Schubert, Paul "Lover's Touch"

A one-page “American short, short story.” The former captain of a famous German ocean liner (the fictitious ATLANTIK), now a U-boat commandant, must make a painful, split second decision when he sees the vessel within the range his periscope. The problem? The ATLANTIK has been in an English port at the outbreak of war and had been taken over by the British government. “Now she was sailing under the ‘red duster,’ the British merchant ensign [and was] and enemy to Germany.” After agonizing, the naval officer sends two torpedoes streaming toward his former command, and is relieved when they miss their target – only to realize a second later that the ATLANTIK has altered course and is running on a course to ram his submarine.

Schubert’s story is interesting for its sympathetic portrayal of the German naval officer. Though the Battle of the Atlantic was raging by the time that the story reached print, the author looks humanely at his chief character. Within a few short months American public sentiment was such that no author could (or would) portray Axis soldiers and sailors in such a favorable light. See also two contemporary works by William Havighurst (“Last Voyage” (1940) and No Homeward Course (1941)) which portray German Second World War maritime officers as people rather than cardboard enemies.