Arctic Fire (2 page)

Kappel stared at the two; there was no mistaking
that they were brothers. He’d seen it a hundred times before.
Country peasant boys tired of the farm, looking for adventure and
glory by serving in the
Kaiserliche Marine.
Some of these
boys were so wet behind the ears that he feared if he had a crew
full of these peasant farmers, they would surly sink to the bottom.
Both boys, Thayer and Damien Lehmann, were desperately trying to
grow mustaches to make themselves look older, and failing
miserably. He couldn’t fault them though; he himself had escaped
grueling factory work for the freedom of the sea and it had served
him well, but these two had a long way to go.

“Where is your white parka crewman Lehmann? We
are supposed to be an iceberg. I have not seen too many dark blue
icebergs,” Kappel said, shifting his cigar for emphasis, “Have
you?”

The young crewman snapped to attention. “No sir,
I tried but I couldn’t find my white parka sir, sorry sir. I can
take it off and go up in my uniform sir!” Thayer replied.

“What, and have you freeze to death within the
hour? I don’t think so. This is just a training mission so go on
up, but if this had been a combat situation, then I would let you
freeze. Do I make myself clear crewman?”

“Yes sir!”

“Good. Now go. If they spot you perhaps they
will just think you are a giant Dodo bird who has stopped to rest
on the ice.” Both men scrambled up the ladder and disappeared
through the hatch into the conning tower. Everyone felt a wave of
cold air invading the control room when the hatched was opened.

Once through the hatch, they closed it and
Damien, in the white parka, reached over and slapped his brother on
the top of the head. “Nice going Thayer. You’re such a dummkopf,
but you know what? I do like what First Officer Kappel called you.
I think that will be your new nickname: Dodo.”

“Shut up Damien, it’s not my fault. I know you
hid my jacket somewhere.”

Damien had a look of mock hurt on his face. “Now
why would I do such a thing as that? Mother said I should take care
of you.”

“Yeah, she didn’t mean it like that.” He glared
at Damien for a moment then sighed; he could never stay mad at his
older brother, no matter what he did. “Let’s just take our
stations.”

Thayer stood on deck for a moment and breathed
in deeply, tasting the fresh, crisp salt air. Even though they had
only been at sea for a few weeks, the air in the submarine had
already turned into a flat, stale taste that lingered in your
mouth. Diesel fuel, cooking odors, battery acid and the sweat of
thirty-five men crammed together in a tight space made the air so
thick at times you could almost take a knife and spread it on your
biscuit.

Thayer inhaled another breath then adjusted the
hood on his jacket. Even though the air tasted sweet, the wind was
still a bitter cold.

“Are we going to take our stations or just stand
here and look at the ocean and skip stones…Dodo?” Damien
mocked.

Thayer reached over and slugged Damien hard on
his shoulder. He looked at him for a moment, then both men burst
out laughing. Thayer just shook his head, then grabbed a pair of
headphones and climbed into his position on the right side of the
mast.

Before him was a strange sight that he still
hadn’t gotten used to yet: instead of seeing the sleek, dark gray
bow knifing through the water, there was a huge, bulky mass of
white. A series of scaffoldings and supporting cooling pipes were
attached to the hull, making the submarine look like a giant
swimming porcupine. White canvas covered the scaffoldings,
supporting several inches or more of ice, all kept frozen by the
cooling pipes.

When running, the sub would blow its ballast
tanks and the whole “iceberg” would raise about two feet out of the
water, allowing the submarine to move. With the added topside
weight, the sub would sway back and forth in the water, so giant
outriggers were attached to the hull and ran to the outer edges of
the berg. When they were stationary, the sub would take on water
and would “sit” the berg down on the ocean surface.

Damien grabbed the other set of headphones and
took up his look-out position on the opposite side of the mast from
Thayer. Thayer tapped his brother on the shoulder and pointed
behind them to the left. With binoculars raised, both men paid
little attention to anything else as they stared in an almost
trance-like state, totally mesmerized by the moving city that was
quickly overtaking them.

