Paradox Hour

Chapter 4

Schlachtkreuzer Kaiser Wilhelm was a beautiful ship, fast and deadly as it plowed ahead through light swells that day. Laid down in 1937 by Deutsch Werke at Kiel, it was a design that evolved from the fast Panzerschiff models planned as successors to the Deutschland class pocket battleships. The Germans wanted a faster ship with 11-inch guns to better the performance of the Deutschland Class, but to get that speed required a longer hull and widened beam. This required more armor to cover that hull, which in turn added weight, and a vicious circle ensued. Thus only two of twelve planned Panzerschiff Kreuzers had been built, the Rhineland and Westfalen, and designers moved to a larger ship that could accommodate the armor and also get a dual propulsion system with both diesel engines for efficient long haul cruising, and turbines for high speed engagements.

The result was the Kaiser Wilhelm. At 35,400 tons, it was over 10,000 tons heavier than the Panzershiff, and with better armor and guns. Yet the designers had labored to give the ship the best speed possible, with four high-pressure Wagner boilers, which had a distinctive sound when they were fully fired for high speed performance. The engineers had come to call them “Wagner’s Girls” when they were singing, and Chief Engineer, Otto Kremel, was fond of putting on a recording of the famous composer’s Ride of the Valkyries when the ship ran at high speed. Designed to achieve over 33 knots, the ship had demonstrated the ability to run at 36 knots in trials, an amazing feat for a ship with a displacement equal to British battleships of the Revenge Class, which labored to achieve top speeds of 21 to 23 knots.

Kaiser was all of 840 feet long to achieve that speed, a third longer than Revenge and with a wider beam as well. Yet that gain in speed had come at the expense of both armor and firepower. While the old Revenge Class had eight 15-inch guns, Kaiser had six, and while Revenge had heavy 330mm belt armor, the protection on Kaiser maxed out at only 190mm. This had led some designers to christen the ship Ohne Panzer Quatsch, disparaging its lack of armor.

As a battlecruiser design, the ship was more comparable to the British Renown Class, where it could match or better that ship in almost every category. Kapitan Werner Heinrich had been given command, and he was well schooled in cruiser operations, having served under August Thiele aboard the heavy cruiser Lutzow before this posh assignment. Now he was set on putting the whispered comments about his ship to rest. As he stood on the bridge that day, he was proud to be the vanguard of the fleet flagship, Hindenburg, and when the order came to close on the enemy contact and engage, his blood was up.

Now we get our chance, he thought, staring through his field glasses at the smoke ahead. Goeben has been busy this morning. One of those hot Stuka pilots has already got a hit, and now we’ll come in like a shark to the blood. The British don’t have anything here that can match my firepower, and I can outrun any ship in their fleet. But we won’t be running this time, we’ll be hunting! Kaiser Wilhelm is the best ship I’ve ever set foot on, and now I get my chance to earn my keep. We were out of the action earlier in the Med, keeping a good eye on the Goeben. This time the ship will be put to its proper use, as an advance guard and scout ship, a hunter out to find and hurt the enemy. And my 15-inch guns will do exactly that.

“Ready for action, Schirmer?” he said to his Chief Gunnery officer.

“Ready sir.”

“Good, because I intend to fight here, in spite of these orders to disengage if the British attempt to close the range. Let them try. Word is that they have three cruisers, but it is more likely that we’ll see those pesky destroyers turned loose on us.”

“Let’s see how they like our guns, sir.”

“All ahead full!” Heinrich wanted to get over the horizon and get a good look at that smoke as soon as possible. It was not long before his watchmen made the sighting, a large ship, possibly a carrier, and burning at the bow. Then the scene clouded over with heavy haze, and Heinrich knew what was happening.

They’re making smoke with the destroyers, he thought. They’re running, but they don’t have the speed to match me. This ship is a whole new evolution at sea. Those British carriers could always outrun our heavy ships, but no longer. Now we close the range here with each passing minute, and let us see if they send anything our way to challenge us.

That challenge was inevitable. The Royal Navy was not about to allow one of its principle assets to go down here without a fight. Of the five destroyers escorting Glorious that day, three turned after making smoke as ordered, and now they were set to make a brave charge in the hopes of discouraging the oncoming enemy raider. Icarus was out in front, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Colin Douglas Maud, a barrel-chested man with a heavy black beard and his favorite blackthorn walking stick always at hand, which he tapped on the deck whenever they made their torpedo run.

Maud’s fate had been strangely entwined with the long odyssey that had brought Kirov into this war. His ship had been in Force P under Admiral Wake-Walker, en-route to the North Cape area to attack German airfields at Kirkenes and Petsamo, though they never got there. Later, he would steam with Admiral Tovey in a hunt for another fast German raider, as that story once played out. Yet the raider was not a German ship, but a strange vessel with weapons so advanced that it managed to hold the entire Royal Navy at bay for weeks in the North Atlantic. Maud’s ship had been screening Tovey’s battleships when the rockets came in, weapons unlike anything he had ever seen. Icarus was hit and sank that day, putting Maud and his crew into the water, along with his beloved bulldog Winnie.

