Catherine joined him on the deck. She couldn't quite believe it. The previous afternoon they were sitting in a Mayfair cafe surrounded by MI5 men and now, miraculously, they were about to step onto the deck of a U-boat and sail away. Six long, painfully lonely years--over at last. She never believed she would see this day. Never really dared imagine it. The emotion of the moment overtook her. She let out a joyous, childlike scream and, like Neumann, turned her face to the rain, waving her arms at the U-boat.
The steel nose of the submarine nudged against the prow of the Camilla. A boarding party scrambled down the U-boat's deck toward them. She put her arms around Neumann and held him very tightly.
"We did it," she said. "We made it. We're going home."
Harry Dalton, standing in the wheelhouse of the Rebecca, described the scene to Vicary in Grimsby. Vicary, in turn, described it to Arthur Braithwaite in the Submarine Tracking Room.
"Dammit, Commander! Where's that corvette?"
"She's right there. She just can't see because of the weather."
"Well, tell her captain to do something! My men are powerless to stop them."
"What should I instruct the captain to do?"
"Fire on the boat and kill those spies."
"Major Vicary, may I remind you there is an innocent girl on board."
"God help me for saying this, but I'm afraid we can't be concerned about her at a time like this, Commander Braithwaite. Order the captain of that corvette to hit the Camilla with everything he has."
"Understood."
Vicary set down the telephone, thinking, God, but I've become a perfect bastard.
The wind tore a momentary hole through the curtain of rain and fog. The captain of corvette 745, standing on the bridge, spotted U-509 and the Camilla one hundred and fifty yards off his bow. Through his glasses he could see two people standing on the foredeck of the Camilla and a rescue party on the deck of the German submarine. He immediately gave the order to fire. Seconds later the corvette's machine guns opened up.
Neumann heard the shots. The first rounds sailed overhead. The second burst clattered against the side of the U-boat. The rescue party fell flat on the deck to avoid the fire as the rounds moved from the U-boat to the Camilla. There was nowhere on the foredeck of the fishing boat to take cover. The gunfire found Catherine. Her body was instantly shredded, her head exploding in a flash of blood and brain.
Neumann scrambled forward and tried to reach the U-boat. The first round that hit him cut off his leg at the knee. He screamed and crawled forward. A second round hit, severing his spine. He felt nothing. The last shot hit him in the head, and there was darkness.
Max Hoffman, watching from the conning tower, ordered his first officer to engage the diesel engines full and dive as quickly as possible. Within a matter of seconds, U-509 was racing away from the scene. Two minutes later it submerged beneath the surface of the North Sea and was gone.
The Camilla, alone on the sea, her decks awash with blood, foundered.
The mood aboard the Rebecca was euphoric. The four men embraced as they watched the U-boat turn and steam away. Harry Dalton raised Vicary and told him the news. Vicary made two calls, the first to the Submarine Tracking Room to thank Arthur Braithwaite, the second to Sir Basil Boothby to tell him that it was finally over.
Jenny Colville felt the Camilla shudder. She had fallen flat on her stomach and covered her head with her hands. The shooting stopped as suddenly as it started. She was too terrified to move. The boat pitched about wildly. She guessed it had something to do with the dead motor. With no engine to push the boat forward, it was defenseless against the onslaught of the sea. She had to get on her feet and get outside and signal the other boats that she was there and she was alive.
She willed herself to stand, was immediately knocked down by the bucking of the boat, then stood again. Climbing the companionway was nearly impossible. Finally, she reached the deck. The wind was tremendous. The rain slashed sideways. The boat seemed to be going several directions at once: up and down, back and forth, and rolling from side to side. Standing was impossible. She looked toward the prow and saw the bodies. They hadn't just been shot to death. They had been mangled, torn to bits, by the gunfire. The decks ran pink with all the blood. Jenny retched and looked away. She saw the U-boat, diving in the distance, disappearing below the surface of the sea. On the other side of the boat she saw a warship, gray, not too large, coming toward her. A second boat--the one she had seen through the porthole earlier--was approaching fast.
She waved and yelled and started to cry. She wanted to tell them that she had done it. She was the one who disabled the motor so the boat stopped and the spies couldn't make it to the U-boat. She was filled with an enormous, fierce pride.