Between The Hunters And The Hunted

by Steven Wilson

  “Kapitan,” Kadow cried out, “she’s going to ram us.”

  Mahlberg turned in disgust. “For God’s sake, Kadow, this isn’t the fifteenth century! What good would it possibly do her to …” Kadow saw the look of realization in Mahlberg’s eyes. “Hard aport! All back port engines, full head starboard engines. Get Frey. Concentrate on the cruiser. Stop her.”

  H.M.S. Firedancer

  Hardy squinted through the binoculars, following Prometheus’s path, watching Sea Lion’s guns turn her into smoking wreckage, pieces of flaming metal shooting high into the air every time she was struck. And yet the ship did not waver. He watched and was aware that he was quietly crying. He kept his glasses in place so that no one could see his tears.

  When Prometheus struck Sea Lion just aft of A Turret, it was when the big ship was just beginning her turn. Prometheus’s bow dug deeply into Sea Lion’s body, the loud crash of the collision finally reaching Hardy long after the impact. The motion of both ships, coming at one another at high speed, combined to drive Prometheus’s knifelike bow into Sea Lion like a dagger. Hardy watched as the two ships shuddered from the crash, the bigger ship dragging the cruiser backward through the water, both twisting like wounded animals. Black smoke erupted around the cruiser’s bow, followed by a series of explosions.

  She had crushed Sea Lion’s decks, Hardy knew, and ruptured fuel tanks, and mains and lines, and sprung watertight bulkheads and doors, and started cataclysmic fires deep within the ship. Hundreds of tons of ice-cold water tore into the interior, flooding decks and compartments, killing sailors, pounding at the weakened steel bulkheads. It was hell belowdecks for those poor bastards—enemy or not. They would drown or the force of the water jetting through the ruptured hull would crush them. They would die in the darkness with only the flickering red emergency lights to comfort them.

  “Orders, sir?”

  Hardy turned to find Land waiting. “Make to Eskimo, ‘Come up on her starboard side and attack with torpedoes. Be careful, she is still lethal. Firedancer.’ We will attack from the port side, Number One. Quick in, quick out. Please inform the torpedo stations of my intentions.”

  “At once, sir.”

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  It was an explosion of some kind, Statz knew, a tremendous bang that shook the entire ship and threw everyone off their feet, splitting steam lines, blowing circuits, throwing tools and unsecured minutia in every direction. Smoke instantly filled the turret from below and the one sickening feeling that Statz had as he pulled himself to his feet was, the powder rooms. If they were damaged, there was danger of explosion and the blast would send Bruno tumbling end over end through the air.

  “What happened? What happened?” It was Steiner, but his voice came from the ladder near the gun-control platform. “Were we hit?”

  The others came around, frightened voices calling from somewhere in the smoke-filled turret.

  “Statz?” It was Scholtz. “I think I broke my fucking leg!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Under the spanning tray. Get me out of here.”

  Soon the cries for help began to fill the interior of the turret and Statz realized that he had to regain some control. “Shut up. Shut up, all of you. Answer when your name is called. Scholtz?”

  “Here.”

  “Steiner?”

  “Here, Mien Fuehrer.”

  “Wurst?”

  No reply.

  “Wurst?” he said again, urgently. There were a dozen places an unconscious man could fall within the turret and, in the darkness and smoke, remain hidden for hours.

  “When we fall out I’ll look for Wurst,” Statz said. “Manthey?”

  “I think I shit my pants, but I’m here,” Manthey said.

  “Gran?”

  “Yes. Here”

  “Gran, contact Turm Befehishaber and let him know that we’ll have a damage report ready for him in five minutes.”

  “Find out what happened,” Steiner said.

  “That’s none of our concern,” Statz said sharply. “We man this gun, Steiner. Those who can, return to your stations and break out the extinguishers. Scholtz? Where in the hell are you?”

  “In the same place, Statz.”

  The smoke was becoming thicker and worse, yet it was coming from below. What had hit them? Certainly not an enemy shell, there was nobody out there but cruisers and destroyers. Suddenly it came to Statz; they’d been torpedoed. But that didn’t make any sense—Sea Lion carried a sixteen-inch armor belt at the waterline. He heard the hatch off the gun-control platform swing open with a clang and saw the head of one of the range-finder crew in the eerie red emergency light.

