Something in the Water

by Peter Scott

  “Oh yes I would.” She was a pisser when she was being reasonable. She sat down by the cold stove.

  “I’m going with you,” she said. “Either Gus or I will go with you every night.”

  “I’ll admit I liked having company this time, but I was more nervous than ever with you out there where something might happen—more than likely will happen from the looks of it.”

  “You have to take me,” she said. “I’m half owner.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “And I want you to promise me that you’ll share your lookouts on the cliffs with others in your Shore Patrol group,” she said.

  “No, I won’t do that. I don’t want those people walking around up there, snooping around here in the cove—maybe in the houses—disturbing things. I’m sick of them snooping in my world. You are too. Admit it, Maggie.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded yes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HORST WILTZIUS AND HIS SON OF THE SAME NAME LOOSENED THEIR ties and lingered together at the long dining table on each of the last three nights that the young Horst was at home. Frau Wiltzius, who would normally not approve, opened an extra bottle of wine for them and left them to their tobacco. Young Horst’s older sister brought her curly headed little girl, Frankie, to say good night to her uncle and grandfather, then she, too, left them to their politics and naval talk. They smoked the last of the cigars that the older Horst had presented his son upon his graduation from the naval academy at Flensburg.

  Unlike many fathers and sons in Germany, the Wiltzius men agreed on most everything and loved to discuss politics and the war. The older Horst had served in submarines in the previous war and had known Admiral Donitz personally, though only briefly. He agreed with Donitz’s contention that in this new war the chivalry of the old days was no longer practical. It was unrealistic to think that a U-boat could approach an enemy ship with a warning, then give the crew time to escape in lifeboats before firing torpedoes it. It was a pity, they agreed, but necessary. The older Horst approved, too, of Donitz’s insistence upon a more democratic, less rigid relationship between the captain and crew aboard each U-boat. How else to avoid the disastrous mutinies caused so often by tyrannical captains in the last war?

  Though the Wiltzius men remained optimistic in front of the rest of the family and the workers in the vineyards, they shared a dread about the future of Germany under Adolf Hitler. But in those last nights together, they avoided talk of the Eastern Front, the excesses of the Nazi party, and the awaited arrival of Polish conscripts to help with the harvest. They talked instead of what they would do when young Horst returned from his first patrol and of the optimistic predictions for this year’s wine. The older Horst could remember well the exhilarating mixture of fear and expectation that his son was feeling before his first encounter with the enemy.

  In the morning, while the young man said good-bye to the rest of the family, the elder Horst waited in the automobile, for fear that he would show his emotions. They drove to the Trier station in silence and, as they had agreed the night before, said their farewells briefly at the train.

  “You wear the uniform well,” the older Horst said. “We are proud of you. Go with God.”

  The trip to Lorient, on the Brittany coast, took three days. Ensign Wiltzius’s train was sidetracked more than a dozen times to make way for munitions trains and long, black lines of boxcars heading into Germany. He spent one night asleep in the corner of his third-class compartment outside Paris, another on some rural siding in western France.

  His apprehension and nostalgia both disappeared when he reached Lorient and the bustling harbor where the U-boat base was being finished. He was astonished by the gigantic concrete pens being built by the Todt Corporation. If only his father could be there to see them. They had both heard rumors, but the sight of these structures was another thing altogether. The walls were twenty feet thick and built so high that the boats could be lifted out of the water below by cranes mounted in the ceilings. No bomb could penetrate them. For some reason the British had not bombed them during construction, and now it was too late to even try. How could anyone defeat a Germany that could manufacture such a miracle?

  In the confusion of the harbor the young Horst felt naive and unable to hide his fear of appearing helpless. The other ensigns, no older than he, seemed so confident. They went about their business with an air of nonchalance and a knowledge of the working details of the place that made them appear to be old hands. He thought that once he was assigned to a boat, all would be well. He went to the headquarters ship on the quay and reported to Command, only to be told by a snide adjutant with an evil, hairy nose that he would have to wait three days for his boat.

