‘It is a sign, I’m sure,’ he continued. ‘Roosevelt choking on all the blood he’s spilled. And Hencke, a German hero about to become folk legend, on his way home. Death and Deliverance, the two mightiest weapons of war, all at once thrust into our hands.’
He looked at his wife. She was no longer the beauty he had married; the war and child-bearing had taken their toll on her nerves, which had never been robust. The pencil-thin eyebrows were now just other lines on her face, the soft hair which had lain on so many pillows was dull and brittle, and the lips had begun to sag. They had all of them become old and wrinkled, of course, but somehow in women it carried less well. No, if Der Chef wanted her, he was welcome to her.
‘What was the Fuehrer doing when you left him?’ Goebbels enquired, as the children struck up a new tune and Heidi stirred. He placed a gentle finger on her lips to soothe her back to sleep.
‘He was reading a book,’ his wife replied. ‘Something about Frederick the Great, I think …’
They were almost home. Only a few hours sailing from the safety of the mainland and its air cover, when the final bombardment began. They had been fortunate up to that point, driven along by the twin screws and their fear, every change in sea temperature and salinity confusing the enemy asdic, throwing him off balance for a few miles more, slowly eating up the distance between themselves and home. Somehow they had survived, the screws had kept turning, and for a couple of hours they had thought the sacrifice of their compatriots might be enough. But, deep down, they had always known it was hopeless. They couldn’t evade the most experienced sub-hunters in the world, not for ever. The nearer they got to home, the shallower the seas, the closer they were forced to the surface and so their last hiding place disappeared.
The captain had ordered both engines to low revs in order to kill any trace of noise from the submarine, but the steel hull of U-494 had been caught by asdic in coastal waters with nowhere to run. Their hunters were getting closer, the insistent noise of asdic mixed with the thumping of turbines and propeller wash to form a cocktail of madness which each submariner feared would strip him of his courage and make him run screaming through the craft. But no one did, this was Eling’s crew. So they waited to die. There was a crescendo of noise, a lip bitten to flesh, and the hunters were overhead and past. A whispered prayer. Could they have missed? For a moment without end there was stillness. As one, the crew took a sharp inward breath, knowing it might be the last. Instinctively hands reached out for support, a stanchion, a pipe, an instrument panel, anything which might brace them and help guard against the blow. Then it struck.
Hencke was thrown aside and his arms all but wrenched from their sockets as 250 pounds of amatol exploded 20 feet above the rear torpedo compartment, forcing the stern savagely down towards the bottom of the North Sea.
‘It’s OK,’ shouted the veteran, clinging to a bed frame. ‘Most of the force goes upwards. It’s when they explode underneath that you kiss your ring goodbye …’
But already above the relentless and chaotic singing of asdic they could hear the splashing of further depth charges being thrown at them. And in spite of the captain’s manoeuvring they were getting closer. Hencke heard one canister bounce off the outer hull with a dull echo like the Devil knocking at the door. They were at 93 metres. The depth charge was set for 105. It detonated directly beneath U-494’s engine compartment. Even so most of the plates and valves held, but most at 93 metres isn’t good enough. The blast caused the craft to heel violently, ripping away Hencke’s purchase on the torpedo rack and lifting him bodily before throwing him across the oily floor. Dials shattered and bulbs smashed as the pressure hull bent inwards, plunging the craft into complete darkness, and there was a ringing in his head so loud that for a moment it was beyond his brain’s ability to comprehend. His ears felt as if someone were trying to drive six inch nails into them. When the auxiliary lights flickered on he found himself staring at the lifeless eyes of the young submariner, blood trickling slowly from the corner of his lips, from his nose and from his ears.
In the control room a few yards away he could hear the captain screaming for a damage report and feet began to pound along aluminium gangways; from above came the fading noise of the hunter completing its first pass. But there was another sound, as unmistakable as it was insistent. The sound of the craft dying. The savage hissing of gas escaping under pressure from somewhere nearby, the crackle of flame as smoke billowed from a control panel where the electrical circuit had shorted out, the explosive sound of bolts shearing, a raised voice reporting irreparable damage to two hull valves mingling with the cries of the injured and the hammering of tools on paralysed controls. And beneath his feet Hencke could hear the terrifying noise of water beginning to slop its way through the bilges.
But he could hear no shouts of terror and panic as he might have supposed. Instead there were only shouts of instruction and command as the submariners, fear tempered by years of experience and discipline, scurried to salvage their crippled craft. Men began hurtling like acrobats along the gangways and through the small circular hatchways, there was the sound of banging metal as leaking seals were retightened and closed, and within seconds he could hear the drubbing of hammer on wood and steel as a team struggled to shore up buckled plates and stem the flood. Already the water was bubbling above the metal floor grille on which he was standing and the submarine had adopted a strange, unnatural posture, leaning to one side. Then another lurch, gentler this time, accompanied by the sound of compressed air being forced into the tanks as the screws beat desperately to gain purchase and force the submarine upwards, but the hydroplanes had gone.
For an agonizing time the boat seemed to hang suspended as the upward thrust of the engines was cancelled out by the weight of water pouring into the hull. Hencke’s lungs were frozen, his body was no longer his possession and belonged to some other entity which was deciding his fate. And it seemed to be an age making up its mind. Slowly, imperceptibly at first then with painfully increasing confidence, the craft gained stability as the nose of the boat forced its way upwards. They were going to make it after all! The tension in Hencke collapsed and he began to breathe in deep relief, but he saw the veteran still clinging like a man possessed to the bed frame. He was shaking his head. He knew what was yet to come.
Perhaps the captain of the frigate was a touch too eager. Had he left it a few seconds longer there could have been no doubt but, in his anxiety to ram the submarine, he hit her just before she was fully surfaced. The bows sliced across the forward hull tearing a great gash, but the submarine bounced rather than being ripped instantly in two. She would die, of course, but slowly rather than in a moment.
Through the pandemonium Hencke could feel the craft beginning to settle rapidly bow-down. And still the water rose, up to his calf now, pulling at him and the others, trying to drag them under.
A face forced its way through the hatch which led from the control room. It was a sub-lieutenant, with blood running from a gash on his forehead.
‘Hencke to the control room!’ he screamed. ‘And secure all watertight doors!’
So that was it. The bulkheads were being sealed, the six compartments around which U-494 was built were being shut off from each other, transformed into their own private coffins. The most experienced hands prayed she would flood quickly and put an end to their inevitable agonies, the less experienced with their naive hopes of survival hoped it might flood more slowly, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time. Yet still the order of duty and command prevailed. The veteran grabbed Hencke by the arm and thrust him towards the hatch. Unceremoniously he was bundled through, smacking his head against some sharp metal edge, and as he picked himself up and turned he could see the veteran about to close the bulkhead door, with water already beginning to spill over the sill. The submariner’s eyes were raging with anger.