Between The Hunters And The Hunted

by Steven Wilson

  Doenitz watched Raeder relax.

  “Good, good,” the grand admiral said. “Very good, indeed. We wait now. Eh, Admiral?”

  “Yes,” Doenitz said, scanning the plotting table. “It is out of our hands. We wait.”

  Wait. For Doenitz it meant one of two outcomes. Complete success—Sea Lion would sink Prince of Wales and his U-boats slaughter the Home Fleet. Or, Sea Lion would fail in her mission and his U-boats succeed. Wait. Wait for Raeder to fail; wait for the opportunities that would come to Doenitz when he did.

  Chapter 25

  The North Atlantic

  Cole vomited over the side of the life raft. When he was finished he wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his hand and then washed his hand in the cold water.

  Johnny sat at the other end of the raft, watching him. “You can’t have anything left, King.”

  “I felt my toenails come up that time,” Cole said. He was ashamed to admit it but he was seasick. He thought at first that it was because of the mouthful of water that he’d swallowed, but decided that wasn’t it. He was seasick. Hell of a condition for a sailor.

  The little raft had been bobbing up and down in the rolling swells of the North Atlantic for over twenty hours. The weather had been fair, a slight breeze under a pale blue sky dotted with wispy clouds. Johnny and Cole had congratulated themselves on their good fortune. What Cole thought but did not say, and what he knew the gunner must be thinking as well, was that the North Atlantic was fickle; she would just as soon suffer a storm as not. If the weather changed for the worst, even if that worst were nothing more than heavier seas and a respectable wind, chances of survival for Cole and the gunner dropped significantly.

  Cole laughed at himself—chances of survival dropped significantly. You sound like you’re lecturing a bunch of freshmen. Analyze, synthesize, and interpret the facts. That’s what he used to tell his students: read and consider. He looked at the endless sky. He read a pleasant day in a tiny rubber craft on a huge ocean. He read the chances of being found as slight, perhaps nonexistent. You should be scared, he told himself. He glanced at his companion. Johnny was asleep.

  You should at least be scared, you dumb son of a bitch. But that was the irony of the situation. He was cold, miserable, and if he had anything left in his stomach he’d throw that up as well, and that was all he felt. He remembered everything that happened just before N-for-Nancy crashed and he knew how frightened he was then—he knew it but the feeling was long gone. What he did remember was telescoped into some sort of fractured image that, if he were asked to describe it, would come out disjointed and incoherent. Not a telescope—a kaleidoscope.

  Analyze and synthesize. He decided that the classroom was hardly the place to learn.

  “If they could only see me now,” Cole said, chuckling.

  “King?”

  Johnny was awake and looking at him questioningly.

  “I was thinking about my students. I just wondered what my students would think if they could see me now.”

  “They’d have to be in another dinghy, wouldn’t they? They’d have enough to keep them busy. How are you feeling?”

  Cole cupped some water in his hand and splashed it on his face. “Like hell.”

  “I had a refreshing nap.”

  “I saw that.”

  “I can sleep anywhere, anytime,” Johnny said. “I used to sleep on the Underground. You’d think a bloke would find that bloody well impossible, wouldn’t you? Not me. Slept like a baby, I did. Got on at Hobb’s End, rode to Victoria Station. Slept from one end to the other.”

  “What’d you do before the war?” Cole said.

  “Mechanic. Kept the trains running. The war comes and I thinks, ‘Well, that’s it for you, Johnny. You’ve got a nice cushy job keeping the trains running. They’ll not touch you.’ So I’m called up right off. And then I told myself, ‘They’ve got to keep you some place safe working on engines, now, don’t they?’”

  Cole laughed. “So they made you a gunner.”

  “Bloody bastards. Never been near a gun in my life. You?”

  “Teacher. College.”

  “Took you for an educated man right off. What’d you teach?”

  “American history. Government.”

  “Make a right good living, then?”

  “You don’t know anything about teachers, do you?”

  “I knew to keep on their good side. Had my ears cuffed more than once. Got out of school first chance I got. Still, sounds cushy. Never got your hands dirty, I suspect.”

