The Land God Made in Anger. John Davis Gordon
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about Herr Strauss.
McQuade took a tense, weary breath. Okay. So, buy some decent diving gear, and speak to somebody about submarines.
Almost everybody in Walvis Bay is very approachable. McQuade had briefly met Commander Ian Manning, the officer in charge of the South African naval base, only once, yet the man was only too pleased to help and he insisted on entertaining McQuade in the wardroom while he did so. McQuade had hoped for a more private place but he had no choice. He had to rush back home to put on a tie. A smart rating escorted him from the naval base gate. Half a dozen young officers were clustered respectfully around their commander in the wardroom, whilst an orderly hovered with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Ian Manning tapped a thick book on the mahogany bar and said: ‘I’m not the best chap to advise you on submarines, but I’ve brought Jane’s Fighting Ships along. What’s your story about?’
McQuade said: ‘Well, it’s about this guy who’s cruising in the Mediterranean on his yacht. One day he drops anchor and when he comes to pull it up again, it won’t budge. So he dives down to dislodge it. And he finds it’s caught on this old German submarine. So he tries to get inside it. To see if there’s anything valuable. What I want to know is what did those German submarines look like inside and how does my hero get inside it – assuming there isn’t a big hole in the side? What problems is he going to encounter?’
The young officers were all rapt attention. Ian Manning said: ‘Hmmm. And? Does he find anything valuable?’
‘Aha. That you must read the story to find out. But, yes, he finds something very important.’
‘And from there all kinds of exciting things happen?’
‘Exactly.’ All the young officers smiled. Everybody loves a story. McQuade asked, ‘First of all, do you know the escape procedures from an old German submarine?’
‘But what type of submarine? The Germans built various kinds.’
‘I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.’
Ian Manning reached for Jane’s Fighting Ships. ‘Make it a Type VII C.’ He turned to the appropriate page. All the young officers waited attentively. Manning read aloud: ‘“There were 1,174 U-boats constructed in Germany between 1935 and 1945, of which 785 were lost. There was the Type XXIII, et cetera … Type XXI … et cetera. Then, Type VII C … This may be regarded as the standard type of German submarine, having been built in largest numbers. Displacement, 517 tons. Length 213 feet, beam 19 feet, height 13 feet. Five torpedo tubes.” And here …’ he turned over the page, ‘are some diagrams.’
Everybody clustered round. The scale of the drawings was small. A confusing mass of dense detail.
‘What exactly was abandon-ship procedure?’
‘Well,’ Manning said. He called for a sheet of paper from the barman, drew a large cigar-shape. He sketched in the conning tower. ‘There’s a water-tight hatch in the top of the conning tower. There’s another hatch below it, in the central control room. Now, mounted in this second hatch is a telescopic escape tube, which you can pull down. Big enough for a man. Here.’ He drew it in. ‘So, when your submarine is wrecked, and you abandon ship, you pull down this telescopic tube until it is about two feet above the deck of the control room. So.’ He drew it in. ‘Now, you open valves in the hull of the submarine,’ he drew a few crosses, ‘and flood water into the submarine. The water stops entering when the air pressure inside the sub is the same as the sea pressure outside. The sub is now about half-full of water, and everybody is standing in water up to their waists. Each man has an air-bottle. Now, the upper hatch is opened, and water floods into the conning tower, and into this telescopic tube. But no more water enters the part where the men are because the pressure has been stabilized. Now, each man ducks under water, into the flooded tube, and swims up it, one at a time. Up through the conning tower, out into the open sea. He rises slowly to the surface.’
‘I see. And every man could escape like that?’
‘Every man. Provided the sub was in less than fifty metres of water. Deeper than that and the sea pressure would kill them.’
So why did only two men escape? And suddenly McQuade knew how to get into the submarine: the same way that those two men got out, but in the reverse direction.
‘And after forty years, would the submarine still be half-full of air and that tube still full of water?’
‘Yes.’
‘So my hero could get into the submarine the same way? Go into the conning tower and swim down that tube?’
‘Theoretically, yes.’
McQuade ran his hand over his hair. ‘And what’s it going to be like when he gets inside?’
‘Black as ink. Stinking. The air would be unbreathable, he’d have to keep his breathing apparatus on.’ He turned to one of his officers, ‘Daniels, you’ve done a diving course?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Daniels said. ‘We dived down on a number of wrecks, but never on a submarine.’
‘What marine life is our hero likely to find down there?’
Daniels said earnestly: ‘My guess, sir, is that the conning tower is likely to have a lot of fish living in it. In the lower part of the submarine the water would be pretty foul, but my guess is that there would be sufficient circulation of water down that tube to support marine life like crabs and some small fish. And possibly some octopus.’
McQuade did not like the sound of this. Black as ink. ‘And skeletons? Of crew who did not manage to escape?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes, sir. The crabs and crayfish would have eaten them long ago. Just skeletons now.’ He added cheerfully, ‘Their hair would survive.’
Ian Manning said: ‘Why didn’t they all escape?’
‘Ah,’ McQuade said, ‘part of the story.’
The plot thickens, eh? All right, but if some chaps failed to escape they might have crawled up onto their bunks to die. Above the water line. What would their condition be? Would they be kind of mummified in that salty environment?’
‘Skeletons, sir,’ Daniels assured him.
‘I wonder,’ Manning said. ‘Barman, pass me the phone please.’ He dialled, then said, ‘Doctor Walters, please … Jack, this is Ian. Got a technical question for you … These chaps have been in this sunken submarine for forty years … Yes, of course they’re dead, not just irritable …’ He gave the naval doctor the facts, grinning. He listened, then thanked him and hung up. He turned to McQuade: ‘Didn’t follow all that medical jargon but it’s possible that the chaps on upper bunks may be mummified. Something to do with body fats hardening into a wax-like substance under certain conditions. Interesting, that.’
‘Thank you very much,’ McQuade said.
‘What else do you want to know?’
‘I need to know the entire layout of the submarine. Where the water-tight doors are, how they lock and unlock, what the different compartments hold, and so on. You haven’t a bigger-scale diagram than that one in Jane’s?’
The commander stroked his beard. ‘Not in Walvis Bay. They’ve got a submarine in the war museum in Johannesburg. Don’t know what type it is. Otherwise, you’d have to go to Germany to their submarine museum. In Kiel, I think it is, but that would be a ridiculous expense …’
It was eight o’clock when McQuade got back to his house, scratchy-tired. He snapped on the telephone answering machine. A sultry female voice said:
‘Jim, please come to see me urgently. This is important for both of us. I know you are not at sea, so I’m waiting. Helga.’
McQuade snorted. Important, huh? After slapping his face and shrieking Heil Hitler? No way. He picked-up the telephone and dialled Elsie’s number. He got his