As he looked for the ladder up he was pleased to see his friend Lieutenant Robert Woodfield heading down to take some air. The two men had come up together, though Wells tested better and was a step up in rank now, though he never lorded it over his friend, even in jest. “Hello Bob,” he said. “Fair day, isn’t it?”
“Fair out here,” said Woodfield. “A bit thick up on the bridge if you’re heading that way.”
“What is it this time, Woody?”
“What else? D-H is still ranting over the placement of those RAF Hurricanes below decks. Ever since Air Commander Heath was put off the ship the Captain has made it his personal endeavor to visit the flight deck daily and roust about down there.”
“What’s his problem today?”
“He says the Hurricanes are not properly arrayed and cabled off below decks.”
“Yes? Well those RAF boys are damn lucky they’re even here at all. Landing on the deck as they did without arrestor hooks was a fairly good bit of flying yesterday. I half expected to see most of them overshoot the deck or go right off into the sea.”
“After Commander Heath crossed him the Captain seems to think every airman aboard has it in for him now. I think he fancies the thought that he’s cleaning house down there and setting everything all prim and proper.”
“We’ll he’d do better to have some of those planes in the air instead of worrying over how they’re cabled off below decks. We’ve no top cover and look there, Woody,” he pointed to the vacant crow’s nest on the main mast. “Nobody assigned to the watch either.”
“Well, I raised this point with Captain Hughes at noon. He says the five planes below decks on ten minute notice for takeoff are more than sufficient with visibility this good.”
“I suppose it might be more than sufficient if we were a submarine and could scoot beneath the sea on a hostile sighting. Well, with visibility this good why have we no lookouts?”
“The Captain explained he has two destroyers cruising on our forward arc that would most certainly sight anything of note, or so he put it.”
“What? Those destroyers are no more than 400 meters off our bow. Our mainmast is twice the height of those ships. They would have to be well out ahead of us if they hope to sight anything before we could with a pair of good eyes and a field glass up there. Mark my words, Woody. We’re all alone out here and virtually blind as a bat while those planes are still below decks. I intend to strongly recommend we at least spot the ten minute flight on deck if the Captain refuses to launch.”
“Good luck with that, Mister Wells. I tried that with the Captain as well. He explained that to launch aircraft we would have to turn about into the wind. We were ordered to maintain an average speed of at least sixteen knots and the time required to launch and get our nose pointed south again would require the ship to burn more fuel at high speed in order to make up for the loss. It’s obvious that is his only concern is the U-boat threat. No aircraft had ever sunk a submarine or ever would. Those were his exact words to me. That’s why we’ve been in a zig-zag pattern the last three hours.”
“Well the Germans may have more than U-boats out there! Who cares about the bloody fuel?”
“The Captain cares, that’s who. We’ve standing orders to maintain a full 33% in bunker at all times and we’re running low. That’s the explanation I was given, and from the look on the Captain’s face he wanted no more questions about it.”
“Let them top us off after we make port! That fuel reserve is for contingencies of just this sort. In my opinion the security of the ship and crew should supersede concerns over fuel.”
“The Captain apparently believes otherwise. He’s even ordered two-thirds on the boilers. That’s how concerned he is about the fuel. We’ve 18 good boilers down below and only twelve are fired at the moment.”
“Good god,” said Wells. “Then we’ve even lost our legs. If anything happened upon us we couldn’t even make a run for it. It would take us nearly half an hour to work up those other six boilers.”
“Yes, well old D-H will say you’re too worked up yourself, and over nothing, which is exactly what he said to me when I pointed out we had no one assigned to mainmast watch. Damn sloppy, if you want to know what I really think.”
“Agreed,” said Wells, yet he took no comfort or consolation in having another confederate soul to commiserate with here. “Perhaps if a few of the other senior officers would concur we might move the Captain on this.”
“Perhaps,” said Woodfield, “but the Captain would likely interpret that as another mutiny given his present state of mind.”
