Read Between The Hunters And The Hunted Online

Authors: Steven Wilson

Between The Hunters And The Hunted (17 page)

BOOK: Between The Hunters And The Hunted
8.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
The spanning tray operator, a new man named Steiner who still seemed to remain unsure of himself despite his training and thus made Statz unsure of him, extended the spanning tray efficiently. Statz studied the man's performance—he might yet prove to be a good gunner.
Statz heard the low rumble of the 2,700-pound projectile coming up the shell hoist. The hoist door opened and the shell slid onto the spanning tray. Statz noted the color of the shell: yellow, High Explosive. He expected Armor Piercing but let the gods up in the heaven of Fire Direction determine which lightning bolt to throw.
The shell was rammed into the breech until the locking ring fit snugly in the barrel and the ram was returned. The powder hoist door was opened in the longitudinal bulkhead and three bags of black powder rolled onto the spanning tray. They looked like big marshmallows, silk-wrapped bundles of destruction that propelled the shell on its way. The rammer pushed them into the gun and Statz signaled the hoist operator for the next three. They followed the first three bags into the breech of Number One Gun and the ram was retracted. The hoist door was closed and the spanning tray retracted.
“Close and seal the breech!” Statz ordered, although he was the one that was responsible for the action. He made the order out loud so that his gun crew understood where they were in the sequence of preparing the gun to fire. He pushed the lever home, sealing the breech, stepped back on his narrow platform, and raised both arms.
The gun director saw the signal he had been waiting for, checked the gauges to make sure that there was enough air pressure on the recoil cylinders, and turned the Bakelite knob that activated the Ready switch from Safe to Ready.
Statz looked at the gun director for confirmation. The gun director mouthed,
three-oh
. Statz shot him a disgusted look. Thirty seconds. What a miserable performance. If they came up against
Nelson
or
KG V
they had better improve on that.
He glanced around the crowded interior to make sure that his crew was at their proper stations. Now he waited to hear the three quick rings of the fire bell. When he heard that signal, they'd be on the devil's shovel.
 
 
Kadow took the receiver and listened. He turned to Mahlberg. “Hydrophone reports the enemy vessel has turned to port and is attempting to cross our bow.”
Mahlberg smiled broadly. “How accommodating of them. Confirm that with radar. Send out the range and bearing to Frey. Tell him to ready his monsters.”
 
 
H.M.S.
Nottingham
 
Tea was brought to the bridge and passed around. Kye was too heavy and made a man constipated if he drank too much of it, but the rich thick chocolate did have a way of driving out the cold. The officers and men spoke in hushed tones; orders were passed and acknowledged calmly, but under the calmness was the sharp edge of expectation. The enemy was out there.
The watch had been changed in the mastheads, the heavily clad seamen carefully climbing down the icy ladders, their replacements ringing in to the bridge to acknowledge the change and that the line still worked. Far below the mastheads the torpedo men of the exposed mounts huddled round the black-box heaters in the Oerlikon tubs. There was no reason for the Oerlikon crews, or any antiaircraft gunners, to be at their action stations so they remained below, ready to serve with the supply parties.
The gun crews of the main batteries—A, B, X, and Y Turrets—waited patiently in their damp, cold caverns. Moisture oozed from the bulkheads, decks, hatches, and pipes—from every piece of machinery aboard
Nottingham
; it was driven out of her rust-streaked gray skin by the unremitting cold and deep into the bones of her crew. If a seaman were lucky, or fast, or had rank enough, he could sling his hammock under a hot-air louver and dare a man to touch it.
Trunburrow could have used the presence of a hot-air louver and the glowing comfort of a Horse's Neck as the burning liquid slid down his throat and radiated into his numb limbs. But the hot-air louvers were deep in the bowels of the ship and he preferred to be where he could see the sky—even if it were a never-changing lifeless gray. And he did not drink. So he kept watch on the bridge with the captain and the others as
Nottingham
patiently shadowed whoever was out there.
“Number One, have we not heard from the Flow?” Prader said irritably.
Trunburrow fought back the urge to be just as disagreeable by saying,
Did anyone present you with a message? Do you think that we might have received one and kept it from you?
But he did not. “No, sir,” he simply said.
“Well, we can't take on that monster on our own. Even
Nottingham
must have a bit of help now and again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She is a wonder of English engineering, wouldn't you say, Number One?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“We are most fortunate, all of us, I mean, to be aboard
Nottingham
. We've our machinery and training so that we can well handle anything that comes our way. Am I right, Number One?”
“Yes, sir.”
Oh, shut up, you silly old fool!
“That is what modern naval warfare is all about. Machinery, I mean. Technology. It is unerring. When I walk about her,
Nottingham
of course, I am continually amazed at the care and forethought given to her design. Remarkable.”
“Indeed, sir. I've noted it as well.”
“Radar and whatnot? Technology is the ultimate weapon. Have you given attention to the new arms of the warrior?”
The masthead telephone rang as Trunburrow said: “Yes, sir.” He wished vehemently that the old windbag would wander off and become engaged with examining the whatnot that he so adored. He picked up the telephone and said: “Bridge.” He knew before the lookout spoke, he sensed what was coming through the telephone lines, as sure if it were a jolt of electricity, that it was a catastrophe.
“Foremast! Enemy vessel red thirty, range ten miles. Enemy vessel red thirty, range ten miles!”
Trunburrow dropped the receiver, grabbed his binoculars, and looked to port. He heard a commotion behind him, shouting, questions, and he felt others join him. The masthead was twenty feet above the bridge and the lookout had been very professional in his report—stating the information twice over as he had been trained to do. He had told Trunburrow, in an almost conversational tone, that death was in view just ten miles away.
It came into the narrow field of his binoculars, an indistinct gray mountain trailing a thin smudge of smoke behind it. Trunburrow watched it approach and was struck by the thought that the world that existed between that monster and him was, unaccountably, calm. Then he realized in terror that everything he felt, saw, and thought had happened in a matter of seconds.
Then huge clouds of black smoke erupted from the distant ship.
Chapter 16
The Admiralty, London, England
 
