Sink the Bismarck!

by C. S. Forester

The cruisers continued to patrol in the icy wind over the heaving sea, between the ice and the fog.

  “There are matelots at ’ome,” said one of the group on deck, “’oo ’ave warm billets. Just think of that. Blokes who’ve forgotten what it’s like to be cold.”

  In the War Room things were comparatively quiet. Only the minimum of messages was coming through; there was no bustle or excitement. The rear admiral was entertaining an air vice marshal, a big beefy man with an Air Force mustache.

  “I don’t doubt you find it the same in the Air Force,” said the rear admiral, “but in the Navy we’re inclined to say it about our war experience in all ranks: Long periods of waiting for something to happen, and then much too much to do all of a sudden. No moderation either way.”

  “Oh yes, yes, yes,” gobbled the air vice marshal. “I suppose we can say the same.”

  “Of course, over there,” said the rear admiral, pointing to another part of the room, “they’re fighting a real war. Never a dull moment for them. All hell has broken loose on Crete. So they’ve gone off on their own with the Eastern Mediterranean and left us to look after the Bismarck and the North Atlantic. And you can see how quiet it is at present.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” gobbled the air vice marshal.

  “If your fellows could only get into the air,” said the rear admiral with a sweep of his hand over the northern part of the chart, “we might not feel the period of waiting so acutely.”

  “Visibility’s still nil there. What’s the situation as far as you know?”

  “Let’s have a chart and I’ll show you,” said the rear admiral.

  The WREN officer came to make a change on the big war map.

  “What’s that?” asked the rear admiral sharply.

  “Just a convoy, sir.”

  “Very well.” The rear admiral had a black crayon in his hand and he began making sweeping lines on the chart with it. “Here are two possible courses for the Bismarck. Perhaps the most likely ones. At her highest practical speed, she’ll be somewhere between HERE and HERE, or between HERE and HERE. That’s the best we can do about her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hood and Prince of Wales sailed from Scapa two nights ago. Forty-three hours ago. They’ll be somewhere HERE.”

  “Can’t you be sure?”

  “No. They are maintaining wireless silence. So’s Bismarck, as you can guess. We’ve cruisers trying to watch the gaps as well as they can in the thick weather. Arethusa and Manchester, HERE between the Faeroes and Iceland, and two HERE in the Denmark Strait. You can see for yourself why we’ve been screaming for air patrols.”

  During this speech the rear admiral had looked, over and over again, anxiously at the officers and ratings who were receiving messages down the tubes. Each time he had been disappointed by a shake of the head.

  “And what do you think’s going to happen?” asked the air vice marshal.

  “I’m sure Bismarck’ll have a try for it. Maybe HERE, maybe THERE.” The rear admiral’s crayon drew two black lines, continuing the ones he had already drawn. Then from the Hood’s position he drew two more diverging lines, heading to meet the two lines for the Bismarck. “Hood’ll take one course or the other, according to the cruiser reports. And that’s where they’ll meet. THERE or THERE.”

  Map 4

  “Hood‘ll take one course or the other… And that‘s where they‘ll meet. THERE or THERE.”

  He indicated points east and west of Iceland.

  “And then the balloon goes up, what?” said the air vice marshal.

  “It’s time we heard from those cruisers,” said the rear admiral.

  Back in the Suffolk the lookouts were being relieved. One at a time the new men climbed into their chairs and settled themselves at their binoculars, beginning their eternal swaying to and fro in the cold and the wind. Dusty was one of them. Then he saw something…. Looked again….Something was on the horizon, coming up fast.

  “Ship bearing green 140!”

  Even in that time, what he was looking at had grown more defined. Two shapes, menacing and clear against the gray sky.

  “Two ships bearing green 140!”

  A dozen binoculars were trained instantly on the bearing. At the wheel far down below the bridge, the quartermaster was standing stoically steering the ship. From the voice-pipe over his head came the sharp order. “Hard a-port!” He swung the wheel over frantically. The ship heeled with the violence of her turn. Round she came—the two objects in Dusty’s binoculars swung away out of his field of vision.

