An Honorable German (25 page)

“And the Führer,” Lehmann called down from the bridge. “Faith and confidence in the Führer and Final Victory, Carls.”

Carls looked up. “Of course, Herr Leutnant.” He turned back to the sailors. “And you have faith and confidence in the Führer
and Final Victory. Satisfactory, Herr Leutnant?”

“Very good,” Lehmann said. “You’re doing fine.”

“I’m very glad to hear you think so, Herr Leutnant. It means a great deal to me.”

Max turned away to keep from bursting out in laughter. Carls had been in the navy for twenty-nine years, Lehmann for less
than two.

After the ceremony, the men went ashore to pack their belongings, which would be sent overland to their new home port in Lorient,
on the Bay of Biscay. Because of the limited space in the boat, each sailor could bring aboard only a change of clothes and
a few personal items—a small toilet kit and some photographs, perhaps a book, or a packet of envelopes and writing paper.
Some brought a favorite phonograph record. Men always tried to smuggle extra items on board, but Carls and the other chief
petty officers searched them thoroughly at the dock and confiscated everything in excess of the bare allowance. At 1600 hours,
crew at stations, diesels rumbling, Max turned to the young signalman of the watch. “Signal to Kommandant of icebreaker:
U-114
ready to proceed.”

Using a handheld Morse lamp, the sailor signaled the ice-breaker, which quickly blinked a response.

“Signal acknowledged, Herr Kaleu. Their response: ‘Signal to Kommandant
U-114
: take station two hundred meters aft of me.’” They followed the stubby ship out of the frozen harbor and into the Baltic
proper, which never froze. “Good luck and good hunting,” the icebreaker signaled to them.

“Port the helm fourteen degrees to new course two nine five degrees, west by northwest,” he ordered. The helmsman in the conning
tower repeated the directions, then pushed the metal buttons that controlled the rudder. Max surveyed the Baltic. Chunks of
ice bobbed around like apples in a barrel. Wind from the Russian steppe kicked up the water and it sloshed along the submarine’s
gray flanks, sometimes foaming over the foredeck. The two diesels rumbled behind him in the cold, their exhaust blowing over
the bridge in the following wind. Max turned and watched the sun go down. It didn’t give much warmth anyway, but the Baltic
looked even more desolate once it was gone.

Lehmann had the watch. He stood bundled up with the three sailors and a petty officer who comprised the bridge watch. Each
of them was responsible for a quadrant of the compass. No talking allowed and keep your binoculars to your eyes—these were
Max’s strictest rules. As Kommandant of the U-boat, he stood no routine watch. He did whatever he thought best, which meant
on combat patrol he’d be spending twelve to fourteen hours a day on the bridge, sometimes more. Because he knew this was coming,
he decided to rest now and let the officers get used to their responsibilities. “Stay alert, men,” he cautioned. “Leutnant,
you have the bridge.”

With that he dropped into the humid interior of the boat. Georg helped him pull off his heavy bridge coat and leather jacket.
“Switch to red,” Max ordered. Georg switched the control room’s lighting from white to red to preserve the men’s night vision
in case they had to suddenly go on deck.

Max pulled aside the green curtain and heaved himself onto his bunk. He alone had any privacy. Everyone else slept on bunks
arranged in tiers along the central corridor that ran the length of the boat. As soon as one man went on watch, another climbed
into his place and slept. Only the officers and the chief petty officers had exclusive bunks, and only the captain’s came
equipped with a curtain and a small folding desk with a saltwater washbasin underneath. He folded his arms over his chest,
reviewed the day, and then let the gentle throb of the diesels lull him to sleep.

They steamed into the Bay of Kiel thirty-six hours later. Max stood on the bridge, guiding the boat into the harbor, breathing
morning air rich with the harbor’s tang—tar, oil, seaweed, salt—a bouquet compared to the smell inside the U-boat. Several
warships rode at anchor, outlines blurred in the mist. Sweeping the harbor with his glasses, Max immediately recognized
Admiral Scheer
, sister ship of
Graf Spee
. He shivered and closed his eyes for a moment; it felt like he’d seen a ghost.

“Dead slow,” he ordered.

