“The stern compartments tight!”
“The engine room all safe!”
Then the boat unexpectedly began to list. The bow sunk, and the stern arose. The ship careened violently, although the diving rudder was set hard against this.
“Herr Captain,” Gröning, who was in charge of the diving rudder, shouted, “something has happened. The boat does not obey the rudder. We must have gotten hooked into some trap—a line or maybe a net. It’s hell. That’s all that’s needed. We are jammed into some net, and all around us the mines are lining it. It’s enough to set you crazy.”
“Listen,” I called down. “We must go through it. Put the diving rudder down hard! Both engines full speed ahead! On no condition must we rise! We must stay down at all costs. All around above us are mines!”
The engines were going at top speed. The boat shot upwards and then bent down, ripped into the net, jerked, pulled and tore and tore until the steel net gave way from the force of the attack.
“Hurrah! We are through it! The boat obeys her diving rudder!” Gröning called out from below. “The U-202 goes on her way!”
“Down, keep her down all the time. Dive to a depth of fifty meters,” I commanded. “This is a horrible place—a real hell!”
I bent forward and put my head into my hands. It was rocking as if being hit by a trip hammer. My forehead ached as if pricked with needles and my ears buzzed so that I had to press my fingers into them.
“It’s a horrible place,” I repeated to myself. “And what luck we had, what a peculiar chance and wonderful escape that we got out at all!”