  “Signal to Admiralty,” said a voice on the bridge….”most immediate: Bismarck AND CRUISER IN SIGHT. ENEMY’S COURSE SOUTH. MY POSITION… give the latitude and longitude.”

  “As long as she doesn’t hit us before we get that message off,” said another voice.

  “Here’s the fog,” said another. “Ah!”

  Suffolk dashed into the fog as though into a wall. It came swirling back from the bows, round the bridge, and enveloped the stern; in ten seconds she was completely invisible in the dripping mist, still heeling with her extreme turn, her wake boiling behind her, Dusty and the others still at their posts in disciplined stillness.

  “Steer one-eight-o,” said the voice down the voice-pipe to the quartermaster.

  Meanwhile the signal that had been dictated was going its way, down to the coding officer and then along to the wireless transmitter. It rattled and chattered, sending the news round the world.

  In the War Room a junior officer turned to the rear admiral.

  “Most immediate message coming through, sir.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  Those were long seconds of waiting as the rear admiral and the air vice marshal fidgeted at the chart. Now it came rattling down the tube; it seemed hours as the officer fumbled it open, hours more as the rear admiral read it.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “They’ve found her. Suffolk is shadowing her, in Denmark Strait. Latitude…Longitude…” referred to the message. “HERE.”

  Somebody gave a cheer. Every face was smiling.

  “So that’s it,” said the air vice marshal, pointing with his stick to one of the alternative courses for Hood. “This is where they’ll meet, eh?”

  “Yes,” said the rear admiral—a little more grave than the others.

  “What’s worrying you?” asked the air vice marshal.

  “Things can still go wrong. Hood’s an old lady now, a very old lady. She’s twenty years older than Bismarck. Do you remember the planes of 1920, sir? How would you like to fight a new Messerschmitt in a Farman biplane?”

  “But there’s this other one—what’s her name—Prince of Wales?”

  “And she’s too young, sir. No time to work up the ship’s company, no time to cure her teething troubles. She hasn’t been completed a month. You might say she’s still in the builder’s hands. I know she’s gone to sea with the contractor’s workmen still on board.”

  “That’ll be an experience for ’em.”

  “They’ll be fighting a battle in their little bowler hats.”

  The officer receiving messages came with another.

  “Position, course and speed, sir,” he said.

  The admiral was in the War Room now. The change in atmosphere was very apparent. There was excitement, but it was (except for the rear admiral) confident, almost pleasurable excitement. Signals were being sent off in numbers: “SIGNAL FOR THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, King George V.

  “SIGNAL FOR Rodney.”

  “SIGNAL FOR Ramillies.”

  The admiral was addressing the air vice marshal.

  “Get your chaps to do all they can to cover the Strait,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” said the air vice marshal. “Visibility’s still bad, sir.”

  “I know. But now you can explain to them how urgent it is. You’re up to date on the situation. Somewhere HERE, about dawn tomorrow.”

  The admiral indicated a spot on the chart to the southward of Denm
ark Strait.

  In the operations room of the Hood the admiral and his staff were bent over a similar chart. Someone was working on it with ruler and dividers. “The intercepting course is 310º, sir,” said the navigating officer. “You can expect contact any time after 0200.”

  “I don’t want to engage until daylight. Give me a course and speed to intercept an hour before sunrise.”

  Ruler and dividers went to work again. One line went to meet another.

  “At 27 knots, sir, course 295º, we shall meet at dawn, HERE.”

  The pencil made a black cross—a significant mark—on the chart where the two lines met.

  “Very well. You can inform the ship’s company, Captain. And”—to the chief of staff—“pass all this news on to Prince of Wales.”

  At a gesture from the captain, the bosun’s mate outside the operations room shrilled with his pipe into the loud-speaker, and the captain began to speak.

