by Wilbur Smith
‘Captain, one of my men has just ridden into camp. He has been five days reaching me from Okahandja, and he has news. Splendid news.’
The captain tried not to let the excitement infect him, but his hands began to tremble as Lothar went on.
‘The assistant harbour master at Cape Town is one of our men. They are expecting the English heavy battle cruiser Inflexible to reach Cape Town within eight days. She left Gibraltar on the 5th and is sailing direct.’
The captain dived back into the hatch, and Lothar suppressed his repugnance and followed him down the steel ladder. The captain was already bending eagerly over the chart-table with the dividers in his hands firing questions at his navigating officer.
‘Give me the cruising speed of the enemy “I” class battle cruisers!’
The navigator thumbed swiftly through intelligence files. ‘Estimated 22 knots at 260 revolutions, captain.’
‘Ha!’ The captain was chalking in the approximate course from Gibraltar down the western coastline of the African continent, around the great bulge and then on to the Cape of Good Hope.
‘Ha!’ Again, this time with delight and anticipation. ‘We can be in patrol position by 1800 hours today, if we sail within the hour, and she cannot possibly have passed by then.’
He raised his head from the chart and looked at his officers crowded around him.
‘An English battle cruiser, gentlemen, but not an ordinary one. The Inflexible, the same ship that sank the Scharnhorst at the Falkland Islands. A prize! What a prize for us to take to the Kaiser and Das Vaterland.’
Except for the two lookouts in the wings, Captain Kurt Kohler stood alone in the conning tower of U-32 and shivered in the cold sea mist despite the thick white rollneck sweater he wore under his blue pea-jacket. ‘Start main engine secure to diving stations!’ He bent to the voice tube, and immediately his lieutenant’s confirmation echoed back to him.
‘Start main engine. Secure to diving stations.’
The deck trembled under Kohler’s feet and the diesel exhaust blurted above his head. The oily reek of burned fuel oil made his nostrils flare.
‘Ship ready to dive!’ the lieutenant’s voice confirmed, and Kohler felt as though a crushing burden had been lifted from his back. How he had fretted through those helpless and vulnerable hours of refuelling and rearming. However, that was past – once again the ship was alive beneath his feet, ready to his hand, and relief buoyed him up above his fatigue.
‘Revolutions for seven knots,’ he ordered. ‘New course 270 degrees.’ As his order was repeated, he tipped his cap with its gold-braided peak on to the back of his head, and turned his binoculars towards land.
Already the heavy wooden lighters had been dragged away and hidden amongst the dunes; there remained only the drag marks of their keels in the sand. The beach was empty, except for a single mounted figure.
As Kohler watched him, Lothar De La Rey lifted the wide-brimmed hat from his brazen curls and the ostrich feathers fluttered as he waved. Kohler lifted his own right hand in salute and the horseman swung away, still brandishing his hat, and galloped into the screen of reeds that choked the valley between two soaring dunes. A cloud of water fowl, alarmed by the horseman, rose from the surface of the lagoon and milled in a gaudily-coloured cloud above the forbidding dunes, and the horse and rider disappeared.
Kohler turned his back upon the land, and the long pointed bows of the U-boat sliced into the standing curtains of silver fog. The hull was shaped like a sword, a broadsword 170 feet long, to be driven at the throat of the enemy by her great 600-horsepower diesel engine, and Kohler did not try to suppress the choking sense of pride that he always felt at the beginning of a cruise.
He was under no illusion but that the outcome of this global conflict rested upon him and his brother officers in the submarine service. It was in their power alone to break the terrible stalemate of the trenches where two vast armies faced each other like exhausted heavyweight boxers, neither having enough strength left to lift their arms to throw a decisive punch, slowly rotting in the mud and the decay of their own monstrous strivings.
It was these slim and secret and deadly craft that could still wrest victory out of despair and desperation before the breaking-point was reached. If only the Kaiser had decided to use his submarines to their full potential from the very beginning, Kurt Kohler brooded, how different the outcome might have been.
