Wreckers Must Breathe (6 page)

But it was my life and possibly Big Logan's against the lives of many others. On me lay the responsibility for action. I hesitated. Then suddenly I made up my mind. I would jump on the side of the boat. It was bound to capsize. Then anything might happen. I tensed my muscles for the spring.

And at that moment I heard the roar of a powerful engine. A searchlight suddenly stretched out a white pencil of light across the water. It swept round in a short arc and came to rest on the rubber boat, blinding us completely. The drone of the engines grew louder and then came the rattle of machine gun fire. Little spouts of water flew up all round us. One of the men at the oars slumped into the bottom of the boat, almost capsizing it.

The searchlight bore rapidly down on us. The boat's intention was obvious. It was going to ram us. Close behind us came a sudden ear-splitting explosion. A huge spout of water flew up white in the searchlight. Another flung spray right over the advancing boat. It veered away and I saw the grey lines of a British torpedo boat flash past our stern, the water swirling up from its bows. Before I had time to do anything the steel bows of a submarine nosed alongside.

The commander jumped out on to the deck, which was half awash. In an instant I found myself hauled out of the boat and bundled towards the conning tower. I passed the for'ard gun just as it fired again and my ears went completely deaf. As I was thrust down the conning tower hatch I saw the torpedo boat swing in a great arc. Its searchlight suddenly went out and everything was black. The commander dropped down beside me, shouting a string of orders so fast that I could not understand them. Immediately the submarine's engines came to life and she began to swing sharply to port. I knew then that the commander was afraid of being torpedoed and I felt a sudden emptiness inside me.

Logan's great body, still unconscious, was thrust down the hatch almost on top of me. We were pushed out of the way and the crew scrambled down, two carrying the man who had been hit. The hatch closed with a bang. The sound of the engines immediately seemed like a great throbbing pulse. It was very warm and there was a strong smell of oil. We were bundled into two bunks out of the way. Every man was at his action station.

The boat seemed to shudder as she gathered way. A bell sounded, and a few seconds later the floor took a decided tilt. We were diving. It was a crash dive and the roar of the electric motors took the place of the diesels. We were no sooner on an even keel than I sensed rather than actually felt the boat turning. I had read enough about submarine experiences in the Great War to know what the commander was trying to avoid. The muscles of my face contracted in anticipation and my hands were clenched so tight that the nails bit into the palms.

A second later it came—a terrific crash. The U-boat bucked as though it had hit a rock and there was the sound of breaking crockery. The lights went out and, with the fuses blown, the motors stopped. There was a sudden deathly stillness. And in that stillness it was just possible to hear the drone of the torpedo boat's propellers on the surface of the sea above us. The emer-gency lighting came on. The shock of the depth charge had rolled Logan out of his bunk into the gangway. He picked himself up, fully conscious now. Then he saw me and said, ‘My head feels bloody. There are sort of explosions going on inside it. It feels as though it will burst.'

I was about to enlighten him when a second depth charge exploded. It was not so near as the other, but even so the U-boat rocked violently for the trim was bad. The bows seemed to dip and then there was an ominous jar for'ard. Logan took one look round the place and understood. He was like a drunkard that has suddenly been sobered up by danger. His eyes cleared and he was instantly alert.

The commander shouted some order. Two seamen dashed down the gangway, pushing Logan to one side. They were followed by the man who had knocked Logan out. He was the first-lieutenant. For a moment everything seemed pandemonium. Orders were shouted and men rushed aft. Then there was quiet. Water was flooding in from the control room. The crew were on the hand gear for everything to save noise. The only sound was a gramophone playing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles.' For the second time that night I found myself thinking of the
Thetis
disaster, but there was little comfort in Professor Haldane's assurance at the enquiry that the men would not have suffered greatly.

The regulating tank had been flooded and the submarine was now on an even keel. I found I had scrambled out of my bunk. The Number One came back along the gangway shouting, ‘Die Kammer achtern ist unter Wasser, nud Wasser dringt in den Maschinenraum.'