  Horst managed to say that he would have to make do with wine and women for a while longer, but instead of sounding jaded as he wished, he was sure that he appeared callow and that the clerk who had overheard him exchanged grins with another as he left the room.

  At least the time spent waiting gave the young ensign the opportunity to learn his way around so he did not seem so clumsy and overwhelmed. He found two classmates from Flens-burg at the Hotel Beausejour, and the three of them got fumbling drunk every night.

  Finally, on the fourth morning, he was told to report back to Command at three in the afternoon. When he returned, still nursing a headache from the night before, he met Captain Reis-ing, who received him warmly. He was assigned to U235, a brand new modified Type VIIC that had just arrived from her sea trials at Kiel. They would go aboard in the morning and begin their own shakedown and training of the crew. In no time, Reis-ing said, they would be sailing into the North Atlantic to join one of the wolf packs. Horst, who would be watch and radio officer, should bring his gear aboard immediately.

  Young Wiltzius was disappointed with Captain Reising at first because the man seemed so gentle, so congenial. He had hoped to serve under one of the infamous Gray Wolves, those fierce, determined U-boat heroes he had so long idolized. Reis-ing, who looked to be in his early thirties, was a veteran of several patrols and wore the Iron Cross, but without Oak Cluster or Sword. Would he be anything like the great Gunther Prien, who had said that he got more pleasure from a good convoy exercise than he did from any furlough? Horst doubted it, but he resolved to serve his captain well and make his father proud.

  They trained for two long weeks, going through every conceivable drill over and over again until the crew—only half of which had combat experience—operated as well as the precision machine they animated. On the fifteenth day the expectant men ran through yet another diving routine far out in the Bay of Biscay. The drill went as smoothly as anyone might have expected, and within minutes U235 lay on the sandy bottom, ninety meters below the choppy surface. The boat rocked gently in the current; the silence within was broken only by the soft noise of the compressors up forward.

  In the control room, still wearing his red glasses at the chart table, Captain Reising turned to Horst and told him to assemble the crew in the forward torpedo room. Most of them were naked except for their black shorts and shoes, and their bodies glistened with sweat in the greenish light, as did the interior surface of the hull. Many sat on the shiny brass torpedoes, waiting wordlessly for further orders. The bunks had been folded up to make room for the crowd.

  When the men were assembled, Horst went to the control room and reported to Captain Reising, who followed him back to the torpedo room, shutting the bulkhead door behind him to muffle the noise of the compressors. The wire mesh covering the bulb over his shoulder cast a spiderweb pattern of shadow on his white cap. Reising waited for a moment, looking from face to face.

  “Gentlemen,” he said in a low, even voice. “You have proved yourselves worthy of this boat and worthy of the submarine service. I have just now received orders from Admiral, U-boats. Tomorrow we take on food and other necessities. The following morning we set sail for the convoy routes in the North Atlantic.”

  He paused, then smiled. “Good hunting!” />
  When he was gone, the crew was silent until the blue-eyed Mardsden reached across a torpedo to shake hands with the ghastly Liebe, setting off a babble of excitement and handshaking before the petty officers could disperse the men to their stations.

  All the next day, under a chilly, gray Breton sky, U235 was loaded with food and provisions. Below, every inch of spare space was used to store fresh foods: sausages, hams, and smoked bacon hung from pipes and cables everywhere. Hammocks filled with huge loaves of black bread and long French baguettes were slung in every available space, so that the crew had to move in a crouch. Crates of potatoes and tinned meats were stuffed into every possible nook. Along the hull in the forward part of the galley were cases of Beck’s beer ordered by Captain Reising for special occasions. The crew was as fresh as the food that surrounded them and eager to set out. That evening, in his tiny bunk, Horst wrote a brief letter home, then dreamed himself toward an anxious sleep, with images of Admiral Donitz himself, in his long black leather coat, welcoming them home amid the music of bands and crowds of girls with bouquets.

