Once again his head and his heart were at war.
“Lieutenant Hertz!” shouted the doctor, dropping his binoculars to the deck with a clatter, and running over to the gun, waving.
Hertz signalled to Kleiner and the deck gun crew to prepare themselves and caught the doctor as the panicked man fell to his knees. “What is it, doctor? Have you seen it?”
Dr Arnold was a wreck, his eyes were as wide as saucers and his finger jabbed sharply in the direction he had just run from. He was sweating and near tears in seconds. “It’s… it’s there… huge… we have to get out of here!”
Hertz pulled up his own binoculars and looked to where the panicked doctor was pointing. It was true. The shark’s fin had broken up through the water, about eight hundred metres from the front of the U-616. He shouted orders to the deck gun to get their bearing.
Dr Arnold was clawing at Hertz’s trouser leg weeping. “We have to get out of here! Abandon ship! It’s a monster! They said it was a big shark but I just thought it was a big shark, not this! This is a goddamn… a dinosaur! We have to get out of here! Now!”
“Dr Arnold get yourself below deck, or come to your senses. We have a fish to catch.”
“No! No! We have to run! We have to get out of here now! Don’t you see? It’s a monster! A goddamn dinos—”
The men working deck gun paused at the crack of Acting Captain Johann Hertz shooting the doctor in the head, but returned to their work quickly, for fear that they would be next.
-SEVENTEEN-
Hertz shouted down the ladder into the control room to fire both torpedoes from the functioning fore tubes in rapid succession. There was, of course, the estimated dud ratio, but what little chance did he have? Even assuming the fifty percent dud ration that Captain Krauser had sworn by, he felt sure at least one of the torpedoes would catch the Megalodon and obliterate it into a stinking pulp.
The order was rapidly carried up the length of the U-Boat to the men working the torpedo tubes. The bulkheads were sealed, the torpedoes primed, safety checks carried out, and – finally – the first torpedo was spat forth from the submarine. The second followed in rapid succession, and Hertz watched the approaching shark through his binoculars, hoping to get a close view of the death and destruction that he – a true Kriegsmarine commander – had wrought.
The shark was not stupid. It hadn’t managed to live to its age by being stupid. It had felt the push and ripple of the water that indicated something was travelling towards it, and pretty fast, too. In its time it had known other metal fish project similar attacks. It had once had his ribs painfully smashed by a wooden fish that had propelled a heavy metal ball fast and hard into his side. It had been overconfident, certain it was the hunter of the ocean and indestructible. Since then, it had learned to trust his instincts, and avoid these sort of attacks.
It was still confident it was the hunter of the ocean, however.
The shark pushed its nose downwards and dove, letting the torpedo swim harmlessly overhead.
It felt another pass soundless above it, and resurfaced, its fin breaking the water once more.
Hertz swore up a blue blaze as he saw the shark’s fin resurface, this time a mere three hundred metres away. He screamed for the men to bring the deck gun to bear. Cranks were turned and wheels spun and the eighty-eight millimetre cannon focused on its target.
“Fire!” screamed the acting captain. He quickly slapped his hands to his ears as a large tank cannon round fired into the water where the shark had to be. Time slowed down and he thought he could hear a metallic zipping sound as the shell passed by in close proximity, followed by a hollow, bass splash as it thudded into the water.
The explosion in the water seemed cataclysmic. The shock wave pushed a large gout of water into the air and – could it be? – yes, it was tinged with red! Hertz fell to his knees laughing with pure unbridled triumph as pulpy red fish meat rained down on the deck. It was over! The deck gun had destroyed the monstrous shark!
He staggered to his feet, skidding slightly in the gore strewn across the wooden deck, and hurried to the men working the deck gun. They were just as jubilant as he, throwing their hats into the air, laughing and hugging one another. Hertz joined them in the handshakes, which rapidly evolved into hugs and backslaps. The U-616 had survived an engagement with an enemy like no other.
“Men, I think we owe it to ourselves to crack out the rum, don’t you? Feininger, Spahn, go tell the crew. Tonight we celebrate!”
The rum was hurried up to the men on deck, and Hertz gave them a short speech, singing their praises and toasting their bravery. In truth, Kleiner and the men would rather have been downstairs; the compliments heaped upon them by a man they didn’t really like or respect made them uncomfortable, and the deck was cold and stank of fishguts. Spahn lit a cigarette, hoping to give an impression of disrespect to their ersatz captain, but Hertz was enjoying the sound of his own voice so much that he didn’t notice.
Hertz raised his glass for the final toast. “And, of course, it would be criminal of me not to mention the men we have lost along the way, though none are missed more so than our dear Captain August Krauser, who was a true hero of the Kriegsmarine. It’s not easy taking over the job of captain in these circumstances, but I do hope that I am able t-”
The deck rocked sharply, and Hertz crashed hard flat onto his back, and skidded down the deck towards the now sinking prow of the boat. He span as he slid and fell and saw the meatgrinder maw of the megalodon waiting for him. It had survived! He saw that where its right fin had been was now a gaping, bleeding wound of viscera and cartilage, but the thing still lived.
Wide-eyed and screaming, Hertz scrambled and grasped for every handhold that he could get, but his fingers simply skittered uselessly over the damp wood of the deck. He shouted for help as his foot reached the creature’s mouth up to the ankle; his scream then became wordless as the monster’s jaw clamped down, driving nine inch serrated knives into him, crushing cartilage and bone. He looked down and saw the lump of mangled skeleton and pulpy flesh where his foot had once been, before the shark thrashed its head, pulling him further into its maw. Up to the waist this time, the thing bit down again and he felt each tooth stab into him like the knives of a hundred murderers. Organs ripped, flesh parted and he gasped as he felt his lungs and stomach fill with blood. He coughed up a spray of crimson before the shark undulated once more, and he felt himself sliding further in, and then he knew no more.
Grabbing hold of a shattered length of railing, Captain Krauser hauled himself up on deck, with a shout of rage and fear. He ran at full speed straight over to the deck gun, desperate to assist Kleiner and Spahn in reloading it for another shot. The shark, satisfied for the moment with its appetiser of Johann Hertz, slid off the deck and swam deep into the water.
A round from the deck gun thudded into the water where they figured the shark could likely be, but in his heart he knew that if he couldn’t see it, then it could be anywhere.
Then, the fin broke up out of the water again, about five hundred metres out, in front of the submarine’s prow.
Chief engineer Kleiner, struck by a sudden idea, abandoned the deck gun and ran to the ladder down to the control room. He screamed for the crew to load and fire torpedoes, but none could hear him. They were all desperately trying to right the craft, pump the water out of the ballast tanks and sustain their lives for another few minutes. He resolved to take matters into his own hands and skinned down the ladder and raced for the torpedo bay.