‘Shut up? When, for once, the proud Kriegsmarine has a chance to tell some home truths to the SS? When you’ve done half a dozen patrols of two to three months, cooped up in a filthy, smelly, uncomfortable boat, chased and bombed by enemy planes, kept under by depth charges … Well, then you might be able to talk. Have you seen men white and trembling with fear as they await the next dustbin-load of high explosive? Have you seen men with emergency breathing apparatus, immobile to conserve a boat’s last few litres of oxygen? No. You have no idea of the courage that is in this boat, let alone the mountain of courage that is in the Kriegsmarine. You are nothing compared to those men.’
‘I told you to shut up, Vogel. I don’t listen to traitors—’
‘Do stop that silly traitor nonsense, Zweig. Blind obedience is not the same as patriotism or loyalty—’
‘That’s heresy, Vogel. You swore to obey—’
‘Yes, but not to stop using my brain. The man who gives an order on land has to trust the man at sea to interpret that order in the reality of combat. You … you just switch off your brain – if you’ve got one, which I rather doubt – and do what you’re told.’
‘That’s enough, Vogel. Shut up or—’
‘Or you’ll do what? Shoot me? You forget, you intend to drown me at high tide, even if I do shut up. For once under the Reich I am free to say whatever I like without fear of the consequences.’
Having had more than enough of Vogel’s out-of-character abuse, Zweig turned on Ingmann.
‘And you, would-be-commander, you’re no better. In fact, you’re worse than your master. What did you do when your commander refused to obey an order? Arrest him and take command. And then what? Refused to obey the order yourself. I admired you when I first heard your words of arrest. At last, an ally! Then you turned on me. So you are neither with the commander nor with me. It’s all too obvious which side you are on—’
‘And which side would that be?’ asked Ingmann.
‘Your own. You use people only as long as they serve the purpose of promoting the career of Oberleutnant zur See Oswald Ingmann. You care nothing for the Führer, the Reich, the Kriegsmarine … No, Ingmann is loyal to Ingmann. Full stop.’
‘I’ve always done my duty—’
‘Have you? More like just when it suited you.’
‘That’s outrageous. Commander, haven’t I always done my duty … tell him,’ pleaded Ingmann.
‘I wish I knew, Number 1. I’ve learnt a lot that’s new to me in the last few hours. I took you for a loyal subordinate … Now—’
‘Exactly,’ chipped in Zweig. ‘But you, Commander, I can understand. You’ve got principles. I despise them, but at least you’re honest. That man, though,’ said Zweig as he waved his gun in the direction of Ingmann, ‘is beyond belief … beyond understanding.’
Ingmann’s attempt to reply was overtaken by the cry: ‘Ready to dive.’ It came from an SS man who was standing over the two men in the control room.
‘Dive!’ said Zweig.
The two men at the dive controls turned towards Vogel. He knew what they wanted: his decision. He had nothing to lose.
‘Did you hear me give a dive command?’
‘No, sir,’ replied one of the men.
‘Then wait until I give the order,’ said Vogel.
‘That’s it!’ screamed Zweig. ‘Fucking, interfering, treacherous …’
Zweig’s final words were lost in the shattering noise of the round of fire that felled Vogel.
‘Now bloody well dive, you oafs!’
The men turned to the controls. A faint hissing of escaping air confirmed that the dive had begun. But for most of the souls on board the thumping of their hearts rang louder in their ears.
****
Bosanquet and four well-armed, seasoned ratings began to board the U-boat just as Zweig was giving the dive command. The tension of the last few minutes and his sadistic delight in disposing of Vogel had left Zweig in an excited state. Elated by the joy of exercising power, he lost what little calm rationality he had ever possessed. In consequence, he never issued an order to close the hatch.
‘Dive faster!’
The SS men stood over the seamen at the dive controls and viciously prodded them in the ribs.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ cried a seaman as he bent double with the pain in his side.
‘Do what the officer tells you, mutinous filth!’
This command was followed by more cries of pain from further violent stabs with a machine gun butt.
