Robert Williams - Ice Fortress

Nor did anyone hear the cry for help as one of their own fell overboard into the bitterly cold, inky black water.

Sam had explained to Jack that he didn’t know how to blow the ballast tanks any other way than with a full emergency blow. One of the salty old German sailors he’d worked with on the U-505 restoration project at the Science and Industry Museum had proudly demonstrated the procedure on the inoperable submarine many times. He’d served aboard a U-Boat during the final months of the war, having been conscripted as a fifteen year old boy. Germany had been desperate for men having lost many millions of them at the brutal Russian Front. Nobody had cared about his age, he said, U-Boat crews had a short life expectancy, anyway. The one thing he’d learned during his short service before Germany surrendered was the emergency blow and he’d been telling anyone who would listen all about it ever since.

Jack had no choice but to trust Sam, after all, he was the one who had got the screws turning so they could navigate to safety using the extraordinarily detailed charts that were still on the chart table as if the navigator had stepped away only moments ago. The state of the U-Boat greatly unnerved Jack and something about the whole situation made his battle hardened survival instincts bristle. There was a darkness with them in the boat that even the emergency lights Sam had lit up couldn’t chase away. The sooner they got out of the stale air of the claustrophobic boat, the happier Jack would be. He wasn’t afraid of a fire fight, he’d survived plenty of those in his time, but he’d always known exactly who he was up against. This mission was different and he felt like he was clawing at the darkness unable to see what he was really up against.

And now he was in a World War Two U-Boat heading toward what the charts indicated was described as a ‘bunker’ under the ice.

Nothing in his training or field experience had prepared him for anything like this. And he didn’t even know what this was. It was damn spooky, to say the least.

“We’re almost there, according to the chart,” Sam called through the engine room voice tube to the conn where Jack was manning the rudder.

It became clear very soon after damage control was squared away that they wouldn’t survive if they just bobbed aimlessly under the ice like a cork. With limited weapons and ammunition, surfacing and facing the army that awaited them wasn’t a very good plan. They needed a new plan. Any plan. It didn’t even have to be a good plan.

On the navigation chart spread out on the table, they noted a thick grease-pencil line showing the last course the sub had sailed… into the heart of an ice mountain. No explanation as to how the sub ended up where they’d found it, but answering that question didn’t help their chances of survival. That could wait.

The plan was far from ideal, but then again so were the circumstances. Sam would man propulsion in the engine room, with the chart in hand and Jack would man the rudder as instructed by Sam through the voice tube. As far as plans went, it was, like their vintage U-Boat, full of holes, but it was the only one they could come up with.

“Hold the rudder steady and I’ll reverse a third to bring us to a stop.” Sam’s voice sounded remarkably free of tension, Jack thought. That man was having way too much fun playing submarines. Jack never wanted to see another submarine as long as he lived.

The compartment hatch leading to the conn filled with Sam’s oversized frame as he squeezed sideways through it. “Ready?” he asked.

If the cramped sub didn’t already feel like the bulkheads were crushing in on him, having the big ginger headed giant fill what was left of the space really made Jack feel like he was suffocating.

“No,” Jack replied but squeezed his way to the confusing jumble of pipes and levers on the other side of the conn, regardless.

“I checked the compressed air tanks and we’ve got enough pressure for one emergency blow.”

“That’s all we need, then we’re out of here?” Hope hung in his words.

“Alright, you pull these four levers on my mark, right?” Sam indicated the four levers again, although they’d rehearsed the procedure before navigating their way to through the tunnel to the base.

“I’ve got these four, but we have to pull them at the same time so we surface bow first and don’t roll over on our back because we’ve lost trim,” the big man continued.

“You didn’t mention that before,” protested Jack.

“Didn’t want to scare your jarhead ass.”

“I’m not a marine—”

Sam cut him off with his countdown, “Three, two, one…”

That’s when Jack’s world went ass up. Again.

With speed and agility Jack thought wasn’t possible for such a huge vessel, the U-Boat changed attitude by at least twenty degrees and began to shoot to the surface.

“Hey, navy, what if we hit something up there?” Jack called over the riotous roar of the compressed air and seawater through the tanks on either side of the pressure hull.

“At this rate of ascent, you and I would end up a gooey smear on the upper bulkhead. At least I won’t have to listen to you whining after that.”

Before Jack could reply, the boat righted itself to what Sam had referred to during his explanation of the maneuver as ‘zero bubble’, but not before an almighty boom rang through the entire submarine as the bow fell down through the air and pounded back into the water.

Sam raised his hand to high five Jack, but Jack was already half way up the conning tower ladder, making a dash for the hatch. He hadn’t even bothered to grab his pack. Getting out of the sub was his new mission.

The hatch opened easily now that it was no longer frozen solid and Jack threw it back, scrabbling his way into the conning tower before his brain had time to register that he was seeing something he shouldn’t be seeing.

Light.

That was impossible.

Unless…

The thought that they’d escaped into the hands of a waiting enemy crushed Jack’s spirit, after all they’d bene through.

There was no way in hell he was going back into that submarine.

He didn’t want to die in a hail of gunfire in a battle he didn’t even understand, either.

There was only one choice left open to him.

Jack stood up in the conning tower with both hands raised as far above his head as he could manage. Surrender might not be in his DNA but survival surely was. That’s what he was trained to do — survive. If he could do that, then he could live to fight another day.

Not a single round was fired as he stood. That was a good start. Then he saw why.

Instead of being surrounded by commandoes in winter camouflage pointing submachine guns at him, an even more surprising sight greeted him.

A U.S. Navy submarine, a bunch of drenched sailors on the foredeck and a pair of young civilians near the sail. Not a single gun anywhere to be seen.

“Who’s the U-Boat commander?” he heard one of the civilians ask, a heavyset man wearing a T-Shirt two sizes too small.

The other, fitter looking civilian rolled his eyes.

Heavyset just shrugged. “Can you blame me? That’s one movie line I won’t get another chance to say for the rest of my life.”

Jack was surveying the entire cavern, subconsciously processing the input from his eyes and ears. The wheels inside his head were turning at lightning speed, an invaluable skill in his line of work and one that had been highly refined during a career making instantaneous life and death decisions. Sometimes saving your life or someone else’s came down to only a few seconds and the ability to assimilate information fast was mission critical.