Between The Hunters And The Hunted

by Steven Wilson

  Firedancer bore heavily into the waves, running at top speed. Spray whipped over her foc’sle and fell like ice-cold rain as far back as her forward tunnel. Cole could feel the ship throb with excitement, her engines beating a mad rhythm that vibrated throughout the ship. Black, oily smoke poured from her stacks, creating a vast dark cloud that hung close to the surface of the ocean.

  He and the others took hold of the thick lines fed through the squealing pulleys and eased the sleeping torpedoes up from the depths of the little destroyer. They did it by count and Cole felt the strain on his shoulders and in his arms as Baird cursed them on.

  “Get them up,” Baird shouted. “Get them in place where I can get to them, you lubbers.” He looked at Cole apologetically. “Present company excluded, sir.”

  All Cole could do was smile in return. His arms burned and his back hurt and for once in his life he had no glib response.

  “All right,” Engleman called. “Tie them off and get to your stations.” There might have been more for him to say, perhaps something stirring and meaningful, but more likely profane, when they heard the shells.

  The men scrambled to their stations when the shells began landing around them. There was the roar of the raging sea as it sent columns high above Firedancer. Splinters shot through the air, slicing through cables, cutting through deck housing, and ricocheting with wild screams across the water. Finally came the malevolent hiss as the water descended with serpentlike satisfaction back into its home.

  Cole found himself on the deck—he didn’t remember how he got there, but as he looked around he was glad to see that none of the number-one torpedo station crew was injured. Blessing was game enough to give him a thumbs-up, even if his hand was trembling so violently he had to hold it still with the other hand.

  The ship’s whistle screamed twice, its high-pitched wail piercing Cole’s heart. Train the tubes to starboard. He waited for the telltale rumble as the gears rotated the PR MK II mount into position. But he heard nothing.

  “Mr. Cole? Mr. Cole, sir?” It was Baird.

  Cole scrambled over the edge of the mount and ran along the edge of the tube to the cockpit. Baird was out of his seat, straining to turn the training wheel.

  “Of all of the bloody times for this pile of shit to let me down,” Baird said. “Take the other handle, sir. Take the other handle. I’ll crank clockwise, you crank counterclockwise. We’ve got to hurry or we won’t have a shot. Put your back into it, sir.”

  Cole leaned against the handle that was attached to the training wheel. It wouldn’t budge. The gears were jammed. He locked his feet against the restraining bands on the tube, gripped the handle, and using his body weight, pushed against the frozen wheel.

  It moved, slowly, each movement a protesting jerk.

  “That’s it! That’s it,” Baird said. “Put your back into it, sir.”

  Another salvo of enemy shells straddled Firedancer, drenching the vessel with tons of water and soaking everyone topside. Cole’s foot slipped and he fell unevenly, banging his chin on the cockpit spray shield. He tasted blood as he repositioned his foot and continued to crank. His eyes stung from the coarse smoke that whipped past them and a stream of tears rolled down both cheeks. The muscles of his arms burned in protest and his hands began to cramp on the handle.

  Somehow the noise of the exploding shells and the force of the torrents of water assaulting Firedancer and her crew drove all feeling from Cole’s body. He was numb and removed from everything except turning the training wheel. They were making progress, the blunt snouts of the tubes nearly extended over the side of the vessel.

  “That’s it, sir,” Baird shouted over the turmoil. “Give us some more. Just a bit more and she’s ready. Almost there.”

  Suddenly Eskimo filled their vision, racing with a roar in the opposite direction, her hull just feet from Firedancer’s, trailing a cloud of smoke. Baird cried out in surprise and lost his footing. The two destroyers roared past each other with a thin river of water separating their hulls, weaving a thick curtain of smoke behind them.

  “You bloody assassins,” Baird screamed, regaining his hold. “I didn’t come all this way to be killed by the likes of you. Bloody cheese-eating bastards.” The mount locked in place and Baird hopped into the cockpit. Cole knelt behind him.

  Baird quickly flipped a set of four switches up and down, three alternating between red lights and green lights. The fourth refused to change color. There were four piston levers in the confined deck area between his knees and the spray shield. He released the triggers of the three tubes that worked.

