The Last Wolf (27 page)

Rosanne said, ‘Thank heavens Christopher wasn't sent to France. At least, not yet. He's furious about that, of course, but I'm so thankful. If only the war would end, he'd never have to go.'

‘Everyone seems to think it'll be over soon.'

‘It's hard to imagine, Stroma, isn't it? We've all got so used to it – the blackout, the rationing, the bombs and everything. Do you remember that dreadful time when we saw that fighter being shot down?'

‘Yes, I remember.'

She'd never forget. It still made her shudder.

Rosanne was putting her photo away in her handbag. ‘And do you remember that awfully good-looking German chap who used to write to you? He went into their Navy and sent you that photo of himself in his uniform and Miss Calder tore it up. I wonder what's happened to him. Didn't he go into U-boats, or something?'

‘Yes, he did.'

‘Then he's most probably dead. Nearly all of them are, aren't they? I've read about it in the newspapers.'

‘I believe so.'

‘Can I sign your plaster before I go?'

The plaster came off a week later and underneath her leg looked white and thin – like a stick of celery. Physiotherapy and exercises helped, but it took ages to get used to walking again and her leg still ached a lot.

In April, the WRNS wrote a letter to say that they had decided she should be officially invalided out. She stayed at home for a while, going for walks and visiting the local library where she read all she could about spinning and weaving and making tweed.

Reinhard had received orders to patrol the Pentland Firth, between the north coast of Scotland and the Orkney Islands, close to the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow.

He reckoned there couldn't be more than about seventy U-boats left operating by now. Perhaps fewer. And the news of the Allies' advance was growing rapidly worse. The Americans had marched into Cologne and crossed the Rhine at Remagen. The river's length from Holland to Koblenz was in Allied hands, while the Soviet armies were storming into Germany from the Baltic to Silesia. The home towns of many of his crew had been overrun by the enemy. Only God knew what had happened to their families, whether there was anything or anyone left for them to go back to, or whether the U-boat was the only home that remained to them.

Before they had left Bergen, one of the new type of U-boats, promised by the Commanding Officer, had arrived at the port. Reinhard had been given a tour by its commander. The boat was far superior in every way to a Type VII – nearly three times as large, with push-button hydraulic controls and roomy quarters that verged on luxurious, compared with their own cramped squalor. It carried many more torpedoes, which could be fired at a depth of 50 metres without seeing the targets, and it could go twice as deep and was faster below the surface than above. It was a wonder boat that could force the Allies back on to the defensive at sea – if only they could be built fast enough and in large enough numbers and if the east and west fronts could hold out. He knew all such hopes were just dreams.

The wonder boat's commander had wished him luck – luck that they would certainly be needing in their antiquated death-trap. The old type of boats, with all their deficiencies and defects, were being sent into battle like warhorses who should have been relegated to the knacker's yard years ago.

They patrolled the Firth for several days without sighting a single enemy ship until one evening, at sunset, a Royal Navy frigate came sailing merrily over the horizon. All alone. Red Riding Hood, skipping along through the woods on her way to visit dear Grandmama, blissfully unaware of the wolf lurking behind the trees.

‘They're getting cocky, sir,' Engelhardt said. ‘Too big for their boots.'

‘Don't worry, we have the cure.'

They trailed the frigate at periscope depth. For once, there were no enemy planes about, nothing to force them to dive, nothing to interfere with their quiet and steady pursuit. The sea turned ink-dark as the last of the light faded.

‘Standby to surface . . . Surface!'

As soon as the hatch was opened, Reinhard shinned up the ladder on to the bridge. The visibility was good, with a helpful swell to hide their low-lying presence. The frigate herself was easy to see through the binoculars – still sticking to her westerly course. He used the trusty trick of closing stealthily on a parallel course, and at a range of 1000 metres, three torpedoes were sent on their way in a fan shot. They all found their target. Even so, the frigate was tough; she took a while to heel over and start on her way to the bottom. Plenty of time for an SOS to have been sent and lifeboats to be lowered.

