After a while, the resentful voice finally faded from Zhang Hainuo's ears. Zhang Hainuo calmly took a stack of blank stationery from the shelf on the table. Since the submarine entered the Atlantic, he had been setting aside some time every day to write letters to Anna. Sometimes he wrote several pages, and sometimes just a few sentences. He planned to send all the letters together when the submarine returned to port.
But as Zhang Hainuo was about to start writing, footsteps could be heard in the corridor. He had already arranged with Blatz to take the British man up to the deck, throw a lifebuoy into the sea, and let him decide whether to jump or not. If the British man jumped, they would pull him back up later; if not, it meant he was cowardly, and they would bring him back directly.
Seeing the dry British man without a drop of water on him, Zhang Hainuo deliberately asked in a sarcastic tone, "Mr. Lieutenant, have you decided to answer my questions?"
The British man lifted his eyelids, his eyes full of sadness.
"Lieutenant, your behavior is truly disappointing!"
"Disappointing?" Zhang Hainuo's face suddenly darkened. He gave Blatz a look, and the strong man was ready to act, but then he heard the British man respond with surprising speed:
"Claywu Turner, Lieutenant of the Royal Navy, Staff Officer of the British R-class destroyer (Old R-class, Britain built another batch of multipurpose R-class destroyers during World War II), Salmon!"
"Toasting without drinking is a punishment!" Zhang Hainuo muttered disdainfully, while quickly jotting down what the British man said in his notebook.
"Warship serial number!"
After a moment's hesitation, the British officer gave a number: "F.36!"
Zhang Hainuo's keen observation skills were evident at this moment. He wasn't quite sure whether the British man deliberately gave a wrong serial number to mislead the German Navy or if he simply didn't know the corresponding number for that destroyer. If it was the former, it was understandable; if it was the latter, Zhang Hainuo thought, this guy might be hiding secrets he didn't want the Germans to know.
To clarify the truth, he tore off a piece of paper from his notebook, wrote "Salmon F.36" prominently, and added two lines of small text below, then handed the paper to Blatz.
"Have Stolm act according to the note!"
Through the corner of his eye, Zhang Hainuo noticed that the British man was very attentive to his actions.
"Don't worry, Mr. Turner!" after Blatz left, Zhang Hainuo told the British officer, "I just asked my communication officer to send a telegram back to base to verify the ship's name and serial number you mentioned. If there are no issues, our conversation will continue. Otherwise..."
"Rest assured, would I remember the name and serial number of my ship incorrectly?" The British man pretended to be calm.
"Good then!" Zhang Hainuo nodded. "Mr. Turner, I must remind you that the temperature on the sea surface is only 8.5 degrees now. By nightfall, it may drop below 6 degrees. You'll freeze quickly if you stay in the water!"
The British man appeared indifferent on the surface, but Zhang Hainuo still saw a hint of shock in his eyes.
As the night deepened, to withstand the slight chill of the North Atlantic's lingering sea breeze, Zhang Hainuo put on the heavy coat reserved for winter and wrapped a white cotton scarf around his neck.
"KB-type sonar! G-type mines!" Although he had never seen these two things firsthand, from U171's encounter in the northern North Sea, he believed that these two new British equipments posed a significant threat to German submarines!
Klaywu hadn't expected Zhang Hainuo to verify the ship's name and serial number he mentioned, but what he hadn't anticipated even more was that besides the ship's name and number on Zhang Hainuo's paper, there was also:
"Come to my room in half an hour, and say: Base calls, ship name, serial number, and name don't match!"
When Stolm arrived at the captain's cabin on time and said those words, the British man's face turned extremely ugly. Although he wanted to argue, under the dual pressure of Zhang Hainuo's momentum and speech, his psychological defense finally collapsed, and he confessed everything he knew.
It turned out that this guy's name wasn't Claywu Turner, nor was he a staff officer on the Salmon destroyer. He served as a technical supervisor on a converted Rabbit-class destroyer after it was modified for anti-submarine warfare. While technical supervisors didn't wield much authority, they held crucial technical data, which was vital for both sides in the conflict. To conceal his true identity, this Lieutenant Turner intentionally made up the name of another ship, a seemingly cunning idea that Zhang Hainuo found to be clumsy and unattainable.
After organizing the information provided by this British officer, Zhang Hainuo instructed Stolm to transmit it back to submarine headquarters via encrypted telegraph, strongly urging them to verify it as soon as possible and issue warnings to other German submarines.
"Our G-type mines can easily crush submarines at a depth of 25 meters like smashing walnuts!"
Thinking of the British man's description of these mines, Zhang Hainuo felt a chill down his spine. Although these mines couldn't yet precisely determine the depth, their tremendous power was undeniable. If he hadn't ordered the submarine to dive to 35 meters at the beginning of the battle in the northern North Sea and then deepened to 40 meters, they might have become crushed walnuts!
What about the other German submarines? Thinking back to what his instructors said during his submarine specialization training at the Kiel Naval School—15 to 30 meters was the best diving depth—Zhang Hainuo felt extremely worried. Despite the recent success in the naval hunting war, Germany's current submarine numbers were still insufficient to choke off Britain's maritime supply lines. If there were significant losses, the German Navy's submarines would be even more stretched!
Forty-three hours later, U171 finally returned to the familiar Wilhelmshaven Harbor. As soon as the submarine docked, personnel from the Naval Command took away the British technical officer captured on board. They also brought good news: through the analysis and verification of British government loss bulletins and internal intelligence, U171 had sunk a light cruiser, a cargo ship, an oil tanker, damaged two cargo ships, and the Naval Command recorded the achievements as 27,000 tons, making it the second-best performance in German naval history for a single submarine in a single sortie.