Night Sky (40 page)

She remembered her childhood: the school outings to the beach, the occasional walks along the Hoe, the lovely view over the Sound, the chatter of her school friends … Yes: carefree days. She rather missed them.

Then she remembered what had come after. Peter’s father had had a crisp upper-class accent just like the voices of those officers on the radio. Suddenly the memories weren’t warm and comforting any more.

It was stupid to think about home.

There was no going back. There never would be.

But, even as she fell asleep, the nostalgia remained.

F
ISCHER FELT HIS
eyes begin to close and, blinking rapidly, pulled himself quickly upright. He moved to the other side of the conning tower and stared out into the murk.

Not far now. They were well into the Bay – or as it was called by the lads, the Black Pit. Fortunately it was living up to its name this morning: it was a filthy day. A southwesterly gale was blowing, it was overcast and visibility was down to no more than a mile. Perfect cover for a submarine.

The weather was also bitterly cold, but Fischer didn’t mind that either: nothing could be as cold as the place they’d come from.

It had been one of the longest patrols they’d ever been on. They’d gone up almost as far as Greenland – a hundred miles short of it, to be precise. And then they’d waited. It was so cold that the boat had iced up every few hours. They’d had to half-submerge then, to get the guns underwater and melt the ice off them. Not that the seawater was exactly warm, but it was just above freezing and that was all that mattered.

The wind hadn’t been kind either: it had blown a gale or more almost the whole time. Conditions below had been worse than normal, and that was saying something in a Type VIIC. The accommodation had been running with water, both from the terrible condensation and from the waves that inevitably slopped down the conning tower hatch. The men had put up with the damp and the discomfort with their usual good humour. The only time Fischer had heard rumblings of discontent was during a storm when, instead of diving to escape the pounding and rolling, he’d been forced to keep U-319 on the surface to watch for a convoy. A lot of the crew had got sick and after six hours few except Fischer cared whether they ever found any targets or not.

They didn’t find the convoy that day. Somehow Fischer had known they wouldn’t. But he’d been ordered to watch for it, so watch he did.

It was four days later when they eventually found a target. It was a small convoy – only ten ships and one tanker – and well escorted by two destroyers. Fischer made contact with the other U-boats in his pack and they closed in. It was a disappointing fight: Fischer had just lined U-319 up for the tanker when the destroyer suddenly came straight for them and they were forced to dive. The ship dropped a few depth charges and by the time Fischer had got U-319 away and surfaced the convoy had got well ahead. It took him two hours to manoeuvre back into position; even then he managed to fire only two torpedoes before the destroyer was on to him again. And what was worse, the torpedoes had missed – at least there had been no
sound
of an explosion. It was all very unsatisfactory.

They did manage to find another convoy and sink two small ships before they ran out of torpedoes. But two ships was a poor tally and Fischer couldn’t decide whether he’d suffered from bad luck, poor intelligence, or a simple lack of convoys. How did one ever know?

One thing was certain though: targets were not as easy to come by nowadays. He remembered the autumn of 1940, The Happy Time, it was called, when it was easy to sink eight, maybe even ten ships on a single patrol. Now, in this January of 1942, nothing was easy.

There was always something that conspired against such achievements: the weather, the convoy escorts, Allied air cover, something …

Maybe the debriefing would shed some light. It wouldn’t be long now …

Fischer glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost 0800. Time to get some sleep. He nodded to the second watch officer and climbed down to the attack room below.

The
Leitender
– the Chief – and two of the technicians were crouched round the periscope which was in the raised position despite the fact they were on the surface.

‘Still having trouble, Chief?’

‘Yes, Herr Kaleu. Hydraulics leaking somewhere. Haven’t much chance of locating the fault before we get in, I’m afraid.’

Fischer nodded. There was always something. He asked, ‘Can we raise it manually?’

‘Oh, I can still give you hydraulic power, but a bit slower, that’s all. I’ll just have to keep topping up the oil. Don’t worry, Herr Kaleu, you’ll have your
Spargel
.’

Fischer smiled.
Spargel
meant asparagus; it was their nickname for the periscope. They had an abbreviation or nickname for most things – even himself. They called him Herr Kaleu, short for Kapitanleutnant. Emblems of authority were favourite targets: they had nicknamed the swastika
Wollhandkrabbe
, after a particularly unpleasant freshwater crab.

Fischer removed his wet weather gear and climbed down into the control room, wondering if the periscope would ever get fixed properly. Half the repairs carried out in the dockyards never held up for very long and broke down at the worst possible moments. They were still having problems with one of the hydroplanes and that had been going on for three patrols now.

Fischer automatically glanced round the control room before making his way forward to what was politely called the commander’s cabin. It was in fact nothing more than a tiny recess with a curtain across the front of it. Still, it was an awful lot better than his men got. Fischer had heard that the British submarines were quite luxurious, with one bunk to each man. Here on the Type VIIC most of the lower ranks slept where they could, in hammocks or on the floor or between the torpedoes. They were allowed hardly any possessions, just a clean set of underwear and a few odds and ends.

Fischer supposed the whole boat must stink by now, but they were all so used to the intertwined smells of lavatories, diesel and sweat that nobody noticed.

