Walsh ordered his captured charges to follow him while he threaded his way through and out of the battle area. Many other little convoys were doing the same thing, he noted. He set a course to Norfolk. It would take a few days, but they’d make it. He felt like a sheepdog with an especially motley flock. Along with the now-docile-liner, he had four other merchant ships, all having surrendered and been taken without incident. It was quite a sight and quite a haul. Too bad they didn’t allow ships to share in the wealth of the ones they captured, like they did in the good old days.
Micah Walsh checked the condition of theChesapeake. He knew she was sound and not taking on any water, but that bastard liner had hurt her. Bullet holes riddled her once-pristine hull, and her stately funnel had been shredded by a passing hunk of metal.
Lieutenant Micah Walsh looked sadly on the row of dead, and could only thank God that there weren’t more. His young friend Halsey and four others were dead out of the crew of fifty, and another eleven wounded were being treated below. Many others nursed bruises and lacerations that would have incapacitated them under normal circumstances, but there would have been no one to run the little ship without them. And it had taken only a second for the needless destruction to occur.
Walsh choked and tried not to sob as he looked at the five men tightly sewn in their white mattress covers. The still-sticky blood had stained through a couple of them. In a while there would be a brief service, which he would hold and remember forever, and then the five would be consigned to the sea. Poor Halsey. Which one was he? Third from the left or second?
By all rights, Adm. Otto von Diedrichs should have been worried at the sight of so much of his fleet disappearing to the east. But he had obeyed his orders and his conscience was clear. It would take a little more than one day to make the rendezvous and about two days to complete the return journey with the slower convoy. Although he knew he had cut it very fine, he still didn’t like the idea of being without nearly half of his force for three minutes, much less three days. But he took comfort in the fact that he had fulfilled his responsibility and obeyed his kaiser.
So he commenced to wait. As the hours stretched into days, his concern became doubt and the doubt grew into worry as the allotted three days stretched into four and no convoy hove into view.
Had the timing been off? Had they missed the rendezvous point? To the latter question the answer was easy: no, they could not have missed the point of meeting because the convoy had been directed to sail a specific route and course. Even if the convoy had not been on time, the battleships would have found the meeting point without much ado. No, there had to be something wrong with the timing. Perhaps the battle he had hoped would give the Yanks a bloody nose had caused more confusion than he anticipated. Of course, that must be it. That and the question of timing.
Hipper had been given a set of specifics that included more than just the course his ships would take. He had been mandated a speed that would result in Diedrichs’s being able to send his ships at a precise time to a precise place. Any ship that could not keep up with the speed, and it was a slow one, would be left behind.
However, Diedrichs knew that Imperial edicts couldn’t command the wind and the tide, and he had taken other steps. The needle-thin wireless tower on Long Island had commenced broadcasting a week before the convoy was expected, and he had been rewarded by the receipt of a weak response from Hipper saying all was well.
So where the hell were they? And where was the American main fleet? Were they planning to pounce when the convoy got closer? As yet his thin line of picket ships had seen nothing. German intelligence sources had reported the departure of the American fleet from Canadian and American waters, and other sources had reported it off the coast of Maine. Could Dewey have decided not to attack? That would have been the logical thing. Perhaps the American fleet was simply heading for Boston. Regardless, Diedrichs and the remaining fleet were ready, armed, and with steam up, to sail out at almost literally a moment’s notice.
His thoughts were interrupted by a commotion in the passageway outside his cabin, and he spun his chair to face the door. “What is it?” he snapped.
Paschwitz entered with a piece of paper. Other men were clustered behind him and none looked happy. “Sir, we just intercepted a message that the entire relief convoy and our escort force have been destroyed, with all ships either sunk or captured. The Americans are calling it the greatest naval victory in their history.”
Diedrichs rose to speak but could not find his voice. There was something else in his throat that prevented it, and he recognized the acid taste of his own vomit. He moaned and clutched his chest as he fell back into his chair. Paschwitz and the others rushed in to help him as he collapsed.
The kaiser’s voice was a high-pitched scream and his face was beet red. “My ships, von Tirpitz, where are my ships? As Caesar Augustus cried for Varus to return his three legions, I now cry for my ships. Where are they? Where is my navy?”
Even though Holstein detested the arrogance of Tirpitz, he could not help but feel a little sorry for the man. Only moments before, he had exuded power and confidence. Brutally direct and often bullying and confrontational with those who disagreed with him, Tirpitz had appeared to many as the current personification of German power, a reincarnation of the mighty Bismarck. But not now. The transformation had been sudden and shocking. When the information began to flow in, he crumbled as they watched. His eyes glazed over and he was having trouble breathing. The grayness of his skin made Holstein wonder if perhaps the man was having a heart attack. It would not surprise him.
The arrival of the American announcement had been a devastating surprise. Funny how no one doubted it, Holstein thought. Somehow they all knew that the Americans were telling the truth. Corroboration from other sources would follow, but it was not needed. The Imperial German Navy had been defeated utterly and totally, and the frantically gathered convoy was destroyed. There would be no relief for the army from that quarter.
The kaiser continued to scream. “Even my namesake ship, theKaiser Wilhelm II,was in that relief force!” He continued to read the names of the missing warships and paused only to wipe spittle from his mouth with his good hand. The kaiser was in a dangerous mood.
Bulow too, looked chastened. “All Highest, will you now permit the remainder of the High Seas Fleet to reinforce Diedrichs?”
“So that incompetent can lose the rest of our navy? Don’t be a fool.” Bulow recoiled from the vehemence of the rebuke. Holstein recalled that the orders to divide the fleet had come from Tirpitz and the kaiser, but prudently said nothing about that. Diedrichs was as good as dead.
Instead, Holstein said, “The move by the Americans on Staten Island has rendered our position in New York highly unstable as well, has it not, General von Schlieffen?”
Schlieffen was in a high state of agitation. Normally composed to the point of arrogance, his eyes were wide and there was a twitch in his cheek. “The fact that the Americans have begun bombarding the Narrows and other portions of the harbor with their long-range guns is a more immediate problem to the navy than to the army. Should von Waldersee wish, we could land a division or two and drive them off. Of course,” he added, “that is doubtless what the Yanks want-for us to waste our now-limited resources responding to pinpricks like their highly inaccurate cannonades. Let the navy run again if it wishes.”
“Unfair,” Tirpitz hissed, his voice a hoarse whisper. “We have done our best.”