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Authors: Steven Wilson

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BOOK: Between The Hunters And The Hunted
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Kapitan zur See Mahlberg lowered his binoculars and turned to Kadow, expecting an answer.
“She's the
Nottingham
,” Kadow said. “
Harrogate
is far to the southeast. She can't come to
Nottingham
's assistance in less than two hours.”
“We'll have to break off action very soon, sir,” Korvettenkapitan Balzer said. He was
Sea Lion
's chief navigator, a man to whom time and distance were the only true language of sailors.
Mahlberg looked at Kadow. “You see that Balzer wants to hinder our practice. I gave our first artillery officer thirty minutes, Balzer.” Mahlberg studied his Tissot wristwatch. “He has five minutes left to him.”
“The
Prince of Wales
, sir,” Balzer reminded Mahlberg.
“We'll have time,” Mahlberg said as another salvo shook the ship. The acrid, black cordite cloud rolled over the bridge. “Time us, Balzer. Five minutes. No more. Kadow? Nothing from Wilhelmshaven?”
“No, sir,” Kadow said. They had sent three encoded messages to Naval Group Command North but had received no reply. This far north and nearly out into the North Atlantic, ships and radio waves were often at the mercy of the weather. Mahlberg was anxious to report his progress and his first contact with the enemy. He fully expected to be reprimanded for engaging the cruiser because it delayed his rendezvous with
Prince of Wales
, but not by much. His little excursion in no way endangered the plan laid out by Grand Admiral Raeder and the
Seekriegsleitung
—the Supreme Naval Staff. Crafting the plan was all very calm and systematic; old men studying the position of little carved wooden ships on the plotting table. But the old men shuddered mightily when you deviated from the plan, rubbing their hands together as they contemplated the disaster that might befall their beloved wooden ships.
Another salvo erupted again and Mahlberg focused his binoculars on the distant target. It was almost impossible to see anything. The sky and sea were gray and patches of fog hung close to the water.
“Balzer?” Mahlberg said.
“Three minutes.”
“Kapitan?” Kadow said. “Forward fire-control station reports, enemy vessel appears to have been hit.”
 
