by Luke Duffy
“I haven’t seen anyone,” Bull coughed, and called back into Taff’s face. “It’s full of smoke down there. I couldn’t see shit.”
“Over the side,” Stan suddenly yelled as the stern continued to rise. Grabbing Taff by his collar and yanking him away from Bull, Stan slung him towards the water. “Get off the boat before she sucks us down with her.”
In just a few short seconds, the water was beginning to spew over the lip of the bridge. The entire forward section of the U-boat was now completely submerged with the stern protruding high out of the water and its weight driving the bow under. Men were scrambling over the rim of the tower and dropping into the cold sea, desperately trying to swim away from the stricken vessel before they too were dragged down into the depths.
Stan jumped and felt the cold water envelop his body and assault every nerve ending like a thousand knives stabbing at him. For a few seconds, he was unable to take in a breath as the shock caused his lungs to clamp shut. He kicked with all of his strength, headed away from the submarine that was now towering above him, its stern almost vertical out of the water, and its large propellers still slowly turning. There were a number of others around him, all calling out to one another for help in confused and terrified voices.
With a loud growl, the Type-XXI U-boat plummeted downwards. The conning tower disappeared beneath the waves, throwing up jets of water and thundering bubbles as the air was forced out of the hull. The stern hovered for a moment and swayed slightly as though waving goodbye to the men in the water. Suddenly, she was sent hurtling downwards and rushing into the sea. Within seconds she had vanished amongst the churning water, and the only thing left in sight was a number of splashing and shouting bodies.
Stan was struggling to stay afloat, kicking hard, and thrashing with his arms. His equipment was dragging him under. The weight of his weapons and waterlogged clothing and harness were threatening to drown him. With a great deal of effort and while trying to keep his head above the water, he unclipped his assault vest and removed his jacket. The only thing he had left now was his pistol, and he was determined to hold on to it.
Already the number of bobbing heads and thrashing arms around him had decreased. It had only been a few minutes since the U-boat had tumbled towards the seabed, but men were quickly being overcome by the cold and exhaustion. He needed to find something to help him stay afloat. He turned his body through three-hundred and sixty degrees, desperately searching for anything that he could use.
Something caught his eye and he stopped. Fifty metres away he saw a large, bright orange shape drifting over the water. It was a life raft. He was unsure of how it had got there but it did not matter. Men were already on board and more were making their way across to it, calling out to the men inside to save them. Stan began to swim.
It seemed to take him forever to reach the raft. As he drew closer, clawing at the sea and gasping for air while choking on the salt water that splashed over his face, voices called out to him. More waves sloshed across his vision, making the raft disappear for a moment and then reappear on top of the next swell. He could see the blurred shapes of men reaching out towards him and calling his name, but he was unable to get to them.
He splashed about, his nerve damaged right arm virtually useless to him and his energy spent. He coughed and wretched, his lungs convulsing as they were swamped with the water that he inadvertently inhaled as he fought for air. There was a heavy splash close by to him, and a set of powerful arms wrapped themselves around his torso, flipping him on to his back as his rescuer began to haul him towards the raft.
Bull and Taff lifted him onto the inflatable dingy, and he dropped against the rounded side, bouncing against the air-filled rubber. He turned himself over and began to vomit, spewing out almost a litre of sea water that then sloshed around in the bottom of their flimsy boat. Exhausted, Stan rolled onto his back and wiped his hand over his face while the men in the raft stared back at him. He recognised Bull, Taff, Richard, and then the veteran as he hauled himself back in from the sea. It was Kyle who had dropped into the water to save him. There were three other men in the raft, but Stan did not know them. They were all that remained of the crew of the U-boat.
“Is there anyone else left?” Stan wheezed. “What about Gerry?”
Taff shook his head.
“Werner?”
“The last I saw of him, he was headed back in through the bridge hatch,” Kyle replied. “I think he went down with his boat.”
Stan nodded. The captain had probably been trying to save his crew, hauling them up through the control room hatch, and searching for anyone who remained unaccounted for. There was another possible reason, Stan considered. Werner had been an old school type of captain and it may have been a conscious decision of his to remain with his ship.
“What the fuck happened?” Bull grumbled. “One minute we were fine and dry, and the next the sub gets ripped from under our arses.”
“I don’t know,” Stan replied, shaking his head. “But those precious fucking launch codes went down with her, at least.”
“An explosion in one of the forward compartments,” one of the surviving sailors informed them. He was sitting huddled close to the side of the raft and staring out at the spot where the boat had gone down. “Not sure what caused it, but it tore a hole in the pressure hull and there was no way of plugging it. We tried sealing the bulkhead, but there was just too much weight in the bow.”
“How far are we from land?” Kyle asked.
“About ten miles, I think,” Taff replied and pointed over towards the east.
They could see the thin, dark line of the coast above the surface of the sea. It looked far away, further than what Taff had estimated it as, but they could not be sure. Distances over water were always hard to judge.
