by Homer Hickam
When Queenie returned to her bedroom, her mister, whose Christian name was Fred but went by the name of Buckets, asked her what was the matter. He had to ask her since she stood beside their bed and kept sighing and clearing her throat and nudging the edge of the mattress with her knee and leaning over and blowing on his eyelids until he was awake. “Josh Thurlow,” she said, and her tone was doleful.
“What about him? Did he forget to pay the rent?”
“No. He’s downstairs in the sand, blaming himself for losing little Jacob and who knows what else.”
Buckets rubbed his eyes and yawned. He searched his wife’s face. “Did he tell you that?”
Queenie regretted that she didn’t have a woman to talk to, but a husband sometimes has to suffice at two o’clock in the morning. “No, he didn’t tell me that. He didn’t have to. Why else would he be standing outside looking up at the stars?”
Buckets gave it some thought and came up with an answer he considered might be helpful. “Coast Guard officers have to look at the stars a lot. They help them figure out where they are.”
Queenie, however, was not impressed by her husband’s explanation. “Josh was born on Killakeet Island. I guess he pretty much knows where he is.”
Buckets yawned and thought it was all very sad but he didn’t see how Josh Thurlow’s problems were any of his business. “Are you coming back to bed?”
Queenie climbed back under the covers and lay on her back and listened to the wind hissing and the grumble of the endless surf. She heard the front door open and close, then Josh’s slow footsteps on the stairs. “Poor man,” she said. “What he needs is a wife.”
Buckets’s eyes flew open. “What good would a wife do him?” he demanded.
“Well, for one thing, she’d think up things for him to do.”
“Wives are good for that, for sartain,” Buckets readily acknowledged.
“Josh needs a wife and I guess it’s up to me to find him one,” Queenie said with conviction.
Buckets was pretty much awake now. His arm slid over. “Stop it, Mr. O’Neal.”
“I need a wife, too.”
Queenie resisted for a moment, then scooted in close. “Well, I guess we might find you one.”
Buckets smiled. There was nothing like seeing a lonely, tortured man to put a woman in the mood for romance.
3
The U-560 was a miserable, stinking, and nasty submarine. It was miserable because it was damp and cold, its crew never dry and never warm unless they could think of an excuse to be in the engine room when the big engines were running, which was miserable in its own manner because of the deafening noise. The boat was stinking and nasty because it smelled of diesel fuel and wet leather and hot batteries and dead cockroaches and moldy clothes and men who’d gone too long without a bath. At any time, a portion of the thirty-two-man crew were sick in their guts from the rotten food. As a result, the only water closet that worked was in constant use with nothing save filthy rags to wipe themselves off. For those who couldn’t wait, open cans were liberally used, adding to the odorous squalor.
Despite the misery and the stink, the U-560 was a brave and proud submarine. Its commander, Kapitänleutnant Otto von Krebs, was famous throughout the fleet for having Fingerspitzengefühl—the sure touch. Krebs was a master at sinking ships, which was, of course, the only reason the U-560 existed. Its crew were mostly experienced men. For two years, they had toiled and sweated under Krebs’s command, dedicated to finding and destroying every enemy ship they could find.
The second-in-command of the U-560 was Leutnant Max Hodel. Max Hodel, or “Leutnant Max,” as the boys called him, did not have the sure touch, nor did he want it. He wanted only to get the hatch open and smell fresh air, and especially feel the sun on his skin. The lack of sunlight had made Max’s skin thin and wrinkled, like the skim on sour milk. Hurry up, Max willed the Chief, who was handling the buoyancy controls after Krebs’s order to surface. Hurry up before I suffocate, damn you!
As always, Captain Krebs seemed unfazed by the misery and the stink around him. He eagerly peered through the eyepiece of the attack periscope, waiting for its lens to break the surface. “When we’re up,” he said, “you boys get the hatch open in a hurry. I think the Chief just farted!”