The helmsman moved the levers on the engine telegraph in the conning tower. Identical repeaters registered the orders in the
engine room and activated light signals specific to each command—necessary because the noise in the engine room was too loud
for the men to hear the bells that rang when the engine telegraph transmitted a new order. The engineers communicated with
one another using hand signals.

Max surveyed the bay, silver in the morning sun, across which he’d first watched the Kiel Week races unfold those dozen years
ago. His navy dreams were born that week aboard
Emden
, and he’d come here as a cadet to board the naval training barque
Gorch Fock
, a three-masted sailing ship, named for a sailor-poet who perished in the Battle of the Skagerrak. On the surface, Kiel didn’t
look so different, but when he looked more closely, the presence of the war became evident. Anti-aircraft batteries covered
with camouflaged netting had been set up everywhere, manned by sailors who stamped their feet in the cold of the early morning.
Max scanned the shoreline with his binoculars, stopping on the huge covered sheds of the Deutsche Werke shipyards. A year
ago the roofs of these sheds had been glass. But Allied bombs dropped in the last months had shattered all the glass. Now
camouflaged tarps covered the roofs. U-boats were being built everywhere he looked. He’d watched
U-114
come together in these same yards. The men in the yards were German master craftsmen, the best in the world. The Allies had
no one like them.

Dead ahead lay the Tirpitz Pier, named for Admiral von Tirpitz, founder of the German navy. It was a long concrete jetty stretching
far into the bay. U-boats were tied up two and three deep on either side, boards laid deck to deck to make gangplanks, armed
crewmen stationed on the deck of every boat.

Lehmann had the docking crew ready with the lines. As Max steered for a gap where only one other boat was tied, two of its
crewmen straightened up from their tasks and stood ready to catch
U-114
’s mooring rope. Docking this way was a delicate maneuver and Max didn’t want to make a hash of it here in the middle of the
naval anchorage with God knows how many eyes on him. He approached so carefully that he came to a perfect docking position—except
for the three meters of water between him and the other boat. Well, better than ramming the bitch. “Pull us over,” he ordered
Lehmann.

That would give his men something to shake their heads over while on leave. “He’s great at torpedoing ships, our Kommandant,
but he can’t dock a U-boat.” Yet, better that kind of talk than ramming another boat and being called on the carpet by the
admiral commanding.

“All secure, Herr Kaleu,” Lehmann called from the deck.

“Finished with engines,” Max said. The throb of the diesels faded away. After securing the boat, Carls mustered the crew on
deck and Max faced them, hands clasped behind him like Captain Langsdorff. “Men, for the next three weeks we will remain in
Kiel taking on supplies. Half of you will be on leave for the first ten days, and the other half for the second ten. Quarters
have been prepared for you at the base.” The men never stayed aboard the U-boat in harbor. Besides being too cramped, it had
no bathing facilities and smelled like the devil’s outhouse. Hygiene could not be maintained on the boat; the crew grew dirty
and foul after just a few days at sea. “Men of
U-114
, remember you are German sailors and members of a proud service. While you are on leave, I expect each of you to conduct
yourself with the strictest propriety so as not to bring the navy into disrepute. Leutnant Lehmann has your leave papers.
That is all.” How many times had he heard that speech from other captains? Thirty times at least. Yet it sounded strange from
his own mouth. The speech would have little effect on the sailors. In a few hours most of them would be drunk as lords.

Max reported in aboard the steamer
Lech
before leaving for Bad Wilhelm. The ship served as headquarters for the 5th U-Boat Flotilla in Kiel, which exercised administrative
control over all U-boats in the harbor. A nice way to fight a war, Max thought. Never leave the dock, regular meals, white
jackets in the officers’ mess each evening. Drinks on me, I insist. Toasts all around. Rumor in the UBootwaffe had it that
the captain of
Lech
turned the vessel around once a month so everyone aboard would qualify for supplemental sea pay. But this life never would
have done for him, Max knew—he would have been disgusted with himself for sitting on his backside in Kiel drinking schnapps.
He stayed aboard only long enough to make his supply arrangement and send a telegram to his father, telling him when to be
at the station.