‘Do you understand what he said?' asked Logan.

‘He said the stern compartment is flooded and water is coming into the engine room,' I told him.

Then there was a report of water coming in for'ard. But by this time the leak in the control room had been stopped. Two more depth charges boomed in the distance. The commander came out of the control room and was met by the engineer officer. He reported engine room leak stopped, but port motor damaged. One of the watchkeepers who was down with 'flu walked dazedly past along the gangway in his pyjamas. ‘What's happened?' he asked.

‘Plenty—your temperature is a hundred and two,' came the answer. ‘Report to your bunk.' Then to the engineer officer, the commander said, ‘What about the starboard motor?'

‘Propeller shaft fractured.'

‘Well, see if you can get the port motor working.'

The commander then had a long talk with his second. Part of it I could not catch. But the gist of the second's remarks gave me some idea of what had happened following the first depth charge. The explosion had apparently blown open the engine-room hatch allowing a huge volume of water to enter. Then the pressure of water from outside had sealed the hatch completely. Moreover, it appeared that the boat was now far too heavy and bobbing about between fifty and sixty feet. ‘We'll have to empty the bilges,' the commander decided suddenly, ‘even if the oil does give our position away.'

The second gave the order, and soon even a layman like myself could realize that the boat was lighter and more manageable. Then the second and the commander bent over a chart. I could just see them from where I was seated on my bunk. I think the commander must have sensed me watching him, for he looked up and his gaze swung from me to Logan. Then he strode down the gangway. He was still dressed in civilian clothes and wearing his stiff military-looking waterproof though the interior of the submarine was getting extremely hot. He stopped opposite Logan. ‘You are a fisherman, are you not?' he asked.

Logan looked up and nodded.

‘Well, I do not expect you want to die any more than we do,' the commander said. ‘I should be glad if you would help us. We are lying at about fifty feet. The motors are out of action and that torpedo boat of yours is somewhere up above waiting for us. We dare not surface. But we do not know the drift so close to the shore. If we stay down we may pile ourselves up on the rocks. I calculate that at the moment we are less than a quarter of a mile off the entrance to Cadgwith.'

Big Logan stroked his beard and looked across at me. I felt a sudden excitement. It was almost exultation. I think he sensed it, for he turned to the commander, grinning all over his face. ‘You've given me a crack on the head and dragged me on board this blasted tin fish of yours,' he said, ‘and now you want me to get you out of the mess you've got yourself into.'

‘Pardon me, but it was you who got us into this mess—or rather your friend here. We did not arrange for a British torpedo boat to be waiting for us.'

‘Torpedo boat, was it?' Big Logan suddenly clicked his fingers. ‘Well, I'm damned,' he said. ‘So Ted Morgan took my word for it after all. And he wanted me to believe it was a shark.' He poked a large forefinger into the U-boat commander's ribs. ‘It wasn't this gentleman—' he indicated me—‘that gave you away. It was your bloody submarine coming up right under my boat when he and I were out after mackerel last night. A shark! Well, I'm damned!' And suddenly he began to laugh. He laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. The crew gathered round, staring at him. I think they thought he had gone off his head with fright.

At length, weak with laughter, he said, ‘And here you are, like a lot of stuck pigs, just because you interfered with this gentleman's fishing.' I thought he was going off into another paroxysm of laugher. But suddenly he sobered up. ‘Know what I'll do?' he said. ‘I'll make a bargain with you—the papers you got from your friend at Carillon for information about the currents.'

I thought the commander would strike him. He was a young man and Logan had made him furious. He was a nice looking lad, very slim and erect, but he had the Prussian features and the Prussian lack of any sense of humour. The joke was on him and he could not see it. ‘You are a prisoner,' he said. His voice was cold and precise. ‘You will do as you are told.'

‘I'll see you on the Gav Rocks first,' was Big Logan's reply. And he began to bellow with laughter again.

The commander's hand came up instantly and smacked Logan first on one cheek and then on the other. Logan's answer was instantaneous. He laid the commander out with one blow of his huge fist.