  Cole noticed something over Johnny’s shoulder.

  “What is it?” the gunner said, turning around.

  “I thought I saw something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Here,” Johnny said, tossing Cole one of the small plastic paddles. “Let’s get on top of a wave. We can see from there.”

  Cole felt the paddle bite reassuringly into the water as he and Johnny worked to guide the raft to the crest of a swell. He tried to envision what he’d seen. It was very far away, sitting on the horizon; narrow, very narrow. It could have been a ship, a small ship. Maybe it was nothing. The sun was getting higher in the sky and its rays created a glare off the water. At least they were doing something to help themselves.

  Johnny pulled the flare gun and a flare out of their waterproof pouch. He snapped open the breech and dropped the thick cartridge into the barrel.

  They cleared a swell and sat briefly on the crest. Cole searched for the ship; it had to be a ship of some kind. There it was.

  “There!” Cole shouted. “Over there.” Suddenly he heard a pop and then a loud whoosh as the flare shot high into the sky, followed by a thin trail of brown smoke. Cole and Johnny watched it make its wobbly ascent and then begin its slow fall.

  The raft slid down into a wave trough, blinding them, and they came up again, the ocean taunting them first with a glimpse of the faraway ship, and then by denying it to them.

  “Over there,” Johnny shouted, pointing across the waves. “It is a ship. They’d bloody well better come here and take us in.”

  “Is she turning?” Cole asked. “I can’t tell if she sees us.”

  Johnny shot another flare into the sky. “Come on, you bloody, blind bastards. We’re over here.”

  A wave cut off their view.

  It was a ship all right. Not a big one, Cole decided. A destroyer or maybe a corvette. It had to be a destroyer; they were too far out for a corvette.

  “They’re searching for us,” Cole said. “Prentice got his message off. That’s a destroyer. I’m sure of it. Probably from a convoy.”

  They rode to a crest again. There was no doubt of it now; the destroyer was closing on them.

  Johnny slumped back against the soft rubber wall of the raft. He looked at his watch, tapped the crystal, held it to his ear, and then shrugged. “Gone,” he said. “A perfectly good two-quid watch rendered absolutely useless.”

  “It’s a small price to pay,” Cole said.

  “I wish the other chaps had made it. I’m going to miss them terribly. It just won’t be the same without them. I’m feeling a bit guilty. I mean them having bought it and me alive.”

  “What did you tell me?” Cole said. “Something about not looking back. There’s nothing that you can do, Johnny. I guess just be glad you’re alive.”

  H.M.S. Firedancer

  Hardy lowered the binoculars and turned to Land. “Number One, assemble a party to help those men aboard. Too choppy for a ship’s boat to retrieve them. I’m sure they’ll need treatment of some kind or another, so see to that as well.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Land?” Hardy added. “I don’t fancy stopping long in U-boat country, so have the men snap to.” Hardy resumed his watch, picking out the bobbing life raft in the rolling swells.

  Number One rejoined Hardy on the bridge. “All set, sir. I’ve detailed a party on either side of the ship. That will leave us free
to approach from port or starboard.”

  Hardy looked at his number one in appreciation. “Well done, Number One. That’s thinking, all right. You might find yourself on Prometheus one of these days with initiative like that.”

  “No, thank you, sir,” Land said. “I prefer Firedancer.”

  “That answer has considerably reduced my confidence in you, Number One. Let us go and fetch those poor bastards out of the water.”

  Her hull was scarred and rusted and her numbers were nearly invisible, bleached by the harsh sun and scouring salt spray of the North Atlantic, but to Cole the British destroyer looked as large and imposing as a battleship. When the ship was close enough he saw a party of sailors lining her deck, ropes in hand, waving at the raft. He had never seen sailors of the Royal Navy at sea before and he was amazed at their dress—they were wearing castoffs of every description, except for the two officers standing by the men of course. They were properly dressed. If any American sailor had reported for duty looking like this crew, he would have been tossed into the brig.

  But he didn’t really care. They had come to rescue him and as far as he was concerned, they could have been dressed like the Rockettes and the ship could have been the Staten Island Ferry.

