by Robert Ryan
Schnee suddenly shouted. ‘Herr Kaleunt. She’s sent a message to the Irish coastguard.’
‘Did she identify herself?’
‘Sir.’
‘What’s she called?’ asked Prinz, reaching for the Lloyd’s Register.
‘The City of Hamilton, sir.’
Seventeen
THE FOOD SERVED in the City of Hamilton’s old ballroom wasn’t too bad, not by the standards the women had grown used to. Afterwards, Uli took her turn in the washroom and enjoyed the hot water while it lasted. She scrubbed her hair vigorously with the shampoo donated by one of her companions, rinsing out every last trace of the spittle from the hostile crowd at the dock gates. By the time she returned to their quarters, she almost felt happy.
Sergeant Dowler and his men came about half an hour later.
They’d been drinking. There were seven of them, their uniforms unbuttoned to reveal grey undergarments, jostling their way into the women’s sleeping area and spreading out into a semicircle. One of them held a rifle. Uli could hear commotion from all over the ship. Something awful was happening.
‘Now, now, ladies, we don’t want any trouble. Just give us what we want and we’ll be on our way.’
Uli reached across and took Hilda’s hand, pulling the shaking girl towards her.
‘How dare you!’ spat Frau Menkel.
‘Shut it, you!’ shrieked Dowler, waving a finger in her face. ‘There’s no namby-pamby officer to save you now. Here—look at this.’ He grabbed her arm and showed his companions the shining ring on her finger. ‘Do someone some real damage with that. A dangerous weapon. Have to confiscate that for the duration of the voyage.’
Uli watched as three of them wrestled a screaming Frau Menkel down while the ring was worked over her knuckle. Uli squeezed Hilda’s hand. They were men of the Pioneer Corps and it slowly dawned on Uli that they weren’t here to rape them. They were here to rob them.
‘We will have to check all these cases for suspicious objects,’ said Dowler, breathless from the tussle. ‘Then they’ll be returned to you.’
‘Common thieves,’ sobbed Frau Menkel.
It was when one of the soldiers lifted up her suitcase that Uli thought of the notebook inside. Angrily, she leapt up and made a grab for the handle, slamming her shoulder against the man. She dug her fingernails into his wrists to try and release his grip. He yelped, and the last thing she saw was the tattooed back of his hand flying towards her face.
‘Flood tubes one to four!’
‘Tubes one to four flooding.’
‘Watch your depth, Chief.’
‘Aye, sir. Bow planes up two, stern down two.’
‘Flooding complete.’
‘I want eels one and three,’ said Prinz, ‘with a three-degree spread. Have you input the magnetic variation?’
Eric had to compensate for the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field if the torpedo wasn’t to detonate prematurely. ‘Yes, Captain,’ he said.
‘Keep her steady, Chief. Range sixteen hundred metres. Open valve caps.’
‘Valve caps open.’
‘Torpedoes to run at four-zero.’ This to Erich again.
‘Aye, sir.’
Erich’s fingers hovered over the controls. He noticed with satisfaction that they weren’t shaking.
‘Fire torpedoes.’
There was a heartbeat’s pause, then a shudder in the ship.
‘Tube one fired.’
A second and a half later. ‘Tube two fired.’
‘Torpedoes running.’
Half a dozen stop watches clicked on and the red hands began sweeping towards the moment of detonation.
‘Follow my finger. There. Can you see it. Back and forth?’
Uli’s world came slowly into focus. There was a man looking down at her, a kindly man by the sound of him, bald and with a toothbrush moustache. She tried to do what he said but it hurt her eyes just to turn them. She blinked and surveyed the room.
The other women were one step back, all looking very concerned. Hilda had been crying. Frau Menkel looked nothing short of murderous.
‘I’m Doctor Moravec, Ulrike. I think you are fine. No concussion.’ He turned to the others. ‘But keep an eye on her tonight. Call me if you have any concern. I am on B deck.’ He laughed. ‘First class, of course. The purser knows where I am.’
‘What happened? Did they take my case?’ asked Uli.
‘They took all our cases,’ said Hilda.