‘That'll teach them,' his Number One observed. ‘We're not bloody well finished yet.'

Their moment of satisfaction was short-lived, however. One of the diesels broke down and they were forced to return to Bergen at a snail's pace. On the way, the wireless reports grew steadily worse. The Ruhr was surrounded by the Allies, the British were closing on Hamburg and the Russians had occupied Vienna and were encircling Berlin. A special bulletin announced that the American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had died, with the assurance that providence had removed one of the fiercest enemies of the German people. The tide of the war would, apparently, now turn in their favour. The announcement ended in a rousing military march. In Reinhard's view, the death of the American president would make little difference to the outcome of the war. Someone else would simply step into his shoes and carry on as before.

Back in Bergen, while they were waiting for the diesel to be repaired, news came that Mussolini, the Italian leader, had been hanged by partisans and two days afterwards, another important announcement was made over the wireless in the evening. Solemn music preceded it and the announcer's voice was loud and harsh.

‘
Our Führer, Adolf Hitler, fighting to his last breath, fell for Germany in his headquarters in the Reich's Chancellery. On April the thirtieth, the Führer appointed Grossadmiral Dönitz to take his place. The Grossadmiral now speaks to the German people.
'

Reinhard was lying on his bed in his quarters, smoking a cigarette, when the announcement came through. Dönitz followed with a speech urging that the military struggle must be carried on to save the lives of millions of refugees, and that Germans must continue to fight and defend their rights. The national anthem followed.

It was the end. He knew that. The end of the long struggle and the sacrifice and the suffering. All of it in vain. His country was effectively finished. Germany was already in ruins, and she would now be in chains. The Allies had shown little mercy in war and he very much doubted that they would show any in peace.

Perhaps it was as well that Father had not lived to see this shameful day, or Bruno either, with all his dreams of triumph and glory. How would his brother have resigned himself to the total humiliation and ignominy that now lay before them?

He stubbed out the cigarette, lay back again on the pillow. God, he was so tired! Tired in mind and tired in body. Tired through and through after years of war spent sealed up in a ready-made coffin. He couldn't remember when he had last slept properly – an untroubled, peaceful, deep, restoring sleep. Longer than he could imagine. He put one hand over his eyes.

Three days later, they sailed from Bergen to obey the Grossadmiral's order to continue the hopeless fight. Berlin had been captured by the Russians, the Americans were occupying the whole of the Ruhr, the British were in Kiel. German forces had surrendered in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Denmark, in the north-west of Germany itself. On the following day, the Grossadmiral sent a signal, instructing all U-boats to stop all hostile action against Allied shipping. On the sixth of May, Dönitz sent another signal.

‘
My U-boat men, six years of war lie behind you. You have fought like lions. An overwhelming material superiority has driven us into a tight corner from which it is no longer possible to continue the war. Unbeaten and unblemished, you lay down your arms after a heroic fight without parallel. We proudly remember our fallen comrades who gave their lives for the Führer and Fatherland. Comrades, preserve that spirit in which you have fought for so long and so gallantly for the sake of the future of the Fatherland. Long live Germany!
'

The British went on attacking and sinking the U-boats still at sea, taking no chances. And who could blame them? Reinhard gathered his crew together and outlined a plan that had been forming in his mind since it had become very clear that the Allies would win the war. They had had the luck to be away from port when the order had been given to all U-boats to disarm and to hoist a black surrender flag. They were out of reach of the authorities ashore. Their boat had recently been re-stocked with provisions and enough fuel to carry them to the other side of the world. They had a choice: surface and surrender to the enemy, which would mean being taken prisoner and thrown in a barbed-wire cage for months, perhaps years, accused of whatever war crimes the Allies cared to throw at them. Or, thanks to the Snort, they could stay submerged and hidden. Disappear. Sail away to, say, the southern hemisphere, to the Argentine, for instance, where there would be the chance to start a new life in freedom.

