The Shadow of War

by Jack Murray

  ‘Where’s our boat?’ asked Sepp. His face managed the improbable feat of being white with fear and bathed in sweat from his exertion.

  Gerhardt pointed down to the sea.

  ‘What about the sergeant? What do we do?’

  Gerhardt and Manfred took the sergeant each side. Manfred looked at Sepp, ‘Time to jump.’

  ‘I can’t swim,’ said Sepp, but they were already gone.

  Manfred and Gerhardt hit the water with an almighty splash. Both immediately lost hold of the sergeant. Manfred surfaced first. He looked around. There was no sign of Gerhardt. A moment later his friend appeared. The looked at one another and in an instant ducked under water again. The water was as dark as it was cold. The lifebelt prevented Manfred from kicking lower. He quickly released it and dived deeper, looking for the sergeant. Despite the poor visibility, Manfred could see Gerhardt a few metres deeper. He had grabbed the sergeant by the scruff of his uniform.

  Lungs beginning to burn, Manfred surged towards the two men and came underneath the sergeant and began to kick upwards. Moments later two other men entered the water a few feet away from them. They kicked over to the Manfred and Gerhardt. Moments later the sergeant was on the surface and being dragged towards the boat.

  Manfred swam alongside the boat also. The men on the boat had hauled the sergeant on board. All around there was bedlam. Shouting, more explosions on from the ship.

  ‘Where’s Lothar and Sepp?’ asked Gerhardt.

  Then he and Manfred realised why there was so much shouting. Clinging to the boat they both turned around and looked up. Silhouetted against the smoky sky were Lothar and Sepp. They seemed to be arguing.

  -

  ‘Jump,’ shouted Lothar.

  ‘I can’t,’ replied Sepp.

  ‘What do you mean you can’t? The damn ship is about to go.’

  ‘I can’t,’ persisted Sepp. Lothar looked at him like he was insane.

  Down below they could hear the shouts of the other soldiers. The lifeboats were beginning to move away from the ship. Behind them there was the sound of popping was becoming more persistent. The ship listed another couple of degrees, the dying screams of the ships structure grew louder.

  ‘I can’t swim,’ shouted Sepp. His voice almost shrill with panic.

  ‘You have a life vest, you moron,’ screamed Lothar. ‘Jump.’

  Sepp looked down and then back at Lothar. ‘I’ll die.’

  ‘You’ll die here too.’

  Another explosion and the boat listed more. Both boys fell backwards against the cabin wall. The ship was now at a forty degree angle. Gravity pulled both boys backwards. Lothar felt the panic rising in him also. There was no way they could get back up to the railings now because the angle was too steep. They had nothing to hold onto.

  Sepp looked at Lothar and realised he was about to condemn his friend to death. His eyes filled with tears. They looked at one another, then Lothar turned away. There had to be another way. The idea came to both of them at the same time.

  ‘The other side. It’s nearly in the water,’ shouted Lothar.

  The two boys moved around to the ship clinging to the walls. The intensity of the heat grew with every step. Another small explosion rocked the boat and this time it listed even further, so much so they were able to run more freely. They reached the other side of the boat a minute later. They were now only a few feet off the water, but the ship was in danger of sinking. If it did, they would go down with it.

  ‘You’ll have to jump in.’

  Sepp’s terror had returned. He shook his head. Lothar looked from Sepp to the fire. The ship was in its death throes. The noise of screaming metal was reaching deafening levels. Breathing was almost impossible now. The smoke didn’t so much obscure his view as blind him. He felt the panic rise in him also.

  All of a sudden, a red hot iron bar fell down, hitting Sepp on the side of the head.

  ‘Sepp,’ screamed Lothar at his friend.

  -

  Manfred and Gerhardt sat on the boat yelling in vain to their friends. Two men with oars began to row away from the boat.

  ‘What are you doing?’ screamed Manfred. ‘Our friends are still on board.’

  ‘They’re dead men,’ came the reply.

  A Lieutenant looked at Manfred and said in a tone that brooked no debate, ‘We must go. The ship will either explode or sink. Either way we are at risk.’