Admiral Sir Joshua Bimble entered the conference room with his secretary, an extraordinary brilliant man named Hawthorne, just in time to hear Captain Harland say: “All hell's broken loose in the Denmark Strait.” At the sight of Bimble, Harland's face reddened and he and the other officers on the admiral's staff quickly took their seats around the table.
Bimble turned his attention to Captain Macready, who immediately took this signal correctly, because Bimble seldom wasted words when a glance would suffice, to bring the admiral up to date.
“At 0900 Greenwich mean time H.M.S.
Nottingham
, operating with H.M.S.
Harrogate
in the Denmark Strait, made contact with an unidentified target traveling south-southwest. Said target”—Macready littered his briefings with legal terms as if they strengthened the value of his reports—“was identified as a capital ship with two destroyers acting as escorts.”
Harland was surprised to see Bimble's right eyebrow rise slightly; the old bastard seldom exhibited any reaction to any news that he received during the morning conference. The ancient badger was impressed.
“
Nottingham
closed to within twenty-five miles of the target and confirmed that it was a German battleship with a destroyer escort.”
“Not
Tirpitz
?” Bimble said in a monotone.
“No, sir,” Commander Elwes, his chief of intelligence, commented. “
Bismarck
's twin sister hasn't moved.”
“Who is she?” Harland wondered out loud, wanting his voice to be heard as worthy of note.
“Quiet,” Bimble said, damning Harland for his obvious attempt to gain attention. “Continue,” he said to Macready.
“At 0934
Nottingham
reported that the enemy ship was engaging her.
Nottingham
reported that they were speedily, his expression exactly, trying to disengage but that the enemy appeared to be intent on a fight.”
“We shall have to get some Very Long Range aircraft up there immediately,” Bimble said.
“Yes, sir,” Elwes said. “Unfortunately the area is socked in. Low cloud cover. Coastal Command had to call their chaps back several hours before all of this happened.”
“Well,” Bimble said, stroking the gray beard that earned him the nickname Father Neptune. He was no Jellicoe of Jutland and there were some reports that he and Winston, when Churchill was the first sea lord, had disagreed on nearly everything including the color of the sky, but he was imperturbable. “Give him his pipe and a cup of tea,” one member of his young staff had said, “and he is quite willing to face Armageddon.”
“I'll have them up and that's that. You must tell the fellows at Coastal Command,” he said to Elwes, “that we have a mystery on our hands. As you gentlemen know, I don't fancy mysteries.”
Harland kept quiet. He felt that he'd given the old man too much of an opportunity to make a fool of him as it was.
“Captain Harland.” Bimble's voice caught him off guard. “You shall be my eyes and ears at Scapa Flow.
Nottingham
is telling them and then they are telling us, but I don't like getting my information secondhand. I trust that you'll get me everything that I need.”
Harland felt his stock rise a hundredfold. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
“Macready,” Bimble said, “we need to know who this is. She can't have materialized without someone being aware of her. Track her down, find out what you can of her. Find out what she is about and how we can destroy her.”
“Yes, sir,” Macready said.
“Thank you, gentlemen.”
The officers quickly left the conference room, knowing that Bimble used those three words to close every meeting. When they were gone, Bimble leaned over the back of his chair and looked at his secretary. Hawthorne finished his notes and returned the admiral's glance.
“Mr. Churchill,” Hawthorne said.
“Yes,” Bimble said. “That bloody old fool is out there. I shall have to let Their Lordships know about this latest development. The prime minister, despite his belief in his considerable capabilities, does not control the German navy.”
“Sir Joshua,” Hawthorne said, “there is something else. Perhaps totally unrelated to either the German ship or Mr. Churchill's voyage.”
“Yes?”
“Morning dispatches highlighted increased U-boat activity. U-boat radio transmissions indicate that something out of the ordinary is happening.”
“That's all that we have, Hawthorne?”
“Yes, indeed, Sir Joshua. At the moment there aren't any more details to pass on. U-boats are on the move and they're being most vocal. That is all.”
“Have you an opinion?” Bimble said, prompting his secretary.
“None worth sharing. Nothing can be done until we gather more information. I suspect, however, that we must be quick about it.”
“Of course,” Sir Joshua said sourly. “In other words, we wait until we know more.” He turned back around and gathered the briefing notes left by his place at the conference table by his staff. “I'll meet with Their Lordships immediately. It irritates me that I have very little to tell them, but what little there is, is troubling.”
 
