The Diary of a U-boat Commander - Sir King-Hall Stephen (best novels to read txt) 📗

had hardly got on the bridge, when a flash of flame stabbed the night on the starboard beam and a shell moaned just overhead.

I crash-dived at once, but could not get under before the enemy fired a second shot at us, which fortunately missed us. As we dived I ordered the helm hard a starboard, to counteract the expected depth-charge attack. We must have been a hundred and fifty metres from the first charge and a little below it, five others followed in rapid succession, but were further away, and we suffered no damage beyond a couple of broken lights. The situation was now extremely unpleasant. I did not dare venture to the surface, and thus missed my 1 a.m. signal from Headquarters. I wanted a charge badly, and so proceeded at the lowest possible speed. At regular intervals our enemy dropped one depth-charge somewhere astern of us, but these reports always seemed the same distance away.

At dawn I very cautiously came up to periscope depth, and had a look. To my consternation I discovered our relentless pursuer about 1,500 metres away on the port quarter. In some extraordinary manner he had tracked us during the night.

I dived and altered course through ninety degrees to south.

At 9 a.m. a tremendous explosion shook the boat from stem to stern, smashing several lights, and giving her a big inclination up by the bow.

As I was only at twenty metres I feared the boat would break surface, and our enemy was evidently very nearly right over us. I at once ordered hard to dive, and went down to the great depth of ninety-five metres.

A series of shattering explosions somewhere above us showed that we were marked down, and we were only saved from destruction by our great depth, the English charges being set apparently to about thirty metres.

At noon the situation was critical in the extreme. My battery density was down to 1,150, the few lamps that I had burning were glowing with a faint, dull red appearance, which eloquently told of the falling voltage and the dying struggles of the battery.

The motors with all fields out were just going round. The faces of the crew, pallid with exhaustion, seemed of an ivory whiteness in the dusky gloom of the boat, which never resembled a gigantic and fantastically ornamental coffin so closely as she did at that time.

The air was fetid. I struck a match; it went out in my fingers. The slightest effort was an agony. I bent down to take off my sea-boots, and cold sweat dropped off my forehead, and my pulse rose with a kind of jerk to a rapid beating, like a hammer.

I left one sea-boot on.

At 1 p.m. a deputation of the crew came aft, and in whispered voices implored me to surface the boat and make a last effort on the surface. A muffled report, as our implacable enemy dropped a depth-charge somewhere astern of us, added point to the conversation, and showed me that our appearance on the surface could have but one end.

At 3 p.m. the second coxswain, who was working the hydroplanes, fell off his stool in a dead faint.

At 3.30 p.m. the supreme crisis was reached: two more men fainted, and I realized that if I did not surface at once I might find the crew incapable of starting the Diesels.

At the order “Surface,” a feeble cheer came from the men.

We surfaced, and I dragged myself-up to the conning tower. Luckily we started the Diesels with ease, and in a few minutes gusts of beautiful air were circulating through the boat.

Meanwhile, what of the enemy? I had half expected a shell as soon as we came up, and it was with great anxiety that I looked round. We had been slightly favoured by fortune in that the only thing in sight was a trawler away on the port beam. It was our hunter.

I trimmed right down, hoping to avoid being seen, as it was essential to stay on the surface and get some amperes into the battery. I also altered course away from him.

It was about 5 p.m. that I saw two trawlers ahead, one on each bow. By this time the boat’s crew had quite recovered, but I did not wish to dive, as the battery was still pitiably low. I gradually altered course to north-east, but after half an hour’s run I almost ran on top of a group of patrols in the dusk.

I crash-dived, and they must have seen me go down, as a few minutes later the boat was violently shaken by a depth-charge.

We were at twenty metres, still diving at the time. I consulted the chart, but could find no bottoming ground within fifty miles, a distance which was quite beyond my powers.

At 11 p.m. I simply had to come up again and get a charge on the batteries.

From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., at regular half-hourly intervals, a depth-charge had gone off somewhere within a radius of two miles of me. Needless to say, I was only crawling along at about one knot and altering course frequently. What was so terrible was the patent fact that the patrols in this area had evidently got some device which enabled them to keep in continual touch with me to a certain extent.

These monotonous and regular depth-charges seemed to say: “We know, Oh! U-boat, that we are somewhere near you, and here is a depth-charge just to tell you that we haven’t lost you yet.” [1]

[Footnote 1: Karl was quite right; it is evident that he had the misfortune to encounter one of our new hydrophone-hunting groups, just started In the Fair Island Channel. The incident of the depth-charges every half-hour was known as “Tickling up.” Probably the patrol only heard faint noises from him.—ETIENNE.]

