Sink the Bismarck!

by C. S. Forester

  “Here’s something that looks important, sir. About the Bismarck.”

  “Well?”

  “It’s about four days old, sir; but from our contact in Gdynia dockyard, and it had to come through Switzerland and Portugal.”

  “I didn’t know you had a contact in Gdynia dockyard.”

  “The fewer people who know that the better, sir. We don’t hear from him often—he daren’t risk getting into touch too often, as you can guess, sir. But he’s good—he’s never failed us yet.”

  “What does he say?”

  “He says Bismarck’s going to try to break out into the Atlantic, sir. He says he’s quite positive about it. Got his information from the admiral, from Lutjens himself.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I’d be surprised if it were, sir.”

  “You say this fellow’s good?”

  “One of the best we’ve got, sir. He’s never let us down so far.”

  “Not easy to believe.”

  “I’d bet money on him, sir.”

  “Maybe. But now you’re betting your job and any credit you have in the Navy. And I might point out that it’s not only your job that depends on this. It’s victory or defeat—the safety of this country. Now what do you say?”

  There was only a momentary hesitation before the reply came.

  “I’d go ahead, sir. I think this fellow’s got something.”

  “Very well.” The admiral picked up the telephone. “Get me the Chief of Staff, Flagship Home Fleet.”

  As he waited for the connection to be made his eye roamed over the chart he had been looking at earlier in the day.

  “Maybe your information’s as good as you say, But that doesn’t make it any less than a thousand miles of sea to guard—it hasn’t grown any narrower since this morning.”

  There was a telephone wire running north from the Admiralty, running for five hundred miles overland to the extreme north of Scotland, dipping down into the stormy Pentland Firth, winding its way to Scapa Flow, climbing up to a buoy there, and extending from there to the Fleet flagship as she rode to the buoy in the Flow. It ascended into the ship and down again to the switchboard below water. The seaman operating the switchboard there saw the glow of the light, heard who was calling ashore, and plugged in. Meanwhile the admiral had been passing time with a comment or two.

  “I’m not going to give orders—I’m not even going to offer advice. The Commander in Chief knows his business as well as I do, and he knows his subordinates better. It’ll be up to him. I’ll give him this extra information for what it’s worth. I don’t worry him much. There’s a direct line between him and me—leakproof, spyproof, ideal for confidential chats—and yet I don’t use it.”

  The telephone rang sharply and he picked it up.

  “Chief of Staff? Here’s a scrap of additional information come in from Intelligence. This Lutjens fellow in the Bismarck apparently told someone before he sailed that he was destined for the Atlantic…. Yes, it sounds like it, doesn’t it, but the rear admiral swears it’s true. It’s worth bearing in mind—I’ll send you the details in writing tonight. The Commander in Chief can act as he thinks proper…. Yes, you’ve just comfortable time to cover the Denmark Strait…. I quite agree…. Very well. Good-by.”

  He put down the telephone and addressed himself to the rear admiral again.

  “With the weather closed down like this, Bismarck’ll probably move at once, to take advantage of it. If she does better than 25 knots Tovey will have to act this minute, or she’ll be through Denmark Strait and the fox will be among the chickens.”

  “If she takes that route, sir.”

  “Yes.” The admiral’s pencil wandered over the chart. “There are plenty of other routes, and Tovey has to guard them all. He’ll probably cover the other exits himself and send Hood and Prince of Wales on ahead.”

  “An old lady and a little boy, sir,” said the rear admiral.

  “The old lady ought to be a fighting termagant. And the little boy may have grown up by now, let’s hope. There’s nothing else to spare, anyway. Between them, this ought to stop him.”

  “A bandit with a bludgeon,” said the rear admiral.

  They walked back into the War Room, and stood among the bustle and busy-ness. Telephones rang and messages dropped down tubes. A WREN officer approached the chart and made an alteration to it in the neighborhood of Scapa. The admiral looked at it.

  “They’re off,” he said.