The train was packed—every seat occupied, the aisles jammed with young soldiers sitting on their packs, smoking, laughing,
most of them just boys, all headed to the Russian Front. They seemed cheerful enough, but tens of thousands just like them
had been surrounded in Stalingrad by an overwhelming Soviet force for the last eight weeks—hungry, cold, sick, no way to break
out or get food. Surely the Führer had a plan. He wouldn’t leave Six Armee to die. Max’s father had written that three families
in Bad Wilhelm had sons at Stalingrad. How would it end? Not well. Most alarming, a few days after Christmas, in his evening
radio address, General Dittmar, the voice of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, had begun to speak of “heroic resistance” by
Six Armee’s brave troops—never an encouraging sign. Everyone in Germany had learned to decipher the High Command’s euphemisms:
“grim and sanguinary fighting increasing in violence” meant the line had collapsed and troops were being pushed back under
murderous fire with terrible casualties; “bitter and prolonged fighting” meant you were hopelessly surrounded; “heroic resistance”
meant you were already dead.

Losses on the Eastern Front staggered the mind. The Russians, they could absorb endless casualties. Wipe out one group and
the Red commissars simply rounded up another and another and another. If you wouldn’t fight, you got shot. Making it incomparably
worse for Germany were the Americans coming in a year ago—the Americans with their farm boys and their dollars and all the
resources of their vast continent. The odds against every man on the crowded train grew longer by the day. But Max knew he
was no better off than the boys around him. Loss rates in the UBootwaffe were beginning to rise and getting worse.

The train drew in and halted in a cloud of steam. His father waited on the platform. “Papa!” Max called as he stepped out
of the rail car.

His father marched up to him, smiling like a child, pushed away Max’s outstretched hand, and gave him a bear hug. This embarrassed
Max—here, like this, in the station, in full view of all the soldiers on the train—but his father paid no mind. “Maximilian,
what a surprise to have you here, my boy. A wonderful surprise to see you.”

“I would’ve given you more notice but we’re not allowed to contact anyone before going on leave.”

The old man grabbed Max’s suitcase. “Yes, yes, ‘the enemy listens.’ I know it from the First War. Come, come.” He led Max
to the old Ford delivery truck, tossing the suitcase in back. “A beer, yes?”

Max shrugged. Not every shopkeeper had a naval officer son to show off, and certainly not one with an Iron Cross First Class.
His father glanced down to examine the medal gleaming on the left pocket of Max’s tunic. He quickly unpinned it, polished
the medal with his handkerchief, and pinned it back in place. “You were half a centimeter off,” he said, smiling at Max, who
shook his head. “Always the sergeant major, Papa.”

They walked across the town square, past the monument to the dead of the local Landwehr battalion from the First War. Names
from every family in the village were engraved on the plaque—among them, Ernst von Woller’s, their much-loved and respected
commander who was killed at Verdun.

In trying to save his commander’s life, Johann had carried Ernst through an artillery barrage to an aid station. But Ernst
was dead and Johann nearly so. For these actions, he received the Prussian Military Cross, the highest honor awarded by the
Prussian army to an enlisted man. On ceremonial days after the war, Max would finger the medal hung around his father’s neck.
“There is no glory in it, Maximilian,” Johann always said.

_________

A roar of welcome greeted them now as they entered the tavern. It was early evening and most of the regulars were there: Jupp,
the butcher; Immelman, the petrol station owner; Zeeger, the apothecary; and Cajus, the town constable (“I saved his fat ass
more than once on the Western Front,” Max’s father always said). Bruno, the tavern keeper, brought over a rank of foaming
beer steins. “Comrades, a welcome to our brave warrior of the deep.”

Max drank, his beer bitter and slightly cold. God in heaven, he hadn’t had one in weeks. His father gave him a cigar and Max
wondered where it came from in the midst of the very strict rationing. Probably the same place his father got the real coffee
and the real butter and the cream, wherever that was. Max lit the cigar, adding to the smoke in the tavern, some of which
came from the dried dandelion cigarettes people rolled now to eke out their tobacco ration.

Bruno kept looking at him expectantly. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, certainly not his father. Max stood and looked
around the small taproom at these faces from his youth. What kind of toast did they want to hear? Death to England? Volk and
Führer? These were older men; they had been through a war themselves and knew nonsense when they heard it. Max raised his
mug. “Let us drink to the memory of Herr Oberstleutnant Ernst von Woller. I hope to defend my country with the same courage
he displayed.”