  “Now it’s instinct and eyesight, sir,” Baird said. “When she’s where I want her to be and we’re where we’re supposed to be, I pull up those handles—if they all work as they should, from outside to inside. Use both hands and pull one-four, two-three. Off they go, hungry little hounds.” He grimaced at Cole. “If they work.”

  Firedancer cleared the smoke and there was Sea Lion, running a bit to starboard, maybe ten thousand yards away. Baird’s hands were gripping the two outside handles so tightly that it looked as if there was no blood in them. The man’s focus was on Sea Lion and the course that the huge ship was making through the water.

  “God help us,” he shouted and pulled the levers. “One-four”—his hands moved to the inside levers—“two-three!” The first two torpedoes shot gracefully out of the tubes with a sudden rush of compressed air. Three joined them, but two remained motionless in her tube. “All right, sir. Time to take her around for loading. We’re out of position anyway, so Number Two’s of no use to us now. We’ll get this one turned and get to Two. Right? Take hold, sir.”

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  An Oberleutnant zur See took the call in the crowded conning tower. Despite the ventilation ducts the tiny space was hot and often filled with smoke from Sea Lion’s own guns.

  “Foremast reports, sir,” the Oberleutnant said excitedly. “Destroyer to starboard has fired torpedoes.”

  Another telephone rang and Kadow answered it. “Forward fire-control tower reports, sir. Destroyer to port has fired torpedoes.”

  “Where is Frey?” Mahlberg exploded. “Can’t he destroy those gnats? Did starboard fire first? Well? Answer me, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kadow said calmly, hanging up the telephone.

  “Hard turn to port,” Mahlberg ordered. “Emergency. Take the wheel over as far as she’ll go. We’ll get ahead of those torpedoes and let the others pass up. Kadow. You are to order Frey to sink those vessels immediately. I will not change course, I will not give up my pursuit.”

  The telephone rang again and as Kadow picked it up he heard a Kapitanleutnant report that the two enemy destroyers had fallen back to enter the thick bank of smoke that hung close to the surface of the water. Cat and mouse, he thought. Dart out and fire torpedoes and then run for safety. It was a risky business—for the mice. Sea Lion’s guns would eventually find them, and when they did they would be crushed. It was inevitable.

  “Kadow,” he said into the receiver.

  “Radar Room, sir. The British cruiser is changing course to starboard.”

  “One moment,” Kadow said. “Kapitan? Radar reports that the British cruiser is changing course to starboard.”

  “Well, what of it?” Mahlberg said. “They don’t want to lead us to Prince of Wales, that’s all. They’re acting as a decoy, Kadow. I’m surprised that you haven’t thought of that.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kadow said and was about to end the call when he thought better of it. “Radar Room? Stay on this line and let me know what course she settles on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anton fired a full salvo of three shells to port, the tremendous blast and concussion shaking the conning tower. A wild rush of air and smoke, stinking of cordite, blew in through the slits and the conning tower crew turned away and closed their eyes. Bruno fired a full salvo to starboard and the conning tower shook even more from the thunderous voice of the huge guns.
Bits of paint and insulation flecked from the bulkheads, raining down on the shoulders of the conning tower crew. When the smoke had cleared and the men shook off the effect of the tremendous explosion, Mahlberg turned to the men.

  “She speaks loudly, doesn’t she?” he said cheerfully, brushing the debris from his shoulders. “Now if we can only get the British to be kind enough to sail under those shells, our job would be done.”

  Kadow heard his name being called and realized that it came through the telephone.

  “Kadow,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Radar Room, sir. The British cruiser is coming about, sir. Making very high speed.”

  “Hold,” Kadow said and covered the mouthpiece with his palm. “Kapitan? Radar reports the British cruiser is coming about.” Kadow saw a mixture of bewilderment and concern in Mahlberg’s eyes.

  “What?” the Kapitan zur See said.

