The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  Lauffnauer nodded at the water and spoke to me. "We piled concrete blocks in the slip at low tide. Three layers of them on the bottom, more on the sides. There are only a few inches of water between her and the blocks now. When the tide goes out, she will rest on the blocks — a crude drydock. You have props ready, Ed?" He turned to Moreno.

  "Right there." Moreno nodded at the end wall — his face sullen, I thought; he hadn't once looked at Rosa or me — and now I saw a couple of dozen newly cut two-by-fours piled against the wall.

  We propped the conning tower right away — a couple of long two-by-fours on each side, one end of each resting against the tower, the other ends lying on the platforms about an inch from the walls, the two-by-fours angling upward slightly toward the tower. As the tide ran out, the sub lowering, the two-by-fours would move down toward the horizontal, wedging themselves tight against the walls.

  About a hundred and fifty yards behind the dock was a two-room shack, with a small septic-tank bathroom. A plank walkway led from a rear door at the side of the enclosed dock, across the swampy shoreland up a gradual incline for fifty yards or so to solid dry ground. Then a path continued across the rocky, weed-clustered earth to the door of the shack. Rosa's husband had kept a few cots in here, a second-hand electric refrigerator — there was a power line into the place, which continued on to the dock — a two-burner hot plate and a few cooking utensils. He and his one- or two-man crew had slept here occasionally. Now Rosa went on up to the shack to fix us some breakfast.

  The rest of us stayed, watching the sub inch downward in the slip as the tide lowered. The conning-tower props moved slowly to the horizontal, as we guided and kept them in position. Presently their ends touched the walls. The slimed deck planking began to break the surface of the water; the sub's bottom had touched the concrete-block floor.

  There were two handsaws, newly sharpened, hanging from nails in the wall, and now Moreno took a small cardboard box lying on a wall studding. There were five brand-new metal tape measures in it; we each took one, and Vic and Linc each took a saw. Saw in hand, Vic knelt at the edge of the platform on one side of the sub, Linc on the other, each with several lengths of two-by-four beside him. Then, as the water line sank, exposing the sub's sides, the rest of us measured distances between the platform pilings and the sub's sides, calling them off to Vic or Linc. They sawed off the short lengths required, and we wedged them into place. Finally, a short prop between every piling and the sides of the sub, we were finished, and again we sat on the dock, staring and silent, watching in fascination as more of the ancient little ship came into view.

  The water was well down now, the ballast tanks half exposed; and the upper portions of the sub's sides were drying, and as they dried the red rust revealed itself under the slime. I wondered how much of the thickness of the pressure hull was gone and what pressures it would and would not withstand now.

  The same thoughts were in everyone's mind, I'm sure, for in just that moment Vic murmured absently, speaking to no one in particular, "She doesn't leak too much, we know that, but —" He stopped, slowly shaking his head, and Frank Lauffnauer spoke, his thin face grave and the lines down his cheeks seemed deeper. "Now it is time to look inside," he said. "And I will go first. I saw almost nothing last night; it was hard to see, wearing my mask."

  We scrambled to our feet then, suddenly excited. Moreno snatched a coil of heavy extension cord from the wall, a caged hundred-watt bulb at one end, and plugged it into a wall outlet. Then he handed it to Lauffnauer, who took it and jumped right over the cable railing onto the deck. And now, out of the water, the full unsupported weight of his body dropping onto the rotted and pulpy wooden-deck gratings, his feet went through them. He fell to his knees; his knees, too, plunged through the sodden wood. He got right to his feet, stumbling a little, his feet going through again, then got to the conning tower and climbed into it.

  We waited — this was his right — and I saw him stoop, his head and shoulders disappearing, and knew he was pulling at the hatch cover. It creaked, then snapped open, and I waited for the sound of Frank's steps down the inner ladder.

  Instead, he stood suddenly upright, hurling himself away from the newly opened hatch, his face contorting, and we stood staring, astounded. Then he thrust his upper body over the edge of the conning tower as far as he could get and began coughing deep in his chest, inhaling harshly in great retching gasps.

