Crash Dive

by Martin H. Greenberg

  But I know they are out there. It would be insane to deploy a convoy in these waters without an escort. But then again, it’s just as insane to make an expensive submarine and a fully trained crew play bait.

  I continue to peer through my binoculars, my chest thoroughly soaked by the incessant splashing, which has whipped the skin of my face raw. But I have no choice. I’m the eyes of the vessel on this section of sea and we have reached the most critical phase of our attack. All hands must work in unison if we’re going to live through this.

  I hear thunder, but it was not preceded by lightning.

  An instant later, a column of water rises a hundred meters to the right of our bow. A round from an escort’s gun.

  Damn!

  But who in the hell fired it?

  “Escort vessel! Twelve o’clock!” shouts Fraatz, pointing straight toward a gap in the line of merchant ships.

  All heads turn toward the bow, and a moment later I see it materializing in the foggy distance, almost like a ghostly apparition from the sea.

  A destroyer, probably American, is sailing our way, its cannon alive with gunfire, like stroboscopic flashes of lightning. The roaring sea drowns the whistling noise of the incoming shells, which create columns of water boiling up to either side of us, getting closer as the gun crew adjusts its fire. If we get hit by one of those rounds, we probably wouldn’t even have time to scream.

  “Prepare to dive! Clear the bridge!” shouts Fraatz, before adding, “Periscope depth, Chief!”

  Periscope depth?

  I go first, sliding down to the control room in the way Jurgen has taught me, pressing my feet against the edges of the metal ladder and letting gravity do the rest. A second later I’m in the control room—along with a splash of water raining down on me. I quickly step out of the way as Fraatz drops next. The captain is barking orders before his feet even reach the deck.

  Mueller adjusts the planes while screaming to a number of sailors who aren’t moving fast enough while heading toward the bow to act as ballast. We submerge just as the last watchman closes the exterior hatch.

  And just like that the swaying stops, but not my mind, which is racing at a hundred kilometers per hour. Why haven’t we engaged in any evasive tactics? Why are we still going straight toward a destroyer? Why are we—

  Fraatz gazes into the periscope for what seems like an eternity before he says in a calmed tone, “All ahead two thirds. Fire one and two.”

  I’m totally confused now. That destroyer is at least 10,000 meters away. If I remember Chief Mueller’s dissertation on torpedoes from two weeks ago, the range of our T2s in their preheated state is 7,500 meters, meaning the torpedo crew had to electrically heat them to a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. Otherwise the range with cold batteries would have been only 4,500 meters.

  But whether it is 4,500 meters or 7,500 meters, that is still way short of the 10,000-meter gap separating—

  The hull rumbles as rounds pound the water, missing us by what seems like a few meters, but they lack the punch of the depth charges, which at such short distance would have cracked the hull.

  “One and two are in the water, Captain,” reports Jurgen as our steel fish sprint toward the enemy.

  “Fire three and four,” orders Fraatz.

  The water around rumbles again and again as the destroyer unleashes hell on us.

  The moment the next two torpedoes leave their tubes, Fraatz adds, “Left full rudder. Take her down, Chief. All ahead one third. New heading zero four zero.”

  “Bow planes at twenty,” says Mueller as he begins to call our depth and Hans gets busy with the hydrophone to track the incoming threat as well as listening to the torpedoes we have just fired. Jurgen takes a moment to explain the captain’s tactic. Even though the initial distance to the nearest target—the destroyer—was 10,000 meters, the escort was heading toward us, hopefully closing the gap to get within range of the T2s before their batteries ran dry. If anything, the torpedoes would force the incoming escort into evasive maneuvers, buying us time to dive deep.

  “Stem contact, captain,” reports Hans a moment later.

  “Depth ten meters . . . fifteen meters,” says Mueller, his eyes on the planes as he tries to get us deep as fast as possible.

  “New contact bearing zero five zero.”

  Fraatz snaps his head toward the radioman. “A second contact?”