As an hour had elapsed since the last depth-charge, I felt fairly happy at coming up, and on making the surface I was delighted to find a pitch-black night and a considerable sea. From 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. I actually had three hours of peace, and in this period I managed to cram a considerable amount of stuff into the batteries. The densities were rising nicely and all seemed well, when I did what I now see was a very foolish thing.

I made my 1 a.m. wireless report to Nordreich, in which I requested orders at 3 a.m. and reported my position, together with the fact that I had been badly hunted.

In twenty-five minutes they were on me again! I had most idiotically assumed that the English had no directional wireless in these parts. They have. They’ve got everything that they have ever tried up there; it was concentrated in that infernal Fair Island Channel.

I was only saved by seeing a destroyer coming straight at me, silhouetted against, the lowlying crescent of a new moon. When I dived she was about six hundred metres away. As I have confessed to doing a foolish thing, I give myself the pleasure of recording a cleverer move on my part. I anticipated depth-charge attack as a matter of course, but instead of going down to twenty-five metres, I kept her at twelve.

The depth-charges came all right, seven smashing explosions, but, as I had calculated, they were set to go off at about thirty metres, and so were well below me.

The boat was thrown bodily up by one, and I think the top of the conning tower must have broken surface, but there was little danger of this being seen in the prevailing water conditions.

 

*

 

I have just had to stop recording my experiences of the past forty-eight hours, as the Navigator, who is on watch, sent down a message to say that smoke was in sight.

The next hour was full of anxiety, but by hauling off to port we managed to lose it. I then had a little food, and I will now conclude my account before trying again to get some sleep.

 

The account continued.

 

All my hopes of getting up again that night, both for the purpose of charging and of getting the 3 a.m. signal, were doomed to be disappointed, as the hydrophone operator kept on reporting the noise of destroyers overhead. Occasional distant thuds seemed to indicate a never-ending supply of depth-charges, but they were about four or five miles from me. Perhaps some other unfortunate devil was going through the fires of hell.

At daylight on the second day my position was still miserable. The battery was getting low again, the sea had gone down, and when I put my periscope up at 9 a.m. the horizon seemed to be ringed with patrols. I felt as if I was in an invisible net, and though I endeavoured to conceal my apprehension from the crew, I could see from the listless way they went about their duties that they realized that once again we were near the end of our resources.

All the forenoon we crept along at thirty metres, until the tension was broken at 1 p.m. by a furious depth-charge attack. In some extraordinary way they had located me again and closed in upon me. The first charges were some little distance off, and as they got closer a feeling of desperation overcame me, and I seriously contemplated ending the agony by surfacing and fighting to the last with my gun.

Curiously enough, the procedure that I adopted was the exact opposite. I decided to dive deep. I went down to 114 metres. At this exceptional depth, three rivets in the pressure hull began to leak, and jets of water with the rigidity of bars of iron shot into the boat. I held on for five minutes, which was sufficient to save me from the depth-charge attack, though two which went off almost above me broke some lamps. I then came up to twenty metres and slowly crawled on. Throughout the long afternoon, though we were not directly attacked again, I heard depth-charges on several occasions sufficiently close to me to demonstrate that these implacable and tireless devils had an idea of the area I was in.

By a supreme effort, working one motor at the only speed it would go, viz., “Dead slow,” I managed to squeeze out the battery until I estimated it must be dusk.

There was only one thing to do—I surfaced. It was not as dark as I had hoped, and I saw a fairly large sloop-like vessel, about eight thousand metres away, on the port beam. She must have seen me simultaneously, as the flash of a gun darted from her, the shell falling short.

I couldn’t dive; there seemed only one thing to do: fight and then die. I ordered the gun’s crew up, and the unequal duel began. We were going full speed on the Diesels, and my course was east by north. A good deal of water and spray was flying over the gun, and my crew had little hope of doing much accurate shooting, but I have often found that when one is being fired at there is nothing so comforting as the sound of one’s own gun.

Our enemy was armed with two large guns, fifteen centimetres or over, but had no speed, a discovery which raised my hopes again. It was soon evident that, provided we were not heading for another patrol, if we could survive ten minutes’ shelling, we should be saved for the time being by the fading light, which was evidently causing our enemy increasing difficulties, as his shots alternated between very short and very much over.

I was actually congratulating the Navigator on our escape, and I had just told the gun’s crew to cease firing at the blurred outlines on the