Rescued at sea, Maud was eventually given command of another destroyer, the Intrepid, a ship sailing right off his starboard bow at that moment. As fate would have it, he would meet the ship that killed Icarus and Winnie again in the Mediterranean, and lead Intrepid on a desperate attack to try and even the score. He was lucky enough to survive that encounter this second time, but not lucky enough to get his vengeance. But his story was not finished. A German U-Boat Kapitan would have something more to do with his fate, one Werner Czygan aboard U-118. It was his stealthy web of mines that would catch a fly off the Coast of Spain, a ship named Duero.

It seemed like a small thing, a lowly tramp steamer hitting a mine laid by a hungry, frustrated U-boat Kapitan, but it was the night that changed the entire course of history—not only of the war, but for every day that followed. For a very special passenger was aboard the ship that night, a drifter, indigent laborer, and a virtual nobody that had been taken on as cheap muscle in the fire room a few weeks earlier. His name was Gennadi Orlov.

While serving with Force H, Intrepid came to the rescue of that stricken ship, and Maud became very suspicious about a couple Eastern Europeans aboard, and particularly with the man named Orlov.

But all that had not yet happened. It was action that had began in a frantic naval chase between July 28 and August 8 of 1941, days that had not arrived yet. And it was action that might never occur now, for this world was strangely altered, with whole nations like Russia fragmented into warring states. Even so, details in the picture this history was painting held true, and Maud was aboard Icarus again. Yet the ship that had sent his destroyer to the bottom in one telling of these events to come, was no longer the mortal enemy of the Royal Navy. Instead it sailed as an ally.

Perhaps Maud would never be fated to meet Orlov like that now, though that encounter was a crucial link in the chain of events that now saw Kirov here in this world. If his keen eye had not spied that Glock Pistol at Orlov’s side, then he would not have sent the man to Gibraltar so British intelligence could have a look at him. There Orlov would meet and be interrogated by a man who was a double agent with the KGB, and as a result of that, he would be sent east through the med on a Turkish cargo ship, transferring to a Soviet trawler in the Black Sea.

Orlov’s sojourn east, in search of his grandmother, eventually evolved into a hunt for the man who had caused her harm, Commissar Molla. It took the Chief to a place called Kizlyar, where Molla’s men picked him up and sent him to a prison near Baku. Along the way he left clues in the history, particularly a journal note that a very keen eyed navigator used to find him. If Orlov had not gone east like that, then Fedorov would have never made the journey west along the Siberian rail line to try and rescue him and return him to his own time. He would have never found the back stairway of the Inn at Ilanskiy, and never met young Mironov, Sergei Kirov. It was that meeting, and the careless whisper of warning in Mironov’s ear, that saw this world now shattered in pieces, altered states, skewed history that was becoming more and more unrecognizable with each turn of Kirov’s screws in the turbulent waters of this war.

All that depended on the man now standing on the bridge of the Destroyer Icarus, Colin Douglas Maud. Or was it Werner Czygan aboard U-118, and his decision to alter his tactics and lay those mines instead of hunting with his torpedoes? It was that choice that sent Icarus and Maud to the Duero in the first place. Who could say where the seed of causality was really hidden in the garden? Time was tormented by these circuitous loops and changes, like unseasonable rain that caused things to grow and bloom that were never meant to be. It remained to be seen what part Maud would now be asked to play in this hour, here in May of 1941, long before he ever lived out those events that so altered the history of the world—events that he might never see now.

Out there on the grey horizon, another shadow loomed, the tall mainmast and conning tower of Kaiser Wilhelm becoming more prominent with each passing minute. Maud looked at it with narrow eyed respect. He knew his ships were no match for a fast German raider, but here he was, and with the fate of a fleet carrier riding in the balance.

Glorious had turned south, he knew, and now we have to buy her the time she needs to make good her escape. We’re not likely to hurt that ship out there with our deck guns. They’ll have us in range long before our guns can engage. The only thing we’ve got that matters here are those nice fat 21-inch torpedoes. Between the three of us we’ve all of thirty fish aboard, and that will make one mean spread for that enemy ship to avoid out there. But to launch torpedoes that will have any chance of posing a real threat, we have to get in close. The range of our torpedoes is only 5000 meters, and between here and there, it’s all guts and glory.

“Well lads,” he said, tapping the deck three times with his stout blackthorn walking stick. “Now we earn our grog. Make ready on the torpedo mounts, and increase to full ahead.”

Kapitan Heinrich smiled when he saw the British destroyers begin their impudent charge. It was just as he expected. Technically the enemy was now attempting to close with him, and his orders stated that he should disengage and steer 300, but he saw no reason to do so at the moment.

“Schirmer, do you think you can hit one of those with our main batteries?”

“It would make for good target practice, sir.”

“Then clear your throat. It’s high time we gave the guns a little work.”

“Very good sir! With your permission, I will open fire immediately.”

