this dark water: a trawler. a u-boat. a war.

March 1915.
The Great War has raged for seven months.
No one believes it will last much longer-not old Skipper Williams of the Hull trawler the Kestrel, and not Captain Joseph Krieger of the German U-boat the SM U-19.

Williams is far too old to be at sea. The Admiralty has requisitioned most of the fishing fleet, and any able-bodied man has joined up for the war effort, so the skipper is left with a misfit crew. The Humber Steam Trawling Company has offered him a lot of money to fill his fishroom, and that’s what he’ll do-to hell with this war.

The SM U-19 has just enough fuel to get back to base at Wilhelmshaven. They’ve hammered the diesel engines and sent five enemy vessels to the bottom of the sea already. Krieger and his men have been crammed inside the U-boat for nearly a month. They’re homesick, filthy, and hungry, but they can’t go home yet-not with one torpedo left to fire.