In September 1914, the very first year of the war, a single submarine, the U-9, had sunk three British cruisers in quick succession, but even with this conclusive demonstration, the German high command had hesitated to use the weapon that had been placed in their hands, fearful of the outrage and condemnation of the entire world, of the simplistic cry of ‘the beastly underwater butchers’.
Of course, the American threats after the sinking of the Lusitania and Arabic with the loss of American lives had served also to constrain the use of the undersea weapon. The Kaiser had feared to arouse the sleeping American giant, and to have its mighty weight hurled against the German Empire.
Now, when it was almost too late, the German high command had at last let slip the U-boats, and the results were staggering, surpassing even their own expectations.
The last three months of 1916 saw more than 300,000 tons of Allied shipping go down before the torpedoes. That was only a beginning; in the first ten days of April 1917, alone, another incredible 250,000 tons was destroyed, 875,000 tons for the full month – the Allies were reeling under this fearful infliction.
Now that two million fresh and eager young American troops were ready to cross the Atlantic to join the conflict, it was the duty of every officer and seaman of the German submarine service to make whatever sacrifice was demanded of him. If the gods of war chose to place a British heavy battle cruiser of such illustrious lineage as the Inflexible on a converging course with his battered little vessel, Kurt Kohler would gladly give up his own life and the lives of his crew for an opportunity to empty his torpedo tubes at her.
‘Revolutions for twelve knots,’ Kurt spoke into the voice tube. That was the U-32’s top surface speed, he had to get into patrol position as swiftly as possible. His calculations indicated that the Inflexible must pass between 110 and 140 nautical miles offshore, but Kurt refused to calculate his chances of making a good interception, even if he reached the patrol area before the cruiser passed by.
The horizon from the U-32’s lookout wings was a mere seven miles, the range of her torpedoes 2,500 yards, the quarry capable of a sustained speed of 22 knots or more. He had to manoeuvre his vessel within 2,500 yards of the speeding cruiser, but the chances were many thousands of times against him even sighting her. Even if he obtained a sighting, it would probably be only to watch the distinctive tripod-shaped superstructure of the cruiser pass hull down on his limited horizon.
He thrust his forebodings aside. ‘Lieutenant Horsthauzen to the bridge.’
When his first officer clambered up to the bridge, Kurt gave him orders to drive out of the patrol area with all possible speed, with the ship secured to diving stations ready for instant action.
‘Call me at 1830 hours if there is no change.’
Kurt’s exhaustion was aggravated by the dull headache from the diesel fumes. He took one last look around the horizon before going below. The fog banks were being stripped away by the rising wind, the sea was darkening, its anger rising at the whip of the elements. The U-32 thrust her bows into the next swell, and white water broke over her foredeck. Spray splattered icily into Kurt’s face.
‘The glass is dropping swiftly, sir,’ Horsthauzen told him quietly. ‘I think we are in for a sharp blow.’
‘Stay on the surface, maintain speed.’ Kurt ignored the opinion. He didn’t want to hear anything that might complicate the hunt. He slid down the ladder and went immediately to the ship’s logbook on the chart-table.
He made his entry in his meticulous formal script. ‘Course 270 degrees. Speed 12 knots. Wind north-west, 15 knot
s and freshening.’ Then he signed it with his full signature and pressed his fingers into his temples to still the ache within his skull.
‘My God, I am tired,’ he thought, and then saw the navigation officer watching his reflection surreptitiously, in the polished brass of the main control panel. He dropped his hands to his sides, brushed aside the temptation to go to his bunk immediately and instead told his coxswain, ‘I will inspect the ship.’
He made a point of stopping in the engine compartment to compliment the engineers on the swift and efficient refuelling procedure, and in the torpedo compartment in the bows he ordered the men to remain in their bunks when he stooped in through the narrow entrance.
The three torpedo tubes were loaded and under compression, and the spare torpedoes were stacked in the narrow space; their long shiny bulk almost filled the entire cabin and made any movement difficult. The torpedo men would be forced to spend much of their time crouched in their tiny bunks, like animals in a tier of cages.