‘Fools!’ shouted Ingmann. ‘Leave the men to their work.’
‘What work? They’re just fiddling around with the controls.’
‘What do you want?’ asked Ingmann. ‘A safe dive or a crash dive? You’ve not a hope of getting this boat to the bottom in one piece even with careful handling. It’s ready to split at the seams from the slightest shock.’
‘Shut your mouth, Ingmann,’ said Zweig. ‘One more word from you and you’ll join Vogel in the sewage.’
Ingmann held out his hands and shrugged his shoulders. He had tried his best. Now Zweig was free to do his worst.
****
A firecracker, tumbling down the open conning tower, announced the arrival of Bosanquet’s boarding party. In the confined space below, the flash and the bang gave the impression that the boat was under full attack again.
No one ever knew who doused the lights at that moment. Only one lamp remained lit – the small bulb over the chart table. A seaman grabbed a sextant lying on the table and smashed the bulb. The boat was now in total darkness except for the small patch of daylight under the conning tower.
The decision to board had come so late and so unexpectedly that Bosanquet had had no time to form a plan. His aim was to stop the U-boat submerging. How to achieve that was not yet clear. Somehow, he had to gain control of the boat. With his four seaman, armed with Sten guns, he thought that he was in a reasonably strong position. In rapid succession they slid down the ladder into the U-boat.
Bosanquet peered into the gloom. Ahead of him he could see an SS officer and several other SS men, all pointing guns towards him.
‘Where’s the commander?’ he asked.
‘I’m the commander,’ said Zweig.
‘I mean the naval commander.’
‘Him? There he is,’ said Zweig, pointing to Vogel’s body, now nearly covered with the rising bilge water.
The boarding party were still under the conning tower when the first of the low waves plopped over the rim of the open hatch. A splash of water – perhaps no more than a bucketful – fell onto one of the party. He shook the water off. Then came another splash … and another … and another …
‘Bleeding hell,’ a seaman shouted. ‘We’re going under.’
A larger wave flooded down the tower.
A rumble of voices spread down the boat. It was low at first … then a little louder … then even louder. And then it changed to shouts of panic as the men came racing along the boat towards the waterfall that was flooding down the conning tower. One after another the men made to grab the ladder. There was no order, no consideration for others. Those who slid off the ladder under the force of the water were trampled on by others desperate to reach the safety of the deck.
Bosanquet signalled to his men to follow the fleeing submariners. He had to get back to the destroyer – there was urgent work to do there. As he stepped towards the ladder he turned to Zweig.
‘You first.’
Bosanquet tried to force Zweig up the ladder but his prisoner was felled by the flood of water pouring down the tower. Unable to see Zweig in the darkness, Bosanquet blindly reached into the cascade as his hands sought the rungs. An unseen hand hauled him up the last few rungs to the safety of the bridge.
Bosanquet was still on the bridge, waiting for his men to ready the dinghy for him, when a bedraggled Zweig heaved himself up to the top of the hatch. Two shots. He fell back down the ladder. Despite his failure of nerve at the last mom
ent, Zweig would go down with the boat, even if it was as a corpse.
****
Bosanquet was the last to scramble up the nets onto HMS Ideal. He handed his Sten gun to a seaman and went up onto the bridge, where he found a midshipman and Sub Lieutenant Quigley.
‘You in command now?’ asked Bosanquet.
‘Looks like it, sir.’
‘Well, I’ll take over now. Looks like you’ll have to be acting Number 1.’
‘If you say so, sir.’
‘You don’t look too pleased about your promotion.’
‘I don’t know that I’m ready for it, sir. Stokey – Lieutenant Stokes – never trusted me with anything important. I don’t think I’ve learnt a thing on this ship.’
‘Cheer up! If it’s just you and me on the bridge, you’ll learn fast enough. First job: you and I have got to destroy that U-boat – before it sinks to the bottom.’
‘But it isn’t sinking, sir,’ said Quigley.
‘By golly, so it’s not. It’s still where it was when I came off. A job for the guns, then. Where’s the Gunnery Lieutenant?’