  “We’ve been rammed!” he shouted down into the turret. “That bastard has rammed us.”

  Then the air exploded with a rapid crescendo of gunfire.

  The collision knocked everyone in the conning tower to the deck and suddenly the air was filled with the wail of a dozen alarm bells. Kadow spun the wheel on the conning tower hatch and made his way onto the deck. He couldn’t see anything through those devilish slits, but the scene that lay before him was indescribable. The enemy cruiser was buried deep into the starboard side of Sea Lion, listing slightly to port, and acting as a sea anchor, her length and bulk slowing Sea Lion’s progress to a crawl. Smoke poured from around the point of impact, obscuring the extent of the cruiser’s penetration into Sea Lion. But Kadow knew that it had to be at least fifteen meters.

  Then he saw the cruiser’s guns elevating to bear on Sea Lion. She was still full of fight and at this range even her six-inch guns could cause considerable damage by raking the superstructure and upper decks of Sea Lion.

  He ran back to the conning tower and was about to close and secure the hatch when he looked down. He was standing at an angle. He was a seaman so long used to this sort of thing, the constant roll and toss of a vessel at sea, that it came as second nature to him. But this was different. Sea Lion was listing to starboard, maybe as much as five degrees. She was taking on water.

  The cruiser’s guns opened fire, cutting into Sea Lion’s bridge, forward fire-control centers, the FuMO 23 radar tower and masts, and sweeping the area around the conning tower. Kadow should have been safe. He was on the opposite side of the conning tower with the hatch partially closed, but an errant splinter slipped through the tiny crack between the edge of the door and the casing and buried itself in Kadow’s heart.

  There was very little blood and as his hold on the door weakened and some odd, gray fog covered his eyes, he slid to the deck and died. His last thought was that he wanted to warn Mahlberg about the list, but that became impossible due to his death on the cold, steel deck of the conning tower.

  Chapter 32

  H.M.S. Firedancer

  There was no noise, no thunder of guns, or the shrill screams of the wounded. For Hardy, it was as if God had lowered a shroud of silence over the scene and left only the image of two ships caught up in a death struggle; one embedded in another, a wounded hound valiantly tearing at a boar’s throat, trying to bring him down. It was the most fantastic thing that Hardy had ever witnessed and he had seen so much in this war.

  Sea Lion and Prometheus surrounded by columns of smoke that rolled into the sky, engulfed in flames that licked impartially at both vessels, trading gunfire. And then gradually he heard the roar of the storm as his senses returned to him: explosion after explosion, the blasts of shells exploding against steel, the high-pitched demonic whine of ricochets echoing across the sea. It was unadulterated savagery, with Eskimo and Firedancer reluctant observers of the struggle.

  “Yeoman?” Hardy called, trying to suppress the emotion in his voice. “Firedancer to Prometheus, ‘Can you withdraw?’ End message.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Number One,” Hardy said, “she is as much a sitting duck with Prometheus in her as any I’ve seen. We’ll come in off her starboard quarter and give her a brace of torpedoes. Kindly inform Mr. Cole and whoever else is left down t
here what I plan to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Land said. “She’s listing badly, sir. Sea Lion. Nearly ten degrees, I’d say, and she’s down some at the head.”

  “Prometheus?”

  “Well down at the head, sir.”

  “Captain,” the yeoman of signals said, “reply from Prometheus. ‘We are here for the duration. Shoot straight. Will hold her as long as possible. Prometheus.’”

  Hardy was silent for a moment before he spoke. “We shall do as he bids, Number One. Inform the torpedo stations, I will send on to Eskimo to lead off the attack to port.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll have Torps prepare.”

  “Number One? Tell those chaps that we’re going in very quickly and we’re going to get rather close. I don’t want them to fire until they see more of Sea Lion than they do the sky.”

  “How bloody close is that lunatic going to get, sir?” Baird said after Land delivered the instructions and returned to the bridge.

