The Prize Rules

*****

Ullmann is operating from a dark place in his heart these days. Yet he is aware of it and how it might affect his treatment of his crew, so he tries very hard to temper things and stay focused on building a team effort as they get to know each other and assimilate a few new crewmembers at the same time.

Still, it's a place where he'd just rather not be, if he had a say in it, and of course, he does not.

Eden is finding herself less pleased with her boss as he gives her another assignment. And Ullmann finally comes to know what all of the pre-war preparation in the Caribbean was about.

0_o

*****

The next year and a bit was a happy time for Ilka and Hans-Joachim. Even though there was no escaping the constant reminders that their country was at war, it was a little minimised and hidden from view, living as they did on the northern shore. The place was not exactly a hive of wartime activity and bustle, though one could often see ships of the Kriegsmarine as they steamed past.

Their honeymoon was only slightly abbreviated due to the effects of wartime. Following that, Ilka began to work once more, her agency loving her idea and as they pushed it to their clients, her marketability soared and there was even a little fame for her in it, though she was quick to temper that when she spoke of it.

"It does not matter to me so much," she told Anneliese one evening at dinner, "Once it would have very much, but not now anymore. I am happy like this and I think that I can carry on for a long time – so one day, I will be the face on packages of support stockings, I suppose."

They laughed over it and Ilka said, "So long as I can earn some money, I don't care at all. I have my husband and his wonderful family. I have my daughter and ... " She leaned over in a conspiratorial way, "we have begun to talk of having another child very soon."

Anneliese smiled and then she hinted that she'd met someone herself lately in the crazy wartime world which they lived in. Ilka was intrigued at once and demanded to hear all of the details because she could see that Anneliese was happy and hopeful. She'd learned her own bitter wartime lessons and she knew how her sister-in-law had been shattered by her loss a couple of years before. Anneliese was not the only one with a child and a dead husband.

As they spent the evening together, Anneliese showed Ilka the box of letters, now quite full and looking a little stuffed. "I wanted to mention this to my brother several times now, but he comes so seldom that I have always forgotten them, just happy to see him again. I think that they were written by a past sweetheart of his. I haven't opened a single one in all of this time.

First, the return addresses and stamps showed that they came from England, of all places and then, after a short delay, they began again, but from Trinidad. I had to look in a book to remind myself where it was. I learned about it in school, but who carries that in their heads forever?

The name sounds Chinese, I think, and they still come, but only rarely now, maybe one in three or four months. I don't really know what to do with them."

"Let's ask Hans-Joachim the next time that he comes," Ilka said, "I think that I might know something about them, since he told me about her once, but it is up to him what he wishes to do about them. I would never take that away from him."

And with that, the letters were forgotten once more and, while no one was thinking about them at all ... they stopped coming.

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1941

As his time as a command trainee was coming to an end, Ullmann was promoted to the rank of Kapitänleutnant and he knew that his own time of command approached.

As a general thing, a Kapitänleutnant was at about the level of a British or American Lieutenant, though there was much more responsibility heaped on the shoulders of someone of the rank in the Kriegsmarine. It was the third-lowest officer's rank there, but in fact it was a little closer to a lieutenant commander in the Allied navies. A Kapitänleutnant could and often did command a smaller ship, such as a submarine.

As much as the German language sought to lump words together in order to be specific, 'Kapitänleutnant' could be a mouthful in the heat of action and so there was a bit of a tacit abbreviation used, and a Kapitänleutnant was addressed as 'Herr Kaleun' – pronounced as "Kah-loyn". It simplified things.

Hans-Joachim transferred to the 2nd U-boat flotilla out of the base at Lorient in occupied France and he served on U-66 for three of her nine combat patrols. She was one of the newer Type IX-Cs. From the moment that he saw her, he knew the reason for the posting to this type. He remembered his interview in Berlin long ago.

Most of his classmates and contemporaries found themselves aboard Type XII U-boats, known as the Workhorses of the Wolfpacks.

