“Gregory!” he called after an interval of about five minutes.
“Yes,” came the hoarse reply.
“You’re not scared, are you?”
“Not scared!” Gregory replied, with a semi-hysterical laugh. Tm nearly sick with fright.”
“You needn’t be, old chap. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“What d’you mean? We’re stuck here on the bottom. We’ll never see daylight again. We’re going to die here—to die—to die in the awful cold and darkness.”
“Shut up!” shouted the Russian. “Pull yourself together, man! It’s not like you to give way like this.”
“I’m sorry,” Gregory muttered thickly. “But I can’t help it, Stefan. I’ve faced death in lots of forms, and I’ve never gone to pieces like this before. It’s being boxed up. If only I could get out I If only I could get out!”
“Stop it!” came the curt rejoinder. “Because we are on the bottom we are not necessarily stuck there.”
“What the hell are you talking about? The engines have stopped and the ship wouldn’t be lying still if they had any means of getting it going again.”
“Oh yes, she might. A modern submarine takes a lot of knocking out, and that big bang wasn’t near enough to damage us seriously. The Kapitänleutnant has been too clever for the boys who were after him. He seized on the chance to pretend they had got him and deliberately went to the bottom. No doubt he released a lot of oil to make a big patch on the surface so that they’d think they’d bust us wide open and go home happy. That trick has come off lots of times before now.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I’m certain of it. There were no alarm bells or sounds of panic when we hit the sea-bed.”
“Oh, God, I hope you’re right. What d’you think they’ll do now?”
“Lie here for a bit, then go on again. She daren’t stay here in this shallow water till morning. Some of the boys who think they got her are certain to come out to have a look at the wreck. If they found her still whole they’d let her have it, and she’d never get away a second time; so she’s got to put twenty or thirty miles between herself and this place before daylight.”
Suddenly, as though in deliberate confirmation of Kuporovitch’s statement, the motors started up. Gregory could have leapt for joy, but the strain upon him had been so great that he was halfway between laughter and tears.
The submarine rocked then drew astern a little. Her nose lifted and she went ahead. Two minutes later she had flattened out and was pulsing forward with all the speed her engines could give her.
“It looks——” Gregory hesitated. “It almost looks as if we might get clean away now.”
“I see no reason why we shouldn’t,” Kuporovitch replied cheerfully. “If it’s been reported to Kronstadt that we were sunk they won’t bother with us any more. This makes the third big victory we’ve had tonight.”
“Victory!” repeated Gregory. “Have you gone crazy?”
“No. I said victory and I mean victory.”
“How the hell d’you make that out?”
“Well, first there is the promise we made to Marshal Voroshilov. You remember the terms of our agreement?”
“Yes. We were not to attempt to escape from the prison in Siberia to which he was sending us, and while we were there we were not to seek to communicate anything that we had learned from him either by word or in writing to a living soul.”
“That’s it. Well, we haven’t broken our promise so far, have we?”
“No. We made no attempt to escape. We were simply taken over by Grauber without having any say in the matter.”
“And as there is not now the remotest chance of our ever arriving at that prison in Siberia, we shall never be in a position to break the promise we made in the future; shall we?”
“You mean that our promise was binding only for so long as we were detained in a Soviet prison, and that the failure of the Marshal to detain us frees us from it?”
“I do. It is not unfair to say that part of his side of the bargain was to protect us from all future risks to life, limb and sanity for the duration. But now, through no act of our own, we find ourselves up against the Germans again; and we may yet be hard put to it to withhold his secrets from them. If we can do that, save our necks and get out of this by our own endeavours, I feel that even Clim himself would agree that we have a right to cash in on our efforts.”
“You’re right, Stefan. As a matter of fact that was the first thing that occurred to me when we were being taken off in the launch to the sub. By allowing us to fall into the hands of the enemy the Marshal forfeited his right to hold us to our promise.”
“Good! Well, that’s Victory Number One. The second was over Grauber.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Why, surely you were not so preoccupied with your own fears that we’d never make port in this thing to have failed to notice how I succeeded in playing on his nerves?”
“No. I was tickled to death to see how you got the brute rattled.”
“But you didn’t realise that it was deliberate, eh?”
“I’m afraid, Stefan, that I was very far from feeling like my usual self, so your tactics escaped me.”
“Well, it was deliberate. I realised from the start that we didn’t stand a dog’s chance as long as that single basilisk’s eye of his was on us; but I could see he was scared stiff of meeting a sticky end under the sea. I felt pretty certain that if I could play on that fear he would take any risks that there might be on shore rather than remain with us. When those bombs were dropped I got the feel of his soft corn nicely and trod on it hard. He reacted perfectly and, although he positively hated leaving us, his fear of his own skin proved too much for him.”
“No wonder you dug your toes in when I tried to get him to take us with him.”
“Yes. I don’t like being in this tin kettle myself much, but I’d a darn sight sooner be in it without Grauber than on shore with him. At least—with him and the two or three armed robots I felt sure he’d have to take along as well.”