“Mutiny? Nonsense. It’s any senior officer’s right to speak his mind on a matter like this.”
“You might think as much, but line up three of us in the same hot minute and I’ll guarantee you that D-H will go off like a clock and chime on it the whole rest of the way home. Touchy fellow, that man. Thinks he can do anything he wishes. Word was he got off scot-free when he ran the nose of his submarine into another ship before they sent him here. Some think he has the Prime Minister’s ear.”
“Well I wish he had more sense,” said Wells, looking off the port bow. Then he saw what he knew he had been fearing all along, the dark smear of smoke on the horizon.
“Say… Look there, Woody. What do you make of that?”
“My god! Those can’t be ours, can they? Everything we’ve got out here is heading south by southwest as we are.”
“I’m off to the bridge to see about it. Good luck, Woody. Let’s hope those are friendly ships after all.”
But they were not friendly ships, as Lieutenant Commander Wells was soon to learn. The destroyer Ardent off the port bow had apparently seen the contact as well, and was now peeling off to investigate, her search lights flashing a challenge as she did so. It was not long before heavy shells came hurtling back in response.
When Wells arrived on the bridge, breathless from the climb up several ladders, he saw the Captain leaning over a voice tube and heard the order to ready the Swordfish of 823 Squadron for takeoff.
“Squadron to be ranged on the flight deck at once, Mister Stevens,” said the Captain, an edge of impatience obvious in his tone. “Helm, increase speed. Ahead full.”
“Sir, we haven’t the steam up. Six boilers are down!”
“Well then send down and bloody well get them up!” The Captain spied Wells just as he came onto the bridge. “You there, Mister Wells. Get to the W/T room and send a sighting report. Two battlecruisers bearing 308 degrees, distance 15 miles, on a course of zero-three-zero. We’ll send the same on the remote. Be sure we send our position.”
“Aye sir…Shall the ship come to action stations?” He had heard no general alarm, and for all he knew the ship’s crew were lolling about on routine duty and unaware of the grave danger they were in now.
“Get on with it, Mister Wells, and kindly leave the ship’s condition to me, if you please, sir.”
Wells felt the sting and knew he had best get moving at once. Yet even as he ran for the hatch he knew it was all wrong. The ship was still on its original course. The Captain should have turned away from the sighted contact at once. What was he doing? He paused, wanting to point this out, along with the lack of a watch on the mainmast, the lack of planes overhead, and all the rest, hesitating for a few brief seconds with all that had been said between himself and Lieutenant Woodfield still rankling in his mind. He knew he would be in the right if he spoke now, but he also knew the Captain would likely go into a rage and take his head off, so he mastered himself, knowing there would come a better time to speak his mind and focusing on the moment at hand. The sighting report was vital. Ark Royal was out there somewhere, as was the cruiser Devonshire. Surely they could lend a hand if they knew what was happening here.
So he turned and ran aft for the Wireless Telegraphy room, one deck below, not knowing that those few seconds of hesitation, a brief moment of restraint, were going to make all the difference in the world—not just for him, but
for the ship itself and the lives of every man aboard.
When he reach the W/T signals room the operator there handed him a message right off the wire. “It’s Ardent, sir. They say the contact is presumed hostile and they are attacking.” It was acting Chief Barrow on the main W/T duty that afternoon.
“Right, Mister Barrow, well send this sighting report straight away.” He gave the man the information he had been told to relay, then turned to get himself back to the bridge as soon as possible.
“Send it Billy,” said the Chief.
“On Home Wave or Fleet Wave, sir?”
“On whatever we’re set for, man! Be quick about it!”
Telegraphist William Barron began keying his message when Al Rose at the next station looked over at the Chief. “I thought we were still supposed to be on Narvik Wave at 7.3 MzH? Nobody was supposed to spin the dial until we cross 65 degrees north, sir.”