  “Captain speaking…”

  Down in the incredibly crowded mess deck the watch below were taking their ease as well as they could.

  “We don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way,” said someone. All the hanging garments down there were swaying rhythmically to and fro with the movement of the ship.

  “You always want to know where you’re going, Nobby,” said someone else. “Can’t you ever be satisfied?”

  “I know where we’re not going,” said someone else, “and that’s south. Who’d like a spell of the tropics?”

  “It’s snowing outside, they tell me. Who wouldn’t sell a farm and go to sea?”

  This was when they heard the bosun’s mate’s pipe and the captain’s voice:

  “Captain speaking. Here’s the news. The Bismarck is out and has been spotted. Suffolk’s shadowing her and we’re steaming to intercept. If everything goes according to plan we’ll be in touch with her at dawn tomorrow. I don’t have to say that I hope we’ll make short work of her, with the help of Prince of Wales. Let every man remember his duty. You’ll be going to action stations soon after midnight—meanwhile I want the watch below to get all the rest they can. Now, in case I don’t have another chance to speak to you: good luck to us all.”

  The public-address system made itself heard in all parts of the ship, in the engine rooms and magazines, in the turrets and the wardroom, galleys and storerooms; and those final words, Good luck to us all, echoed in each compartment and were listened to by different groups of men—resigned, exalted, indifferent, nervous—every kind of reaction according to temperament.

  From the darkened bridge of the Prince of Wales came a quick word.

  “Signal from the flag, sir. Speed 27 knots.”

  “Very good. Call the captain. Ring down for 244 revolutions.”

  The officer stepped to the voice-pipe and spoke down to the operations room. “Increasing speed to 27 knots.”

  In the operations room, the voice-pipe came down through the deck overhead and terminated over the table on which the chart was spread. The navigating officer, bent over the chart, heard the words Increasing speed to 27 knots and repeated them back before making a note of time and position.

  The captain and the captain’s secretary came in at that moment.

  “There’s a long signal coming in from Hood, sir,” said the secretary. “Here’s the first page.”

  While the captain read it, another message dropped down the message tube, and another—the captain reading hastily as they were handed to him.

  “Here’s what we were waiting for,” he said. “Suffolk’s shadowing Bismarck in Denmark Strait, 65º North 28º West’s where the admiral expects to make contact. Let’s see.”

  “HERE, sir,” said the navigating officer. He made a black cross on the chart, just like the black cross on Hood’s chart.

  “Yes,” said the captain. “I hope we’re in a condition to fight.”

  On the mess deck of the Prince of Wales, there were strange figures mingled with the ratings there: workmen in civilian clothes, some in overalls, others more pretentious. Heralded by a pipe, the commander came in on his nightly rounds, looking keenly about him.

  “You men comfortable all right?” he asked of one party of workmen.

  “No, we’re not,” said one of the workmen, still seated. “We don’t like sleeping in hammocks, and we don’t like the food, and we don’t like being taken away like this without our consent. What our union will say when we get home—”

  “I expect you’ll get double time and danger money,” said the commander.

  “’Tisn’t the union I’m thinking about, sir,” said another, less belligerent, “it’s my wife. I can just guess what she thinks I’m up to.”

  “She’ll be all the more pleased when she hears you haven’t been,” said the commander.

  “Any idea when we’re likely to get home, sir?”

  “I haven’t, and if I had I’m afraid I wouldn’t tell you. Cheer up, men, we all have duties to do in wartime.”

  Another of the civilian workers was obviously thinking about something else.

  “D’you feel that, sir?” he asked. “Listen! We’re increasing speed. Feel that vibration? Must be 27 knots, I should think. May be 28. No, 27.”

  “You know these engines better than I do,” said the commander.

  “I helped to build ’em, and I’ve been helping to run ’em for the last three days. I ought to know ’em. What are we putting on speed for, in the middle of the night like this?”

