1.

 

Walter Moglich cleaned the grime from his fingernails, waiting in silence as death passed overhead. The point of the fixed-blade knife slid under the tip of his ring finger, carving out oil, salt and blood. He leaned against the retracted periscope in the control room of U-491. Eighty meters above, on the surface of the Atlantic, a British destroyer was doing everything it could to turn the uboat into a tomb. 

Walter’s placid demeanor masked fear. Not of the depth charge. He trusted the boat despite the fact that the previous ten types XIV uboat ended up on the bottom of the sea. His worry was not the fact that the crew had been, to a man, plucked from prison camps and other disgraces. The knot in his stomach was because he was about to commit the ultimate sin for a sailor: mutiny. 

Walter’s decision was not driven by pride or self-aggrandizing ambition. He had no appetite for being a leader. Taking over the uboat was purely survival. Captain Herman, commander of the boat, had retreated as soon after the first depth charge exploded. Wa;ter had anticipated this situation and planned accordingly. The recalcitrant commander had finally gone too far in his shameful indifference and Walter could no longer wait. His chance to enact his plan was at hand. 

A depth charge exploded.

Click-BOOM

The uboat dropped with a sickening lurch. Lights flickered. The crew braced themselves and said nothing. In the meager glow of the red and blue bulbs, Walter assessed their composure. Half of them were experienced uboat men and their faces gave little indication of fear. Some looked bored. The other half could not hide their anxiety, feeling the steady creeping hand of doom. Walter knew these men were watching him. If he remained calm, they would too. 

“Release bold canisters,” Walter said. 

The canisters were a diversionary tactic meant to confuse the destroyer.

Meixner, the boat’s chief engineer, repeated the order in his calm baritone. 

A whooshing sound as the devices were ejected into the sea. Two more depth charges exploded close enough to push the rudder and stagger their progress. Rumbling concussions shook them. Leaks sprung. Light bulbs burst.

The sound was overwhelming, making the men flinch. 

"Steady," Walter said, tending the nails of his other hand. He had smashed his thumb the day before while fixing the compressor and earned himself a purple contusion and shattered thumbnail. As the sound of the destroyer grew louder Walter pulled on the broken cuticle. The shard of fingernail resisted, then peeled back a film of translucent tissue, bleeding. Acute pain took his mind away from the depth charge attack and the approaching enemy ship. Walter savored the hurt, inhaled through clenched teeth. 

Click-BOOOOM

Another depth charge, closer this time. The uboat shook. 

Someone muttered a prayer. The sound of water and the numbing cold of the sea. Hushed and hurried hands sought to control fresh leaks. 

"Deeper," Walter said to Meixner. 

The Chief spoke a quiet command to the helmsman and U-491 descended. The needle of the depth gauge lowered to one hundred and ten meters. As the boat dropped, Walter’s eyes again played over the men in the control. They stood motionless, shivering, barely breathing. Patience and quietness were essential traits for a uboat man. All sailors must develop sea legs but uboat men must also learn the art of silence. Once submerged, every uboat traveled behind enemy lines. 

The man in the radio room leaned into the main corridor of the boat and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Vessel changing course. Now bearing two one zero.” 

A low moan emanated from the uboat as it dropped further into the water. 

“Sound of screws moving away,” 

Wlater watched his face. He had become an expert in reading the smallest twinge and twitch of the young man’s visage, as he strained his ears for indications of their fate.  

Far off, another depth charge exploded. The British had lost their trail. The uboat would live a little longer. 

Walter wiped clean the blade and returned the diver’s knife to the sheath on his belt that sat at the small of his back. His subtle eyes reviewed the crew. THey were as exhausted, just as he was. The chance at communal destruction was the only bond these men shared. Morale was worse than bad. Only two weeks into their journey and fights broke out among the crew every day. The officers were all but powerless to stop it. 

As dangerous as Walter's current situation was, it beat a firing squad which is what he had been facing back on dry land. Three months ago, when presented with his choices, Walter had readily agreed to the commission as the first watch officer for U-491. He did not have another option then but now, even down in the crushing blackness of the sea, Walter knew he had one more move he could make. But no man could run a uboat by himself. At a minimum, Walter needed a dozen men to accomplish the goal. And he needed cooperation or at least, subservience from the rest.  

You've got no choice, Walter told himself. And that is how he’d sell it to the rest of the crew. Existential. 

