The very best of British LS.....I'm sure you'll succeed http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

Sorry for being quiet lately. My access to the forum was blocked out for some reason, and I've only just found my original username and password. Hope you're all having a good summer..?
LS

We are now directed south down the Portuguese coast towards Gibraltar. Thankfully not to go through those gates of hell, but to lie in ambush just further south and pick up the Freetown convoys.

We have taken a couple of small ones already, no more than 2,000 tons each, in the same area and within five hours of each other, both by deck gun action. Easy enough, but with a dead calm sea, and clear blue skies, we are very conscious of sticking out like a sore thumb. Willi gives a great sigh of relief, as we come down the ladder where we will stay submerged for the rest of the day. In both cases the crews had put to their boats in good time, and they are not that far from a neutral coast.

Elsewhere in the North Atlantic, Menz is limping home on one propellor in U-342 after a bombing attack. And Braun in U-296 has missed two reporting schedules, and BdU is trying to raise them. Viktor slips that sort of news to me quietly, the boys don't need to know about potential losses when they're at sea themselves.

It sounds as though the rest of the lads have latched on to quite a juicy convoy, 11 boats converging in AK51.

Lunch today was sardines and dauerbrot, a sort of indestructable bread which Bruno swears he can use to bash in rivets.

This afternoon, we all had to stand clear for a 'boat race' this isn't Oxford and Cambridge by any means. It's the engineers against the seamen in two teams, and both send a runner against the other at the same time in relay, racing the length of the boat from the engine room to the forward torpedoes, and anything may be done to impede the other rival. The most fun is at each hatchway, which is only big enough for one at a time at best. The seamen tend to be nimbler, but the engineers always put up a good fight in every sense of the word.

Oscar sighs, shakes his head and reaches for his dwindling supply of bandages from his medical cabinet.

Life in U-46 goes on.....

LS

There are a couple of other boats in the vicinity. U-342 is hanging around the northern approach to the straits, that's Ehrlich and his Raging Boar, a Type IX. We have the southern end, in our modest but experienced Type VII. Sanders in U-441 (Snorting Donkey) has the short straw. He is to attempt the Straits themselves in another IX. He has only been on three previous patrols, and it's a tall order.

The perceived wisdom is that to have any chance of slipping through you have to get as close as you can, and then sit on the bottom until night. The Gibraltar Straits are unique in that their narrowness creates two flows and ebbs at different depths, because of the high warm salinity of the Mediteranean Sea compared to the cold vast depths of the Atlantic. So if Sanders can judge his thermal layers right, he can sit tight, and on the quietest speed, and at the deepest possible depth, which is only about 40m to be safe, the Mediterranean should slowly suck him in during the night.

All he has to worry about then is the mines, anti-boat nets, the patrol boats, and destroyers, shore batteries, and regular overflights from the RAF.

Fingers crossed for Sanders.

LS

Glad to see you back LS!:up:

A most welcome return LS http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9...humbsuprw5.gif

"Why do you have to do it now, Willi? This is ridiculous. We're completely exposed out here. This is the Atlantic, in range of at least three enemy air bases; not a dry dock in Kiel"

"It must be done for the sake of the boat, Sir"

Willi clenched his teeth stubbornly and tightened his grip on the pot of green paint.

"You and your bloody superstiticions, Number Three!"

But I could already see I was in danger of losing this one, from the faces around me me in the Control Room and poking through from the PO's quarters and the Fore-ends. All the crew on U-46 took great stock in it's emblem, just like any other boat. The poor old Laughing Swordfish had become chipped and tarmished, both by enemy action, but lately badly faded by the higher salt content of the water, and the bleaching of the sun; a phenomenon she was not used to.

That fish was our lucky mascot, and the whole crew, Willi in particular, believed in it. In terms of morale, optimism under fire and efficiency, it would be a lick of paint well spent.

"Joachim, send your Flak gunners up. Willi I'll give you ten minutes at slow surface speed. If we get bumped, I'm leaving without the four of you Renoirs, and you'll have to swim for it"

Willi grinned and nodded.

