The lead soldier, moving forward with astonishing speed, was easy to recognise; the make-up on his face was falling off as he moved, revealing the very familiar scar.
“SKORZENY!,” DeRiemer shouted and took aim, only to miss completely as the weapon jerked in his hand. A hail of bullets slashed across the platform, knocking down some of the bodyguards, and DeRiemer gasped as blood showered down onto his face. Skorzeny laughed and jumped up onto the platform, kicking the pistol out of his hand before he could recover. Skorzeny turned to face Churchill…
* * *
…Skorzeny knew there was no hope of escape, no chance he might pull off one last miracle. . The British Prime Minister was larger and fatter than he’d imagined but that wouldn’t save him. He kept low, knowing that the British would be hesitant to risk firing at him while he was so close to the Prime Minister… and stopped as Churchill rolled over, a small pistol in his hand. Skorzeny had no time to react as the pistol barked twice. He staggered backwards as two red-hot bullets dug into his chest. He could still win…
Skorzeny was older now than he’d been in his early days; he was still fit and healthy, but he had fewer reserves. More British bullets tore through him and he fell backwards, still trying desperately to lift his weapon enough to draw a bead on Churchill. The Prime Minister rose to his feet, a foolhardy gesture that would have been matched by Skorzeny had he been able to move, and pointed his little weapon directly at Skorzeny’s head. He fired once…
Chapter Fifty
North Sea
Generaladmiral Erich Förste stared down at the plotting table and thought baleful thoughts about landlubbers and the effect they could have on planning naval missions. On the map, his mission looked simple; find and destroy the British fleet. In practice, it wouldn’t be anything like as easy, not against a professional force that almost matched his own technology. The last time the Kriegsmarine had gone up against a second navy had been during war games with the Italians, something that had done nothing to improve the German impression of Italian military capabilities and hadn’t really taught them very much about their own tactics. The fleet had exercised endlessly, particularly just before the war had broken out, but exercises with such ships didn’t include live weapons.
Förste grimaced. The gap between the Shetlands and Norway looked tiny, but it was large enough to hide a few hundred ships the size of Berlin, let alone the huge battleships that both sides possessed. The people back in Berlin thought that he could launch a massive attack that would somehow fly directly to the British ships, unaware that if he sent them off in the wrong direction, they would be badly out of position when — if — they located the British fleet. If the timing went badly wrong, the three hundred and sixty strike aircraft of his fleet and the two hundred land-based aircraft under his command would go haring off in the wrong direction while British aircraft bore down on his command. The evidence suggested that Germany still had a monopoly on radio-guided bombs, but after British aircraft had sunk one of his carriers, he knew better than to assume his ships were invincible.
His scowl deepened. He had nearly forty reconnaissance aircraft, long-range jet aircraft flying out of Norway and Denmark, hunting for the British fleet. He’d been able to study some of the British records from the hunt for the Bismarck and a handful of other German battleships, and the British had had real problems in locating enemy ships, let alone bringing their vastly superior might to bear against them. He had the same problem, in a way; if he spread out his units, the British might be able to crush them individually before he could re-concentrate his fleet. Their task was simple; all they needed to do was cut the shipping lanes between England and the Reich.
The map seemed to mock him as the reports came in. Left to himself, he would have held the fleet back until he had located the British ships, maybe even refused battle until the British came down into the narrows. Berlin didn’t seem to think that that was possible, dreading any possibility of even a small interruption in supply lines, and had ordered him to keep the British fleet well away. That would be easier said than done; it wasn’t as if the Channel was a bridge that the British had to cross in order to reach their destination, was it? No, the British fleet could be anywhere in the waters, lost somewhere and able to reach their goal with ease, unless he was lucky enough to locate it beforehand.
Förste checked the reports again. It wasn’t going to be an easy battle. He’d hoped that submarines could have taken a bite out of the British ships, but the presence of the American ships and the improved British sonar had deterred all but the bravest or most foolhardy U-boat commanders from launching attacks, and most of those attacks had failed. The British had spent the years since the last war working on antisubmarine tactics, and although he hated to admit it, they might well be better at it than his own forces. A British submarine had put a torpedo into one of his pocket battleships a week ago, and the only saving grace was that there was no sign that the British actually knew what they’d done. Time was ticking away…
His gaze fell to the tactical map again. Ground-hogs really had no idea of the scale of the problem. They talked about land-based air redressing the balance, unaware that mounting a major assault that far from the airbases, such as had happened at Scapa Flow, required a major commitment of tankers. That in turn risked losing the tankers to British attack, an obvious way to degrade and diminish the German forces, and one he knew they didn’t dare risk. If the tankers were knocked down at the wrong moment, the lifespan of a sizeable chunk of the Kreigsmarine’s anti-shipping aircraft would be shortened down to hours, unless they somehow managed to reach home on vapours. The aircraft were forced to remain at their airbases until they found the British fleet, and then they would have to be steered towards the fleet…
“Herr Generaladmiral,” one of the operators called. Förste stepped over to the man’s seat. He wore a pair of headphones, listening to the reports from the spotting aircraft, and pulled them off as Förste arrived. “We have a report from Spotter Nine. They have sighted the British fleet!”