  “I hope they don’t run us down,” Johnny said. “Wouldn’t that be just the proper end to this disaster?”

  “She’s doing fine,” Cole said appreciatively. Her captain, whoever he was and whoever she was, worked her steering and engines masterfully.

  When the ship was close enough, Cole saw ropes shoot lazily into the air, uncoiling against the pale sky. He caught a line as Johnny pulled one out of the water next to the raft.

  “Pull yourselves in, can you?” a faint voice asked from the ship. “Or shall we come and get you?”

  Cole waved off the second question as Johnny and he began to pull. When they were close enough to the vessel Cole realized that it was going to be tricky getting aboard. The sea was moderate and the swells unimposing when the life raft was on her own. But when she got close to the destroyer, there was a fair chance that she would be thrown against the hull and ripped to pieces by the barnacles that ran along the ship’s side. There was a good chance as well that Johnny and he could be seriously injured.

  “You chaps need to leave the dinghy,” an officer shouted through a voice trumpet. “Hang on to the ropes and we’ll pull you in.”

  “Well, that’s that, then,” Johnny said, stripping off his flying suit. “In we go.”

  Cole did the same. He felt confident enough pulling his own weight up the ropes, but the thought of a bulky flying suit saturated with water concerned him. Still, it would offer quite a bit of padding if he ended up slamming into the hull.

  “Hang on tight,” the officer called. “We are going to pull you up now. Mind the hull, will you? We don’t want you injured.”

  “Who’s he kidding?” Cole said as he and Johnny slipped into the icy water. He wrapped the rope firmly around his hands and immediately felt the line tighten. There were two brawny sailors on each rope, pulling away in unison. The rolling destroyer began to fill his vision as he glided through the water. He tried to keep his head up; one mouthful of the North Atlantic was plenty. They were several feet from the rust-stained hull when the sea tried one last time to kill them.

  A burst of wind caught the destroyer’s bow and drove it to port while a stiff wave caught them from behind and threw them against the hull. Cole felt it happen; felt the waves grab him and throw him at the ship, so he pulled his legs up, bending his knees, and landed against the hull with the balls of his feet. His legs took the force of the wave and other than the impact on his feet, he was uninjured. He heard Johnny cry out.

  Cole twisted on his rope to see Johnny’s deathly white face.

  “I’ve broken my bloody hip,” the gunner gasped. “All of this just to end up a cripple.”

  “He’s been hurt,” Cole shouted to the men above him. All he could see were their heads peering anxiously over the side.

  “Can you tie him off?” the officer called through the voice trumpet.

  “Yeah,” Cole said, making his way to Johnny. “Give me a minute.”

  “Do you need a hand?”

  Cole didn’t answer. He had the rope looped under Johnny’s arms and tightly knotted in a matter of seconds. He knew that he had to work quickly; he was losing the feeling in his hands from the icy water. Finally, he gave a thumbs-up and shouted: “Okay.”

  Cole watched Johnny magically rise out of the water as the sailors pulled him up. He felt his rope grow taut and he walked up the side of the vessel as he was hoisted aboard. A dozen hands grasped him and lifted him over the cables and stays. When they set him down Cole was amazed to find how unsteady he was.

  He looked over to find Johnny on a stretcher, unconscious, being examined by a sailor that Cole could only hope was a corpsman. “Is he okay?” he asked.

  “Banged up a bit, I’m afraid,” the sailor said, examining Johnny. He pushed the gunner’s damp hair off his forehead. “Nasty bump here. Broke his leg, I suspect. Don’t you worry, sir. He’s in good hands now. Wouldn’t hurt a bit for you to get out of those wet clothes and get a spot of rum.”

  “What is this ship?” Cole asked.

  “H.M.S. Firedancer,” the pitifully young officer with the voice trumpet announced with dignity. “Captain George Hardy, commanding.”

  “My compliments to Captain Hardy,” Cole said as a sailor threw a musty-smelling blanket over his shoulders. “My thanks as well.”