Kyle pulled the four paddles loose from their fastenings on the side of the raft and handed them to Taff and two of the sailors. Without any further debate, the four of them began to row, headed for the land that they could see on the horizon. Nobody felt the need to say it, but they all knew that it was paramount that they reached dry land before nightfall. They were already shaking uncontrollably from the cold, and by morning they would all be dead from hypothermia.
For hours they rowed with all the strength they could muster. They took it in turns, while the men without paddles sat huddled together, shivering, and eagerly awaiting their turn to row again in the hope of warming up. However, it made no difference. Even the men that were slamming their ores into the water remained close to freezing.
Richard was suffering the most. He had quickly lost all feeling in his limbs, and his nose and lips had turned blue as cyanosis took hold. His body was cutting off the blood supply to his extremities in order to keep his internal organs warm. Stan and Bull placed him between them and rubbed his arms and legs continuously for over an hour to help warm him up and increase his blood circulation. However, and despite their efforts, Richard eventually became incoherent. He was mumbling to himself and oblivious to what was happening around him as the raft slowly and painfully made its way towards the shore.
“Row,” Taff shouted to the others as he watched another of his friends slipping away from him. “Faster. Fucking row.”
Taff and the others battered their ores against the water, dragging the raft through the cold sea at a speed that defied its organic propulsion system. If they could get to the shore and find shelter, they could make a fire and help warm Richard back to life before it was too late. Unfortunately, just one look at the old man, and a glance at the distance that they needed to cover, was enough to tell them that they would not make it in time. With less than a mile to go, Richard’s breath gave out.
All of them were in a bad way. They could not control their shaking bodies, and their speech was beginning to become slurred and unintelligible. It took a great deal of energy and coordination for Stan to fire a bullet through Richard’s forehead and then heave him over the side of the raft. A burial at sea was th
e best that they could offer the old man, but they all knew that it was better than most people could expect now.
The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon by the time they reached the shore. The temperature was steadily dropping, and their condition was worsening. Another of their group, one of the crew from Werner’s boat, was quickly being overcome by the effects of exposure. The young sailor needed to be dragged out of the raft and onto the beach having lost all use of his arms and legs.
There, the group flopped onto the beach. Compared to the water in the raft that sucked at their body heat, the sand seemed warm. The men dug their numbed finger deep into the ground in an attempt to kick-start the circulation and allow them to function again. They moaned and groaned under their breath at the pain in their fingers as the blood slowly began to flood back into them. For a long while they remained in the sand, coating themselves in the fine crystals, and rolling in the relative warmth.
After a while, still dithering from the early stages of hypothermia, the men huddled together and checked on their current condition and capabilities. None of them had managed to hold on to their primary weapons, and only Taff and Stan were still armed with pistols. Between them, they had just three magazines.
“Fucking brilliant,” Bull lamented in a hoarse and slurred whisper. “Shall we use swear words and insults as a back-up?”
“I’d say we’re well and truly in the shit,” Taff grunted as he looked down at their pathetic arsenal.
“The cold is the biggest threat, right now,” Stan reminded them.
For a few long minutes, they all remained huddled together, clutching their bodies tightly in their own arms as they willed themselves to warm up.
“Does anyone have an idea of where we are?” Kyle asked, his teeth chattering together, as he looked around at the darkening landscape.
No one answered. Each of them looked to one another, expectantly. Not even the surviving crew members knew exactly where they had been when the boat had gone down. All they knew was that they were in the Irish Sea, headed north.
“I think we’re in Wales,” Stan concluded after thinking for a moment and trying to remember what he had seen and heard on the bridge. “We cleared Land’s End and the Bristol Channel and were headed north for quite a while, so I’m guessing Wales.”
“Wales? Fuck me, we’re in for it now, boys,” Kyle groaned, folding his arms across his chest in an attempt to conserve what little body heat he had left. “Hills and fucking rain; we’ll never get warm now.”
23
The fever was burning rapidly through her body. She quivered uncontrollably while her brow and clothing became sodden with a cold sweat. Her mind was perpetually spinning as it tumbled endlessly between reality and delirium. The injury in Melanie’s side throbbed, pulsing with each beat of her heart, and the flesh around the site had become inflamed and red, the veins and capillaries visible beneath the skin as they branched off in all directions from the festering wound. She had done her best to clean it out and keep it covered, but it was clearly infected. She had become weak and sick, her eyes glittering and her skin flushing. During her less frequent moments of clarity while sitting in the wreckage of the downed helicopter, she wondered how much longer she could hold out.
The dead were swarming the outer walls of the building, clawing at the brickwork and the shattered windows. Thankfully, they could not scale the walls and climb in through the glassless frames and had to contend with tormenting Melanie with their haunting moans. The doors banged and rattled ceaselessly as they hammered away, a thousand voices wailing their frustration and yearning. With the windows broken, the cold air and the cries of the infected whistled through the trashed restaurant. The terrible and nauseating stink of their rotting bodies drifted through the air, seeking out living senses, and seizing them with a mixture of terror and revulsion.
