The horizon in every direction was dotted with ships of all shapes and sizes. Mostly they were the transports. The once-neat lines of the convoy were in total disarray as the American cruisers, gunboats, and other ships knifed in among them, firing and creating their own horrors. It appeared that many of the transports were unharmed and dead in the water. It then dawned on Terry that they were surrendering. Of course. Where could they go? Back to Germany? Even if they could outrun the American ships, what would they use for coal?
Now there was relative silence, and Schuyler counted ships. Of the Americans, he saw eleven of the original thirteen capital ships, including his own, and two of the three monitors. TheTexas andKearsarge were indeed gone. He counted the German ships and blinked. Five. Only five, and they were all dead in the water and burning furiously. The others were not in sight, and he could only conclude they had sunk. One of the remaining five-he thought it might have been the cruiser that had passed so close-rolled over and began to sink as he watched.
“Schuyler! Your report!”
“Sorry, sir, it’s just taking a little longer to sort this out. I know the captain likes things precise.”
There was another pause. “The captain’s dead, Ensign. You’re making your report to me.” For some reason the fact of Brownson’s death struck him, and he started to cry. It was stupid. He barely knew the man who had replaced Evans. “Schuyler, give me your report as you see it and do it now!”
Terry composed himself and began to rattle off the ships and their apparent conditions. When he was done, there was silence again. Then he heard the distant voice talking to someone else on the bridge. “Well, we really did it to them. We really cleaned them,” he thought he heard the voice say. Terry looked about him again. Death was near and death was far.
“Sir, can you get some help up here? We got some wounded who need medical attention.”
“On its way, Ensign. Just hang on.”
Terry sagged to the floor and tried not to touch the blind sailor who had stomped on him. He let the pain and the tears overwhelm him. He would need a lot of help climbing down the ladder with his lame arm. Even the blind man would do better. Happy birthday.
The armed yachtChesapeake slid into the convoy proper while the cruisers and gunboats dueled each other on the perimeter. Along with the smaller ships, it darted in among the transports, sowing confusion and panic. Some of the transports tried to run away but quickly realized there was no place to run. Their way to New York was blocked by the titanic and thunderous battle to their front, and the gray Atlantic stretched for more than two thousand miles to their rear. They could never make it back to Germany.
The majority of the transports stopped and traded their German flags for the white ones of surrender. Some-those that looked to be of non-German registry-seemed almost eager to give up. However, a few had chosen to fight. Lieutenant Walsh, theChesapeake ’s commanding officer, could hear the sound of smaller guns, pom-poms, and machine guns as they raked the transports. TheChesapeake ’s luck held and she quickly gathered up a covey of surrendered transports without firing a shot.
Then Walsh spied a large passenger liner that had not yet dipped its flag. He approached and fired a pom-pom round across her bow. As they drew closer, within a couple of hundred yards, the liner’s rails suddenly erupted with a wall of armed men who opened fire with rifles and machine guns at the tinyChesapeake. Micah screamed orders swiftly as his men started to fall at their stations. The pom-poms and the 3-incher fired back, and the two machine guns raked the thick line of helmeted Germans.
The fire from the liner stopped almost immediately. The railings meant for passengers to lean on provided no protection for the German soldiers, who simply disappeared. Walsh wondered if the captain or commander of the infantry unit on board had felt his honor required an attempt at resistance before surrendering. If so, the stupid bastard should be hanged. The battle was over, yet someone had demanded that honor be satisfied, and young people on both sides had died because of it. Fucking Krauts.
The white flag was raised quickly on the liner and theChesapeake ceased firing. Walsh could see blood running from the liner’s deck and could only visualize the carnage his guns had wrought. Using Morse, he signaled the liner that the German soldiers would have to pitch their weapons overboard. He watched grimly as they complied. He was realistic enough to know they probably still kept some, but at least he wouldn’t be bringing a thousand armed and pissed-off Krauts into Norfolk.
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.