“I don’t think it can have occurred to him, at the time, that the chaps who landed him would not be able to get back to the sub,” Gregory said, after a moment. “If it had he would probably have taken us. It didn’t occur to me either. And both he and I thought that two prisoners would be more than a match for him on his own.”
“That’s about it. Anyhow, we’re rid of him now, and I count that Victory Number Two. Number Three, of course, is the Kapitänleutnant having foxed the bombers. That was a pretty nasty risk to take, but it was better than going ashore with that blood-lusting sub-human, and if he had remained on board we would have had to face it just the same, anyhow. Now, when we do reach port we’ll at least have some sort of run for our money.”
“I think you’ve handled the situation darned well, Stefan,” Gregory admitted ungrudgingly. He was feeling much more himself now and this conversation had filled him with new hope. After all, U-boats often voyaged for many thousands of miles without coming to grief. Now that they had escaped the Soviet attack and the submarine was going full speed ahead they should, long before dawn, have passed the outer defences of Leningrad and be cruising opposite the more western part of the north coast of Esthonia, which was held by the Germans. The ship would then have the protection of the Luftwaffe and the danger of her being further attacked would be reduced to almost nil.
He felt, too, that Stefan was so absolutely right in his contention that their chances of escape would be enormously increased now that they no longer had Grauber’s basilisk eye upon them. On their arrival at the Lubianka, Colonel Gudarniev’s order that they were not to be searched had been scrupulously obeyed. It had apparently not occurred to Marshal Voroshilov to countermand it later, and Grauber, presumably believing that he had ample time before him tor such matters, had not bothered to do so either; so they still had their passports on them and a considerable sum in both Russian and English mone
y. Once they reached a port, therefore, it might well prove possible to bribe some of the ordinary guards in whose charge they were placed, or, if not then, during the long journey down to Germany through the Baltic States, which would almost certainly offer some opportunity for two resolute and resourceful men to escape.
For the first time since they had been locked up they now sat in undisturbed silence for a while, and after it had lasted for some time Gregory thought that he could hear a faint voice calling out in German.
Straining his ears, he listened intently for a few moments, then it suddenly dawned on him that the voice was coming from a cell further down the row of six, and that the calls were addressed to him.
The voice kept on repeating: “You there in number two! Who are you? What have they bunged you in for?”
He shouted back: “Number two speaking. I and my friend next door are political prisoners. We’re being taken back to Germany on the orders of the Gestapo.” His German was so excellent that he felt it quite unnecessary to add that he was an Englishman.
‘The hell you are!” the voice replied. ‘That sounds pretty bad. My mate, in cell six, and me are political prisoners too, in a way; but, praise be, the Gestapo’s not yet taken an interest in us.”
“Let’s hope they don’t then,” Gregory shouted. “But what have you been up to?”
“Suspected of Communist leanings,” answered the prisoner. “Pretty thick, I call it. Just because a snooping petty officer found us reading a copy of Karl Marx that we picked up in Tallinn. Old Bötticher’s not a bad sort, but I reckon he thought someone would split on him if he ignored it, so he threw us both in the cooler.”
“Are you interested in Communism?” Gregory asked.
“Himmel, nein! What have the Communists ever done for then-people that the Führer hasn’t? It was just curiosity, that’s all. I reckon we’ll be let off with a reprimand when we get back to Tallinn.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“Yes, at least, I suppose so. We’ve been based on there ever since von Leeb took it. Are you a Communist?”
“No, we’re not Communists, but we are anti-Hitler,” Gregory declared.
“May you rot then,” came the voice with sudden anger. “The Führer’s led us to victory, ain’t he? I don’t hold being jugged against him. It’s only the over-zealous little fellows like that snooping P.O. wot makes trouble for nothing. I don’t want to talk to the likes of you.”
Kuporovitch was on the far side of Gregory from the two other prisoners so he could not catch what the sailor had said. In the ensuing silence he asked: “Who’s that you were shouting at?”
“There are two matelots in cells five and six,” Gregory replied. “We are, apparently, in one and two, and three and four are empty. They’ve been put in the bin for reading Karl Marx, but they don’t hold with Communism. Like most of these young Germans who have been reared under Nazi influence they think, quite illogically, that Hitler is a great man, without understanding in the least that it is he who has robbed them of the right to read any book they choose, and most of their other liberties.”
“Do you think they heard what we were saying?”
“No. Not at that distance; and, if they did, they couldn’t have understood it anyway, considering that when you and I are alone we always talk together in a mixture of mangled French and English.”
They then fell silent and remained so for a little time. Gregory had just looked at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch and seen that it was now just on half past two in the morning, when suddenly the U-boat’s engines stopped.
She tilted a little, nose down, and ran on for a few hundred yards under her own way. Then she bumped, slithered and bumped again, coming gently to rest on the bottom.
“What the hell’s gone wrong now!” Gregory exclaimed apprehensively.
“Nothing,” said Kuporovitch calmly. “She went down deliberately; probably with the intention of lying doggo until some ship up above has passed us. She would be able to hear any vessel that was approaching through her hydrophones.”
