A Twist of Sand

My mind reeled. When I thought of the ordinary things which surrounded Trout, the need for intensive training and engineering skills in her operation compared with these dreadful weapons, I could have wept.

"The U-boat which I really fear is the one I want to tell you about," he said.

Fear and terror take many forms. All my life I have been used to associating them with violence, actions, events, turbulent emotions. But that calm, didactic voice speaking of fear as if he had been discussing the merits of a long-dead Greek play struck a chord of horror in my heart which I have seldom known before or since. And I am not a man easily frightened; death had been near to me too many times for me to shudder at the thought of a sudden rending of flesh, or suffocation by salt water.

A hush fell over the room. Both men, unconsciously, gave full drama to the pause. I remember the incidental noises still -- the faint hoot of 9 car, and the muted drone of a squadron of high-flying bombers overhead. Neither moved. The one was lost in the technical problem, the other pondering his next words to put it plainly to a seafaring man. And why, in God's name, send for me in the Mediterranean to tell me all this ? This was stuff for the Cabinet and the Prime Minister, and certainly not for very many others less elevated.

"Air and speed," he said, and there was a note of tiredness in his voice which heightened my feeling of fear. Fear of something gigantic, unknown, prescient of the thing that was to warp my whole future.

"Even the German High Command won't believe that they have, in fact, solved it -- absolutely."

"Absolutely?" I said stupidly.

He almost drew his schoolmaster's gown about him. "Blohm and Voss have their assembly yard at Wesermunde," he said without expression in his voice. "One of their top engineers there is a man called Werner. He designed a U-boat which can do twenty-two knots under water, is silent, and doesn't need to come to the surface. She can fire acoustic torpedoes from about fifty metres almost parallel to a convoy, and she will outrun the ordinary escort group ships in the North Atlantic -- submerged. Only a destroyer is faster."

"Impossible," I said.

"Thank God, that is what the German High Command also say -- still. But Werner is a man of parts. He is not only a practical engineer with the greatest appreciation of what is needed; he is also somewhat -- more than somewhat, if I might interpose Runyon in this conversation -- of a scientist. Do you know anything about nuclear physics ?"

For the only time the cold mask behind the desk relaxed. "Give him a chance, George."

"Not only from Werner's little goings-on, but a lot else which I won't burden you with, I believe that the Germans have solved the problem of propulsion -- whether by sea or in the air -- by what I call, if I may coin the phrase, nuclear propulsion. I suppose only a handful of men in this or any other country have heard of using the energy generated in splitting atoms for propulsion. It is enormous. And Werner has designed an engine using steam and nuclear power. He shoved it into a U-boat, a huge U-boat of about three thousand tons. The atomic radiation needs a lot of shielding. It's so revolutionary and so in advance of anything we or anyone else have ever thought, that the German High Command simply doesn't believe it. But don't think Blohm and Voss don't. To prove their point, they have built -- a lot of it at their own expense -- an experimental U-boat with these fantastic abilities. The High Command still thought it a crackpot idea, fraught with all kinds of difficulties and dangers -- as well it might. But Blohm and Voss prevailed to the extent that they persuaded the High Command to let NP I -- nuclear propulsion Number I -- go operational on the longest route in the world, with Hans Tutte" -- he smiled

"you'll have heard of him -- in command. NP I has all the answers, as our American friends would say."

The fear and foreboding which those grim words sent down my spine grew when the man behind the desk got up and crossed to a huge wall map.

He jabbed his finger at a spot in the South Atlantic; "On 29th November the Dunedin Star, carrying tanks and war supplies to the Middle East, reported a mysterious underwater occurrence. Her captain beached her here on the coast of South West Africa. Total loss. Hell of a to-do about the passengers. The South African Air Force did some fine, if damn foolhardy things to try and get them out. Overland expeditions, drama in the desert and all that. But all I am interested in is -- was it NP I which sank her? I have the details of the attack here. Nothing -- except a muffled crash which tore a huge hole in her. No sign of an attacker. I think NP I sank the Dunedin Star. That was over three months ago."