A ping sounded against the hull, now two. The Tommies had found them again. Thank the Virgin Mary and all the Holy Saints
that sonar couldn’t detect their depth. On his first patrol, Max had learned that if you went deep you could slip away because
the Brits underestimated the depth limit of U-boats.
The next set of charges exploded over the stern, sheared the mooring bolts off the port diesel, jumped it two inches from
its bed, bent the port propeller shaft, and shattered every glass dial in the engine room and e-motor compartment. Now the
outboard intake valve—the opening through which the diesels drew air—began to leak. In minutes they were down five degrees
by the stern. Max couldn’t run the bilge pumps; that the British would certainly hear.
He sat on the heavy chart chest in the control room, mentally plotting his position relative to the convoy escorts above.
Bekker could give him the bearing of the two ships but Max heard them clearly enough with his own ears when they ran in to
attack. It was unnerving—a swishing, drumming sound like rain blowing against the side of a house. A destroyer had to make
depth charge runs at full speed to keep its stern from being blown off by the four hundred pounds of exploding TNT, so each
run was announced by the high-pitched whine of its propellers.
Max listened to these sounds for seven hours as the British ships peppered the U-boat with round after round of depth charges.
He lost count of how many. Belongings were strewn everywhere, tools and provisions spilled onto the deck, rolling back and
forth as the boat rolled. The leak worsened in the stern, dragging them down to one hundred sixty meters—almost their crush
depth. Max had to order a burst of power from the electric motors every ten minutes to keep them from sinking any lower. He
clung to the periscope housing, hands clammy, darkness all around him except for the unsteady flashlight beams reflecting
off the instrument panels. The crew stood to their posts but some whimpered, some wept, some stood rigid as stone, some puked;
the smell of vomit thickened the stale air. One of the sailors in the control room filled his pants and the stink of it mixed
with the other vile odors.
A terrible exhaustion gripped Max. All night he had twisted and turned the boat, never knowing if he was right or wrong until
the depth charges exploded, and always the ping of the British sonar, the creaking of his battered boat, the hoarsely shouted
damage reports. Sweat drenched him completely. Even his underwear was soaked through. Before they sailed, Lehmann had told
the crew, “The Führer expects you men to be quick as greyhounds, tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel.” Max liked the sound
of that as much as anyone, but after the hours of depth charging it seemed absurd. Half his sailors were terrified and in
a handful of moments so was he.
Every time he heard the barrels drop into the water he shouted out a course change and said a Hail Mary to himself. What kind
of death would it be? He just hoped it would come quickly—not drowning, not the awful terror of men clawing at one another,
fighting desperately for breath as the water poured in. When he was doing his infantry training at Danholm, the training officer
had ordered the cadets to put on their gas masks and run repeatedly up and down a hill. With the gas mask both pulled over
his head and fastened tightly around his face, Max could breathe only through the filter and taking in enough air that way
was almost impossible. He felt like he was choking to death or drowning; Holy Mary, Mother of God, full of grace—if they were
going to be hit, let it be a direct hit.
A tap on his shoulder. The chief. “Only fifteen percent battery power left, Herr Kaleu.” All of Max’s twisting and turning
had drained the batteries. He nodded to the chief. Paint flecked off the bulkheads as the pressure of the water compressed
the boat. The hull would crack right open if they went much deeper. They were at one hundred eighty meters, a handful of meters
from their crush depth. Max could go no lower—this was the absolute limit. The depth gauge didn’t even register any deeper.
Max drew in a lungful of the fetid air. “Leutnant Lehmann.”
“Ja?”
“Gun crew stand by.”
“Herr Kaleu?”
“Dammit, I said tell the gun crew to stand by.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kaleu.”
Damned insubordinate Nazi prick. Put him in the guardhouse if they ever got back to Lorient.
The U-boat had a 105mm gun on her foredeck—not a match for a destroyer but it was something. Here, below, they had no hope
at all. At least if they fought from the surface until the U-boat sank, the men might have a chance to abandon ship. Or some
of them might—the engineers would never make it out, but they never did. Still, Max owed his men whatever chance he could
give them; and you could usually count on the Tommies to rescue survivors after they sank a U-boat. So some of them might
make it. But pray God the Brits would be so surprised when he surfaced that the U-boat could simply get away in the confusion.
The gun crew assembled in the control room, their faces pinched and drawn, eyes bulging, sweat running down their cheeks.
