[Gargamel]

“Alois, are you sure?” I asked.

“As much as I can be Kaleun,” he replied, and replaced the headphones back on, listening intently, slowly turning the hydrophone wheel.

I rubbed my head, could it be true? Could the Tommies only have one destroyer with this convoy? And such a prize in the middle! A Battleship! I returned to the control room, all eyes on me.

I raised the periscope again, just barely breaking the surface. In these flat seas, a fully raised scope would leave a large wake, and that would be very bad for us if it were spotted by the lone destroyer at the front of the convoy. I scanned the horizon again, noting the destroyer, and then looking around the edges of the convoy. I still did not see any other escorts. And then I looked back into the convoy itself, full of large merchants, tankers, and a couple converted whale factory ships. Juicy targets, all of them. And then there was the real prize, the Revenge class battleship cruising slowly at the middle of the pack. I flipped through the recognition manual, comparing what I saw to what the book showed.

“Set tubes one and two to…. four meters depth. Set three and four to …… nine and a half, and keep tube five at five meters, that’s our snapshot torpedo if we need it, ” I looked at Kessler and whispered, “Make sure tube one is set to the right depth, we’re going to take out the escort first! We can’t have any mistakes!”

“Aye…. Aye Kaleun!” He replied, looking bemused, and headed forward towards the torpedo room.

“Franz, make sure the damage parties are properly stationed and ready for action,” I said.

He nodded and headed aft.

I looked around the control room, young nervous boys at the helm, older men elsewhere around the room, but no less nervous.

I grinned, “Don’t worry men, the Tommies won’t know what’s coming!” A few smiles were returned. I was scared too, but I could not show it. Right then, bluster was all I had.

“Sir! We cannot attack a destroyer first! Our orders are to only attack warships in self-defense! We can only initiate hostilities with merchants! The Fuehrer wants to placate the British as much as possible!”

I turned, there stood Wolfgang Shultze, our torpedo officer, with Kessler doggedly standing behind him, a sheepish look on his face. He was assigned to our boat when our regular torpedo officer had broken his leg in a training accident over the summer. His uncle was some admiral, and helped get him a posting on a frontline boat. He openly spoke of commanding one of the great surface ships one day. None of us thought that would happen, as he drank too much, even on patrol, to be a reliable officer.

“What are you doing here? Get back to your post!” I hissed.

“Sir! Our orders!” He whined.

“If you do not return to your post, I will have you shot, then court-martialed!” I hissed back at him, “And be quiet! We’re running silent!”

“Yes Kaleun!” He whispered, and saluted, which I did not return. After an uncomfortably long time, he ducked back under the forward hatch.

Kessler looked at me, then whispered, “Herr Kaleun Moritz, a word please?”

I looked at him, and then nodded, “Be quick though. Wolfgang, take the scope, call if the escort gets within two thousand meters.”

“Aye Kaleun.”

We stepped aft into the officer’s galley.

“Kaleun, excuse my frankness here, but he was partially right.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Yes, he was, but he abandoned his post while we are at battle stations.”

“You are right, that is inexcusable, but to his point…?” He whispered.

“As soon as we attack those merchants, we will come under attack. Therefore, we can preemptively defend ourselves by attacking them, yes?” I whispered, a grin on my face, “At least, that’s how it’s going into the report.”

He pondered this for a moment, then grinned, “Aye Kaleun, I can agree to that. As to Schultze, he wasn’t even totally sure how to set the depths correctly, and then wanted to know why so shallow. When I mentioned the destroyer he stormed back here to confront you.”

I nodded, “We’ll have to do something about him, but later. Right now, we have some ships to sink!”

We walked back into the control room. I quickly retook the scope from Wolfgang. I made a quick scan of the horizon again. Still, only the one escort. I was confused. This didn’t make sense. We had been told to expect heavy anti-sub escorts with convoys. The doctrine was a poorly escorted convoy was worse than no convoy. I studied the merchants again, and could not see anything out of the ordinary, just normal merchants. I returned to destroyer, and redid the math in my head again.

“Helm, bring us fifteen degrees to port, then set engines to 60 RPM’s, open tube one.” I whispered, “Kessler, take a look, any of these look like Q ships too you?”

He took the scope from me. I watched the crew follow my orders. The thrum of the motors just about disappeared. It was deathly silent on the boat; I heard somebody sniff from another compartment. Kessler scanned through the scope, he turned the handles back and forth as he looked at each ship..

He pulled his face from the scope, “They all look like normal freighters and tankers to me. But Kaleun, are you really worried about Q ships when there’s a battleship in the middle of the convoy?”

I grinned, “Ah yes, good point. No point in setting a trap if your prey runs away screaming, now is there?”

I took the scope back from Kessler. The destroyer was almost in position. They weren’t even maneuvering, just plodding along like a dog in front of its master.

“Steady… tube one is ready, yes?”

“Yes Kaleun.”

I keep the scope fixed on the destroyer. I waited. It just kept blindly sailing on. If all of the British Navy are this stupid, this should be a short and easy war. I watched the gyro-angle indicator roll down towards zero.

“Steady… Steady… Los!”