The exec popped his head back out of the conning tower. “Sighting, sir?”
Captain Werner nodded in the direction of the approaching convoy, which was now visible to the unaided eye.
“Alarm!” the exec called down into the hull. “Battle stations!”
“No!” Captain Werner shouted. “Tell the radioman to transmit our position and summon all other U-boats in the area. We must leave the hunt to them. We are going to dive and avoid contact.”
“Sir?” the first watch officer said.
“Go below, Tellmark.” The captain motioned with his hands, following the man down the hatch. He slid down the aluminum ladder and hit the deck plates. On the bridge the other crew members looked at him in anticipation. The exec scowled.
“Captain, we do have three other torpedoes in addition to those new rocket weapons we had installed in Brest. We can make our strike and get away. We’ve done it a thousand times before! There can be no danger to us.”
“Secure all hatches. Prepare to dive. One hundred seventy meters. Engines, all stop.” Werner spoke into the long, echoing dimness, then turned to answer Gormann. “We will not attack. We have strict orders not to engage the enemy, no matter what opportunities present themselves. I don’t like it myself—but those are my orders, directly from Admiral Donitz and Reichminister Speer. Those three rocket weapons in the forward compartment may win the war for Germany.”
Donitz was the man who had conceived and led “wolfpack” warfare in the Atlantic, using U-boats to hunt down and destroy supplies to Britain; as of the year before, he had become commander-in-chief of the entire German fleet. The experimental modifications to U-415 had been pushed through by the Reichminister of Armaments himself. Other U-boats went out to plant mines, or hunt down ships and convoys, but U-415 had a greater mission.
Captain Werner hissed through his teeth. He grabbed the periscope and felt the motor’s vibration through his fingers. Outside, he watched the helpless ships approaching. Two destroyers flanked the convoy, but that would not have bothered Werner; it was all part of the risk. Sinking a few enemy vessels and adding to their tonnage score always relieved tensions aboard the submarine.
But not on this mission. He had to keep repeating it to himself to dampen his own frustrations. “Dive!” Werner said again, “One hundred seventy meters! Do it before they see us.”
The captain grabbed a conduit with one hand and steadied himself against the periscope handle as the submarine canted downward. Waves gurgled outside, then all grew silent as the hull sank beneath the surface. The pounding diesel engines stopped, leaving only the gentle hum of the electric motors.
“Submerged, sir. Approaching a depth of sixty meters… seventy meters.”
Captain Werner felt the air tighten around his head as the pressure of the water squeezed the hull. “Let me know when we get to one hundred seventy.”
Underwater everything seemed quiet and wonderful, free of the knocking diesel engines and the uneasy swaying of waves. Once each day the captain ordered his boat to do a routine trim dive for practice and maintenance. It allowed the crew to eat without lurching back and forth, to relax and recuperate for an hour or two. Now U-415 moved underwater with glorious grace beneath the approaching convoy. The only sounds were the hum of electric motors and the patter of water droplets condensing from overhead and splashing to the floor plates.
A distant pinging sound echoed through the hull, growing louder second by second. “Asdic pulses, sir,” the third mate said.
“I can hear them myself,” said Werner.
The British “asdic” defense—named after the Antisubmarine Detection Investigation Committee—used ultrasonic waves to search the waters for nearby U-boats that might be hiding like wolves in the water. The asdic pings struck the hull of the boat like metal arrows. Each burst set the men on edge. No one moved more than he had to.
“Depth is one hundred seventy meters, sir.”
“Maintain. Continue silent running. No unnecessary noises—everybody keep still. I don’t want them dropping depth charges on us, especially not before we can sink a few of their ships.”
“Listen to the destroyers, sir,” the soundman said. “Not like one of the freighters.”
They heard the sound of propellers and bows cutting the water above. The destroyers cruised overhead, loaded with canisters of death they could drop at any moment. The passage of the convoy sounded like distant thunder echoing through the steel hull.
“Directly above us,” the radioman called out.
“Keep steady. Nothing to be afraid of.” The thought seemed ludicrous as Werner considered it. Nothing to be afraid of? Two years ago, maybe, but not now.
In 1942 the German U-Boat Force had sunk 1200 Allied ships, seven million tons! Those were indescribable days of glory. But in March 1943 everything had changed. The Allies had brought to bear a battery of new weapons: small aircraft carriers, fast escort vessels, and a new radar device. They wiped out forty percent of the German U-Boat Force in a few weeks. A few weeks!
Captain Kretschmer, of U-99, the reigning tonnage king who had sunk 325,000 tons on his own, was captured on March 17, 1941. The very same day Captain Schepke, in U-100 with a tally of 250,000 tons, was killed when a British destroyer blew U-100 to the surface, then rammed her. No one could keep track of all the German losses anymore. The bottom of the Atlantic held as many U-boat corpses as it held sunken freighters.
The sounds of the ships passing overhead dwindled in the distance. Captain Werner continued to stare at the ducts and pipes on the ceiling, eyes half shut. Nothing to be afraid of? Hardly.
“I believe that’s the last one, sir,” the radioman said.
Werner nodded. His beard felt stiff from salt spray, and itched with unwashed sweat. “We’ll keep running submerged for another hour. Continue present heading at four knots.”
He drew in a deep breath of air filled with the sweat and bad breath of fifty men. He could sense their restlessness. They wanted to attack the convoy that had just passed. U-415 had built up a respectable record of sunken Allied tonnage, which they displayed proudly on pennants strung from the superstructure whenever they came near a German refueling vessel.
“Executive Officer, take command. I’ll be in my bunk.”
Werner went forward, ducking low to avoid a pressure gauge that protruded from the wall in just the wrong place. He would make up for the crew’s resentment when they released their special weapons and caused a greater toll on the enemy than all other U-boats combined.
The submarine hummed as it cut through the water toward its destination, New York harbor.
Captain Werner moved forward, with unconscious care in every movement. Being on board the U-boat felt like living inside a narrow steel corridor with fifty men, cramped on both sides with pipes and ducts, handwheels, anything to bang your head on. A sensible person would have considered even a day aboard the mold-ridden, urine-smelling coffin to be an inhuman punishment; but Werner had been aboard submarines since the war’s beginning, first serving on U-557 as an ensign with Captain Paulssen, then transferred to U-612 as executive officer only a month before Paulssen and his entire crew went to the bottom.
In the intervening years, and countless missions, carefully tallied kills, and endless faces of old crews and new crews, Werner grew proud of his duty aboard the submarines. His clothes never dried beyond clamminess, and every metal surface he touched felt cold and slimy. He no longer smelled the stench of close-packed sweating and frightened men.
Regulations demanded that no one bring shaving kits aboard, since the precious fresh water had to be used for drinking and cooking. Werner looked with fondness upon the usual collection of personal belongings held dear by every member of the crew—toothbrushes, writing materials, books, snapshots of family and sweethearts.