Although everyone else in the tower laughed, Max didn’t. Instead, he studied Krebs for, he supposed, about the millionth time since he’d served with him. For the son of an aristocratic Junker, there was little about him that was immediately impressive. During patrols, he usually kept his brownish red beard untrimmed and Max often had to remind him to get his hair cut. Except for his white cap, he wore nothing to indicate his rank. He tended toward the unkempt with his bulky gray sweaters and baggy leather pants and sloppy sea boots. Nothing in his posture indicated he was a leader. The expression on his face was kindly and inquisitive, like one might expect from a slightly silly headmaster, and his eyes drooped like an old dachshund’s. He rarely raised his voice, and he was quick to laugh. He was also quite the egalitarian, insisting that the “von” in his name be dropped when being addressed. “In a U-boat, Max,” he had explained, “it’s quite enough to be an officer. As it is, we are looked upon by our boys with some awe. No reason to raise the stakes even higher, eh?” He’d winked when he’d said that.
Though he was not an impressive man physically, Krebs exuded an intense, unrepressed excitement that was contagious when he was on the hunt. He was like a small boy at a shooting gallery, trying to show off to the crowd. Soon, everybody was cheering him on. There was something else undeniable about Krebs. He had an innate ability to survive and to get his U-boat through all the hell His Majesty’s Royal Navy kept throwing their way.
Max and the crew were nearly spent. Even the U-560 seemed exhausted with dozens of patched bullet holes and dents and a wooden deck splintered from an attack that Max couldn’t even remember. Inside the pressure hull, valves dripped, hatches squawked against their corroded hinges, and the bilges were slopping over with vomit and urine and feces. The symbol of the U-560, a jaunty, grinning white shark painted on both sides of the conning tower, was pocked with orange corrosion. For Krebs and Max and the old hands on board, the war had started as an adventure. During those first few months, they’d ripped the Royal Navy and the English merchant fleet to shreds. They’d called 1939 and 1940 their “happy time” with millions of tons of enemy shipping sent to the bottom. But during 1941, the war had turned into a running battle. A lot of U-boats sent out from their bases in Germany and France were not coming back, or if they did, they were showing up battered and beaten by the British and Canadian naval forces.
In mid-November 1941, after a fruitless two months on patrol, the U-560 had been ordered to a station off Norway to ambush a convoy from England to Russia. For ten days, all they’d done was stare at an empty sea while their food and water went sour. It was an odd sea, filled with icy mists that froze over the conning tower. Every morning, the lookouts had to carefully chip the ice off the compass, the engine room telegraph, and the torpedo aimer. Nothing mechanical worked without complaint. When the attack periscope was run up and down, it squawked from the ice dust that had crept into its sleeve. The Chief kept layering on the grease to keep it free, but even the grease had turned into a cold, thick gelatin.
Finally, at long last, freighters were spotted heading northeast along a well-traveled route. Krebs had followed them until he had the boat in a good position, then dived and launched four torpedoes, two each at separate freighters. The men of the U-560 had heard the welcome thunder of four solid hits. Now, as was his habit, Krebs was going up to inspect firsthand the destruction.
Max prepared himself for instant action. It was his job to scramble up behind Krebs onto the tower bridge to see that the lookouts were all properly positioned and in their harnesses. He’d also make sure the twenty-millimeter-antiaircraft-gun crew were ready to ward off enemy aircraft.
Krebs was still peering through the periscope. “Where a
re you, English? No Royal Navy today? Sehr gut!”
Max felt the U-560 level out. “Go on, Winkler,” he said to a lookout. “Open the hatch.”
Seaman Winkler was a bearded veteran. Max remembered Winkler as he’d first seen him only two years before. He’d been a pink-faced youth then. They’d all been pink-faced youths now that he thought about it. My God, those years of war had changed them all so much!
Winkler pushed the hatch cover over, then dodged a gush of cold seawater before turning his face up to catch the first welcome rush of fresh air. Krebs, turning his cap back around brim first, waded through the icy water. He drew on his leather jacket and waited while Pretch, the radioman, tied a towel around his neck and handed him his binoculars. “All right, boys, let’s go,” he said softly, and clambered up the ladder rungs.