U-66 was a different breed, a Type IX - made for sustained operations and long patrols where there were most often no available home support facilities. As such, they were a little roomier and more comfortable to live on than the Type VIIs, since wherever you went in one; you were likely going to be there for a while.

His first patrol on U-66 was from Kiel in Germany to Lorient in France by way of the waters off the northern coast of Britain. It marked his move to take up more active command duties in that area of operations. He was now a first officer and second only to the commander.

His next war patrol took him to the Cape Verde islands where U-66 sank four merchantmen in about two weeks.

His third patrol in U-66 saw them off the coast of north-eastern South America and it was mostly uneventful, but on the way back to Lorient from that ...

Ullmann was called to his commanding officer's desk and told of his new routing and orders. He was transferring to 10th U-Boat Flotilla as soon as they got back.

He knew these things sometimes went to a plan which might be seen, and then he also knew that sometimes they made so apparent sense at all, so ...

"Is there a reason?" He asked and his commander smiled.

"Well yes Ullman. It is a matter of timing. You need to be there so that you do not miss the arrival of U-161 there, since that will be your boat after you take command from her present boss. It's not a long walk – only a few pens over, but see that you get there for New Year's Day, since it could be a little embarrassing if you get there late."

As it turned out, U-161 was the late one, arriving on the third. Ullmann wasted no time in getting to know his boat and her crew. As soon as he could, he planned to take the long train ride to see his wife and daughter. But it all came to a crashing halt for him one day a week later and his happiness left him once more.

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He'd just made port and after slipping U-161 into her pen and getting her squared away, he almost ran to his shore quarters to shave off the beard that he'd begun to grow while at sea. Fresh water for a good hot shave was seen as a waste - even for the boat commander and besides, a beard also provided a bit of warmth while it was there for the times spent topside in the cold wind and spray.

He'd just gotten shaved and was about done with his shower when there was an urgent knock on the door. Hans-Joachim answered it with a towel wrapped around his waist and he was handed a transcript of a telephone message which almost knocked him down to read.

Ilka had been killed in an air raid while she was being driven home the evening before in a cab as they left the railway station.

His lovely Ilka; his dearest friend and his equal in many things was dead ...

He was a changed man as he walked away from her grave after the burial. All that he had was the tiny little hand in his as he carried the crying child. Just starting to talk a little and she was all that was left of two people close to him. Helping little Katryn while she was upset over missing her mother and not being able to comprehend why she was not there with her seemed to be the only thing which kept him a little sane for a few days.

He came to a few realisations from it.

Their time together had only been a respite and not a way of life for him.

Not for him. Aside from little Katryn, he was meant to be alone forever. He'd just never seen it that way before.

How many men ever get the chances that he'd been handed? He took every opportunity that was given to him to be Katryn's father, straining a little to burn all of the memories of his precious time with her into his mind.

Because he knew the way that it would go now.

He knew that there was no way out of his dark pit alive.

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The timing for it couldn't have been worse, but his sister remembered the box of letters at last and handed it to him.

He looked up and she said only, "I kept forgetting the few times when you came home to visit and then you were so busy with Katryn and ..."

She didn't finish her sentence, beginning to cry again herself.

He nodded and set the box aside. "I suppose that I'll read them at sea when there is nothing else – if I don't just throw them away.

By the return address, I can see that she made it home, so at least that is something."

He sighed and it left him sounding very ragged, "At least she is living in a place that is far away from this stupid madness. I haven't thought of her much in a couple of years now. I hope that she is married and raising her children by now. It wasn't what she wanted back then, but it makes more sense than to be at war."

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1945 The Caribbean Sea

The little girl was lying on her side in her mother's arms as she cried and cried.

The woman wept as well to feel her heart torn open again. The initial learning of the truth had been bad enough, just to think of it from Hans-Joachim's side and how he must have felt.

