Workmen making their way to the wharf along a suspension bridge are concealed up to the neck by its rusty brown side: a procession of severed heads.
In the east above the pale gray of the cold-storage plants, a reddish gleam gradually blends with the milky mist. A great block of buildings slips very slowly aside. Suddenly through the framework of a crane the sharply incised ball of the sun blazes out—only for an instant, then over it sweeps a puff of greasy smoke from a tug towing barges filled with black sand and coal.
I shudder in the damp wind and hold my breath, so as not to get too much of the suffocating vapor into my lungs.
On the channel wall a crowd has assembled: harbor workmen in oil-smeared overalls, sailors, a few officers of the flotilla. I recognize Gregor, who wasn’t there last night, Kortmann, the Siamese twins Kupsch and Stackmann. Trumann is there too, of course, looking completely normal; no traces of last night’s drunk. Behind him I notice Bechtel, he of the depth charge on the upper deck, and Kramer, of the aircraft bomb. Even the swaggerer Erler has turned up, surrounded by a crowd of girls carrying flowers. But no Thomsen.
“Just let me catch sight of that goddam dumb carbolic whore,” I hear from a seaman beside me who is coiling up a stream cable.
“Boy, those bitches are crazy!” I hear from another one.
“The third from the left, the little one, I laid her!”
“Bullshit!”
“Word of honor. It’s true.”
To port, near the stern, a sudden surge of water. Waves of foam dance around the boat. Buoyancy Cell One is being blown out until it is completely filled with air. A moment later, water spurts up foaming along the sides: one cell after the other is being blown—our upper deck rises higher above the water.
An artillery man from above shouts, “A ship this size!” and stretches out his arms like a fisherman bragging about his catch; one of our men on the upper deck sticks out his tongue. A variety of insults, grins, funny faces. All in good humor—but that won’t last.
Now it’s really time to cast off. Commander, officers, and all the crew are aboard. For Backer, the one who got it in Magdeburg, there’s a substitute: a pale, spindly eighteen-year-old.
High tide an hour ago. We should get through smoothly.
Our crew on the upper deck act out the standard farce—how wonderful to be on our way at last! And the ones left on the pier pretend they’re dying of envy. You’re off on this splendid cruise! You get to see enemy action and grab all the medals, while we poor bastards are stuck here in shitty France frigging around with shitty whores!
I straighten up in my still stiff leather clothes. There I stand, hands belligerently thrust into the pockets of my felt-lined jacket—it reaches to my knees. I stamp up and down on the grating in my heavy boots which are cork-soled against the icy chill of the iron.
The Old Man is grinning. “Impatient?”
The men in the military band with their steel helmets look at us blankly.
A slovenly bassoonist in the second row is licking the mouthpiece of his instrument for the fifth time, as though it were a lollipop.
When he has completely licked away his bassoon, one second of eternity will have…
The jackbooted bandmaster raises his baton and the brasses blare out; another second and all talk is drowned in the screeching impact of the music.
The two gangplanks have been hauled in.
The first watch has taken up maneuver stations. The off-duty watch remains on the upper deck. The First Watch Officer whistles to cast off. The Commander acts as though none of this concerns him in the slightest, and puffs away on a thick cigar. Up on the pier Trumann has also lit one. They salute each other, cigars between index and middle fingers. The First Watch Officer looks away in irritation.
“Where’s Merkel?” the Old Man asks when the band stops playing, gesturing toward the pier.
“Not yet cleared for sea.”
“Ach, shameful!”
The Old Man squints at the sky, then wraps himself in an especially heavy cloud of smoke, like a steam tug.
“Cast off all lines except mooring cables!”
Hawsers fore and aft are cast off by soldiers on the pier. The men on the upper deck haul them in, working smoothly together. The result of seven earlier patrols.
“Port engine dead slow ahead, starboard engine slow astern! Both engines stop—midships!”
Now the mooring cable splashes into the water.
Our fenders glide along the rounded belly of the outer bunker. The bubbling gurgle of water from the propellers makes me look toward the stern.
