Nordhausen was reading something from his notes and he made as if to say something, but Paul went on with his story. “That’s the first Pushpoint cluster,” he said. “And actually, I think it is the most decisive lever on these events. This incident with Sheffield was essential to the action that followed.”
“I was going to say—“
“Now the second Pushpoint is in the final attack on Bismarck by these Swordfish.” Paul cut the professor off, eager to finish his tale. “They re-arm and another flight takes off. This time they have orders to first find Sheffield again, then follow her heading to locate the Bismarck. This they do, coming upon the German ship to make this last, desperate attempt to stop her so the pursuing British Battleships can catch up. Using the more reliable contact detonators, they score a couple hits. One strikes Bismarck amidships on her heavy belt armor and does little damage, but the second is a proverbial lucky shot that decides everything. It strikes Bismarck astern, damaging her rudder as she was turning to avoid it. In fact, if Bismarck had just maintained course this torpedo would have probably struck her side armor as well and done far less damage. But as it happened, Bismarck turned, and that sent the torpedo right into her rudder. It also damaged a propeller there. Her speed was immediately reduced and she was unable to steer. The mighty Bismarck was now simply steaming in circles with a jammed rudder.”
“And the rest is history,” said Kelly.
“Yes,” said Paul. “The British harass her with destroyers all night, and the following morning the British show up with two battleships King George V, and Rodney, and an number of smaller ships. They were too much for the exhausted crew of the Bismarck to contend with. She was hit several times, and after losing all her main guns to battle damage, the Germans scuttled her. The British thought they had finished her off with torpedoes from their cruisers and destroyers, but James Cameron took an ROV down to the wreck and discovered that none of those hits caused internal flooding damage.”
Robert cleared his throat to get attention at last. “Well I hate to break it to you,” he said “but in the data I harvested with the Arion system there is no case of mistaken identity concerning the Sheffield.” He was confirming the data on the history module even as Paul finished.
The others looked at him, and Paul raised his eyebrows. His gut assumption had been correct, and the professor went on, confirming his suspicions.
“Yes,” said Robert. “That first flight never attacks Sheffield in the altered history. They go right on to strike Bismarck instead. And just as you have indicated most of the torpedoes misfire and they score only one insignificant hit. The German ship shrugs it off and steams on for Brest. By the time the Swordfish get back to the carrier and rearm the worsening weather and darkness force them to call off a second strike. Bismarck escapes.”
“And she lays up for repairs at Brest to sortie out six weeks later,” said Maeve.
“Where she sinks the Prospector in Convoy OS-85 bound for Alexandria,” said Kelly. “Taking Lieutenant Thomason to the bottom of the sea.”
“And so one Kasim al Khafi survives his stint with the Afrika Korps and lives on to sire an illegitimate son who takes down the flank of Cumbre Vieja on Palma and the world we know changes forever.” He put his hands in his pocket, fingering his key ring as he often did when thinking. “I think we found our mission,” he said calmly. “It’s just that I’m not exactly sure how we can put things back the way they were. Sinking the Bismarck, as we have seen, is no small matter.”
Chapter 6
“What happened to Sheffield?” said Paul. “That seems to be the key question now.”
“There are only a few possibilities,” said Maeve. “Either she doesn’t get sent to shadow the Bismarck by Somerville, or the planes get that message decoded before they attack her.”
“Somerville may be a Prime,” said Paul. “An officer of his rank made too many key decisions to try and meddle with him. His choice to dispatch Sheffield was wise and probably not something anyone could talk him out of, unless there was a pressing need for the ship to be elsewhere.”
“Nothing that I noted in the history,” said Nordhausen.
“Are you checking everything? All the books on the subject and the web sites as well?”
“Shirer, Forester, Kennedy, the lot of them,” said the professor. And I’ve got a search programmed for the web sites, both German and British sources. They just don’t mention much about Sheffield. There was no threat to Force H either, as far as I can see.”
“That’s very odd,” said Paul, quite troubled now.
“OK,” said Maeve, “if we leave Somerville alone then we’re probably looking farther down the pecking order on Ark Royal.”
“The radio room,” said Paul. “There was a lot of message traffic, and the message informing Ark Royal that Sheffield was going hunting was set aside for a time. There’s several sources on that. See if you can find anything on it, Robert.”
“That does sound like a good intervention point,” Maeve agreed. “You would just want to get that message to the top of the stack—just a shuffling of paper in the radio room.”
“Yet there would be no guarantee that the decoders would act on it,” said Paul. “They could pick it up, note it as being of a routine nature, and then just set it aside if there were more urgent messages—spotting reports or changes in ship position for example.”
“What about that message that was broadcast in the clear,” said Maeve. “Look out for Sheffield! If it were to be sent out a few minutes earlier, then the planes may have been forewarned.”
“That sounds promising as well,” said Paul. “It would mean someone would have to have access to the radio room, on one ship or another.”
“What, just waltz right in to an obviously busy radio room and say, excuse me gentlemen but I’ve got to make an unauthorized transmission—in the clear, uncoded, if you please.”
“Well, that’s about what happened. As I recall it the decision was made by the captain of Ark Royal, however. So it wasn’t an unauthorized message, but it was sent out rather frantically when they realized the potential for mishap.”
“Captain Maund,” said Robert, working up data from the RAM Bank. “And he wasn’t informed of the message from Somerville concerning Sheffield until an hour after the planes had already taken off.”
“So that gives someone an hour,” thought Paul. “If that message was translated any time in that hour and reached Maund, then the planes could have been forewarned. Failing that, it’s possible someone just sent the message, bypassing that whole scenario and event chain entirely. An operative might be able to pull it off. All they would need is a sufficiently powerful radio. It wouldn’t even have to be aboard Ark Royal—could have come from any ship in the task force. Let’s nail down exactly what ships were still steaming with Force H, can you dig that up, Robert?”