
‘Have you left rags there?’
‘Yes,’ said Fischer. ‘It was bad luck, Kaleun. The rags fell at just the wrong moment, just when the pipe was hot enough to cause a fire.’
‘It’s never happened before, Herr Kaleun,’ said Neumann.
The men looked at each other and something passed between them, an uneasy acknowledgement of the fact that Fischer had employed the words ‘bad’ and ‘luck.’ The uniqueness of the event suggested agency, intervention, forces at work that might possibly create ‘bad luck.’
‘It’s never happened before,’ Graf repeated, largely to end the tense, protracted silence. ‘And it probably won’t happen again, Kaleun.’
‘Even so,’ said Lorenz, addressing the two mechanics. ‘You’d better stop leaving rags on that shelf in future. Just in case.’ Fischer and Neumann nodded their heads in vigorous agreement.
‘Kaleun?’ Schmidt asked. ‘With respect, are you going to recommend any disciplinary action?’ The Master-at-Arms was holding a pencil over the page of an open notebook. His pained expression showed that it was his reluctant duty to raise such issues.
‘No,’ said Lorenz, shaking his head. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’
‘The Admiral might take a different view,’ said Pullman.
Lorenz hadn’t realized he was there. He turned slowly to face the photographer. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The rags did cause the fire. And Neumann did leave them there.’
‘I don’t recall asking for your opinion on this matter, Pullman. Did I ask for your opinion?’
‘No, Herr Kaleun.’
‘Then would you kindly keep your mouth shut?’
‘I was only seeking to be of service, Kaleun. Others may see things differently.’
‘Pullman, I’m not interested in what you think.’
‘What I think is of no consequence, sir; however, I was merely pointing out that Admiral—’
Lorenz hit the hull with the side of his fist. ‘Enough!’ Those gathered around him all flinched at once. ‘God in heaven, Pullman, you test my patience!’
The photographer bowed his head and apologized.
Lorenz looked at each man in turn before speaking. ‘It wasn’t Neumann’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.’ Would Sutherland’s spirit ever give up? Or would it carry on troublemaking, denied rest, until it finally succeeded in sinking U-330?
Neumann sighed and wiped the perspiration from his brow with his cuff. ‘Thank you, Herr Kaleun.’
A message from headquarters reminded Lorenz that the Führer would be giving an important speech that evening in Berlin. At the appointed hour Lorenz stood outside the radio shack, even though there was little point in this, because the broadcast was going to be fed to every compartment of the boat through the public-address system. Pullman was also drawn to the same area, accompanied by his acolytes, Berger and Wessel. It was as though being close to the radio receiver was somehow the equivalent of sitting in the front row of a theatre. The sustained noise of an adoring multitude blasted out of the speakers. Lorenz pictured the scene: thousands of raised arms, flags waving, dramatic pillars of light rising into the night sky. He wondered if Monika had managed to get a seat in the stadium. For a moment he was distracted by a memory of her pale, naked body stretched out on red sheets.