Despite himself, Mahlberg did what he had avoided the minute that his executive officer’s body had been dragged into the conning tower: he looked at Kadow’s face. The sight shocked Mahlberg — Kadow’s eyes were partially closed and the silent form appeared to be asleep. How peaceful he looks, Mahlberg thought, but then he looked away. I have no time for the dead, he told himself, and turned back to the command of his ship.
But — a word that Kadow used to Mahlberg’s constant disgust — the Kapitan zur See would not admit the obvious. Sea Lion, his magnificent ship, was critically wounded and at the mercy of those pathetic little jackals darting about the sea.
“She’s breaking free!”
Mahlberg turned to the Kapitanleutnant who had shouted the news.
“Kapitan! We’re breaking free of the cruiser.”
Mahlberg nodded as if he expected nothing else, and the old arrogance that had driven him relentlessly all of his life returned to fill the void of uncertainty.
“Very well,” he shouted above the din. “Make ready to draw off and sink the cruiser.”
Land and Hardy had watched Sea Lion drag the barely living carcass of poor Prometheus through the water. What they saw next horrified them.
“Sea Lion’s breaking free,” Land said in alarm.
“Right. We must stop them,” Hardy said. His calm manner surprised Land. “We’re going in, Eskimo or no Eskimo. Go and tell Cole and whoever is left back there that no one fires until they hear the ship’s whistle. We can’t risk missing and hitting Eskimo, and to do any damage we’ve got to get every one of those torpedoes into Sea Lion’s vitals. She can’t get away, Number One. If I can’t sink her with torpedoes, then by God we’ll pull a Prometheus on her.”
Cole looked up from the cockpit in response to Land’s statement. His eyes stung and his voice was ragged from shouting and from the smoke that he had inhaled. Every part of his body ached so much that he could hardly move, but there was something in Land’s desperate words that made him forget all of that.
“Yeah,” Cole said. “You get us close enough to that big son of a bitch and I’ll lay these goddamned things right on her deck.”
Land smiled. “Well said, Mr. Cole.”
It seemed just minutes after Land left that Firedancer picked up speed and began to twist violently, trying to throw off the German gunners. It worked for the most part, but the gunners guessed Firedancer’s intentions and the firing increased. Cole watched as huge columns of water began to inch closer to the speeding destroyer. It was the secondary battery and any second the main battery would swing into action. He remembered Windsor and what one sixteen-inch shell had done to her.
Firedancer jerked to starboard and then whipped to port, throwing spray over Cole and Blessing. Cole pushed his legs against the walls of the cockpit to keep from getting thrown about, taking his hands off the torpedo-release levers only long enough to wipe the salt water from his face. He felt Firedancer tremble as a shell struck her a glancing blow aft and then the destroyer leaped to starboard again.
Sea Lion, with Prometheus dragging along her hull, grew larger. Details emerged in between the flashes of the guns and the tentacles of smoke that trailed over her: turrets, life rafts, masts, and portholes — the thousand features that defined her size. She was magnificent, Cole decided, and terrible; and for a moment he was torn between admiration and hate. But all of that quickly disappeared when Firedancer jumped quickly to starboard to avoid another salvo of Sea Lion’s guns. Now all Cole concentrated on was the signal to fire.
It had to come soon. Any minute now. They couldn’t get any closer. And then he saw Prometheus begin to twist, her stern slowly swinging into Sea Lion’s hull as the cruiser’s bow was being forced out of the wound that she had made in the German ship. He realized that if the cruiser continued to swing like that she would block any chance of getting at Sea Lion; her body would protect that of her killer.
They were so close now that Sea Lion’s antiaircraft batteries began to fire at them; huge golden balls — tracers — heading directly at Cole. When they landed they ripped through the water, making erratic stitches. Happy little spouts filled the sea between them as Sea Lion grew closer. The ocean was ripped to pieces as Firedancer frantically dodged the hundreds of shells fired at her.
Firedancer’s whistle screamed above the din.
Cole heard the soft whoosh of Baird’s torpedoes leave their tubes. One, three, two. He gripped the release levers and pulled up. One, three, two. The mount shuddered with a gasp of compressed air as the torpedoes leaped out of the tubes and seemed to hang suspended in the air. Then they splashed into the sea.
Firedancer veered sharply to starboard, turning her fantail to the enemy. Shoot and scoot, Cole thought, but he regretted not being able to track the torpedoes as they sped toward their target.
He heard the explosions. Far off, he thought, muffled somehow but still distinct enough to count. Four, he thought, maybe five. He leaned over the back of the cockpit to ask Blessing, but the young man’s lifeless body lay awkwardly over the tube combing. Cole stared at the body surrounded by a swath of bright red blood that had pumped from the jagged hole in his neck. He watched as the tiny droplets of spray washed the tubes of the blood and he wondered why Blessing was dead and he wasn’t. They were within inches of one another. One alive. One dead.
“Hits!” Land cried, tracking the torpedoes. “At least three, sir. Sea Lion’s listing heavily. Down by the head, sir. There’s another explosion, sir. Magazines.”
Hardy watched as smoke billowed from the mortally wounded ship and secondary explosions consumed her amidships. Huge pieces of wreckage were thrown into the air with each blast and deep, black smoke covered a good three-quarters of her length. He put his binoculars to his eyes and noted: “She’s taking Prometheus with her.”
“What?” Land said, and then focused on the cruiser. The force of the explosions had driven Prometheus out from Sea Lion but they had not saved her. She listed heavily to port and her superstructure was blazing, the bright yellow flames framed by columns of dirty brown smoke. “The poor bastards,” Land whispered. “The poor bastards. Can we—”
“No,” Hardy said without emotion. “We cannot. We’ll have to stand off and wait. Otherwise,” he added, lowering the binoculars and turning away, “we will lose Firedancer as well.”
Bruno was a madhouse. Statz heard screams and shouts for help, but he could do nothing because he was in complete darkness. The British cruiser striking Sea Lion had been catastrophic; the explosions aft and amidships, torpedoes, Statz knew, had doomed the ship. He had called for his crew when the emergency lights went out and dense smoke filled the turret, but in the confusion and noise he could not hear their replies. He felt Sea Lion listing and he knew that she would quickly continue until she turned turtle, showing her broad, glistening belly to the sun before she sank. Unless the explosions tore her apart. The magazines were erupting and several hundred tons of high-explosives were right below his feet. Time to get out.