The Adventures of the U-202 Part 1

The Adventures of the U-202.

by E. Spiegel.

PREFACE

I was sitting on the conning tower smoking a cigarette. Then the splash of a wave soaked it. I tried to draw another puff. It tasted loathsome and frizzled. Then I became angry and threw it away.

I can see my reader's surprised expression. You had expected to read a serious U-boat story and now such a ridiculous beginning! But I know what I am doing. If I had once thrown myself into the complicated U-boat system and used a bunch of technical terms, this story would be shorter and more quickly read through, but you would not have understood half of it.

Seriousness will come, bitter and pitiable seriousness. In fact, everything is serious which is connected with the life on board a submarine and none of it is funny; although in fact it is the hundred small inconveniences and peculiar conditions on a U-boat which make life on it remarkably characteristic. And in order to bring to the public a closer knowledge concerning the peculiar life on board a U-boat I am writing this story. Good-therefore my log-book! Yes, why should I not make use of it? To this I also wish to add that I not only used my own log-book but also at many places had use of other U-boats' logs in order to present one or another episode which is worth the while relating.

Thus, for example, the story of the many fis.h.i.+ng-smacks, which are spoken of in the chapter called "Rich Spoils," is borrowed, but the happenings in the witch kettle, the adventure with the English bulldog, and also most of the other chapters are my own feathers with which I have adorned this little story. This is the only liberal right of an author which I permit myself. The style of the story from a log-book is simple and convenient, and one buys so willingly such stories. See there two valid reasons for making use of it.

THE AUTHOR.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE U-202

I

OUR FIRST SUCCESS

_At the hunting grounds North Sea, April 12, 19-. Course: northwest. Wind: southwest, strength 3-4. Sea: strength 3.

View: good. Both machines in high speed._

We were very comfortable in the conning tower because the weather was fine and the sun burned with its heat our field-gray skin jackets.

"Soon we will have summer," I said to the officer on guard, Lieutenant Petersen, who was sitting with me on the conning tower's platform. I felt entirely too hot in my thick underwear.

Petersen, who, like me, was sitting with his legs dangling in the open hatch on whose edge we had placed ourselves, put his hand on the deck and loosened the thick, camel's wool scarf, twice wrapped around his neck, as if suddenly he realized it was too hot for him, too.

"I think I'll soon discharge this one from service," said Petersen, and pulled at the faithful winter friend as if he wished to strip it off.

"Don't be too hasty, my dear lieutenant," I replied laughing. "Just wait until to-night, and then I am sure that you will repent and take your faithful friend back into the service."

"Are we going to keep above the water to-night, Herr Captain-Lieutenant, or are we to submerge?" he asked me.

"It depends on what comes up," I answered. "It rests as usual with the weather."

Thus we were talking and smoking on the conning tower while our eyes scanned the horizon and kept a sharp lookout all around us.

On the little platform, which in a sharp angle triangle unites itself from behind with the tower, the subordinate officer corporal was on guard, and with a skin cloth was cleaning the lenses on his double spy-gla.s.s, which were wet.

"Did you also get a dousing, Krappohl?" I asked. "Then you didn't look out, either. That rascal soaked my cigarette just as he did the lenses on your spy-gla.s.s. That's the d.i.c.kens of a trick."

With the word "rascal" I meant the splas.h.i.+ng wave, which, while the sea was in a perfect calm, without any reason climbed up to us on the tower. If there had been a storm it would have been nothing to mention.

Then we often did not have a dry thread on our bodies. But such a shameless scoundrel, which in the midst of the most beautiful weather suddenly throws himself over a person, is something to make one angry.

We made good speed. The water, which was thrown aside by the bow, pa.s.sed by us in two wide white formed streaks. The motor rattled and rumbled, and the ventilation machine in the so-called "Centrale" right under our feet made a monotonous buzzing. Through the only opening where the air could pa.s.s out, the open tower hatch, all kinds of odors flowed one after another from the lower regions right by our noses. First we smelled smear-oil. Then the fragrance of oranges (we had with us a large s.h.i.+pment, which we had received as a gift of love), and now-ah!

Now it was coffee, a strong aromatic coffee odor.