  “Yes, sir. Just appeared out of nowhere, and must be stationary because I don’t hear their screws.”

  I’m not a submariner but this does sound weird, and from the brief look of confusion on the captain’s face, I can tell that he too is perplexed by what could be a new technique that the enemy is taking against our evasive tactics.

  “Depth thirty meters . . . thirty-five meters,” calls out Mueller.

  “First and second torpedoes have stopped moving,” announces Hans. “Third and fourth are still running. Third contact bearing three three zero.”

  Damn. That’s three escorts converging on us. Bastards are all around us. As Mueller and Jurgen exchange a glance, the captain rubs the thick beard on his chin, apparently contemplating his next move.

  “Forty meters,” reports Mueller.

  Then we all hear a distant explosion. “Fourth torpedo hit, Captain!” announces Hans. “We hit the destroyer, sir!”

  There is a brief cheer. Fraatz puts an arm on Mueller and another on Jurgen. “We have just taken on and hit a destroyer, gentle—”

  “Two depth charges dropped!” screams Hans, startling everyone aboard as he yanks off the headphones and stares at Fraatz with fear.

  Christ Almight—

  WHAM!

  Before we know it we’re all rolling on the floor, except for the captain and Chief Mueller, who hold their ground as the boat lurches forward, propelled by an invisible force.

  The second charge goes off an instant later, turning my world into a blur as seawater starts to stream from a dozen places at once. I’m rolling in it along with other men as I struggle to grab on to to something—anything to stop my uncontrolled bouncing.

  There! A handle of some sort, which I grip with all my strength and hang on to with my right hand while wiping the water off my face with my left, trying to get a glimpse of what’s happening.

  “Damage report!” demands Fraatz, shouting over the commotion, the water already above his ankles.

  There’s havoc in the control room. Hans appears unconscious against his radio gear while bleeding from the side of his head. I can see Jurgen, but Mueller is just getting up, reaching for an overhead pipe to steady himself.

  “The bow torpedo room is flooding, Captain!” reports a sailor rushing into the control room.

  “We’re taking water in the engine room,” reports another sailor arriving from the stem of the vessel, his young face tight with anxiety.

  “Motors have stopped!” reports Mueller. “I can’t control our—”

  WHAMMM!

  A third charge hits us far harder than the first two. U-529 trembles under the stress of the powerful shock wave, the resonance inside this iron chamber crushing my head like a vice, drilling into my eardrums, piercing straight into my brain. I want to scream but can’t as the pressure shoves me against a wall of equipment with savage force.

  Through the deafening havoc, I hear Captain Fraatz shouting, “Emergency blow! Emergency blow! Surface, Chief! Surface!”

  I manage to stand, my head throbbing. I sense upward motion as U-529 blows the seawater in the ballast tanks used for buoyancy control.

  “Fifteen meters . . . ten meters . . . twelve meters . . . ten meters . . ., Captain, our rate of ascent is slowing down. We’re taking in water too fast and won’t be able to hold her on the surface for very long.”

  “Get the crew ready to abandon ship!” orders the captain, and a moment later sailors are passing the same life jackets we used last week during a drill.

  “Tower has been cleared!” announces Mueller as he heads up the ladder to o
pen the hatch. A splash of seawater cascades down the opening, splashing on the knee-deep water swirling in the control room.

  “Go, Johan! Get up there!” Fraatz shouts the moment the chief returns to the control room and charges toward the bow compartment to get his men moving.

  Wearing a life jacket, I head up, squeezing through the opening, reaching the conning tower. The ocean is still furious. How in the hell are we going to evacuate the ship when waves the size of a house are pounding us? A gray sky trembling with lightning hangs over me, but there is no rain, only wind, thunder, and the constant spray of the waves as they clash against our hull.

  Just then I see the destroyer in the distance, smoke coiling from its bow. We definitely hit it, preventing it from attacking us, though someone else did.