Kurt patted one of the torpedoes. ‘We’ll make more room for you soon,’ he promised them, ‘just as soon as we mail these little parcels off to Tommy.’
It was an antique joke, but they responded dutifully and, noting the timbre of the laughter, Kurt realized how those few hours on the surface in the sweet desert air had refreshed and enlivened them all.
Back in the tiny curtained cubicle which was his cabin, he could let himself relax at last, and instantly his exhaustion overcame him. He had not slept for forty hours; every minute of that time he had been exposed to constant nervous strain. Still, before he crawled laboriously into his narrow, confined bunk, he took down the framed photograph from its niche above his desk and studied the image of the placid young woman and the small boy at her knee, dressed in Lederhosen.
‘Goodnight, my darlings,’ he whispered. ‘Goodnight to you, also, my other son, whom I have never seen.’
The diving klaxon woke him, bellowing like a wounded beast, echoing painfully in the confines of the steel hull, so that he was torn from deep black sleep and cracked his head on the jamb of the bunk as he tried to struggle out of it.
He was aware instantly of the pitch and roll of the hull. The weather had deteriorated, and then he felt the deck cant under his feet as the bows dropped and the submarine plunged below the surface. He ripped open the curtains and burst fully dressed into the control centre, just as the two lookouts came tumbling down the ladder from the bridge. The dive had been so swift that seawater cascaded down on to their heads and shoulders before Horsthauzen could secure the main hatch in the tower.
Kurt glanced at the clock at the top of the brass control panel as he took control. ‘18.23 hrs.’ He made the calculation and estimated that they must be 100 nautical miles offshore on the edge of their patrol area. Horsthauzen would probably have called him in another few minutes, if he had not been forced to make this emergency dive.
‘Periscope depth,’ he snapped at the senior helmsman seated before the control panel, and used the few moments of respite to rally his senses and orientate himself fully by studying the navigational plot.
‘Depth nine metres, sir,’ said the helmsman, spinning the wheel to check her wild plunge.
‘Up periscope,’ Kurt ordered, as Horsthauzen dropped down the tower, jumped off the ladder and took up his action station at the attack table.
‘The sighting is a large vessel showing green and red navigation lights, bearing 060 degrees,’ he reported quietly to Kurt. ‘I could make out no details.’
As the periscope rose up through the deck, the hydraulic rams hissing loudly, Kurt ducked down, unfolded the side handles and pressed his face into the rubber pads, peering into the Zeiss lens of the eyepiece and straightening his body to follow the telescope up, already swinging it on to the bearing marks 060 degrees.
The lens was obscured by water, and he waited for it to clear.
‘Late twilight—’ he judged the light up there on the surface, and then to Horsthauzen, ‘range estimate?’
‘Sighting is hull down.’ That meant she was probably eight or nine miles, but red and green navigation lights indicated that she was headed almost directly towards the U-32. That she should be showing lights at all indicated the vessel’s supreme confidence that she was alone on the ocean.
The lens cleared of water and Kurt traversed slowly.
There she was. He felt his pulse leap and his breathing check. It never failed – no matter how often he saw the enemy, the shock and the thrill was as intense as the very first time.
‘Bearing mark!’ he snapped at Horsthauzen, and the lieutenant entered the bearing on the attack table.
Kurt stared at the quarry, feeling the hunger in his guts, the almost sexual ache in his loins as though he were watching a beautiful naked and available woman; at the same time he was gently manipulating the knob of the rangefinder with his right hand.
In the lens of the periscope the double images of the target ship were brought together by the rangefinder.
‘Range mark!’ Kurt said clearly as the images coalesced into a single sharp silhouette.
‘Bearing 075 degrees,’ said Horsthauzen. ‘Range 7,650 metres!’ and entered the numerals into the attack table.
‘Down periscope! New heading 340 degrees!’ ordered Kurt, and the thick telescoping steel sections of the periscope hissed down into their well on the deck between his feet. Even at this range and in the bad light Kurt was taking no chances that a wary lookout might pick out the plume of spray thrown up by the tip of the periscope as it cut the surface, turning on to an interception course into the north.
