Maybe a prelude to a longer posting, not sure, this just came to me in a dream.
The submarine was old & tight, she had the continuous odor of diesel permeating every surface, from clothing to the thin sheets on bunks. She was well used, a left over from the last world war, a pigboat of German design & construction but she did her job then and still was doing a job now.
She could not run very deep when she was new, but for what jobs she did now she was well suited. Most often she ran on the surface, charging her batteries in case she was needed below the waves. She cruised the world’s oceans using her few torpedo’s to save the whales, or the seals or whatever Blue World Peace requested of her.
Her crew this trip, a motley group of biologists, oceanographers & old seamen, knowing full well what could happen to them if they were caught by the international authorities. But they loved what they did, saving those that could not save themselves.
The Japanese still hunted for whales & dolphins, and seals were still killed each year at a harvest in the northern America’s. The whaling ships were first warned with a dud torpedo bouncing off their hulls, then a fully operational weapon would be launched to sink the ship. Those that worked on the ships went to their lifeboats & made their escape before the ship sank, or at least so hoped the captain of the dilapidated submarine. For killing the crew would not be the right way to complete his mission.
The captain was a hard man, but with a jovial side to him when ashore. He was at one time a U-Boat commander, this boat being the one he ended the war with and kept for his own amusement. The BWP hired him for his expertise and paid for the upkeep, fuel, weaponry & on-going repair of the old boat. He was quite proud of her record since the war. So many whalers lost their boats while keeping their lives.
The peacetime Navies of the world were “supposed” to sink her on site, but they chose not to complete their missions, leaving the boat to struggle on, plying the ocean surface. The sub was doing a job that they were unable to do themselves, though they all wished they could.
Who is to say what actually goes on beyond in international waters when it comes to saving the lives of the natural inhabitants of the oceans? A lot goes on out there that we never hear about. As you didn't state the year when this might have occurred, it is feasible to believe that the "old codger" could have been involved in saving the ocean's wildlife some years ago in the past. Because of his wartime experience, he would also most likely know exactly where to punch a hole in a ship in order to sink it slowly in order to give the mariners time to get into their life rafts, thereby refrain from taking human life in the process of saving the lives of the whales and etc. We like to think someone is of like mind to stop the senseless killing of our world's wild kingdom! Your next installment could be about how this captain procured the old retired sub, and the incident that cemented his desire to save the ocean's innocent.
You've put a lot of punch within this short story, which I must say was well written. I hope you do go forward with this short story. You have an excellent start, so keep writing!
I like how you introduced the ship, I could almost feel like she had a personality. And all of this is certainly an interesting idea, a war machine being used to protect rather than destroy. I like it :)
That was quite a dream! Although a bit preposterous that a former U-boat captain would still be able to operate the boat and be able to acquire it for himself in the first place.
Perhaps you could say that he and his crew, when they saw the end of the war coming, surrendered to Argentina and then he signed on with the Argentina Navy to run the boat for a while until it was retired to go to the scrap yard. Then, he bought the boat at the scrap auction for pennies on the dollar and kept it running all those years until BWP hired him in 1975.
"There will be blood." Torpedoing ships does result in death. I don't think the lethal option is an option. World opinion favors humans over whales when it comes to death.
It's good to see you writing again. And writing stories of the sea that you love so much.
