The Passenger (34 page)

A
MESSAGE FROM HEADQUARTERS REMINDED
Lorenz that the Führer would be giving an important speech that evening in Berlin. At the appointed hour Lorenz stood outside the radio shack, even though there was little point in this, because the broadcast was going to be fed to every compartment of the boat through the public-address system. Pullman was also drawn to the same area, accompanied by his acolytes, Berger and Wessel. It was as though being close to the radio receiver was somehow the
equivalent of sitting in the front row of a theatre. The sustained noise of an adoring multitude blasted out of the speakers. Lorenz pictured the scene: thousands of raised arms, flags waving, dramatic pillars of light rising into the night sky. He wondered if Monika had managed to get a seat in the stadium. For a moment he was distracted by a memory of her pale, naked body stretched out on red sheets.

The crowd fell silent, and the Führer began his address. ‘My fellow German countrymen and women, my comrades!' Pullman clasped his hands together and pressed them against his heart. ‘At present everybody speaks before the forum which seems to them the most fitting. Some speak before a parliament. I believed that I should return again today from whence I came, namely to the people!' The stadium erupted: rapturous applause and cries of ‘Sieg Heil.' The Führer resumed with calm authority, but his delivery became increasingly agitated, his language more plosive, until he was railing against British hypocrisy, American lies, and the iniquities of Bolshevism. After each outburst of incontinent rage he paused and the jubilant crowd cheered. Pullman nodded slowly, his hooded eyes and half-smile resembling the expression of an ecstatic flagellant. The Führer praised Germany's allies and concluded by paying tribute to the army. ‘Thus we feel the entire sacrifice which our soldiers are making. Who can understand that better than myself—who was once a soldier too? I look upon myself as the first infantryman of the Reich. I know without doubt that the infantryman fulfils his duty. I fulfil my own duties also, unmistakably, and I understand all the sorrow of my comrades and know all that goes on with them. I cannot therefore use any phrase which they will misunderstand. I can only say one thing to them, the home front knows what they have to go through. The home front can well imagine what it means to lie in the snow and the frost in the cold of thirty-five degrees below zero and defend our homes for us. But because the home front knows it, they will all do what they can to lighten your fate. They will work, and they will continue to
work, and I will demand that the German patriots at home work and produce munitions, manufacture weapons, and make more munitions, and more. You remain at home, and many comrades lose their lives daily. Workers: work, manufacture, continue to work so that our means of communication, our transportation facilities, can take them to the front from behind the lines. The front will hold, they will fulfil their duty.'

When they heard the crowd erupting for the last time, Pullman gave the party salute and clicked his heels. Berger and Wessel copied him, although when Lorenz looked at them his scrutiny made them self-conscious and uncomfortable.

‘Well, Herr Kaleun?' said Pullman, offering Lorenz an opportunity to demonstrate his confidence in the Führer.

‘Well . . .' Lorenz repeated without emotion.

‘Inspiring,' Pullman persisted. ‘Wasn't it?'

Lorenz's face was blank. He glanced at Graf, who was silently imploring him to say something positive.

‘I share the Führer's pity and sympathy,' said Lorenz, ‘for our countrymen who are serving on the Russian front.' Then, before Pullman could say anything else, Lorenz stepped into his nook and yanked the curtain along its rail.

E
NGINE VIBRATIONS CONDUCTED THROUGH THE
boat and made the slip of paper that Lorenz held in his hands tremble. He had been instructed to intercept a convoy and participate in a coordinated attack with three other U-boats. The convoy, according to intelligence sources, was large but inadequately defended.

‘Have you noticed,' said Lorenz to Juhl. ‘How communications from U-boat headquarters are becoming increasingly sanguine? They are inclined to conclude that British and American defenses are either light or inadequate even when the evidence available would strongly suggest the contrary.'

Juhl, standing next to Lorenz, reached out and drew an imaginary line under a phrase with his finger: ‘Only three destroyers.'

‘Exactly,' said Lorenz. ‘
Only
three destroyers, they say—and
some
corvettes. Well, that's all right then. I like that—some corvettes—hardly worth counting them.' He walked off to the control room, muttering imprecations, and set about plotting the new course with Müller. After this, he switched the public-address system on and spoke into the microphone. ‘We're on our way to intercept a convoy. Müller believes we can reach them before sunrise. U-329, U-474, and U-689 are also coming to the party. Diesel room: we'll be racing through the night again. So please be careful where you put those dirty rags.'

As dawn was breaking, Müller requested Lorenz's presence on the bridge. The entire western horizon was dark with smoke. ‘Well,' said Lorenz, ‘headquarters
did
say the convoy was large . . .'

‘How many ships do you think are out there?' asked Müller.

Lorenz scanned the horizon with his binoculars. ‘We must be looking at twenty-five merchants—or thereabouts.'

‘No, more than that,' said Müller. ‘Nine columns and they're moving very slowly—seven knots, perhaps—and producing that much smoke? Thirty or more, I'd say.'

‘At least intelligence got the size of the convoy right,' Lorenz huffed.

‘How many destroyers are you expecting?'

‘Three . . . but I can see four.'

‘And the frigate?'

‘Yes. Plus two corvettes.'

‘No, three corvettes. Two points forward of the port beam.'

