the submarine, perhaps. But that collapses at once.’ McKinnon eased back on the throttle as he approached the group in the water.
‘Someone’s just broken the surface,’ Jamieson said. ‘No, by God, two of them.’
‘Yes. They’ve got inflatable life jackets on. They’ll keep.’ McKinnon stopped the engines and waited while Curran, Trent and Jamieson literally hauled the gun crew aboard – they seemed incapable of helping themselves. The trio were young, hardly more than boys, teeth chattering, shivering violently and trying hard not to look terrified.
‘We search this lot?’ Jamieson said. ‘Tie them up?’
‘Good lord, no. Look at their hands – they’re blue and frozen stiff. If they couldn’t even hang on to the gunwale, and they couldn’t, how could they press the trigger of a gun even if they could unbutton their oilskins, which they can’t?’
McKinnon opened the throttle and headed for the two men who had surfaced from the submarine. As he did, a third figure bobbed to the surface some two hundred yards beyond.
The two men they hauled aboard seemed well enough. One of them was a dark-haired, dark-eyed man in his late twenties: his face was lean, intelligent and watchful. The other was very young, very blond and very apprehensive. McKinnon addressed the older man in German.
‘What is your name and rank?’
‘Obersteuermann Doenitz.’
‘Doenitz? Very appropriate.’ Admiral Doenitz was the brilliant C-in-C of the German submarine fleet. ‘Do you have a gun, Doenitz? If you say you haven’t and I find one I shall have to shoot you because you are not to be trusted. Do you have a gun?’
Doenitz shrugged, reached under his blouse and produced a rubber-wrapped pistol.
‘Your friend here?’
‘Young Hans is an assistant cook.’ Doenitz spoke in fluent English. He sighed. ‘Hans is not to be trusted with a frying-pan, far less a gun.’
McKinnon believed him and headed for the third survivor. As they approached McKinnon could see that the man was at least unconscious for his neck was bent forward and he was face down in the water. The reason for this was not far to seek. His Dräger apparatus was only partially inflated and the excess oxygen had gone to the highest point of the bag at the back of the neck, forcing his head down. McKinnon drew alongside, caught the man by his life jacket, put his hand under his chin and lifted the head from the water.
He studied the face for only a second or two, then said to Doenitz: ‘You know him, of course.’
‘Heissmann, our First Lieutenant.’
McKinnon let the face fall back into the water. Doenitz looked at him with a mixture of astonishment and anger.
‘Aren’t you going to bring him aboard? He may just be unconscious, just half-drowned perhaps.’
‘Your First Lieutenant is dead.’ McKinnon’s voice carried total conviction. ‘His mouth is full of blood. Ruptured lungs. He forgot to breathe out oxygen on the way up.’
Doenitz nodded. ‘Perhaps he didn’t know that he had to do that. I didn’t know. I’m afraid we don’t have much time for escape training these days.’ He looked curiously at McKinnon. ‘How did you know? You’re not a submariner.’
‘I was. Twelve years.’
Curran called from the bows: ‘There’s one more, Bo’sun. Just surfaced. Dead ahead.’
McKinnon had the motorboat alongside the struggling man in less than a minute and had him brought aboard and laid on the thwarts. He lay there in a peculiar position, knees against his chest, his hands hugging both knees and trying to roll from side to side. He was obviously in considerable pain. McKinnon forced open the mouth, glanced briefly inside, then gently closed it again.
‘Well, this man knew enough to exhale oxygen on the way up.’ He looked at Doenitz. ‘You know this man, of course.’
‘Of course. Oberleutnant Klaussen.’
‘Your captain?’ Doenitz nodded. ‘Well, he’s obviously in considerable pain but I wouldn’t think he’s in any danger. You can see he’s been cut on the forehead – possibly banged his head on the escape hatch on the way out. But that’s not enough to account for his condition, for he must have been conscious all the way up or he wouldn’t have got rid of the oxygen in his lungs. Were you travelling underwater or on the surface during the night?’
‘On the surface. All the time.’
‘That rules out carbon dioxide, which can be poisonous; but you can’t build up carbon dioxide when the conning-tower is open. From the way he’s holding his chest and legs it would seem to be caisson disease; for that’s where the effects hurt most, but it can’t be that either.’
‘Caisson disease?’
‘Diver’s bends. When there’s too rapid a buildup of nitrogen bubbles in the blood when you’re making a very fast ascent.’ McKinnon, with the motor boat under full throttle, was heading directly for the San Andreas, which was stopped in the water at not much more than half a mile’s distance. ‘But for that you have to be breathing in a high pressure atmosphere for quite some time and your captain certainly wasn’t below long enough for that. Perhaps he escaped from a very great depth, perhaps a greater depth than anyone has ever escaped from a submarine and then I wouldn’t know what the effects might be. We have a doctor aboard. I don’t suppose he’ll know either – the average doctor can spend a lifetime and not come across a case like this. But at least he can stop the pain.’
The motor boat passed close by the bows of the San Andreas which, remarkably, appeared to be quite undamaged. But that damage had been done was unquestionable – the San Andreas was at least three feet down by the head, which was no more than was to be expected if the for’ard compartments had been flooded, as, inevitably, they must have been.
McKinnon secured alongside and half-helped, half-carried the semi-conscious U-boat captain to the head of the gangway. Patterson was waiting for him there, as was Dr Sinclair and three other members of the engine-room staff.
‘This is the U-boat captain,’ McKinnon said to Dr Sinclair. ‘He may be suffering from the bends – you know, nitrogen poisoning.’
‘Alas, Bo’sun, we have no decompression chamber aboard.’
‘I know, sir. He may just be suffering from the effects of having surfaced from a great depth. I don’t know, all I know is he’s suffering pretty badly. The rest are well enough, all they need is dry clothing.’ He turned to Jamieson who had just joined him on deck. ‘Perhaps, sir, you would be kind enough to supervise their change of clothing?’
‘You mean to make sure that they’re not carrying anything they shouldn’t be carrying?’
McKinnon smiled and turned to Patterson. ‘How are the for’ard watertight bulkheads, sir?’
‘Holding. I’ve had a look myself. Bent and buckled but holding.’
‘With your permission, sir, I’ll get a diving suit and have a look.’
‘Now?