  At noon, U235 separated from the pier and moved slowly out of the harbor into the open waters of the bay, where her diesels took over. It was a dark day, threatening to storm. Horst and several others rode with the watch on the bridge until the increasing seas soaked them, and they went below. Even with the weeks of training, young Wiltzius and the other new men were still striking their shoulders on bulkhead doors and banging their knees on exposed pipes and levers as the boat pitched and heaved. Captain Reising kept U235 on the surface to make better time, instead of submerging for a gentler ride. By evening, Horst was struggling with seasickness and was grateful to get out into the air when his turn for watch came, no matter how wet and cold it was.

  Darkness fell early and was deepened by the thick cloud layer at the western edge of the storm. The sea was calmer, and U235 was making good speed. Wiltzius and Obersteuerman Achen were on lookout; three others were riding the perimeter of the conning tower in silence.

  “Listen to that. Do you hear it?” Achen pointed skyward off the starboard bow.

  Horst cupped his ears, as did the others. The heavy engines of a large aircraft reverberated in the sky. It sounded as if it was flying low and in a direction parallel to theirs.

  “Captain to the bridge!” Horst shouted into the intercom.

  In seconds, Captain Reising was on the bridge, straining to hear and see with the others. The noise of the aircraft changed from a deep, pounding sound to a higher-pitched roaring. They could see nothing but darkness and the gray edge of the heavy clouds.

  “He can’t see us any better than we can see him,” Achen said.

  “He’s banking. He’s coming around this way. What’s he doing?” There was another change in the noise of the engines aloft—this time a lessening in volume but an increase in clarity.

  “He’s coming right at us, sir!”

  As Wiltzius spoke, a giant silver beam of artificial light cut through the low clouds from the approaching aircraft, shone on the water just off their port not fifty meters away, then began to move slowly toward them.

  “A porcupine!” screamed Achen.

  “Alarm!”

  They tumbled down through the hatch, sliding and bumping on the ladder, and striking the deck plates on the run. The noise of the alarm bell seemed to explode inside the boat. Men turned handwheels frantically, while the machinists hung their full weight on the levers to blow the air out of the ballast tanks and let the sea in.

  “All hands forward to the forward torpedo room!” screamed Captain Reising. The rush of the crew through the boat swept Horst forward with it, banging him against every metal object, throwing him once to the deck plates in a full sprawl. The roar of the escaping air overwhelmed even the alarm bell until, seconds later, as young Wiltzius was recovering and following another man through the last bulkhead, a giant explosion lifted the stern of U235, shook her, and flung her off her axis. A second explosion seemed to shove the boat sideways.

  “Wabos!” someone screamed. “Wabos!”

  “Not depth charges,” said another. “It’s bombs!”

  For a moment the boat was out of control, heading straight for the bottom. Men screamed at one another in the darkness, until the emergency lighting came on and the captain and steersman got the boat righted.

  “Left full rudder!” Even from their position forward they could hear Captain Reising shouting orders. “Starboard motor half ahead!”

  They had changed course and were righted, perhaps seventy meters down now, if Horst had guessed right. He knelt on the deck plates, holding onto a chain, looking up and listening, as were the others around him. There was only the noise of their own electric motors—nothing more. Young Wiltzius struggled to control his shaking. He thought for a moment that he would vomit but concentrated on the pain in his shoulder.

  “What was it, sir?” Next to him in the feeble light, young Praeger thrust his face forward, looking for salvation. He had cut his cheek slightly; his eyes were bulging with fear. The sight of Praeger and the man’s need for reassurance made Horst stand up.

  “I’m sure it’s all right now Praeger.” He spoke aloud so that the others near him would hear. “That was a Porcupine—you know, a Sunderland flying boat. He had a light on us, but he missed us, didn’t he? The incompetent boob.”

  Praeger and another man nearby laughed, relieved.

  “He won’t find us again,” Horst said. “Captain Reising has already lost him, you can be sure. There, the lights are on. Back to your stations. Get this mess cleaned up.”