  In the utter misty darkness of Scapa Flow, signal lamps began to flicker, calling and answering. There was a clatter of boots on still decks. A squawking of telephones in the darkness. A voice into a speaking tube…

  “Captain, sir, signal from the flag—”

  Down below on the mess decks the loud-speaker shrilled with the noise of the pipe of the bosun’s mate. “Call the port watch. Cable party muster on the forecastle in ten minutes. Call the watch.” The immense mess deck was packed fullof hammocks slung at every possible point, out of which men began to slide sleepily.

  “What’s the flap about?” asked someone.

  “Just call up the admiral and ask him,” said someone else. “I’ve got to go and get that anchor up.”

  “Hope it keeps fine for you,” said another. The man he was addressing was putting on sea boots and reaching for his oilskins, among the tremendous jam of belongings packed everywhere, illustrating the extreme of crowding in which the men lived.

  “What are you dressing up for, Nobby?” asked someone. “Didn’t your invite say evening dress optional?”

  “’E thinks ’e’s on the sunny Riviera,” said another.

  Nobby was now in sea boots and oilskins.

  “Make way for a man who’s got a man’s work to do,” he said, pushing through the crowd. He went clattering forward through the vast ship, along alleyways and up ladders, with methodical bustle all round him. He emerged from the bright lights onto the forecastle; in the darkness there, other oilskins gleamed faintly. Rain was driving across the forecastle, and a wind was persistently wailing as they went about their business of weighing anchor.

  Down in a dark cabin a telephone squawked, and although a light was instantly turned on it squawked again before the tousled man in the bunk reached for it.

  “Commander E.”

  “Steam in ten minutes, sir,” squawked the telephone.

  “Right. I’m coming,” said the engineer commander, plunging out of bed and reaching for his uniform.

  It was an exact repetition of what was going on in the Bismarck at that very moment; the clocks in the two brightly lit engine rooms exactly coincided, at twenty minutes past midnight. The capstan turned, the cable came in link by link, the messages passed back and forth, the valves were opened to admit steam to the turbines, the propellers began to revolve in the dark water, and the ship, with signals still flashing from her shaded lamps, began slowly to move out of Scapa Flow through the outer submarine defenses. It might have been the Bismarck all over again, except that the faint light illuminated her name, Hood, upon her stern. So at the same moment the two ships set out, Bismarck reaching far into the north to pass round Iceland, Hood, with Prince of Wales following her, plowing along on a more southerly course to intercept Bismarck in Denmark Strait if she were heading that way. And the moment Prince of Wales left the sheltered waters of the Flow, the storm awaited her. Up rose her bows and then down again, up and down, as the spray flew in great sheets aft to the bridge.

  Bismarck was meeting the same conditions, or worse; she was plowing over mountains of icy gray water, lifting and heaving. Moreover, now she was at sea, and at sea every man’s hand was against her; there was no chance of her meeting a friend, and there was every chance of her meeting an enemy. Admiral Lutjens and Captain Lindemann were discussing this very point over cigars in the captain’s sea cabin immediately under the bridge, which was heaving and swaying with the ship’s motion.

  “But as far as the enemy knows, sir,” said Lindemann, �
�we are still in Grimstad Fiord. They have no certain knowledge that we are at sea; and if they had, they’d have no means of guessing what course we’re steering.”

  “My dear Lindemann, look at the other side of the matter. The sea is theirs, all theirs—we are furtive trespassers. Let’s face it. That’s what we are, at present, even if we are destined to reverse that state of affairs in a few more months. How can you be sure that a British ship of war won’t appear under our bows at any moment—now, this minute, or in five minutes’ time?”

  “Our Intelligence—”

  “Our Intelligence makes mistakes, and you know it, Captain. What’s the visibility? Two miles? More like one mile. Our radar’s unsure. We’d have no warning before we were under fire. We must be ready at any moment to blow any enemy out of the water before he has the chance to inflict any injury on us.”

  “But we’re going to be at sea a long time, sir. After a few days the men will be worn out.”

  “After a few days we may be able to relax. Meanwhile my order stands. Every man at his station. Half of them can sleep, but let no man leave his post.”