The boat has freed itself from the pier, a dismal ferry on an oily black Styx, with a cargo of leather-armored men on the antiaircraft platform behind the circular enclosure of our bridge. No exhaust visible, no engine noise. As though by a magnet, the boat is drawn away from the pier.
Small bouquets of flowers fall onto the bridge. Members of the watch stick them into the ventilation ducts.
The dark strip of water between the gray steel of the boat and the oil-smeared wall of the pier keeps widening. Now there is a commotion in the crowd on the pier. Someone is forcing his way through from behind, parting the mob: Thomsen! He stretches both hands in the air, his new decoration glittering on its neckband, and roars across the brackish water, “Heil UA!” And again, “Heil UA!”
With an indifference uniquely his, the Old Man waves his cigar.
The boat is making its way slowly into the misty outer basin and the horizon expands. The bow points toward the open sea.
Gradually the smoky mist lifts from the water. On the black iron girders of a crane the sun climbs higher. Its brilliant red fills the whole eastern sky. The edges of the clouds are dappled with red foam. Even the seagulls catch the splendor. With folded wings they fall through the glowing light almost to the water and at the last instant swing upward, screeching wildly.
The clouds of mist dissipate completely and the oily water burns in the glare. A floating crane quite close to us emits a gigantic cloud of steam that the sun instantly stains red and orange. Beside it, even the red BYRRH sign looks pale.
Quickly the sky becomes green-yellow and the clouds take on a dull dove-gray.
A green wreck-buoy slides past. Looking to starboard, I see the red roofs of the bathing huts crowded together and slowly sinking behind the gleaming yellow derricks.
All of a sudden a high choking sound. Then comes a harsh singing and rumbling. The deck begins to shake. The rumbling grows louder and takes on a regular rhythm: our diesels have started.
I put my hands on the cold iron of the bridge bulwark and feel the pulsing of the machinery.
The sea is running against us. Short, choppy waves break against the buoyancy tanks. The head of the breakwater moves past and recedes.
A freighter slips by, camouflaged green, gray, black.
“About six thousand tons!” says the Commander. No wave at the bow; the freighter is lying at anchor.
Our route now runs so close to the coast that we can see all the landmarks. Soldiers wave at us.
We move at the speed of a slow cyclist.
“Clear upper deck to dive!” the Commander orders.
The bollards to which the lines had been made fast retract, the boat hooks are lashed down, the lines and fenders stowed in spaces under the gratings. The seamen push home and lock all the openings on the upper deck, bring in the flagpole, clear the machine guns, lay out the ammunition.
Number One watches with a sharp eye to see that everything is done properly; during silent run there must be no noise. The First Watch Officer rechecks, then reports to the Commander, “Upper deck cleared for diving!”
The Commander orders increased speed. Between the gratings, foam boils up and spray strikes the tower.
The rocky coast recedes behind us. Dark shadows still lie in its clefts. The anti-aircraft installations have been so well camouflaged that I can hardly find them, even with binoculars.
Two pa
trol boats—-rebuilt trawlers—join our boat to provide anti-aircraft protection.
After a while a mine sweeper turns up to accompany us, a big camouflaged ship stuffed full of barrels and other highly buoyant cargo. Its upper deck bristles with anti-aircraft guns.
“What a job,” says the navigator. “They go around on trampolines so their bones won’t be broken if a mine just happens to go off. Every day the same thing—out—in… Thanks, but no thanks!”
Our boat stays precisely in the middle of the broad bubbling wake of the mine sweeper.
I get the long bay of La Baule in my glasses: a thick row of dollhouses. Then I turn toward the stern. Saint Nazaire is now a thin streak, with the tall cranes no more than pins outlined against the sky.
“Complicated channel here. All sorts of wrecks lying around—look!—tips of masts! That was an Allied transport sunk by Stukas, a bomb straight down the funnel. It’s exposed at low tide. There’s another one. The thing in front of it is a light-buoy.”
When hardly anything more than the north shore of the estuary can be seen, the navigator orders the optical bearing-finder brought up. He places the apparatus on its stand and bends over it.