“Show me,” Förste ordered as the second report came in and the plotting table was updated. The British fleet was steaming south-east at a reasonable speed, but he had no illusions about them coming so close to Denmark and the Reich’s airbases there. he would have to assume that they would change course at some point, probably within the next two or three hours. He looked over at the plotting table again and nodded. “Show me an area prediction.”
“Jawohl, Herr Generaladmiral,” the operator said and drew out a circle on the chart. The British fleet, assuming that it travelled at its full rate of knots, would be somewhere within that circle. The centre of the circle would be moved as more reports from Spotter Nine came into the ship. “Spotter Nine reports that it is following the British at a safe distance.”
Förste shrugged dryly. The jet-propelled reconnaissance aircraft were the most advanced aircraft in the Reich, capable of long periods of flight and flying too high to be knocked down by the RAF jets, although one had been lost over England to causes unknown. The British surely knew that the aircraft was there and they would have taken note of the fact that their position was now known to the enemy. It wasn’t the perfect surprise that Förste would have wanted, but it was still an advantage; as far as he knew, the enemy didn’t have the slightest idea of where his forces were…
“Send a signal to the main strike force in Norway,” he ordered after a moment’s thought. It would be better to conserve the carrier-based strike force for the moment. They would be needed to complete the job and cover the carriers if the British launched their own strike. “Update them on the course and speed of the British ships and order them to launch at once. The targets are the carriers.”
“Jawohl, Herr Generaladmiral,” the radio operator said. He bent his head to his console, muttering orders into the small microphone that came down from his headphones, one of the most advanced pieces of micro-engineering in the German fleet. Förste had heard rumours of
something even more fascinating coming out of some of the Reich’s more secretive laboratories, but so far the fleet had yet to reap the benefits. The operator glanced up again, finally. “The strike force acknowledges and is on its way.”
“Good,” Förste said. He smiled thinly. “Order the fleet to turn in pursuit and prepare for an engagement.”
He would have preferred to be on the bridge, but duty, cursed duty, kept him in the Combat Information Centre. They’d spent years training to use the ships as a single fleet, but now he would have preferred to be a Captain again, or even a junior officer, someone who could watch the awesome majesty of combat from a proper vantage point.
“And inform the crew,” he said. It was easy to push confidence into his voice. “The final battle of the Second British War begins today.”
* * *
Unbeknownst to Generaladmiral Förste or any of his men, HMS Sealion had been prowling the seas near Denmark when it had caught sight of the smaller German ships advancing through the Kiel Canal. The canal had been expanded several times by German slave labour and was now large enough to allow a Bismarck-class battleship to pass through without any real problems, although it wasn’t something that the ship’s commanding officers cared to do. The German fleet used the canal to allow rapid deployment without having to navigate around the tip of Denmark, where so many German ships had been spotted and tracked by British ships or spies in Sweden. These days, the Swedes were less cooperative when it came to spying, but Sealion and her contemporaries were able to watch for German ships without their help.
Commander McKenzie peered through the periscope as the massive fleet headed west. It wasn’t easy to see them all, but he made out four battleships and at least three carriers. The Germans wouldn’t have risked a battle without all of their ships gathered together in a single overwhelming force, but he couldn’t see the fourth carrier amidst the other ships. The Germans had sent nearly seventy ships to sea, and the destroyers, always on the prowl, kept him back through the sheer force of their efforts to deter any prying eyes.
“Compose a message,” he said after a moment. “Enemy fleet sighted. Composition four heavy battleships, several smaller heavy ships, three carriers and numerous smaller ships. Attach course and speed, and then transmit.”
“Aye, sir,” the radioman said. He worked his pad for a long moment. “Signal composed, sir… and transmitting.”
“Keep us well back,” McKensie ordered. The Germans might not have heard the message — they’d transmitted as short and simple a message as possible — but one thing every submarine commander learnt when they were training was never to underestimate the enemy or assume that the enemy was stupid. Those who didn’t learn that lesson ended up dead. “Prepare for evasive manoeuvres…”
* * *
Gruppenkommandeur Albrecht Schmidt took a breath as his jet aircraft raced down the tarmac of the runway before rising up into the sky, moving sluggishly as always with the weight of the rocket pods attached beneath the wings. He had more reason to be nervous lately. In the last few days, there had been a handful of petty attacks by the Norwegian resistance against German military installations, including one nervy attack on an airfield while a heavy transport had been taking off for Denmark. The resulting crash onto a Norwegian town should have been counted as an own goal — it had killed more civilian Norwegians than Germans — but it had been alarming. Everyone had thought that Norway had been reasonably pacified.
