The Diary of a U boat Commander by Anon

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* * * * *

Three days ago, I was racking my brains for the solution of a problem,
and, as I see from what I wrote, I was somewhat outside myself. In the
interval things have taken an amazing turn. I am still bewildered--but
I must put it all down from the beginning.

The Colonel left as she said he would, and I went round to lunch with
her.

We had a delightful _tête-à-tête_, and after lunch she played the
piano. I was feeling in splendid voice and she accompanied me to
perfection in Tchaikowsky's "To the Forest," always a favourite of
mine. As the last chords died away, Zoe jumped up from the piano and,
with eyes dancing with excitement, placed her hands on my shoulders and
exclaimed:

"Karl! I have an idea! I shall make a prisoner of you for two or three
days."

I laughed heartily and almost told her that she had already made me a
prisoner for life, only I can never get those sort of remarks out quick
enough.

But when she said, "No! I am not joking, I mean it," I felt there was
more meaning in her sentence than I had at first thought. I begged to
be enlightened, and she then unfolded her scheme.

She told me for the first time, that in a forest not far from Bruges
she had a little summer-house, to which she used to retreat for
week-ends in the hot weather when the Colonel was away. He knew nothing
of this country house (she was very insistent on that point), so I
imagined she paid for it out of her dress allowance or in some other
way. The idea that had just struck her was that she had a sudden fancy
to go and spend two days there, and I was to go with her.

I was ready to go to Africa with her if my leave permitted, and it so
happened that I was due for four days' overseas leave (limited to
Belgian territory) so that this fitted in very well, and I told her so.

She was delighted, then, with one of those quick intuitions which women
are so clever at, she read the half-formed thought in my mind, and
said: "You mustn't think it's not going to be conventional; old Babette
will be with us to chaperon me." Old Babette is an aged female whom she
calls her maid. I think she is jealous of me.

I agreed at once that of course I quite understood it was to be highly
conventional, etc., though I smiled to myself as I visualized my
mother's shocked face and uplifted hands had she heard my Zoe's ideas
on the conventions.

I was trying to fathom what was at the bottom of it all when she
remarked: "Of course, as my prisoner you will have to obey all my
orders."

I replied that this was certainly so.

"And one of the first things," she continued, "that happens to a
prisoner when he goes through the enemy lines is that he is
blindfolded, and in the same way I shan't let you know where you are
going."

Seeing a doubtful look in my eyes as I endeavoured to keep pace with
the underlying idea, if any, of this truly feminine fancy, she suddenly
came up to me and, lifting her eyes to mine, murmured: "Don't you trust
me?"

In a moment my passion flared up, and rained hot kisses on her face as
she struggled to release herself from my arms.

When I left that night after dinner, and, walking on air, returned to
the Mess, it was arranged that I should be at her flat with my
suit-case at 6 p.m. the next evening, prepared, to use her own words,
"to disappear with me for 48 hours."

She had told me of an address in Bruges which she said would forward on
any telegram if I was recalled, and I had to be satisfied with that,
for I may as well say here that I never discovered where I went to, and
I don't know to this moment in what part of Belgium I spent the last
two nights.

I tried to find out at first, but as she obviously attached some
importance to keeping the locality of her woodland retreat a secret,
probably to circumvent the Colonel, I soon gave up trying to get the
secret from her, and contented myself with taking things as they came.

To go on with my account of what happened--which was really so
remarkable that I propose writing it out in detail to the best of my
memory--at 6 p.m. next day I was naturally at her flat feeling very
much as if I was on the threshold of an adventure.

Zoe was excited and the flat was in a turmoil, as apparently she had
only just begun to pack her dressing-case.

Soon after six we went down and got into a large Mercédès car which I
had noticed standing outside when I arrived. We were soon on our way,
and left Bruges by the Eastern barrier; we showed our passes and
proceeded into the darkened country-side. We had been running for about
a mile when she remarked, "Prisoners will now be blindfolded!" and, to
my astonishment, slipped a little black silk bag over my head.