  “Very well, Admiral.”

  So that was the situation in the Bismarck. In the crowded turrets, down in the shellrooms and handling rooms, in the engine rooms and boiler rooms, the whole ship’s complement was present. Half the men attended to their duty; the other half rested how and where they could. Lucky ones could lie down, often curling themselves, perforce, round projections in the decks. Others sat leaning against bulkheads, swaying with the motion of the ship, and being jerked back into wakefulness by an unexpected heave.

  “It is part of the price we pay for not being masters of the sea, Captain,” said Lutjens. “We can remember that, when the time comes when England asks for peace.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Lindemannn. To change the subject he asked a question into a voice-pipe and listened to the answer, which he relayed to Lutjens. “Visibility considerably less than one mile, Admiral.”

  Even stronger words were being used in the Admiralty, where an officer was reporting to the admiral.

  “Visibility absolutely nil, sir. Not a hope of seeing anything in Grimstad Fiord.”

  “M’m,” said the admiral. “She was sighted at one P.M. yesterday. Now it’s”—he looked at clock and calendar—“twelve noon today. Twenty-three hours. What’s her ‘farthest on’?”

  The officer swung his dividers in a wide arc centering on Grimstad.

  “That’s it, sir. At 25 knots. Say six hundred miles. She could be anywhere within that circle.”

  Map 3

  “She could be anywhere within that circle.”

  “Or she could still be in Grimstad while we make fools of ourselves. Ask Coastal Command to try again.”

  “Aye aye, sir. There’s some of the Fleet Air Arm at Hatston”—the officer indicated the position of the airfield near Scapa Flow—“with bags of experience of this sort of thing. They’re bursting to have a go, sir.”

  “Let ’em try. Fix it up with Coastal Command.”

  It was a Maryland bomber which took off from Hatston in the afternoon. It had a perilous flight. The clouds hung low over the sea, and yet to estimate the force of the wind on the plane the pilot had to come down within sight of the waves—within a few feet of them, in fact. They skimmed precariously over the wave-tops before rising again into the clouds. They went on and on, dangerously, until suddenly the coast of Norway was visible close ahead so that they had to turn abruptly to avoid crashing into it. Northwards they flew, along the coast, the low cloud still above them.

  “Grimstad,” said the observer. And Grimstad Fiord was empty.

  “Better have a look at Bergen,” said the observer. They were over Bergen in a few more seconds, close above the housetops, with AA guns firing at them from every angle and shells bursting close about them. But Bergen was empty of ships of war, too. As they tore away the observer wrote out a message—Bismarck NOT IN SIGHT IN GRAMSTAD FIORD OR IN BERGEN—and passed it to the wireless operator, who nodded and applied himself to transmitting the message as the plane flew back homewards through the clouds. It was seven o’clock by the operator’s watch.

  It was 7:15 when the message reached the War Room.

  “So the bird’s flown,” said the admiral. “Thirty hours since the last sighting. What’s their ‘farthest on’ now?”

  The officer drew a much larger arc on the chart.

  “Seven hundred and fifty miles, sir. There it is.”

  “Just as well Hood left last night,” was the admiral’s comment. “Bismarck might be—” He drew with his pencil a series of possible courses for the Bismarck, in each case ending the line at the outer circle. “She might for that matter be—” He drew with his pencil a series of possible courses for the Bismarck, in each case ending the line at the outer circle. “She might for that matter be—HERE, or HERE.” He indicated a course back into the Baltic and then through the Kiel Canal. “In that case we’ll have burned up forty thousand tons of oil for nothing—forty thousand tons? More like sixty thousand—and we’ll have given say twenty thousand men a free trip to sea. That is, if the rest of the Home Fleet leaves Scapa, and it’s beginning to look as if it should.”

  A message clattered down one of the tubes, and a copy of it was handed to him.

  “Yes,” he said, passing it over to his staff. “Tovey thinks the same. He’s going to sea. Plenty of exits to guard against besides Denmark Strait. He’ll have King George V, Repulse, Victorious. Enough to do his business for him, if Bismarck comes his way.”