“Damien, I can see people up on the boat deck,
see there, just behind the first funnel.” Thayer said excitedly,
“and listen, I can hear the band playing.” For a moment, both men
were silent as they just watched the great ship.

“Look, on the main deck, just below the third
lifeboat, I see a couple kissing.” Damien replied. “Oh isn’t that
sweet, they look just like you and Gretchen smooching when we left
home—kissy, kissy.”

“Shut up!” Thayer glared at his brother, then
focused back on the ship. “I wonder where they are all going, what
their stories are?”

“I know that we’ll be going to the brig and that
our story will be a court-martial if we don’t report in.” Damien
turned on the small switch on his headset. “Lookout to Con, the
ship is about three kilometers. Port aft.”

“Con to Lookout, aye.”

The electric motor whined as the periscope
slowly began to descend back into the bowels of the submarine. A
moment later they heard the hatch open. The Lehmann brothers looked
down to see the Kapitan and the First Officer coming onto the
conning tower. Both officers were wearing white parkas. When Damien
saw them, he pointed at them, then to Thayer and mouthed the words
Dooo-dooo
. Thayer gritted his teeth and threw daggers out of
his eyes, as that was all he could do at the moment with the
Kapitan there.

With both officers concentrating on the ship,
Damien turned his attention to the surrounding area. After a moment
he stopped and stared in front of them.

“Mr. Kappel,” he said. “Why is there a hole in
the sky?”

Kappel looked at the Kapitan and shook his head.
“And to think that I was worried about Thayer there. What are you
talking about Damien?”

“Over there sir.” Damien pointed, just off our
port bow.”

Kappel raised his binoculars; it did indeed look
like a hole in the sky. It was as if someone had taken a knife and
carved out a section of the night sky at the horizon, removing the
stars and leaving a blank, empty hole. Almost immediately, Kappel
started screaming.

“You idiot! Were you both staring at the ship
this whole time instead of doing your jobs and looking around?”

“What is it?” Damien asked, panic rising in his
voice.

“It’s an iceberg, you idiot!”

Kapitan Haufmann spun around and raised his
binoculars and looked at the iceberg, horror filling his eyes.
“Hard right rudder. Now!” he barked, down through the open hatchway
to the control room below.

Startled by the intensity of the shouted order,
the young helmsmen spun the wheel hard and fast, and despite its
bulk, the submarine responded quickly and lurched to one side. So
sudden and quick was the maneuver, the outrigger on the left
slammed hard into the water. The force of the impact was so abrupt
and great; it sent shock waves reverberating throughout the
submarine and through the scaffolding, which acted like giant
tuning forks. A large block section of ice hanging over the stern
broke off and swirled underneath the submarine and hit the rudder,
bending it back to port and lodging itself at the hinge point,
jamming the rudder.

“The helm is not answering!” Came a frantic cry
from below deck.

“Full ahead port engine, full reverse on
starboard engine!” Haufmann commanded.

The three men were sitting in the engine room
playing cards. First Class seaman Elmar Hirsch was sitting near the
bulkhead trying not to smile. At last he had a decent hand and
hoped to win back some of his money, aces over eights. Chief
engineer Dieter Schwab was sitting across from him, also smiling on
the inside. He wasn’t smiling because he had a winning hand but
because he was amused at Hirsch trying to hide his. Mechanics Mate
Otto Grün, was sitting with his back toward the forward hatch,
ready to fold, it seemed lady luck had left him high and dry.

When the chunks of ice fell off the scaffolding,
a huge slab tore a long gash in the port ballast tank, then snagged
on a cross beam and swung under the hull with such force that it
punched a large hole in the engine room. The force of the impact
popped several of the rivets, and one shot out like a bullet,
hitting Hirsch in the back of the head. He was dead before his
crumpled body hit the deck. Schwab sprang to his feet to help his
friend but slipped in the onrush of water and went down hard,
jamming his knee on the deck and slamming his head again the side
of the metal worktable. He cried out in pain and nearly passed out,
but managed to struggle to his feet and grabbed Hirsch. He felt a
wave of nausea sweep over him as he pulled his hand from the back
of the boy’s head; it was covered with blood. Grün rushed to help
his crewmates but had taken only two steps before he was slammed
against the bulkhead as the rest of the rivets gave way and the
hull collapsed. The deluge of water hurled him against the other
bulkhead, crushing him in an instant.