Schmidt concentrated as his aircraft approached the flying tanker for a final refill before setting out after the British ships. The German Army had taken a beating on British soil and its reputation for invincibility had been badly dented. It had given hope to the people under the German boot, even the Norwegians who were as close to fellow citizens of the Reich as Schmidt himself was, and there had been a series of incidents right across the Reich. The SS had cracked down hard on most of them, and some of them had been little more than half-hearted anyway, but even so, it was a depressing reminder of just how unstable the Reich could become, if the war went badly wrong.
He checked his compass and set out along the course he’d been ordered to fly, the entire group maintaining radio silence. If they were lucky, the British would never know they were coming. It wouldn’t be like attacking Scapa Flow when the British ships had been effectively stationary and undermanned. This time, the British fleet would be moving, fully manned, and very capable of shooting back with radar-guided weapons. This would be the decisive battle. If they sunk the carriers, the remainder of the British fleet would be easy to deal with…
Assuming that they found it. They knew where the fleet was, they knew its course, but if the fleet broke contact and headed off on a different course, they would waste precious time trying to locate it. They wouldn’t have as much time as they had over Scapa Flow, either. There weren’t as many tankers devoted to refuelling the aircraft this time. Schmidt hadn’t been told why, but he could draw his own conclusions… and none of them were good. The aircraft that would have been intended to refuel them were most likely destroyed.
The hills and fjords of Norway fell away behind them as the flight proceeded onwards towards their target. One way or another, it wouldn’t be long now, not with the spotter aircraft constantly relaying the British course and speed. Schmidt expected them to break contact, but the longer the British delayed breaking contact, the easier it would be for his force to locate and destroy the their ships. The signals kept coming in, however, and as they came in, he allowed himself a smile. There was no hiding place for the enemies of the Reich.
* * *
“Admiral, we have a large German force taking off from Norway and flying towards us,” the radio officer said. “The Sealion just updated us with the location of the Germans…”
Admiral Fraser listened to the remainder of the report in silence.
“Order the carriers to launch their aircraft,” he said, once the report had finished. “I want them to target the German carriers first, and then their battleships.”
He waited until that order had been sent. The carriers of the British fleet would be launching already, their crews pent up and waiting for the chance to strike back at the Germans, blissfully unaware of the German flight descending on them from Norway. Fraser hoped that the Germans were unaware that he knew about their attempt at a sucker punch; the message from the spotters at Norway had been carefully disguised as a signal from a German army unit. By the time they realised their mistake, it should be too late to do anything but dance to Fraser’s tune.
“The carriers are launching now,” the radio operator announced. Fraser could hear the nervousness in his voice, even though he didn’t say anything out loud. He’d just stripped the fleet of all of its air cover. The German spotter aircraft would be gleefully relaying that to the German ships, who had kept back their own aircraft to cover themselves from his strike… all the while expecting him to be naked and vulnerable to their strike. “Sir… Force One has relayed its confirmation.”
Fraser nodded.
“No reply,” he ordered, as the radar screens filled with the lights of German bombers. “We’ll allow Force One to carry out it’s part of the mission without being interrupted.”
* * *
Schmidt had radar contact with the British ships a long time before he saw them. They were great majestic castles of steel, moving through the water as if they didn’t have a care in the world, showed no sign of responding to his presence. The fleet had launched all of its strike aircraft towards the German fleet… and even if they recalled them at once, the British multi-purpose aircraft would have to be rearmed before they could fight his aircraft, assuming they could have stood their ground. The British carrier-borne aircraft would be no match for his land-based jet aircraft.
He smiled, altering course slightly to locate the carriers in the fleet… and then one of his bombers exploded. The blast shook his plane, the more so because it wasn’t expected, and Schmidt struggled to maintai
n control. A second bomber exploded, then a third, and for a chilling moment Schmidt wondered if the British had actually found a way to detonate the bombs in their bomb bays, before looking up and seeing…
“What the hell?”
Chapter Fifty-One
North Sea
Admiral Fraser had anticipated what the Germans needed to do if they wanted to significantly damage his fleet before he engaged the German battleships. The Germans would hold back their carrier aircraft to protect their own fleet and use land based bombers to go after him. His plan took all of this in account.
The RAF had massed a large force of fighters in Scottish airbases, officially to rest and recuperate after the Battle of Colchester, and those fighters had been launched to shadow the fleet once the German aircraft had been reported. They had slipped up to the German aircraft, which hadn’t expected jet fighters opposing them because neither side had yet managed to launch a jet aircraft from a carrier, and hadn’t been using their radars because they hadn’t wanted to warn Admiral Fraser that they were coming. The inviting target of the British fleet had suddenly become deadly poison.
* * *
Schmidt grabbed at his stick and yanked his aircraft into an evasive manoeuvre as the British fighters fell out of the sun. The Meteors had them bang to rights, trapped against the sea and tied to the bombers, but they were directing their fire mainly against the bombers. The German formation was falling to pieces as the British aircraft raced closer, firing down as the Germans scattered, and Schmidt breathed a curse under his breath.
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