Max went up the ladder behind Krebs and stuck his head out just in time to see the last of the water run off the tower. He took a deep breath of the cleanest air he’d ever inhaled. Krebs had gone directly to the forward lip of the tower fairing, where he was leaning on his elbows, calmly taking in the scene. The manual issued by the Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (Commander in Chief, U-boats, that is to say, Admiral Doenitz) directed U-boat skippers to keep their boats submerged when attacking during daylight hours, but Krebs believed he could never see enough through either of the two periscopes, the attack periscope to look over the sea or the air periscope to check for aircraft. After assuring the lookouts and gun crew were properly stationed, Max went over to stand beside his commander. Not wishing to disturb him, Max said nothing. He knew that Krebs was taking his time, gathering in all that lay before him. Max did the same.
To the north, a freighter burned beneath a boiling plume of gray smoke. Men were jumping off it into the sea, an exercise in futility. They’d all freeze to death within minutes. The U-560 had hit the freighter with one of Krebs’s patented long-distance shots, at least a mile away. Nearer to the U-560, the other freighter they’d torpedoed had also stopped, its power plant, rudder, or propeller probably damaged. Crewmen could be seen milling around on its deck. Farther to the west, there were two more columns of smoke, evidence of other U-boats on the attack, vectored in by BdU after Krebs had sent out the alert describing the convoy to U-boat headquarters.
Max counted the ships. He could see eight freighters, though there were probably more in the gathering haze, which was part fog, part smoke. Two smaller freighters appeared to be reversing course, a foolish move since that would take them back past the crosshairs of the wolf pack. Six freighters were still pushing doggedly northeast. The whooping alarms of the British escorts echoed across the water. They were apparently on the scent of one of the U-boats. Max heard the rumble of depth charges and even felt them through the deck plates. My God, he thought, how I hate the sound of depth charges! Even if I live another hundred years, I shall go to my grave with that sound ringing in my ears!
Krebs heard and felt the explosions, too, but his reaction was different. He took on an expression of contentment. “That’s very good, English,” he said. “Keep your distance. I don’t want to tangle with you today. I just want to have a few of your flock.”
“Aircraft!” a lookout cried. Max opened his mouth to scream for everybody to get off the tower, but before he could, the lookout said, with obvious relief, “They’re ours!”
Krebs studied the airplanes through his binoculars. “Dreifinger,” he said using the nickname of the stout German bombers. “About time you got here, assholes!” A few of the lookouts laughed, though most stayed silent, anxiously looking at the airplanes officially known as Ju-88s. They knew the score when it came to aircraft and U-boats. U-boats almost always lost. Everyone was hoping the Royal Air Force boys would stay home this day.
Krebs was in one of his talkative moods. “Thank God for the Russians,” he said. “So inept in convoy. It must drive the English crazy.” He studied the horizon, the smoke, the continuous alarms of the escorting destroyers. After weeks of frustration, he was having a good time. “I like the English,” he said. “I wonder if they like us, too.”
It was so ludicrous a question Max started not to say anything, but he was too tired to resist. “They love us. Why do you think their aircraft pound our cities every day?”
Krebs looked perplexed, then said quietly, “You are right to be sarcastic with me, Max. War is too terrible to enjoy but, my God, sometimes I can’t help myself.”
Darkness was beginning to encroach on an already gray and thoroughly miserable ocean. The sun had turned the western horizon into a streak of pale orange, but the east was dark and gloomy. Before the war, there would have been the comforting twinkle of Norwegian lighthouses and buoys, but now, as was the situation all over Europe, there were only murky shadows, all the lights extinguished.
Krebs decided to act quickly. The operational manual said the safest and best tactic for a U-boat at dusk was to submerge, follow the target, wait until night, then come back to the surface and attack. The logic was simple. If a U-boat was on the surface, it couldn’t be discovered by the British underwater echoing equipment called ASDIC. It was also nearly impossible for an aircraft to see a narrow, gray hull on black water at night.
But Krebs was never one for the book. Take advantage of the situation! That’s what he told all the novice U-boat captains who came to him for advice. The situation he saw was a convoy hopelessly disrupted, its escorts off chasing other U-boats, and the Ju-88s adding to the confusion. He could see jittery red flashes on the horizon, probably antiaircraft artillery from the British destroyers. The sheepdogs had their hands full and it was the hour of the wolf.