  Cole was startled at the flat crack of a rifle. A seaman, his cap pushed back off his forehead, carefully aimed an Enfield over the side. Cole followed the line of the weapon and realized what the sailor was shooting at. The life raft. It could not be left floating about the ocean—it was decreed a hazard to navigation once it was abandoned. There was another report and a small column of water jumped into the air near the edge of the raft. It looked as if the man had completely missed his target, but it was only an illusion. Cole watched as the raft slowly lost form and seawater rushed into the interior over the deflating walls.

  He felt a twinge of regret as the sea consumed the little craft that had given him life. It had been part of N-for-Nancy and now it too was going to disappear into the depths. He was alive, he remembered, and in war that was the ultimate triumph.

  “Come along, sir,” the sailor said. “We’ll have you fit in no time.”

  Chapter 26

  D.K.M. Sea Lion, Quadrant JK 54, the North Atlantic

  Mahlberg leaned over the chart, resting his hands on the chart table. He studied the calculations generated by his navigation officer—neatly written letters and numbers that nearly filled one page of the navigation log. He compared those to the course settings on the chart for Sea Lion and Prince of Wales while his officers waited.

  The log was a history of the movements of the two ships, a record of a closely followed chess game in which each action was dutifully recorded. Time, speed, course; knight to bishop one, check … checkmate. Mahlberg straightened and accepted the numbers with a sharp nod.

  “Just over three hours,” he confirmed, glancing at the navigation officer for a response. He wanted the officer to answer the statement. He wanted the calculations to be sure and without error and he wanted the navigation officer’s answer to be strong and unhesitant.

  “Yes, sir. Three hours.”

  Mahlberg turned to Kadow, who had been watching the drama from the other end of the table. “Three hours and Prince of Wales is ours.”

  “And the Home Fleet belongs to the submariners,” Kadow said.

  “Cheer up, old friend,” Mahlberg said. “If we’ve done quickly with Prince of Wales we can turn and take on the Home Fleet as well.” He saw that the idea troubled Kadow. It was apparent that his first officer was uncertain if Mahlberg was jesting.

  “Of course,” Kadow said, keeping his opinion to himself.

  “You don’t think it beyond us, do you?
Pick up a load of fuel on the way to the party and show those U-boats what high-seas action really is.”

  “We had not planned for that. We have no instructions regarding the Home Fleet.”

  “Nor had we planned to encounter that British cruiser so early in the voyage. We did and we are still on schedule. We simply radio Group North with our intentions and location and have a tanker meet us.” He turned to his navigation officer. “There are two tankers, about here,” he said, tapping the chart. “Am I correct?”

  The navigation officer nodded. “Yes, sir. At last reports, undetected. I can contact them and arrange a rendezvous if you so order, sir.”

  “Don’t be premature,” Kadow reprimanded the navigation officer.

  Mahlberg smiled. “Don’t tell me that you’ve grown cautious, Kadow. Between Frey’s guns and Sea Lion’s speed we can accomplish our mission and still give the Home Fleet a bloody nose.”

  “I was not being cautious,” Kadow said, obviously stung by Mahlberg’s comment.

  “‘But’?” Mahlberg said, foreseeing Kadow’s concern.

  “I do not wish to see us overextended. If we sink Prince of Wales and kill the prime minister of England with his staff, we have accomplished a great victory for the Fatherland.”

  “‘Patriae inserviendo consumor,’” Mahlberg said.

  “‘I am consumed in the service of the Fatherland, ’” a young Leutnant zur See said proudly. “ Von Bismarck.”

  “And so it shall be,” Mahlberg said. “It does no harm to consider the other options that may be open to us. Especially if those options include dealing the British an even greater blow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kadow said.

  Mahlberg smiled graciously and clapped his hands together with satisfaction. “Now, gentlemen, let us double the lookouts and put our best men on radar and hydrophones.”

  “Kriegsmarschustand One, sir?” Kadow asked. The others in the chart room did not miss his formal tone.

  “No,” Mahlberg said. “I think that we can remain at Battle Station Two for a while. Let’s not excite the men just yet. There will be excitement enough to go around in a short time.”