“Hey, move over!”
The guard on the starboard deck aft moves over.
“What’s your landmark?” the Commander inquires.
“Tip of the church steeple there—you can hardly see it—and the top of the rocks to starboard.”
The navigator sights carefully, reads off the numbers, and calls them down. “Last landmark,” he says.
We have no harbor as destination. The goal that draws us from our base out into the expanse of the ocean is a square designated by two numbers on the map of the mid-Atlantic.
The Operations Division of U-boat Headquarters has divided up the ocean into a mosaic of these small squares. This simplifies exchange of information, but it makes it hard for me, accustomed to the usual coordinates, to recognize our position at a glance on the map.
At eleven o’clock the escort is dismissed. The patrol boats fall rapidly astern. The mine sweeper swings away in a wide curve and unfuris a dark, broad-flowing smoke banner against the sky. A last wave of farewell.
Now the navigator determinedly turns forward with his whole body, holds the binoculars to his eyes, and props his elbows on the bulwark.
“Well, Kriechbaum, here we go again!” says the Commander and disappears down into the conning tower.
The boat is now alone on its course.
One of the bridge guards pulls the flowers out of the ventilation ducts and throws them overboard. They quickly drift astern in the swirling wake.
I prop myself up high, in order to see the boat from bow to stern over the bridge bulwark.
A long groundswell is coming toward us. Again and again the bow dips and splits the waves like a plow. Each time, water shoots up foaming, and sharp showers hiss across the bridge. If I run my tongue over my lips I taste the Atlantic—salty.
In the blue vault of the sky hang a few stratocumulus clouds like the foam of beaten egg whites. The bow descends, rises high again, crashes down, and the whole forward deck is covered for minutes at a time with foam. The sun brings out the colors of the spectrum in the watery mist; little rainbows arch over the bow.
The sea is no longer bottle-green but a deep dark-blue. Thin white streaks of foam run irregularly along the blue surface like veins of marble. When a wad of cloud moves in front of the sun the water turns to blue-black ink.
Astern, a broad path of milky waters; our wide, roiling wake dashes against the groundswell and shoots up in white manes. These gleaming tresses extend as far as the eye can see.
Propping my feet against the periscope housing I climb a little higher out of the bridge and lean back, supporting my arms on the net guard. Seagulls with bent swordlike wings shoot around the boat and watch us with stony eyes.
The noise of the diesels alters constantly; it ebbs away when the exhaust vents on either side of the boat are submerged in the sea, then rises when they come free and the gas can escape unhindered.
The Commander returns to the deck, narrows his eyes, and raises his binoculars.
Ahead, a cloud like a gray fleece hangs over the water. The Commander eyes it sharply. He compensates so precisely with his knees for the motion of the boat that he has no need of a handhold.
“High time we put to sea again!”
The Commander increases speed and orders a zigzag course. At each change of direction the boat heels to one side. The wake twists to right, then left.
“Look out for bubble tracks—this area—very risky!” and then turning to me: “The gentlemen of the other firm are accustomed to lie in wait for us here. After all, they know exactly when we cast off. Not much of a trick—they can easily find out. From the harbor workers, from the cleaning women—from the whores. What’s more, they can peek in themselves while we’re docked.”
Again and again the Commander glances distrustfully toward the sky. Washboard wrinkles in his forehead, his nose twisted to one side, he shifts impatiently from one foot to the other. “Any minute now the flyers could surprise us. They’re getting bolder all the time!”
The clouds gradually draw closer together. Only now and then does a piece of blue sky shine through.
“Very risky indeed,” the Old Man repeats, and murmurs under his binoculars, “Better get below just now. When there’s an alarm—as few people on deck as possible.”
That means me. I disappear promptly from the bridge.