Max looked at them. Several trembled uncontrollably. All of them panted in the thin air, their lungs struggling against the
rising CO
2
levels.
“Battle surface. We practiced this in the Baltic. First man out take up the deckboards and open the ammunition boxes. Second
man, unscrew the plug in the barrel. Third man, aim at the nearest British ship. Fourth man, load the shell. Understand?”
They nodded.
“You trained for this, remember?”
None of them said anything. They had trained for this in a calm sea with their wits about them and no Royal Navy escorts dropping
depth charges.
“Chief!”
“Herr Kaleu?”
“Can you give me full power when we surface?”
“Starboard engine, Herr Kaleu. Port engine is out.”
“Then give me whatever you can, but do not leave me lying dead in the water.” Max looked again at his sailors, their eyes
all seeming to ask the same question. What did they want from him? Was he supposed to reassure them that they weren’t going
to die?
“Good luck, men. Stand by. Activate all bilge pumps. Blow all tanks!”
A thin whine sounded as compressed air blew into the ballast tanks. Max pulled himself up, clinging once again to the shiny
metal tube of the periscope. They weren’t moving, still down at the stern.
“All ahead full!” He heard hysteria in his voice.
Sluggishly the boat began to rise, hesitating, then moving faster as she shook off the terrible pressure of the depths and
the weight of the water she’d taken on.
“One hundred fifty meters.”
Max closed his eyes. They weren’t dead yet.
“One hundred ten meters!”
“Gun crew, stand by.”
“Seventy meters.”
Max began to say the Hail Mary again.
“Thirty meters!”
“Stand by!” Max yelled, his voice hoarse. He climbed into the conning tower.
“Ten meters. Tower clear. Hatch clear!”
Max opened the hatch, the unequal pressure tearing it from his hands. Air—humid and sweet, dense with oxygen—enveloped him.
Overcome by the richness of it, he sagged on the ladder for a moment, seeing red. Then, eyes clearing, he hoisted himself
onto the bridge.
Behind him the gun crew came up, jumping quickly to the foredeck, followed by the lookouts, who assumed their posts on the
bridge. One diesel rumbled to ignition and the boat began to move forward. A light drizzle, wet on Max’s face, reduced their
visibility. He took up his binoculars. To port, he saw the dim outline of a British corvette perhaps a half kilometer distant.
No sight of the destroyer.
A bang and flash from the corvette, then a geyser of white water three hundred meters off the port beam. Even in the darkness
and the rain, they had been spotted straight away.
“Fire!” Max yelled at the gun crew. “Fire!”
“Destroyer bearing green zero nine zero!” the starboard lookout screamed. Max turned and saw the ship coming right at them
out of the night, her foaming bow wave stark against the dark water. Urine ran hot down his legs. Mother of God. The gun crew
abandoned their weapons and jumped overboard.
“Alarm!” Max screeched, his voice gone thin and high. Two of the bridge lookouts dropped down the hatch with him, the other
two leapt overboard.
“Get us down!” Max yelled, voice cracking. Men sprinted for the bow as the boat began to dive. “Radio! To U-Boat Command:
‘Rammed. Sinking. Grid AK57. U-Max. Collision alarm!’” He gripped the periscope, eyes clenched shut.
The destroyer hit them forward of the bridge with a sound like a locomotive slamming on its brakes, rolling the boat ninety
degrees. Metal shrieked against metal. The force slammed men to the deck. The impact on her bow forced the U-boat down at
a sharp pitch and she plunged out of control toward the bottom.
Max, on his hands and knees in the control room, vomited onto the deck plates. Around him men screamed, hysterical in the
darkness. “Blow tanks amidships!” he ordered. “Blow diving tank forward! Blow forward trim tank! E-motors full astern!”
They had to stop the boat from plunging to the depths, but no one responded to his commands.
“Chief!” Max shouted into the blackness, sliding on the slime of the control room floor. “Chief!” There was a rumble from
the forward compartment as one of the spare torpedoes broke loose, followed immediately by a violent wail.
“Chief!” Where in the hell was the man?
“Herr Kaleu.” A hand touched him. Flashlights came on, weakly illuminating the control room. Max saw Carls at his side.
“Carls! The bow compartment—we have to get the hatch closed!” That’s where the water would be pouring in from the gash opened
in the collision. If they could get the hatch closed, maybe they had a chance to surface.
