Rogue Angel 55: Beneath Still Waters (21 page)

Still, to be as safe as possible, they decided that Annja would wear a scuba tank during the attempt and would carry the small underwater cutting torch from the
Reliant
’s emergency tool kit. That way, if something went wrong with the hatch and she found herself trapped in the compartment, she would have air to breathe while she cut through the hatch in order to get free.

Having decided on their next step, the trio returned to the
Reliant
to gather the necessary tools. The lagoon water was warm—a pleasant change from the icy Alpine lake that was the site of her last dive—and so there was no need for special equipment like
a dry suit and its associated layers of clothing. For this dive, all Annja would need was her wet suit, her scuba gear, her light and a small cutting torch.

By late morning they were back in the dinghy and motoring to the submarine for the second time that day. Instead of tying off at the dock on the other side from the boat, however, this time Garin brought them in close, right up next to the bow of the warship. He shut down the outboard motor and had Paul drop the anchor over the side to keep them from drifting.

Annja checked her tank and regulator, then pulled on her mask and flippers. She sat on the edge of the boat with her back to the water and, with a thumbs-up to Garin, fell over backward into the lagoon.

The water was clear and visibility was good. She swam over to the hull of the submarine and followed it forward until she reached the mouths of the forward torpedo tubes. Using that as her reference point, she dived deeper, under the keel, then began shining her light across the hull, looking for the hatch leading into the escape trunk.

It didn’t take her long; the hatch was partially open, which made it fairly easy to see along the smooth curve of the hull. She swam over to it and shone her light through the hatch into the compartment, checking to be sure some denizen of the deep hadn’t decided to take up residence there. The space was empty, so she wouldn’t have to chase out a moray eel or any barracuda. The interior hatch leading from the escape trunk into the ship proper seemed to be
closed, which was a good sign that the forward compartment she hoped to enter was still airtight.

She spent several minutes clearing as much of the growth from the hinges as she could, and pushed the hatch back and forth to be certain it would move. It was a bit stiff at first, but after several repetitions it seemed to move a little easier.

Annja grabbed hold of the hatch’s inner handle and slipped into the escape trunk. She pulled the hatch shut behind her as she did so and shoved the lever that pulled the hatch closed.

The escape trunk had been designed to hold four seated men at the same time. Annja had plenty of room around her but had to remain in a crouch or she’d bang her head against the hatch above her.

Now came the real test.

After spending so many decades moored in the same spot, Annja knew the charge on the submarine’s batteries had long since failed, so she didn’t bother trying the controls to power the drain. Instead she shone her light against the inner chamber wall to the left of the control panel until she found the hand crank that served as the backup control system. She had to hit it with her dive light several times before it would move, but at last she got it to turn. She spun the crank clockwise as far as it would go and then locked it into place.

She waited.

After a few seconds Annja felt the water begin to flow down her body, draining out of the escape trunk as the bladder she’d just activated forced air into the
trunk, increasing the pressure and pushing the water out through the drains beneath her feet.

When the water had drained completely, Annja removed her regulator and tested the air.

The wave of dizziness that washed over her in the seconds before she got her regulator back into her mouth and took a gulp of clean oxygen told her that the air inside the trunk was anything but breathable.

That’s fine
, she thought.
I’ll just stay on the regulator while I check things out
.

Now that the air pressure inside the trunk matched the air pressure inside the submarine, she should be able to open the inner hatch without flooding the entire ship in the process.

She crossed her fingers, made a quick plea to whoever might be listening, and then reached up and grabbed the flywheel in the center of the hatch above her head.

Unlike the others she’d encountered so far, this one spun easily. She gave it a few hard cranks and then, when the wheel wouldn’t move any farther, pushed upward on the hatch.

It fell open with a bang.

She was in!

Annja stood up and, in doing so, brought her head and shoulders out of the escape trunk and into the forward torpedo room. She was relieved to see that the compartment had remained watertight even after all this time. There was air in the chamber as well, but she knew that it would more than likely be stagnant, too. Until they could open the inner hatch and allow
some fresh air to flow down the conning tower hatch and into the rest of the boat, she was going to have to keep breathing from her tank.

Putting her hands on the floor next to the hatch, she boosted herself out of the escape trunk and into the torpedo room. She left the hatch open behind her, wanting to be sure she had at least one avenue of escape if she couldn’t get the interior hatch leading to the control room open from this side. Worrying about the outer hatch was bad enough; she didn’t want to be concerned that the inner one wouldn’t open.

Annja looked around.

To the rear of the compartment were three sets of bunk beds, which she guessed had to have been the accommodations for the junior ratings aboard. Next to those and closer to her was the torpedo loading rack, which held two torpedoes. The angled loading hatches for the four aft-facing torpedo tubes were next, while overhead hung a hoist used to maneuver the torpedoes from their storage space below the decking up onto the rack. There was a bulkhead hatch blocking off this compartment from the next. When she tried the flywheel, it spun without resistance and she was able to move aft, toward the control room where the others were waiting.

Passing through that first bulkhead, the next compartment in line was another wardroom of sorts, with two sets of bunks on either side of the aisle. As she flashed her light across the beds, she saw that she was no longer alone.

Three of the four bunks were occupied.

She started, surprised, her breath echoing in her ears through the regulator, but then she relaxed when she got a closer look at the beds’ occupants. As with the sailors in the control room, these men weren’t going anywhere. They were little more than skeletons in gray uniforms, the flesh having long since decayed, but the clothing they wore was far better preserved than that worn by their companions in the control room.

Annja noticed something sticking up from the body in one of the lower bunks. She reached out and carefully pulled it from the rib cage that had kept it in place for so many years.

