He wasn’t likely to find an American liner in the North Sea. This was a war zone by anybody’s standards. British and French troops still hung on against the Germans in northern Norway. The only thing that could supply them or get them out of there was the Royal Navy. U-boats and Luftwaffe aircraft were making the Tommies pay. That didn’t mean they’d given up, though. They were both brave and professional, as Lemp had reason to know.
In weather like this, the Luftwaffe was no more likely to get planes off the ground than the RAF was. If anybody was going to keep enemy ships from slipping through, it was the U-boat force.
Down this far south, Lemp didn’t really expect to spy the foe. But he and the ratings on the conning tower braved awful weather and spray that froze in midair and stung cheeks like birdshot to keep binoculars moving up and down and from side to side. For one thing, the crew needed the routine. For another, as Lemp had thought not long before, you never could tell.
No planes in the sky now, though: neither English nor German. No smoke smudges darkening the horizon, not even when waves lifted the U-30 to their crests and let the lookouts see farther than they could otherwise. After a two-hour stint, Lemp and the crew went below, to be replaced by fresh watchers. You didn’t dare let concentration flag; the moment you weren’t paying close attention was bound to be the one when you most needed it.
This early in the patrol, the boat’s stench wasn’t so bad as it would get later on. Lemp wrinkled his nose all the same. But the reek inside the iron tube was familiar and comforting, no matter how nasty. And the dim orange light in there also made him feel at home, even if his eyes needed a few seconds to adjust to the gloom.