U-Boat

The days and nights pass to the rumble of diesel engines. They become your heartbeat. Your attachment to life. You have nightmares about drowning, about sinking deeper and deeper to the screams of your fellow crew mates. The hull bursts and the Atlantic gouges your eyes and lungs with burning saltwater. Then you wake up to the humming diesels, welcoming you back to life. This time you wake up to silence, to icy condensation pooling in your bunk, to the tense atmosphere of electric engines running silent and hiding from death. 

When you’re not hearing the diesel, you’re breathing it. The air stinks thick with machinery and diesel oil, with shit and urine, with battery acid, with the body odor of 51 sweating crew members. You haven’t breathed fresh air for 36 hours. Not since the emergency dive, not since the British destroyer forced the boat under after a torpedo attack that broke the back of a troop transport and sent hundreds of men to a bad death. You were on the conning tower to see the explosion light up the night. Men on deck screamed as they burned. Some leapt from fiery decks into a sea burning with oil. It reminded you of the lake of fire from the Bible that you used to read before the war. Now it was your turn to face the end.

You hear the screws and the drops of depth charges. You wonder if this will be the time one of the charges finally hits its mark. These could be your last minutes. Your last breaths. Your desire to survive is strong. So is their will to kill you. If there is a god, he loves no one— not the sailors burned alive in the waves, not the English with their murderous vengeance, not you with your hypocritical hope. Still, you pray. 

You wait for the explosions, for the tearing of metal, for the turbulent shaking. This isn’t your first time, but it never gets easier. Across the command center, the captain waits anxiously with his eyes on a watch, counting the seconds, calculating depth. He does his best to keep his composure, but everyone can see his hands trembling. Then the first explosion comes, so close you’re sure this is it. A loose bolt shoots from the wall and hits the man next to you, lacerating his skull and collapsing him out of existence. You duck and cover your head. Another explosion, more violent quaking and the lights go out. You shut your eyes tight and wait, but you keep on living. Eventually the explosions stop, and the steady, nerve-wrenching ping of ASDIQ begins. The destroyer has turned to the long game of holding you under, of suffocating you in your own exhaust and filth. They won’t let you go easy this time. They saw the burning sailors in the waves, too.

You check on the man that was hit. He’s dead. You’re alive. For a moment, you wish you could trade places and escape what’s to come. The captain orders crew to bunks, to conserve breath, to conserve electricity and compressed air. As the hours pass, the humidity increases, soaking everything in a wet film. The air grows thicker and thicker, too thick to breathe. Eventually the captain hands out potassium cartridges. You put yours on and breathe hot air through a large metal can. Then comes the waiting, the sinking into feverish, fearful half sleep that only brings nightmares. All around, men lay gasping for air. Still the ASDIQ pings. Charges explode somewhere above, but not close.

You fight harder to keep yourself awake. Fall asleep now, and you won’t wake up again. Fall asleep now, and it can all be over. You think about letting go, but you can’t. You want to live and so you heave through each burning breath. You think about your family and the home you left. You’re tortured with the idea of rubble, of the bombs that have eaten entire cities, of your crew mates that have lost their families to mass destruction—to an enemy with no face. You’re close to losing consciousness when the captain makes the decision to surface. It’s been quiet for over an hour, and he’s hopeful they’ve finally given up the chase. Either way, it’s surface or suffocate. 

Most of the crew gathers in the control room. The depth meter slowly rises — 230 meters, 200, 150. Each second feels like an hour. The captain hovers at periscope depth. You watch his expression as he turns the scope. And then he gives the all clear. The ship surfaces. You won’t be the first to exit the boat. Even in times of panic, there is rank and order. You wait as the chief breaks the seal of the tower. The pressure change is so great, he is nearly sucked out. Your ears pop into a loud ringing. You can taste the fresh air. Your entire body starts to shake as you wait for your turn up the ladder. Then you hear it, the sound of airplane propellers, the panicked yell of “Alarm!” Then an explosion. You’re on the floor, bleeding and covered in sea water. It’s rushing from somewhere further down the ship. The boat is sinking. 

You pick yourself up and move towards the ladder. At the base lies the captain, his lifeless eyes reflecting light and sky. You boost yourself off of his body to stand and make your way up the first few rungs. You can taste the fresh air as you claw yourself further up. You’re almost there when the water starts pouring in. You fight against the rush of saltwater until it comes up over your head. And then you’re swimming. You swim towards a distant sun shimmering through darkness. You break free of the tower and are just feet from the surface, but you’re not moving. You’re stuck in the pull of the boat. You fight until the end, until the pounding in your head turns to a quiet blackness, until your thoughts begin to dissolve away from air, from explosions, and into a dreamless sleep that will never again be woken by the sound of diesel.