The Last Command [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEThe circle of red-painted buoys had been moored into position with meticulous precision. And bobbing gently on the surface of the cold grey water they stood out like bright spots of fresh blood on an ancient shroud.The misty half-light of the February afternoon had drainedi ;every element of colour from the dismal scene. Sea, land, and'sky had all merged together to form a single, featureless mono-itone that faded indistinctly into the bleak mudflats of the.Stollhammer Watt guarding the right flank of Jade Bay and the seaward approach to Wilhelmshaven. Even the gulls swooping!low over the huddle of small boats anchored inside the buoyed area mirrored the drabness of the atmosphere, and their normally shrill cries echoed mournfully like a muted lament for the dead.With the temperature hovering around zero and a chill north wind sweeping down from the Kattegat it was the sort of day when sensible landsmen remained indoors around a blazing fire.Bergman shivered, hunched himself deeper into the upturned collar of his Kriegsmarine greatcoat, and wondered why> the hell he was bothering to supervise the job in person. He knew nothing about salvage operations - he left that to the experts. But submarine salvage could be a tricky matter and, as I the local flotilla commander, the Korvettenkapitän considered , it his duty to be on the spot, so that his specialised knowledge was available to the experts if they needed it. Bergman accepted that the demands of duty took precedence over his own personal comforts.After more than four years of gruelling combat service with! jGermany's U-boat flotillas there was little he did not know ^ , about underwater warfare or the vessels that lived and fought'in the dark demi-world beneath the surface. But commanding a| ^U-boat on operational patrols had very little to do with the task'I''IIrl