  A plane comes out of nowhere, roaring right above me. I suddenly realize why Hans never heard any screws in the water prior to the depth charges. The escorts were just pinging us to get a fix on our position while guiding the aircraft directly to us. It makes a tight 360-tum over the waves before heading straight toward us from our port side hauling two barrel-shaped objects beneath the fuselage.

  Depth charges!

  My instincts overcome surprise. Before I know it I have climbed to the edge of the conning tower and kicked my legs against the edge, jumping off the starboard side, clearing the ship by a few feet.

  The North Atlantic water chills me an instant later as I start to swim as fast as I can. I need to get away from the wounded submarine. I need to increase the gap, reach a safe distance in case one of those depth—

  The blast shoves me forward and down with savage force, plunging me several feet underwater.

  Stinging cold and darkness envelop me, swallowing all sound. My lungs feel about to burst from the pressure, as does my head as I start to come around, as my instincts force me to move, to continue swimming, to get my head above the surface, which my life vest helps me reach a moment later.

  A breath of cold air, followed by coughing and more air, chilling my lungs but feeding my body with much-needed oxygen. A wave picks me up, hoisting me by nearly a dozen feet, providing me with a sobering view of U-529 roughly fifty feet away.

  The sight numbs me beyond the frigid waters. Smoke and flames cover the conning tower as the submarine begins to list toward the stem.

  Shivering, my body temperature rapidly dropping, I glare at the unnerving choice those who survived the blast inside that vessel now have to make. There is only one way out of the sinking U-boat, and that escape route is covered in flames.

  A sailor makes his choice, emerging through the blazing conning tower, instantly setting himself on fire, his bellowing howls blending with the droning engine from the circling plane and the whistling wind.

  I recognize the booming voice, even in agonizing distress.

  It’s Chief Mueller.

  Oh, Dear God.

  I hear the chief’s desperate cry as he jumps over the side, misjudging and bouncing on the hull, dropping into the ocean like a flaming meteor.

  As the cold seeps deeper into my core, a second man works up the courage to risk the flames over drowning as the hull disappears beneath the waves, leaving just the flaming tower. I start swimming toward Mueller, who is floating next to the vessel, but another plane swoops over me, dropping a huge torpedo in the water.

  Fido!

  The propeller bites the water, hurdling the advanced weapon toward the middle of the U-Boat, striking it just beneath the tower.

  I look away as a blinding sheet of orange and yellow flames rises up to the sky. The uproar of fire, water, smoke, and sizzling debris surges skyward. A second plane flies past me, but the pilot doesn’t release the torpedo strapped to its underfuselage. The first torpedo had broken U-529’s back, literally cracking the ship in half. Its bow and stem angle up to the overcast sky as the center disappears beneath the white foam. The last thing I see are the twin propellers and the rudder before the place I have called home for the past five weeks ceases to exist.

  And just like that I’m all alone—alone with bitter memories, with feelings of guilt for having survived this terrible onslaught, with anger toward the BdU for ordering this brave crew to certain death, with fear about the future.

  A light cruiser materializes through the haze, either looking to fire a final round or searching for survivors—not that the planes still circling overhead gave the men aboard the U-Boat the time they had needed to abandon ship. The enemy had shown zero mercy, even as it became blatantly obvious that the submarine no longer posed a threat to the convoy, confirming the rumor that U-boats are as hated by the Allies as they are revered by Germany.

  Time.

  I’m trembling uncontrollably now, and I can no longer feel my face. My limbs are growing numb. I try to move them to get my circulation flowing again, but the cold has stripped away my heat as well as my energy. I don’t think I can last much longer as the waves toss me about, as I sway at their mercy, as the North Atlantic takes its toll on me. Only the life preserver keeps me afloat.

  I think of my father, of my kid brother, of my mother and sisters—remember their pained faces, their cries as I sailed away. Their desperate pleas now echo in my ears with the same energy as Chief Mueller’s final scream, with the same intensity as the shame that I have brought to them for having joined the enemy, for having become a part of Hitler’s war machine. There is no going back for me, not even with the documents that I have carried with me for so long. I chose sides a long time ago and there is no way to change that now.

