"Up conning tower hatch, you!" he grated out. "And if we aren't on the surface, it's going to be just as tough for you as for the rest of us. So—"
Dave chopped off the rest, swung his Luger in a short arc and squeezed the trigger. A bull-necked Nazi sailor charging through a door behind the commander took the bullet smack in the chest and fell down in a heap. A gun he had half raised bounced when it hit the steel deck, and went skidding away. Dawson swung his eyes back to the senior officer, who was now having all kinds of difficulty keeping his knees from buckling.
"Catch on?" Dawson snapped. "I never kid, stupid, when I make a promise. And I made one to you. Remember? Okay! Up with that conning tower hatch!"
The Nazi could only bob his head up and down violently. Then the words poured off his lips like raging flood waters going over a broken dam.
"I do not lie, Herr Captain!" he gasped out. "We are on the surface. Yes, yes! It is so. I would be a fool to drown us all by ordering the hatch to be opened while we are still below the surface. I would be mad to do that. I do not wish to die—that way!"
"Well, there are other ways, if you don't snap it up!" the Yank reminded him with a significant gesture of the Luger. "So step on it, my little Nazi tramp. Step on it!"
The U-boat commander did just that, but during the few seconds it took to issue orders and get the hatch open Dawson's heart stood still, and he held his breath clamped in his lungs. After all, there was just a wild chance that the commander did have a little stiffness in his backbone! However, the man had had more than enough. And like all of his type, when it came to the matter of his own life, he could change from a blustering, arrogant hireling of Hitler to a cringing, sniveling whimperer in practically nothing flat.
And so he did just as he was ordered, and presently the conning tower hatch was opened, and clean, fresh ocean air was pouring down inside to cut the thick, heavy U-boat stench.
"Stop daydreaming, pal!" Dawson snapped, as Freddy Farmer made no move toward the companion ladder. "Get up there and do your stuff, in case somebody has already sighted us. I sure don't want to be kissed now by any made-in-England depth bomb. Scram!"
"You go, Dave," the English youth argued. "You've earned a smell of fresh air. I'll watch these blasted Jerries."