The Ocean Liner

HMS Tisiphone

Rudi Hufnagel and the other survivors of U-113 had now spent two days on HMS Tisiphone. Lieutenant-Commander Cottrell was eager to get them off his submarine. He was already back on his patrol, and the five captured enemy sailors to be fed, berthed and watched were causing him a headache. There was also the question of Hufnagel’s health, which was deteriorating rapidly. The left shoulder was very swollen. He had not stopped losing blood from the injury to his right forearm, and was growing very weak. The petty officer who had tried to stitch him up was unable to stop the flow.

‘To tell you the truth,’ he said to his skipper, ‘I think I’ve done more harm than good.’

‘You’re not a doctor, Terry,’ Cottrell said consolingly. ‘But I don’t want him to die on us. And Warspite’s let us down.’

The rendezvous with HMS Warspite, the destroyer which was meant to pick up the Germans, hadn’t come off; she had been diverted on urgent business elsewhere. There was, however, a second destroyer about to pass within range of Tisiphone. She was HMS Amphitrite, and as luck would have it, she was equipped with an operating theatre and had a surgeon on board. There was only one drawback, which Cottrell explained to Hufnagel.

‘She’s in a convoy, bound for New York. Thanks to the endeavours of chaps like you, merchant ships aren’t crossing the Atlantic on their own any more. The doctor on board will fix you up, but you’re going to be at sea for quite a while longer. Probably several weeks.’

Hufnagel gave Cottrell a hollow smile. ‘That may be preferable to a prisoner-of-war camp on land.’

‘It’s certainly preferable to you dying on my submarine and having to be tipped overboard. You could think of it as a rest cure. So, no objections?’

‘None.’

‘Right. I’ll radio her captain and see if he’ll take you on.’

The captain of the Amphitrite was not delighted by the request to take on prisoners, one of whom needed urgent surgery. However, Cottrell pressed the issue, describing Hufnagel’s part in preventing the Manhattan from being torpedoed, a gallant act in the course of which he had received his wound. Also, the young Navy surgeon on board Amphitrite said he didn’t mind getting a little practice. It might even help, he said, to sort out his station and get everything streamlined, ready for real action.

Accordingly, HMS Amphitrite made a brief diversion to intersect with Tisiphone the next day. In a high wind and rough seas, Hufnagel and the others were transferred to the destroyer. A line was rigged between the two vessels. Amphitrite had no breeches buoy, so they used a bosun’s chair to run the Germans across, one by one. The last to go was Hufnagel, with his legs dangling through the canvas harness around his groin. He found the experience only slightly preferable to being shot.

Nor was the welcome on the destroyer a warm one. In contrast to the comradely, even chummy atmosphere on the submarine, the crew of the destroyer greeted the Germans coldly, as enemies. The uninjured members of the crew were sent straight to secure quarters. Two burly able seamen marched Hufnagel to the sickbay, stolidly oblivious to his gasps of pain. The young surgeon inspected him with a keen eye.

‘This Jerry’s half-dead,’ he said with the satisfaction of a man accepting a challenge, as though Hufnagel couldn’t understand him. ‘Let’s get to work.’

While the doctor prepared Hufnagel for surgery, Amphitrite put on a spurt of speed to catch up with the rest of the convoy; and in this way, Rudi Hufnagel found himself in the wake of Manhattan, on his way to New York.