  Hypothermia starts to set in, making me dizzy, my thoughts growing as cloudy as the skies above me. Through the haze enveloping me, through the punishing waves, I sense a bright light, a beacon, hovering over me, and I suddenly find comfort in its glow, it the sudden warmth it brings. I remember the sunny days of my summers in Connecticut. I remember sunlight on my face, the wind at my back, the sand between my toes.

  Frigid water slaps me across the face, shattering the daydream, the hallucination, bringing me back to the grave reality of my life, to the appalling cold, to the incessant punishment of a sea as unforgiving as those depth charges, as unmerciful as Germany has been while razing across Europe, crushing entire societies beneath the steel tracks of its panzers, sending so many innocent men, women, and children to their deaths in those horrible concentration camps that we’re not allowed to write about. I’ve seen so much destruction since this began, so much suffering, so much killing. I’ve seen death across Poland and France, across Ukrainian plains and Greek mountains, across every land that dared oppose the Third Reich, and now the tide of this war we have created has turned against us. And we will not be shown any mercy, just like today.

  Oh, God . . . the cold . . . I’m really dying. I’ve managed so far to survive this awful war, and was even spared the gruesome fate of the crew of U-529, but I’m going to die now, alone, in the middle of nowhere, away from my family, from . . .

  My vision clouds again, and a sudden cyclone whirls in my mind, swallowing everything, the bitter cold, the relentless ocean, the rolling clouds, the circling planes. Then there’s that light again, that comforting warm glow that radiates life into my core, that injects me with hope.

  But there is no hope for me.

  There hasn’t been any hope for a long, long time.

  As the world around me darkens, as the cold pushes me to the brink of unconsciousness, I reach for the waterproof pouch secured to the inside of my trousers. This was supposed to be my ticket home, my chance to rejoin the society that I once abandoned—a society that I know will no longer accept me, not after what Germany has done to the world. Refusing to shame my family any further by letting anyone connect me to them through these documents, I tear through the plastic, ripping it open, releasing the papers to the sea.

  I watch them drift away, watch my old American passport disappear beneath the murky waters, as well as my Yale diploma and other documents linking me to a life I chose to leave behind,
a life that will forever remain in my past.

  The bitter cold propels my thoughts to the periphery of my mind, leaving my core empty, dark, alone.

  And as my body finally surrenders to the unforgiving sea, I steel myself to die like a soldier, with dignity, with honor.

  To march with my chin high straight into the valley of death.

  U-529 was reported missing on February 12, 1943 in the North Atlantic. There is no explanation for its loss. All hands were presumed lost.

  Silent Company

  WILLIAM H. KEITH, JR.

  William H. Keith, Jr. is the author of over sixty novels, nearly all of them dealing with the theme of men at war. Writing under the pseudonym H. Jay Riker, he’s responsible for the extremely popular SEALS: The Warrior Breed series, a family saga spanning the history of the Navy UDT and SEALs from World War II to the present day. As Ian Douglas, he writes a well-received military-science fiction series following the exploits of the U.S. Marines in the future, in combat on the Moon and Mars. A former hospital corpsman in the Navy during the late Vietnam era, many of his characters, his medical knowledge, his feel for life in the military, and his profound respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line for their country are all drawn from personal experience.

  CHARLESTON HARBOR GLEAMED by the silver radiance of a just-risen full moon, the water calm and mirror-smooth. At a wharf below Fort Johnson, opposite fabled Fort Sumter on the south side of the harbor, preparations were under way. It was shortly after seven in the evening, February 17, 1864, and the Silent Company gathered, their thronging in the still air like the bare-bones rattle of dead winter leaves.

  “Right, boys. In you go! This here’s our chance at immortality!” Lieutenant Dixon seemed quite chipper, even carefree, though the moment weighed upon all of them as heavily as the smell of mud, salt water, and rotting marsh vegetation. “Tonight we sink the Housatonic!”