‘We’ll get them back tomorrow,’ said Frau Menkel. There was the sound of breaking glass and laughter from somewhere outside. ‘Minus any valuables, of course.’
Uli tried to sit up. ‘What about—what about their officers?’
The doctor patted her arm. ‘Stay where you are. I think most of the officers are more scared of them than we are. I heard some of them protest but … It was like a mutiny.’ Uli suddenly looked distressed. ‘Whatever is the matter?’
Something icy had gripped Uli’s heart and she shivered. ‘Oh, God. I think something terrible is going to happen.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dr Moravec asked again, cupping a hand to her forehead. ‘Ulrike, what is it? What’s happening?’
‘Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two.’
Erich counted the seconds. Prinz had the second set of hydrophones to his ear, listening to the torpedoes run, the sound of their propellers swamping all else. A minute and fifteen seconds. A minute and a half. Two minutes. Too long. Eric saw the torpedo mate hovering in the corridor, biting his lip. Prinz threw down the headset and stormed back into the control room.
‘They’ve missed.’
Prinz looked for someone to blame, and his eyes settled on Erich. The IWO saw what was coming and said: ‘All the information was put in correctly, sir.’
Prinz knew that Becker was right. There had been rumours about dud torpedoes, but BdU had blamed everything from poor storage to incompetent crew, never the eels themselves. At twenty-five thousand marks apiece, how could they possibly be at fault?
U-40 would have to go again. The Chief read Prinz’s mind. ‘We’ll never keep up with her underwater. There isn’t much left in the cells.’
Prinz called Becker over. ‘What do you think? Was it the eels?’
‘I hear even Prien has suffered failure.’ Becker could see at once that was the wrong thing to say. Bringing up the Knight’s Cross winner at a time like this was hardly diplomatic. ‘And others. I thought they had cured it.’
‘We surface, shadow that ship throughout the night, recharging the cells, and sink her tomorrow.’ Prinz pointed at Erich. ‘I want the rest of the eels reset for impact detonation. Surface fire. Can you do that?’
‘Sir.’
Prinz slammed a fist down onto the metal chart table. ‘The City of Hamilton is not getting away.’
Cameron Ross waited until he was put through by the operator and pressed button A of the village’s only call box, which was down by the Mere. The money fell through with a hollow clatter and the line connected. ‘Father? It’s me. Cameron.’
‘What bloody time is it?’
‘Well, it’s early, dad.’ Ross looked out at a sky that was only now showing the first signs of dawn. Rabbits were skittering on the grass near the water, between the freshly excavated molehills. ‘But you’re never there these days. I wanted to be sure of catching you. Is it OK to speak on this line?’
‘Be circumspect, my boy, whichever line you are speaking on.’
‘Draper.’
‘Who?’
Ross thought he heard something in the background at the other end. Another person? His father in bed with someone? He stifled a laugh at the thought of it. ‘Draper. The man in Berlin. Imperial Chemical Industries.’
‘Yes, yes, what about him?’
‘I know what he was up to. Have you shown those figures to any naval experts?’
‘Yes, of course I have. Draper was in Kiel.’
‘Yes, I think he was at or made contact with Tor
pedoversuchsanstalt. TVA. The torpedo-research people. You yourself said he had a silly sense of humour. It was the shape of the cigar tube that was the clue—’
There was a sigh at the other end. ‘Yes, we know.’
‘What?’
‘A copy of the document went to all departments. Including a few naval chaps. They figured it out about six weeks ago.’
‘You knew and didn’t think to mention it to me?’
His father’s tone became less aggressive. ‘Point is, the information was good and bad.’
‘In what way?’
‘It suggested that the depth-gauging equipment on the torpedoes was faulty. They ran too deep. Which meant that the hulls of the target didn’t dip the magnetic primer properly—look, I shouldn’t be saying this over the phone.’
‘No, I understand. But why is that bad?’
‘Because it is absolutely no bloody use to us. What good does it do us? Don’t worry if you see torpedo wakes running straight for you, chaps, they’ll probably miss anyway? That’s scant consolation, isn’t it? And we’re certain that they’ve fixed it by now—they’ve had two years, for God’s sake. Look, we’ll do this face to face sometime in the next few days. Truth is, I might have another job for you.’
