Gargamel
12-21-10, 01:21 AM
Inspired by some of the other writers on here, I have begun my own tale. It may be just this one chapter, or it may turn into a full novel. I know I have at least one more story in me that needs to be told, we'll see if I can keep it up.
Please Feel free to comment and criticize, that's the only way I can improve. My attempts at German may be weak, I apologize to anybody fluent in the language.
As to the title, while looking up various translations of words, I came across Schlitzhor. It seems to translate into a few different meanings, including Shark, Bandit, or Pirate. All of Which I felt appropriate, since U-45's tower emblem is the skull and crossbones.
Please Enjoy!
Schlitzhor
“Sir?”
I look over at Hans-Peter, U-45’s funker. He is holding one cup of the headset to his ear, fiddling with the dials on the receiver set. He is young, blonde, the “perfect Aryan man” our ideological conforming weapons officer would say. Young, but very bright, the mastrosengeiter was top of his class at the radio operator’s school. He had told me on one of our earlier shake down patrols, before the war, that he and a friend used to tap morse code over tin can phones. For him, his job is like being a kid again.
“Yes Hans, what is it?”
“Sir, I have picked up Radio Berlin. They are finishing their news broadcast, and then follow that with some Strauss. May I…..”
“I love Strauss!” came a muffled grunt from Alois, our sonar operator, who was currently under the console apparently fixing something.
“Yes, Hans, go ahead,” I replied, “Alois, what are you doing?”
“There was some heavy crackling last time we ran a sweep, so I’m checking the circuits. Found a couple loose vacuum tubes, Kaleun. Just adjusting them”
“Sehr gut, Alois, just don’t break my boat!”
“Herr Kaleun, it may be your boat, but they’re my ears”
I smiled and laughed, as the loudspeaker started playing Strauss. Alois’s foot began to swing back and forth in time. I put the bookmark into the von Clausewitz book I was reading, placing it on the shelf next to the rest of my small collection of books. As I get up from my bunk, I nudge Alois in the leg, reminding him to try and keep the passageway clear. He grunts and shuffles to the side some, as much as lying on your back in a cramped nook will allow.
I stretched, working the kink out of my neck, adjust my shirt, and step through the hatch into the control room. The watch looks bored, but attentive to their jobs at the same time. They know better than to become complacent during these long stretches of inactivity. The watch changed just an hour or so ago, and they are settling into the grind of their watch.
I climb up the ladder to the bridge. The watch crew, overseen by my 2WO, Wolfgang Eisenholtz, is scanning their quadrants for anything. It’s unseasonably warm for mid September, the gentle breeze from our forward motion is a welcome relief. The sea is mirror flat, the sky cloudless. Makes for easy sailing, but not for staying hidden. Any patrol aircraft would be able to see us from many kilometers away. And flat seas don’t allow for stealthy approaches to targets.
Wolfgang turns, “Guten morgen Kaleun!”
“Morgen Wolfgang. Anything yet?”
“Not yet Kaleun. We saw some whales breaching a while back, Willi here thought it was a British sub surfacing, panicked a bit,” he said with a grin.
“Not really!” came the mumbled reply from the seaman peering through his binoculars, and everybody laughed.
“It would be nice to see something, it’s been a week since we saw anything!”
“Ahhh, yes, have patience, mein junge,” I said, “That trawler and small merchant were good practice for us all, especially seeing as how we had never encountered a real enemy before.”
“Kaleun, do you think they made it to shore?” Gustav, another watchman, said.
I smiled at his earnest empathy towards a fellow seaman; we were after the boats, not the men after all. “Ja, in this weather, their distress call, and the provisions we left, they should be at home right now.”
I smiled, turned to Wolfgang, and made a small twirling motion with my finger that the rest of the watch didn’t see. Wolfgang gave me one of his legendary evil grins and nodded, turning back to scan the ocean.
“I’ll be going down now, you men keep your eyes peeled. Don’t want a Jabo sneaking up on us!”
