The Diary of a U-boat Commander by Sir King-Hall Stephen (best novels for teenagers .TXT) 📖

port quarter from which the random shells still came, when there was a sheet of yellow flame and a jar which threw me against the signalman. The latter had been standing near the conning-tower hatch, and unfortunately I knocked him off his balance, and he fell with a thud into the upper conning tower. He had the good fortune to escape with a couple of ribs broken, but when I recovered myself and got to my feet, far worse consequences met my eyes.

By the worst of ill-luck, a shell which must have been fired practically at random had hit the gun just below the port trunnion.

The result of the explosion was very severe. Four of the seven men at the gun had been blown overboard, the breech worker was uninjured, though from the way he swayed about it was evident that he was dazed, and I expected to see him fall over the side at any moment. The remaining two men were as dead as horse-flesh.

The material damage was even more serious. The gun had been practically thrown out of its cradle, but in the main the trunnion blocks had held firm, and the whole pedestal had been carried over to starboard.

The really terrible effects of this injury were not apparent at first sight, but I soon realized them, for an hour later (we had shaken off the sloop) I saw red flame on the horizon, which plainly indicated flaming at the funnel from some destroyer doubtless looking for us at high speed.

I dived, intending to surface again as soon as possible. With this intention in my head, I did not go below the upper conning tower. We had barely got to ten metres, when loud cries from below and the disquieting noise of rushing water told me that something was wrong. I blew all tanks, surfaced, left the First Lieutenant on watch and went below.

There were five centimetres of water on the battery boards, and I understood at once that we could never dive again.

For the pedestal of the gun, in being forced over, had strained the longitudinal seam of the pressure hull, to which it is bolted, and a shower of water had come through as soon as we got under.

It might have been hoped that this was enough, but no! our cup was not yet full. Chlorine gas suddenly began to fill the fore-end. The salt water running down into the battery tanks had found acid, and though I ordered quantities of soda to be put down into the tank, it became, and still is at the moment of writing, impossible to move forward of the conning tower without putting on a gas mask and oxygen helmet. So we are helpless, and at the mercy of any little trawler, or even the weather.

We have no gun; we cannot dive. The English must know that they have hit us, and every hour I expect to see the hull of a destroyer climb over the horizon astern.

We are fortunate in two respects: in that for the time being the weather seems to promise well, and our Diesels are thoroughly sound.

We are ordered to Zeebrugge—I could have wished elsewhere for many reasons, but it does not matter, as I cannot believe we are intended to escape.

I feel I would almost welcome an enemy ship, it would soon be over; but this uncertainty and anxiety drags on for hour after hour—and now I cannot sleep, though I haven’t slept properly for over seventy hours. I am so worn out that my body screams for sleep, but it is denied to me, and so, lest I go mad, I write; it is better to do this, though my eyes ache and the letters seem to wriggle, than to stand up on the bridge looking for the smoke of our enemies, or to lie in my bunk and count the revolutions of the Diesels; thousands of thousands of thudding beats, one after the other, relentless hammer strokes.

I have endured much.

 

NOTE BY ETIENNE

 

A break occurs in Karl von Schenk’s diary at this juncture. Fortunately the main outlines of the story are preserved owing to Zoe’s long letter, which was in a small packet inside the cover of the second notebook. Zoe’s letter will be reproduced in this book in its proper chronological position, but in order to save the reader the trouble of reading the book from the letter back to this point, a brief summary of what took place is given here. The entries in his diary which follow the words “I have endured much,” are very meagre for a period which seems to have been about a month in length. There is no further mention of the latter stages of Karl’s passage in the wrecked boat to Zeebrugge, so it is presumed that he made that port without further adventure. He was evidently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and appears to have been suffering from very severe insomnia. He had been hunted for two days, during which he was perpetually on the verge of destruction, and the cumulative effect of such an experience is bound to leave its mark on the strongest man. When he got back to Zeebrugge he must have been at the end of his tether, and whether by chance or design it was when Karl was, as he would have said, “at a low mental ebb” that Zoe made her last and successful attack upon his resolution not to see her again unless she consented to marry him. It is plain from her letter that when he left her after the stormy interview in which he vowed never to see her again, Zoe did not lose hope. She seems to have kept herself au courant _with his movements, and actually to have known when he was expected in.

We know that she had many friends amongst the officers, and it is probable that from one of these she was able to get information about Karl’s movements.