Ross felt a twinge. Would that mean losing Emma? ‘I thought this was really important.’
‘It is. You’ll have to do both. Split your time. How’s the girl?’
‘Fine. Great help. Picked up on TVA, in fact.’
‘Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to bed.’
Ross put the phone down, feeling deflated. Well, bugger him. He’d had enough. He stepped out of the box, untied Bess from the railing, and decided to take the long way back to give himself time to think.
The Pioneer Corps squaddies had woken with bad heads and foul tempers. Their haul of suitcases and bundles was stacked on the rear deck, once the games area, of the City of Hamilton. A dozen of them were going through the contents of the cases, stripping out anything that might have resale value.
‘Look at this. A whole suitcase full of books,’ said a disappointed Geordie lad.
‘What kind of books?’ asked Sergeant Dowler.
‘I dunno. German books. Look.’
A sample volume was handed across. Dowler flipped through it. The text was all so much gobbledegook to him and would have been even if it hadn’t been printed like something from medieval days. He stood and spun the book into the air, watching it disappear into the foaming wake of the ship.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ asked the Geordie. ‘Here, watch.’ He flung another volume, its delicate spine breaking and pages scattering, fluttering among the escort of gulls. ‘Damn.’
The contest lasted until the Geordie picked up a whole case and tried to heave it overboard. But it hit the flagpole and burst open, spilling clothes and letters into the water.
Dowler reached forward to the case in front of him and took the small leather notebook that rested on top of the contents. He flicked through it. It was just a diary of some sort and he arced his arm back and watched the notebook fly with the wind, bounce on the waves and disappear. ‘I win,’ he said. ‘Now. Let’s add up what we got here.’
‘Boat ready to surface, Captain.’
‘Surface her, then.’
‘Blow tanks.’
There was a deep rumble.
‘Boat surfaced. Conning-tower hatch clear.’
‘Opening hatch.’
‘Equalise pressure!’
Erich waited until the full complement were up there before asking, ‘Permission to enter bridge.’
‘Come on up.’
He climbed the aluminium ladder and emerged into the chill early-morning air, watching a sea that had the merest swell on it. All five of the watch were searching for the City of Hamilton. They’d been forced to dive when they’d seen the lights of a warship, and it had cost them precious time. ‘Well?’
‘Torpedoes ready for surface fire, sir,’ said Erich. ‘Impact primers have been checked and double-checked. They won’t fail this time.’
‘I have her,’ Becker said. ‘We’re astern, just to her port. But look. That headland.’ He pointed at a misty finger of Ireland jutting out into the sea. The City of Hamilton had been hugging the shore all night, the Captain knowing that it protected her from submarines on one flank at least. ‘She’s going to head east on a dog-leg. If we cut across her wake and run north-east, she’ll turn onto us.’
Prinz nodded. It was worth a try. ‘Get the navigator up here for a sighting. All ahead full. I want the second officer and gun crew standing by.’ He looked at Erich. ‘Just in case those eels are all rubbish.’
U-40 began to buck as she leapt forward, slicing through the green water. Prinz drummed his fingers impatiently on the metal side of the tower. They were crossing the old liner’s wake now, although the traces had long since dissipated.
‘Debris on the port bow,’ said Becker.
‘Ignore it.’
‘It’s … well, there’s clothes. Suitcases. Look. It must be from the ship.’
Prinz looked at him, irritated. ‘We’re going to be spotted soon.’
‘Let me get a crew down there to scoop it. Five minutes. It’ll help in the war diary. We’ll know what we’ve sunk.’
Prinz said reluctantly: ‘All stop. Two minutes, Becker.’
Prinz watched his quarry recede through his binoculars, seething. As soon as a few items had been caught by the nets and poles, he ordered the debris taken below and full power again. The boat vibrated along its whole length as the Chief made sure that the diesels gave all they had.
‘Think they’ve seen us?’ one of the watch asked.
