North Sea Hunters

by Harmer-Barnes, Brad

  When next he surfaced for air, he took the time to look all around him, and was surprised to see something on the horizon. It could have been a mile away or more, but it looked to him like…yes, it was a boat! He didn’t know if they were friendly, or neutral or enemy, but he knew that he had a better chance of making it to them, than he did to the submarine. Could he abandon his ship and his men? What would his wife think? The Kriegsmarine?

  His wife would want him home and safe, and he knew that the cold, hard Kriegsmarine would rather have a captain alive than dead. He could always be assigned to a new U-Boat; you couldn’t assign a boat to a dead captain.

  Once again his head and his heart were at war.

  ***

  “Lieutenant Hertz!” shouted the doctor, dropping his binoculars to the deck with a clatter, and running over to the gun, waving.

  Hertz signalled to Kleiner and the deck gun crew to prepare themselves and caught the doctor as the panicked man fell to his knees. “What is it, doctor? Have you seen it?”

  Dr Arnold was a wreck, his eyes were as wide as saucers and his finger jabbed sharply in the direction he had just run from. He was sweating and near tears in seconds. “It’s…it’s there…huge…we have to get out of here!”

  Hertz pulled up his own binoculars and looked to where the panicked doctor was pointing. It was true. The shark’s fin had broken up through the water, about eight hundred metres from the front of the U-616. He shouted orders to the deck gun to get their bearing.

  Dr Arnold was clawing at Hertz’s trouser leg weeping. “We have to get out of here! Abandon ship! It’s a monster! They said it was a big shark but I just thought it was a big shark, not this! This is a goddamn... a dinosaur! We have to get out of here! Now!”

  “Dr Arnold get yourself below deck, or come to your senses. We have a fish to catch.”

  “No! No! We have to run! We have to get out of here now! Don’t you see? It’s a monster! A goddamn dinos-”

  The men working deck gun paused at the crack of Acting Captain Johann Hertz shooting the doctor in the head, but returned to their work quickly, for fear that they would be next.

  -SEVENTEEN-

  Hertz shouted down the ladder into the control room to fire both torpedoes from the functioning fore tubes in rapid succession. There was, of course, the estimated dud ratio, but what little chance did he have? Even assuming the fifty percent dud ration that Captain Krauser had sworn by, he felt sure at least one of the torpedoes would catch the Megalodon and obliterate it into a stinking pulp.

  The order was rapidly carried up the length of the U-Boat to the men working the torpedo tubes. The bulkheads were sealed, the torpedoes primed, safety checks carried out, and – finally – the first torpedo was spat forth from the submarine. The second followed in rapid succession, and Hertz watched the approaching shark through his binoculars, hoping to get a close view of the death and destruction that he - a true Kriegsmarine commander – had wrought.

  ***

  The shark was not stupid. It hadn’t managed to live to its age by being stupid. It had felt the push and ripple of the water that indicated something was travelling towards it, and pretty fast, too. In its time it had known other metal fish project similar attacks. It had once had his ribs painfully smashed by a wooden fish that had propelled a heavy metal ball fast and hard into his side. It had been overconfident, certain it was the hunter of the ocean and indestructible. Since then, it had learned to trust his instincts, and avoid these sort of attacks.

  It was still confident it was the hunter of the ocean, however.

  The shark pushed its nose downwards and dove, letting the torpedo swim harmlessly overhead.

  It felt another pass soundless above it, and resurfaced, its fin breaking the water once more.

  ***

  Hertz swore up a blue blaze as he saw the shark’s fin resurface, this time a mere three hundred metres away. He screamed for the men to bring the deck gun to bear. Cranks were turned and wheels spun and the eighty-eight millimetre cannon focused on its target.

  “Fire!” screamed the acting captain. He quickly slapped his hands to his ears as a large tank cannon round fired into the water where the shark had to be. Time slowed down and he thought he could hear a metallic zipping sound as the shell passed by in close proximity, followed by a hollow, bass splash as it thudded into the water.

