“Straight-out message from Prometheus, sir. Plain language. ‘Single vessel bearing 243 degrees. Unidentified. Rejoin with all dispatch.’”
Hardy joined Land. “What’s that, W.T.? Repeat that.” Cole watched Hardy closely while the message was repeated. The captain turned to Land. “God’s holy trousers, it can’t be. We couldn’t have just run into her? W.T.? Send to Prometheus, ‘Will join you immediately.’” Hardy walked to the windscreen in thought before turning quickly. “Well, Number One. You heard him. Action stations and look lively.”
“Yes, sir,” Land said and called for the chief bo’swain’s mate.
“You had better retire below, Mr. Cole,” Hardy said.
“I’d like to stay, sir,” Cole said.
“This is a small bridge, Mr. Cole. There’s barely enough room for those who should be here when things get hot. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re a big man and you’d make a lovely target.”
“I understand, sir, but with all due respect I’d like to stay,” Cole said. “After all, you said I was an observer on board Firedancer.”
Hardy’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t a barrister, are you? Turning my own words against me? I get enough of that from my own number one.”
“No, sir,” Cole said. “Just a sailor.”
Kommandant K, D.K.M. Sea Lion Kapitan zur See Mahlberg, had just dismissed his engineering officer and was about to send for his nautical officer to recheck the computations when the bridge telephone clattered three times in rapid succession. An Obersignalmaat answered it quickly. It was the Obersignalmaat ’s tone that caught Mahlberg’s attention.
“Hydrophones, sir,” the Obersignalmaat said, cupping the receiver. “They say they are picking up high-speed turbines. Very faint, fine off the port bow.”
Mahlberg smiled broadly. “Ahead of schedule. I must speak to the nautical officer about his calculations. How far is Prince of Wales?”
“It’s not Prince of Wales, sir. It’s a smaller ship. Ships, sir.”
“What?” Mahlberg snapped. “Where?”
“He can’t be certain yet, sir. Perhaps eighty kilometers. There is a great deal of distortion. He estimates two to four vessels.”
Mahlberg glanced at Kadow.
The executive officer took the telephone from the seaman and identified himself. “Kadow,” he snapped. “Repeat.”
Mahlberg watched his executive officer concentrate on the information.
“What size?” Kadow said. “Are you sure? Could it be an echo of some sort?” Kadow listened. “I need the distance, man, make a guess if nothing else.”
Another telephone clattered insistently and an Oberleutnant zur See picked it up.
“Bridge. Yes? Please repeat that.” The Oberleutnant cupped the mouthpiece and caught Mahlberg’s attention. “It’s radar, sir. They report three vessels at sixty to eighty kilometers to the southwest. There appears to be another vessel just beyond them.”
“Size and speed?” Mahlberg said calmly.
Kadow hung up the telephone. “A cruiser, possibly Diddo class. Two destroyers, perhaps three.”
“Possibly a cruiser,” the Oberleutnant reported. “Radar can’t determine the class. Likely three destroyers, one of those trailing the others.”
“Prince of Wales escorts,” Kadow said. “Shall I set a course around them, sir?”
“Around them?” Mahlberg said. “We’re going through them.”
“Kapitan—”
“My God, Kadow. A light cruiser and a handful of destroyers. The best they can offer are six-inch guns. They might as well spit on us as shoot at us.”
“Torpedoes, sir,” Kadow said, but he saw immediately that his arguing only made matters worse.
“They won’t get close enough to use them,” Mahlberg said tersely. “Twelve thousand meters? Is that their range? Every man aboard those vessels will be dead before they get close enough to launch torpedoes. This ship does not turn aside for any vessel. This ship will never run away or retreat. Is that understood?” Mahlberg looked around the bridge. “Sea Lion is the greatest vessel that has ever put to sea and I will never” — he turned to Kadow — “never order her to avoid battle. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the executive officer said.
“Kriegsmarschzustand One,” Mahlberg ordered Kadow, “notify Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine that we’ve run into an irritant.”
The executive officer stepped to the bulkhead and pushed the large red button that set off the alarm bells throughout Sea Lion. The crew burst into activity, dropping whatever they were doing and rushing along corridors and through hatchways with a cry of “Warsaw! Warsaw” — make way. This was no Rollenschwoof — no drill. This was real.
Statz was just coming on deck when the alarm sounded and he sprinted toward Bruno, dodging other sailors running to their stations. It was pandemonium to the uninitiated, but the men were trained to get to their stations anyway possible, in the fastest way possible. They knew which corridors to take, which to avoid, and how to dash through the passageways before the heavy watertight doors were closed behind them with the warning shouts of “tuy-tuy-tuy-tuy.” Once those doors were closed, that way was denied to the sailors so that they had to find an alternative route, and God help them if they arrived at their battle stations to find their Oberbootsmannmaat waiting for them.
Statz dropped to all fours and scampered under the turret counterweight, climbing into Bruno through the after hatch. He dodged pipes, ducked under the thick steel trunk of the range-finding mechanism, swung around the squat analog computer station that was used if fire control were denied them, turned sharply right, and slipped through the narrow hatch that led to the gun room.
He was off the control platform in an instant, down the ladder, around the breech of the big gun, and at his station. As Statz smeared his face with antiflash cream and donned his flash gloves and hood he heard the others rush in.
“You’re late,” he called to them good-naturedly. “Do you expect me to run this thing all by myself?” The gunners took their stations, preparing themselves for battle. Statz watched them appreciatively — they were good men and they had trained well.
Matrosenobergefreiter Scholtz, positioned at the powder doors, pushed the button that let the powder rooms know that he was ready. Then he stood, arms folded, waiting patiently for whatever was to happen.
Matrosenhauptgefreiter Steiner, who did his best to show disdain for Statz whenever he had an opportunity, checked over the spanning tray, the trough that dropped down to accept the shells and powder bags.
Next to him was Matrosengefreiter Manthey, a naturally funny sailor who loved doing discreet impersonations of officers, and did them quite well. He was the hoist operator and it was his job to bring the one-ton shells from the shell rooms deep within the vessel and guide them onto the spanning tray.
And Matrosengefreiter Wurst, the smallest and youngest man in the crew who suffered under Steiner’s attacks when Statz was not around, triggered the ramming mechanism, pushing first the shell and then the bags of powder into the gun’s breech.
When the rammer cleared and the spanning tray was pulled back, Statz signaled to the gun controller, a distant man named Gran who never really seemed to fit in, and Gran turned the thick, black knob through the sequences on the gun-indicator of lock-ready-shoot. When Gran signaled that the gun was ready for action, it was up to the gunnery officer in his cathedral high above Bruno to find the target, and compute the half dozen variables that decided the gun’s elevation and position. After the speed and course of the enemy vessel, and after Sea Lion’s speed and course, deflection, the wind, the weight of the shell and the powder charge, even the relative humidity, had been calculated, there remained only permission to fire.