I was so startled I didn't know whether to be angry, or to laugh, or
what to do. Eventually I did nothing, and, entering into the spirit of
the game, declared that even a wretched prisoner had the right not to
be stifled, whereupon she lifted the lower portion of the bag and
uncovered my mouth. Shortly afterwards I was electrified to feel a pair
of soft lips meet mine, a sensation which was repeated at frequent
intervals, and, as I whispered in her ear, under these conditions I was
prepared to be taken prisoner into the jaws of hell.

This pleasant journey had lasted for about three-quarters of an hour
when my mask was removed and I was informed that I was "inside the
enemy lines!" Through the windows of the car I could dimly see that an
apparently endless mass of fir trees were rushing past on each side.
This state of affairs continued for a kilometre or so, when we branched
to the right and soon entered a large clearing in the forest, at one
side of which stood the house. Babette, Zoe and myself entered the
building, and the car disappeared, presumably back to Bruges.

The house, built of logs, was of two stories; on the ground floor were
two living rooms, and the domains of Babette, who amongst her other
accomplishments turned out to be not only a most capable valet, but a
first-class cook. On the second story there were two large rooms. The
whole house was furnished after the manner of a hunting lodge, with
stags' heads on the walls, and skins on the floors. In the drawing-room
there was a piano and a few etchings of the wild boar by Schaffein.

I dressed for dinner in my "smoking," though under ordinary
circumstances I should have considered this rather formal, but I was
glad I did, for she appeared in full evening _tenue_. She wore a violet
gown, and across her forehead a black satin bandeau with a Z in
diamonds upon it. It must have cost two thousand marks, and I wondered
with a dull kind of jealousy whether the Colonel had given it to her.

I cannot remember of what we talked during dinner. We have a hundred
subjects in common, and we look at so many aspects of the world through
the same pair of eyes; I only know that when I have been talking to her
for a period--there is no exact measurement of time for me when I am
with her--I leave her presence feeling "completed." I feel that a sort
of gap within my being has been filled, that a spiritual hunger has
been satisfied, that I have got something which I wanted, but for which
I could not have formulated the desire in words. I had resolved that on
this first night I would bring matters between us to a head and end
this delicious but intolerable uncertainty as to how we stood; yet,
when old Babette had served us with coffee in the drawing-room, as I
call the second living-room, and we were alone together, I could not
bring up the subject. Partly because I think she prevented me so doing
by that skilful shepherding of the conversation into other paths with
an artfulness with which God endows all women, and also partly because
I could not screw myself up to the pitch. I could not, or rather would
not, put my fate to the touch. I had a presentiment that in reaching
for the summit I might fall from the slope. Alas! how true was this
foreboding in some senses--but I will keep all things in their right
order.

[Illustration: "_The track met our ram_."]

[Illustration: In the flash I caught a glimpse of his conning tower]

Let it only be recorded that when she kissed me good-night (with the
tenderness of a mother) and left me to smoke a final cigar I had said
nothing, and I could only wonder at the strange fate that had placed me
practically alone with a girl whom I had grown to love with a deep
emotion, and who appeared to love me, yet often behaved as if I was her
brother.

The next day we were like two children. The snow was deep on the
ground, and the fir trees stood like thousands of sentinels in grey
uniform round the clearing. Once during the afternoon, as with Zoe's
assistance I was furiously chopping wood for the fire, a droning noise
made me look up, and thousands of metres overhead a small squadron of
aeroplanes, evidently bound for the Western Front, sailed slowly across
the sky. I thought how awkward it would be for them if they experienced
an engine failure whilst over the forest, though they were up so high
that I imagine they could have glided ten kilometres, and as I think
(but I am not certain, and I have pledged myself not to try and find
out) we were in the Forest of Montellan, which is barely fifteen
kilometres broad, I suppose they could have fallen clear of the trees.

As a matter of fact I imagine they would have used our clearing--I'm
glad they didn't.

That night after dinner she played to me, first Beethoven and then
Chopin. I can see her as I write; she had just finished the 14th
Prelude and, resting her chin on her hand, she smiled mysteriously at
me.

The hour had come, and, driven by strong impulses, I spoke. I told her
that I loved her as I had never thought that a man could love a woman;
I told her that I longed to shield her and protect her, and above all
things to remove her from the clutches of that bestial Colonel, and as
I bent over her and felt my senses swim in the subtleties of her
perfume, I begged her passionately to say the word that would give me
the right to fight the world on her behalf.