“We tested on that last night. The power pack is dodgy and we couldn’t raise a soul, so we switched to Home Wave early. Who’s listening at Narvik anyway?”
“Sort it all out, Chief,” said Wells. “Send on both waves.” Even as he started away he had the very odd feeling that he was late for something very important. He had to get back to the bridge!
He was late. Just those few seconds late, though they would soon change everything, at least insofar as his own fate and that of the ship was concerned. It was one of those tides in the affairs of men that Shakespeare had written of, and he was about to take it at the flood.
Chapter 8
BC Scharnhorst ~ 16:46 Hours, June 8, 1940
The lookout squinted into his field glasses, certain now of what he was seeing. It was no cloud, not on a day like this with visibility so good. Midshipman Goos leaned out to his mate, two tiers below him on the high mast and shouted out the contact.
“Smoke on the horizon, Schulte, starboard side, bearing east at sixty degrees true!”
The word soon rippled down to the bridge of the battlecruiser Scharnhorst, welcome news to the ears of her Kapitan Kurt ‘Caesar’ Hoffmann. Holder of the Iron Cross and Cross of Honor from the last war, his temperament was well suited to his position, cool, hard, calculating and with an iron will. His peers simply called him ‘the praetorian’ after his middle name ‘Caesar,’ a handle he accepted with a wry grin.
After the war began in September of 1939, Hoffmann left the light cruiser Konigsberg to assume his post as Kapitan of Scharnhorst, and achieved immediate success in his first major sortie with Gneisenau by finding and sinking the auxiliary cruiser Rawalpindi. It was a great mismatch, with the two German ships badly outgunning the British ship, an old passenger ship that had been hastily converted to a cruiser with 6-inch guns of WWI vintage. Hoffmann gave the British commander every opportunity to surrender his ship, ordering him to abandon the ship three times. To his amazement, all he received in answer were salvos of fire.
The niceties over, he promptly returned fire. In that action the ship and crew exhibited the remarkable skill in gunnery that would aid them throughout the many trials ahead. Within three minutes they had obtained the range and struck the hapless cruiser full on the bridge, killing the ship’s Captain and most senior officers there. Minutes later another salvo literally broke the recalcitrant cruiser in two.
A few months later the Kapitan and his ship had been less fortunate and unable to engage when the twin battlecruisers were boldly attacked by HMS Renown. It was a battle Hoffmann thought the Germans should have won, with eighteen eleven inch guns between the two ships against only six 15-inch guns on Renown. The German ships also had twice the armor protection of Renown, with 350mm at the belt against only 150mm for the British battlecruiser.
Yet, unable to range on the enemy effectively in the tempestuous seas, her radar malfunctioning, Hoffmann realized the best course would be to use their speed to break off and fight again another day. Leaving the scene in heavy seas and at high speed, the ship took on water, which swamped her bow and put the forward turret out of action. The water was literally flooding in through the range finder equipment and cartridge ejection scuttles! It was a problem that would plague both battlecruisers in heavy seas, as their “Atlantic” bow installed after completion still proved inadequate in keeping the sea at bay.
He was still galled by the thought that the Kriegsmarine should have logged a victory that day. Yet the war was only just beginning. His ships were just the first to find and duel with the heavier British units, and they were still working out the defects that had been hampering operations at the outset of the war. Problems with metal fatigue, heating tubes in the boilers and performance in heavy seas were all to be addressed in lengthy refits as the Twins wintered in Wilhelmshaven. He knew that Germany had more might to darken these waters in the days ahead. Bismarck and Tirpitz had been working out together, ready for action any day now, and behind them were even more powerful ships.
He had not had a look at her yet, the ship Germany now placed so much faith in, mighty Hindenburg. While the two Bismarck class battleships mounted eight 38cm 15-inch guns, Hindenburg would finally match the best naval arms of their adversary with eight 16-inch guns, and 380mm belt armor for protection. Behind her would come Oldenburg, but after that he doubted if any of the other ships planned for the war would ever be built. We are lucky to have so many battleships in the fleet now, he thought, enough to give the British a real fight this time. Doenitz was arguing that the steel needed for a single battleship could build ten U-boats, and he was correct. If that were true then it meant his ship would have to do far better than the likes of Rawalpindi.