  “‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,’” Cole said, following Baird along the deck to what was left of number-two torpedo station. Firedancer was steaming at full speed, bucking the waves so that each swell threw a cloud of spray over the deck in protest.

  “Look at those lovely bastards, sir,” Baird said, nodding at Prometheus, her guns blazing at Sea Lion, the ragged sound of gunfire echoing across the water to Firedancer. “Up to their neck in Nazis and they’re still dishing it out. Coo, they’ve got courage, they have. All we have to do is stand off a couple of dozen yards and throw torpedoes at that big bloody mountain.”

  “You know for us to make this work, we’ve got to throw everything but the kitchen sink at them,” Cole said. “We’ve got to do it at one time because we may not have a second chance.”

  “That’s a lovely thought, but what the hell does it mean, sir?”

  “You take Number One. I’ll take Number Two.”

  “Well, you’re daft, man. Meaning no disrespect, sir,” Baird said. “You’ve no idea how these things work. I’ve spent years—”

  “Look, Baird, I don’t need your resume. I saw what you did and these aren’t that different from the tubes I trained on. Besides, you can get any of those guys to help you lay the tubes.”

  “You won’t know when—”

  “I’ll fire when you fire.”

  They both heard the roar of incoming shells and dropped to the deck. Caesar, followed by Dora, fired a salvo. The huge shells landed well beyond the speeding destroyer, but now the secondary battery began to fire and geysers sprung up all around Firedancer.

  “All right, sir,” Baird said. He spat in the palm of his hand and offered it to Cole. As Cole spat in his palm and took the seaman’s hand in his, Baird said: “Now let’s hope that both of us come out of this with our heads firmly attached to our shoulders.”

  “I’m more concerned about getting my nuts cracked,” Cole said, jumping over the edge of the torpedo platform. “Let’s go.” He slid into the cockpit and tested the laying mechanism, traversing it back and forth. The wheel cranked freely. He flipped the switch on the torpedo tubes, from neutral to off and then to on, and was relieved to see that they functioned properly. He didn’t know what the hell he would do if they didn’t—he’d never gotten that far in his training. He heard someone call his name. It was Blessing.

  “Beg your pardon, sir, but Torps sent me over in case you ran into any trouble.”

  “Very thoughtful of him,” Cole said as Blessing knelt down next to the cockpit. “If I were you, I’d find something a little more substantial to hide behind. This doesn’t look like it’s much more than half an inch.”

  “Orders, sir,” Blessing said apologetically. “‘If the torpedo operator is rendered’—”

  “Okay,” Cole said. “I get it. Just don’t set your mind on getting my job.”

  “Oh no, sir. Never, sir.”

  Cole wiped his damp hands along his trousers. He was scared but his nerves seemed to have settled—strange, he thought, to feel fear so completely that it was a part of him, like the simple action of breathing. He felt Firedancer turn quickly to port, rolling heavily on her side, and the only thing he felt now was exhilaration. When I get out of this, he promised himself, I’m going to sign up for destroyers. If I get out of this, the thought repeated itself. Death. Maybe I am a coldhearted son of a bitch. I get scared, shouldn’t that count for something?

  “Sir?” Blessing said.

  Cole was thankful that Blessing interrupted his thoughts. “Yeah?”

  “I think I just pissed myself.”

  Cole smiled and turned to the back of the cockpit so that Blessing could see his face. “Boy Seaman, you’re a better man than I am. I did that about an hour ago.”

  “Did you really, sir?” Blessing said, brightening at the revelation.

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “But let’s just keep that between us seamen. What do you say?”

  “Oh yes, sir. Yes, sir. Mum’s the word.”

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  One of the Oberbootsmanns dragged Kadow’s body into the conning tower and pulled the heavy door shut, spinning the locking wheel.

  Mahlberg quickly dismissed all thoughts of his friend’s death and ordered: “Engines, full ahead emergency. Rudder hard to starboard. We’ve got to break her grip on us.”

  “Kapitan,” a Stabsbootsmann manning the telephones called out, “forward fire-control reports British destroyer three points off the port quarter preparing a torpedo run.”