“Aye Kaleun!” Came the reply.
I took one last deep breath of the ocean air and began to climb back down the ladder. I paused inside the conning tower to check everything was stowed properly. We wouldn’t want the MG42’s or the at-ready AA cannon ammo boxes getting loose.
I continued down into the control room. I looked at the navigator’s map, checking our progress. No reason to doubt its accuracy, there has been perfectly clear skies and flat seas for the past week. Franz, our navigator, probably has our position plotted more accurately than any road map of that new autobahn they’re building could be. I fussed over a few other thing’s, checking gauges and what not, as I waited for the inevitable.
“ALLLAAAAAAAAARM!” Came the scream from the bridge.
I reached out and tapped the stopwatch over the targeting desk.
“Crash Dive!” I yelled, “All ballast hands forward!”
Shouted commands rang out all over the boat. The thunder of the herd of crew members running towards the front of the boat started to rumble towards us. The squeak of skin on metal made me look over towards the ladder as the watch slid down it. The resounding clunk of the hatch being dogged sounded out. I checked the stopwatch, 8 seconds, not bad.
“OWW!” Rang out from the direction of the radio room.
“Get out of the way Alois! Why are you laying there!?”
I had to chuckle when I heard that. I did warn him, didn’t I?
I felt the boat start to tip forward, the Chief really likes to take it deep quickly after the hatch is shut. He barely gives them enough time as it is, the water is usually already flooding the decks by the time the watch gets down. I waited a few more seconds.
“Helm! Hard to port!” I yelled, over the din of the rushing crewmen, “New course 115!”
“Aye Kaleun! Hard to Port! New course 115!” Heinrich, our chief helmsman , yelled back.
I watched the helmsman, who was suddenly very awake after his earlier doldrums, bring the boat around. These type VIIb’s handle pretty well at speed, and you could feel the twist of the boat beneath you. I felt the diesels finally cut out, and the electric motors start spinning. They are much quieter, and you can feel that in the boat itself. The engineering crew was quick, that transition usually takes more time. I’ll have to commend August, our Obermaschinist, later.
“30 meters!” Called out our Leitender Ingenieur, Herbert Linder, Chief.
“Steady on 115, Kaleun!” Heinrich called out. I nodded to him.
“50 meters!……. 60!……. 65….. 70 meters. Kaleun, level at 70m.”
“Engines slow, Rig for silent” I said.
Very quickly as the word was passed, the boat became very quiet. The Strauss had fallen silent as we dove. I felt the thrum from the electric motors die down to a gentle purr. I looked at the stopwatch on the desk. Very good, a new record for us.
“Sonar!” I hissed in a loud whisper, “Contacts?”
Alois’ head, bloodied from a cut across his forehead, leaned out into the passageway, “Not yet Kaleun, but give me a few moments to complete a sweep!” he hissed back.
I looked over at the chief, “Good job, Chief. Nice fast dive there.”
“Thank you sir.”
“Wolfgang, go check each compartment real fast, make sure everybody is silent.” I whisper.
“Aye kaleun” he says, and moves off into the boat.
“Kaleun, no sonar contacts found!” Alois hissed.
“Thank you herr elektriker” I said, grinning.
He laughs, wipes his bloody head off, then frowns at his hand, wiping it on his pants, and returns to his cave as he likes to call it.
“Bunch of church mice, kaleun,” Wolfgang said on his return.
Nodding, I said “Secure from silent running.”
“Aye, Secure from silent running!” I feel, and hear, the relief flooding back into the crew, as then they realize it’s a drill.
“Adalbert!” I yell.
Adalbert, our medic, sticks his head into the control room from the stern quarters, where his battle station is, his bunk. “Yes Kaleun?”
“Adalbert, after the stampede, please check on Alois, and you may have some other work to do also” I say.
He looks confused, “Yes sir, err, stampede sir?”
I grin and yell, “Ahead Flank, All ballast hands aft, planes at full rise, blow all ballast! Emergency blow!”