When Fischer reached his cabin he paused only to hang up his cap before lying down and closing his eyes.

He never had trouble getting to sleep and when he was dog-tired as he was now it was that much easier. And the sleep when it came was the sleep of the just: deep, untroubled and dreamless.

It seemed to Fischer he was awake a fraction of a second before the klaxon blared. By the time it was in full cry he was running. Three seconds after it sounded he was in the control room, just in time to see the first man tumbling down from the conning tower.

The diving procedure was well under way: the men were running forward to get their weight into the nose, the hydroplanes were fully angled; the boat was starting to tilt downwards as she began to submerge at full speed. He looked quickly round to see if any problems were developing in the control room. None. He looked up to see if all the men were down from the tower and the hatch closed. Not yet. He watched, trying to judge from the angle of dive exactly how long the men had before the hatch had to be closed, whether or not any remained on the wrong side.

The last man fell down, the hatch clanged shut.

Now they had to wait. Diving took between forty and sixty seconds. Even on a good day it was an awfully long time.

Even now it was only eight seconds since the klaxon had sounded.

There was an instant of silence. The men stared across the cramped control room, their eyes locked on each other’s faces.

Then for the second time that night Fischer had the strange sensation that he knew what was coming a moment before it actually happened. It seemed to him that he grabbed at a rail and tensed his body a fraction of a second before the bomb actually exploded.

The roar blasted his ears and jarred his senses. He felt the boat thresh violently, like a rat shaken by an angry dog.

Then darkness. A faint glow of light. Smoke. And the acrid smell of white-hot electrics.

Fischer yelled, ‘Damage control reports!’

Voices started screaming at him, ‘No rudder control!’

‘Fire in the afterends!’

Fischer shouted, ‘Pressure tanks?’

‘Pressure normal!’

‘Pressure hull?’

‘No leaks!’

There was a pause, then, ‘Fire in afterends extinguished, Herr Kaleu!’

‘Any further damage?’

An engineer appeared from aft. ‘Herr Kaleu! Starboard shaft buckled. Port shaft bent.’

‘How bent?’

He was a young sailor, no more than nineteen. He didn’t have an answer. Then his face brightened and he said, ‘Well it’s still turning!’

‘I want a full report from the Chief at his convenience!’

‘Yes, Herr Kaleu!’

Fischer absorbed the information. No rudder, no shafts.

Christ, the bomb had blown the whole of the bloody back end off!

But the pressure hull was intact: that was the important thing. They were still diving. There was no loss of diving control. He looked at the depth indicator. ‘Level off at twenty metres.’

‘Yes, Herr Kaleu!’

What they lacked was steering. He looked at the compass bearing. It was veering round. They were turning slowly to port.

‘Trim?’

‘Stable.’

The turn wasn’t too sharp then. Hope yet.

The Chief hurried into the control room. ‘Starboard shaft unserviceable, Herr Kaleu. Port shaft just about serviceable. But I can’t give you more than – say, a knot submerged and two surfaced. Even then the engine might not like it.’

Fischer nodded.

It was decision time. He knew immediately that there was only one decision he could make.

He turned to the First Watch Officer. ‘We’ll give it fifteen minutes, then we’ll go to periscope depth and send a signal to Brest, asking for assistance. I’ll dictate the message in just a moment. In the meantime …’ He looked round until he saw the figure of the man who’d been on watch, the Second Watch Officer, standing in his dripping oilskins, his face sheet-white. ‘I want an incident report. Now!’

‘There was no warning, Herr Kaleu. It even came from the north-east, downwind, so we didn’t hear it until it was almost on top of us. All of a sudden there it was, coming straight for us …’

‘This is very important,’ Fischer interrupted. ‘Are you sure it was coming straight for us?’

‘Yes! No doubt about that.’

Fischer nodded. ‘Continue.’

The Second Watch Officer gulped. ‘I could see that it was a big plane, a bomber, and that it was close, awfully close. I knew that by the time we got to the guns it would be on top of us, so I ordered diving stations straight away …’ He looked up anxiously.

If Fischer had been there he would have ordered the men to the guns, to get in at least one burst. On the other hand there had been so little time … He said quietly, ‘I think there was nothing we could have done either way. At least the dive has protected us from a second attack.’

The young man looked relieved and continued, ‘As I closed the hatch I reckon the plane was no more than, say, twenty metres away.’

‘Tell me, was it still overcast and the visibility low?’

‘Yes, Herr Kaleu. You were there, you saw what it was like …’

‘Yes, yes,’ Fischer said impatiently. ‘I just wanted to know if it had changed suddenly …’

‘Oh no. Just the same.’

‘Thank you. That’s all.’

The young officer left. For a while Fischer sat motionless on the seat, then he walked slowly back into the control room. A chart of the Bay of Biscay lay open on the tiny chart table. Fischer stared at it blankly.

Bad weather, overcast conditions, poor visibility … Perfect cover for a submarine.

Like hell!

The plane must have known they were there; it must have!

He stared at the chart as if it might explain it all. But there was no simple answer, he knew that. Nothing that fitted any of the known facts.

The plane had
known
! And U-319 had been just like a sitting duck. Intensely vulnerable. Unable to defend herself. It – changed everything.