  Manfred knew he was right. He looked at Gerhardt. There was nothing else to say. Their friends were going to die while they both sat on the boat and watched. Manfred felt sick. In fact, he had to fight hard against the nausea he was feeling. He began to cough as the impact of so much smoke inhaled began to tell. He was on the point of passing out when he heard an explosion from behind.

  He glanced up sharply and saw that the ship was listing at an extraordinary angle. It was moments away from sinking. He could no longer see his friends. Meanwhile the lifeboat was moving further and further away from the ship towards one of the other boats in the convoy. Tears blinded his eyes. He knew it wasn’t from the smoke either. He wiped them away with the palm of his hand. The saltwater brought its own stinging rebuke and he cursed himself.

  Slowly the boat drew further away. Up ahead they heard yet another muffled explosion and the ship listed onto its side. Then, with shocking rapidity it disappeared under the bubbling water. The surface was littered with debris.

  The lifeboat continued drawing away from the catastrophe as if it were trying to distance itself from a mistake. Theirs was the only ship that had sunk. A couple of others were smoking but any damage appeared to be limited. Each ship’s horn blew, almost as an act of defiance. Soon the air was filled with the noise of the ships’ shrill sirens and horns.

  Manfred looked at Gerhardt. His head hung with sadness but in his eyes was anger. Manfred felt the anger, too. It began to swell inside him. The hatred felt trapped inside him. He wanted to explode.

  ‘Why are those idiots making this noise?’ he snarled to no one in particular.

  No one answered. They were all young men. All in a state of shock. This was their first exposure to war. Further up the boat, he caught the eye of Christian. He was crying. Whether this was through fear or the loss of his friends, Manfred knew not.

  The lifeboat pulled up alongside another ship, just as the noise began to abate. They were now at least a kilometre away from the remains of the Aachen.

  -

  Sepp collapsed to the ground. His head was bloodied. Lothar fell to his knees. He could feel movement in his friend’s chest. He was alive. He pulled Sepp towards the railings. Climbing over them himself, he pulled Sepp underneath. They both fell into the water. It was a short drop, no more than a few feet. The cold water seemed to revive Sepp.

  ‘What the ....’

  ‘We’re in the water,’ said Lothar, pointing out the obvious.

  Even in Sepp’s groggy state this much was plain.

  ‘I can bloody well see that,’ replied Sepp irritably. His head was pounding and his panic at being in the water he detested so much was compounded by another realisation.

  ‘Where is the lifeboat?’

  Lothar was wondering the same thing at this point. But a bigger problem was quite literally in front of them.

  ‘Move,’ ordered Lothar.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Move, the damn ship is going to sink. We need to move.’

  Sepp was now fully awake to the problem. His head was hurting damnably, and the death throes of the ship were doing little to help an already hellish situation.

  ‘How?’ asked Sepp.

  ‘Use your legs to kick. It’s called swimming, you moron.’

  Lothar was already beginning to move. Sepp, seeing no other choice began to kick instinctively away from the ship. A muffled explosion prompted a renewed energy to his efforts, but he was tiring fast. The cold of the water, the fear and the soaking clothes acted to slow him down.

  Lothar was cutting through the water
easily. He was an experienced swimmer. Within a matter of seconds, he was thirty metres away from Sepp. He continued swimming then he paused to take stock. He turned around.

  Sepp seemed hardly to have moved.

  ‘Move,’ screamed Lothar. His voice was shrill with the dread that was now engulfing him. Sepp’s arms began to flail in the water. What progress he was making seemed paralyzingly slow. Lothar looked on with desperation. The sound of metal ripping and rending drowned out his shouts. He had a decision to make. It was life and death, possibly both Sepp’s as well as his.

  Seventeen years old.

  He began to swim towards Sepp.

  A few strong strokes and he was within fifteen metres of his friend. And then the he saw in horror the ship collapse over Sepp and sink beneath the sea. It created a vortex that began to force the water downwards.

  Panic gripped him as he felt himself being dragged under the waves.

