He, Erhardt Ritter, had fled into the coffin of a U-boat and felt his soul expand until it pressed against the clammy steel walls. As captain, he had sent at least a thousand sailors to their death without warning. He was a smiling sea monster. Remorse is a casualty in war equal to the number of innocent humans that die. The more that he sent to the cold bottom of the ocean the less he cared.
Mass murder is easy, so long as it s truly massive.
He had reached the point where he would move his U-boat as close to the sinking ship as possible, risking extreme danger and the lives of his crew to watch the ship fall into the darkness through the periscope, listening through the sonar microphone to the screams of drowning metal and the mad flight of air to the surface. He looked back into the motionless surface of his now half empty glass of champagne. Tiny bubbles slipped up the inside of the glass, under the cover of the golden drink. Ritter rolled the glass between his thumb and finger, causing more air to escape from it s liquid grave. Perhaps I ve had too much, he thought.