  Chapter 31

  H.M.S. Firedancer

  Firedancer cut through the sea, white foam wings curling up from either side of her bow. She was a wreck topside. Both funnels had been pierced, her aft searchlight platform was a mangled mass of indefinable features, and so much debris cluttered her deck that she looked like a derelict rather than a vessel of His Majesty’s Navy. A large-caliber shell had struck A Turret so that most of the spray shield was gone and the gun cocked at a ridiculously high angle. The gun’s crew, or parts of them, lay near their station.

  Hardy turned away from the sight. “No hits, Number One?”

  “No, sir. I’m afraid not. She avoided our torpedoes quiet handily.”

  Firedancer had ducked back into the smoke to hide from Sea Lion’s guns and to pick up Prometheus. Eskimo had joined her, just emerging from the smoke screen followed by a salvo of enemy shells.

  “Prometheus green thirty, sir,” a lookout called. “She’s got a bone in her teeth all right. Thirty knots or more, sir.”

  “She’s coming back?” Land said. “How can she—”

  “She’s coming back, Number One, because I truly underestimated her captain. For that, I am heartily ashamed. ‘Remember the Athenians,’ Number One.”

  “Sir?”

  Hardy didn’t reply. “Well,” he said, “that’s that, then. Yeoman of Signals? Make to Prometheus, ‘I am honored to join your party. Eskimo will take the starboard, I will take the port. God bless you, sir.’ Sign it Firedancer. Bring us around, Number One. We are going to join Prometheus for another run at those bastards.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  Kadow listened and then repeated the information. “The cruiser is moving toward us at a high rate of speed three points off our starboard bow. Distance approximately twenty-five thousand kilometers. The destroyers have taken up stations on either side of her.”

  “Well, be that as it may, I’m not turning aside,” Mahlberg said. “It’s up to Frey to deal with those vessels before they get close enough to launch torpedoes. We are only an hour or so behind Prince of Wales, but every minute that we dally with this insignificant force is another minute wasted. Maintain current course.”

  “But, Kapitan?” Kadow said.

  “But, but, but! Is that all that you say? A cruiser and two destroyers, all badly damaged, and you have reservations. What should I do, turn away? How would that look if the greatest ship in the world fled from a cruiser and two destroyers?”

  The telephone rang and a shaken Fahnrich zur See answered it. The exchange between Kadow and Mahlberg was unprecedented and it shocked even the veteran seamen.

  “Frey, sir,” the Fahnrich zur See said. “He requests permission to fire.”

  “Permission to fire,” Mahlberg said, returning to his post at the center slit.

  H.M.S. Firedancer

  Cole heard the shells traveling overhead, loud rumbling things, like the sound of overladen freight trains rumbling across a trestle. He looked up, expecting to see something, but all he saw were patches of smoke from the battle.

  “There,” Baird said, pointing astern. Six huge columns of water rose above the surface of the sea about two thousand yards off the fantail. “That’s a dreadful waste of good explosives for a little scud like Firedancer.”

  Cole saw a dozen lesser columns dot the water from the enemy’s secondary battery. Suddenly he felt the vibration from the deck increase.

  “Now she’s a racehorse. Old Georgie’s got her all out.” Baird cupped his hands over his eyes. “Eskimo, too. She’s picked up speed as well.” He swung his makeshift binoculars to the stern. “Prometheus! Look at her run. By God, she’s sailing all right.”

  “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Cole said.

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “A poem. ‘Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.’ Alfred Lloyd Tennyson.”

  “Was he a sailor, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then bugger him.”

  The three ships, Firedancer, Prometheus, and Eskimo, gained speed, racing through the gray water of the North Atlantic like thoroughbreds bound for an unseen finish line. They rose and fell over swells, clean white foam boiling against their bows, broken waves rolling along their sides, the broad bands of their wakes streaming out behind them. More shells from Sea Lion came at them, tearing at the sea, hunting them, trying to stop and destroy them.

  Cole stood on the deck near number-one torpedo station, his legs like springs as Firedancer dug into the waves and came up again, throwing clouds of spray into the air. It would have been fun, it would have been like an exhilarating ride at Cedar Point back in Ohio with the cold, sharp wind coming off Lake Erie and a shiver that was part excitement and the rest just trying to keep warm. It would have been fun like that except for one thing: the shells were getting closer.