For days the young helicopter pilot had clung to hope, but it steadily faded with each passing hour, and despair eagerly filled the void. The longer she was left stranded, the more resigned to her fate she became. She had run out of what little food and water she had, and with the infection spreading through her body while the dead pressed in against the walls and doors, she lost faith. She had been forgotten by the people she had trusted. They had abandoned her, writing her off as just another statistic in the war against the dead.
“Samantha, you bitch,” she cursed under her breath.
She sat staring out through the smashed windscreen in the cockpit and into the deep blackness all around her. The skies above the ruined roof had remained devoid of the mechanical sounds of helicopters and planes searching for her crash site. In their place, the endless moans of the dead filled the air. The hum of their unified voices haunted her every breath. They were always there and would never leave until they had taken what they wanted from her. She closed her eyes and placed her hands over her ears, attempting to blot out the lingering and terrifying sound of the swarming dead.
Her pistol remained sitting in her lap. For hours at a time, she sat staring at it and contemplating using it on herself before she became too weak to do so. It had become her only friend within a city of death. She glanced to her right and saw the faint grey mound on the floor beside the cockpit. Mike’s body remained where she had placed it, laid out on the debris strewn floor, and covered with a white tablecloth.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a breaking voice.
She looked back down at the gun in her lap and stroked a finger across its barrel. She did not want to die, but given the choice between a bullet through her brain or the dead stripping the flesh from her bones, she would choose the quickest and least painful of the two. With the condition that she was in, it would not be long before she needed to do what was necessary. She knew all too well that if she died from the infection, then she would reanimate, and the thought of her corpse being trapped inside the restaurant, stumbling around in the darkness for all time, caused a despairing whimper to slip from her mouth.
It would be daylight soon, she thought as she looked up through the cracked bubble of the cockpit. A part of her wanted to hold on and see what the new day would bring while the rest of her mind urged her to get it over with. Optimism had been something that had always prevailed in her throughout her entire life, regardless of the situation or the odds stacked against her. Looking back down at the pistol, she decided that she would hold out for as long as she could, hoping that she would recognise the time to do otherwise when it arrived. With her body shivering uncontrollably while her head throbbed, Melanie pulled the blanket higher and tucked it beneath her chin. Fading in and out of consciousness as dreams became confused with reality, she remained that way for a number of hours.
The bright light of morning pouring in through the hole in the roof hurt her eyes. She squinted and shielded her face with her hand as dazzling white spots danced across her vision. She checked her watch and cursed.
“Shit, I’m late.”
The words were barely able to form in her swollen throat. She was dehydrated, and the infection had spread further. However, and at that moment, Melanie was unaware of where she was or the condition she was in. She shifted in her seat and glanced around her. She felt confused and could not make sense of what she saw. She expected to be greeted with the familiar surroundings of her bedroom and see her cat curled up at the foot of her bed, purring and stretching as it waited patiently for its breakfast.
Instead, she saw a collage of ruin. The smashed cockpit around her completely unrecognisable, and the memory of the crash unable to fight its way through her mind from the fog of confusion. The harsh brightness of the sky began to fade, and she was able to see more clearly without being blinded. Her eyes had become extremely sensitive to the light, and her head throbbed with its harshness. After a while, the memories of the events over the previous days returned to her, assaulting her thoughts like a hammer blow. She slumped heavily into her seat and began to cry.
As she sobbed, she became aware of som
ething other than the daylight streaming into the ruins of the Chinese restaurant. All of a sudden, there was noise all around her, more so than she had become accustomed to. The beating of rotted hands against the doors continued, but there was something else, too. It took her a while to realise it, but when she did her heart skipped a number of beats, and her swollen throat clenched up completely. Amongst the incessant moans and cries of the dead, there was the sound of cracking timber and heavy objects being toppled. She turned her head to the left and right, but the room was empty. None of the infected were inside. However, it was clear to her that something was creating the noise, and she was sure that it was not her imagination. Fear began to grip her, and she reached down for her gun, pushing her thumb over the safety catch as she held it in her shaking hands. She continued to turn her head, looking for the source of the noise. It sounded as though some of the walls were being knocked down, and heavy equipment was being dragged along the floor.
Then she looked up. A flurry of hope surged through her body. She leaned further forward and turned her face towards the bright blue sky above. She could hear the thuds of footsteps and bodies, and objects being shifted around. It seemed to be coming from above her. She was filled with a renewed energy as she pictured living people upon the roof, searching for a way down to her.
“Here,” she called out in a breaking voice that hurt her immensely. “I’m down here. Please, I’m down here.”
Ignoring the pain in her side and the dizziness that threatened to send her toppling over, she climbed out from the pilot’s seat and scrambled through the doorway of the helicopter. As she attempted to negotiate her way down onto the floor of the restaurant, she tripped and landed heavily on the debris covered ground, her head coming to rest on the body of her co-pilot beneath the sheet. The agony of the fall flashed through her body and into her brain, causing her to yelp. Instinctively, she pulled away from Mike’s cold and stiff corpse, grimacing with pain and revulsion.