It was an arrow with a wooden shaft and fletching made from the dark feathers of some kind of tropical bird. The broken remains of a bone tip were still tied to the other end. The rest was probably still stuck somewhere in the man’s skeleton.

Despite her earlier thoughts about plague, she realized that the answer was much simpler. These men hadn’t died of some mysterious illness at all, but rather at the hands of men just like themselves. She didn’t know what they’d done to deserve death, if they’d done anything at all, but somehow the crew had made some deadly enemies upon arrival and had paid the ultimate price for those transgressions.

There was a mystery to be solved here, more than one, actually, but now was not the time. Annja pressed on, knowing the others were waiting for her.

The next bulkhead led to another wardroom, this one with bunks on the right and a small table on the
left. There was a little more space in this compartment than in the previous one, but not much.

Officers’ quarters
, she thought.

Annja knew she was closing in on the middle of the boat, and a check of her air supply showed that she still had about half a tank left. If things continued at the pace they were going, she would have plenty.

Beyond the wardroom, she found the radio and sound detection rooms on the right and a single bunk with a curtain in front of it on the left.

That curtain—and the fact that the bunk was opposite the two most important stations on the boat—told her that it was the captain’s bunk. The location allowed him to be kept abreast of new orders or new contacts as soon as they came in while the curtain served as the only bit of privacy that the man had. It wasn’t much, but on a boat of this size it probably felt like heaven to be able to close yourself off, even for just a few minutes, from everyone else.

This was the first place that she intended to search for an answer to what had happened to the boat and its crew, but first she had to open the bulkhead hatch and let her companions, as well as some fresh air, into the boat.

The bulkhead at the front of this section of the hull was the one leading into the control room. From this side it was easy to see that it had been locked tight. Given the signs of a struggle in the control room, as well as the body of what could only have been an injured member of the crew in the senior petty officer’s wardroom behind her, Annja could only believe that
the boat and its crew had come under attack at some point in the past by person or persons unknown but most likely indigenous to this island.

Which begged the question, what had happened to the rest of the crew?

She pounded on the hatch with the underside of her fist to let Garin and Paul know that she was all right and then set to work releasing the lever that locked the gears that allowed the flywheel to turn. It had gotten stuck fast, and it took her a good five minutes to work it free, but at last the bit of steel retracted and she was able to spin the flywheel without resistance.

When she opened the hatch she found Garin and Paul standing on the other side in the control room, waiting.

“Everything all right?” Paul asked.

She nodded and gave him a thumbs-up, to his obvious relief.

She stepped into the control room, where fresh air was now circulating thanks to the open hatch in the conning tower. She pulled her regulator out of her mouth and shut off the air flow coming from her scuba tank, then slipped free of the straps. The tank was heavy when it wasn’t in the water, and she was glad she didn’t have to move around in the cramped quarters with it strapped to her back any longer.

They had to wait several minutes for the air in the forward section of the boat to be refreshed with what was coming in through the open hatch, and that gave Annja time to explain what she’d found on her trip through the interior. She told them about the bodies
she’d found in the rear wardroom and of her belief that the crew might have been attacked at one point by natives and gave them the arrow she’d removed from the skeleton as evidence of her theory.

The close confines of the submarine were making Paul uncomfortable, so he climbed back up into the conning tower to wait for them while Annja headed to the captain’s quarters and Garin went forward to take a look at the bodies.

In the drawers beneath the captain’s bunk Annja found a few sets of uniforms, a toiletries kit and a leather-bound journal. Picking up the journal, she retreated to the next wardroom, sat down at the small table there and began leafing through the book, looking for anything that might point them in the direction of the base.

It had to be here somewhere.

The journal was written in German but fortunately the author had a fine hand and the letters stood out crisp and clear even after all this time.

Annja flipped to the front of the book and read the first entry, dated late January 1943.

January 29, 1943

Four days from port. Have just two torpedoes remaining. Crew is on limited rations due to the amount of time we’ve been at sea, but their spirits are still high from our latest kill and I am confident we can make the return journey without mishap.

Her grasp of German was limited and a bit rustier than she would have liked, but she was still able to understand the majority of what she read and could infer the rest when she wasn’t positive of the exact meaning.

The entry went on, giving a detailed report of an encounter with a solo Allied aircraft, British in origin,
that had tried to depth charge them into oblivion earlier in the day. It was fascinating reading, but not something that was going to help them with their task.

Annja flipped ahead several pages and dipped into another entry, this one from November 8, 1944.

Have delivered a second load of construction materials to the island. The soldiers were happy to see us. We brought with us fresh staples for the kitchen and news of the war, even if it was a month or more out of date. The crew has a fever, the result of the sudden change from the cold of the North Atlantic to the heat and humidity of the tropics. Spirits remain high and the camp doctor told me that it should pass soon.

Annja nodded to herself. The dates fit with one of the key facts that she already knew, namely that Hitler had ordered the base built long before he’d entrusted the knowledge of its existence to his so-called friend and ally Martin Bormann.

She turned several more pages and then read another entry, this one dated late January 1945.

Arrived to find the pier finally complete. Being able to offload the supplies without using the boat’s launch allowed the crew to finish in half the usual time, which was greeted with cheers all around. Delivered 400 kilos of flour, 200 kilos of salted meat, plus assorted carpentry tools.

Dined with the base commandant, Colonel Schnell, in the main facility and was highly impressed with what they have accomplished in just the short time since our last visit. Schnell must be working the crews night and day to accomplish so much, but it looks like the facility will be completed on time, much to our joint relief.