‘Sick bay, sir. Blind in one eye, I think.’
‘It really is just you and me. Okay, Gunnery Lieutenant Quigley, sink the sub. I’m going to assess the state of the ship and the men.’
‘Sir!’
For the first time in his career someone had had faith in Quigley. He had nothing to show for his life so far. He had failed his second year engineering exams at university and refused to join his father’s engineering firm as a junior manager – he wanted a proper career of his own. Now he felt that he really was an officer. In no time at all he had the guns hammering away at the U-boat. But the destroyer was too close to the target. The quick-firing guns with their minimum elevation of minus ten degrees were failing to inflict any serious damage on the boat. Quigley’s disappointment at his lack of success was rendered irrelevant when the boat began to sink.
‘Depth charges, Quigley! And fast! We absolutely must get that boat before she reaches the bottom. No time to explain …’
Off went Quigley to supervise the depth-charging while Bosanquet returned to the shattered bridge to keep an overall eye on the scene.
As the first barrage of depth charges shot up into the air, Bosanquet was relieved that there was no time to explain. It was better that Quigley did not know what he was aiming at: 250 tons of high explosive. Bosanquet didn’t care to imagine what the final off-the-sea-bed explosion would be like. All the disasters at Cap d’Enfer could only be justified by success now. He owed it to Simone.
With only four charges left, Quigley decided to use one charge at a time. One by one they shot into the air. Plumes of water rose from where the boat had submerged. As Quigley gave his last ‘Fire!’ order, his sense of his inadequacy as an officer returned.
Bosanquet, on the bridge, had not given a thought to the stock of charges. His mind was on the bomb. The minutes seemed to be eternal. It was now past high tide. How accurate was the clock on the timer? Or had the bomb failed? Or worse, had Bosanquet been wrong in his interpretation of Armageddon.
These thoughts were violently terminated when the U-boat finally succumbed to the last depth charge. Bosanquet fell back onto the bridge deck, having been thrown into the air as the destroyer absorbed a hull-shattering shock wave. After a moment of silence, there were screams and shouts. He staggered to the engine room voice pipe.
‘Chief, what’s the damage?’
‘Bleeding great hole, sir. We’re a foot deep already.’
‘And the pumps?’
‘No power, sir.’
Other reports of an unstoppable flood of water came to the bridge. The ship already had a fifteen-degree list – fifteen degrees in two or three minutes. Bosanquet pressed the alarm and called ‘Abandon ship’.
Men rushed up from below and began cutting free the floats and throwing them into the sea. One by one they jumped over the side.
A voice came up from the radio room.
‘Permission to leave, sir?’
‘Have you still got power?’
‘Battery, yes, sir.’
‘Send one last signal – no need to code it: “ADMIRALTY: ARMAGEDDON AVERTED.”
Epilogue
Sally struggled through her part on the stage of the Gaiety on the day that she received the telegram. William had never said anything about going to the Mediterranean. He had been so elated at his steady North Sea convoy work. What on earth reason could there have been to send him away again? Still, as James had often told her, there were things naval officers could not divulge in war.
Bosanquet was given a week’s leave when he got back to London. During that week Sally left several messages with the doorman at his club. He did not return the calls. Somehow, after Simone, Sally had lost her allure.
****
It was a Friday late in January 1943 when Marie heard a conversation in a corridor between Helberg and Wohlman. She could hear Helberg grousing about not being promoted. ‘If only that U-boat had detonated,’ he said.
Next morning, Marie went for a stroll in the windswept countryside to a sheltered spot in a sunken lane. There, as was the case almost every year, were some wild winter-flowering iris. She picked a small bunch and returned to the cemetery on the edge of the town. She couldn’t miss Lucien’s grave. Its freshly turned soil, roughly heaped up and flecked with a light covering of snow could be seen from the gateway. At the grave she knelt and shoved the iris stalks into the loose soil – she had no vase to hand – and crossed herself.
‘We did it, dearest Lucien. You and I. We did it.’
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