In the dark rooms, lit by their flashlights, the walls looked grey and somber, the embrace of the dead from a time of turmoil and terror. Not much was disturbed in the vacuum of the U-boat belly and Nina could not help but consider that the last sounds in here were the agonizing screams of German men, doomed to suffocate if they survived drowning or incineration. She walked slowly through the silence, imagining the fear and sadness that prevailed here from their final moments. Did they pray? Did they weep? Who did they think of as a last thought? Were they still here, trapped in the cold dank purgatory of their fate?
Sam stumbled over something at his feet and almost met the steel grid with a crash, but he corrected his balance and managed to scare the hell out of his colleagues with the sudden ruckus.
"What's wrong?" Purdue asked, shining his light in Sam's eyes and momentarily blinding him. Answering in incoherent blabber, Sam attempted not to swear and kicked the obstacle that felt like a soft bag with hardware inside it. But it was, in fact, as he realized when he illuminated it, remains of the late seaman G. Lindemann. He felt bad for his assault when he read the withered name badge and Nina joined him with a pat on the back.
"You showed him," she smiled, and walked off farther down the steel piping, which ran along the sides. "Air conditioning," she noted and checked the place for more remains, which were present occasionally along the short bridge.
"Look for anything historical or anything of value the vessel could have been carrying," Purdue said. Crossing over the entrance to the bunks, they did not find anything particularly odd apart from the impeccably made beds, still tidy even after half a century or so. It was creepy, thought Nina, that the bunks looked like they had never been slept in and she was reluctant to check under the pillows.
"Wow, I feel like such a messy slob now," Sam remarked, as he shone his light on one after the other creaseless bunks.
"You are a slob," Nina teased.
"You think?" he answered quickly, knowing that she was guessing correctly, "I'll have you know that my bed is always made."
"But not in the German way, I bet," Purdue chimed in from the far side, where he was looking through a locker. They sniggered in the dead silence of the submarine mausoleum.
"Come on, there has got to be something here," Purdue complained, "Don't you agree, Dr. Gould?"
"I actually do concur. From my research these Elektroboots all contained Nazi treasure. On the way to Japan, to Spain, even to Czechoslovakia, would you believe? We have to keep looking."
"Until we run out of oxygen?" Sam asked innocently, reminding them that time was imperative to survival down here. Nina gasped, "Yes, we have to hurry for now."
"For now?" Purdue exclaimed, "I would like this to be the one trip we need to find treasure. The next trip should be reserved for recovering it, you see?"
Setting aside their tourist sensibilities, the three continued on searching. Sam entered a small cabin marked "Kapitänleutnant" and found another meticulously made bed, however, the rest of the room was chaotic. A straight razor, several bullets and two small mirrors were strewn over the floor. There was no sign of any human remains, but there was a compass and stationary on the table. Rust had dropped from the bolts of the pipes moving through the wall and stained the table and toppled chair. Sam felt a sinister ambience in this cabin, although he would never admit to such nonsense. He moved toward the locker, which was slightly ajar with a black strip of shadow inside as he cast his light there. Something was hanging inside.
"Uniforms," Sam said, as Nina entered the room to pry.
"I'll check them. You check the bedside locker. That drawer looks impossible to wrench open," she suggested and he had to agree. It was firmly lodged in the cabinet from years of oxidation. Nina went to check if anything was hidden in the captain's uniform. She opened the door to find the uniform hanging in the cupboard, but the captain was still inside it and Nina belted out an unearthly scream at the terrible sight, compelling Sam to jump bolt erect and look for attackers with a stupid expression of fear on his face. Only when he realized she was just startled at something did he relax. He winced at the awful emaciated corpse that appeared to have committed suicide by hanging.
"What?" Purdue called from the other cabin.
"Just a dead captain, Mr. Purdue." Sam called back.
"Fuckin' hell, talk about being hung," Nina panted with her hand still firmly over her mouth while the other kept her heart from jumping out. "Gute nacht, mein herr," she clicked her heels and started closing the closet door to conceal the hideous thing, but she noticed that his left hand was locked over a brass handle fixed to the wall of the inside cupboard. Above the handle a swastika was drawn roughly in red. A symbol similar to an elongated version of the fleur-de-lis ran vertically through it.
"Sam," she said in a low voice, "Sam."
Sam was still fighting with the rusty cabinet and he did not enjoy her insistence.
"Yeah?" he answered in an irritated yap.
"I have never seen this symbol before. Now, I might be overzealous to find something down here, but I think I just found something down here," she said, without taking her eyes off the drawing. Sam came to have a look.
"You know, when they talk about Nazi art being on U-boats, I'm not sure this is what they were referring to, dearest," he remarked expertly.
Nina slowly turned to give him a look. That look he always got when he resorted to childish mockery in the wrong company. Nina did think it was a little funny, though; but she would never let him know.
"That handle? Any thoughts?" she asked.
"You go for it," Sam suggested, "What if a spider jumps on my hand?"
"Sam," Nina said plainly, with a long blink of impatience.
"Okay, all right," he said. Reluctantly the journalist nudged the corpse aside lightly as not to dislodge him from the noose and invoke his Nazi wrath. Carefully Sam's hand approached the dead captain's hand.
"Euw, eeuuww, oh, God," he whined, as his hand folded over the papery claw of the skeleton. He tugged at the handle. Nothing. Again he jerked at it, but it only gave a bit, spewing rusty residue onto Sam.
"Almost there," Nina coaxed. He returned the look she gave him before and pulled with all his strength, hoping that he would not be releasing any unpleasant gasses or booby traps in the process.
"What the hell are you two doing in here?" Purdue asked, behind them suddenly, still cloaked by the dark. Both Nina and Sam jumped at his voice and with that the little door swung open under the force of Sam's hand… and nerves.
Purdue peeked over Nina's head to see what was inside. Only she could fit into the cupboard and was elected to retrieve whatever was inside. Sam pulled back his hand and allowed her to pass. With a clear word of disapproval she stepped inside next to the kapitänleutnant, whose name badge was halfway faded, but started with "Schwar…" and then lost the rest of his identity to time. Pulling up her shoulders she shone the beam into the small compartment which looked terrible. It was corroded inside and held what looked like a book inside a container. Nina took it out and quickly stepped away from the dead man's locker to place the container on the table.
"What is it, Nina? What is it?" Purdue forced.
"Hang on, I have to get a look," she said, and Sam helped with lighting.
It was magnificent… and ancient. Nina gasped and Purdue sighed.
"I venture to guess that this is a book that dates from the Middle Ages. My God, it is exquisite!" she sighed in awe. She could see that the side of the book was fashioned with a steel and silver-wrought lock and framed with the same metals to keep the leather intact. Nina shivered.