In the end he took twenty five minutes, and we didn't dive for another thirty five, so that the paint could dry. Crazy, but we got away with it.

"Further proof!" said Willi.

He even painted a minituare version of the Swordfish on a Control Room bulkhead near the bridge ladder for everyone else to see.

Soon everyone was touching it, patting it, saluting it, or even blowing it a kiss every time they passed it. All smiling.

Of course there's no logic to a bit of green paint keeping fifty two men alive in this most hazardous of endeavours, but the highest brains in psycology could learn something from the Navigation and Third Watch Officer of U-46.

LS

phsycology = psychology

For Queen's sake Rollie!!! When are you going to get that spell check fixed!!!

LOL :rotfl:

The story is too good to notice....let the agent sort it during proofing ;)

Hey Don!

I don't have an agent. You're my partner in this. I just got encouraged to publish by some guy over here (lives up in Liverpool) who has done the same thing with his own stories, and has proved it can be done by sending me a paperback of his first book.

What needs to happen is to edit all the pages for grammatical, spelling (yes, mine is atrowshus and oarful - I knew I should never try to use big words!) and also historical sense, and also to add some narrative link to the individual chapters, which are mostly one-offs, which would need to be another 2000 words to make a novel apparently.

All of which will need a critical eye, some painful blue-pencilling, and probably a lot of re-jigging of the chapters. Then we might have a book, or at least the first volume because I aint quitting yet, and if it were on only 3 peoples' bookshelves, yours, mine and my mother's that would still be fine by me.

LS

Well my good friend, you can rest assured I'll have MY copy in the bookcase! Hell, I already have half of it scattered about between here and the website. Which by the way, is filled to the limit, so I can't bring it up to date, untill I re-write it and shorten the number of chapters.

I did manage to spell check as much as I could when I transcribed it over, but of course your mastery of colorful descriptions and dialog were not always recongnized, so I copied it as you wrote it, to maintain your original intent.

Let me know Mate, if you want me to get the website sorted, so the members here can continue to get a sneak preview before it hits the BEST SELLER List! :rock:

(PS) I trust you still remember how to send an e-mail...)
:p

After that Willi and his Third Watch were known as 'The Green Fingers' amongst the crew, because that paint was really hard to get off with our limited cleaning facilities and the industrial strength of the dockyard paint they used.

So of course Otto's constantly begrimed engineers were nicknamed 'The Black Fingers', and not to be left out, the torpedo men were called 'The Three Fingers' because of the occupational hazard of loading a torpedo in a hurry and leaving your hand in the way at the wrong moment. Which is what happened to Sohn on our last patrol, who is now based on shore.

With their typical humour, they told him that when the eel was fired, at least he gave the good old Winston Churchill two-fingered salute straight back to the Brits.

I would say that they are all just boys at heart. But most of them really are just boys.

The control room lads were labelled 'Quick Fingers' which was more to do with Cox's reputation for 'acquiring' any commodity or resellable kit or goods when in port, which did a lively trade right outside my cabin or on the dockside, and of course which I never saw anything of.

Bruno makes way for me on the bridge.

"Good morning, Sir"

He calls down some steering orders for our patrol pattern, and offers me a square of his American chocolate. He says they call it 'candy' even though it plainly says 'Hershey'.

I raise my binoculars. Another day, another horizon.

LS

I didn't want to clutter up the thread, but since you started it, I actually caught three typos in that post. I sent LS a PM about it even before you posted.

:rotfl: LMAO...Ohhh Steve...if you only knew how many I had to fix!! :rotfl:

Thanks guys!

I really appreciate the feedback as always. Now I am under such scrutiny, the pressure is really on. I might be kept back after class to write another chapter until I get one right!!

All the best, LS

(Don - It's unlikely to be today because I have to go up into town, but I'll try and re-establish comms by Yahoo IM, so please monitor that frequency, pm London time)