  The explosion in the water seemed cataclysmic. The shock wave pushed a large gout of water into the air and – could it be? – yes, it was tinged with red! Hertz fell to his knees laughing with pure unbridled triumph as pulpy red fish meat rained down on the deck. It was over! The deck gun had destroyed the monstrous shark!

  He staggered to his feet, skidding slightly in the gore strewn across the wooden deck, and hurried to the men working the deck gun. They were just as jubilant as he, throwing their hats into the air, laughing and hugging one another. Hertz joined them in the handshakes, which rapidly evolved into hugs and backslaps. The U-616 had survived an engagement with an enemy like no other.

  “Men, I think we owe it to ourselves to crack out the rum, don’t you? Feininger, Spahn, go tell the crew. Tonight we celebrate!”

  The rum was hurried up to the men on deck, and Hertz gave them a short speech, singing their praises and toasting their bravery. In truth, Kleiner and the men would rather have been downstairs; the compliments heaped upon them by a man they didn’t really like or respect made them uncomfortable, and the deck was cold and stank of fishguts. Spahn lit a cigarette, hoping to give an impression of disrespect to their ersatz captain, but Hertz was enjoying the sound of his own voice so much that he didn’t notice.

  Hertz raised his glass for the final toast. “And, of course, it would be criminal of me not to mention the men we have lost along the way, though none are missed more so than our dear Captain August Krauser, who was a true hero of the Kriegsmarine. It’s not easy taking over the job of captain in these circumstances, but I do hope that I am able t-”

  The deck rocked sharply, and Hertz crashed hard flat onto his back, and skidded down the deck towards the now sinking prow of the boat. He span as he slid and fell and saw the meatgrinder maw of the megalodon waiting for him. It had survived! He saw that where its right fin had been was now a gaping, bleeding wound of viscera and cartilage, but the thing still lived.

  Wide-eyed and screaming, Hertz scrambled and grasped for every handhold that he could get, but his fingers simply skittered uselessly over the damp wood of the deck. He shouted for help as his foot reached the creature’s mouth up to the ankle; his scream then became wordless as the monster’s jaw clamped down, driving nine inch serrated knives into him, crushing cartilage and bone. He looked down and saw the lump of mangled skeleton and pulpy flesh where his foot had once been, before the shark thrashed its head, pulling him further into its maw. Up to the waist this time, the thing bit down again and he felt each tooth stab into him like the knives of a hundred murderers. Organs ripped, flesh parted and he gasped as he felt his lungs and stomach fill with blood. He coughed up a spray of crimson before the shark undulated once more, and he felt himself sliding further in, and then he knew no more.

  ***

  Grabbing hold of a shattered length of railing, Captain Krauser hauled himself up on deck, with a shout of rage and fear. He ran at full speed straight over to the deck gun, desperate to assist Kleiner and Spahn in reloading it for another shot. The shark, satisfied for the moment with its appetiser of Johann Hertz, slid off the deck and swam deep into the water.

  A round from the deck gun thudded into the water where they figured the shark could likely be, but in his heart he knew that if he couldn’t see it, then it could be anywhere.

  Then, the fin broke up out of the water again, about five hundred metres out, in front of the submarine’s prow.

  Chief engineer Kleiner, struck by a sudden idea, abandoned the deck gun and ran to the ladder down to the control room. He screamed for the crew to load and fire torpedoes, but none could hear h
im. They were all desperately trying to right the craft, pump the water out of the ballast tanks and sustain their lives for another few minutes. He resolved to take matters into his own hands and skinned down the ladder and raced for the torpedo bay.

  As he cannonballed down the narrow corridor, he was buffeted by panicked sailors, sprayed with gouts of water from the cracked hull and broiled alive by sweat and humidity of that undersea hell.

  ***

  Krauser and Spahn were left manning the deck gun, and found themselves desperately struggling to get it loaded and into a position to fire. They knew that they didn’t have many chances left, and it was likely down to them if the shark was to die.

