‘This is shit,’ said Hoffmann, an electrician with a broad Bavarian accent. It made him stand out because most U-boat men were from the north.
‘I don’t know,’ Juhl responded. ‘Things could be worse.’
‘Could they, sir?’
‘Well, imagine what it would be like if you were in the army. Just think of it, all that square bashing and posturing, getting shot at all the time. We don’t have to go on long marches, we don’t have to eat dog meat on the eastern front, Werner is an excellent cook, and our service uniforms are really very eye-catching.’ Juhl took a deep breath. ‘And smell that fresh sea air! Bracing, medicinal, it’s like being on a cruise.’
‘You’ve been spending too much time with the skipper,’ said Hoffmann.
It was an astute observation. Echoes of the commander’s habitual sarcasm could be heard in Juhl’s speech, a hint of weary resignation, grim humor. The second watch officer raised his binoculars and studied the livid, pitiless expanse. ‘You may be right,’ he muttered.
‘The wife’s pregnant,’ said Hoffmann.
‘Congratulations,’ Juhl laughed. ‘When is the baby due?’
‘About now, sir.’
‘What do you want, a boy or a girl?’
‘I already have a son,’ said Hoffmann. Suddenly, he seemed embarrassed by his personal disclosures. ‘This is shit. How long have we been at sea now, sir?’
‘Too long. Sometimes I feel like the Flying Dutchman…’
The boat continued along its course, the bow carving through the swell and producing two frothy trails. A faint melody drifted up through the hatch. Someone, probably Richter, was playing a ballad on the accordion, and Hoffman croaked along with the chorus, ‘Embrasse-moi, embrasse-moi.’ The music had the effect of detaching Juhl from his surroundings, and he pictured the familiar smoky lounge of a Brest hotel, where a scrawny, aging chanteuse with a taste for revealing dresses frequently enacted the end of love affairs on a makeshift stage. He saw her superimposed on the waves, making violent gestures and shaking her mane of badly dyed hair. The vision absorbed him completely until one of the lookouts screamed—‘Aircraft! Sixty degrees!’—and Juhl was jolted back to reality. Even in the second or two it took to confirm the sighting the plane seemed to become inordinately large.
‘Alarm!’ Juhl extended the cry until his lungs had no more air in them. The men scrambled into the tower, hardly making contact with the steps, sliding their hands down the ladder rails to guide their fall. Juhl followed. Boots landed on the matting with a loud thud. The bell was ringing, a bright continuous clamor.
In the control room Graf’s voice was loud and urgent. ‘Flood! Flood! All hands forward.’ The diesel engines were shut down, and the crew in the stern compartments ran toward the bow in order to increase its weight. Two men near the front stumbled and those running behind simply leaped over the sprawled bodies. The vents were opened, and the air that had been keeping the boat afloat was released, producing a bellicose roar, the dive tanks filled, and U-330 became heavier. As the hydroplane operators pressed their control buttons the deck angled downward and the pointer on the manometer began to move. Lorenz steadied himself by leaning against the silver shaft of the observation periscope. There was a loud booming noise as one final, rolling mass of water crashed against the tower, and then, apart from the gentle humming of the electric motors, silence prevailed.
In theory, they could achieve 150 meters in thirty seconds, but this assumed optimal levels of performance from the crew, and human beings were not machines.
Depending on conditions a U-boat might be detectable as a shadow even at a depth of sixty meters. A direct hit wasn’t necessary to destroy a U-boat. Anywhere within the parameters of a mathematically defined ‘lethal radius’ the laws of physics would allow a shock wave, traveling though the dense medium of water, to rip the boat apart. Lorenz remembered visiting the Krupp shipyard in Kieclass="underline" so many rivets, so much welding. He was agonizingly aware of the numerous weak seams that made the boat vulnerable. The entire crew were cowed in readiness.
Two deafening explosions followed. Deck-plates jumped and water splashed in the bilges. Maps and compasses fell from the chart table, and the accordion smashed into the fore bulkhead. The depth charges had detonated over the bow, forcing the boat down and increasing the steepness of its dive.
‘Very accurate,’ said Lorenz, almost approvingly. ‘This one’s experienced.’
Graf glanced at the manometer and shouted orders at the hydroplane operators. Now they were descending too fast. ‘Motors, full speed.’ The additional power failed to pull them out of the dive. ‘Damn it!’ Graf addressed Lorenz. ‘We’re not leveling off.’ Fear blanched complexions like a rapidly spreading contagion.
There were two more explosions, the lights went out, and the hull rocked from side to side. Lorenz felt a hand on his shoulder. Long fingers tensed and the grip tightened. He couldn’t recall a prior instance of the chief engineer choosing to express his solidarity with such a gesture and hoped that it was not intended as a private farewell. Flashlight beams flashed, and Lorenz was surprised to hear Graf’s voice over the public-address system, ‘We’re bow-heavy. All hands astern.’ Graf wasn’t standing behind Lorenz, he had moved away. The shimmering emergency lights came on as the men from the bow compartment clambered up the gradient and through the control room. Amid the subsequent commotion, Lorenz was not conscious of the exact moment when the hand on his shoulder released its grip; however, he was still curious enough to turn, and when he did so, he was bemused to find that he was staring only at pipes and cables.
The manometer pointer was slowing down, and the tilt of the boat was becoming less severe. Graf stepped toward Lorenz and said, ‘We’re definitely getting back on an even keel. Thank God.’ He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
‘Ninety meters,’ said Lorenz. ‘He won’t be able to see us now.’
‘Well, let’s hope we’re not leaving a nice oil slick for him to follow.’
A few seconds later the sound of dripping could be heard. Graf produced a flashlight and directed the beam close to the overhead on the port side. He lowered his gaze and studied the system of complex, serpentine pipes that descended to the matting next to the chart table. With his head tilted and his neck stretched, he looked like a mime artist. The regular beat of the droplets stopped. Graf shrugged, slid the flashlight back in his pocket, and returned to his former position in order to resume his scrutiny of the instruments.
‘We’ll stay down here for a while,’ said Lorenz. ‘He’s bound to get bored and fly off. They always do. Airmen have no patience.’
Graf nodded. ‘All right, Kaleun, but not for too long.’ He touched his ear to draw the commander’s attention to a trickling sound that could be heard above the hum of the electric motors.
The deck plates rattled and somewhere in the boat a low creaking began. It recalled an earlier age of maritime adventure, taut ropes and the complaining timbers of a galleon. One of the hydroplane operators looked over his shoulder, his face pinched by a flicker of anxiety. There was a sharp crack, like a gunshot, that seemed to come from the petty officers’ quarters. ‘The woodwork,’ said Lorenz. ‘That’s odd.’
‘We’re only at ninety meters,’ said Graf.
There was a prolonged rumble like the sound of a distant storm: hammerings and a sudden, sonorous clang. Lorenz struggled to reconcile the depth reading on the manometer with the ominous noises. It was difficult not to think of the cold, dark water, pressing against the 2.5 cm metal hull, weighing down from above — squeezing the gunwales — unimaginable tonnage. It was how most U-boat men died in the end — a long, fatal descent — crushed to death, when the circular frames gave way, and the pressure hull collapsed.