The Final Transcription of Maria Holdershaw

I am writing this in the hopes that it will eventually reach someone, someone able to pass on the knowledge contained within these words. You may assume that these are nothing more than the unhinged scrawl of one who has lost their mind after an extended period of time in isolation, yet I urge you to broaden your judgement in order to accept the impossible events to which I shall impart to you. Yet, in order for you to have any chance of understanding anything that follows I believe it best I reveal a little about what lead to the extraordinary circumstance I find myself entwined with.

My name is Miss Maria Holdershaw, Chief Warrant Officer aboard the HMS Beacon, a light cruiser in service of Her Majesty's Royal Navy. Our crew had been tasked in patrolling the freezing waters of the Norwegian Sea, as far north as Svalbard, in search of wrecked German vessels. For many, the Great War ended in May, this year of 1945. But for many months afterwards, German U Boats still stalked the oceans, either cut off from their communication lines or simply choosing to ignore the orders of their commanding officers. Many speculate that the crew aboard these submarines had secret, darker missions that were not influenced by the military forces in mainland Europe, but were perpetuated by mysterious and obscure leaders, hidden in shadows, delving into the nefarious pits of the occult.

We had had limited success and our divers had managed to recover a small amount of data concerning the Nazi's interest in the ice-cold waters of the north. My role was to assist in the location of key targets, the translation and decryption of any information recovered and any use or relevance it could have. A number of vessels were found to be simply escaping allied forces, pushed north, desperately fleeing in fear for their lives. A life of exile in the frigid tundra's and glaciers was preferable to the threat of execution for war crimes. Others contained information of naval manoeuvres that were deemed classified by the German Navy, although which ultimately became worthless as their forces surrendered after the capture of Berlin.

However, there were also scraps of information that did not seem to tie into any of the usual data one would expect to recover from military vessels. They were heavily encrypted and took weeks to decipher. The confusing texts related to the Nazi's search for a source of energy or power never before identified, which they believe originated somewhere amid the blustering, frigid torrents of the Norwegian Sea. What this energy was or what the enemy intended to do with it remained unknown, but the fact that at least two sunken vessels contained similar reports and notes of a third submarine pursuing the target lead me to believe there may be some importance in this information.

Our target had been identified as a German U boat, U-3516. Official records had shown that the submarine had been scuttled by German forces on May the 4th to prevent the soviets from commandeering the vessel, however, the reports that we had recovered were dated July the 18th. It seemed obvious that the Germans had falsified the existing reports somehow, which raised concerns as to exactly how many U Boats were still at large.

We managed to pick up the trail of the elusive German submarine moving through the Barents Sea, northwards. Our sonar devices picked the craft up moving at tremendous speeds, although it became difficult to track as we encountered huge chunks of ice floating down from the arctic circle, interfering with our instruments. We eventually lost tabs on our prey and began scouring the endless oceans for any traces of it.

I had taken to exploring more of the vessel that had been my home for the previous four months. I primarily spent my time in the map and radar rooms, trawling over the miniscule amounts of data we held onto and translating them into useful pieces of information, guiding the Beacon closer to our target, but it dawned on me that I knew the rest of the ship as well as the surface of moon and now took the liberty to meander through the tight corridors of grey steel, bolted doors and whistling pipes.