Of course, there would be opposition, namely, the thin figure standing near the forward bulkhead door: Second Watch Officer Gerhard Stubb, third in command under Hermann and Walter. Where most crew and officers opted for less formal outfits, Gerhard always wore a tidy uniform. The man’s face was dominated by cold blue, hooded eyes. His mouth was long, thin and the corners pointed down. He was always clean shaven. Patches of smooth scar tissue, burned flesh, spread from his jaw to his neck and disappeared down his collar. Gerhard was eating from a tin of potted beef, hunched in a pipe-ridden corner. 

Always eating, that one, Walter thought. After what he’s done, I'd think he'd never want to eat again. 

The Ghoul, they called him. The crew and officers alike used the name. Amongst the cliques and personal tensions, disliking Gerhard was something every man aboard agreed on. But the men respected Gerhard Stubb. He was frightening and inscrutable. They did their best to avoid him; treated Gerhard the way one treats a crocodile. Nobody wants to be trapped in a uboat with a crocodile. 

He was a capable and experienced officer and could do most of the crew’s jobs if the situation called for it. By all objective measures, Gerhard was an ideal uboat man. But Walter knew that Gerhard would have to be dealt with. It was impossible that a straight-laced, loyal Party member like Stubb would agree to help them abscond with the boat and flee the war. 

Walter removed a brass flask from his back pocket, unscrewed the hinged top and took a swig of rye. Besides the knife sheathed at his back, Walter always carried two things: his flask and his copy of ‘Treasure Island.’ The flask was refilled from one of the half dozen bottles he had brought with him from Lorient. 

From the other pocket, Walter pulled out his dog-eared ‘Treasure Island.’ He flipped through the pages absently. He had owned the book since his boyhood. It was a dual language copy used to teach English to children, one page in English with a corresponding page in German. The preface included a list of characters. Walter had adapted this list to reflect the crew of U-491 with notations about who among the crew would most likely help him steal the boat. Walter was Long John Silver. He couldn’t decide whether making himself the villain qualified as hubris or self-deprecation. Silver was the man who escaped with his life (and some gold.) That’s the kind of deal Walter wanted. 

Karl Teuber, the Navigator, leaned on the chart table. He made a motion that grabbed Walter’s attention. Walter looked up from the book.  Karl was a friend and conspirator. The ‘Israel Hands’ in Walter’s book the two of them had begun their plans weeks ago during their check out dives as the crew learned about the boat and about each other . What started as a joke became a full-fledged plot. They did not know if they would have a real opportunity to enact it. But now, with the captain’s mental breakdown, the time seemed right. Karl locked eyes with Walter. The navigator sported two weeks of beard that did nothing to hide the creases worried into his face. His expression was one of perpetual questioning. Touching his watch with a casual finger, his eyes found Walter’s, silently asking, ‘When?’

Walter nodded and mouthed the word ‘Soon…’

Far away a depth charge blew a hole in the water, echoing its useless fury. 

 

A half  hour passed without attention from the lurking British.

"Seems they’ve lost our scent," Meixner said.  

"Keep us at ninety meters," Walter told the Chief. He could feel the static tension in the control room dissipating, melting into simple fear. Walter would have to make his play; better to act when the men were in doubt, asking themselves why they were risking their lives. 

From the bow end hatch stepped the war correspondent, Rückert. He was a special guest on the boat, a journalist of great fame, or so it had been explained to Walter.  He claimed to know Goebbels and carried himself with the confidence of a well-connected man. His presence on the uboat had been ordered by someone high up, one of the many unusual aspects of this mission that set Walter’s mind to worry. Always clicking away on his camera with that perpetual smirk. Rückert had a good story for every occasion and ingratiated himself with the crew with a generous distribution of cigarettes and chocolate. The journalist entered the control room in his usual method, camera first. His weeks of stubble only made the man’s face seem younger, like a teenager trying for his first beard.

Walter ignored Rückert as the man made his way through the center corridor, snapping pictures and grinning and then left by the forward bulkhead hatch. 

“Well done, boys, well done” Ruckert said. 

When the journalist was gone, Walter nodded at Karl and pulled the key chain around his neck and moved to the officer’s quarter where he unlocked a small wooden box. Inside were three Mauser HSc pistols. 

“Find the captain,” Walter said. “We need to talk.”

It was time to steal the uboat.