 
H.M.S.
Nottingham
 
They were running away. They could not fight a battleship, not without help, and the German's range-finding apparatus had them trapped no matter which way they turned.
Nottingham
had been struck several hundred times by shell splinters that punctured her superstructure, and hull and supply parties were making their way to every deck to fight fires or stop leaks.
Then
the
shell struck.
The others had been near misses, throwing tons of water on the decks or razor-sharp splinters through the steel plate. This one was different.
There was a thunderous bang and the ship shook violently as if she had struck a rock at full speed. Smoke, heavy with the foul stench of smoldering metal, filled the air.
Trunburrow watched, as Prader seemed to collapse with indecision. His orders were confusing and frantic. He was truly frightened.
“For God's sake, Number One, get some chaps on that fire in the marines' mess deck. It's too close to the magazines. Something must be done. Somebody must do something.”
“The aft supply party is on it, sir.”
“Do they need more men? Should we detail more men?”
“They'll call if they need more, sir.”
Trunburrow was no longer afraid. A new calm had come over him, a sense of purpose and place, which he could not ascribe to any action of his own. He gave orders to steer the ship to port or starboard, to present as small a target to the enemy as possible.
Nottingham
responded beautifully, seemingly unaware of the danger just a few miles away. Trunburrow wanted her to weave through the ocean like a drunkard. No consistency in movement, no repetition in course, anything so that the Jerries couldn't anticipate your next move.
“We are making smoke, aren't we, Number One?” Prader said, moving to the port window. “I distinctly remember ordering someone to make smoke.” His head and upper part of his torso were exposed when the shell struck.
There was a tremendous blast and all the air was sucked from the world of the compass platform. Trunburrow felt himself thrown against the bridge bulkhead. He knew that he was burned all over because he felt the heat and saw the clouds of flames envelop him—he marveled at the fact that he did not die. He was lying on his side on the deck, a cast-off form on the geometrically precise gray and red linoleum blocks, and across the bridge he could see some sort of bundle that couldn't have been human because there was no head or shoulders. That dark shape, and several others, littered the deck of the compass platform. They rested on and amid pieces of equipment, insulation, charts, binoculars, and life vests, helmets . . . things that had all neatly been stowed in designated locations until the shell made a mockery of order.
Trunburrow tasted cordite and black, acrid smoke burned his eyes, but for some reason there was no sound. Not a bit of it.
He pulled himself to his feet; he was trembling uncontrollably, and looked around for the captain. Then he realized that he had been staring stupidly at the mass of flesh and cloth on the deck and that obscene bundle could only be Prader.
He tried to move and bumped into a sublieutenant named Wells. The sublieutenant's mouth was working frantically and his eyes were wide with horror and his face was an odd combination of blood, grime, and deathly pale skin. He was obviously asking Trunburrow some sort of question, but Number One had no idea what he wanted.
Ask the captain, you silly little boy
, Trunburrow thought, but then he looked down and saw the captain at his feet.
“. . . house blown away,” finally came through, as clearly as if the sublieutenant and he were sitting in the wardroom chatting.
“What?” Trunburrow said, suddenly aware that his head hurt horribly.
“The asdic cabinet and chart house have been carried away.”
“Yes,” Trunburrow acknowledged. “What else?”
“The searchlight control position, the captain's shelter and cabin.”
“The important stuff, man!”
“Heavy fires in the telephone exchange and the stokers' mess deck.”
“Right,” Trunburrow said. “Get a supply party down to the telephone exchange immediately.” He whistled into the voice tube leading to the wheelhouse. It was just aft and one deck below the telephone exchange. It was bad enough to have the exchange go out—if
Nottingham
lost the wheelhouse as well, it reduced her chance of escaping the enemy vessel. She could be steered from the engine room, but it was a cumbersome and time-consuming process.
“Wheelhouse.”
“Compass Platform here. We've taken a brick just aft of the bridge on the port side. There's fire in the telephone exchange. How are you?”
“A bit of smoke, sir. She's still responding well.”
“Right. Now, Helmsman, I'm going to be busy up here and the captain's dead. I want you to take her all over the bloody ocean but keep a general course of two-three-zero, until I order you to stop. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the helmsman said. “Steer at will along a general line of two-three-zero, until further orders.”
“Good man,” Trunburrow said. He stepped over debris out to the starboard bridge wing. There was a fog bank five miles ahead; refuge, safety, life, five miles ahead. He got the other members of the bridge party back to their stations, except those whose wounds prevented further service.
“Sir?”
It was Wells with a young midshipman cadet . . .
what's his name? Westfield, Westmore
. . .
what was his name?
“Warrant Officer Arthur has a supply party on the telephone exchange. He says that he will have it out in five minutes if . . .”
“Yes? Go on.”
Wells appeared uncertain about delivering the rest of the message. “If he has to ‘use teapots and soup bowls.'”
“Yes,” Trunburrow said. He glanced at the midshipman cadet. “And you?”
“Westlake, sir.”
“Westlake. Of course.”
“Lieutenant Ames sent him forward from engineering, sir,” Wells said. “He thought that you might need someone to assist you.”
“Yes,” Trunburrow said. “The first thing that you can do is contact engineering and have them stop all smoke. It stands out like a sore thumb against this mist. Is there any damage aft or to the ventilation system?”
“No, sir,” Westlake said.
“Very well. Contact the aft fire-control tower. See if they can locate that beast. I must know where they are and what their course is. Wells, get some of the medicos up here and remove the bodies.”
“Sir,” Wells said apologetically, “they're all dead.”
The news had no impact on Trunburrow even though they were men that he knew. “The forward supply party then. We should tidy up a bit.”
Damage reports began to come in from the supply parties. The radar scanners and wireless/telegraph were inoperable—so they were blind. The fire direction room and the plot room were destroyed as were the torpedo office, sick bay, and for'ard galley.
Trunburrow took them into consideration, standing amidst the carnage in what was left of the compass platform.
Nottingham
was badly damaged, that much was obvious, but had the shell that struck just aft of the chart house been armor-piercing and come down in a plunging manner instead of a relatively flat trajectory, it would have buried itself deep in
Nottingham
's gut before exploding. It would have been
Hood
all over again except no one would have survived.
From the aft fire-control tower came the unexpected message that the enemy ship appeared to be changing course. It was very difficult to tell; the distance was great and a thick fog hung close on the calm sea.
Trunburrow found a fog bank and turned
Nottingham
into it. W.T. reported that they could have the radio cobbled together given another hour and a bit of luck. Trunburrow needed to contact the Flow about this behemoth let loose in the North Atlantic, so he told Wireless/Telegraph to fix it and be quick about it and never mind the luck.
And then he hung up the receiver and took the binoculars handed him by Westmore, or Westport, or whatever that child's name was, and scanned the limited horizon provided him by the fog. So this was what it was like, he thought, as he trained the binocular lenses through the shattered windows of the compass platform. This was how soldiers and sailors felt when they performed those deeds that others sought to honor them for; action by which they received medals and ribbons, and toasts all around. None of that meant anything to Trunburrow.
The single thought that he settled on as the most important of those myriad considerations was:
so this is what it is like to be without fear
.
Then he heard the rumble again and looked out the shattered window of the compass platform. Another salvo was coming, maybe three shells or six; both of the enemy's forward turrets firing. But their foe couldn't see in the fog, so these were shells tossed almost as an afterthought. Perhaps they were quickly sighted, or ranged based on a guess, or the gunnery officer simply wanted to clear his guns.
It didn't make any difference because two shells landed on
Nottingham
.
The first shell struck her stern just aft of what had been the aft searchlight platform. It plunged into the wireless room and exploded, blowing out the hull of the ship on the starboard and port sides from the waterline up in a massive fountain of flame.
The second shell is the one that destroyed
Nottingham
and killed everyone aboard her not already dead. It struck amidships, forcing its way into the torpedo stores. It should have exploded on contact as any High Explosive shell was designed to do, and if it had done so,
Nottingham
and a few of her crew might have had a chance. But the fuse was defective and the shell penetrated three decks before exploding and cutting the ship in half.
Her stern, burning fiercely from the first shell, quickly drifted away from the bow, which began to fill with water and in minutes, was jutting thirty degrees out of the frigid ocean like a tombstone. This section quickly filled with water and rolled over slowly, tossing screaming sailors into the dark sea. If they lasted minutes in the water that sucked the heat from their bodies they were lucky. If they were killed instantly they were luckier still.
The bow slid into the darkness easily, without giving any indication that it marked the resting place of several hundred men. All that remained of
Nottingham
were bits of nameless debris that covered the iron-gray water, corpses of dead sailors, and a thick coating of black fuel oil that, when any light managed to break through the clouds and fog, shimmered demurely.
BOOK: Between The Hunters And The Hunted
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