Night in the U-121 had appeared interminable, for each of the destroyer's attacks had seemed like gigantic guns that spoke of doom. At midnight, they had put on anticarbon-monoxide masks, but the discomfort of wearing them for such a long period had proved almost as trying to their tempers as the deadly gas would have been to their bodies. Only von Stolberg, by exercise of his own fierce self-control, still held his fraying crew together.
Hour by hour little crosses had been penciled on the chart — each one nearer than the one before to the circle that denoted the rendezvous. The last, at six o'clock, had actually lain within the prescribed area. Whatever damage the destroyer had done, she had failed to prevent U-121 from arriving at her rendezvous with six hours to spare.
"Achtung." Von Stolberg spoke over the loudspeaker system. "We have made our rendezvous. At noon the German cruiser Cecilie will join us and drive off the accursed destroyer. We have been successful in this. We shall be successful in the rest."
"Destroyer increasing speed," Braun reported.
Perhaps Braun had been a little slow in detecting the increase in the beat of the destroyer's propellers. Perhaps the Kapitan had become so used to the feint run that the destroyer had made as a prelude to each attack that he delayed giving the order to turn. Whatever the cause, the submarine had barely started to turn when the destroyer passed overhead.
Von Stolberg realized at once that somewhere their corporate reflex had been slow, and he determined that when the real attack came, after this usual dummy run, they must do better.
But the attack came at once, and the bursting of the first two charges astern of the U-boat took the Kapitan entirely by surprise. Four charges went off almost simultaneously; two on either side, above and below him. In the toils of the enormous pressure waves, U-121 was turned and twisted like a maddened fish. With her men again plunged into the near darkness of the emergency lighting, she would have hurtled to the bottom except for Schwachofer's skill at the diving controls. His art and the fantastic luck that put her exactly in the middle of the destroyer's pattern had, by a miracle, saved her hull from being utterly crushed.
Inside, the boat was a shambles. Fittings and pipes had been wrenched from their clips, and men lay in heaps where they had fallen. In the control room there appeared in the semidarkness a thing that hopped and screamed. About the size of a small dog, it ran into a corner where it began to leap up and down, emitting a high-pitched wail. Horrified, the men stared, and even von Stolberg was shaken. He clung to the periscope standard and looked at the apparition.
"It's the gyrocompass, broken adrift." Schwachofer, the imperturbable, had guessed correctly. The gyro ring had been broken, and the gyro wheel, revolving at ten thousand revolutions, had gone careering through the boat.
Von Stolberg's eyes rose to meet those of his Executive Officer. He looked utterly dazed. "Surface," he gasped.
The Engineer Officer stumbled into the control room, coughing terribly. "Chlorine. Sea water leaking into number-two battery."
Von Stolberg pulled himself together and nodded. "We're going up. Be ready to start the Diesels, Herr Engineer."
"You will never start them, Herr Kapitan. Perhaps you may go for a little longer on the batteries when you reach the surface. I do not know; but already some of the cells are boiling."
Von Stolberg took this further blow with stoical calm. "We shall go back to Germany in the Cecilie." And to von Holem: "Have your gun crew ready and open fire as soon as you can. I will fight him and sink him yet. He is a much bigger target than we are."
With the thought of seeing the light of day again the morale of the men was reviving, driving away the heaviness engendered by foul air and lack of sleep. Some would be seasick as soon as the clean air entered their lungs, but the gun crew would probably find that excitement would overcome their disability.
"Twenty meters," Schwachofer reported. The gun crew were already clustered at the foot of the ladder.
"Ten meters."
The gun layer sprang up the iron rungs, throwing his weight on the wheel that retained the heavy hatch. Worked by its big spring, the hatch was raised, and the gun crew poured out of it.
Gun Battle
0632 Zone lime, Thursday, 9 September
THE Hecate's wake lay curled in a great circle as she turned after her attack.
The inquisitive sun was just peeping over the misty horizon as the ship's head turned to the eastward.
A cry came up from the asdic cabinet. "Forebridge. I think the U-boat's blowing her tanks, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Hopkins, keep passing me the range and bearing." Then to the First Lieutenant: "Action stations, Number One. We must have a reception committee for him."
The sound of the alarms rattled through the ship. Her crew was almost instantly ready: the Hecate had had her hand on the hilt of her sword for twenty-four hours. She had only to draw it.
The asdic was speaking again. "Bearing green six-oh. Broad on the starboard bow."
"Guns," the Captain spoke to the Gunnery Officer, "bring your guns to the ready. Submarine expected to surface about green six-oh."
"Aye aye, sir."
From the asdic: "Lost contact, sir."
The yeoman appeared at his elbow. "Message passed, sir."
"Thank you, Yeoman."
Anxiously the men of the destroyer waited for sight of their quarry. They thought it likely that she would be so damaged that her men would at once abandon ship, or be induced to do so after a short gun engagement. Even the Captain was perhaps not yet fully alive to the difference between forcing a U-boat to the surface on the edge of a convoy where help was available, and doing the same in the middle of the ocean where he was all alone.
"U-boat surfacing!" The cry went up from many throats.
"Permission to open fire, sir?" the Gunnery Officer asked.
"Not yet. Guns. Let's see if they start abandoning ship. I don't like firing on survivors. Yeoman, make 'abandon' to them very slowly with the light."
Willis sprang to the ten-inch signal lamp and began to flap the shutter, clack — clack. It was the only sound that the tense watchers on the bridge could hear.
"There they come, sir," the First Lieutenant cried excitedly.
Little figures could be seen pouring out of the conning tower. The U-boat was lying at an angle away from the destroyer, and moving steadily into the scintillating, brilliant path that the sun laid across the ocean, dazzling the men in the Hecate. A vaporous cloud of yellow-green smoke was pouring out of the U-boat's stern.
"Dam' this sun," the Captain said.
"Target — a submarine. Bearing green five-five. All guns load, semi-armor-piercing shell." The Gunnery Officer was carrying out the routine drill.
"Clack — clack — clack — " The ten-inch signal projector started the word "abandon" again. "Clack-ety — clack-ety-ety — "
"B Gun ready."
"There's a hell of a lot of smoke from her." The Captain spoke.
"X Gun ready."
"Salvos. Range nine hundred," the Gunnery Officer said.
The sun, and the haze that billowed from the stem of their target, momentarily hid the U-boat from definite view. A flash of orange in the haze — and before the destroyer's bow a plume of water rose where a U-boat shell had fallen close alongside.
"Fire," the Captain snapped.