Robert Williams - Ice Fortress

“So we’re sinking?” Jack didn’t sound in the least bit alarmed.

“That’s another way of saying it, yeah.”

“You could have just said so without all the navy jargon and science. We don’t exactly have time for a physics lesson right now.”

“What do we do?” Sam’s eyes were wide with fear.

“Simple. If we go in the water we die within three minutes. The freezing water will kill us before we have a chance to drown. We can’t climb up the ice walls to the surface because our equipment fell through the ice when the sub collapsed the shelf, so we don’t have climbing gear. Our only chance to stay dry… and alive… is to get below before we submerge.”

Like a man possessed, Sam frantically kicked at the dog wheel, trying to loosen the grip of the ice on the mechanism.

He stopped quite suddenly and directed a cold stare to Jack.

“What?” Jack shrugged.

“Any chance you’d like to lend a hand? Or a boot?”

And with that, both men kicked at the hatch like men possessed.

Despite its robust and functional outward appearance, the pressure hatch of a submarine is a complex piece of machinery. Sandwiched between the thick, curved steel plates of the door are housed an intricate collection of pinions, gears, cams, levers, valves and seals, designed to seal the hatch against over a thousand pounds of pressure on the hatch when submerged.

When closed, evenly spaced steel latches or ‘dogs’ are thrown into recesses surrounding the hatch, locking it into position when the ‘dog wheel’ is turned. When the U-Boat submerged for the last time, the captain of the boat would have ensured one of the crew had been sent up the tower to ‘dog the hatch’, ensuring a watertight seal.

Of course, none of that mattered to either man as they sought to break the seal of ice which kept the dogs from retracting. After a full minute of kicking and stomping Sam again tried to turn the dog wheel.

It wouldn’t budge.

Jack had an idea. “Let me have a go,” he said as he shouldered his way past the big man.

Kneeling, brushed the snow from the hatch in widening circles until the entire surface was visible, not just the area under the wheel.

Gripping the wheel with both hands, he prepared to heave on it but instead found that with very little effort, it started to turn. The more he turned the wheel, the easier and faster it spun.

Jack looked up at Sam and wondered if his massive jaw could drop any lower. Despite the dire situation, Jack couldn’t help but take a moment to smile.

“Maybe you’re not as strong as you like, big guy.”

Words wouldn’t come to him. Sam was flabbergasted. He’d been outdone by an army brat on his boat.

Jack pulled open the hatch without so much as a rusty squeal of protest from the hinges and gestured for Sam to head down first. He hoped Sam wouldn’t notice the arrows and German instructions molded into the surface of the hatch. Sam had been turning the wheel the wrong way, the American way. Jack was happy to play the strength card for the moment. Score another point for the army.

Both men shouldered their packs, unholstered their sidearm and prepared to enter the dark void below the conning tower. Weapons were drawn, not for fear of encountering combatants below, but for the practicality of the tactical rail mounted flashlights slung below their barrel.

With a firm nod of agreement, Sam proceeded through the hatch. Words weren’t necessary. Neither man knew what to say in a situation in which they didn’t think any living person had ever found themselves.

With waves lapping at the sides of the tower, Jack knew their time was up and dogging the hatch once more was the only way to keep them alive. The hatch was barely secured when the roar of water spilling into the conning tower echoed through the hull of the boat.

Jack Coulson wasn’t a religious man, who could be after seeing the evil people were capable of during his missions, but as he descended the ladder into the inky bowels of the Nazi sub he prayed he’d made the right decision. Sometimes there was no right or wrong decision and survival simply meant moving. Moving forward. Never stopping. This sure as hell was one of those times.

Kapitänleutnant Helmut Sohler had been a Kriegsmarine U-Boat officer from the beginning of the war. He was proud of his heritage and honored to carry on the family tradition of naval service. His father had served on U-Boats during the First World War and from the time he first heard the stories of his daring exploits, young Helmut dreamed of nothing more than following in his father’s footsteps. His childhood was spent playing in make believe submarines crudely constructed from old packing crates with pieces of lead pipe fashioned into make-believe periscopes.

With adolescence that dream faded to a distant memory. The Treaty of Versailles, something that meant nothing to a small boy playing U-Boat commander, had shaped the world in which he grew up. A world in which Germany’s military strength was severely restricted but most importantly for Helmut Sohler, a world in which German submarines were banned. Following the calamitous impact the Reichsmarine’s U-Boats had against both military and merchant shipping during the war, it was hardly surprising that the German U-Boat force were dismantled and the silent but fearsome Reichsmarine weapon that had come close to defeating Great Britain was strictly prohibited.

Kapitänleutnant Helmut Sohler was proud of his boat and its crew. He had sworn to serve the Reich, sinking as much enemy tonnage as his torpedo capacity would allow on each mission. That was his duty. The reason his boat patrolled silently beneath the waves.

All that came to an abrupt and unpleasant end when General Hans Kammler came aboard and began treating his beloved U-2532 as if it were his own. Being a proud German and being proud to serve his country didn’t mean Sohler had to answer to the Waffen-SS or condone the horrific means they so often used to achieve their ends.

Sohler despised Kammler. He and his kind were not fighting for national pride. They were striving to rebuild the world and make it a darker and more perverse place. Definitely not the kind world Kapitänleutnant Helmut Sohler wanted his children or grandchildren to grow up in.

Sohler wanted to sit his grandchildren on his knee and regale them with tales of bravery and cunning as he patrolled the oceans with his wolf pack, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, not horrific stories of death camps and genocide. Sharing the confined space of his boat with a loathsome monster who boasted of his engineering feats and how they improved efficiency at the death camps repulsed Sohler. He could almost feel the very evil the general manifested permeating throughout the boat, turning his crew and beloved boat into something hideous and corrupt.

The Kapitänleutnant shivered at the thought of Kammler and tried to concentrate on the job at hand. Thankfully the general had been too busy tending his precious cargo to interfere with Sohler for the past two days. The Kapitänleutnant didn’t know what was inside the lead lined compartment that had been made off limits to all but the general for the entire voyage, but what he did know was that the hairs on the back of his neck bristled and an icy feeling of dread knotted his stomach each time he walked past the cargo hold, which he made a point of doing as little as possible.