Bruges was probably a hot-bed of U-boat gossip, and, not unlike the conditions at certain other Naval ports during the war, the ladies were often too well informed. At any rate it appears that Zoe rushed to see Karl directly he arrived at Bruges, and found him a mental and physical wreck, suffering from acute insomnia.

With the impetuous vigour which evidently guided most of her actions, she took complete charge of Karl, and, as he was due for four days’ leave, she whisked him off to the forest.

Karl may have protested, but was probably in no state to wish to do so. At her shooting-box in the forest Zoe achieved her desire, and the stubborn struggle between the lovers ended in victory for the woman. There is an entry in Karl’s diary which may refer to this period; he simply says, “Slept at last! Oh, what a joy!”

If this entry was written in the forest, it seemed as if Karl had been unable to sleep until Zoe carried him off to the forest peace of her shooting-box and surrounded him with the atmosphere of her tender sympathy.

There is no evidence of the light in which Karl viewed his defeat, when, having regained his strength, he was able to take stock of the changed situation. It is reasonable to suppose that his silence upon this matter in the pages of his diary is evidence that he was ashamed of what he must have considered a great act of weakness on his part.

At all events he realized that he had crossed the Rubicon and that he had better acquiesce in the_ fait accompli.

_He seems to have been in harbour for about six weeks, during which he lived with Zoe, and the lovers enjoyed a brief spell of happiness before Karl set out on his next trip.

Karl seems to have found those six weeks very pleasant ones, though his diary merely contains brief references, such as: “A. day in the country with Z.”; “Z. and I went to the Cavalry dance,” and other trivial entries—of his thoughts there is not a word.

About the end of 1917 Karl’s boat was repaired, and he left for the Atlantic; and once more resumed full entries in his diary._

ETIENNE.

 

Karl’s Diary resumed.

Sailed at 9 p.m. last night, and we are now seventeen miles off Beachy Head. The Straits of Dover were frightful; the glare of the acetylene flares on the barrage showed for miles. Seen from a distance it gave me the impression of the gates of hell, through which we had to pass.

I dived, ten miles away, and went through with the tide at a depth of forty metres.

Two hours and three quarters of suspense, and at dawn we came up, having passed safely through the great deathtrap. At the moment there is nothing in sight, except a little smoke on the horizon. I am going to dive again till dusk.

2 a.m.

We are thrashing down the Channel with a south-westerly wind right ahead. My instructions are to work for two days between the Lizard and Kinsale Head, and then proceed far out in the Atlantic, where the convoys are supposed to meet the destroyers.

That Fair Island Channel experience was enough for a lifetime. Death, quick, short and sudden, this I am ready for. But torture, slow, long and drawn-out, is not in the bargain which in this year of grace every civilized man and half the savages of the world seem to have had to make with the god Mars.

As I sit in this steel, cigar-shaped mass of machinery, the question rings incessantly in my ears: “To what object is all this war directed, when analysed from the point of view of the individual?”

It does not satisfy any longing of mine. I have not got a lust for battle: no one who fights has a lust for battle. Editors of newspapers and people on General Staffs, possibly also Cabinet Ministers, have lusts for battles, as long as they arrange the battle and talk about it afterwards—curse them!

The only thing I want is to be with Zoe. I want to live and spend long years with her, enjoying life—this life of which I have spent half already, and now perhaps it will be taken from me by some other man: some Englishman who doesn’t really want to take my life, reckoned as an individual.

Around me in the darkness are the patrol boats, manned by the Englishmen who are seeking my life. Seeking it, not to gratify their private emotions, but because we are all in the whirlpool of War and cannot escape.

Like an avalanche, it seems to gather strength and speed as it rolls on, this War of Nations. The world must be mad! I cannot see how it can ever stop. England will never be defeated at sea. We shall conquer on land—then what?

An inconclusive peace.

Even if we smash this island Empire and gain the dominion of the world, how will it advantage me? I can see no way in which I can gain.

It would be said, if any one should read this: Gott! what a selfish point of view—he thinks only of his personal gain, not of his country.

But, confound it all, I reply, answer me this:

Do I exist for my country, or does my country exist for me?

For example, does man live for the sake of the Church, or was the Church created for man?

Does not my country exist for my benefit?

Surely it is so.

Then again, I am risking my all, my life; I live in danger, apprehension and great discomfort; I do all these things, and yet if as a reasonable man I ponder what advantage I am to gain from