Seconds later Kaiser’s forward twin turret opened the engagement, the salvo meant to test the range calculated by the directors. Schirmer was watching closely, and when the big guns fired, he waited for the rounds to fall, seeing they were short, but much closer than he expected.

“Fire Bruno!” he said sharply, knowing that those guns were set on the same range as his spotting salvo. If he was lucky, the simple speed of the two opposing sides would close that range just enough to make this shot interesting.

And he was lucky that day. He saw the two rounds fall right astride the formation of enemy ships, so close to one destroyer that the tall plumes of seawater drenched the ship’s foredeck, and shell splinters riddled the side of its hull. Now Schirmer knew he had the range, and he quickly gave orders to account for nothing more than the range that would be gobbled up by two ships closing on one another at nearly 36 knots each.

“Elevation down three! Ready…. Fire!”

This time both turrets fired at once, sending the same shell weight that Bismarck might throw from her own forward guns. Kaiser Wilhelm was no ship to be trifled with, and when the second salvo fell, the British learned this the hard way.

“A hit! My god! We got them at just under 30,000 meters!” Schirmer turned to his Kapitan, eyes alight, elated to have scored his first ever hit with this new ship, and what a hit it was.

Impulsive was the unlucky ship that day, struck aft with such force that the shell nearly broke the ship in two. The only ship ever to bear that name in the Royal Navy, she had sustained a rogue hit that would leave her crippled and wallowing in the sea. They saw the remaining two British destroyers break formation, and begin a wild, zig-zag approach, tacking to port and starboard to make themselves much more difficult targets. Schirmer knew he would probably not be so lucky again with his main guns, but in a matter of minutes he could bring his secondary batteries into play, six twin 15cm, 5.9-inch guns, the very same as those used by Bismarck and Scharnhorst, and he could get four of those in to action at 23,000 meters. After that, the eight dual purpose 4.1-inch guns would have to wait until the range fell inside 17,000 meters. That battery alone matched all the guns on those destroyers, and now the thirty torpedoes Lieutenant Commander Maud had hoped to call on had been reduced to twenty.

Yet the British persisted in their brave charge. Schirmer shook his head, realizing the maneuver was desperate, though he gave the men on those destroyers his grudging respect.

The whims of chance, however, had put Mother Time in a most uncomfortable position, for the two ships remaining had both played an important role in the long wake of the story that was still unfolding with this action. Of the two ships, Icarus was perhaps the most vulnerable in her eyes, for that ship had already died according to her ledger, and to find it here was the first sprouting root of the paradox that was slowly growing with each passing second.

Icarus had died. It was killed by Kirov, but Captain Maud must live, and Intrepid must live with him, or Orlov would never be found that day in 1942 when Duero hit Werner Czygan’s mine.

Yet all this rested on a thin foundation, the assumption that this altered world was the same one that Kirov was destined to visit that very year, in just a few months time. How could that be possible? The ship was already there, and the world Kirov displaced to looked nothing like this one. For Werner Czygan and Lieutenant Commander Maud to matter at all, Kirov would have to have been chased across the Med by Rodney and Nelson in 1942. But how could that happen now with Kirov an ally of the Royal Navy?

Time was in a strange position as these events twisted slowly back upon themselves, like a mother hen fretting over eggs that had not yet been laid. On the one hand, Icarus and Intrepid, and the men aboard them, were crucial links in the line of causality that saw Kirov now at sea in these very waters. On the other hand, they seemed entirely immaterial, as those events were not likely to ever occur. Yet their fate would count heavily on one ledger, the reckoning of the account of one Captain Wells, and the ship he now sailed—HMS Glorious.

Chapter 5

Glorious was a ship of ghosts, men who had once been doomed, their names written into the ledger of time by the hand of death, and the 11-inch shells of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Now, like the ship itself, they were living second lives. Only 38 of the men aboard had been destined to live, all the rest were walking dead, zombies, gifted with life only because of a brief moment’s delay in the telegraph room that had spared one Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hayward Wells, now the spectral Captain of this ship of fated men.

As he stood on the bridge that day, anxiously watching the damage crews fighting the fire on the bow, Wells had a strange inkling that fate was still scratching at his leg, jealous, hungry, and resentful of every breath he took. He could not know that he had been destined to die, but he could feel it, like a cold draft at the edge of an open door to a cellar. He could feel it.

Lieutenant Commander Lovell was on the bridge that day, as was his good friend Robert Woodfield, and both men seemed edgy as well. The situation they now found themselves in seemed all too familiar, for this was the second time the ship had encountered fast German raiders at sea, and few ships ever get second chances when they came under enemy guns. Glorious already had more than her fair share.

The ship had just celebrated its 26th birthday. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, along with her sister ship Courageous, she was laid down on the 1st of May in 1915, built by Harland and Wolff, a company that had recently launched another pair of doomed sister ships, the Titanic and Britannic. One sunk on her maiden voyage, and the other was soon lost in the Aegean in 1916 after striking a mine. And so the shipwrights in the know had whispered that a curse was on the keels of ships laid down in that yard, and no good would come to any ship built there.

