“‘But’?” Mahlberg said, foreseeing Kadow’s concern.
“I do not wish to see us overextended. If we sink Prince of Wales and kill the prime minister of England with his staff, we have accomplished a great victory for the Fatherland.”
“‘Patriae inserviendo consumor,’” Mahlberg said.
“‘I am consumed in the service of the Fatherland, ’” a young Leutnant zur See said proudly. “ Von Bismarck.”
“And so it shall be,” Mahlberg said. “It does no harm to consider the other options that may be open to us. Especially if those options include dealing the British an even greater blow.”
“Yes, sir,” Kadow said.
Mahlberg smiled graciously and clapped his hands together with satisfaction. “Now, gentlemen, let us double the lookouts and put our best men on radar and hydrophones.”
“Kriegsmarschustand One, sir?” Kadow asked. The others in the chart room did not miss his formal tone.
“No,” Mahlberg said. “I think that we can remain at Battle Station Two for a while. Let’s not excite the men just yet. There will be excitement enough to go around in a short time.”
All of the officers, except Kadow, chuckled at Mahlberg’s joke.
“You may return to your stations, gentlemen,” Mahlberg said. “Kadow. Join me on deck, won’t you?”
Kadow and Mahlberg walked along the narrow deck below the conning tower, a cool wind washing over them. They stopped near a quadruple 20mm mount. The ship was silent except for the soft blast of a wave disintegrating under her bow, and the rush of water against her gray hull.
“All my life I’ve dreamed of commanding such a ship,” Mahlberg said, looking out to sea. He turned to his executive officer, absentmindedly rubbing his left elbow with his right hand. It was a habit that he had had since he was a child. “To command a vessel such as this and to take her against the enemy. I despaired under the republic. We were allowed only ships of no consequence. I could not think of our great fleet scuttled under the nose of the British at Scapa Flow. Resting deep in the darkness of enemy waters. But now” — he looked around proudly — “here is the Fatherland’s future. The power of the Kriegsmarine.” He waited for Kadow to speak but his executive officer merely listened. “You have reservations?” Mahlberg said. “About my intentions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kadow,” Mahlberg said kindly, “I have never denied you the opportunity to speak freely.”
“Yes, sir,” Kadow said. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”
“There is another one of your infernal ‘buts’ hanging there. I could order you to speak, you know. If you were not so obstinate.”
“Kapitan,” Kadow began, “I sometimes have difficulty following your rationale. We have been fortunate. We have remained undetected since our encounter with the British cruiser. We are set to overtake and destroy Prince of Wales. I have every confidence that when she falls within range of our guns we will sink her. But…” Mahlberg saw Kadow troubled by his own use of the word. “But are you really planning to then turn and attack the Home Fleet?”
“Why not? Why settle for half a victory when we have complete victory within our grasp?”
“Because it may be beyond our reach.”
“Now we have stumbled into the realm of the philosophical, Kadow,” Mahlberg said. “We have the greatest warship ever built. The most powerful weapon on earth. I vowed to myself that I would undertake a voyage so amazing that nothing whatsoever could match it. From the moment I heard ‘Muss I denn’ played at our departure, I knew that Sea Lion was indestructible.” He placed a fatherly hand on Kadow’s shoulder. “We are warriors, old friend. Sailors in service to the Fatherland. Our nation has given us a wondrous vessel by which we can give her victories. Don’t be reluctant. We must be bold. Cunning. When the British expect us there, we will be here. When Doenitz reports to Grand Admiral Raeder that his tiny boats have encountered the Home Fleet, Raeder can reply, yes, but it is Sea Lion who destroyed them.”
Kadow hesitated and finally answered, “Yes, sir.”
“We will triumph,” Mahlberg reassured his executive officer. “The British will encounter the unexpected on both sides of the North Atlantic. They will face Sea Lion.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Mahlberg said, clapping Kadow on the shoulder. “Good. Now have our famous Kapitanleutnant of engineering come to the bridge. I wish to speak to him. Our ship is fast but she is also thirsty. I will charge him to give us more speed with less fuel consumption.”
“Yes, sir,” Kadow said. He watched Mahlberg walk away. A single idea was gnawing at him, an elusive voice that whispered foreboding in his ear; doubt sitting on his shoulder. Mahlberg had placed it there with a phrase — encounter the unexpected.
Bismarck had done so. A single torpedo striking her bow allowing tons of seawater to rush into her hull, fouling fuel and driving her down at the head. From that injury she is denied the fuel in her bow tanks, and that which leaks leaves an oily path — blood in the water for the hungry sharks to find her. Now her speed is reduced as the vengeful waves of the North Atlantic batter her, sensing that the great ship is wounded. But that is not the worst blow. Another aerial torpedo strikes her during an attack by flimsy enemy aircraft and her rudder is jammed. A one in a thousand chance that this could have happened. One in ten thousand. A hundred thousand. Now Bismarck is condemned to death because she cannot maneuver; with her rudders jammed she steams around in lazy circles, waiting for death. Waiting for the Home Fleet. They come, distant vessels across a gray plain. Rodney, King George V, others. Ninety minutes. In ninety minutes Bismarck is gone.
Kadow had been there when the band played “Muss I denn”; the song played as all capital ships of the Kriegsmarine prepared to set sail on extended voyages. He was moved as well by the music and the pageantry. One could not help but be moved by it. See Lowe, Sea Lion — a magnificent vessel of unimaginable abilities. He felt the pride in her, in the Kriegsmarine, in the valor of the crew that every man felt. But they had played “Muss I denn” for Bismarck as well and she was never coming home.
Encounter the unexpected, Kadow thought. How does one prepare for the unexpected?
Cole was shown to the tiny bridge by a yeoman. It was no bigger and perhaps a bit smaller than the open bridge on the old flush-decker on which Cole had trained. He noted the location of the binnacle and the clump of brass voice tubes amidships and forward. Directly behind him was the wheelhouse, the pale face of the helmsman visible through one of the large portholes. In one corner of the bridge were thin stanchions to hold life vests and helmets and in the other corner was a mount for a pair of Lewis guns. The windscreen was down and the man that Cole supposed to be the captain, a short stocky man with a bull neck, stood to port, eyes pressed to binoculars. There was another officer, younger, thinner, taller, reading a message just handed to him by a seaman.
The younger man looked up and smiled. “Cole, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” Cole said.
“Captain,” the younger man said to the stocky figure, “here is our visitor.”
“Well,” the man said. “None the worse for wear, I trust. Came as quick as we could. Bit of luck finding you right off. George Hardy, captain, Royal Navy. This is my number one, executive officer to you chaps. Land.”