  The odor reached us then, and we ran, ducking low, stumbling, bumping into one another, to the open doors of the dock, where we stood leaning out over the water, breathing in the fresh air. Behind us I heard Frank stumbling across the sub deck, feet breaking through the sodden planking; then he was running to join the rest of us and gulp in new air. It wasn't strong, the queer odor that drove us from the sub, but it was unbearable.

  We knew what it was, but no one talked about it. "You got a pump?" I said presently to Moreno. "Any kind." He nodded, grimacing, went up to the shack, then came back down dragging a long length of discarded gasoline hosing and a hand bilge pump.

  We worked half an hour then, up on a bare patch of ground back of the marshy tideland — all of us but Rosa, who went into the shack. We took the pump apart, oiled the leather valve, then put it together again and connected it to an end of the hose with friction tape. Then I held the end of the hose out to Vic. "You like adventure?" I said sourly, and he smiled a little, took the hose and went into the dock, a hand tight over his face. He shoved the hose end as deep into the open hatch as he could get it, then we all pumped — outside the dock in the sunlight — for a full hour and a half, spelling each other at ten-minute intervals. The pump wasn't very effective; nevertheless, each stroke forced a column of air from the mouth of the hose, and by ten o'clock the air in the dock was fresh again.

  Once more Frank Lauffnauer climbed into the conning tower, leaned over the open hatch and very cautiously inhaled, the rest of us watching, Rosa too, now. He paused as though listening; then got down on his knees, and we could hear him inhale deeply. A moment later we heard the small clatter of his feet on the inside rungs and the drag of the extension cord he took with him. Then, faint and muffled, we heard his voice inside the sub. "Gott," we heard him mutter, his voice awed. "Mein Gott, mein Gott."

  Then we heard Lauffnauer's shoes on the rungs, and a moment later his face appeared over the edge of the tower, white and staring. We swarmed aboard then, and climbed down the ladder.

  The hundred-watt bulb glared in my eyes as we all crowded, shoulder bumping shoulder, into the little control room. Then as my eyes accustomed themselves to the light, I stood, as we all did, looking around me, and now I muttered in English what Frank had said in German. "My God," I said softly, staring at the figure of a man sitting as he had forty years before when he'd taken his last dying look at the world he was leaving.

  One look at him answered the question of how dry the submarine had remained; a hand still resting on the periscope housing, he sat before the housed scope on a padded leather seat, held erect by a shoulder pressed against the brass housing, head slumped on his chest, the face invisible. The hand was skeletal — an ivory-yellow claw enclosed in tight-fitting parchment, on the back of which, in dark blue and faded red, lay the tattooed and wrinkled image of the Imperial German eagle. "Kapitänleutnant Keller," Lauffnauer said gently. "He was dying, and we left him here, at his own orders. It was he who filled the ballast tanks, then sat staring through the periscope as the sub slowly sank; then he lowered the scope and sat waiting to die. And now, for him, it is only one moment later; he does not even know we lost the war."

  One at a time then we stepped over the hatch coamings, forward into the next compartment, and for a moment I was astonished — it was the only forward compartment, and we were in the torpedo room, its bulkheads covered with the moisture absorbent that Frank had described. Any submarine is complex; almost every square inch of every bulkhead is crammed with valves, or dials, levers, wheels, piping, cables, or something. Nevertheless, th
is submarine was primitive; everything we saw was crude and rudimentary by every standard we'd known. At each side of the compartment were two spare torpedoes, lashed into their racks with chains, one above the other, and they were little by comparison with those I knew — eighteen-inchers, I imagined; I'd never seen one before. Overhead, mounted on a simple trolley, hung an ordinary chain hoist, the trolley leading to the two forward torpedo tubes — the only tubes in the ship. And this whole section, the entire forward half of the ship, was hardly larger than the messroom in a World War II ordinary S-type sub. The inside of the sub seemed dry, though there was rust to be seen, but it was surface rust only. We were all grinning, happy and excited, and Frank said it for all of us. "The test, after forty years, is finished," he said. "I hardly dared hope for it, but the boat is dry." Then he glanced up at a hammock strung over the spare torpedoes at about shoulder height, walked over to it and stood looking into it.