Commissioned in 1917, Glorious and Courageous both seemed to prove the rumors wrong, leading charmed lives in the beginning. They both fought at the Battle of Heligoland Bight that same year, when it was discovered that the simple act of firing their guns was sufficient to warp and damage the lightly armored deck structure. So the two ships went into fleet reserve, and for a time Glorious served only as a gun turret operations training ship before someone in the Royal Navy decided the two ships might be easily converted to a new role as aircraft carriers.

Just after her conversion in 1930, Glorious had another brush with fate when she collided with the French liner SS Florida in a heavy fog off Gibraltar. The bow of the carrier plunged right into the liner’s port side, and the two ships seemed locked in the grip of death, though both survived. Her bow was crumpled beyond recognition, but only one man lost his life aboard Glorious in that collision. Florida took the worst of the damage, and lost 32 souls that day.

The accident started the whispered rumors again. Some said the ship had escaped the curse because her conversion to a carrier had introduced so many changes that she was really not the same ship any longer. Others argued that was foolish, she was still HMS Glorious, and that keel had still come from Harland and Wolff. When HMS Courageous met her sad end on the 17th of November, 1940, at the hands of U-29, they nodded their heads, knowing it was only a matter of time now before Glorious followed her sister ship to the grave.

“Uproarious and Outrageous are doomed ships,” they said disparaging the vessels in their strange reincarnation as carriers. Yet fingers wagged on the other side when Glorious escaped from her dangerous encounter with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the North Sea. Yet, as Captain Wells watched that fire burn forward, he had a sickly feeling inside. The ship’s penchant for bad luck had seen her hit in that Stuka attack, and now the situation he was in seemed perilous in ways he could not entirely fathom.

There had once been a 15-inch gun battery where that fire now burned. It was now stowed away in a warehouse in England, also destined to live again when Britain launched her last and greatest battleship, HMS Vanguard. Now Wells found himself wishing he had that gun battery back. His contingent of aircraft might have been a useful weapon in this situation, but that fire was preventing him from launching, and to do so he would have to turn into the wind in any case, right towards the shadow that now darkened his horizon.

“A bit of a pickle,” said Woodfield at his side, looking from the fire to Wells, and then out to sea where the destroyers were making their bold charge in the hopes of fending off this threat. “At least we have a little more company this time.” He nodded to the cruiser squadron steaming in close escort, Coventry off the port quarter, and Sheffield to starboard, with Gloucester following in the carrier’s wake. Two more destroyers, Fury and Fearless, were also in attendance, but they gave Wells no real comfort. The cruisers had nothing bigger than 6-inch guns, twelve each on Gloucester and Sheffield, and five on the Coventry. The distant boom and rolling thunder on the horizon told him the Germans were coming with something considerably bigger.

Wells had done everything right this time, remembering the mistakes made by Captain D’Oyly-Hughes in that first harrowing encounter with enemy warships. Hughes had the destroyers in too close, but Wells had posted three on picket, and they were now making a desperate charge at the enemy. Hughes had no air cover up, and no planes ready below decks for a quick spot. Wells had four fighters on overwatch, but they had been brushed aside by hot German pilots off the Goeben, and could serve no vital role now. He also had Swordfish ready and armed below decks, but that damnable fire forward was preventing their launch, and the German fighters were still up there somewhere, though thankfully the Stukas were gone.

“If it comes to a fight, the cruisers will do their best,” he said quietly to Woodfield. “But that ship out there looks like it will have a big walking stick. Listen to those guns!”

It was then that a runner came in with the news that Impulsive had been lost, which did nothing to raise anyone’s hopes or morale at that moment. Wells looked at his watch, noting their speed was just under 30 knots now. He figured the enemy was perhaps 30,000 meters off. His horizon was 22,000 meters, but he was seeing the high conning tower of the enemy well before that. If the Germans had a five or six not speed advantage, this might be a long chase for them if they wanted to close the range. But they were already in range of those heavy guns, or would be very soon.

“Sir, Icarus reports damage forward as well. They make their range 10,000 meters, but the Germans are still coming.”

Woodfield looked at Wells, his jaw set. “Those destroyers will all go down,” he said flatly. “They’ll have to get to 5,000 meters to launch torpedoes.”

“Signal Lieutenant Commander Maud,” said Wells. “Tell him the Germans seem to be calling our bluff. He is to make smoke and break off at once. We’ve lost one destroyer. No use losing two more. It will just have to be a foot race now, and at least we have our speed.”

“For the moment,” said Woodfield.

“What’s on your mind, Woody?”

“Well sir, that German carrier is still out there. Those Stukas may be back. I think we should try to get more Fulmars up instead of the Swordfish.”

“We’ll need both aloft soon,” said Wells. “Fire or no fire, I want planes spotted for takeoff at once. Alright, Woody, get me six fighters up first. Then we go with the torpedo bombers.”

“Very good sir.” Woodfield was off to the voice tube to call down the orders.

