The Prize Rules Ch. 07

He was exhausted now, his back hurt from trying to lift Eden up enough to get her into the lifeboat over three attempts in the face of the wall of flames which had been advancing on them, but he wasn't paying the pain much mind just yet.

He was a little amazed to still be breathing to be rather honest about things.

He heard sounds - or rather, he'd noticed them as well as a sudden shadow over him. Looking up, he saw a few faces there on the deck of the U-Boat which had sunk them. Looking up brought his gaze to the base of the conning tower and from there, he looked higher to see several men looking down at him from the bridge.

At that point, it became known that Gerry was not alone in the lifeboat. One of them turned away after a moment, looking as though he had duties to attend to and he began issuing orders to some of the others. Most of them looked like the ones on the deck near him, but there was one who looked different.

That one stood regarding him and Eden in the lifeboat for a moment. Gerry found himself in the man's piercing gaze though the feeling was not particularly unpleasant and after a moment, the man nodded subtly and looked away to also begin giving orders to some others.

From his vantage point at the top of the tower, Hans-Joachim noted that there was another person in the lifeboat lying prone, facing away. It was the uniform which caught his eye first off. He didn't recognize it, which was not the reason that it caught his eye. It was that he knew that the cutter was American in origin, so he expected to see naval uniforms. The person down there wore a khaki uniform, but the colour was wrong as well as the cut.

The he noticed that the person appeared to be - or could be female. He saw what had to be a substantial head of hair, though it was either tied or pinned up.

"You there!" he called out and Gerry looked straight up, surprised to hear words that he understood.

"American, yes? The one there with you, that is not an American uniform."

Gerry nodded, clearly astounded, "No uh, sir. She's not American."

The man tilted his head for a moment, "Alive or ...?"

"She's unconscious sir," Gerry said, "She hit her head on the lifeboat stanchion."

The man nodded and began giving orders again.

Looking round, Gerry found that he couldn't really read the expressions on the faces that he saw around him. There were a few smiles and he supposed at first that they were on those faces because here was one of their enemies, obviously defeated. He revised his view somewhat when one of them climbed down into the lifeboat and began to give him pantomimed suggestions of climbing out with hopeful concern written all over him.

Gerry just shrugged and pointed to Eden. Eden's features caused as much of a stir among the German sailors as her gender did.

They lifted her up together and carefully passed her to others on the deck of the sub. Gerry was guided across to the U-boat and he followed as Eden was eased through a deck hatch. For a few seconds, Gerry looked back at the old cutter just before he went below. It was sailing on even as it sank and by then, it was aflame over almost all of it's length.

He heard someone say a phrase in a bit of a laughing tone and he wondered if it had been an insult. The phrase was repeated a few times by others, but there were no really hard expressions on any of them from what he could tell.

They all just seemed to be a jolly bunch somehow as they said the same phrase to other crewmen that they passed as they went.

Then again, he thought, their ship was still working and wasn't sunk so they had a reason to be jolly.