Lieutenant Petersen moved back and forth unrestingly on the "swimwest,"

with which he had tried to make it a little more comfortable for himself on the hard sitting place, bent deeper and deeper down into the hatch inhaling with greed the odor from below, and said, as he in pleasant antic.i.p.ation began to rub his hands together:

"Now we'll have coffee, Herr Captain-Lieutenant!"

I had just with a great deal of trouble pulled out a cigarette-case from the inside pocket of my skin jacket and was groping in my other pockets for matches, when a hand (the gloves number 9) with outstretched forefinger reached towards me from behind and the subordinate officer's excited voice announced:

"A cloud of smoke four points port."

As quickly as lightning the spy-gla.s.s was placed to the eye. "Where? Oh, yes, there. I can see it!"

"As yet, only smoke can be seen. Isn't it so?"

In what a suspense we were now. Leaning forward, and with the gla.s.ses pressed to the eye, we gazed on the little, distant, cloud of smoke. It curled, then bent with the wind and slowly dissolved in a long, thin veil-like streak. Nothing but smoke could be seen, a sign that the air was clear, and one could see all the way to the extreme horizon.

What kind of a s.h.i.+p could it be, which the curved form of the earth still concealed from our view? Was it a harmless freighter, a proud pa.s.senger steamer, an auxiliary cruiser, or maybe an armored cruiser jammed with cannon?

It was with a feeling, wavering between hope and fear, that these thoughts occupied my mind-fear, not for the enemy, because we were anxious to meet him-but fear that a disappointment would fall on us, if the s.h.i.+p proved to be a neutral steamer when it came closer. Seven times we had during three days experienced such disappointment, seven times we had met neutral s.h.i.+ps without contraband on board, and had been compelled to let them continue on their way.

The distance between us and the steamer had not diminished, so that its masts and a funnel arose above the horizon, two narrow, somewhat slanting lines, between which there was a thicker dark spot. A common freighter, therefore. This we saw at the first glance. I changed our course northwardly in order to head off the course of the steamer which was going in an easterly direction. With the highest speed the machine could make we raced to meet them and the bridge and part of the hull could already be seen.

"To the diving stations! Artillery alarm. Cannon service on deck! First torpedo tube ready for fire!"

With loud voice I called down these commands into the boat.

There was a stir in the pa.s.sages below like when a stone is thrown into the midst of a swarm of bees. From below it arose, and the men who were to serve at the cannons crowded on the narrow precipitous ladder, swung themselves through the tower hatch and leaped on the deck. Now, first, just once, a deep breath, so that the lungs can draw the refres.h.i.+ng sea air, and then with their sleeves turned up and flas.h.i.+ng eyes to the guns.

"Can you see any neutral signs, Petersen?"

"No, Herr Captain-Lieutenant. The entire hull is black. It's an Englishman."

"The flag of war to the mast! The usual signals ready!" I called down into the tower.

Immediately our flag of war floated from the top of the mast behind the tower. It told the men over there: "Here am I, a German submarine U-boat. Now for it, you proud Britisher! Now it will be seen who rules the sea."

We had gradually drawn closer to a distance of about six thousand meters. At last an enemy! After so many neutral steamers. At last an enemy! An intense joy thrilled us, a joy which only can be compared with the hunter's when he sees at last the longed-for prey coming within range, after long and fruitless efforts. We had traveled many hundred sea miles. We had endured storm, cold, and at times had been drenched to the skin, and there, only two points port, our first success was waving towards us!

By this time we must have been discovered by the steamer. Now our flag of war must have been recognized. A ghastly horror must have seized the captain on the bridge: The U-boat terror! the U-boat pest!

But the captain on the steamer did not give in so easily. He tried to save himself by flight. Suddenly we saw how the steamer belched forth thicker and darker clouds of smoke and in a sharp curve turned port. Its propeller water, which hitherto could hardly be seen, was whipped to a white foam, and let us know the machines had been put into the highest possible speed. But it was of no use. No matter how much the captain was shouting and how much the machinist drove his sweating and naked fire crew to even more than human endeavors, so that the coal flew about and the boilers were red, everything was useless. We closed in on him with a horrible certainty nearer and nearer.

For some time I had been standing high up on the tower with a spy-gla.s.s before my eyes and did not lose one of the steamer's motions. Now it seemed to me the right moment had come to energetically command the steamer to stop.