He leaned back, noting a passage on the screen he had been reading about naval events just prior to the Bismarck campaign. He had been looking at the career of Vice Admiral Holland on HMS Hood, and the service records of that ship in particular, struck by an odd discovery that the Hood had only fired her guns in anger one time before her fateful engagement in the Battle of the Denmark Strait.
The pride of the British fleet for many years, she had shown the Union Jack all over the empire, and the world. She was at Mers-el-Kebir off Oran when the British Force H was ordered to fire on French ships there. And the next time her guns roared their fire against an enemy ship, she was in the Denmark Strait tangling with Bismarck. It was another eerie connection between the father of the terrorist and the Bismarck campaign.
The British were to lose a knight when Hood sunk, in more ways than one. Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland was aboard her during the battle, and went down with the ship. Yet he struck one last blow from the watery grave, of his shattered ship, or so it seemed.
The Bletchley Park code breakers had a windfall earlier that very month when H.M.S. Bulldog forced a German U-Boat (U-110) to surface and captured a working Enigma code machine! A few days later this prize was augmented when one of the Bletchley Park savants suggested German weather reporting ships at sea might also possess code equipment, and become far easier targets.
Vice Admiral Holland aboard the cruiser Edinburgh led a carefully planned raid on the weather ship München on station in the Atlantic, and captured more valuable information that was subsequently used to find and sink all the German oil tankers and supply ships their surface raiders would have to rely on after a successful breakout. In effect, Sir Lancelot’s joust in this small adventure put an end to the German surface raiding campaigns, even though his much more famous battle with Bismarck had overshadowed this fact. It would take until June to account for all the German oilers, so Bismarck’s sortie still had potential and dangerous energy about it.
It seemed to the professor that Vice Admiral Holland was going to stop the Germans one way or another, yet he achieved more leading a cruiser against an unarmed weather ship than by leading Britain’s pride of the fleet against its German counterpart in the Denmark Strait. History was often like that, full of ambiguities, ironic twists of fate, hidden heroes, unknown little actions that were often lost in the shadow of greater events. Like this very moment, he thought. Here I am plotting away to save the Western world, and only three other people on the planet know about it! He was just another unsung hero, like Odo of Aquitaine in that last mission, he thought.
He stared at his computer screen, reading something there that confused him a moment and set him to flipping through pages of the notebook he had been scribbling on.
“Now that’s odd,” he whispered to himself a moment later. He felt a strange vibration, heard a thrumming sound and the rotation of power turbines below. At once he knew that Kelly had fired up the Arch system.
“What’s going on,” he said aloud. Have they got a mission up already? Why wasn’t I notified? He sat up straight, setting his notebook aside as the vibration increased and the telltale sound of the Arch was clearly audible.
Up in the main lab room Paul and Kelly had worked something out, and Kelly was already down in the Arch Bay setting up the equipment while Paul discussed things with Maeve.
“I found what looked like an old steamer trunk on eBay last month,” she was telling Paul. “It was apparently owned by an American naval officer, complete with uniforms, papers and personal effects as well—right down to the matchbooks. I don’t know what compelled me to buy the damn thing, but I did and it’s been added to the wardrobe below. So if we have to go in, the cover of a uniform might give us some latitude. There were American liaison officers involved with the Royal Navy, yes?”
“True,” said Paul, “but we may not have to shift in just yet.” He told her what they were planning, emphasizing that the radio equipment would be placed behind the event horizon line, with no danger of shifting.
“It had better not!” she said, predictably. “That’s all we need is for a microcircuit board to turn up in 1940. It would change everything!”
“Well don’t worry,” Paul assured her. “We’re going to transmit from that location and see if we can just get a Morse code message through.”
“Better idea,” said Maeve. “No one takes in a radio from our time. War or no war, we have to exercise some caution here. Information that may impact the outcome of this particular battle is one thing, but modern day computer equipment in that radio is quite another. It would have much greater impact if ever left behind.”
“Our first message for the Brits will be sent in the early evening of 21 May. Bismarck sailed from Bergen at that time, but it wasn’t confirmed for another 30 hours due to bad weather. We’re sending confirmation, in the guise of a coast watcher’s report. We’ve had a look at existing records of the forms and codes, and we’ll sign on as ‘Lonesome Dove.’ Hopefully it will compel Admiral Tovey to put to sea earlier with the Home Fleet.”
“Hopefully,” said Maeve.
They heard a buzzer and saw the red warning lights flashing near the heavy titanium security door. It edged open on its great silvered hinges and Kelly came rushing through, half winded, back from the Arch Bay.
“We’re ready to set sail, Admiral,” he said with a smile. “The whole thing is set up, and I even put a pre-amp in the mix to give us some additional power. I have no idea how the magnetic aura of a breaching operation will effect everything, however, but its well behind the event horizon line, so no danger of losing it.”
“Let’s get to the bridge!” Paul was eager to get their little campaign underway. Moments later they had established themselves in the main lab, Kelly at the shift monitor with Paul, and Maeve standing by at the Golem module. Her job was to monitor anything she could find in the Resonance stream that might indicate the British reacted favorably. To that end Paul had links established to the service records of several major ships involved. The exact times they pulled up anchor and set sail were clearly documented. Hood was to have set sail at exactly 2356 hours, a whisker before midnight on 22 May. Her task force departed Scapa Flow enroute for Hvalsfjord.
“Keep an eye on these records,” said Paul. You may have to refresh the pages after we transmit.”
“I’ve got some custom Golem searches pre-programmed for you as well,” said Kelly, pointing at her screen. “There’s a menu in your upper right corner.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Maeve.
Paul looked at Kelly. “Well, in honor of another famous Captain who went on to make Admiral… Engage!” He lowered his voice, doing his imitation of Star Trek’s Captain Picard.
Kelly began toggling switches, bringing the Arch up to speed. “Quantum fuel is stable,” he said. ”Taking her to 80%. That should be all we need for a simple breach. I should be able to hold open a window to the designated coordinates for several minutes. There won’t be any pattern recognition sweep either, so we’ll conserve power that way too.”