When I had finished she was silent for a long while, and I can remember
distinctly that I wondered whether she could hear the thump! thump!
thump! of my heart, which to my agitated mind seemed to beat with the
strength of a hammer.

At length she spoke; two words came slowly from her lips:

"I cannot."

I was not discouraged. I could see, I could feel, that a tremendous
struggle was raging, the outward signs of which were concealed by her
averted head.

At length I asked her point-blank whether she loved me. Her silence
gave me my answer, and I took her unresisting body into my arms and
kissed her to distraction. Oh! these kisses, how bitter they seem to me
now, and yet how I long to hold her once again. For, freeing herself
from my embrace and speaking almost mechanically, she said:

"Karl! I must tell you. I cannot marry you."

I pleaded, I prayed, I argued, I demanded. It was in vain; I always
came up against the immovable "I cannot."

And then I crashed over the precipice towards whose edge I had been
blindly going. I had said for the hundredth time, "But you know you
love me," when with a sob she abandoned all reserve, and, flinging her
arms round my neck, implored me to take her. Then, as I caught my
breath, she quickly said, as if frightened that she had gone too far,
"But I cannot marry you."

I looked down into those beautiful eyes, and for the first time I
understood. For perhaps ten seconds I battled for my soul and the
purity of our love; then, tearing my sight from those eyes which would
lure an archangel to destruction, I was once more master of my body. As
my resolution grew, I hated her for doing this thing that had wrecked
in an instant the hopes of months, the ideals on which I had begun to
build afresh my life.

She felt the change, and left me.

As she went out by the door she gave me one last look, a look in which
love struggled with shame, a look which no man has ever earned the
right to receive from any woman.

But I was as a statue of marble, dazed by this calamity.

As the door closed upon her, I started forward--it was too late.

Had she waited another instant--but there, I write of what has happened
and not what might have been.

I did not sleep that night, until the dawn began to separate each fir
tree from the black mass of the forest. Twice in the night, with shame
I confess it, I opened my door and looked down the little passage-way;
and twice I closed the door and threw myself upon my bed in an agony of
torment. It was ten o'clock when a knock at the door aroused me, and
the sunlight through the window-pane was tracing patterns on the floor.

There was a note on the breakfast table, but before I opened it I knew
that, save for Babette, I was alone in the house.

The note was brief, unaddressed and unsigned. I have it here before me;
I have meant to tear it up but I cannot. It is a weakness to keep it,
but I have lost so much in the last few days, that I will not grudge
myself some small relic of what has been. The note says:

"I am leaving for Bruges at half-past eight, when the car was ordered
to fetch us back. I go alone. Babette will give you breakfast. The car
will return for you at eleven o'clock. I rely on your honour in that
you will not observe where you have been. Come to me when you want
me--till then, farewell."

It was as she said, and I honourably acceded to her request. This
afternoon just before lunch I arrived in Bruges, and since tea-time I
have tried to write down what has happened since I left the day before
yesterday. Oh! how could she do it, how can it be possible that she is
a woman like that? I could have sworn that she was not like this--and
yet how can I account for her life with the Colonel? There must be some
reason, but in Heaven's name, what?

Meanwhile I am to go to her when I want her! And that will be when I
can give her my name. But oh! Zoe, I want you now, so badly, oh! so
badly!

* * * * *

I saw her once to-day in the gardens, walking by herself.

* * * * *

I have told Max's secretary that I want to get to sea; to be here in
Bruges and not to see her is more than I can bear.

I sail at dawn to-morrow. Shall I see her? No, it is best not.

A frightful noise over the New Year celebrations to-night. Champagne
flowing like water in the Mess. I feel the year 1917 opens badly for
me.

Weissman also went to sea again for a short trip in the Channel, and
has not reported for five days. Perhaps he has despised the Dover
Barrage once too often. If this is so, it is a great loss to the
service: he was a man of iron resolution in underwater attack.

I feel I ought to despise Zoe, but I can't. I love her too much; after
all, am I not perhaps encasing myself in the robe of a Pharisee?

She offered me all she had, save only the one thing I asked, without
which I will take nothing. I cannot reconcile her behaviour with her
character; why can't she trust me? why can't she be frank with me? I
will not believe she is that sort.