Now she felt it again through the racking shudders of her little girl, now that she knew of the fates of her parents.

Mòlì had spoken of it as gently as she could, once the girl asked the question about whether the man they waited for really was her father.

The facts were received with little more than a small nod. But there was still something there, the woman decided as a little time went by and she prepared herself, knowing the girl as she did by then.

From little Katryn's point of view, even as she cried, she wondered about it. She had no memory of her mother - and she had trouble remembering her father, and yet ...

"I think it's that you finally have your answer to something which you carried in you for a long time. Things like that in the heart of one as young as you, I think they become mountains then."

When Katryn finally wound down a little, the woman heard the statement, though it was spoken by a heartbroken little girl who did not look up and spoke it into her sodden pillow and even wondered a little why it hurt her to know, "My father is dead. The man ..."

The woman leaned her head down and kissed the girl's shoulder for a moment, "If the world was a perfect one, Katryn, then you would be with your mother and your father and you would not know me. Hans-Joachim would probably be your favorite uncle – the kind who always brings gifts to make a Sunday dinner feel like Christmas to a little girl.

The man who loves you and is far away was the best friend of your father since they were boys together. Your father made Hans-Joachim promise to help look after you if he died, because his baby was so little and he knew that his wife would need help.

Hans-Joachim Ullmann gave you his family name and anything that he could. He loved your mother and it might have come about by accident, but it happened anyway.

He loved you and he loves you still. You are not his daughter by your birth, but he loves you as his own."

She stroked Katryn's back and kissed the side of her head, "And I love you."

The girl repeated the same three words, but it came out in the halting, sobbing way of upset young children. She meant the words; she just couldn't say anything smoothly then. The woman laid her head down next to Katryn's as she spoke quietly.

"I am not the mother who gave you life. I am only the woman who loves you as my daughter. I have loved you from my first sight of you. I knew most of the story even before I came to get you. I saw the way that you peeked at me and I looked at you every time – because I couldn't do anything else but look at you."

She sighed then and she kissed Katryn's head, "I think I loved you even before that.

Hans-Joachim lost his heart to you before you were over your colic as he held you in his arms the night that he saw you for the first time.

The man we wait for was all that you had left in the world. There is no one of Friedl Eindorf's family left alive. Their home was knocked flat by a bomb even before he died himself.

The world is not perfect but you have a family, Katryn. It is only taking far too long to gather the three of us together, that's all."

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1942, not quite the middle Atlantic.

By now, it was January, 1942 and more than four and a half years had elapsed from the time that Ullmann had last laid eyes on Eden Chang.

Her many letters to him were forgotten for a time as he tried to balance the struggle of his grief against the constant demands made of him as a war vessel commander.

He eventually read all of Eden's letters, forcing himself through the first few, which documented her sadness at their parting. He almost threw them away at that point, not wanting to read things like that while he felt incapable of much of any feeling other than his cold pain.

He certainly didn't want the reminders of his last pain, though they felt more like distant echoes to him now.

But by the dates of the postmarks, once she'd gotten to England, he found that more and more, Eden's letters detailed things about her stay there and they became very interesting to him. He finally found a binder for them and he placed them there.

He doubted that he'd know her anymore – even if they met somehow, but he came to enjoy reading the letters and the way in which she documented her changes from a nineteen year-old's point of view and onward. The strangest thing to him was the way that reading them comforted him in a very real way.

He felt like some warrior out of the old times, one who had been and still was victorious at what he did.

But he gained no comfort from it – as though that warrior had no place to come home to anymore and was forced to wander.

The notion was absurd to him in the light of his present life and he knew that. It was just the way that he felt inside, that was all. Reading Eden's letters didn't do a thing for his heart and the tragic load that he carried. But they did make him smile as he remembered her and they also made him ache in the nicest way to hold little Katryn once more.

And THAT gave him what he needed to go on. It was a small and quiet flame deep within his breast, but it was enough.