  Then I looked too. Dressed in blues with a wide, white collar, a man lay on his back in the hammock — a boy, really; the beardless skeletal face was young, or had been. His hands lay clasped on his stomach, the eyes closed, as though he were taking a nap. Frank glanced up at us. "Rudi Koeppler," he murmured. "Still young; still seventeen."

  A man lay in the other hammock, on his side, his back to us, his knees drawn up, a rumpled blanket over his legs. "Donner," Lauffnauer said quietly. "I put that blanket there, just as it lies now — when I was fifteen years old." Frank shook his head.

  This was also the forward battery compartment, and now Linc walked ahead, then stooped to lift the hatch cover. Squatting on the deck, he stared down at the batteries, and Vic and Moreno edged past to join him. Moreno said, "Now, if they'll only take a charge," but I wasn't interested just then.

  I touched Lauffnauer's shoulder, and I said quietly, "Tell me about this, Frank." gesturing around me at the boat. "Or maybe you'd rather not," I added quickly. "Or don't remember too well."

  "No," he said gently, "it's all right, Hugh. And there is much I remember very well. But there is much also that I myself do not know." Walking forward, he beckoned, and I followed, Rosa just behind me. Edging past the others at the open battery hatch, Frank stepped up to a small steel locker and opened it. On a shelf lay three large books, bound in lead covers, and Frank glanced at the wordings on their spines. "The signal, code and log books," he said, and smiled. "We should have jettisoned them, but forgot." Then he pulled out one of the books, opened it and glanced up at me. "You wish to know all that happened here on this ship? Forty years ago? Well, let the ship's log tell you."

  Frank began speaking slowly, his eyes rapidly scanning the loose-leaf page, his forefinger following the words. "June third, nineteen eighteen," he said, and raised his eyes momentarily to add, "I remember." His eyes dropped to the page again. "We sailed from Bremerhaven at six-oh-four A.M. on an ebb tide, leaving shorthanded." Scanning the text again, he continued, "There are only nine seamen on the roster, an Unteroffizier, a Leutnant — Lieutenant j.g. — who was executive officer, and the Kapitänleutnant, which is lieutenant commander.

  "At eleven-oh-nine A.M. a destroyer is sighted in the North Sea, off the English coast; presumably it is English or American. Poor judgment," Lauffnauer murmured, "we are heading for the English Channel. We submerged to periscope depth, surfacing one hour later. Change of course. Karl Hauptmann, seaman, relieved of first watch, and confined to hammock with slight fever and headache. Ship is dry."

  Frank glanced around at us. "We did not know or even suspect this, of course, but now the ship is doomed. June fourth," he read then, "nineteen eighteen. We enter the channel, traveling surfaced, but — in the American phrase — riding the vents, ready to dive. Course remains steady all day; no sightings. Ship remains dry: Recharged at midnight," he continued from the log. "Karl Hauptmann, seaman, delirious with fever, and the captain writes, 'Ich glaube das — I believe he has grippe, and have ordered him sponged hourly until fever reduces.' And now at four P.M., Willi Strang, seaman, reports sick with headache, chills and fever. 'I expect this to spread through the crew,' writes the captain, 'and trust the first to take sick will recover before the last of them catch it.' "

  Again he turned a page, then another. "Well, we kept on," he said. "Kept a rendezvous with a Deutsche sub tender off Iceland, finally, and refueled and reprovisioned at night. The food was very poor," he said, glancing up at us. "Worse, even, than the provisions we took on in Germany. And now" — he returned to the log — "the seaman died, Hauptmann, and was buried at sea. Strang recovered. Very weak, aber — able to perform some duties. And — here it comes, now. The Unteroffizier, the chief, is sick. Has fever, but — continues his duties. 'Inspiration to men,' writes the captain. Two others are sick; one delirious, one not so bad. We are shorthanded at the refueling, and the captain of the sub tender urges our captain to return to Germany. But Keller says no; brave and foolish.

  "Here it is," Frank said quietly. "And this is new to me, for I was by now delirious with fever. For the first time the captain refers to the sickness in his ship as influenza; we are caught, he understands now, in the influenza epidemic of 1918, which is killing millions of others throughout the world. The chief has collapsed. He is carried to his hammock unconscious. We are off Newfoundland now, some distance yet from the beginning of our operation. Seaman Strang is fully recovered. The captain himself, he says, is well, but — very tired." Lauffnauer looked up. "lt is showing in his handwriting now; he is sick, too, but does not know it or will not admit it. Seamen Koeppler, Donner and Wurtz are still well. The other four are sick, and also the Leutnant; the chief is dying."

