A U-boat wolfpack attacks the convoy at night in a sequence of glimpses, reports, and abrupt reversals: a surfaced enemy is sighted, Keeling races to intercept, and the ship’s own convoy comes close to obstructing and firing upon its defender. Krause’s response depends not on a single weapon or observation but on maintaining attention across a strained ship and a disordered formation. The attack ends this episode with depth charges and the explosion of a burning ship, while the enemy’s movements and the rescue work continue beyond the immediate encounter.

Readiness and the First Warning

Keeling’s readiness is carefully limited rather than absolute. Earlier, Carling stands by the lever for the general alarm, but Krause declines to call the ship to General Quarters. Bringing every man to battle stations would halt ordinary work, interrupt sleep and meals, and leave the ship’s routine maintenance undone. Such a state could not be sustained for long; battle reserve had to be preserved for the moment it was needed. Keeling is already in Condition Two, which keeps battle stations largely manned and watertight integrity in force, but strains the crew and interferes with routine. Krause also knows that repeatedly demanding exceptional effort without an evident reason can make men slacken. Readiness, in his view, means managing human limits as well as equipment.

The ship’s lookout system illustrates the attention the threat requires. Seven lookouts sweep their assigned sectors, pausing to wipe spray from their binoculars. A U-boat may expose only a small part of its periscope and do so briefly; a momentary sighting, or the report of torpedo wakes, could matter to the convoy’s survival. Elsewhere, the sonar watch reveals a different vulnerability: Tom Ellis, a trained operator, has spent months listening to pings without hearing an echo from a submarine since his hurried training exercises. The narrative stresses that recognizing an echo and interpreting it promptly are learned skills, not automatic consequences of having the equipment. The search depends on people able to turn faint signals into action.

The immediate alarm comes while Krause has been inattentive for three minutes. A report of gunfire on the port bow sends him to the T.B.S., where two British escorts are exchanging terse reports: one has the contact on its screen, and another is preparing star-shell. The light suddenly opens the darkness. It silhouettes the leading vessel of the convoy’s starboard column and illuminates the sea; Krause understands that a surfaced U-boat is between the screen and the convoy, charging in. Keeling, which had not been in the battle at that instant, is drawn back into it.

The Interception and Its Obstruction

Krause warns the other escort that Keeling is turning across the convoy’s bows. A further report places the submarine on a bearing ahead, with the bearing and range changing as it crosses Keeling’s path toward the merchant ships. In the star-shell’s light, Krause sees its grey shape less than two miles off Keeling’s starboard bow. The sighting converts an uncertain report into a direct interception: the destroyer is moving across the enemy’s route, and its guns open fire before the U-boat has, in Krause’s judgment, recognized Keeling’s presence.

The firing does not settle the encounter. The U-boat alters course directly toward the convoy, while Keeling’s own movement is suddenly constrained by a ship far ahead of its station. The leading vessel of a column lies across the destroyer’s bows, at least a cable’s length out of position. Krause orders hard rudder to port; Keeling swings sharply at speed, and those in the pilothouse struggle to keep their balance. The interception is no longer a clean run at the target: the convoy formation itself has become an obstacle that the escort must avoid while remaining between the enemy and the ships.

Confusion Inside the Convoy

After Keeling steadies, the brief lull lasts only seconds. A rocket rises on the starboard side; machine-gun fire follows, and a great sheet of flame leaps from a ship in the neighboring lane. An explosion shakes the pilothouse. The U-boat Keeling had nearly intercepted has reached that lane and is attacking there. At the same time, fire from the convoy sweeps across the front of Keeling’s pilothouse. A ship in the last position of its column has opened up with a .50-caliber machine gun, unable in the darkness and confusion to distinguish a destroyer from a U-boat. Its rounds smash the glass just above Krause. The first bullets to endanger him in battle come from a supposed ally, not the enemy.

Krause asks whether anyone is hurt but does not wait for an answer. The moment leaves no room for reflection: the hostile submarine is still active, the burning ship is in danger, and Keeling has to continue its work despite the damage and confusion. The scene makes the convoy’s vulnerability more complicated than the simple opposition between escort and attacker. The ships that must be protected can obstruct an interception, and darkness can turn defensive fire against the very escort trying to protect them.

The Depth-Charge Attack and Its Immediate Aftermath

Krause believes he has seen the U-boat ahead, though a wave soon hides it; he cannot be certain whether it has dived or whether the sighting has vanished from view. He orders a medium depth-charge pattern and a sonar search. As Keeling heads toward the burning vessel, the depth charges thunder behind the destroyer. The ship grows larger and brighter, but the flames prevent Krause from identifying it. Then a tremendous flash and explosion are followed by darkness and silence in the pilothouse. The sequence gives no confirmed identity for the burning ship or the U-boat’s fate; what it establishes is the violence of the ship’s destruction and the sudden sensory pause that follows it.

A report of a ship ahead identifies Cadena as the vessel doing rescue work. Cadena is passing close to Keeling’s port bow and, after having returned to its place in the convoy, must drop back again for this new mission. Rescue thus enters the attack not as a separate episode but as part of its continuing consequence: while Keeling hunts and attacks, another ship must turn toward those in danger. The account leaves the rescue’s result unstated here, keeping attention on the convoy’s repeated shift from formation to emergency response.

Endurance as Part of the Fight

The attack also tests how long a crew can remain ready. Later, after Krause has been in contact with the enemy through the day, he directs that there will be no routine General Quarters call during the watch; if the alarm sounds, it will be for a real emergency, and the watch below may have four full hours unless circumstances change. The decision reflects the cost of maintaining Condition Two. New weapons and instruments, together with the extra men needed to operate them, have crowded Keeling, while the number of trained ratings is insufficient to furnish three Condition Two watches. Krause has therefore divided the ship’s company into four sections and arranged watch-and-watch service; even the officers’ four-hours-on, eight-hours-off routine is a reason not to interrupt rest without need.

That management is part of the event’s meaning, not an escape from it. Lookouts must sustain a methodical search; sonar operators must recognize what they have never encountered in real combat; reports must reach the bridge quickly; and Krause must choose when to demand the whole ship’s effort. The night attack turns each of those requirements into a practical test. Its danger comes not only from the surfaced U-boat but from fleeting visibility, a convoy ship out of station, mistaken friendly fire, and the finite endurance of the people trying to respond.