“Why are we still moving?” Kapitan Haufmann
shouted down the hatch to the control room. At that same instant,
the sub lurched back to the left when the ice bent the rudder and
jammed it in the opposite direction.

Thayer was still high on his lookout post,
paralyzed with fear, staring at the moving city that wasn’t
wavering from its imminent collision course. Within moments, an
immense wall of moving steel was literally within arm’s reach and
even though he was fifteen feet above the deck of the submarine, he
still couldn’t see onto the deck of the liner. Thayer looked at
Damien for reassurance but instead of finding comfort, he saw the
same wild-eyed look of fear that he had in his own eyes. He was
even more terrified now because he had never seen fear in his big
brother’s eyes before.

He vaguely heard the Kapitan shouting something
and then the submarine lunged to one side with such force that he
heard the scaffolding breaking and saw huge chucks of ice falling
off the sub. Suddenly the submarine lurched back the other way and
Thayer felt his hands being torn from the railing and then he found
himself falling through the air. With a bone-jarring thud, Thayer
landed painfully hard, face down, onto a floating slab of ice.

With dizzying, agonizing pain, he lifted his
head and watched through blurry eyes as his submarine continued on
without him. The last thing Thayer Lehmann remembered was how cold
the ice was and wondering why they were leaving him behind.

“KAPITAN!” Kappel shouted.

Haufmann no longer needed his binoculars to see
that less than one hundred meters away, 882 feet of steel was
bearing down on his tiny submarine at twenty-one knots.

“I need right full rudder NOW!” Haufmann barked
out, but he already knew it was too late and that only a miracle
could save his submarine now. The words had no sooner left his
mouth than the submarine shook violently and the sounds of
grinding, scraping, ripping metal vibrated throughout the boat as
the two vessels collided.

The scaffolding and piping of the U-boat bent,
twisted and snapped away like dry twigs crushed underfoot. The left
bow diving plane punctured the hull of the immense ship and
suddenly the submarine was being pulled along by the ship, hitching
a ride like a flea on the back of a Great Dane. For a fleeting
moment, the Kapitan was beginning to think that they just might
have their miracle, that they just might cheat Death and simply
bounce off the great ship. But Death would not be cheated; it would
not be denied. For tonight, Death was about to go on a gluttonous
rampage.

Haufmann felt the submarine jerk as the dive
plane began tearing a great gash in the liner’s side. In an
instant, the wound had grown to several dozen meters, and in that
moment he knew there would be no miracle.

Suddenly the dive plane caught on a main
bulkhead of the ship and instead of sheering off, the fine German
engineering and craftsmanship proved their undoing as the dive
plane held and it twisted the submarine, pulling her onto her side.
The remnants of the scaffolding and ice shattered against the hull
of the ship like a snowball thrown against the side of a house.

The submarine continued to roll and the conning
tower was dragged under and smashed against the hull of the great
passenger liner, like a tin can placed on a railroad track for a
passing freight train to crush. The piercing screams of metal
scraping metal alerted no one. They were lost, drowned out by the
steady, throbbing heartbeat of the giant liner’s engines. The cries
of help from the men trapped inside the submarine, once their home,
now their coffin, would never reach the living. Their muffled
screams were softened into melody as they mixed and mingled with
the sounds of music and laughter, floating down from those
strolling casually on the decks of the ship six stories above
them.

Few, if any of the passengers of the
R.M.S.
Titanic
felt the slight vibration as 53,000 tons of swiftly
moving ocean liner brushed aside the 600 ton gnat that was
unfortunate enough to get in its way.

Chapter
Two

“It’s bloody cold out here. I can’t wait to get
back to the ship; I’m freezing me bum off out here.”

“Stow your complaining Mr. Sanders.”

“Beggin your pardon, Sir, but no one could be
alive out here now. Everyone knows that a man can only last a few
minutes in these waters before he freezes to death, and the ship
went down hours ago.”