Reubold fired a flare and handed the gun to a matrose, receiving a set of binoculars in return.
“Now, let us see if your hard work has meant anything,” he said.
Reubold and Waldvogel watched as an S-boat rapidly increased speed and then began to rise slowly out of the water on its foils. The wake was minimal as the boat moved ahead, becoming more difficult to track in the growing darkness as it roared across the choppy waves of the bay. Deep in the water the boats churned up a wide swath of phosphorescence — once up on their legs nothing marked their passage except three, slim, shimmering trails.
Waldvogel saw the S-boat swing slowly into position, its Trinity training round at the target. The boats could not turn sharply on their hydrofoils but had to make careful course adjustments as they flew through the water. It was the speed that he and the others counted on to elude the enemy gunners; speed and the power of the three 110-millimeter guns mounted in the bow.
“Coming in now, sir,” Leutnant Kunkel reported to Reubold.
The fregattenkapitan said nothing, concentrating on the gray blur in the distance. There was a sharp puff of smoke behind the guns, followed by another and a third, and then the sound of the low boom reached them. Three distant columns of water appeared beyond the wreck and Reubold ordered: “What was their distance to target? Find out. Send Mueller in.”
A sailor shot a green flare into the air, the harsh wind snatching at the smoky trail as it soared overhead.
“Three thousand five hundred meters,” an officer reported to Reubold.
“Maximum range,” Waldvogel said. “Maximum range. It’s unlikely that they would have hit anything at maximum range.” He was willing Reubold to accept the explanation, but the fregattenkapitan chose to ignore him.
“Have Mueller go in at twenty-five hundred,” Reubold said to Kunkel, who disappeared down the narrow hatch into the radio room.
Waldvogel watched through his binoculars as Mueller’s boat veered slightly to the starboard, making a long crescent through the water, and then turned hard to port. He was a thousand meters closer than the first boat.
When Mueller’s boat was nearly parallel with the wreck it was suddenly enveloped in a large plume of dirty brown smoke that dissipated almost as quickly as it appeared. A flat boom echoed across the water as Reubold dropped his binoculars and shook his head.
“He’s showing off. Firing a salvo.” He looked at the others situated on the skullcap of S-317. “Well, did anyone see anything? Did he hit the wreck?”
An oberbootsmann near the starboard aerial lead-in called back: “All misses, sir. Far to the right.”
Reubold turned to Waldvogel. “Now what? Moor them next to the wreck and let them fire?”
“Perhaps the sea makes it difficult,” Waldvogel said.
“Yes,” Reubold snapped. “Perhaps the sea makes it impossible to hit the target. Perhaps we should wait until it is calm. Perhaps we’ll contact the Americans and British and say: ‘Please, sir. Will you run your convoys only when the sea is as smooth as glass?’” He turned in disgust to the leutnant. “Send in Fritz at 40 knots. Have him fire in sequence at one thousand meters. No salvos. Send to Mueller that I want that shit to check his mount when he gets back. There’s no telling what kind of damage he’s done by showing off.” He nestled the binoculars into his eyes and heard the soft pop of the flare gun behind him. “Korvettenkapitan, we have not done well tonight. We have practiced loading and firing your guns until we can do it in our sleep, but we still can’t hit the target. What do you want me to tell high command?”
“I don’t know,” Waldvogel said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Nor I,” Reubold said as the next boat roared in toward the target. “I’m sure that the Silver Stripes won’t be at a loss for words.”
“Going in now,” Kunkel said, excitement ringing in his voice.
Reubold located the S-boat. She was running flat out. He knew that Fritz would throttle down when he was near one thousand meters. He could practically feel Waldvogel’s anticipation as the sound of the boat’s engines rolled across the water. He has every right to be concerned, Reubold thought. There will be no second chance if we fail this time. He felt a twinge of regret. Such lovely machines, so sleek and fast and ominous in repose. How he loved fast things — cars, airplanes, boats; speed in any form was intoxicating. Machines that gobbled up distance and time were worthy of being honored. Products of men certainly, but the whole greater than the sum of the parts; those fast machines transcended design, parts, labor; calling on only the very best men to guide them.
“First gun,” Kunkel shouted.
Brown smoke billowed out of the rear of the gun mount.
It had been seaplanes at first. Long, sleek, monoplanes, the pontoons an extension of the craft — an eagle’s talons. Reubold raced them around gaily painted pylons festooned with flags, down broad watery avenues bound on either side by ships and boats of all sizes. Everything was a blur; every color smudged as his aircraft neared four hundred miles an hour. The only shapes that were distinct were the other planes and the pylons.
“Second gun. Fregattenkapitan, he’s fired the second gun.”
The first crash in a seaplane; the oil cap worked loose and smashed into the cockpit. Six inches to the right and it would have taken off his head. Oil covered the windshield, his goggles, filled his mouth, and he pulled back the stick, trying for altitude. Put some distance between yourself and the ground so that you have time to think. The engine sputtered; you throw off the goggles and spit the oil out of your mouth, looking desperately through a clear spot in the windshield for a place to land. The engine seizes, catches fire, the plane begins to yaw, and you realize that you haven’t enough air speed left to control it. The sea races up at you. Darkness.
“There goes number three.”
Reubold watched the shell splash into the water well beyond the target. He tossed his binoculars to an oberbootsmann.
“Again,” he called to Kunkel. “Send them around again.”
“Fregattenkapitan,” the leutnant said, looking into the sky nervously. “It is not safe to stay out here too long. The bees.”
“Yes, yes,” Reubold snapped. “The enemy owns the skies despite what the Fat Man says. Well, do you see any bees? No? Neither do I. Have them line up again, leutnant, and we’ll see just how much of a difference Waldvogel’s tinkering has made.” He turned on the korvettenkapitan. “Is it the sights, Waldvogel? Or the treibladung? Are they using Ub A1s or Ub B? Come on, you’re the expert. These are your guns. Of course we can’t hit a damn thing, but that’s of little concern, isn’t it?”
“Mueller coming around, sir,” Kunkel said.
Reubold jerked the glasses from a bootmann-maat’s hand and focused first on the S-boat, and then on the target. Waldvogel moved close to him and spoke in a whisper.
“It does no one any good to become cross,” he offered. “I know that you’re disappointed, as am I. I’ve racked my brain trying to find a way to sight the guns, trying to compensate for the movement of the boats.”
Reubold said nothing, his attention on the boat flying across the water.
“If I could give my life for the Fatherland to ensure these guns functioned as I hoped,” Waldvogel said, “I would certainly do so. I know that you think little of me. I frighten easily and I become seasick whenever we leave the bay. I’m not a good sailor.”