He reached out and felt the open breechblock of the gun — they had been in the process of loading when the torpedoes struck. Now he knew where he was. He could follow the shape of the gun across the extended spanning tray and get to the gun controller’s platform, out the small hatch, through the turret, and exit the deck hatch. If they weren’t jammed closed.
Maybe he could go down through the shell hoist and through the shell room and come up by way of the passageways alongside the barbette. No, he could not force himself to go deep into the doomed ship.
“Statz,” a familiar voice came from the smoke.
“Here!” he shouted. “Who is it? Where are you?”
“Statz,” the voice said again. “Here. Come this way.”
He looked in the direction of the voice and saw daylight. The gun bloomer, the flexible hard rubber collar that covered the barrel of the gun and was attached to the turret to keep spray from entering, was shredded.
“This way,” Statz called to anyone in the turret who could hear him. “The bloomer’s gone. We can get out this way.” He carefully crawled up the huge barrel, holding a dirty handkerchief to his nose and mouth to filter out the noxious fumes of the fires. He called out behind him once more, hoping that others would hear him and follow. He pulled himself along the barrel. The list was increasing. Sea Lion was dying.
Statz pushed his way through the bloomer and into daylight and sanctuary. He dropped to Anton, slid down her side to the tilting deck, made his way to port, and saw the sea below him littered with men, living and dead. Someone had lashed a rope to one of the deck stays. He climbed over the cable, took a firm grip on the rope, and slowly lowered himself into the sea. As he did so he realized whose voice had led him to safety. He knew it with all the certainty that he possessed as his strong arms pulled him away from the doomed ship. It was Kuhn.
Mahlberg staggered to his feet and cried out at the tremendous pain in his lifeless right arm. He must have broken it when he was thrown against the bulkhead. The others on the conning tower were just beginning to rise when he forced the cloud of pain away.
“Report!”
One by one the other sections of the ship were contacted and each replied, in turn, that the situation was hopeless. Only engineering continued to function at more than half performance, supplying power to the pumps, electrical system, communications, and firefighting. There was power for the guns as well, but Prometheus was too close for the main battery and the secondary battery could do nothing but saw away the superstructure down to the boat deck. At least there was no one to command her, Mahlberg knew. The bridge of the British cruiser had long ago been destroyed.
Smoke seeped into the conning tower, heat and noise accompanying the sharp stench that came from steel heated almost to melting. Sea Lion’s fine white-oak deck was charring, and her sturdy gray paint was lifting itself off bulkheads, peeling away from intense flames until the feathered edges blackened and the paint was consumed. The flat cracks of both ships’ secondary batteries sounded strangely like bells tolling in the metal cavern of the conning tower. The fire was so rapid that it was almost impossible to separate the guns, one from another. Above all, Mahlberg could hear the screams of the men, injured men, dying men, frightened men, men desperate to leave Sea Lion and take their chances in the ice-cold sea.
“Shall I order abandon ship, Kapitan?” It was a Leutnant zur See who spoke.
Mahlberg looked at him incredulously. Abandon? What was the man talking about? Surely he must be injured? A concussion. “No!” Mahlberg said. “No, of course not.” He looked around, trying to get his bearing, taking a quick survey of those men who remained to him. All but three. Kadow and two others lay on the deck, unmoving. All but three. Pride swelled in him. Only three dead. “We’ll move to the sea bridge,” Mahlberg ordered, holding his injured arm carefully. Any movement sent excruciating pain shooting to his shoulder. “I can’t see anything in this cave.” He issued orders quickly, knowing that the ship’s salvation lay in his skills as a ship handler. He ordered the rudders thrown over full and the engines increased to emergency power so that they could wrench themselves free of that hateful ship embedded in their side. He ordered that calls for assistance be sent out so that the might of the Kriegsmarine could be mobilized to come to Sea Lion’s rescue. His pride did not interfere because the challenge, his challenge, the supreme opportunity was at hand: save Sea Lion. He relished the role; he reveled in the chance to snatch Sea Lion from the cold, icy depths of the North Atlantic. His arrogance, his confidence were all-powerful, unfailing, and he was the Kapitan of the greatest warship in the history of the world.
And then when he was on the narrow walkway just outside the conning tower, a chance breeze parted the thick black smoke that boiled with impunity from the guts of the ship, and he saw the truth.
Anton was pointed to port, all three guns angled lifelessly toward the sea. Bruno looked straight ahead but her three guns, like gnarled fingers of an arthritic hand, jutted in three different directions. A scythe had swept whole sections of Sea Lion’s deck and what remained was carnage. Bodies, parts of bodies, blood soaked darkly into the oak deck timbers. Men raced to port, madly tying off lines so that they could lower themselves into the water to escape the maelstrom that was overtaking their ship and threatened to overtake them.
Sea Lion jerked to starboard as hundreds of tons of seawater continued to rush in and some unknown place within her body a bulkhead gave way, and the water gained another victory. She was dying.
Mahlberg, stunned, staggered against the list to the starboard wing and looked aft. Everything was on fire; turrets were destroyed, boats dislodged, gun mounts swept away, deck structures missing, and over all of it, a raging fire, rich with hunger, fed on the still-living carcass of his vessel. He looked at the lower deck in time to see two officers, Luftwaffe officers that he knew flew the scouting planes aboard Sea Lion, put pistols to their heads and blow their brains out. He did not hear the gunshots. He saw the jets of blood and tissue spurt out one side of the men’s head and then their bodies drop silently to the deck. Death before dishonor.
The sight did not affect him. He was losing Sea Lion — what was the death of two cowardly officers that he hardly knew?
The bridge — get to the bridge.
There was a blast and he was engulfed in flames and smoke and he slid into darkness. It must have been for only a moment, because when he came to, nothing had changed. He was still on the walkway near the conning tower, except now he knew that he was lying on his side and he could feel the reassuring steel curve of a gun tub at his back. He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position with his one good arm and stared stupidly at the clutter on the deck. It was a mass of arms, torsos, and legs, all intertwined, with some movement, and some sound. He heard whimpering, moans, really, although one of the conning tower crew managed to cry softly for help. It might have been a six-inch shell, Mahlberg thought dully, his mind trying to find something to focus on that made sense. Everyone was down. He was down.