3

As the U-boat rounded the tip of Scotland, it hit a savage westerly gale.  Pitching and rolling like an amusement park ride, it inched south, west of Ireland, and made its way slowly into the Atlantic.

On May 8, Hoffmann told Kruger that a bulletin had come over the radio:  German had surrendered.  The war was over.

"Not for us," Kruger replied.  "Not for us.  For us, the war will never be over."

*          *          *          *          *

The days fell, like autumn leaves from a linden tree, one after another, indistinguishable.  Hoffmann had avoided the shipping lanes, and so encountered no Allied vessels.  Three times the lookout had seen trails of smoke on the horizon; half a dozen times Hoffman had ordered the boat to submerge, shallow practice dives rather than emergencies.

For Kruger, time became a monotonous cycle of meals, sleep and work in the forward torpedo room.  His work was crucial; it was the sole motivation for his own life now, and for enduring this interminable voyage.

In the torpedo room, Kruger pushed a release button hidden beneath a tiny swastika etched in the bronze.  The cover of the huge box opened; with a magnifying glass he examined the thick rubber O-ring seals that kept the box air- and watertight.  He applied grease to any spots that appeared to be pitting or drying out.

Kruger's superiors had immediately grasped the military applications of his experiments.  What he saw as a scientific breakthrough, they saw as a magnificent weapon.  And so money was lavished upon it, and Kruger had been pushed to complete it.  But then, with success so close, time had run out; the empire of the Reich had shrunk to a bunker in Berlin, and Kruger had been told that the weapon would be transported, even though programming was incomplete.

*          *          *          *          *

Four weeks into the voyage, Kruger was summoned to the control room.  Hoffmann's arms hung over the wings of the periscope, his face was pressed to the eyepiece and he was turning in a slow circle.  He didn't look up, but as soon as Kruger was in the room, Hoffmann said, "This is the moment we've been waiting for, Herr Doktor.  It's calm, it's twilight and it's pouring rain.  We can go topside and have a shower."  Hoffman looked away from the eyepiece and smiled.  "And in deference to your station, you shall be on the first shift."

It had been more than a month since Kruger had bathed, shaved, brushed his teeth.  The boat could store only a few gallons of fresh water, and that which its desalinizers made every day was reserved exclusively for cooking and for servicing the batteries.  He longed for the feel of fresh water on his stinking skin.  "Is it safe?" he asked.

"I think so.  There's not much traffic this far south — we're about two thousand kilometers east of the Bahamas."  Hoffmann returned to the eyepiece and said, "How much water under the keel?"

"No bottom here, Herr Kaleu," a sailor at a control panel replied.

"No bottom?" Kruger said.  "How can there be no bottom?"

Hoffmann said, "It’s too deep for our Fathometer to get a return.  We must be over one of the midocean trenches...  three kilometers, five kilometers...  who knows?  Plenty of water.  We're not likely to hit anything."

The rush of fresh air, as a crewman opened the conning-tower hatch, smelled to Kruger as sweet as violets.  He stood at the base of the ladder, holding a bar of soap, and savored the drops of rainwater that fell on his face.

The crewman scanned the horizon with binoculars, call out, "All clear!" and slid backward down the ladder.

Kruger climbed up, stepped over the lip of the bridge and descended the exterior ladder to the deck.  Four crewmen followed him, scaling the ladders as nimbly as spiders.  They gathered on the afterdeck, naked, and passed a bar of soap among them.

The rain was steady but soft, not wind driven, and the sea was sickly calm.  The long, gentle ocean swell lifted the submarine so slowly that Kruger had no trouble keeping his footing.  He walked forward to a flat stretch of deck, took off his clothes and spread them on the deck, hoping the rain would rinse the stench from them.  He lathered himself and spread his arms.

"Herr Doktor!"

Kruger dropped his arms and looked aft; the four naked crewmen were rushing up the ladder to the bridge.

"A plane!  Hurry!"  The last crewman on the ladder pointed at the sky, then kept climbing.