  It was while the admiral was speaking that the Home Fleet was making preparations to go to sea. And at the same time, Lutjens and Lindemann and various staff officers were gathered in the operations room in Bismarck; on the chart table before them lay a chart of the northern waters with Bismarck’s track up to now marked upon it.

  “I still fail to see the need to go as far as Denmark Strait, sir,” said Lindemann. “The other passages are nearer and far wider. We could turn now.”

  “Visibility’s still bad, sir,” added a staff officer.

  A glance outside showed that this was the truth. Almost nothing could be seen of any horizon, as Bismarck heaved and tossed upon a rough gray sea.

  “There’ll be cruisers patrolling all of the passages,” said another staff officer. “Even if nothing can fly.”

  “The U-boats’ last report gives the ice from Greenland stretching within sixty miles of Iceland,” said another. “Then there are the minefields on the other side. One cruiser can watch a twenty-mile channel even in thick weather.” A message clattered down the tube as they were speaking; a staff officer opened it and handed it to the chief of staff.

  “From Berlin, sir,” announced the latter. “A British reconnaissance plane flew over Grimstad and Bergen at 7:00 P.M. Visibility was temporarily good, and they could undoubtedly see we had left.”

  All eyes looked at the clock and then at the chart. The chief of staff picked up the dividers.

  “They saw us yesterday in Grimstad at one. Thirty hours ago. We left at midnight. For all they know we could be HERE”—two hundred and fifty miles farther along—“or we might only be HERE”—marking a spot a short distance from the Norwegian coast—“while actually we are HERE .”

  “Yes,” said Lutjens, nodding his head over the chart. “No information about British movements?”

  “No, sir. Hard to get information from England. And visibility has been as bad for our planes as for theirs.”

  “I can’t believe the English would move before they got this news,” said Lutjens, tapping the message. “Their Home Fleet was all in British waters by our last information. They’ll start moving now, perhaps. They’ll never reach Denmark Strait in time, but they could intercept us HERE, in the neighborhood of the Faeroes. So it is my order that we head for Denmark Strait. We may meet a cruiser, but we’ll brush her aside.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  H.M.S. S
uffolk and H.M.S. Norfolk were patrolling in Denmark Strait. By the invisible sun it was late afternoon—the westerly sky was already faintly pink in the thin mist. It was an utterly dreary scene. To the west lay the ice, humped and jagged as far as the eye could see. To the east there was fog, impenetrable to the eye. A perpetual cold wind was shrieking along the deck, and the ships were rolling deeply in the heavy swell. The lookouts sat at their posts, the binoculars to their eyes, all round the bridge, sweeping steadily from side to side, and then up and down, turning back and forward in their swivel chairs. Other groups of muffled-up men stood seeking what little shelter there was beside the AA guns; occasional sheets of spray sweeping the decks as the ship put her shoulder into a wave added to their discomfort.

  On the Suffolk, the squeal of the pipe of the bosun’s mate came over the public-address system.

  “Captain speaking. We’ve had some news from home. The German battleship Bismarck is out, with the cruiser Eugen. All we know is that she’s somewhere to the north of Iceland. The weather’s too thick for any plane to spot her. But we can be sure she’s not going to stop where she is. She’ll be coming south. And more likely than not—very much more likely than not—she’ll be coming this way, down Denmark Strait. She’ll be coming at twenty-five knots or more when she comes, too…. It’ll be our job to spot her and report her to the Admiralty. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you that she has fifteen-inch guns and can hit us at fifteen miles. That’s why you’re at action stations, and that’s why the lookouts have been doubled. If any man were not to do his duty he would be imperiling the ship and the lives of all his shipmates. I know you’ll do your duty without that reminder.”

  “Fifteen-inchers! Keep your eyes skinned, Dusty,” one of the men at the AA guns called ot one of the lookouts.

  “And you can try keeping your trap shut,” muttered Dusty, not hesitating for a moment in his eternal swinging backward and forward with binoculars and chair. “If ’e’s there to be seen I’ll see ’im.”