  Later, in the control room, Reising and two of his officers shared a plate of bread and jam, and talked over their tea. The boat had suffered little or no damage, unless one counted the fright to the crew. Everyone knew that the captain’s quick work with the steersman had prevented them from losing the use of their hydroplanes and keeling over completely. What they did not know was how the aircraft found them in the darkness.

  “It must have been coincidence,” said Ensign Raeden. “What else could explain it? It must have been his luck.”

  “Could he have radar, sir?” asked Horst. This was on everyone’s mind, though none had mentioned it until now.

  ‘it looks that way,” Reising said. “But Admiral, U-boats insists that it is impossible. I inquired in my after-action report, and the reply was unequivocal. The enemy does not have radar small enough for aircraft.”

  The ensigns suspected that the captain was not convinced, but would say nothing.

  “Luck,” repeated Reising. “His luck.” Then he smiled, as if to himself. “And our luck, as well, to have had so many fresh loaves aboard.” He turned the loaf of black bread around to show them the impression of a man’s skull, as deep as two cupped hands.

  “So many pillows and such tasty ones, too.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RICHARD SLOWED FOR A FROST HEAVE ON THE DEER ISLE ROAD, BUT it was still quite a bump, especially for his mother and Claire, who both let out a little whoops when they bounced on the back seat. The two widows, Lucille Snell and Claire Fickett, were cousins twice removed and neighbors who visited one another often. Lucille was wearing her new frock with the orange floral patterns; Claire compensated for the age of her own dress with her gold brooch and a new Sears and Roebuck hat adorned with a pink spray. Richard, in a fedora and Sunday suit, drove with his elbow out the window.

  When Lucille had first heard that gasoline was to be rationed to three gallons a week, she despaired that they would not be able to continue their Sunday outings. Richard, however, had assured her that they would have enough gas—just leave it to him. He was telling her the truth when he added that he enjoyed their outings, too. He liked to take his ’36 Desoto out on the road. The blue had faded some, but the chrome still polished bright, and there was not a spot of rust on her—unlike most of the cars in Stonington. People they passed on Sundays knew they were going to the Jed Prouty Inn, which had the ni
cest restaurant west of Bar Harbor, and Richard knew that the women who waved envied Lucille for having such a good son.

  It was the finest kind of summer day for a Sunday drive. The loosestrife was in bloom, and the purple roadside lupine, Lucille’s favorite, was in full flower. On the causeway beach between Deer Isle and Little Deer Isle, Lucille saw the MacFarlands setting up for a picnic lunch and poked Richard to honk so they could wave. He did, sliding into the wide turn before the bridge over Eggemoggin Reach. Lucille had yet to ride over the span with her eyes open. Driving through the air over water was scary enough, but on a bridge that Richard said was built to sway with the wind, it was absolutely horrifying.

  “With a breeze like this one—” Richard began.

  “You hush!” she said, and covered her eyes with her hands as they approached the bridge.

  “You should open your eyes and see all the sailboats,” said Claire.

  “Look at them all,” Richard said. “You’d never know there was a war on.”

  Later, they passed a young man hitchhiking in front of the Blue Hill library. He was carrying a striped suitcase and smiled at them when they passed.

  “You should’ve picked him up,” said Claire, touched by the smile. “He might be going off to enlist. Or home to see his family. These days we have to—”

  “He was a stranger,” said Lucille. “We do not pick up strangers.”

  “He was wearing a necktie, for pity’s sake. He was smiling.” Claire smoothed her dress over her knees. It could be her boy Bruce, trying to get home from Maryland.

  “Don’t forget that it was strangers that robbed Richard and beat him up in Rockland—that nearly killed him,” Lucille said. “You can’t be too careful these days; it’s shameful.”

  • • •

  After dinner, they went for a walk down Bucksport’s main street, Richard strolling ahead picking his teeth while the ladies looked in the shop windows. They stopped at a bench at the far end of town to rest their feet and watched a ship taking on pulp from the paper mill. A crane twice as high as a church steeple was lifting logs from railroad cars with its claws and dropping them like sticks onto a log mountain. The afternoon shift was arriving, crossing the road from the parking lot by the hundreds.