My orders are relayed around the boat; you can hear the crew starting a return migration. Adalbert’s eyes grow real big as he scoots back towards his bunk, jumps in and braces himself. As the crew rushes past, trying to get their combined weight into the stern of the boat, I look at my 1WO, Adolf Kessler, who is just shaking his head and chuckling.
The chief is yelling orders and spinning valves like a mad man, you hear the high-pressure air rushing through pipes in the hull. Gurgling noises and creaking as the boat starts to rise. The deck is starting to pitch upwards, and steeply. We all have to grab onto something fixed to keep from sliding backwards.
“50 meters! 40! 20!” Herbert yells out.
“Sound collision alarm!” I yell.
“Collision!!” Herbert yells, slapping a large button on the bulkhead. A loud bell rings out through out the boat. The men brace themselves against whatever they can find. I hold firmly to a stanchion pole, grinning ear to ear.
We feel the boat start to level off, the upward momentum draining fast, as it feels like she’s falling out from beneath us. It feels like we’re be lifted from the deck. Then the crash back down onto the surface. A few crew stumble as the boat settles out.
“Everybody ok?” I ask, looking at the grins all over the compartment.
“Well that was fun, let’s do that again!” laughs Kessler, he prefers his last name to his first, something about not wanting to be mistaken for somebody else.
“You’re crazy!” Adalbert says as he walks by, heading to check on Alois.
“Yes, and you’re all crazy for following me! But that’s what makes U-45, the Schlitzhor a great boat!” I laugh, “Check all compartments first, then see to Alois, he looks like he’ll keep for a few.”
“Aye Kaleun.”
“Diesel Engines to one third, Chief. Franz, return to our plotted course if you will please”
“Aye! Helm, set course 215” Franz calls out.
“Wolfgang, please return your watch to their station on the bridge, set boat for normal surface cruise.”
“Aye Kaleun!”
As I look around the room, I see smiles. It’s good to have an enthusiastic crew. I pull my pipe out of my pocket, fill it, and light it. This should be a good cruise, I think, as I look over the charts.
Please Feel free to comment and criticize, that's the only way I can improve. My attempts at German may be weak, I apologize to anybody fluent in the language.
As to the title, while looking up various translations of words, I came across Schlitzhor. It seems to translate into a few different meanings, including Shark, Bandit, or Pirate. All of Which I felt appropriate, since U-45's tower emblem is the skull and crossbones.
Please Enjoy!
Schlitzhor
“Sir?”
I look over at Hans-Peter, U-45’s funker. He is holding one cup of the headset to his ear, fiddling with the dials on the receiver set. He is young, blonde, the “perfect Aryan man” our ideological conforming weapons officer would say. Young, but very bright, the mastrosengeiter was top of his class at the radio operator’s school. He had told me on one of our earlier shake down patrols, before the war, that he and a friend used to tap morse code over tin can phones. For him, his job is like being a kid again.
“Yes Hans, what is it?”
“Sir, I have picked up Radio Berlin. They are finishing their news broadcast, and then follow that with some Strauss. May I…..”
“I love Strauss!” came a muffled grunt from Alois, our sonar operator, who was currently under the console apparently fixing something.
“Yes, Hans, go ahead,” I replied, “Alois, what are you doing?”
“There was some heavy crackling last time we ran a sweep, so I’m checking the circuits. Found a couple loose vacuum tubes, Kaleun. Just adjusting them”
“Sehr gut, Alois, just don’t break my boat!”
“Herr Kaleun, it may be your boat, but they’re my ears”
I smiled and laughed, as the loudspeaker started playing Strauss. Alois’s foot began to swing back and forth in time. I put the bookmark into the von Clausewitz book I was reading, placing it on the shelf next to the rest of my small collection of books. As I get up from my bunk, I nudge Alois in the leg, reminding him to try and keep the passageway clear. He grunts and shuffles to the side some, as much as lying on your back in a cramped nook will allow.
