A Thousand Suns

Chapter 31 Into the Water

Lündstrom stared silently at the pitch-black form of the coastline. It was silhouetted against a faint orange sky. A low cloud base reflected the night-time amber glow of the city of Nantes. Isolated pinpricks of light dotted the dark landmass and suggested the occasional cottage or farmhouse, but he could see no other detail or definition from the shore. This kind of amphibious deployment of troops was dangerous enough in the daytime, let alone doing it at night with no detailed knowledge of the stretch of shore they intended to land on.

He had no idea what the objectives were for the young captain and his platoon, but whatever the mission, he hoped it was going to be worth the risks they were taking. There was a very real possibility that some of these poor boys might not make it to shore. The sea was lively tonight, with four-foot swells slapping against the side of the sub, and they had no notion of what sort of terrain led down to the sea here.

They could be trying to row ashore onto a lethal barricade of razor-sharp rocks.

Koch and his men were intending to paddle towards the French coast in three inflatable dinghies, across half a mile of choppy sea. He had dared not take the U-boat any closer for fear of grounding her. The men were wearing enough clothing and equipment to sink them like rocks if they fell out or, worse, one of the dinghies was punctured.

He hoped to God this foolish exercise had a point.

Once more he scanned the black world around him and strained his ears to detect any noise other than the chop of water against the sub’s hull. There was nothing to be seen or heard; it seemed as if they were safe here in the dark, for now.

Lündstrom called down through the open hatch in the floor of the conning tower. ‘All clear.’

Seconds later he was relieved to hear a deep, bass throbbing as the diesel motors started up. The ‘all clear’ had made its way aft to the engine room in mere seconds, and already the engines had started turning and were recharging the batteries. One of the first things any rating learned in the Kriegsmarine was that a good sub captain never wastes a single solitary second on the surface.

‘Tell Hauptman Koch he and his men can come up now.’

He heard the order echoing down the ranks inside the sub, and moments later the hatch on the foredeck was pulled open, and several of Koch’s men emerged. They pulled up onto the deck three folded rubber bundles, which they opened out and began to fill with air using foot pumps.

He shook his head. This little venture had the feeling of a disastrous balls-up waiting to happen. These dinghies were all that could be produced at short notice for the mission. They would be a poor offering as a life raft; they were certainly less than adequate for an amphibious landing. And although he had no doubt that the men were fine soldiers, Lündstrom wondered whether these Alpine troops, trained for combat in arctic and mountainous conditions, were ready for this kind of action.

He heard boots on the ladder leading up to the conning tower. Koch emerged beside him and gleefully sucked in a lungful of the chilly, salty air.

‘I imagine that tastes pretty good after the last few days below, eh?’ said Lündstrom.

The young man nodded. ‘Very good. I don’t know how you and your men can stand to live in such conditions.’

‘Yes, of course, you must be used to the great outdoors, not the inside of a sardine can.’

Koch stretched his arms in front of him, enjoying the space. ‘It’ll be good to get on with this, least of all so we can stretch our legs.’

Koch had been careful not to reveal a single detail of the mission he and his men were to carry out. Lündstrom guessed that the young man’s orders had specified that the nature of their undertaking ashore remain classified. Nonetheless, knowing the war was entering its final days, he felt the imprudence of asking him was forgivable.

‘Can I ask what it is you and your men are up to?’

Koch tightened his lips and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not permitted to reveal the content—’

‘—of your orders. I know. I thought as much. Well, I hope whoever’s behind this has a damn good reason for throwing you and your lads into the sea. I can’t see anything any of us can do right now is going to change the way things will go.’

‘We’ve not had a lot to do but retreat for the last year. My men wouldn’t mind one last chance to have a go back at them.’

Lündstrom had on many an occasion in the last year shared a drink with passionate young officers in the bars of Bergen. There were nearly 40,000 servicemen isolated in Norway — soldiers, airmen, sailors, many of them veterans. A large proportion of these men had fought in elite regiments that had served tours of duty in the east. They were good soldiers, the cream of what was left of Germany’s fighting forces, but they were stuck where they were, separated by the Baltic from Germany and frustrated that they could do little to help their comrades and defend their country.

He had listened to these young men, soured and embittered by losing the eastern campaign and watching from afar as the war ground to a bitter end. The only opportunity many of these officers had had to prove their leadership was how quickly and efficiently they could withdraw their men and move resources back from the advancing enemy. He pitied the young captain.

The end of the war would bring him only a sense of loss, failure. For Lündstrom, however, it meant only relief. He and his men had already tasted the bitter pill of defeat a year ago. Those feelings had passed, the wounds had healed, and now they were just waiting for the rest of their compatriots to catch up and accept the inevitable, acknowledge the game was up.

‘Good night for it, I think,’ said Koch, studying the dark sky. The cloud cover was total; the full moon would not give them away tonight.

‘Yes, but the sea is choppy. Don’t let your men sit on the edge of the dinghies or they’ll go in.’

Koch nodded.

‘And be careful when you start seeing white water. That means you’re close to the shore. I’ve no idea what there is to land on here, sand or rocks. Be careful, eh?’

The men on the foredeck had inflated two out of the three dinghies, and the third was nearly done.

‘I should join my men now. Thank you for your hospitality.’

Lündstrom held out his hand. ‘Well, I wish you success with whatever it is you hope to achieve.’

‘Perhaps our little action will make a minor headline or two in some newspaper somewhere, and then you’ll find out what we’ve been up to.’

‘Maybe a footnote in a history book some day, eh?’

Koch smiled. ‘That would be nice.’ He nodded formally at Lündstrom before descending the ladder to return inside the sub and check one last time that all their field equipment had been bagged up and taken. A few moments later, the rest of his platoon spilled through the hatch on to the foredeck, followed by Koch. They quickly gathered together their firearms and wrapped them up in several waterproof canvas kit bags, then sorted themselves into three groups.

Lündstrom watched them with concern. Unlike seamen, these men were careless in the way they stood on the deck, close to the edge, not holding on to the railings, not keeping an eye on the sea for any approaching swells. They were men unused to the sea, and its ways.

Tonight, however, it seemed the Atlantic wasn’t thrashing as unkindly as it had promised. That and the good cloud cover as well. Perhaps fortune had decided to smile on this little endeavour.

Now that his part of the job was done, he wondered if he would hear any more about this operation after reporting back to Bergen. Maybe Koch was right; it would probably amount to no more than a small news item in the provincial newspaper that served this area of France. All eyes were on Berlin now.

‘Thirty German bodies washed ashore near Nantes.’

‘Poor bastards,’ he muttered as he watched the first dinghy slide off the deck into the sea, and begin to bob unhappily as successive swells and troughs raised and dropped it by half a dozen feet.

The other two dinghies followed suit, and awkwardly, their inexperience showing, the men clambered down into them.

The last of Koch’s men scrambled down the side of the hull and the three inflatable rafts began to head away into the night, as paddles on all sides sliced into the foaming water.

He watched their painfully slow progress, as they seemed to move more up and down at the mercy of the swells than away towards land.

Ten minutes later, when Lündstrom could no longer make out the pale wake trailing Koch and his men, he ordered the helmsman to turn her around and head due north-west.

He sighed with relief, hoping this time he could take the U-1061 home to Bergen to await the end of the war in peace.