  “Well, sink her, for God’s sake!” Mahlberg shouted. He calmed himself and lowered his voice. “Inform fire control that they are ordered to concentrate all guns that can brought to bear on that destroyer. Where is the other one?” He waited for the reply.

  “Forward fire control reports the other destroyer off the starboard beam at a distance of approximately fifteen kilometers. She appears to be in distress.”

  Suddenly Sea Lion lurched forward, shaking with effort as she began to break Prometheus’s hold on her. The sound of tortured metal ripping metal filled the air, the scream of a wounded animal tearing itself free from the jaws of a predator. The noise of constant gunfire and the screeching of metal against metal made it nearly impossible to hear. Mahlberg had to shout his orders and the conning tower crew had to shout their responses so that it seemed the whole world had gone completely mad and demanded that the men in the conning tower join it.

  Despite himself, Mahlberg did what he had avoided the minute that his executive officer’s body had been dragged into the conning tower: he looked at Kadow’s face. The sight shocked Mahlberg—Kadow’s eyes were partially closed and the silent form appeared to be asleep. How peaceful he looks, Mahlberg thought, but then he looked away. I have no time for the dead, he told himself, and turned back to the command of his ship.

  But—a word that Kadow used to Mahlberg’s constant disgust—the Kapitan zur See would not admit the obvious. Sea Lion, his magnificent ship, was critically wounded and at the mercy of those pathetic little jackals darting about the sea.

  “She’s breaking free!”

  Mahlberg turned to the Kapitanleutnant who had shouted the news.

  “Kapitan! We’re breaking free of the cruiser.”

  Mahlberg nodded as if he expected nothing else, and the old arrogance that had driven him relentlessly all of his life returned to fill the void of uncertainty.

  “Very well,” he shouted above the din. “Make ready to draw off and sink the cruiser.”

  H.M.S. Firedancer

  Land and Hardy had watched Sea Lion drag the barely living carcass of poor Prometheus through the water. What they saw next horrified them.

  “Sea Lion’s breaking free,” Land said in alarm.

  “Right. We must stop them,” Hardy said. His calm manner surprised Land. “We’re going in, Eskimo or no Eskimo. Go and tell Cole and whoever is left back there that no one fires until they hear the ship’s whistle. We can’t risk missing and hitting Eskimo, and to do an
y damage we’ve got to get every one of those torpedoes into Sea Lion’s vitals. She can’t get away, Number One. If I can’t sink her with torpedoes, then by God we’ll pull a Prometheus on her.”

  Cole looked up from the cockpit in response to Land’s statement. His eyes stung and his voice was ragged from shouting and from the smoke that he had inhaled. Every part of his body ached so much that he could hardly move, but there was something in Land’s desperate words that made him forget all of that.

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “You get us close enough to that big son of a bitch and I’ll lay these goddamned things right on her deck.”

  Land smiled. “Well said, Mr. Cole.”

  It seemed just minutes after Land left that Firedancer picked up speed and began to twist violently, trying to throw off the German gunners. It worked for the most part, but the gunners guessed Firedancer’s intentions and the firing increased. Cole watched as huge columns of water began to inch closer to the speeding destroyer. It was the secondary battery and any second the main battery would swing into action. He remembered Windsor and what one sixteen-inch shell had done to her.

  Firedancer jerked to starboard and then whipped to port, throwing spray over Cole and Blessing. Cole pushed his legs against the walls of the cockpit to keep from getting thrown about, taking his hands off the torpedo-release levers only long enough to wipe the salt water from his face. He felt Firedancer tremble as a shell struck her a glancing blow aft and then the destroyer leaped to starboard again.

  Sea Lion, with Prometheus dragging along her hull, grew larger. Details emerged in between the flashes of the guns and the tentacles of smoke that trailed over her: turrets, life rafts, masts, and portholes—the thousand features that defined her size. She was magnificent, Cole decided, and terrible; and for a moment he was torn between admiration and hate. But all of that quickly disappeared when Firedancer jumped quickly to starboard to avoid another salvo of Sea Lion’s guns. Now all Cole concentrated on was the signal to fire.