I stretched, working the kink out of my neck, adjust my shirt, and step through the hatch into the control room. The watch looks bored, but attentive to their jobs at the same time. They know better than to become complacent during these long stretches of inactivity. The watch changed just an hour or so ago, and they are settling into the grind of their watch.
I climb up the ladder to the bridge. The watch crew, overseen by my 2WO, Wolfgang Eisenholtz, is scanning their quadrants for anything. It’s unseasonably warm for mid September, the gentle breeze from our forward motion is a welcome relief. The sea is mirror flat, the sky cloudless. Makes for easy sailing, but not for staying hidden. Any patrol aircraft would be able to see us from many kilometers away. And flat seas don’t allow for stealthy approaches to targets.
Wolfgang turns, “Guten morgen Kaleun!”
“Morgen Wolfgang. Anything yet?”
“Not yet Kaleun. We saw some whales breaching a while back, Willi here thought it was a British sub surfacing, panicked a bit,” he said with a grin.
“Not really!” came the mumbled reply from the seaman peering through his binoculars, and everybody laughed.
“It would be nice to see something, it’s been a week since we saw anything!”
“Ahhh, yes, have patience, mein junge,” I said, “That trawler and small merchant were good practice for us all, especially seeing as how we had never encountered a real enemy before.”
“Kaleun, do you think they made it to shore?” Gustav, another watchman, said.
I smiled at his earnest empathy towards a fellow seaman; we were after the boats, not the men after all. “Ja, in this weather, their distress call, and the provisions we left, they should be at home right now.”
I smiled, turned to Wolfgang, and made a small twirling motion with my finger that the rest of the watch didn’t see. Wolfgang gave me one of his legendary evil grins and nodded, turning back to scan the ocean.
“I’ll be going down now, you men keep your eyes peeled. Don’t want a Jabo sneaking up on us!”
“Aye Kaleun!” Came the reply.
I took one last deep breath of the ocean air and began to climb back down the ladder. I paused inside the conning tower to check everything was stowed properly. We wouldn’t want the MG42’s or the at-ready AA cannon ammo boxes getting loose.
I continued down into the control room. I looked at the navigator’s map, checking our progress. No reason to doubt its accuracy, there has been perfectly clear skies and flat seas for the past week. Franz, our navigator, probably has our position plotted more accurately than any road map of that new autobahn they’re building could be. I fussed over a few other thing’s, checking gauges and what not, as I waited for the inevitable.
“ALLLAAAAAAAAARM!” Came the scream from the bridge.
I reached out and tapped the stopwatch over the targeting desk.
“Crash Dive!” I yelled, “All ballast hands forward!”
Shouted commands rang out all over the boat. The thunder of the herd of crew members running towards the front of the boat started to rumble towards us. The squeak of skin on metal made me look over towards the ladder as the watch slid down it. The resounding clunk of the hatch being dogged sounded out. I checked the stopwatch, 8 seconds, not bad.
“OWW!” Rang out from the direction of the radio room.
“Get out of the way Alois! Why are you laying there!?”
I had to chuckle when I heard that. I did warn him, didn’t I?
I felt the boat start to tip forward, the Chief really likes to take it deep quickly after the hatch is shut. He barely gives them enough time as it is, the water is usually already flooding the decks by the time the watch gets down. I waited a few more seconds.
“Helm! Hard to port!” I yelled, over the din of the rushing crewmen, “New course 115!”
“Aye Kaleun! Hard to Port! New course 115!” Heinrich, our chief helmsman , yelled back.
I watched the helmsman, who was suddenly very awake after his earlier doldrums, bring the boat around. These type VIIb’s handle pretty well at speed, and you could feel the twist of the boat beneath you. I felt the diesels finally cut out, and the electric motors start spinning. They are much quieter, and you can feel that in the boat itself. The engineering crew was quick, that transition usually takes more time. I’ll have to commend August, our Obermaschinist, later.
