Cole saluted. “Jordan Cole, lieutenant J.G., United States Naval Reserve.”
Hardy waved off the compliment. “Let’s do away with all of that saluting nonsense. Doubt if I’d recognize one aboard old Firedancer if I saw it. Not likely to get one, eh, Number One?”
“On the contrary, sir. The officers and men respect you deeply.”
“Bullocks, Number One. The officers are insolent and the crew can barely tolerate me. But let’s not air our dirty laundry in front of Cole. Do you know what you’ve dropped into, young man? What we’re about?”
“No, sir,” Cole said. “We assumed that you were part of a convoy.”
“Never assume, Cole,” Hardy said. “Makes an ass of you and me. Understand? Ass-u-me? Ever heard that one before, Cole?”
“No, sir,” Cole said, but no one on the bridge missed the trace of sarcasm in his reply. Except Hardy.
“Well, we’re bound for home. We’re rejoining two other destroyers and a cruiser and have set our course for Scapa Flow. You were out here looking for that commerce raider then? Not that I believe it’s a commerce raider. This one’s a capital ship, eh, Land?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s a battleship,” Cole said. “I’d bet my bottom dollar that you’re going to be in the hunt as well, sir.”
“So you know all about her? I suppose, as soon as someone takes the bloody time to let us know what’s going on, we’ll be after her. We were escorting another vessel, so I’ll give you half a point for your guess about the convoy, but we got pulled off that. For your information the enemy ship’s name is Sea Lion. We got that over the W.T.”
“Have they told you anything about her, sir?” Cole asked.
“She sank poor Nottingham so she’s a bloody threat, isn’t she?”
“What do you know, Cole?” Land asked.
“She’s over sixty thousand tons with a speed in excess of thirty knots, sir. Her main armament is twelve sixteen-inch guns and maybe twenty five-or six-inch guns.”
“How the bloody hell do you know—” Hardy began.
“I’m with Photo Ops. We picked up intelligence about the vessel and her class. She’s an H-class, Captain Hardy.”
“Good Lord!” Hardy said. “No wonder she cut us loose.”
“Sir?” Cole said.
“You might as well know it. We were escorting Prince of Wales to America. The prime minister is on board and he is to meet your President Roosevelt.” Hardy looked at Land knowingly. “She cut us loose to outrun the bastard. That’s her only hope. She has to get out of the Mid-Atlantic Air Gap and under Canadian air cover faster than you can say Jack Sprat.” Air coverage from England, Canada, or Iceland, when it wasn’t socked in, could only reach a small portion of the vast reaches of the North Atlantic. It was the area in between, the Mid-Atlantic Air Gap, that was the most dangerous. “We’ll have to return to the Flow for fuel,” Hardy said. “Unless we can pick up a spot along the way.”
“Prometheus can stay out a bit longer,” Land noted.
“Oh, Prometheus can fly around the world without bumping her arse,” Hardy said.
Cole lowered his head to hide his grin. He was beginning to like this guy — he was the sort of man that said the first thing that came to mind and said it the way that he felt and to hell with everything else. He watched as the captain regained his composure.
“Yes, of course Prometheus can stay out longer and we’re the better for it. If Cole here is correct, and no offense to you, sir,” Hardy said.
“Not at all, Captain,” Cole replied.
“The Royal Navy has its hands full, doesn’t it?” Hardy continued. A telephone in a box on the wheelhouse bulkhead behind Cole jangled heavily. A yeoman of signals quickly answered it, listened for a moment, and reported to Hardy: “Foremast starboard lookout reports ships sighted green oh-eight, sir.”
Land and Hardy immediately swung their binoculars to that location.
“Can you see anything, Number One?” Hardy said.
“Not yet, sir.”
“Yeoman,” Hardy said, “confirm to the lookout. Number of ships.”
“Right, sir.”
“Mr. Cole,” Hardy said, adjusting the focus on the binoculars. “What was an American naval officer doing aboard an English bomber?”
“I’m an observer with Coastal Command, sir.”
“I see,” Hardy said, dropping his binoculars and fixing Cole with a sly grin. “And now you’re an observer with H.M.S. Firedancer, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hardy searched the horizon again and said merrily: “I wonder what we will all observe together.”
It was a magnificent sight. Gray ships big and small, their dazzle-pattern camouflage, wild slashes of black, white, and gray paint that destroyed the order of the vessels, as it was meant to do. It was meant to challenge the enemy gunners so that at a distance the symmetry of the vessels’ shapes would be destroyed. Their size, speed, power, and direction would be safely hidden like an actor’s face behind greasepaint.
First came six destroyers, two each coming out of Scapa Flow from the Sounds of Hoxa, Hoy, and Switha; small ships whose names were far from intimidating and, despite their 4.5-inch rapid-firing guns and torpedo tubes running fore and aft, might not be taken seriously. They were paired, sweeping the channels leading out of the Flow and into the three channels of the huge main field that protected the ships within the Flow from U-boats. In the North Channel were Icarus and Nestor, Icarus slightly in the lead so that her paravanes weren’t fouled by Nestor. If the German Condors or U-boats had seeded the channel with mines, either vessel’s paravanes might cut the anchoring cable, and the mine would float to the surface. It was then that the antiaircraft gun crews had their fun, shooting the bobbing sphere, only a small part of its glistening, algae-covered black hide, studded with prongs, visible above the surface. But there was not fun for the gunners today; the destroyers plowed the depths to no avail.
Astern of the destroyers came H.M.S. Hermione, a cruiser and veteran of the Bismarck chase, although to her crew’s disgust she had only been posted to block Bismarck’s path and had never had the chance to engage her.
Astern of her, regal, calm, her thirty-seven thousand tons driven easily through the black, icy waters by the 4x Parsons single-reduction-geared turbines spinning four three-bladed manganese-bronze 14.5-foot-diameter screws, was H.M.S. Rodney. She was two decades old but she carried herself as well as she did when she came out of the Cornwell-Laird-Birkenhead Shipyard. She was stately, as she sailed out the North Channel, and when the sea parted before her bows in respect it did so knowing that it was Rodney who sank Bismarck. Perhaps it was H.M.S. Dorsetshire who dashed in to let go a few torpedoes at the smoldering wreck, but the cruiser could not have done it; by God, she couldn’t have gotten close to the mighty ship had not Rodney with her nine 406mm guns pounded Bismarck into submission. It was H.M.S. Rodney who had sunk the mighty Kriegsmarine vessel, not H.M.S. Dormouse, Rodney’s crew proclaimed, and they were more than willing to fight for her honor.
But there was a problem with H.M.S. Rodney, a very apparent flaw in her beautiful lines, brought about by a gaggle of haggling politicians who did not know a ship from a sheep. To meet the requirements of various naval treaties her main armament, all of it, was placed forward. There was nothing of consequence aft except a truncated stern that gave her a very ungainly appearance. But appearances aside, because appearances can be deceiving, the problem, the flaw, was that the three-by-three-turret arrangement meant that A Turret, well forward, was nearly flush with the deck. And B Turret, right behind the first turret, was high up over A, sitting on an armored barbette so that she could shoot over her sister turret. Well enough designed because that brought six guns to bear straight ahead. But C Turret was placed directly behind B Turret, flush on the deck as if the Admiralty was ashamed to acknowledge its presence. So C Turret could shoot to port or starboard but not forward. And none of the three turrets could protect the exposed stern.