‘No, Chief. It won’t work. Not at 120 metres.’ It was Eling. ‘In order to shut the hatch from the outside he’d use up so much oxygen he’d never make it to the surface. If he forgets about closing the hatch he’s got a chance. A small one. One man. That’s it, and that’s all of it.’ A stillness of crushed hopes and despondency settled amongst the men. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ Eling continued. ‘You deserve to know.’
‘So which of us is it to be?’ a voice enquired.
‘Not I,’ stated the captain.
‘Nor I,’ whispered the chief.
‘Then who?’ insisted the petty officer. ‘Who’s going to play God and decide which one of us gets it?’
‘Meine Herren,’ Eling commanded sharply. ‘If there has to be an end, let us make it a good one, one worthy of the Kriegsmarine.’
‘I’ve got a wife and five children,’ the petty officer said. ‘My end is no bloody use to them, good or otherwise.’
‘You knew what your fate would be when you started on this war. The only thing you didn’t know was how or when,’ the captain responded, staring into their eyes. ‘So – now you do.’
‘But who is to get the chance? I’ve got five children too …’ another seaman lied.
‘Let’s draw lots,’ another suggested.
‘Call yourselves submariners,’ the wretched chief engineer cried, almost in tears. ‘Flood the whole damn boat and let’s get it over with!’ He lunged for a valve.
‘No!’ Eling instructed. ‘Chief – Take your hands away!’
The chief looked at his captain through red eyes and slowly withdrew. There was still too much discipline in him, he couldn’t refuse his commanding officer, not at the last, not after all this time.
‘I cannot play God,’ Eling continued in a low voice, forcing them to listen in silence, ‘but in the Kriegsmarine we don’t rely on luck or divine intervention, certainly not on the wisdom of our political leaders, but on duty. You’ve all followed that sense of duty from the moment you stepped on board this submarine, and that’s what has got us this far. Through the ice pack off Murmansk. And the convoy escorts off the Azores. And back to home port time and again when other U-boats weren’t so lucky. So our luck’s run out. But we are still submariners! We started this mission with orders to do everything we could to get this man’ – he waved at Hencke – ‘back home. We still have those orders. You all know who should get the chance.’
‘His life means we all die,’ the rating said.
‘Whoever gets out, the rest of us are going to die. Our only choice is whether we die like men or like rats. Not much of a choice, I agree. But it’s the only one we’ve got.’
No one moved. It was the truth, they knew it, but no one wanted to accept it. Surely there was some other way? Then the chief stepped forward and stood by the conning tower hatch. He offered the captain a crisp salute. In turn, the captain faced slowly towards Hencke. He had bloodshot eyes and Hencke could see close up that he was scared.
‘Do one thing for me, Hencke. Just get back. Make all this worthwhile.’
Hencke nodded. He said nothing; words would have been inadequate, even insulting. He placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder into the conning tower and began to climb, assisted by one of the men.
As he disappeared what was left of Eling’s crew came to attention as the captain barked the final order. ‘Chief. Secure the hatch!’
‘Thanks for agreeing to see me at such short notice.’ Eisenhower’s hand shot out from a crisp cuff and grasped the pudgy fingers extended towards him at the door of Ten Downing Street.
‘Your visit comes as a welcome distraction, General – particularly when the matter sounded of such urgency.’ Churchill led the way across the famous threshold, trailing cigar smoke. ‘I have to admit, now our armies are ploughing remorselessly through the remnants of the Wehrmacht, that time seems to hang heavy. Not so long ago – do you remember when we were planning the invasion of Europe together? – every hour seemed filled with suspense and the need to take mighty decisions. Today I find that matters for my attention are brought to me not by great commanders bearing brave ideas, but by bureaucrats who bear nothing but endless mountains of paper. I do battle with what they call post-war projections. It is an unappetising struggle.’ There was a weariness in the Old Man’s voice, an emptiness inside where once excitement and intrigue had burned.
He set a desultory pace as Eisenhower followed him into the secluded garden, where the mellow red-brick wall was covered in climbing plants and the lawn liberally sprinkled with daffodils and early tulips in abundant bloom. The cherry tree would soon be in blossom, encouraged by the unseasonably warm sunshine. Churchill had put on a floppy Panama hat which he used while painting to guard against the sun, and beside the cherry tree stood a table with comfortable wicker chairs and two large china cups.
‘And coffee. Scalding hot. Just as you like it,’ Churchill commented as a secretary brought out a steaming jug to stand beside one of the cups, accompanied by a more modest pot of what Eisenhower concluded could only be that piss-tasting English tea. They busied themselves with the formalities of pouring and stirring, using courtesies to avoid serious discussion. It was the first time they had met, even spoken directly, since that morning above Xanten; both were taking care not to scratch at half-healed wounds. It was only when they had settled and the wicker creaked and complained beneath them that Churchill decided the time had come.
‘Your message was intriguing, General. “Face to face … not to be entrusted to any other means of communication”. I have to admit that I have turned every corner of my mind to discover what could be of such magnitude as to bring you hurrying here, but to no end.’
Eisenhower sipped his coffee carefully, watching over the rim of the cup as Churchill slurped away unselfconsciously, wiping a dribble of tea from his chin with the back of his hand. He waited until Churchill had replaced his cup in the saucer.
‘It’s about Berlin. And the redoubt. I felt I had to come and tell you personally.’
The Old Man’s eyes were instantly alert, the glaze of weariness gone. They reflected disquiet, and anger. The hurt of their last encounter had not yet died but he said nothing, waiting.
‘You know, I’ve been a military man all my life,’ Eisenhower continued as though telling tales around a fireside. ‘And I’m pretty damn good at it – one of the best. But the military is all about manpower and firepower and beating all kinds of hell out of the other guy’s army, and how you do it is almost secondary. That’s why I’ve never been able to understand why you seemed so … passionate about getting to Berlin and rejoicing in the ruins.’
Churchill was about to intervene to protest that he had never described his ambitions in those terms, but held back. He wanted to hear what Eisenhower was trying to say. Anyway, it was true.
‘But I’ve begun to realize that in one sense you were right. You can’t judge an enemy solely by the size of the barrel he’s got pointing at you. There are more ways to die in war than simply getting blown to pieces …’ The folksiness was gone, a sadness crept into his voice. ‘You know the reports we’ve been getting out of Poland of camps full of prisoners and bodies. I don’t know about you; I always treated the reports with a touch of caution. Those camps weren’t military targets, they didn’t affect the way the war was being fought. Anyway, there was always the suspicion they were exaggerated by Stalin’s propaganda machine. Deep down, perhaps I didn’t want to believe.’
‘The reports have been insistent, and growing in frequency. I dread to imagine what we might discover when the final curtain is drawn back on the Nazi stage.’