Gregory was still uneasy. “She wouldn’t bother to stop for an ordinary ship,” he muttered. “She’d just go on under water. It’s much more likely that we’ve been picked up again by one of those blasted aeroplanes.”
Kuporovitch sat very still. A private theory he had just formed was now making him extremely uncomfortable. After they had first been spotted by the one stray aircraft it was to have been expected that others would arrive on the scene in a quarter of an hour or so, but it would take considerably longer for the Kronstadt anti-submarine flotilla to get under way and then catch up with them. Since the bombers had gone he had been assuming that the U-boat had been reported as accounted for and that, in consequence, the flotilla had put back to port; but now, he feared that he had been counting his chickens before they were hatched. He naturally refrained from passing on his unhappy idea to Gregory, and just sat there with his hands tightly clasped and his thumbs crossed.
And then it came.
Thump, thump, thump—thump, thump. Rumble, rumble, rumble. The anti-submarine flotilla had found them and was putting down a circle of depth charges round the approximate spot at which they had been located.
The U-boat rocked from side to side, lifted from the bottom and bumped down heavily on to it again.
Thump, thump, thump. Another series of charges had been dumped overboard somewhat further off, but their explosions had a deeper, more powerful note than the bombs had seemed to have.
Gregory had jumped to his feet, but was flung down again. “Stefan!” he cried. “Stefan! What the hell’s going on up there?”
“Sacré nom! I wish I knew,” Kuporovitch’s voice came back, tense with the strain he was feeling. “I’m afraid the anti-submarine flotilla has got on to us.”
Thump, thump—thump, thump, came the charges again; each one nearer. The last forced up the stern of the U-boat till she was at an angle of thirty degrees and as she sank back her nose rose instead. The alternating motion continued for a moment, as though she was a rocking-horse, then another explosion buffeted her sideways. Another and another forced great masses of water against her plates, each causing her to groan and shudder.
Gregory and Stefan were thrown about their cells like loose peas in two pods. Both of them were now scared half out of their wits, but they scarcely had time to think of their fears from the constant necessity of trying to keep their balance.
Suddenly, the submarine’s engines started again. Her captain had evidently decided that it was no longer any use trying to pretend that she was not there, and that she would stand a better chance of eluding her attackers if she made a dash for it.
As she lifted, her engines increased in tempo. Even the prisoners could guess that she was now being forced up to maximum speed with a minimum of delay. For a few moments she pulsed vigorously ahead. Then the destroyers were after her.
Thump, thump—thump, thump. Thump. A near miss smacked violently at her, forcing her nose ten degrees off her course. She shook as though every plate and girder in her were about to fall apart.
Complete panic had now seized Gregory. He was moaning like a child in pain, with his head buried in his hands. But the shock of the explosion flung him forward on to his knees, and only his hands saved his head from a nasty crack against the door of the cell. His knuckles were badly barked and as he drew one hand quickly back to his mouth the salt taste of blood told him that it was bleeding.
Kuporovitch was cursing solidly and unceasingly in several different languages.
The lights flickered wildly and went out, the engine stuttered; then both went on again and the U-boat forged ahead once more.
There were more thumps, more distant now, but the wash of each surged against different portions of her hull, constantly jerking her first one way then another.
A new series of louder detonations came from close ahead. The engine cut out for a second then went into reverse. As the force of
the explosions threw up her nose, down there in the cells they could feel the frightful straining of the vessel as the screws fought to check her way, stop her and draw her in the opposite direction to that in which she had been going.
Once the force of her forward motion was checked she began to turn, then suddenly, still turning, she began to forge ahead again. The last of the series of charges, which might well have got her had they continued on their former course, now helped her by jerking her nose round a few more degrees. A few moments later she had completed a semi-circle, straightened out, and, with her engines at full speed again, was heading back towards Kronstadt.
Depth charges were still being flung out somewhere astern of them but gradually the explosions grew more distant. With his hands still clasped and his teeth set Kuporovitch slowly counted five hundred, then he drew a deep breath and exclaimed, “Nom de diable! I believe he’s foxed them again!”
Sweat from Gregory’s face was now mixed with the blood on his hands. He felt as though he had been up for days on end and, during them, plumbed the depths of hell. Sagging wearily on his seat he muttered: “D’you really think so? But we’re going back towards Leningrad now, aren’t we?”
“What’s that?” shouted Kuporovitch. ‘Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
“I said——” Gregory began, but he got no further.
THUMP came a depth charge, cutting him short, and the violence of the shock caused the submarine to reel and list to such a degree that they thought she was about to turn turtle.
One of the destroyers that was hunting her had detected the Kapitänleutnant’s ruse and come racing after her at a far greater speed than hers.
THUMP … THUMP … THUMP. Three more charges exploded almost simultaneously. There was the sound of tearing steel, the fierce hiss of escaping steam, the wild clanging of alarm bells. The engines stopped and the lights went out.
Come into my Parlour Page 32