  At this moment a breathless messenger came running up to the commander, saluted, and presented a note, which the commander studied. Then he dismissed the messenger.

  “I may as well tell you now,” he said. “It will be on the loud-speaker in a minute…. Bismarck’s been spotted. She’s not far ahead of us, and we’ll fight her in the morning.”

  “Fight her, sir? But those turbines—”

  “You’ll have to help keep ’em turning,” said the commander.

  The first speaker was on his feet, his grievances no longer apparent.

  “We’re going to fight, are we?” he said. “That shell ring in Y turret…I’ve never been satisfied with it, and I’m not satisfied with it now. I’d like to see what I can do. Can I go up there, sir?”

  “I don’t doubt you’ll be welcome. Good luck with it.”

  In the background, two more civilian workers were exchanging comments.

  “Look at this,” said one of them. “Here it is in black and white: ‘Henry J. Jones, noncombatant.’ Same for you. Look—‘noncombatant.’”

  “That’s to cover us if we’re taking prisoner. Then they won’t shoot us as spies. They’ll put us into a civilian prison instead of a military one.”

  “But how can they take us prisoner?”

  “If they pick us up after this ship’s sunk. We might live long enough if the water’s not too cold.”

  “But they can’t fight with us on board! ’Tisn’t legal.”

  “Ask the captain to put you ashore then,” said the first speaker. “I’m going up to Y turret.”

  Any further words of his were drowned in the blare of the loud-speaker calling the men to action stations.

  On the bridge of the Bismarck the admiral and captain were standing looking into the gray mist where the first light of dawn was beginning to show. The radio officer was reporting to them.

  “The British cruiser has been sending out messages every fifteen minutes regularly all through the night, sir.”

  “Can you guess what they are?”

  “I can be quite sure, sir. They are position and course reports.”

  “We could be sure of that in any case,” said Lutjens to Lindemann. “What else?”

  “I think I can identify her by her call sign, sir. She’s the Suffolk.”

  “Eight-inch-gun cruiser; 10,000 tons. Launched 1926. Last known captain, Ellis,” said one of the staff, flipping through a reference book.

  “Thank you, but the details hardly matter. Anythin
g else?”

  “The British Admiralty has been sending messages all through the night, sir. Some of them clearly address to ships—other ships besides the Suffolk, sir.”

  “No indication of which ships, or where?”

  “I regret not, sir.”

  “Not a word from anything at sea?”

  “Not a word, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  As the radio officer saluted and turned away, Lutjens addressed Lindemann.

  “That’s radio silence enforced as it ought to be enforced. We could wish the British weren’t so careful. But now we say good-by to Denmark Strait, and the Atlantic lies ahead of us. Tell me your opinion. Do you think there is anything to stop us?”

  Lindemann hesitated to speak. He did not want to appear too optimistic.

  “Tell me, Captain, please,” persisted Lutjens.

  “Unless the British moved instantly to the right place, without wasting an hour, the Atlantic should be open to us, sir.”

  “Then we’ll give the Suffolk the slip, and there won’t be a convoy that dare move between America and England,” said Lutjens triumphantly.

  A telephone squawked beside them, and an officer sprang to it.

  “Bridge,” he said, and listened to the message before announcing it loudly. “Smoke on the port bow!”

  As everyone else swung to look he continued to relay the messages.

  “Ship on the port bow! Two ships on the port bow. Closing fast!”

  A battery of binoculars was trained in that direction.

  “Sound the alarm!” said Lutjens.

  The bellowing warning brought the whole ship’s company to their feet and to their stations.

  “Two cruisers?” asked Lutjens.

  “Big cruisers if that’s what they are,” answered Lindemann.

  He and his admiral were each looking through binoculars and then taking their eyes away from them to address remarks to the other. Through the binoculars the gray shapes were steadily acquiring definition as the mist thinned.

  “Signal Eugen to take station astern,” snapped Lutjens. “Captain, open fire as soon as they are in range.”