I feel I cannot go out again without a _sign_--I may not return, and I
will not leave her, perhaps for ever, with this bitterness between us.

* * * * *

At sea in U.C.47 again. Alten as surly as ever.

I decided finally to write to Zoe, but found it difficult to know what
to say. Eventually I said more than I had intended. I told her frankly
that I experienced a shock, but that I had not meant to seem so cold,
and that what I had done had been done for both our sakes. I told her
that I still loved her, and I implored her once more to leave the
Colonel and come to me as my wife.

Already I long to know what message awaits me on my return.

This will not be for three days. We left at dawn this morning to lay
mines off the channel to Harwich harbour; a nest from which submarines,
cruisers and destroyers buzz in and out like wasps. It will be ticklish
work.

_On the bottom_.

Our mines are still with us, but so are our lives, which is something.

We were approaching the appointed spot at 6 a.m. this morning, when
without the slightest warning the track of a torpedo was seen streaking
towards us about 50 yards on the starboard bow.

Before Alten (who was on the bridge with me) could do more than press
the diving alarm, the track met our ram. I breathed again, and was then
reminded by an oath from Alten that the boat was diving.

It was evident that we had only been saved by the torpedo running deep
under the cut-away part of our bow, otherwise!--well, the tangle of my
affairs would have been easily straightened.

Further procedure on the surface was suicidal, and we kept hydrophone
patrol, twice hearing the motors of the enemy submarine. At the moment
we are on the bottom waiting to come up and charge to-night, and lay
our mines at dawn to-morrow.

* * * * *

On the bottom in 28 metres and feeling none too comfortable, as there
would appear to be about a dozen destroyers overhead.

Last night, or rather early this morning, I participated in one of the
most extraordinary incidents that I have ever heard of.

It was pitch-black dark when I took over at 4 a.m., and a fresh breeze
had raised a lumpy sea, which covered the bridge with spray. We were
charging 400 amps on each, with the intention of laying one mine
directly there was sufficient light to get a fix from some of the buoys
which the English stick down all over the place here in the most
convenient manner possible. If only one could believe they never
shifted them. Alten says it never occurs to an Englishman to do a thing
like that, but I'm not so sure. However, we were proceeding along at
about five knots, crashing into the sea rather badly, when out of the
black beastliness of the night I saw a shape close aboard on the port
hand.

As I hesitated for a second as to my course of action, I was astounded
to see a large submarine which must have been British, on an opposite
course, not more than 25 metres away!

This sounds absurd, but it really wasn't further. I'm not ashamed to
confess that I was completely disorganized; it did not seem possible
that the enemy was literally alongside me.

I don't know how it struck the officer in the British boat, but I must
give him credit for doing something first, for he fired a Very's white
light straight at me as the two boats passed. It impinged on the hull,
and in the flash I caught a photographic glimpse of his conning tower,
on which was painted the letter E, followed by two numbers, of which
one was a two I think, and the other a nine.

By this time he was on my port quarter and rapidly disappearing; in a
frenzy of rage I managed to get my revolver out, and whilst with the
left hand I pressed the diving alarm, with the right hand I emptied the
magazine in his direction. When we were down, Alten practically
refused to believe me, which made me very pleased that in descending I
had trod on a pair of hands which turned out to be his, as he had
started up the ladder to the upper conning tower when he first heard
the alarm.

I presume our opponent dived as well, but evidently he had put two and
two together and used his aerial at some period, for when at dawn we
poked a periscope up, a flotilla of destroyers appeared to be looking
for something, which "something" was us, unless I am much mistaken; so
we bottomed, where we have been ever since. The Hydroplane Operator
keeps up a monotonous sing-song to the effect that "Fast running
propellers are either receding or approaching." The crew are collected
round the mine-tubes as I write, and are singing a lugubrious song, the
refrain of which runs:

"Death for the Fatherland! Glorious fate,
This is the end that we gladly await."

Why will the seamen always become morbid when possible? And there is
not a man amongst them who is not inwardly thinking of some beer-hall
in Bruges, though I suppose that like their betters they have their
romances of a tenderer kind.