 
H.M.S.
Nottingham
 
Prader watched as the first shells from the distant ship landed far off the starboard quarter of H.M.S. Nottingham. Giant columns of white water, tinged with yellow dye from the High Explosive shells, erupted out of the sea, hung above the base of their own creation, and slowly fell away.
The huge shells sounded like locomotives when they came over—an unnerving, heavy, chugging roar that seemed to draw the air out of a man's breath. Certainly fifteen-inch guns. Perhaps sixteen-inch guns. Whatever they were and whoever mounted them, H.M.S. Nottingham could not match them with her puny eight-inch guns.
“Masthead reports,” Trunburrow said. “Unable to determine class. Large ship, four turrets times three.”
Prader slipped his binoculars to his eyes and grunted in response. “She may be powerful but we are fast. Revolutions to thirty knots, Number One. Take evasive action, stand by to make smoke. Inform
Harrogate
that we are under attack. Contact the Flow—”
Another rumble filled the air and the gray-green sea to port and starboard of
Nottingham
exploded in towering geysers seventy feet high.
Splinters from the high-explosive shells peppered
Nottingham
, beating an angry tattoo, nearly ripping off the main fire-director tower and antiaircraft tower. They sliced through her thin skin into the for'ard galley and sick bay, and wiped out the for'ard searchlight station.
They stripped
Nottingham
of her wireless antenna. She was deaf and dumb.
“My God, they've got us straddled!” Prader shouted. “Starboard thirty. Where is my smoke? I must have my smoke.” As if his voice commanded the ship itself, huge volumes of black smoke erupted from the cruiser's twin stacks, rolling down over her superstructure and then up again, masthead height. She had to get the smoke between her and the enemy vessel; she had to make a place for herself to hide in the rolling swells of the gray waters.
The W.T. telephone rang and a yeoman of signals answered it. “Captain, sir,” the yeoman said. “W.T. reports they have no signal, sir. They can't raise anyone.”
“What?”
“The antennas must be down, sir.”
“All of them? That's impossible. Have them checked. That can't be.”
Trunburrow watched the flashes of light in the dark bulk of the distant enemy ship. Those were shells coming his way—the battleship would kill them with impunity.
 