  The blast knocked Cole to the deck and almost immediately he was soaked by an ice-cold shower of water. He rolled over on his back and staggered to his feet. There was no damage to the tubes of the station as far as he could see.

  “Baird?”

  He saw the seaman slowly get to his feet. “Here, sir,” he called back groggily. “What happened?”

  “I think we were hit forward.”

  “Any more of those and it won’t matter where we’re hit,” Baird said. He looked around. “Have they given us the signal, sir? Are we going in port or starboard?”

  “No,” Cole said. “Nothing yet.”

  “What the hell is taking those simpletons so bleeding long? They’ve only got two sides to choose from. I for one would like to know what’s going on, sir. Just this one time I’d like to know what those grand lords have got planned for us.”

  The shelling increased and became more accurate. Columns of water peppered the sea around the three vessels and Prometheus took a brick at B Turret, which blew the gun mount and crew overboard. Eskimo lost her aft funnel, and smoke boiled from her deck housing. Firedancer, battered and unsightly as a Fleet Street whore, remained strong and resolute, closing with the enemy as if nothing else on earth mattered. And to Hardy nothing else did because he knew what Sir Whittlesey Martin intended to do; what the captain of the Prometheus had planned as a last wild maneuver to keep Sea Lion from its target. It was a bold, valiant, desperate move, foolish in the extreme, but there was nothing else to be done. Firedancer and Eskimo displaced little more than the weight of two of Sea Lion’s turrets; Prometheus, armed with six-inch guns and torpedoes, was fast enough to dodge Sea Lion’s bricks—for a time, that is. But none of them, singly or as a pitiful little squadron, could affect Sea Lion’s voyage with any conventional tactic. Any conventional tactic.

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  The rapid crescendo of secondary and main batteries firing made it almost impossible to communicate in the conning tower. Kadow manned the telephones, speaking first to Frey, urging him to sink the enemy vessels, and then with the radar room, trying to anticipate what the British cruiser and two destroyers planned.

  “A torpedo run,” a Korvettenkapitan offer
ed as Kadow laid out the scenario to Mahlberg.

  “Obviously,” Mahlberg said. “They want us to turn one way or the other to expose our beam. But we won’t turn at all. We’ll head straight for the cruiser. She’ll have to turn to keep from being run over. When she does—Frey can have her. We’ll be past the other two before they have time to react. Once we’ve cleared them, they can’t possibly catch up.”

  “Kapitan,” Kadow said, “wouldn’t it be better to turn slightly off the cruiser’s course to bring at least some of our guns to bear?”

  “We’ll have the forward 150-millimeter mounts available as well as Bruno. That’s all we need.”

  “Kapitan—”

  “That is all that we need, Executive Officer,” Mahlberg said.

  “Kapitan,” a Stabsoberbootsmann serving as a lookout said, “the enemy ships are just clearing the smoke field now.”

  Kadow grabbed a pair of binoculars and focused on the ships. They were steaming to their destruction. They had to break to port or starboard to begin their torpedo runs, and then the guns of Sea Lion would chew them to pieces, all without slowing her speed.

  “Kapitan,” the Stabsoberbootsmann said, “enemy cruiser dead ahead.”

  “Shall I change course, sir?” Kadow said.

  “No.”

  “But she’s coming straight at us, sir.”

  “Leave it to the guns, Kadow. Frey knows what to do.”

  Kadow stepped to the rear of the conning tower, troubled by a thought that remained hidden. He heard the rapid fire of the 150mm guns and knew that they were biting huge hunks out of the cruiser. All along the enemy vessel there would be a flash and a cloud of smoke and debris would erupt as the big shells pierced her skin and exploded within her. She was too close for the main batteries—they could not depress the big guns to reach her, but the secondary batteries were enough for the thin-skinned vessel. She was racing to her doom. Why? What was the British cruiser doing? Why rush directly at Sea Lion without maneuvering to avoid shellfire? Her torpedoes were useless at this angle and her small guns ineffectual even if she were alongside Sea Lion; but the British cruiser had not reduced her speed. The answer struck him.