They needed a kill, and now “the Twins” were prowling the waters west of the Norwegian coast like two dark panthers looking for prey. The ships were hoping to interrupt the British supply effort for Norway, but word had just come over from Admiral Wilhelm Marschall aboard the division flag Gneisenau that the British were evacuating.
It seems we will have little to do now, thought Hoffmann before a sudden call from the watch sent him to the view port to study the horizon. Where there was smoke, there was fire. Something was out there, and he might get a ship or two before the operation was called off after all.
“Notify Admiral Marschall of the sighting,” Hoffmann said coolly as he studied the smoke through his field glasses. “Let’s see what we have.” He thought it might be transports, but if this were the edge of a distant convoy there would be escorts. It was not long before he spotted the faint wink of a light beneath the smoke, and the silhouette of a small ship that could only be a destroyer.
A bridge messenger was quick to the Kapitan’s side. “Sir,” he said, “signal return from Gneisenau. We are to work up speed and turn to engage.”
“Ahead full,” said Hoffmann. “The ship will come to action stations.”
The alarm sent men moving in all directions, but Hoffmann was the still point on the bridge, his eyes fixed on the distant contact. He noted his watch, seeing it was just after 17:00 hours. A lucky time, he thought. We hit Rawalpindi at 17:06. Maybe we’ll get lucky here as well.
“Helm come hard to starboard and steady on zero-three-zero.”
“Hard to starboard, sir!”
Scharnhorst was in the lead, but her boilers had been giving her trouble again and Hoffmann doubted he would get full speed. He leaned out, looking for Gneisenau behind him, seeing the other ship following smartly in his long white wake.
Fregatten Kapitan Lowisch, was an artillery officer up on the foretop firing control station. He soon called out again, with new sighting information.
“Kapitan Hoffmann,” he said. “I’ve a better look now. Thick funnel and mainmast amidships, sir, and what looks to be a flight deck. I’ think we’ve found a carrier!”
“A carrier? Out here all alone with nothing more than those two destroyers?” Hoffmann was watching one of the escorts making a brave charge. The other was aft of the main contact, running in the carrier’s wake.
“Helm, come about to ze
ro-seven-zero.”
“Sir,” said Lowisch again. “It’s definitely a carrier. Perhaps Ark Royal. I can make out deck cranes, elevators, and that leading destroyer is getting nosey.”
Ark Royal… One of the best they have, thought Hoffmann. They certainly know we’re here and will be reporting our position at this very moment. If they get planes up and after us it could be a rough ride home. Why haven’t they turned away if they’ve seen us?
“Helm. Starboard again. Come round to one-five-zero.” The Germans were making their final approach turn, and now he saw that the destroyer near the main contact was beginning to make smoke. Very strange that a carrier would be here this way. Was there something over the horizon that they had not yet seen?
The ship’s chief gunnery officer, Schubert was now at the Kapitan’s side. “Sir, that destroyer looks to be making a torpedo run on us.”
“You may begin training on targets, Schubert. Use your secondary batteries on the destroyer. The main guns will target the carrier.”
The action had finally begun, and they saw that Gneisenau was already firing at the intrepid British destroyer. He had to admire the British pluck and courage given the circumstances. That destroyer Captain clearly knows he’s got two large capital ships in front of him, at least heavy cruiser size or better, yet here he comes.
There was an immediate explosion on the enemy destroyer, and Hoffmann raised his binoculars to have a closer look. That must have hit the boiler room, he knew when he saw the ship’s speed fall off dramatically. Yet it was also making heavy smoke now, and zig-zagging forward so it was difficult to assess the real damage.
Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series) Page 7