 
D.K.M.
Sea Lion
 
Turm Oberbootsmannmaat Statz knew himself lucky to be in Bruno. Anton was lower and closer to the bow and she leaked every time a wave rolled over the Atlantic bow and exploded against the breakwater. She had no independent sighting system because water came into the range-finder housing on either side of the turret. Statz thought little of Anton.
But Bruno was a different matter and now she was proving it.
“Enemy cruiser in sight at twenty degrees,” the loudspeaker in the turret blared. “Range . . .” The rest of the message was distorted—probably a short in the speaker wiring. No matter; the range was not important to Statz. He knew that the enemy was many kilometers away and probably running as if the devil himself were after her. “Course two-four-oh degrees,” the loudspeaker said.
Statz and his crew could see nothing. They depended on the loudspeaker to tell them what was happening. He could tell from practice how the turret trainer was moving the turret and about where she was pointed to port or starboard. He knew from the gun's breech when she fell or rose how many degrees the gun layer had plotted in. But for everything else he had to depend on the loudspeaker encased in a heavy steel cage behind a protective steel grid to tell him what was happening outside.
“Enemy making smoke,” the speaker said.
“They're afraid of us,” Hoist Operator Matrosengefreiter Manthey said. “They're running away.”
“Wouldn't you be?” Steiner said.
“Request permission to fire,” the speaker said. That was the gunnery officer in the forward fire-control tower. Statz could hear the excitement in his voice. There was no reply from the
Kapitan
. What was he waiting on?
Let's get this thing over with.
“Request permission to fire,” the gunnery officer said, but his voice was calmer. He'd gotten control of his emotion and perhaps that was what Mahlberg was waiting for.
“Permission to fire.” It was the
Kapitan's
voice, as calm as if he were ordering a beer. Statz prepared himself. In the fire-control station were three sets of lights: lock, ready, and shoot. One set for each of the three guns in Bruno. Lock enabled the guns to be loaded, ready signaled the gunnery officer that the guns were loaded, and shoot . . . A yeoman standing to the right of the gunnery officer placed two fingers from his right hand and one from his left on the three lit buttons marked
shoot
, and pushed.
There was the brief ring of the firing bell and then it was like being in the center of a thunderstorm. The cannons roared as the two-and-a-half-ton projectiles exploded from the barrels, and the guns slid back in recoil. They immediately returned to full extension and the gun layer dropped the guns to five degrees for loading.
Statz swung the breech open and the spanning tray was dropped into position. As his crew loaded the next shell, they listened. The shell's flight was being timed, and the gunnery officer had the target locked in the stereoscopic range-finder, tracking its course and the results of the
Sea Lion
's shooting.
“Attention,” the speaker said. “Fall.” The shells should impact at that moment.
“Three questionably right.” It was the gunnery officer speaking. Statz knew that the officer's forehead was pressed firmly into the black foam support of the range-finder, as his eyes sought out the target. “Three wide right, questionably over.” The information was being fed into the gunnery computers in the two fire-control centers deep within the ship: range, bearing, deflection—they could do everything except load the guns.
The powder hoist operator, Matrosengefreiter Scholtz, pulled open the hoist door and rolled two powder bags onto the spanning tray. Statz signaled for the ram operator, another
Matrosengefreiter
named Wurst, to push the bags into the gun's breech, but he was listening to the speaker announce firing corrections as well.
“Ten more left.”
Statz knew the gunnery officer was recalibrating the range-finder. That sort of work was too fine for the gunner; it was the sort of thing that educated men did, men who kept their hands clean.
“Down four,” the speaker said.
This was it.
“Full salvos good rapid.”
His men let out a cheer as the last of the bags went into the breech. Fire away. Load and shoot as fast as you can. Bracket the enemy vessel and then walk the shells up until there is nothing left but an oil stain and debris coating the water.
The breechblock slammed shut and the breech screw spun, locking it into position. Statz turned to his men and shook his fist at them.
“That is the way it's done in the Kriegsmarine! We grab them by the snout and kick them in the ass.”
He heard the training gear engage and felt the turret move as the gun began to elevate. He heard the fire bell ring and he grinned broadly, white teeth and shining eyes in a black-powder-covered face.
BOOK: Between The Hunters And The Hunted
8.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Impossible by Komal Lewis
If He's Wild by Hannah Howell
A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Dangerous Gifts by Gaie Sebold
The Rebel by Marta Perry
Running in Fear Escaped by Trinity Blacio
Castro's Daughter by David Hagberg
Ablaze by Dahlia Rose