  Captain Krauser hefted the shell in, at last, as Spahn tried to make the last few desperate adjustments. Shutting the chamber with a clank, his eyes fell on the body of Dr Arnold, and his heart sank. The doctor had been a good man, and it was a shame that he had ended up this way.

  “Hertz shot him.” shouted Spahn from the firing seat. “The poor doctor flipped his lid when he saw the shark, and, well, I guess that old Hertz just wasn’t in the mood for it. Shot him right there on the deck.”

  “Goddamn it, Hertz,” muttered the captain. “I just thought I was starting to see the hero in him.”

  Spahn laughed. “None of us are heroes, Captain. We blow up merchants and sailors and then we run and hide. Does that sound like heroism?”

  Krauser said nothing. The shark was on them.

  ***

  Kleiner grabbed two of the men working in the torpedo bay and chivvied them along, helping and bullying them into sliding the twenty foot long torpedo into its tube. Even with the pulleys, chains and belts there to make the load easier to manage, it was backbreaking work, and they all knew that time was against them.

  Just as things seemed to be moving smoothly, several torpedoes broke loose, rolling across the floor in a chaotic flurry. One of the men was crushed and lay under its weight, screaming for help. Water sprayed in through the holes the shark’s teeth had ground and sliced through the U-616’s hull.

  Finally, they pushed a G7a steam torpedo home, and closed the bulkhead. Spinning the bulkhead closed, Kleiner muttered a silent prayer, and gave the order to fire.

  ***

  Krauser and Spahn both shouted in terror as the megalodon crashed its jaws down around the prow of the boat. The cleaver-like teeth sank deep into the hull, buckling and cracking the black metal of the U-616 as if it were cheap plastic. The colossal shark grunted out a belch of fetid air, and Spahn fainted dead away.

  Krauser was the last man up on deck, and he was alone with the Shark of the North Sea.

  Pure adrenaline fuelling his movements once more, he clambered into the firing chair, and made the final adjustments to the deck gun’s trajectory and aiming reticle. Thinking of his wife and baby, he muttered a final prayer before beginning the firing sequence.

  -EIGHTEEN-

  The White Ghost ground down its teeth as hard as it could against the hard metal of the submarine. This hunt had gone on for long enough, now – far, far too long. It was injured, and it was hungry and it was tired. It could feel the screaming of the men inside, and knew that the time had come. Still holding the submarine in its jaws, it kicked down hard with its tail and ploughed the submarine underwater, dragging it down to the depths.

  Krauser was just centimetres from hitting the firing button when he found himself thrown onto the deck, and then – with a cacophonous splash – he was suddenly underwater. It took him a moment to realise what had happened. Satisfied that it had weakened the submarine enough, the White Ghost had grabbed the entire submarine side on in its jaws, and dragged them down into the depths to drown. Krauser’s lungs rapidly filled with water, having had no time to prepare himself, and he instinctively kicked up and away from the boat, towards the surface. He was desperate to take one last breath before he returned to finish the battle with the monster that had destroyed his submarine, killed his compatriots and terrorised these waters for far too long.

  At last he broke the surface and gasped for breath, sweeping the salt water from his eyes. Looking around, all that he could see of the U-616 was a foamy wake, ringed by small pieces of debris that he could barely recognise: part of a strut, a plank of wood from the deck, a tattered piece of uniform.

  He screamed in frustration and insolent rage, knowing there was nothing he could do.

  He had failed his crew.

  ***

  Kleiner was now up to his armpits in water, and the torpedo bay was filling fast. The shark was shaking the boat from side to side once again. Kleiner quickly learnt that maintaining his footing was almost impossible. He reached desperately for the torpedo firing switch, and was thrown back, falling hard and cracking his tailbone. He swallowed water before managing to stumble to his feet, and reach for the switch once more.

  He spared a thought for his family, and all the friends he had lost – and would lose that day – and fired the torpedo.

  The G7a steam driven torpedo travelled a distance of six inches before colliding with the hard palette of the roof of the shark’s mouth, and exploded with a warhead comparable to three hundred kilograms of TNT.