Krebs flipped the lid on the speaking tube and barked down to the engine room, “Give me full turns, Hans!”
Max asked, “What’s the plan, sir?”
“I’m attacking.”
“In daylight on the surface?”
Krebs ignored Max’s question. The U-560 was in a rare position, and he couldn’t resist it.
“Alarrrrrrrrrrrrrrm!” It was one of the lookouts, a man named Heinser, who screamed out the alert at the top of his lungs.
“What’s wrong with you, Heinser?” Krebs despaired. “How can we sink ships with you yelling like a woman?”
Heinser was on his first patrol and had nearly reached the limit of his endurance. He had his arm stretched out with a trembling finger pointed toward the sky. “But it’s an enemy aircraft, Kaleu!” he squeaked.
Krebs shook his head. “See to it, Max,” he said, and went back to scouting the two Russian freighters.
Max raised his binoculars to look where Heinser was pointing. “Heinser is right to give the alarm, sir. It’s a Liberator and it may have seen us. We’d better get below.”
Krebs was in no mood to do anything but sink ships. “Not yet, Max. You boys, get that machine gun popping! I’ll not be chased off by a bunch of high-flying, tea-sipping Englishmen!”
Max whispered furiously into his captain’s ear. “Kaleu, if those tea-sippers turn around and make a low-level run on us, we won’t have a chance.”
Krebs ignored Max and puffed into the engine room voice tube. “Hans, I said more turns. Give me everything you’ve got. Understand? I want those engines hot!”
“Jawohl, Herr Kaleu,” came the muffled reply from the chief motorman. He sounded unhappy, but that wasn’t unusual when demands were put on his engines.
The machine gun opened up, its empty shells spraying like metallic rain on the tower. Krebs put the U-560 through several sharp turns, carving a snake trail of foam on the darkening sea. The gun crew kept banging away until the bomber disappeared into the gathering purple murk to the east. “Run away, you bastard!” one of the gunners yelled, and shook his fist into the air.
“You better hope he doesn’t come back,” Max muttered.
Krebs watched Max out of the corner of his eye. The man was starting to worry him. Usually neat to the extreme, Max had stopped shaving midway through the patrol and was letting hi
s beard grow. It was coming out thin and wispy, giving him the appearance of a little schoolboy trying to act the man. He decided that when the patrol ended, he would let Max take an extended shore leave. Now that he thought of it, he might even take a bit of time off for himself.
“Kaleu!” It was Pretch, the radioman, his head pushed up through the tower hatch. “Signal from BdU. One of the Dreifinger got shot down. They want us to pick up the crew at these coordinates.”
Krebs took the slip of paper and glanced at it. “These numbers don’t make any sense. This would put us down around South America.”
“Let me see,” Max said, reaching for the paper.
Krebs crumpled the paper and tossed it over his shoulder where the wind caught it and blew it into the sea. “Radio them back,” he ordered Pretch. “Ask them to resend the message. I want you to write it down exactly as it’s sent. Be sure to ask them to repeat it as many times as you need to make certain you haven’t missed anything. I must have precise coordinates.”
Pretch hesitated, then a light of understanding came into his eyes and he disappeared below.
“Kaleu,” Max said, “those pilots won’t last long in this water.”
“If I go off on a wild-goose chase, Max,” Krebs said quietly so the lookouts wouldn’t hear, “I’ll never get back in this position. On the other hand, if I sink those freighters, it might help our soldiers fighting it out in Russia. Think about that before you give me a sob story.”
“We’ve been given orders to rescue our pilots. We should do it, or at least try.”
Krebs took the time to explain. In a way, Max was a commander in training and it was part of Krebs’s job to properly instruct him. “These are orders from officers with dry arses back in France who don’t know the situation like we do. The Dreifinger pilots are probably either in a raft or drowned already. If they’re in a raft, they can wait it out until I sink some ships. If they’re drowned, they’re drowned. Besides, the odds against recovering them are so high as to be ridiculous. What am I supposed to do? Wave a white flag at the English destroyers, ask them to let me go about a mission of mercy?”