Wells looked at the fire again, gritting his teeth. We’re running fast, he thought, and that will be all the headwind I can give them. And they’re going to have to go right through that business forward. I’m launching whether that fire is out or not. We’ll try, by god, and if necessary we’ll do just what Lt. Commander Stevens did the last time—turn the damn planes around and launch off the aft quarter!

It was then that he saw what he feared, big, heavy rounds coming in wide off his starboard side, but with a good fix on his range. “Come five points to port, and all ships to follow,” he said, the order echoed by the helmsmen and relayed to the flag bridge. No sense giving them an easy target. It was time to squirm a bit, and he would put the ship in a zig-zag until he had his planes on deck and ready to go. He looked for his executive officer, Lovell.

“Mister Lovell, kindly sent to the W/T room and advise Admiral Somerville and the Admiralty of our present predicament. They were sending us help, but we’ve heard no word. Then send to Fury and Fearless. Have them fall back on our wake, zig-zag, and make smoke.”

It was going to be a very hard morning.

When Lieutenant Commander Maud got the order to break off he thumped his briarwood walking stick hard on the deck of the bridge.

“Damnation!” he swore. “We’ve run up under that monster’s guns for the last fifteen minutes, and now we’re to break off? What’s the bloody range?”

“Sir, I make it 7500 yards,”

“Then steady as she goes. Make ready to fire torpedoes! We’ll not turn tail without sticking it to those bastards out there.”

He waited, the tension on the bridge obvious, and then gave a final order. “Hard to port and fire when we turn!”

Icarus launched her torpedoes as the destroyer turned, getting only five in the water as the destroyer wheeled about in a wide arc. The range was still about 7200 yards, but the enemy was coming at them fast, and they would have to run full out just to keep the range from closing further now. They were going to be in the soup for a good long while, and Maud immediately gave the order to make smoke and continue evasive maneuvers.

“That’s done it,” said Schirmer. “Those destroyers have finally had enough. They’re breaking off.”

“Good,” said Kapitan Heinrich. “Now re-train your guns on that smoke on the horizon. Can you get me another long shot, Schirmer?”

“We will certainly try, sir.”

A minute later the Kaiser Wilhelm rotated its forward turrets, the guns elevating and booming out a challenge to the distant enemy. Heinrich knew his guns could already hurt the British carrier, if they could find it. He could range out over 36,000 meters with his guns at maximum elevation, but chances of hitting anything at that range were very slim. The hit that had sent Impulsive to the bottom had been a lucky shot, one in a hundred chance at 28,000 meters, and would stand as one of the longest hits ever achieved by a gun in this caliber firing at sea. Warspite hit the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare in July 1940 at a range of about 26,000 yards, but Scharnhorst had bettered that when it first set its teeth into Glorious.

“Torpedoes off the starboard side!” The watchman’s voice was loud as he called from above, prompting Heinrich to rush to the weather deck and look for himself. There they were, three, then five white trails in the water, and he knew he had to turn quickly.

“Come hard to port!”

The ship lurched with the sudden turn as the helm answered smartly, and the Kapitan’s hands were heavy on the gunwale to steady himself, but even at high speed like this, Kaiser Wilhelm maneuvered like a much smaller ship, turning easily, her long sleek bow cutting through the sea. They were going to avoid the main spread, but one torpedo would make it very near the ship, fuming by and finding the wake where the big battlecruiser had once been, but nothing else to strike there. The hard turn bought Icarus and Intrepid just a little time to make smoke and race off on a new heading.

“Shall we pursue those destroyers?” asked Schirmer.

“Let them go. The secondary batteries can busy themselves firing at their smoke. Today we have bigger fish to fry. That carrier looks to be burning badly. Signalman! Get a message to Fleet Admiral. Tell them we have engaged as ordered and sunk an enemy destroyer. The carrier is on our horizon, and easy prey. How soon before Goeben will have more planes up?”

He rubbed his hands together, eager for the kill. Kriegsmarine intelligence indicated that this was the carrier Glorious, the same ship that Hoffman hit last year. It slipped away back then, but not this time. With a little help from the Goeben, we may catch this ship in short order. Then Schirmer will have something big enough to justify using the main guns like this.

Kaiser Wilhelm is changing everything out here. The British once had the game there way, with aircraft carriers to find our ships, and fast cruisers to shadow them until the battleship advantage they have allowed them to pile on more and more heavy guns. The outcome was inevitable. They hunted down the Graf Spee, and stopped our first major breakout attempt with those amazing new naval rockets. But apparently those weapons are not in the equation here. They must only be carried by their battleships, and perhaps only a very few. We’ve seen nothing of them since HMS Invincible re-deployed to the Mediterranean. So now we raise hell.

With the Goeben we have just enough fighter support to neutralize a single aircraft carrier like this. They will now have to change their tactics and fight their carriers in pairs to have any chance of enjoying air superiority again. And we have several more surprises in the works, in spite of that latest blow with the cancellation of the Oldenburg. Peter Strasser is more than 85% ready, and Raeder will stop at nothing to meet that January deadline the Führer has set for ship completion. Beyond that, we have those captured French ships converting to carriers as well, and the Europa is nearly ready. Things are about to get very interesting in the Atlantic, but much will depend on the success of the Hindenburg this time out. We must prove to the Führer that we can fight and win, and I can start right here, finishing the business Hoffmann started with this carrier.