“30 meters!” Called out our Leitender Ingenieur, Herbert Linder, Chief.
“Steady on 115, Kaleun!” Heinrich called out. I nodded to him.
“50 meters!……. 60!……. 65….. 70 meters. Kaleun, level at 70m.”
“Engines slow, Rig for silent” I said.
Very quickly as the word was passed, the boat became very quiet. The Strauss had fallen silent as we dove. I felt the thrum from the electric motors die down to a gentle purr. I looked at the stopwatch on the desk. Very good, a new record for us.
“Sonar!” I hissed in a loud whisper, “Contacts?”
Alois’ head, bloodied from a cut across his forehead, leaned out into the passageway, “Not yet Kaleun, but give me a few moments to complete a sweep!” he hissed back.
I looked over at the chief, “Good job, Chief. Nice fast dive there.”
“Thank you sir.”
“Wolfgang, go check each compartment real fast, make sure everybody is silent.” I whisper.
“Aye kaleun” he says, and moves off into the boat.
“Kaleun, no sonar contacts found!” Alois hissed.
“Thank you herr elektriker” I said, grinning.
He laughs, wipes his bloody head off, then frowns at his hand, wiping it on his pants, and returns to his cave as he likes to call it.
“Bunch of church mice, kaleun,” Wolfgang said on his return.
Nodding, I said “Secure from silent running.”
“Aye, Secure from silent running!” I feel, and hear, the relief flooding back into the crew, as then they realize it’s a drill.
“Adalbert!” I yell.
Adalbert, our medic, sticks his head into the control room from the stern quarters, where his battle station is, his bunk. “Yes Kaleun?”
“Adalbert, after the stampede, please check on Alois, and you may have some other work to do also” I say.
He looks confused, “Yes sir, err, stampede sir?”
I grin and yell, “Ahead Flank, All ballast hands aft, planes at full rise, blow all ballast! Emergency blow!”
My orders are relayed around the boat; you can hear the crew starting a return migration. Adalbert’s eyes grow real big as he scoots back towards his bunk, jumps in and braces himself. As the crew rushes past, trying to get their combined weight into the stern of the boat, I look at my 1WO, Adolf Kessler, who is just shaking his head and chuckling.
The chief is yelling orders and spinning valves like a mad man, you hear the high-pressure air rushing through pipes in the hull. Gurgling noises and creaking as the boat starts to rise. The deck is starting to pitch upwards, and steeply. We all have to grab onto something fixed to keep from sliding backwards.
“50 meters! 40! 20!” Herbert yells out.
“Sound collision alarm!” I yell.
“Collision!!” Herbert yells, slapping a large button on the bulkhead. A loud bell rings out through out the boat. The men brace themselves against whatever they can find. I hold firmly to a stanchion pole, grinning ear to ear.
We feel the boat start to level off, the upward momentum draining fast, as it feels like she’s falling out from beneath us. It feels like we’re be lifted from the deck. Then the crash back down onto the surface. A few crew stumble as the boat settles out.
“Everybody ok?” I ask, looking at the grins all over the compartment.
“Well that was fun, let’s do that again!” laughs Kessler, he prefers his last name to his first, something about not wanting to be mistaken for somebody else.
“You’re crazy!” Adalbert says as he walks by, heading to check on Alois.
“Yes, and you’re all crazy for following me! But that’s what makes U-45, the Schlitzhor a great boat!” I laugh, “Check all compartments first, then see to Alois, he looks like he’ll keep for a few.”
“Aye Kaleun.”
“Diesel Engines to one third, Chief. Franz, return to our plotted course if you will please”
“Aye! Helm, set course 215” Franz calls out.
“Wolfgang, please return your watch to their station on the bridge, set boat for normal surface cruise.”
“Aye Kaleun!”
As I look around the room, I see smiles. It’s good to have an enthusiastic crew. I pull my pipe out of my pocket, fill it, and light it. This should be a good cruise, I think, as I look over the charts.