“Herr Kaleu! Herr Kaleu!” one of the hydroplane men shouted. “One hundred fifty meters.”
“Planes to hard rise,” Max shouted back. “Carls! Close the hatch!”
“Herr Kaleu.” Carls pulled him up from the deck. “Herr Kaleu, the pressure hull was not breached.”
“One hundred seventy meters, Herr Kaleu!” the young hydro-plane operator sang out.
“Blow tanks amidships. Can you do that?” Normally it was the chief who blew the tanks, but all the control wheels were in
full view of the boy.
“Ja, jawohl, Herr Kaleu.”
“And blow the diving tank forward, understand? First amidships, then forward—not at the same time.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kaleu.”
Blowing the tanks increased their buoyancy and allowed the weight of the U-boat’s keel to right them.
“Good lad.” Max’s breathing slowed and he relaxed his grip on Carls as the boat settled onto an even keel. “No damage to the
pressure hull?”
“None, Herr Kaleu.”
The U-boat had two hulls. The watertight pressure hull encircled all the vital machinery and living areas. Saddle tanks for
ballast, extra fuel, and water were attached outboard and covered by a separate outer hull, which was not watertight. The
boat could withstand a tear in the outer hull as long as the pressure hull wasn’t breached. The chief must have had them under
by just enough for the destroyer to scrape across their foredeck without tearing into the bow compartment.
“One hundred ninety meters!”
A rivet blew with the sound of a gunshot from the pressure, then another and another. Max felt like he was standing on a pistol
range. They had to come up on their depth. More flashlights switched on—Lehmann was up and the emergency lights flickered
to life. The machinists must still be alive.
“Lehmann, trim the boat.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kaleu.”
All through the boat Max could hear the crew returning to their stations. He made his way aft, helping men up as he went.
The depth charges had not yet begun again, and he wanted to show himself to the crew and inspect the boat during this lull.
“It’s the Kommandant! Herr Kaleu!”
“Eh, a little roughhousing from the Tommies,” Max said, smiling. The boys smiled back at him, some of them too young to shave,
their dirty faces blemished with pimples but all grinning now. “To your posts, men.”
He opened the watertight hatch to the engine room and drew back as a thick cloud of steam poured out. Water leaking in had
sprayed on the hot diesel engines. Max coughed as he waved the steam away. He stepped through the hatch and into the engine
room. Three mechanics were elbow deep in the starboard diesel, furiously checking all the cylinder rods.
“All is in order?” he shouted to the chief Dieselobermaschinist.
“As close to order as we can get, Herr Kaleu.”
Max continued through the steam, undogged the hatch to the e-motor room, and stepped through. He snapped a salute to the Elektriker
Obermaschinist, a prewar petty officer, still at his post, wearing the protective leather gauntlets that were the badge of
e-motor men. “Wittelbach, now you have a war story to tell the folks back home.” The man smiled, said nothing. “How much power
do we have left?”
“Ten percent, Herr Kaleu.”
“Both motors dead slow then.”
“Only have the starboard motor, Herr Kaleu. Port propeller shaft is bent.”
“Very well.” Max had forgotten about that. “Any batteries cracked?”
“Inspecting for that now, Herr Kaleu.”
“Carry on.”
Wittelbach saluted as best he could, and Max returned to the control room. Lehmann had trimmed the boat and they were on an
even keel at one hundred seventy-five meters—way too deep but good enough for the moment. At least until the depth charges
started falling again. “Sonar on us yet?”
“Nein, Herr Kaleu.”
“Steady on course one zero five then.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kaleu.”
A moan from the bow drew Max’s attention and he made his way forward, stepping over the tools and the cans and the shattered
dishes littering the deck. Equipment had been thrown everywhere, smashed and dented from the jolt of the collision. Even the
porcelain commode had cracked. Well, they were accustomed to shitting in cans—you couldn’t use the toilet below twenty-five
meters anyway. Without it the boat would smell even worse, but that would only be a problem if they survived. A twist of his
body and Max was through the hatch into the forward torpedo room, which also served as the crew’s quarters. Blood covered
the starboard bulkhead where the torpedo had come loose and pulped two sailors, breaking the arm of a third. Each torpedo
was seven meters long and weighed a ton and a half. When they came loose of their moorings the result was always the same:
men died.