Free Thunder In The Deep (02) by Joe Buff Page A

walk again and wondered if his Navy career was over forever, his fiancée dumped him.
    Jeffrey held his head in his hands, mask and all. Dear God, he had soul-searching to do. His job was to protect his crew.
    Finally, Jeffrey put his highly classified orders back in the envelope, and took a deep breath. He unplugged the mask's connector hose; the compressed air made its usual pop. Jeffrey took the envelope to the CACC. He decided to
    hold an impromptu mission briefing right there, within the limits of security. First, though, he owed his XO a heartfelt thank-you, and his people a sincere public apology. If they ever got through this new mission, they'd get through it together. SIMULTANEOUSLY,
    ABOARD DEUTSCHLAND.
    ON ANTICONVOY PATROL, SOUTHWEST OF ENGLAND
    "I hate this war," Ernst Beck said. He looked at the pile of papers on the fold-down desk in his cabin and then at the man sitting opposite him.
    Oberbootsmann Jakob Coomans was a seasoned noncommissioned officer. He was Deutschland's chief of the boat. At age forty-one the oldest man aboard, he hailed from Hamburg, that great port on the North Sea facing England. Coomans's build was slight, but he ruled the ship's enlisted ranks by the force of his personality and the sharpness of his tongue.
    Beck sighed. "I never thought when I signed up that someday I'd sit in a German nuclear submarine, censoring crewmen's letters home, in the middle of tactical nuclear war at sea."
    Coomans's eyes sparkled. "A war against our own NATO allies. A war we started."
    "You always had a strong sense of the ridiculous, Chief." "Or the grotesque, sir."
    "Be careful," Beck said. But he smiled. "Someone might think you disapprove of the new regime."
    "Crew morale is good," Coomans said. "The first batch of letters after leave, you expect some homesickness. That's when the men's fears and regrets show most, in their words to wives and lovers."
    "Wives and lovers?"
    "Very funny, sir."
    "But no, I agree. Their spirits seem high. They are high. Good morale is hard to fake, living cheek-by-jowl as we do." Beck had pictured each of the men as he read their letters: a name, a face, a distinct personality, each with his hopes and concerns, his strengths and foibles. Most of the hundred-plus crewmen Beck knew well, from their secret fast-attack sub training in Russia, and Deutschland's notso-secret construction at Emden. Then came the quiet practicing under the ice cap, the ultraquiet snooping off U. S. and British naval bases . . .
    "And why wouldn't their spirits be high?" Coomans said. "In the Great War our forefathers took fifty percent losses in-the U-boats. In Hitler's war, it was eighty percent killed in action. Now our little Class two-twelves amount to suicide machines, but there's still no end of volunteers."
    "And how will it all end this time?" Beck said. "How many dead? Widows? Orphans?
    Grieving parents and girlfriends?"
    "You know what Bismarck said."
    "Remind me, Chief."
    "There are two things you never want to see get made: politics and sausage."
    "So?"
    "I'll paraphrase our soldier-statesman thusly: There's a third thing you don't want to see being made: empire." "I never knew you were such a philosopher."
    "Yes, you did, sir. That's why we're such great friends."
    "I thought we were friends 'cause neither of us has anyone else we can talk to on this boat." In public, Beck and Coomans had to mirror their captain's detached interpersonal style.
    "Don't be such a cynic, sir. You might hurt my feelings."
    "That's bloody unlikely."
    Coomans chuckled. "But you do see what I mean. Consider the Brits in their heyday. Killing wars over the centuries on almost every continent. The Boers haven't forgotten."
    "But South Africa was on the British side in World War Two."
    "Because they didn't like getting swallowed by Hitler's juggernaut. So this time we offer the Boers their own fair share of empire. At the right price every nation's soul is for sale. Empires come and go. Right now we have a