He made no attempt to persuade his crew or to hurry their decision. The choice was theirs. Those who wished to stay behind would be put ashore in Norway. Sixteen – mostly older and married with families – and Mohr, his Second Officer who had rashly got engaged on his last leave – voted to remain. The remainder – including, thank God, Franz, his Chief Engineer – elected to risk the voyage to South America.

Engelhardt, footloose and fancy-free, his home city of Frankfurt reduced to rubble and his widowed mother fled to the country to live with a strait-laced sister, made a predictable choice.

‘When you think about it, sir, we'll be the last wolf left. That's quite an honour.'

Reinhard said grimly, ‘Well, let's hope it won't be necessary to show our teeth.'

He had planned to put the men ashore that night on a lonely stretch of mountain coast, using two rubber dinghies. The Norwegian waters with their rocks and tides and winds were treacherous and to land them safely meant having to go in close. He took the U-boat in very slowly, using the electric motors, and the depth went from seven fathoms, to five, to four, then to two . . . She heeled over as her keel grazed a rock and her bows rose up out of the water. He called instantly for full speed astern but too late; she was stuck. They launched the dinghies and the men rowed off to shore, while they tried to release the boat – pumping water out of the tanks, re-trimming her and working the engines at full speed, but all to no effect. The short Norwegian May night would soon be over, and, with it, their chance of escape. He reckoned that there was no more than half an hour of darkness left. As a last resort, they sent compressed air through the tanks and under the keel, engines roaring at full speed astern, the whole boat shuddering, needles flickering dangerously on red. Miraculously, she pulled free, her bows sliding back into the water, turning on her keel.

The men signalled Bon Voyage as they reached the shore. It had been agreed that if they were caught and interrogated, they would say that their U-boat had struck a mine and that they were the only survivors. He knew that they would keep to their word.

The coastline was already visible in the dawn as Reinhard gave the order to dive. The U-boat vanished from sight, the seas closing over where she had been.

On VE Day, 8th May, the day after Germany had surrendered unconditionally, Stroma went with friends to join the crowds in the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace. Union Jacks hung from every building. People were wearing red, white and blue rosettes and comic hats, including policemen's helmets. They were singing and dancing and waving flags, climbing lamp-posts, hugging and kissing. Many of them were crying, some were drunk, others were simply delirious with joy. The day faded, but the crowds stayed and as darkness fell, the lights went on again all over London – street lights, shop lights, restaurant lights, together with wartime searchlights flickering across the night sky – this time for fun.

Stroma was swept along the Mall by the crowds towards the Palace where a young man was playing a trumpet outside the gates, blasting out some Dixieland tune. Two other players joined him – a drummer and a trombonist. A handcart appeared from nowhere and the three musicians climbed aboard and set off in procession, with people cavorting in their wake. An American soldier seized hold of Stroma and spun her round in a crazy dance. The crowds blurred and all she could see clearly was the American's smiling black face and his gleaming white teeth. They followed the handcart and its band, dancing all the way back down the Mall, down St James's Street to Piccadilly Circus and then to Trafalgar Square and back to the Palace where the King and Queen and the two princesses appeared on the balcony to a great roar of appreciation from the crowds.

Later, at two in the morning, she stood at her open bedroom window, listening to the music and the singing that was still going strong, and watching the fireworks still exploding in the sky. Her leg ached furiously but she didn't care; it had been worth it.

We won
, she thought.
We beat them in the end. No more Hitler and his evil Nazis. No more cruelty and unspeakable misery for those in their power
. The newspaper photographs of the wretches found in the concentration camps and the shocking piles of corpses had been so hideous, so sickening, that she couldn't get them out of her mind.

After a while, she went and lay down on her bed in the darkness, thinking instead about Craigmore. The best place on earth to be. Her leg had mended and there was no reason why she couldn't make the journey, open up the house, take a look at the old mill, make plans to start a new life. The sea, the wind, the pure air, the heather-covered hills, the gentle rain, the peace and the quiet . . . the island would work its magic, as it had always done, and take away all the grim memories and the nightmares of the war.