Miles to the northwest, the W/T room on HMS Repulse picked up the plaintive call from Glorious, the fated ship crewed by walking ghosts. The message went quickly to Captain Tennant, who read it with some concern. His thoughts seemed to mirror those of Heinrich now.

As he scanned the typewritten lines, he could read more there than he liked. Glorious had suffered a hit from German Stukas, and well beyond the range of land based German planes of that type. That meant a carrier was about, and he knew the Admiralty had sent him south to look for Lütjens task force. Now he had found it. The enemy was somewhere to the southeast, already engaging Force H under Captain Wells.

A pity Somerville lost all his teeth when the last of his battleships were sent to the Med. Now the baton falls to me. Renown and Repulse are good ships, but that last engagement with the Germans up north proved one thing, we can’t stand long against their big ships with our thin armor, and we bloody well need air cover if the Germans have another carrier here. So my job may not be what it seems. Under other circumstances, I would be fixing to engage the enemy, and at least get hold of his ankle until Home Fleet came up with the battleships. Now the prospect of trying to engage the Hindenburg is completely out of the question.

All we have is a two knot advantage over that monster, and we’ll need it. My job is to find and shadow this beast, and the game is on. This message indicates they’ve been engaged by the Kaiser Wilhelm, a ship faster than any cruiser we have, and one able to sink any cruiser that gets lucky enough to intercept it. Yes, things have changed, but not for the better. And with all this talk of those naval rockets we have, my request to Admiralty for more information about them has been met with complete silence, a silence that speaks volumes, so I’d best let the matter go. For now, the hunt is on. But god help Glorious until I can get there!

Chapter 6

It was once said that god is on the side of the heavy cavalry. In this case he was siding with the heavy artillery. Kaiser Wilhelm had been running full out, with “Wagner’s Girls” singing as the four high pressure boilers fed steam to the turbines. The ship had been gaining on its prey for the last twenty minutes, and had now slowly closed the range to about 26,000 meters. The two British destroyers had been thickening up their smoke screen in an effort to mask the carrier’s retreat, but the German optics still had enough of a glimpse of the carrier to judge the range accurately. Kaiser fired, and four 15-inch shells soon bracketed the carrier, sending tall geysers of angry white seawater up on all sides.

At this point, the situation becoming grave, Captain Charles Arthur Larcom, on Sheffield, requested permission from Wells to break formation and attack, even though his cruisers would be outgunned by the enemy. Reluctantly, Wells agreed, and at 16:40 hrs on the 3rd of May, the second surface engagement with Kaiser began at just under 26,000 meters. Sheffield and Gloucester turned, with the AA cruiser Coventry remaining with Glorious. The British cruisers each had twelve Mark XIII 6-inch guns mounted on four triple turrets, but needed to close the range to under 22,000 meters to open the action. With the two sides closing on one another at a combined speed of 65 knots, or about 2000 meters per minute. So it was no more than a few minutes before the gunfire started.

Aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm, Kapitan Heinrich saw the cruisers turn to challenge, smiling. He had expected this action, knowing the British could do nothing less with a primary fleet asset at risk like this. In his mind, it would only pose a brief delay here, and he ordered Schirmer to shift main guns to the cruisers. The long barrels lowered, re-trained, and then boomed their challenge as the first British rounds began to sprout up in the sea ahead of his ship.

The British guns were only throwing shells weighing 112 pounds at the enemy, but the two forward turrets on each ship opened with a twelve round salvo against Kaiser’s four 15-inch guns. Schirmer ordered his two secondary turrets, one mounted on each side of the ship, to join the action as well. His third turret was super-mounted above the aft main guns and could not join in just yet.

Neither side scored hits in that first exchange, and the British gunners enjoyed a speed advantage in reloading their guns, firing again 8 seconds later. This time they drew first blood, with a round from Sheffield striking Kaiser on the long deck, forward of Anton turret. But the ship’s armor had been designed to counter the bigger 8-inch guns of the British heavy cruisers. The deck armor there was just under three inches, which was enough to absorb most of the punishment without serious damage below deck, yet a small column of smoke now trailed from Kaiser’s nose. The ship was hit, but not hurt, and it would shrug off the 6-inch rounds easily enough.

At 18,000 meters the British cruisers turned hard to port to get all their guns into play, and it was then that disaster struck when Kaiser scored a direct hit on Gloucester, right on her forward turret, which put it completely out of action, its guns elevated and twisted like broken fingers. The fire below decks spread quickly to B turret, which had to flood its magazines to avoid further explosions. In one swift blow, the odds had shifted considerably, and now Kaiser turned to starboard, coming around to bring her aft guns into action.