  He flipped a page. "Off Halifax, now. Four men are dead, and buried at sea. All but Strang and Donner are sick now. The others, including the captain, get up from our hammocks when we can, to go on as long as we are able, then collapsing into hammocks again." He shook his head. "I was better soon, but very weak. We ran only on the surface, helpless against any sighting; diving was too much for us." Frank pointed to the black script in the book he held. "The handwriting has changed now — it is Strang's; the captain is dictating the log.

  "He is still occasionally lucid, though, briefly able to give orders. Two more have died." He looked up. "Those we simply dumped overboard without ceremony. There was no time for anything else; we were desperate now. We were somewhere off the coast of America, but we did not know where; none of us could navigate. We were finally able to submerge to periscope depth." He nodded down at the book. "It is Strang writing the log now; the captain can no longer dictate. There are no headings, no courses, weather or anything else of the sort. The log is now only a brief, scribbled account of what is happening. At dusk, Strang writes — we had held a council, Strang, Biehler and I — we plan to move in toward shore, anchor, then row to shore in a life raft, surrender and get help for the captain.

  "But we did not." Frank closed the book. "The coast seemed inhabited, but when we paddled ashore we found the houses unoccupied and unlighted; perhaps there was a blackout. We found no one to surrender to, returned to the submarine and found the captain lucid. He was dying, but was clearheaded again, and he gave us our orders. We must escape to Germany, he said, impossible though it might seem, so that our submarine could be recovered to fight again. We were to open the flood valve in the escape hatch, so that the submarine could later be entered and raised. We must then leave immediately; he would stay aboard and submerge. We protested, but he shook his head. He was dying, we could not help him, and those were his orders. We were not to bury the others at sea or the bodies might be found. He ordered us to dress him then, and he dictated his orders into the log and signed them. Then he stood up, we saluted, he returned it, and there we left him, watching us climb out, forty years ago. We left also Koeppler and Donner, who were already dead. From our life raft, we watched the U-19 submerge, its periscope turning." For a few moments Lauffnauer was silent, his eyes moving slowly over the old sub. "Incredible," he murmured, "that I should stand here again
."

  I said, "How'd you get off the island, Frank?"

  "We entered one of the unoccupied houses and lived three days on canned food we found there, reconnoitering at night. We discovered that it was an island and that there was a public ferry leaving at night, though few people lived here. We entered a number of houses, searching for money and clothes, and found it — a little money in each of several houses and civilian clothes in abundance. We left on the ferry, walking off it on Long Island. We took the train to New York and separated. I got a job driving a team in Brooklyn." He smiled a little. "I had no draft card, and no one ever asked for one. I spoke very little English, and with a heavy German accent; no one ever even questioned this." He shrugged. "I intended to stow away on a ship for Europe, then to somehow make my way back to Germany — an impossibility, I am sure. In any case I never tried it. Each week I would say next week I will act, then suddenly the war was over, and on Armistice Day I cheered on the streets of New York with the Americans. It took me nearly four years to save passage for home; I had no passport, and I had to bribe the mate of a freighter to take me." Frank opened the logbook again and turned several pages.

  "There is only this one last entry," he said, "and it is in the captain's handwriting again, but very shaky; we had to hold the book for him." He pointed, and we crowded around to look over his shoulders. "Strang wrote out the captain's final orders, then the captain added this." There were two scribbled words I could not read, and Lauffnauer said, "They read, 'Keller, Kapitän." ' Then he swung to Moreno. "You had a large, flat crate in back of the house," he said crisply, and I suddenly knew how he'd sounded commanding his own ship. "It was about six feet by five and a foot deep."

  "I still got it," Moreno said, nodding. "I made it to store nets in."

  "Make another; I want this one. We will bury these men at sea."

  "Sure." Moreno nodded.

  We looked through the whole boat then, moving through the control room into the aft battery compartment, which contained provision lockers, a switchboard and mess gear.