Naval Officer

“Sir I just picked up on an underwater vessel 2 clicks away”. “Sh*t” I mumble to myself. Ok listen up you useless bunch of homesick idiots, I don’t want to hear another sound, we have a German sub right below us”. As soon as I shout this the cabin process to chaos. The boys have been through a lot and I know that but it’s not over yet. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!” I scream silence follows, “that’s better, John cut the engines, Steve turn off all power, I don’t want to see a single light on! Somebody round up everyone on deck and bring them inside. And make sure they don’t bloody move!” I suddenly have a massive sense of deja vu where I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago back in the Philippines. I shake my head in fear of the memory, no point focusing on the past right now. By now all the lights are off and the engine has stopped its familiar hum. I look into the faces of my crew and all I see is scared, tired boys. We got unlucky and a Japanese fleet surprised us, we were one of the only crews that had survived. But it hadn’t been a complete success, I lost almost half of my crew some of my best officers to the savage Japanese cannons. And now only 6 days later on our way back home we get the message that the Germans have released a new set of submerines. The entire day the crew and I were on edge waiting for the rhythmic whining of the torpedo alarms to go off. We finally made it to nightfall but I knew this would be one hella tough night. I wasn’t wrong, on a few hours later I hear the soul-crushing news. I go walk up behind the sargent that had seen the sub. I quietly watch the dot on the screen move ever closer to us. Fear churns in my stomach, surely they would’ve seen us by now I think to myself.