August Krauser finally hit his bunk several hours later; it must have been about three o clock in the morning when he finally turned in. His sleep was dark and dreamless, and yet he still felt fatigued upon waking, and it took two mugs of the submarine’s glutinous coffee before he was truly feeling ready for duty. At about eleven o’clock in the morning, he was reading in his bunk when Hertz approached him with news that a new target had been sighted.
He was surprised. It could be days between spotting viable targets; and even then it was not always feasible to launch an attack. The ship could be escorted, or travelling too fast, weather could be against them, or the target could simply be too small to be worth expending the ammunition.
Krauser headed on deck with his second in command, suppressing a shiver, having once again left his windbreaker by his bunk. He peered through his binoculars, and could see that the freighter on the horizon would indeed make a viable target. It was certainly large – perhaps slightly larger than the Freyr had been the day before, and he gave the command to Hertz to close to torpedo range. “Dive immediately at the first sign of an escort.”
“Yes, sir.”
They retired to the hot and noisy control room as the U-616 sped through the waters, in pursuit of its quarry. Hertz gave him a smile. “We are lucky to have two hunts in twenty-four hours. This will keep the men better motivated than any chess tournament.”
Krauser nodded. He didn’t like it, but he knew he was right. The men needed to blow off steam on a patrol, and if the steam came packaged in a G7a torpedo, then so be it. After half an hour or so the submarine slowed down, and seemed to come to a near stop. They had reached torpedo range.
Krauser looked through the periscope at the target ship. It was actually a tanker, rather than a freighter – Admiral Dönitz would be pleased if they managed to bag this particular trophy. Depriving the British of fuel for their planes and vehicles would aid Germany greatly. “Any sign of an escort?” he asked.
“No, captain. She’s alone,” replied one of the men.
Krauser nodded. “She’s far too large a target to risk the deck gun. Load four steam torpedoes into the forward tubes.”
The command was shouted along the length of the submarine. The men working the torpedo tubes hurriedly swung their payload along, the room filling with clamour and organised chaos. In less than a minute the four tubes were locked and loaded, ready to deliver death and destruction to their target.
After giving the men two minutes to organise themselves, Krauser called “Fire one!”
The ship shuddered as the torpedo spat forth, pushed through the water by compressed steam. Krauser could see the bubble jets as it sped towards the tanker. He waited, and counted under his breath, knowing that everyone in the control room was doing the same thing. As he hit fifty, he saw a huge gout of water and flame shoot from the side of the tanker. A rewarding, percussive sound followed half a second later. “Direct hit!” he yelled, and the men in the control room cheered in victory. “Fire two and three!”
The submarine shuddered once more, more intensely this time, as two torpedoes were fired in rapid succession. Again the Captain of the U-616 watched the jets bubble across the ocean, counting under his breath. Another blossoming of water and flame told him that at least one of the torpedoes had successfully reached its mark, and that another target was succumbing to the might of the finest war machine in the Kriegsmarine.
“Direct hit!” he cried again. Cheers of celebration, “Kriegsmarine!” and “Heil Hitler!” filled the room once more. “Come, Mr Hertz. Let’s head up top!”
He hurried up the ladder to the main deck, followed by the older second-in-command. He suppressed a shiver and watched through his binoculars at the burning ship. “Another victory for the U-616!” he said to Hertz.
Hertz smiled. “Yes, sir. To the glory of the Fuhrer, and the Fatherland!”
Krauser did not. He was not so stupid as to speak openly against the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and his nation’s leader, but he did not particularly care for their politics himself, and neither did the majority of his crew. His job was the same regardless of who held the Reichstag, or how they managed to get in there in the first place. Hertz was obviously a devotee of Adolf Hitler, but that was his own business.
The other reason he didn’t reply was that something seemed off to him. There was a tension or pressure in the air, that hadn’t been there before. Something had caused the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck to rise. He scanned the water, nervously, involuntarily. Dahlen’s tale of his battle with the shark must have gotten under his skin, that’s all…
Except it wasn’t all. He could definitely hear something now; something that was not normally there. A high pitched, buzzing that seemed to be coming from somewhere… up above?
He span just in time to see the Sunderland screaming out of the cloud cover, its machine guns sending up a spray of searing hot lead as it began a strafing run of the U-Boat. Milliseconds later the bullets rained all around him. Time seemed to slow down into a series of very short motion pictures. Two of the crew ran for the deck gun, but were cut down, blood gouting from their arms and chests as the bullets struck. Wood splinters flew as stray rounds thudded into the deck. Hertz slid down the ladder, rapidly disappearing from view. There was a beastly roar as the plane shot over head. He knew he had only seconds before it turned for a second pass.
Three, no, four men now lay dead on the deck. No time to check identities, he would have to take a roll call when – if – they managed to escape the Sunderland. He screamed “Alarm!” as he slid down the ladder into the comparative warmth and darkness of the control room. Bells rang and whistles shrieked in the wave of this command.
The U-616 began its crash dive.
The men worked in unison, as much a well-oiled machine as the U-Boat itself. Cogs span, dive planes were adjusted, and the tanks began to fill with sea water, causing the ship to rapidly sink beneath the surface. In less than a minute, they were submerged, and still diving. The Type VIIB U-Boat was pressure tested to a depth of two hundred and twenty metres, and it was a brave captain indeed who would exceed this measurement in all but a life or death situation.
The crew fell silent, as was standard practice, fearing that the slightest noise could be detected by enemy ships operating in the areas. As one, Krasuer, Kleiner, Hertz, the entire crew (including Dr Arnold and Dahlen in the rear of the boat) turned their gaze upwards. Krauser never knew why this was. The deadliest depth charges always came from the side or – worse – from below, yet every seaman he knew (himself included) involuntarily looked up when threatened by them. A depth charge was a submarine’s deadliest enemy.
“One hundred and fifty metres deep,” whispered Kleiner.
“Hold steady,” Krauser replied.
Two hollow splashes told them that the Sunderland had dropped depth charges, and there was nothing that the crew of the U-616 could do now, but wait.
The seconds dragged like hours as everyone aboard fell silent, before the first shock hit. It came from the starboard side, and the entire boat tilted on its axis, and skidded sideways. Men shouted, metal screamed, and Krauser gritted his teeth so hard he feared they might shatter in his mouth. In a deadly one-two punch, the U-616 was thrown sideways and careered into the second depth charge. This one hit so hard on the underside that Dahlen grabbed hold of the doctor and shouted that the shark had come back for them. Krauser felt himself thrown upwards by the sheer force of the depth charge, lost his footing and seemed to float momentarily before landing hard on his right arm. He screamed as a terrible, muscular pain flared white hot just above the elbow. He feared that it had been broken.