Aboard Gloucester, Captain Henry Rowley had just lowered his field glasses to note the damage forward. He turned his head, looking for his executive officer and started to give an order, but his words were cut short with a tremendous crash when a second German round blasted right into the bridge and conning tower. Not a man there would survive. The explosion was seen by everyone on Sheffield, being about 500 meters behind Gloucester when the turn was made.

There was a moment of shock, stunned silence as eyes widened with the broiling fire and smoke that engulfed the cruiser’s conning tower. Then, as though dazed and drunk, Gloucester wallowed to starboard, her bow coming round in a turn toward the German ship. It was soon clear to both sides that the cruiser was no longer under control, though her aft turrets let off one more salvo as the ship turned.

Sheffield dashed behind the chaotic scene, her gunfire temporarily blocked by the intervening hulk of Gloucester. Captain Larcom could see his brave challenge was not going to do anything more to dissuade the enemy than the destroyer rush had accomplished, and the sea around him soon erupted again with wild spray from the big 15-inch guns. His own batteries scored yet another hit, flush against Kaiser’s conning tower, and another very near the aft turret, which was flayed with shrapnel from the deck where the round struck. The heavy turret, with over 8 inches of armor, was not harmed, and it soon boomed out a reprisal, the rounds straddling Sheffield and rocking the cruiser as it turned away, making smoke.

Meanwhile, the men aboard Gloucester realized their ship was describing a wide, uncontrolled circle, with no one alive on the bridge to issue commands. Both her forward turrets were out of action, and the Germans shifted fire to finish off the ship, scoring two more heavy hits with those fearsome 15-inch guns. The hit amidships was the worst, penetrating all the way to the boiler room and ending the ship’s mad dance as it lost all steam, her guts ripped apart by the explosion of the heavy round.

Kaiser Wilhelm slowed to 28 knots and continued her turn to starboard to swing around and resume her course in pursuit of the carrier. It was then that Kapitan Heinrich was handed a message from Admiral Lütjens. He was ordered to break off and assume a course to the northwest.

Break off? He was not happy with the order, folding the message and slipping it into his pocket, eyes narrowed with thought. He raised his field glasses, looking to find the British carrier, but it was lost in a heavy roll of black smoke. The cruiser action had done one thing in buying Wells a little time, and now, to his surprise, Kapitan Heinrich saw an aircraft rise above the distant smoke, then another.

That damn carrier is launching planes! Where are our own fighters? He could send a message and ask about that, but it would reveal his situation plainly to Lütjens, who would realize his Kapitan was not in compliance with his last order. Heinrich considered the consequences of that, and what might be gained if he maintained his turn and came around to continue the pursuit. With Schirmer still dueling with that last British cruiser, it would be some minutes before he could get around and fix his attention on the carrier again, and the action had seen his prey slip away over the horizon. But it was there. He had the speed to get after the damn thing, and clearly had the guns to sink it in due course. There was Gloucester, her speed down to no more than ten knots, and yet still afloat. He decided to claim his kill, report, and see if he could obtain permission to continue.

“Torpedoes!” he said loudly. “Finish that cruiser!”

Kaiser Wilhelm also had six 21-inch torpedo tubes, in two triple mounts to either side of the ship. He had come a full 180 degrees, and was lined up well for a good shot on Gloucester now. The three fish fired, and two would find their target.

The resulting explosions would be enough to seal the fate of the light cruiser, battered by four heavy rounds, and now two good torpedo hits. Of the 807 men aboard, only 85 would get into the sea and survive in the wreckage.

“Send to Lütjens. Sunk enemy cruiser and requesting permission to proceed against carrier on my horizon.” He folded his arms, looking at Schirmer now, who was beaming jubilantly with the performance of his guns.

“We cannot spot the carrier through that smoke,” he said. Then the first of the Fulmars launched by Glorious came in low like an angry hornet from the hive, its guns blazing as Kaiser’s twenty 2cm AA guns got their chance to get into the action. They were joined by eight 3.7cm guns, and eight more bigger 10.5cm guns, a considerable flak defense for a single ship. The first Fulmar made its strafing run, but the second was blown out of the sky. Yet Heinrich knew the carrier would soon be launching everything it had, and the lumbering Swordfish torpedo bombers would be his next foe.

For him the choice was simple. He could either obey his orders, break off, and find himself swatting at these British planes and dodging torpedoes for the next two hours, or he could go right to the source, here and now, and end this with Kaiser’s guns. He looked at the ships chronometer, seeing the time at 17:20 hours. Then he decided. He would obey his order, but ever so slowly.

“Helm, come five points to starboard and ahead full.”

He would come five points to starboard again in another five minutes, and make a slow turn while he continued to run for the enemy on the horizon. By his calculation, the greatest part of that slow arc would still see his guns in range of the enemy, and he would have his cake and hopefully eat it too. He had one last message to send—Coming round on 300. Enemy launching planes. Request fighter support. He knew he needed those Messerschmitts up there now, or his day would get very tiresome, very soon.