  Deeper and deeper he went. His lungs were bursting; breathing impossible. With a strength borne of the terror consuming him he kicked and raked his arms at the same time. Somehow this managed to counteract the force of the downward pressure and he began to move up. He reached the surface moments before passing out.

  A cough awoke him. He didn’t know how long he had been out for. His body began to expel the water he had swallowed on the way up. He vomited the fear and the sea water from his body. Around him lay signs of wreckage. But Sepp was gone. He took off his life vest and dived beneath the water.

  Visibility was non-existent. He surfaced again and swam towards the fizzing white foam where the ship had last been before the sea had claimed it. Diving once more he could see little beyond a few metres. Once again, he resurfaced. As he did so, something broke the surface further ahead. It was a man.

  ‘Sepp,’ screamed Lothar.

  He swam over to the floating body. It was Sepp. His lifeless body was slumped head down in the water. Lothar pulled his head back. He slapped Sepp’s face lightly. Then harder, no response. Tears stung his eyes. He shouted in his ear.

  Nothing.

  Lothar now understood three things with utter clarity. Sepp was dead. He could not be revived. The chill of the sea and the weight of his clothes were beginning to tell. He was at the end of his physical resources. Finally, with an increasing feeling of desperation, he realised he was alone. The ships were far in the distance. He began to yell to attract their attention.

  Just at that moment the sound of his cries for help were drowned out by the sound of the ships’ horns.

  For one minute or more they blew. Lothar looked on in incredulity. Why were they doing this? Why weren’t they looking for him? Tears of rage streamed down his face and he began to yell at the ships when the blaring noise had ceased. But even as he yelled, he could almost see the sound of his voice disappearing into the vast emptiness around him.

  He needed his life vest. It was still bobbing up by a piece of the wreckage. He thought about swimming over to it. Then he looked at Sepp. He unbuckled the life vest from Sepp and put it on. Its buoyancy gave him both the physical and spiritual lift he needed. Without the vest, Sepp’s head slowly sank beneath the water. His funeral lasted seconds.

  There was no prayer for the dead.

  After a few moments staring at the sea where his friend had been, Lothar looked towards the convoy. He began to shout. After a minute of yelling himself hoarse he stopped.

  The silence screamed in derision. All was a void. Just him and the clicking sound of the water lapping around his body waiting for its opportunity to claim him like it had done Sepp. His situation was impossible. There was nothing he could do. Swimming to the ships was out of the question. Attracting their attention impossible.

  All was lost. It was hopeless.

  He began to cry. The sobs wracked his body in a way they had not done since he was a small child. He slapped the water angrily as the sobs gave way to anger.

  And then all was silent again. Lothar bobbed on the water, watching the ships receding slowly into the horizon. Angrily he threw away a piece of debris that had floated alongside him. For the first time he became aware of the wreckage that was floating around him. Twenty metres away, on one of the large pieces of metal, was a leather bag.

  Curiosity overcame Lothar. He swam towards the debris. When he arrived, he reached over to the bag and opened it. The interior of the bag was dry. He felt a hard metallic object. As he put his weight on the floating debris, it tipped over, submerging Lothar for a moment. He kept his hand above the surface, though. He resurfaced and coughed angrily.

  He stared dumbly at the ships sailing away from him into the distance. Then he looked at the object in his hand.

  It was a gun.

  He looked inside the magazine.

  Empty.

  Lothar jerked his head up towards the heavens and screamed an oath to the divine practical joker. He kicked towards the metal debris again, where the bag remained. Placing the gun carefully on the metal debris, he reached inside the bag and felt around the interior once more. His hand fell onto a slim metallic object. He lifted it out. A bullet. Another search of the bag proved fruitless. With an oath, he hurled the bag angrily across the water.

  Taking great care, he loaded the bullet into the magazine. In the distance he could see the convoy silhouetted against the sky. He felt sick with fear. Once again, the cold water began to numb his senses, slow his thinking and strip away his willpower. He looked again at the convoy, then he looked at the gun.

  In the silent expanse of the sea, he knew he had a decision to make.