The second immediately drew his revolver. I read Logan's death sentence in his eyes and at the same time one of the crew seized me from behind. But as the second raised the gun it was struck out of his hand by another officer who had appeared behind him. It was the navigating officer. ‘Don't be a fool,' he said in German. ‘He's our only chance of getting out of this alive.'

Then he turned to Logan and said in broken English, ‘Eet ees the lifes of you and dese other gentleman who ees at stake, as well as our own. Will you not help us? The torpedo boat, she will wait all night for us. Eef we could drift half a mile down the coast without wrecking ourselfs we could surface. Then we should be all right.'

Logan's reply was, ‘I've told this officer'—he indicated the inert figure of the commander—‘what my terms for helping you are. I've lived by the sea all my life and I'm not afraid to die by it, even if it is in a glorified sardine tin.'

‘And that goes for me too,' I said. It was a heroic little gesture for my stomach felt queasy at the thought of death by suffocation. I suppose most people with any imagination possess a mild form of claustrophobia, but I must say that Logan's phrase about a glorified sardine tin struck home.

The navigating officer, whom I guessed to be a far more human individual and consequently a much better reader of character, immediately took Logan at his word and set about reviving the commander. This took several minutes, for Logan's whole weight had been behind the punch.

The man eventually staggered to his feet, but he was so dazed by the blow that it was several minutes before the navigating officer could make him understand the position. When he did he blazed up in a fury. ‘You have the audacity to try to make terms with me,' he cried, turning on Logan. But he kept his distance this time. ‘You come aboard this ship as a prisoner, you behave like a lunatic, strike the commander and then expect to barter information which you possess on fantastic terms.' He gave an order to the crew. Three of them closed in on Logan. Logan remained calm and impassive, but his little grey eyes roamed the narrow gangway, gauging distances and possibilities. It looked like a real scrap.

The navigating officer, however, continued to talk in low tones with the commander. The two men were of completely contrasting types. The navigating officer was small in height and rather stocky, with a round ruddy face that spoke of years at sea. The commander, on the other hand, was a typical Nazi—excitable, overbearing and cold-blooded. However, the navigating officer apparently got his way, for the commander turned to Logan and said, ‘If you help us, we will land you and your companion on shore as soon as it is safe to do so.'

I pictured the surface of the sea, the towering cliffs, Cadgwith and the green fields beyond. What a relief it would be to get out of this little nightmare world of machinery that reeked of oil and was so hot and stuffy. A word or two from Logan and we were safe. He glanced at me. Something stubborn and perverse seemed to rise up within me. I shook my head. He nodded and smiled. ‘We want the papers,' he said.

The commander swung round on him. ‘Well, you won't get them—understand that.'

‘Then neither will your superiors,' Logan answered quietly.

When the fury of a man's emotions gets the better of him and he is at the same time baffled, it is not a pretty sight. I wondered how long his nerves would hold out against the incessant tension of service in U-boats. The strain had been too great for a number of submarine commanders in the last war.

At last he mastered himself sufficiently to say, ‘Very well, we'll stay down for half an hour.'

‘And send yourself and your crew to certain death?' asked Logan. He looked at me. ‘That serves our purpose just as well, eh?'

I had to agree with him, though I felt like being sick.

The commander tried to bluster for a moment. ‘You are bluffing,' he shouted angrily.

Logan shrugged his shoulders. ‘You'd best call my bluff, if you think so.'

The man's uneasiness, however, got the better of him. He stood watching Logan for some seconds and then he said, ‘All right. I'll get you the papers.' He turned and strode down the gangway to the officers' quarters.

I looked at Logan, wondering what good it would do to get hold of the papers since the man might very well have a copy or have memorized them. ‘Why don't you keep silent and let them run on the rocks?' I asked in a whisper.

‘Because,' he replied, ‘the drift of the current here is seaward. They're as safe as houses, if they only knew it. If we can't get an undertaking from them to wireless the information through to Fort Blockhouse, then we'll have to try and scare them into surfacing and hope that the torpedo boat will still be around.'