My bunk is in the petty officers’ quarters, the U-room, the most uncomfortable on board: it has the most through traffic. Anyone who wants to get to the galley, or to the diesels or the E-motors, has to come through here. At every change of watch the men from the engine room squeeze through from astern, and the new watch comes through from the control room. That means six men each time. And the stewards have to work their way past with their full dishes and pots. In fact, the whole place is nothing more than a narrow corridor with four bunks on the right and four on the left. In the middle of the passage, screwed to the floor, there’s a table with folding leaves. The space on both sides is so narrow that at mealtimes the men have to sit on the lower bunks with their heads bent. There is far too little space for stools. And there is muss and confusion whenever someone has to get from the engines to the control room or vice versa during a meal.
Meals are so arranged that the officers and the crew are already finished in the forward compartments when the petty officers crowd around their own table—so the stewards don’t then have to go back and forth between the bow compartment and the galley. Nevertheless there is constant disturbance. It’s my good luck that I don’t have to eat in the U-room; a place is laid for me in the Officers’ Mess.
Some of the bunks are used by two petty officers in rotation. I am the happy possessor of a bunk all to myself.
The petty officers from the off-duty watch are still busy arranging their lockers. Two men going to the engine room have to get through to the stern, and there’s a mix-up right away. My bunker rail, a kind of narrow aluminum ladder, has come down, which adds to the confusion.
My bunk is still covered with canned food, a bundle of fur-lined jerkins, and some loaves of bread. A seaman brings oilskins, leather clothing, seaboots, and rescue gear. The lined leather jacket is still uncreased. The boots are lined with felt, but are big enough to wear over heavy socks.
The rescue gear is in a dark-brown sailcloth bag with a zipper. Brand new. “Pure decoration,” says the control-room mate, “really meant for the Baltic!”
“But very useful when the diesel stinks,” says a big dark-haired fellow with bushy eyebrows: Frenssen, the diesel mechanic mate. Nevertheless, the rescue gear has its use; if I turn the nozzle slightly, the little steel flask immediately emits oxygen.
I stow the brown bag at the foot of my bunk. For my possessions I have a tiny locker, not even big enough to hold the absolute necessities. So I put my writing ma
terials and camera in the bunk between the light mattress and the wall. Just enough space remains for my body—it’s like being in a suitcase. I want to look around a little before the noon meal and I go forward through the control room.
Aside from the petty officers, the rest of the crew, including the Commander and officers, sleep in the foreship. The Commander lives directly beyond the control-room hatch. Behind a green curtain there’s a bunk, a couple of lockers on the wall and ceiling, and a very small writing table, really only a writing board—and that’s it. He too has to make out as best he can. Closed rooms on either side of the passageway, such as you find in surface vessels, don’t exist. Opposite the Commander’s “room” are the radio shack and the sound room.
Farther forward is the Officers’ Mess—the wardroom, which also serves as living quarters for the Chief, the apprentice engineer (our Second Engineer), and the First and Second Watch Officers.
The mattress on which our Commander and the Chief sit at mealtimes is really the Chief’s bunk. The railroad berth above it is folded up during the day; it’s the Second Watch Officer’s berth. The berths of the First Watch Officer and the Second Engineer are more favorably placed on the opposite wall. Since these don’t have to be put away during the day, the First Watch Officer and the Second Engineer can stretch out during their free time.
The table, screwed fast to the floor, is on the side away from the passage. It’s designed for four: the Commander, the Chief, and the two Watch Officers. However, six of us will be eating there.
In the adjoining compartment, the Quarters, which is separated from the 0-Mess simply by lockers, live the navigator Kriechbaum, the two chief mechanics Johann and Franz, and the bosun Behrmann. Under the floor plates lies Battery One, which together with Battery Two under the U-room supplies the energy for running underwater.
The bow compartment is separated from the Quarters by a non-pressure-resistant hatch. Despite its cavelike appearance, the bow compartment is the closest thing we have to a room. Strictly speaking, it is a combination work-storage space for torpedoes and a battle station. “Torpedo room” is therefore an accurate designation. Here live most of the crew. On each side are six berths, two by two, one above the other. In them the sailors, or “lords,” sleep, plus the torpedo men, the radioman, and the stokers.
Das Boot Page 6