  4

  Manfred and Gerhardt were the last two to be pulled onto the ship. On the deck, near them, they could see the sergeant being given first aid. He was alive but it was difficult to gauge the extent of his injuries. Manfred felt a pair of arms help him as he was in danger of collapse. He was shivering from the cold, or shock, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘Come along,’ said a voice, helping him to his feet. ‘We need to get you changed.’

  At first Manfred went along with him and then an image of his two friends rose up in his mind. He stopped and looked around wildly.

  ‘No,’ he shouted.

  The hubbub around him quietened for a moment. At that moment Manfred realised he was responsible for this. He felt his face redden in embarrassment. All around he could see faces looking at him.

  ‘Our friends are out there.’

  It was Gerhardt.

  There was a sigh and then a Lieutenant came over to the two boys and said, ‘No one could have survived the sinking.’

  There was no malice in his voice. No attempt to dismiss their view. It was just a gentle a nudge towards reality. They knew he was right. Once again, Manfred resisted, with all his might, the desire to cry. The hard, cold truth was out there in the vastness of the sea. Death would visit them all many times over the next few months, perhaps years. They would have to grow a shell that would help protect their mind from the fear and the fragility that would shadow them every waking moment.

  ‘Hurry,’ ordered the Lieutenant. ‘We’re not stopping to look for anyone. The British may return. We still have a few hours before we make port.’

  Manfred and Gerhardt turned around and said, ‘Yes, sir.’

  Gerhardt looked at Manfred and then the Lieutenant. He nodded in acceptance. Manfred’s shoulders fell. He knew the officer was right. The Lieutenant put his hand on Manfred’s arm. It was over. He had to move now. To stand still would have been to object to the implied order. He felt empty, cold and scared. They had had not even reached Africa and a foretaste of what was to come had proven terrifying and unexpected. Afterwards he would discuss this fear with Gerhardt. No one else.

  He pushed forward in a line with the others. Gerhardt fell in step with Manfred. They walked along the deck in silence then Gerhardt said what was on both their minds, ‘There was nothing we could do. He should’ve left Sepp.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘I’d have thrown him i
n.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Manfred. There was no humour in his voice. Instead, there was anger. This, oddly, was not directed towards the British but instead towards Sepp. In Manfred’s mind, Sepp was responsible for Lothar’s death; if he was dead. He thought about the life vest. He turned and gazed out towards the debris. The sun glinting off the water made it difficult to see anything clearly.

  Just behind Manfred walked the Lieutenant. He saw Manfred looking out to the sea. The two boys had fallen behind the others. The Lieutenant walked alongside Manfred in an effort to make them move faster. Manfred glanced down and looked at the object in the officer’s hand. The officer looked at Manfred sympathetically. He was probably only a few years older than Manfred. He understood how it felt to lose a comrade. He had seen his fair share over the last eight months convoying in the Mediterranean.

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’

  Manfred smiled grimly. He nodded at the object and said, ‘May I?’

  ‘Make it quick,’ said the Lieutenant handing Manfred his binoculars. ‘And keep moving.’

  As Manfred walked, he put the binoculars to his eyes. It took a moment to adjust to the glare from the water. He began to scan the debris which was spread out across a hundred metres of water. They were at least a mile away or more now. Suddenly some movement caught his eye. He stopped. Gerhardt and the Lieutenant stopped also.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked the Lieutenant irritably. ‘I told you to keep moving.’

  ‘It’s Lothar. I can see him. What’s that he’s holding?’

  The three of them stopped. Manfred could hear his heart thumping against his chest and the chill of the wet clothing against his skin.

  ‘What’s happening, Manny?’ asked Gerhardt. He could see the growing irritation of the Lieutenant.

  As he said this a shot cracked the silence of the sea.

  THE END

  A Note from the Author

  I have made every effort to ensure historical authenticity within the context of a piece of fiction. Similarly, every effort has been made to ensure that the book has been edited and carefully proofread. Given that the US Constitution contained around 65 punctuation errors until 1847, I hope you will forgive any errors of grammar, spelling and continuity. Regarding spelling, please note I have followed the convention of using English, as opposed to US, spellings. This means, in practice, the use of ‘s’ rather than a ‘z’, for example in words such as ‘realised’.