Kurt was watching the second hand of the clock on the control panel. He must give Horsthauzen at least two minutes before he made his next sighting. He glanced across at his first officer and found him totally absorbed in his calculations, stopwatch in his right hand, left hand manipulating the tumblers of the attack table like a Chinaman with an abacus.
Kurt switched his attention to his own calculations concerning the light and the surface condition of the sea. The fading light favoured him. As always, the hunter needed stealth and secrecy, but the rising sea would hamper his approach; breaking over the lens of the periscope, it might even affect the running of his torpedoes.
‘Up periscope!’ he ordered. The two minutes had expired. He found the image almost instantly.
‘Bearing mark! Range mark!’
Now Horsthauzen had his references, elapsed time between sights and the relative ranges and bearings of the submarine and its target, together with the U-32’s own speed and course.
‘Target is on a heading of 175 degrees. Speed 22 knots,’ he read off the attack table.
Kurt did not look away from the eyepiece of the periscope, but felt the thrill of the chase in his blood like the flush of strong spirits. The other ship was coming straight down on them, and its speed was almost exactly that to be expected of a British battle cruiser making a long passage. He stared at the distance image, but the light was going even as he studied the shadowy superstructure just visible between the pinpricks of the navigational lights – and yet, and yet – he was not absolutely certain, perhaps he was seeing what he wished to see – but there was a vague triangular shape against the darkening sky, the sure tripod mark of the new ‘I’-class battle cruiser.
‘Down periscope.’ He made his decision. ‘New heading 355 degrees,’ the head-on course to intercept the target, ‘designate the target as the “chase”.’ That was the intimation to his officers that he was attacking, and he saw their expression turn wolfish in the subdued light and they exchanged eager gloating glances. ‘The chase is an enemy cruiser. We will attack with our bow tubes. Report battle stations.’
In quick succession the reports came in assuring him of the instant readiness of the entire ship. Kurt nodded with satisfaction, standing facing the brass control panel, studying the dials over the heads of his seated helmsmen, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his pea-jacket so that their trembli
ng did not betray his agitated excitement, but a nerve jumped in his lower eyelid, making him wink sardonically, and his thin pale lips trembled uncontrollably. Each second seemed an eternity, until he could ask, ‘Estimated bearing?’
The seaman with the hydrophones over his ears looked up. He had been closely monitoring the distant sound of the chase’s propellers.
‘Bearing steady,’ he replied, and Kurt glanced at Horsthauzen.
‘Estimated range?’ Horsthauzen kept all his attention on his attack table.
‘Estimated range 4,000 metres.’
‘Up periscope.’
She was still there, exactly where he had expected her – she had not turned away. Kurt felt almost nauseated with relief. At any time that she suspected his presence the chase could simply turn and run away from him, without even bothering to increase speed, and he would be helpless to stop her. But she was coming on unsuspectingly.
It was fully dark in the world above the surface, and the sea was breaking and tumbling with white caps. Kurt had to make the decision which he had postponed to the last possible moment. He made one last sweep of the entire horizon, swinging the handles of the periscope the full 360 degrees, shuffling around behind the eyepiece, satisfying himself that there was no other enemy creeping up behind his stern, no destroyers escorting the cruiser, and then he said, ‘I will shoot from the bridge.’
Even Horsthauzen glanced up momentarily, and he heard the sharp intake of breath from his junior officers when they realized they were going to surface almost under the bows of an enemy battle cruiser.
‘Down periscope!’ Kurt ordered his senior helmsman. ‘Reduce speed to five knots and come to tower depth.’
He saw the needles on the control dials tremble and then begin to move, the speed dropping back, the depth decreasing gently, and he moved across to the ladder.
‘I am transferring to the bridge,’ he told Horsthauzen, and stepped on to the ladder. He climbed nimbly and at the top spun the locking wheel of the main hatch.
