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the boat dived, the guns were under water, exposed to the corro-
sive chemicals of the sea.
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Arthur Baudzus
It was true that every time the boat surfaced, the gun crew
greased their weapons and test-fired them, but the mechanism was
complicated, and too sophisticated for a U-boat.
With a groan Henning realized that he was an old hand at this
game, and still he was forever learning. One was never finished.
Prien and Schepke, both old hands in the game, were both dead.
They had learned their last lesson, and had paid with their lives
while still learning. How would he go? Would he make it home?
He most certainly had already had his share of bad luck. Some-
times he had the feeling that somebody had singled him out to get
him. At least he was out of the Atlantic. With every added day he
became more sick and tired of the war at sea. It was high time for
him to quit and get ashore and become an admiral or at least a
captain first. One did not become an admiral while commanding a
U-boat. For that, one needed a good fat desk.
Changing the trend of his contemplations, he thought of the
lonely body of gunner Bolke, who had been left outside. That
floating body disturbed him. In the interest of safety for the boat he
had to abandon that corpse, which now was committed to the deep
without a Christian ritual.
It made little difference to the body, but there was something
out of tune with the man separated from the boat. The crew of a U-
boat was a single unit. They all had to die at once, or they were all
entitled to return to their families. One did not expect to get sepa-
rated from that unit to get singled out and die.
Henning rose and went to the officers quarters. There, the
doctor was busy operating on the Number Two, Leutnant Lim.
That officer had received a head wound. A bullet had grazed his
head and, being of a heavy caliber, it had cracked his skull and
exposed the brain.
Back home the doctor was a gynæcologist, treating only
women and their ailments, but here he had to cover the whole
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U-859
range of medical science. He could even be expected to operate as
a dentist.
Right now he was a brain surgeon.
Skilfully, Doctor von Giesen rearranged the fractured skull
and secured the pieces of bone into their place, where he threaded
them together to cover the exposed brain. Then he placed the skin
on top of it and tied the lot together with a bandage.
How s it going, Doc? Henning asked and looked down on
his Number Two who lay, still anæsthetized, in his bunk.
Going fine, he ll live, the doctor answered. However, he s
still in serious condition and must not move. We d better not get
any water bombs for a while.
I ll put that request through to our enemies. The captain
smiled thinly, then he turned and went into his cabin. Captains,
too, must sleep from time to time.
* * *
Admiral McCain spent much of his time in McGregor s office.
His own Atlantic operations ran like clockwork now and needed
little supervision. During the last year he had increased the air sur-
veillance and the Atlantic was now covered without a single gap.
No mouse could move without his knowledge. The chances of a U-
boat threatening his ships there without detection were very small
indeed.
And yet, his bitter enemy U-859 had slipped between his fin-
gers, and the other one, U-861 had gone through as well. Both
these commanders must be men of great skill and experience he
could not deny that. Nobody has that much luck. One more reason
to give these two his full attention. Let loose in the Indian Ocean,
they could do a lot of damage.
Hello, Huxley, McGregor greeted McCain, as he entered his
office in the morning. They always met first thing in the morning
for assessment of their common enemy before concentrating on
their own parts of the world.
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Arthur Baudzus
Good morning, Horace, McCain greeted. And how are we
doing this morning?
Well, no success to celebrate yet. Your boat got away again.
We had him pinned down by a Catalina south-west of Durban. The
boat was surfaced and tried to shoot it out with our aircraft.
Nobody got anywhere. The aircraft dropped bombs, but missed
and the boat dived away.
Yes, McCain groaned. The same old story, we nearly got
him and then he got away. Surely, his luck must run out some
day?
We ll see to that, McGregor nodded. Anyhow, they must
have had some casualties. After the U-boat dived, there was one
body floating in the water. It was badly damaged.
A body? McCain s eyes widened with hope. Could it be the
captain, by any chance?
No such luck, McGregor crushed his hopes. The dead man
was naked. I could not imagine the captain going naked on the
bridge. It was most likely a gunner who rolled out of bed when
they sounded the alarm.
I agree. McCain was disappointed. At least we did some
damage. Couldn t you have fished the body out? Maybe it would
have given us some clue?
We did send a boat out, but by the time they got there, the
sharks had swallowed all of it. The U-boat damaged our Catalina,
too. They barely made it home.
Where do we go from here?
I m sure your girl Fowler will take care of them. She s a gen-
ius at tracking U-boats. I had no idea that we could harness female
intuition in the hunt. She seems to be anticipating the enemy s
movements quite accurately. With a satisfied smile he sat down
on his desk. We have to give him a few more days and see what
he s doing. If we ve damaged him severely, he might head east and
make a bee-line for Batavia or Penang. If he seeks some action
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U-859
he ll head north, towards our dense shipping lines. He might be
heading for the Suez."
Do you have much traffic there?
Oh, yes, McGregor smiled grimly. Not much goes around
the Cape these days. With the Italians out of action since their sur-
render, the Mediterranean is all ours and all traffic goes through
the Suez. If he was in the Arabian Sea, he would be like a fox in a
hen house. Our ships there aren t used to travelling in a convoy,
either, because there is little danger from the occasional U-boat.
It s every man for himself. The boat would have a ball up there.
How do you protect your ships then?
As I said before, normally they don t need protection, but
now that we know that your boats are there, we ll have to warn
them to watch it. More urgently, we have to get your boat, of
course. I ll send some destroyers after him as soon as your girl has
determined his track. No need to alert our Task Force 66 yet. That
would be over reacting.
Task force?
I have an aircraft carrier with a lot of ships planted in mid-
ocean, ready to be dispatched to wherever I should need them. We
are in total control of our waters.
McCain was pleased.
Well, if I know Third Officer Fowler, she ll stick to him like
chewing gum. She won t let him get away.
* * *
Henning was in no hurry. The boat progressed slowly from
there on. Running submerged during the day, they made little
headway, and at night, too, they surfaced only to charge the batter-
ies. The boat headed north and crossed the equator again. With the
crew already properly baptized by King Neptune, no more ceremo-
nies were required.
A few times the Naxos reported radar signals, but the boat
always managed to dive away in time. The weather was always
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Arthur Baudzus
fine, and these conditions would have been ideal to travel using the
snorkel, but this device had been holed during the air attack and
could not easily be repaired.
In the aft quarters, Adam rolled over in his bunk. Impatience
made him itchy. Five long months under way, he counted off on
his fingers. A long time since he had last seen Germany, a long
time since he had seen the sun. He thought of the beautiful world [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