‘No sign of it,’ said Prinz. ‘No zigzag, no radio. Must be keeping a terrible watch.’
‘She’s turning. I’m going down to periscope depth. Dive. Clear the bridge.’
They switched to the electrical motors for the final approach as the City of Hamilton began its turn out towards the open sea. Prinz would bring U-40 up at the last moment, revealing himself just in time for the kill.
‘Flood tubes one to four.’
‘One to four flooded.’
‘Ready to blow tanks, Chief.’
‘Ready, Captain.’
‘Depth?’
‘Six metres.’
‘Range two thousand metres. I want four torpedoes. Five-degree spread. To run at four-five.’
‘Sir.’
‘Open caps.’
‘Sir.’ It was Becker this time.
‘What?’
Prinz snapped round at his IWO. Becker was pale and shaking.
‘Torpedoes ready to run,’ said Erich, fingers poised.
‘Look, these books.’ He held up the soggy pages. ‘German. This shirt. It’s made in Saxony.’
‘Torpedoes ready to run.’
‘Ready to blow tanks.’
‘What are you saying?’ said Prinz, knowing full well what Becker was trying to communicate.
‘Everything that came in was German. There are Germans on that ship.’
‘Torpedoes ready to run.’ Erich’s throat felt scratchy. The Chief kept a hand on the blow-valve control, but said nothing.
‘Germans?’
‘Prisoners of war, probably. Being taken to Canada.’
Prinz grabbed the shirt from Becker and examined the label before throwing it to the floor. ‘It could be bluff, Becker. They might have seen us and be playing games.’
‘They might be.’ Becker thought of U-57, which had accidentally sunk one of its own U-boat tenders in bad weather.
‘Damn it, man …’ Prinz didn’t want to believe, didn’t want to lose the kill.
‘Torpedoes ready to run.’
The words hung in the air. Erich waited the recommended thirty seconds. ‘Torp—’
‘I know!’
Becker winked at Erich, telling him to stop the reminders now.
After another half-minut
e Prinz snarled: ‘Close caps. Blow tubes one to four. Right full rudder. Two-thirds ahead.’
Prinz pointed at Becker as if it were his fault that the ship contained their fellow countrymen. ‘We are not going back to Lorient with any torpedoes left on board. Get me a refuelling rendezvous now. We stay out till we have sunk ships or get sunk ourselves.’ He left the control room and they all heard the swish of the curtain being pulled across his quarters.
‘My jewellery’s gone.’
‘What about my books?’
‘Where is my case?’
The bleary-eyed soldiers had dumped the belongings into the women’s room and left, leaving them to sort out the mess. Uli, exhausted from a fitful night wrestling with unknown terrors, flipped open her brown case. The journal had gone. She felt her eyes sting.
Hilda came over when she saw her. ‘Are you all right? Something missing?’
Uli nodded, her lower lip tucked between her teeth. ‘A book.’
‘Well, absolutely everything of mine has gone—’
The tears came and Uli pulled Hilda close to her. ‘You can borrow some of my things.’
‘And mine,’ said the mousy girl.
‘See? It’ll be OK.’
‘Oh, no, it won’t.’ It was Frau Menkel, hands on hips. ‘When you have recovered, I would like you to make a list of all the items that you have lost. All of you.’
‘What’s the use?’ asked Hilda.
‘What’s the use? Well, perhaps you think this sort of behaviour is officially sanctioned. Well, I tell you, such barbarity would never be tolerated from soldiers of the Fatherland. I doubt that even the British expect their men to behave in such a way. No, we start a list of every breach of common decency.’
There was a knock at the door and it opened. ‘Uh, hello. Sorry to disturb you. My name is Baum. A few of us have been talking and we think we may be on this ship quite some time and, well, there’s not much to do to exercise the mind—’
‘Get on with it,’ snapped Frau Menkel.
‘The thing is, we’ve found one or two people who know something about Canada—its size, people and so on, and there is a lecture at three o’clock in the theatre. The captain has agreed and has said he’ll lay on tea afterwards and I just wanted to say, any of you who wish to attend are more than welcome.’