Aboard HMS Glorious, the news that Gloucester had been badly hit was not unexpected. Desperate times required desperate actions, and the first six Fulmars spotted on the aft deck roared right through the smoke and fire forward as they took off. They were going to be too late to help Gloucester, and could only make one angry pass at the enemy ship before climbing up to take station on overwatch. Now the torpedo planes of 823 Squadron were coming up on the elevator, and they would soon run the same gauntlet of fire and smoke, with the only headwind for takeoff being that provided by the carrier’s headlong rush at her top speed of nearly 30 knots.

Wells could feel his pulse rising, and the heat of the action had sent that surge of adrenaline through his system. He wanted to move, get his limbs in motion in response, and remembered that hectic moment when he was an intern on Admiral Tovey’s staff aboard HMS Invincible. No need to run, Tovey had cautioned him. A brisk gait will do. He looked for that well of calm that Tovey seemed to draw from, but could not find it within himself. It was all he could do to keep himself in one place, hands clasped behind his back as he watched the Swordfish come on the flying off deck. It was only later, when the urgency of the moment had ratcheted up yet another notch, that the Admiral had given him a wry look, and the words he spoke still echoed in Wells’ mind. “Mister Wells, now you may run.”

It was that time now, time for every expedient measure against the hour, and the enemy that continued to bear down on him like the shadow of death. It was his hour again, as the first Swordfish sputtered to life and went careening down the long deck to wallow aloft through the smoke. There he stood, icy heat on him, commander of Force H. There went the second plane, up through the licking flames and aloft. Now they will do the running, he thought.

Thunder rolled on the far horizon, and he knew his enemy was reaching for him again. The cold steel was in the air, rising up, plunging down, and soon it would find the sea, very wide and long, but a clear warning that Glorious was still in the gravest danger here.

Aboard Hindenburg, Admiral Lütjens received the message and frowned. Heinrich has the bit between his teeth, he thought, but he smells a kill here, and he wants to attack. That engagement was forced. The British reacted only to his own advance, that much is clear, and they’ve been hurt. So Kaiser Wilhelm has sunk a destroyer, and now a cruiser! Clearly there is nothing wrong with her guns, but now we have a carrier launching planes, the last thing I wanted here.

“Some news, Admiral?” Adler was at his side, a curious light in his eyes. He could smell a battle as well, and the man was already quite perturbed that Hindenburg was nowhere near the action.

“Kaiser Wilhelm has engaged as ordered, but they have not broken off. It looks like Heinrich has sunk an enemy cruiser to go with that destroyer.”

“Great news, Admiral! Heinrich is pouring the brandy today. I knew that ship would do the job.”

“Yes? Well unfortunately, it is not doing the job I asked of it. Kaiser was to break off if challenged strongly by the British. Now they are launching aircraft.”

“Sir, we have the Goeben right off our starboard beam. Let me get word to them at once.”

“That won’t be necessary, Adler. I can count. We have had three Messerschmitts up over us for the last three hours. She should have three more aboard, and the Stukas. Those six planes are there to prevent the British from using their air units to spot and shadow us. Now Kaiser Wilhelm has stuck its finger in the bee hive. Very well, signal Goeben. Tell them to send half their fighters to cover Kaiser, and then tell Heinrich to get his ship out of there at once. He says he is turning on 300 now, but I have a feeling he may be seeing stars with the success of his gunnery officers.”

“But if he can get to that carrier, sir… It’s just the victory we’re needing now.”

“And if those planes put a torpedo or two into his ship? What then, Adler? Then we are forced to turn about and go to his aid. We lose this perfect chance to slip by the British and get out into the Atlantic. Instead we could be tied up here for hours, and if Kaiser Wilhelm is seriously damaged…” The look on the Admiral’s face indicated his concern, and his displeasure over the zealotry of his subordinate officers.

Marco Ritter was just off his ME-109T when he saw a flurry of activity on the flight deck of the Goeben. The news reached him quickly enough. He was going back up to relieve the pilots flying top cover. Those planes were now heading south to cover the Kaiser Wilhelm, where a battle was said to be underway and rumors were flying as high as the planes.

“Have you heard, Marco? Kaiser has sunk two British cruisers, and now he’s after that carrier!”

“Well don’t just stand there gawking at me,” said Ritter. “Is my plane refueled?”

“Give me ten minutes. The crews are reloading your guns.”

Just enough time to grab some hot tea, thought Ritter. Then there is still plenty of daylight for hunting. I’m supposed to fly top cover, but I think I’ll ease over to see what Kaiser is up to. Heilich and Ehrler landed earlier, and they are already top side waiting for their planes. I won’t keep them long.

The crews were working feverishly on the three Messerschmitts, but it was all of twenty minutes before they finally got Marco’s plane on the elevator. He took the ladder up. Wanting to get the blood flowing in his legs before he strapped into the cockpit again. Already a legend over Poland and France, his term as a carrier fighter pilot had only served to further enhance his reputation. But the work crews had been a little too hasty turning his plane around, and that was going to be another of those small little things in the stream of events that would have a subtle effect on the flow.

Marco Ritter would find that out very soon.