“Go to the Winter Garden. One port, the other starboard. Keep your eyes open and no smoking,” he reminded them. “There is enough light out here as is.”
They had just started back when Grubb appeared. “Signal coming from Goliath, sir. We’re getting padding now.”
Webber nodded, forgetting that Grubb could not see his response. They had surfaced every night for the past week, listening for Goliath’s signal — their signal. Instead the giant U-boat radio network had ignored them and they submerged into the darkness once again. It had been difficult to keep his disappointment from showing and he could feel the frustration in the crew as they waited for a signal that never came. Webber could not tell them why they waited and what their mission was once they received that elusive signal — there was always the danger that they would be attacked and some of them captured and then, inadvertently, someone would say something to the British. There was too much at stake to take chances. Too much to gain if the mission succeeded. Maybe complete victory over England. At least striking a blow so severe that the island nation would never recover.
“Grubb!” Webber shouted down the hatch. “What in hell is taking so long?” He was surprised at his own display of nerves. “Is Funker asleep again?”
One of the lookouts snickered.
“Coming in now, sir. Funker just got our recognition signal.” A moment of silence. “Funker’s decoding the message now.”
That was something — Goliath had sent a message to them. Maybe to the other eleven boats as well. Webber snorted at his own stupidity. If it came to U-376 it had to go to the others; they were a wolf pack. Good or bad, the message went to everyone.
“Grubb, goddamn it. Has he finished it or not?”
Grubb’s torso, his pale face wreathed in a sparse blond beard, appeared out of the hatch. He tore a sheet off the message pad and handed it to Webber with a smile.
Webber snatched it out of his hand. “Are you trying to drive me mad? You and Funker? You come and stand here waiting…” His eyes caught the single word hastily scrawled on the sheet: Umkreis.
He looked at Grubb, who continued to smile. “Was it worth waiting for, Kapitan?”
Webber nodded, making sure that the word was actually there.
“What do we do now, Kapitan?” Grubb asked.
Webber gently folded the sheet and slid it into the pocket of his gray leather coat. “We wait for a bit more, Grubb,” he said calmly. “Then we destroy the British Home Fleet.”
“We’re not going—”
“No,” Webber said. “Only Prien could have gone into Scapa Flow, God rest his soul. No. They will come to us.”
“How accommodating of them.”
“Yes,” Webber said. “It will be the last accommodation that they make.”
Mahlberg spent most of the morning consulting with his navigation officer and the engineering staff. Sea Lion was running at nearly thirty-five knots, which meant that she could easily cover over eight hundred miles in a day’s steaming. But thirty-five knots of continuous steaming took its toll on the engines and consumed a tremendous amount of fuel — hundreds of tons a day.
He took a cup of tea from the steward and walked around the report-strewn wardroom table, listening as his officers gave their reports. Mahlberg had reduced the ship’s readiness to War Cruising Condition Two; he didn’t want his men worn out by keeping them at Kriegsmarschzustand — battle stations — indefinitely. They had performed well against the British cruiser and he had told them as much. But the next test would be against Prince of Wales, and the Prince would not be so thin-skinned, nor would her guns lack range. She would be a challenge.
Mahlberg leaned against the sideboard as the charts were laid out on the table. He preferred the atmosphere of the wardroom to the closeted chart room. It was congenial and relaxed and reminded him of the collegial atmosphere of the classroom at Flensburg. It was a place to learn — to share information; the difference was this was not the theoretical theater of intellectual exercises — here was reality in its harshest form.
“I beg your pardon, Kapitan,” Leutnant Chyla said. He was B. Dienst-wireless intelligence officer and always immersed in his electronics and codes.
“Yes?”
“Before we transferred the civilians they asked me to convey a message to you. They were quite distraught.”
Mahlberg almost laughed out loud. They couldn’t have picked a worse spokesperson. Chyla was a champion in his dark world of glowing tubes and humming radios, but he was strangely out of place speaking directly with another human being.
“Were they?” Mahlberg said. “What is the message?”
“They informed me that when they reached Berlin, they intended to make formal protest, Kapitan. Fruelein May was very upset. Her language was—”
“I am familiar with her vocabulary,” Mahlberg said.
He saw a seaman hand a message to Kadow, who read it and then glanced quickly at Mahlberg.
“It will take them some time to reach Berlin, and by the time they arrive we shall have accumulated enough victories to satisfy everyone. Don’t concern yourself with them, Chyla. They are faraway and quite impotent. Dismissed.”
Kadow approached and handed him the message, saying only: “Group North.”
Mahlberg read the message. “‘ Umkreis.’” He looked at Kadow with a smile. “It is difficult not to feel at least a little pleasure over this, isn’t it?”
“Of course, Kapitan.”
“We are still some distance from complete victory, but this” — he held the message up — “places us a bit closer.”
“We’ve been monitoring Operation Funker since the beginning, Kapitan. It appears to be going as planned. Prince of Wales had turned south. The British are not certain of our location.…”
“No,” Mahlberg said. “But it is only a matter of time before they locate us. Don’t discount the British or their abilities. We’ve been able to utilize this appalling weather for sanctuary, but soon we’ll be out of it. We are bound to be spotted by one of their patrol aircraft.” He lapsed into deep thought. “The chart,” he ordered. “Let me see the chart.”
He pulled a chair back from the table and moved in close, tracing the route of Sea Lion with his finger. He stopped and tapped the chart. “Prince of Wales has changed course,” he said as his officers surrounded him. “B. Dienst places her here. She has no notion of our true speed and location, so she reckons if she maintains her current course and speed, she has more than an adequate margin of safety. But our calculation places us making contact with Prince of Wales” — he studied the chart — “here.”
“What if she increases her speed,” Kadow said, “or releases her escort?”
Mahlberg looked at Chyla for the answer to an unspoken question.
“If she transmits any such information,” the Leutnant said, “we can decode it almost instantaneously. With the Funker boats we can triangulate her position, again if she transmits, and determine her speed and course.”
“It’s like fighting in the dark, gentlemen,” Mahlberg said to his officers. “The first one who makes a noise, loses.” He studied the chart in silence. “Ten hours?” he said to Kadow.
“Ten hours,” his executive officer said. “There is nothing between us and Prince of Wales. The only threat lies behind us and they will have their hands full soon enough.”
“Imagine our reception when we return home, sir,” an excited Fahnrich zur See said. “There will be a parade in your honor.”