He'd come a long way and he'd been many places, but to him, it was all just the business of being an empty shell who was going through the motions of being alive. Outwardly, he'd found a way to become detached in a way.

His crew didn't need a Kaleun who was a prick because he was miserable.

He took his new command out into the Atlantic for an abbreviated war patrol to test them and to force himself to think of other things, though he expected to find little in the way of prey, since this close in, the majority of the convoys were well-protected by patrolling aircraft and were normally all routed a lot farther northward. This was to test the fit between his men and himself. They needed to become a more cohesive unit if he was going to keep them all alive, the way that he saw things going.

Other than the training opportunity, it looked as though it was going to be a wash. They hadn't even been given a full load-out of torpedoes, since it hadn't been a planned patrol. He had little more than enough to reload his forward tubes more than once. If he got the chance, he'd take one of the aft ones and have it moved forward. Tail shots were rare things anyway. It would be a lot of sweat to do out on the open sea, but working men are easier to keep happy than idle ones.

He'd just asked permission to take them out for a short cruise so that they learned of each other and his request had been granted so long as he didn't engage in a convoy hunt if one came up with his lack of supplies. It had surprised him when really; he'd have expected that the request would have been declined. He wondered about that, but not too hard. The thinking of upper officers was obtuse enough to try to comprehend at the best of times.

It wasn't until sometime afterward that he thought that he could understand it and the insight had come to him after learning just what they had up their sleeves for him.

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He walked into the control room early the next morning to relieve the night watch. They'd been on the surface for a few hours, running on diesels to recharge their batteries when the watch officer advised him of a dark shape on the horizon which did not appear to be moving. He climbed up and looked for a time with his own binoculars.

"Clear the bridge up here and get us down to 100 meters," Ullmann said, "Once we're under give me both motors ahead one third."

U-161 slid under the gentle swells and Ullmann then checked with the radioman, who also operated their hydrophone array when they were running submerged.

An hour later, he asked for the electric motors to be stopped and he looked at the radioman expectantly.

"No active contacts, Herr Kaleun," he said, "Nothing. I hear only waves slapping against something ahead, less than two kilometers by my guess."

Hans-Joachim nodded and then turned his head, "Bring us to periscope depth please"

When he heard later that they were at the ordered depth, he nodded, "Up periscope."

As he looked around, he saw a rusted old, burned-out derelict out there, just an old freighter hulk which now floated listlessly along as it spent its days being a wandering hazard to navigation. It just hadn't found a beach to wash up on yet.

He spent a little time thinking as he gave commands at intervals so that they circled the thing , keeping a kilometer distance and scanning the sky for aircraft with the sky periscope which was there for the purpose. He ordered a turn away at two thirds speed and waited a little while before he ordered a turn back toward it at one third. A few minutes later, he spoke to his first officer.

"Here's a chance for us to see what kind of gun crew we've got, Weisenkopf.

We'll surface and go to flank speed right at that old can," he said, "As soon as we're up, I want you and the gun crew on deck shooting at that thing as quickly as you can. Be ready to climb back in because I won't give you any warning first. I'll just call you in.

Practice is what keeps you sharp and it won`t allow the moss to grow. Hammer that thing and have a little fun for a few minutes until I order you and your boys back inside. I`ll be diving and turning to starboard in a gentle turn, so make sure that nobody falls off, alright?"

It went off as it was supposed to, with the boat accelerating to flank speed on it's electric motors until Hans-Joachim ordered them to the surface and they switched to the diesels.

U-161 almost jumped through the waves to its flank speed of 18+ knots as the deck gun crew ran along the wet and slippery deck plates to man the 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval gun. Within a minute that gun was firing, booming out shell after shell and scoring hits as Ullmann watched through his binoculars.

He called them back and ordered the boat down again, turning the conn over to Weisenkopf then. "Bring us around to the other side of that wreck and come to a stop about a kilometer away and bow on."