"You've hardly touched your cognac, Leutnant"
Doenitz freshens my glass. And watches me with a steely gaze as I gulp some down.
"You must understand that I have to ask these questions. Three big cargo ships are good, and you seemed to have followed the right agressive spirit. Perhaps give the escorts a little more leeway next time, hein?"
Yes Sir
"Look at the map."
We look at the 'Bird Table'. A huge horizontal map of the Atlantic.
There are a smattering of little u-boat models, each with a pennant bearing their number. It still seems pitifully few.
The BE sector is empty. That's where we were.
"When a boat doesn't report in, it is presumed lost, and it's pennant removed by one of the girls." Doenitz continued.
"One of my staff refused to remove your pennant even though you were a week overdue"
"I had to reprimand her of course, but It seems she had more faith in you than I could afford. We normally throw them away"
He opened a desk drawer, and plonked a pennant down with a bang on the port of St Nazaire.
It said U-46. And it looked to my startled eyes as if it had lipstick smudges on it.
"How many patrols have you done Leutnant? How many ships have you sunk? How many enemy have you killed? How many life or death decisions with your own crew have you made?
I was still staring at the lipstick on the pennant.
"I... I don't recall,Sir"
The Admiral topped me up with his finest French brandy.
Who do you think volunteered to drive you back, once that minesweeper had escorted you back in, and told us you were alive?
"Out of all those decisions, I couldn't think of an easier one to make, or a question to ask, than the one that is waiting for you outside those doors."
As the Admiral's office shut behind me, Heidi instantly looked up from the paperwork on her desk smiling.
And I shuffled nervously towards her....
Lt de Bunsen, U-46
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