Socrates had got sunk for his trouble. Lemp intended to be on the other end of the bargain. At the moment, though, it looked like no bargain at all. No Royal Navy battleships or carriers, destroyers or corvettes-hell, no Royal Navy tugs or garbage scows-showed themselves in his patrol zone. From what the radio operator could pick up, things were also quiet elsewhere.
No freighters bound from Norway to England or the other way lumbered past, either. Petrels skimmed by the U-30. One landed on the radio aerial atop the conning tower. It seemed surprised to find an island in the middle of the sea. After a minute or two, it flew off.
One of the ratings on watch up there let his binoculars down onto his chest and grinned at Lemp. "Do we sink the sea birds, Skipper?" he asked. "They're the only things in the neighborhood."
"Bad luck!" another sailor said, and everybody else nodded. You didn't hurt petrels, not for anything.
"I was only kidding," the first man protested.
"Don't worry about it, Erich," Lemp said. "We know you didn't mean anything by it." By their expressions, not all the ratings agreed, but they let it lie-for now. Lemp wondered if Erich would get himself a set of lumps after he went below. He hoped the others wouldn't rack the sailor up to the point where he couldn't carry out his duties. A U-boat needed every man it carried.
He was also willing to bet that, as long as Erich was still able to walk, he wouldn't let out a peep about what had happened to him. Officers didn't need to know-and certainly didn't need to notice-everything that went on aboard a warship.
Or maybe the rating escaped his expected fate, because the very next day a sailor fishing from the conning tower caught an enormous cod. If that wasn't good luck, Lemp didn't know what would be. The sailors gutted the big fish and threw the offal overboard.
"Now what do we do with it?" somebody wondered.
"I know how to make codfish balls," another sailor said.
A wit piped up: "What do we do with the rest?"
"Funny, Michael," Lemp said amidst groans. "You should take it on the stage-or anywhere else a long way from here."
But, for lack of other suggestions, they let the volunteer have his way. And the codfish balls, eked out with flour, proved surprisingly good. Lemp put a commendation in the log. It might earn the amateur cook a promotion when the U-30 came home.
In the meantime, they patrolled. They saw ocean, and more ocean, and more ocean still. They saw petrels. Some were gray. Some were black. Some were gray and black. A birdwatcher probably would have gone into ecstasies about them. Lemp took them for granted, as long as no one talked about doing them in.
Still no freighters. No Royal Navy ships, either. Only long days and short, light nights. Twilight never quite left the northern sky, and the dimmer stars remained unseen. The weather was good-as good as it ever got in the North Sea, anyhow. It might almost have been a pleasure jaunt. If only the accommodations were fancier, Lemp thought. The Strength through Joy cruises do a better job.
It didn't take long for the patrolling to get to be first routine, then dull routine. Lemp fought that as best he could. Taking things for granted was one of the easiest ways to get yourself killed.
No ships. No planes. No suspicious smoke smudges on the horizon. No stalking a quarry. No crash dives when someone came stalking you, either. Back and forth. Back and forth again. Nothing. Lots of nothing. Lemp got bored, too. He worked all the harder on account of it. He made sure the crew did, too.
The U-30 didn't travel very far. It could stay at sea as long as it had fuel and food. No orders to do anything else came over the radio. Back and forth one more time, and then one more time after that. ARNO BAATZ GLOWERED at Willi Dernen. "I've got my eye on you," the corporal warned. "You may have fooled that SS fellow, but I know damn well you had something to do with Storch lighting out for the tall timber."
Awful Arno was right. So was a stopped clock, twice a day. Most days, that put it two up on Baatz. "I don't know what happened to Wolfgang," Willi said, for what had to be the hundredth time. "Maybe he did light out, but he was always a good soldier till people started giving him grief. Or maybe a shell came down right on top of him. We were catching hell from the Frenchies that day, remember. Sometimes there's nothing left to bury, you know?" He eyed his squad leader. "It could have happened to you."
"And you would have been happy if it did?"
"You said that. I didn't. I don't mean it, either." Willi didn't aim to let Awful Arno pin an insubordination rap on him. He also didn't particularly hope Baatz would get blown to nothingness on the instant. That would be too quick, too easy. If the sniper with the monster rifle nailed Awful Arno right in the knee, though…
A German sniper prowled the lines these days, too, hunting the Frenchman or Czech or whatever he was. A rifle made for knocking out panzers did horrid things to flesh and bone. Sometimes a hit on the arm or leg would kill just from the shock of the impact. The sooner the expert with the scope-sighted rifle-he was an Oberfeldwebel named Helmut Fegelein, a grizzled veteran of the last war-disposed of the bastard with the big rifle, the happier everybody would be.
Everybody except the enemy sniper, of course. But Willi wasted no sympathy on him. Every so often, that big, distinctive boom! would echo from the trenches off in the distance. And then, as often as not, some German who'd been careless or naive would fall over screaming-or sometimes just twitching.
"Fucker's good," Fegelein allowed, spooning up a stew of cabbage and sausage and potatoes from his mess tin. "I've got a couple of shots at him, but he's still in business."
"How come you missed?" Awful Arno asked.
Fegelein looked through him. The senior noncom didn't have to put up with Baatz's bullshit the way Willi did. "You try it, sonny boy," he said. "You got a split second at extreme long range, and maybe you hit and maybe you don't. He stays well back, too-that antipanzer rifle's got more reach reach than a Mauser."
Willi smiled at his corporal. Sonny boy, was it? He liked that, and liked it all the better because Awful Arno obviously didn't. "You ought to get closer, then-that's all I've got to say," Baatz remarked.
"If that's all you've got to say, keep your big fat dumb mouth shut," Fegelein answered. "I didn't come here to get my head blown off, either. This guy hasn't been doing it for long, or I never would have got a shot at him at all. But he's sharp. He keeps learning. I haven't got a glimpse of him for a day and a half. If I were talking to most people, I'd tell 'em to keep their heads down till I nail him."
"But not me?" Baatz reddened with anger. "Why not?"
"Because you don't have enough brains in there to worry about getting 'em blown out," the sniper answered. "If he shoots you in the ass, though, you're liable to end up with a concussion."
Somebody behind Awful Arno guffawed. Willi would have, if he were sitting where Baatz couldn't see him doing it. And Baatz couldn't even round on the miscreant, not with Fegelein's cold gray gaze pinning him down. People talked about sniper's eyes. Willi hadn't seen any examples of that unfailing, scary watchfulness before. But the Oberfeldwebel had it in spades.
"Were you a sniper in 1918, too?" Willi asked him as they washed out their tins side by side.
"Nein." Fegelein shook his head and lit a small, stinky cigar. "I was an assault trooper. I carried a machine pistol and a big sack of grenades. I started this business in one of the Freikorps after the war. I'd had it up to here with fighting the other guys at twenty meters. They don't have to be good to kill you at that range-just lucky. I figured I'd give myself better odds. I got into the Reichswehr in… was it '21 or '22? Anyway, I've been doing this ever since."