* * * * *

The boat has been rolling about on the bottom in the most sickening
manner the whole afternoon. We flooded P and Q to capacity, which gave
her 50 tons negative, but it seems to have little effect in steadying
her, and it is evident that a really heavy gale is running on top.

* * * * *

Surfaced at 10 p.m.; a very heavy sea running and impossible to do much
more than heave to. This weather has one point in its favour and that
is that the destroyers are driven in.

It got steadily worse all night, and at midnight we lost our foremost
wireless mast overboard; we have now (10 a.m.) been 48 hours without
communication. At dawn we could see nothing to fix by; not a buoy in
sight, nothing but an expanse of foam-topped short steep waves of dirty
neutral-tinted water; how different to the great green and white surges
of the broad Atlantic.

Under these circumstances Alten decided to risk it and return without
laying our mines; for once in a way I agreed with him, as it is better
not to lay a minefield at all than dump one down in some unknown
position which one may have to traverse oneself in the course of a
month or so. We are now slowly, very slowly, struggling back to
Zeebrugge.

A green sea came down the conning tower to-day, and everything in the
boat is damp and smelly and beastly. The propellers race at frequent
intervals and the whole boat shudders--I feel miserable.

Alten has started to drink spirits; he began as soon as we decided to
go back. He will be incapable by to-night, and it means that I shall
have to take her in.

What hell this is, sitting in sodden clothes, with the stench of four
days' living assaulting the nostrils, and a motion of the devil; the
glass is very low and is slowly rising, so that I suppose it will blow
harder soon, though it is about force eight at present.

I wonder what Zoe will have written in reply to my note. When I think
of what I rejected and compare it with my beast-like existence here, I
can hardly believe that I behaved as I did--what would I not give now
to be transported back to the forest! At this rate of progress we shall
take another 24 hours. I wonder if I can knock another half-knot out of
her without smashing her up.

* * * * *

The extraordinarily violent motion has upset the _Anschutz_. [1] The
bearing cone of the stabilizing gyro has cracked, and the master
compass began to wander off in circles. I was just resting for an hour
or two, wedged up on a wet settee with coats equally wet, when her
heavy pitching changed to a wallowing roll, and I heard the pilot, who
was on watch, cursing down the voice-pipe, as we had sagged off our
course.

[Footnote 1: Gyroscopic compass.--ETIENNE.]

I heard the voice of the helmsman querulously maintain that he was
steering his course by _Anschutz_, so I got up and gingerly clawed my
way into the control room, where I found by comparing _Anschutz_ with
magnetic that the former had gone to hell, the reason being obvious, as
the stabilizer was exerting a strongly biased torque. I stopped the
_Anschutz_ and asked the pilot to give the helmsman a steady by
magnetic.

As we staggered back to our course I heard a thud in the wardroom, and
on returning to my settee found that Alten had rolled out of his bunk,
where he was lying in a drunken stupor, and that he was face downwards,
sprawling on the deck, half his face in the broken half of a dirty dish
which had fallen off the table whilst I was having tea. As I couldn't
let the crew see him like this, I was obliged to struggle and get him
back into his bunk. He was like a log and absolutely incapable of
rendering me any assistance, though he did open his eyes and mutter
once or twice as I lifted him up, trunk first and then his legs. He
stank of spirits and I hated touching him. Lord! what a truly hoggish
man he is; yet I cannot help envying him his oblivion to these
surroundings.

* * * * *

Arrived in, this afternoon.

Alten quite slept off his drink, and was offensively sarcastic as I
worked on the forepart with wires, getting her into the shelters
alongside the mole.

I hastened up to Bruges, and in the Mess heard several items of news
and found two letters. The first, in a well-known handwriting, I opened
eagerly, but received a chill of disappointment when I read its single
line.

"I am here when you want me.--Z."

So she thinks to break my resolution!

No! I am stronger than she, and, now that I know she loves me, I can
and will bend her to my will. Even now, at this distance of time, I can
hardly understand my conduct the other day. I must have been given the
strength of ten. I feel that I could not do it again; had she hesitated
a second longer at the door--well, I can hardly say what I would have
done.

It is my duty to do so, for her sake and my own. But I know my
weakness, and in this fact lies my strength. Cost what it may, I shall
not permit myself to go near her until she yields.

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