  The shark never knew what hit it, and nor did Kleiner, or any of the remaining crew of the U-616.

  ***

  Krauser was catapulted almost fifty metres through the air by the force of the explosion. He felt the air around him turning hot and dry, singeing his hair and toasting his skin. When at last he hit the water again, it felt like a solid wall, knocking all the breath from his lungs. He swallowed a deep gulp in shock, before managing to right himself and kick back up to the surface, spluttering for breath. He thought he was going to pass out, but knew that if he did he was as good as dead. He lay floating on his back for a while, trying to muster the energy to right himself and decide what to do next.

  He felt the impact of debris and shark meat peppering the water around him, and knew that at long last, the battle was finally over. He didn’t know exactly what had happened; he could only hazard vague guesses. All that was certain was that his submarine was gone, and so was his White Ghost.

  After what seemed like hours, he finally managed to muster enough energy to right himself, and so he did.

  About a hundred metres away, the ocean was on fire, as some fluke of the explosion must have cast diesel fuel to the surface. The ocean was a vile, dark purple as the salt water had mixed with engine oil and the blood of the shark - and also of his crewmates, no doubt. A tattered skull and crossbones pennant floated past him, and he grabbed it and stuck it in his pocket without really knowing why.

  He screamed suddenly, startled almost out of his skin by the blast of a ship’s horn. Turning in the water, he saw a fishing vessel of some kind. It must have been the vessel he had glimpsed briefly on the horizon what seemed like hours ago. It was a nondescript, battered ship, and he had no clue as to its nationality. It was backlit by the sun, and he thought for a moment that he had died aboard a boat, and that this was how a sailor would see heaven. That seemed plausible, didn’t it?

  Eventually he heard voices, and the sound was familiar, though not a language he understood; Dutch or Norwegian, perhaps. He felt his eyes fluttering and he rose and fell in the twilight between sleep and wake.

  Eventually the boat came alongside, and he felt strong arms reaching down for him.

  ***

  The first thing he heard was a familiar Norwegian accented German.

  “It looks like you have had an even worse time of it than I had, August.”

  Krauser opened his eyes with a snap, gasping with delight at the sight of Arild Dahlen. The Norwegian sailor was alive, dry, and wearing what was obviously one of the fisherman’s spare clothes. Looking down he saw that he was wearing a similar thick, roll-necked sweater and black trousers. He looked up and around, seeing that he was in a two-man cabin, occupying the lower bunk. His tattered and singed clothes were hung up upon a line to dry. He blinked awa
y the sleep and tried to ignore his pounding headache, not to mention the dull pain from the bullet wound in his arm. “Jesus, Dahlen, how long was I out for?”

  “You were partially conscious when the men here brought you aboard. You then slept for…nearly forty eight hours now. It sounds like you had a hell of a day.”

  “I guess so. It’s coming back slowly.”

  “The boat is Norwegian. My countrymen here picked me up purely by chance, floating in the water. They were just turning back for home when we heard the explosion. I managed to convince them to turn back, and take a look in case there were any survivors. I knew it had to be the U-616.”

  “You were heading for home? Didn’t you think to help us out? You knew we were still being attacked by that thing!”

  Dahlen sighed. “I did not tell the men here about the shark. I just told them I had fallen overboard and my ship had not found me. I did not want to get them involved. Truth be told, August, I had had enough. I saw my chance to get away from the shark, and get home. The fact the shark was distracted by the U-616 was an opportunity that I exploited.”

  “You left us!”

  “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “Fine actions from the man who told us that I was wrong for – what was it? For leaving those sailors as a distraction! As bait! As chum!”

  “I understand your decision now.”

  “You accused us of being so ‘divorced from your humanity’ and then you treat us exactly the same! The crew of the U-616 were men, not some terrain to be taken advantage of!”

  “Please, August. Please. I apologised for my words some time ago. I understand now why you did what you did. I have learned that I am no hero.”

  Krauser slumped back onto the bed, massaging his eyes with the balls of his hands. “None of us are heroes, Arild.”