Lorenz rotated the thumbscrew. ‘Three then . . . and I wonder how many warships are still below the horizon?' He let the binoculars hang down against his chest, and the barrels seemed to weigh heavily on his ribs. A bad feeling solidified in his stomach, a bolus of fear and premonitory misgivings.

The staff officers at headquarters had planned an attack in two stages. First, U-329 and U-474 were to advance and fire on the convoy, then—after a short interval—it would be the turn of U-330 and U-689. Lorenz gave the order to dive, and, maintaining ‘periscope depth,' the boat sailed north to await further instruction. One hour later Thomas reported faint detonations and these were followed by a message from headquarters stating that U-329 had been disabled by aircraft and had had to be scuttled. After more detonations a subsequent message declared with pithy indifference:
RADIO CONTACT WITH U-474 LOST
. ‘A hundred men,' said Ziegler softly.

‘
I shall not complain,
' whispered Lorenz, ‘
though I now founder and perish in watery depths! Nevermore shall my gaze be cheered by the sight of my love's star. I am a lost man
.'

Ziegler recognized the lines. ‘Kaleun?'

‘Yes?' Lorenz stirred from his lyric meditation.

‘I haven't been typing out the poetry. You usually put a note in the diary telling me not to. But lately you haven't been doing that.'

‘Haven't I?'

‘No, sir. So I've assumed that you don't want me to type it out.'

‘Yes. That's right. Thank you.'

‘Kaleun?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why are you doing it—quoting poetry?'

Lorenz didn't feel obliged to supply Ziegler with an answer. He didn't really have one.

W
HEN NIGHT FELL,
U
-330 AND
U-689 were ordered to take up battle positions. U-330 fired two torpedoes at a steamer and missed. While Falk was giving Sauer revised figures to enter into the computer they were spotted by a destroyer and a corvette. Lorenz shouted ‘alarm,' and U-330 slid smoothly beneath the
waves, but for the next three hours he was obliged to maneuver the boat through a corridor of violent explosions.

The following morning headquarters sent another message ordering Lorenz to attack once again, but this time he was to target only the escorts. Lorenz suspected that more U-boats were on the way and that it had been decided that the convoy's heavy defenses should be weakened prior to their arrival. The moon coasted between patches of cloud and laminated the waves with silver. A clot of shadow was observed on the port bow and as U-330 drew nearer the ill-defined shape became increasingly recognizable as a Flower-class corvette. Falk was standing behind the aiming device, eager to repair his injured pride. The fact that he had missed the steamer the previous day had made him somewhat nervous and irritable. Lorenz caught his eye and said calmly, ‘We're not in a hurry.' Falk nodded before peering through the lenses.

A fitful breeze brought with it the smell of diesel fumes and a hint of bacon. Lorenz couldn't help thinking, as he always did, of ordinary sailors sitting around a breakfast table, talking about nothing in particular and drinking tea. The corvette was over sixty meters long, sitting low in the water, with a blockish superstructure situated just in front of a conspicuously high central funnel.

‘How many tons?' asked Pullman.

‘Just over nine hundred,' Lorenz replied. ‘Four-inch deck gun, Asdic. It'll be quite fast—sixteen knots—perhaps more.'

Falk had already begun his numerical incantations: range, bearing, speed, torpedo-speed, angle of dispersion . . .

Suddenly a flare ignited in the sky above them. The faces of the men on the bridge became vivid and white, the unnatural, brilliant white of rice-powdered geisha girls or clowns in a circus.

‘Shit!' said Juhl.

Müller threw his head back and gazed up into the sizzling glare. It looked like a vengeful archangel descending from the
heavens. ‘Someone aboard that ship has very good eyesight,' he muttered.

Falk fired two torpedoes, and Lorenz shouted into the communications pipe, ‘Hard about. Reverse course, full speed.' An enormous explosion followed and where the corvette had formerly floated there was now a column of flame rising up to an extraordinary height. Its size and vertical energy suggested the handiwork of a minor god. They could feel the heat of the conflagration on their cheeks and hear the roaring of rapid, chemical transformations—the vaporization of iron and flesh, the sound of something becoming nothing. Lorenz considered the number of warships in their vicinity and the brightness of the flaming column. The conning tower would be highly visible. Leaning over the hatch he shouted ‘Alarm!'

U-330 descended at a fifteen-degree angle, traveling at five knots. At twenty meters Lorenz said, ‘Rudder, hard over to starboard.' The boat accelerated to seven and a half knots. ‘Level out at thirty meters, Chief—silent speed.'

‘Planes at zero,' said Graf.

After a few more course-changes, Lorenz ordered the boat up to periscope depth. The corvette was still burning, and in the distance he could see another flickering red light. The work of U-689, he supposed.

‘Let's just circle around here,' said Lorenz to Graf. ‘One of the other escorts will come along soon enough looking for survivors. It's getting light now so we'll be able to mount a submerged attack.' As he said these words Lorenz was sickened by the moral turpitude of war. It felt cowardly to attack a rescue ship, even more so given that it was extremely unlikely that any of the British crew could have escaped the inferno he had witnessed. Ordinarily he would have ordered their stealthy departure. But this was a joint operation, and if word got back to headquarters that he had acted in a way incompatible with the mission's objectives then there would be consequences.

After only twenty minutes a large, heavily armed destroyer appeared. Lorenz offered the periscope to Graf whose pensive grumbles eventually became intelligible: ‘Must be two thousand tons.'