"A what?"  Then, over the sound of his own voice, Kruger heard the drone of an engine.  He looked in the direction the crewman had pointed; for a moment, he saw nothing.  Then, against the lighter gray of the western clouds, there was a black speck skimming the wave tops and heading directly at him.

He scooped up his clothes and ran for the ladder.  His foot hit something, some obstruction on the deck, and he sprawled forward onto his knees, scattering his clothes.

The drone of the plane's engine sounded closer; it had risen to a yowl.

Stunned by a sharp, hot pain that shot from his big toe up through his calf, Kruger abandoned his clothes and struggled to his feet.  He glanced backward to see what he had hit; one of the deck plates just aft of the forward hatch looked warped, as if a weld had popped and sprung one of the plate's edges.

He began to climb the ladder.

The engine noise was deafening now, and Kruger ducked reflexively as the plane screamed overhead.  He looked up as it began a long loop into the sky.

One of the crewmen leaned down from the bridge, reaching his hand out to Kruger, urging his on.

From somewhere inside the hull Kruger heard the klaxon for emergency dive, and as he fell over the lip of the bridge and sought footing on the interior ladder, he felt the thrum of engines and a sensation of motion forward and down.

The hatch clanged shut above him, the crewman shimmied past him down the side of the ladder, and Kruger found himself standing on the bottom rung, naked, drenched, a film of soap running down his legs.

Hoffman was bent over the periscope.  "Pull the plug, Chief," he said, "we're taking her down."

Kruger said, "On the deck, one of the—"

"Periscope depth," the chief called.  "E motors half speed."

Hoffmann spun the periscope ninety degrees.  "Son of a bitch," he said.  "The bastard's coming back."

"He didn't fire on us," Kruger said.  "I think you—"

"He will this time; he was just making sure.  He's not about to let a U-boat get across the Atlantic, war or no war. Forward down fifteen, aft down ten.  Take her to a hundred meters."

Hoffmann slammed the wings of the periscope up and pushed the retractor button, and the gleaming steel tube slid downward.  He glanced at Kruger, noted the stricken look on his face and said, "Don't worry, we're a needle in a haystack.  Night's coming on, and the chances of his finding us—"

"Fifty meters!" called the chief.

"On the deck," Kruger said.  "I saw a... one of the pieces of metal... have you taken this boat to a hundred meters before?"

"Of course.  Dozens of times."

"Seventy meters, Herr Kaleu!"

*          *          *          *          *

At seventy meters below the surface, there was nearly a hundred pounds of water pressure on every square inch of the submarine's hull.  The boat had been designed to operate safely at more than twice that depth, and had done so many times.  But when the forward deck plates had been removed to take on Kruger's cargo, one of the welders assigned to replace them had worked too hastily.  A few superficial, inconsequential welds had failed during the shallow dives, but all the critical ones had held.  Now, however, with thousands of tons of water squeezing the hull like a living fist, one gave way.

*          *          *          *          *

There was a noise forward, a resonant boom, and the boat lurched downward.  Men were thrown from their seats; Kruger slammed into the ladder, bounced off and then grabbed it to keep from pitching down the passageway.

Hoffmann's feet skidded out from under him, and he clutched the periscope.

"Emergency surface!" he shouted.  "Bring her up!  All back full!  Blow fore and aft!"  He shot a glance at Kruger.  Did you dog the forward hatch?"

"I can't remem—"

There was another boom then as the forward hatch blew open, and a solid jet of water five feet high and three feet across blasted from the torpedo room through the petty officers' quarters.  It rushed into the galley and the officers' wardroom.

"Ninety meters, Herr Kaleu!" a voice shrieked.

The boat continued down.  Kruger suddenly felt weightless, as if he were in an elevator.

There were loud creaking noises; somewhere a pipe burst; there was a hiss of steam.  The control room filled with the sour smell of sweat, then of urine, and, at last, of oil and feces.

Another boom, at two hundred meters.

Darkness.  Screams.  Wailing.

In the millisecond before he died, Ernst Kruger reached a hand forward, toward the torpedo room, toward the future.