“Good morning, captain, any developments I should be aware of?”
“One signal intercept,” said the captain. “We’re observing radio silence and so I did not acknowledge it.”
“And what was the subject?”
“It seems we have a list of the dinner guests,” said Lindemann. “Hood and Prince of Wales are steaming together and heading for the Denmark Strait. The remainder of the fleet is following four hours behind, but it is my assumption they will be watching the Iceland Faeroes Gap.”
“I see,” said Lütjens, considering. “How did we come upon this intelligence, I wonder?”
“We must have a man on Iceland,” said Lindemann. “It seems there is a lot of activity—preparations for refueling operations, and the name Hood was heard at the docks. Group North was not specific, but they seem to have the matter in hand.”
“Very well,” said Lütjens. His mind seemed much clearer now, in spite of the long, restless night. He decided. “I want to come about to 225 degrees southwest,” he said flatly.
Lindemann hesitated. “Then we are turning now, sir? You don’t want to rendezvous with Weissenburg?”
“We’ll steer for the Faeroes Gap at once,” said the Admiral. “Our fuel should be more than adequate, even at high speed.”
“I see,” said Lindemann. “Are we prepared to take on the Home Fleet?”
“That is not the question, Lindemann.” The admiral gave him a shrewd smile. “The question is whether they are prepared to take on Bismarck. Now, if you would be so kind…” He gestured toward the ships navigation station.
Lindemann had a strange feeling of misgiving about the turn. Something told him the world had shifted slightly off its axis just now. What was it the Admiral had cooked up in his sleep? He was turning right into the teeth of the enemy fleet, heedless of the consequences. Against his better judgment, he put duty first and said nothing more.
“Come about to course 225 degrees,” he said firmly, and the order was quickly repeated, the ship turning smartly in response. “Signal Prince Eugen the same,” he finished.
A few moments later both Fate and Bismarck were on a new heading, south by southwest, into the Faeroes Gap.
Chapter 15
Cruiser Arethusa was steaming well up in the gap, her patrol skirting the coast of Iceland. Off to her right, well over the horizon, two other cruisers rolled in the increasingly heavy seas. Manchester held the center post, and Birmingham the segment closer to the Faeroes. Together the three ships made up the Northern Patrol Line, yet it was still a vast gray ocean around them, with too few eyes scanning the sea for any sign of the enemy.
Of the three mice stealing out in the wide Iceland-Faeroes Gap that day, only Arethusa was blind insofar as radar was concerned. Her equipment would not be installed for another month. The other two cruisers already had their sets, installed late in 1940, and so they would use their type 286 radar to look for the enemy in their wider ranging patrol areas. Being a fixed antenna, this system could only scan the forward arc of the ship, and so the cruiser had to be steered this way and that, in a ziz-zag pattern to widen the arc of her radar search. The equipment itself had been adapted from RAF air to surface radars for planes, and was also limited in range, but it was yet one more way they could gain a vital contact and establish a bearing in the gray, squall swept ocean.
Arethusa had a long service history, and had been active in the defense of Norway and assigned to Home Fleet ever since. She had the honor of conveying the president of Poland to safe ground in the England in June of 1940, and briefly wore the flag of Admiral Somerville before he transferred to the HMS Hood just two days later. Also active in the Med, she had served with Force H and was only recently over a rough patch after a collision with a merchant ship that had sent her into the Tyne for repairs late last year. The crew called it “The Curse of Mers-el-Kebir,” for Arethusa had been with Somerville’s battle squadron on that fateful day when the British opened fire on the French Fleet. She had concentrated her effort against the French shore batteries and harbor area, doing some damage there. But after the affair, it was said that many ships who took part in that action ended up suffering some mishap at sea or a spate of bad luck.
Her Captain Graham was not a superstitious man, however, and he sailed his ship with confidence in spite of the appalling weather conditions that day. There were also strong forces nearby that shored up his confidence. HMS Hood and Prince of Wales had passed well south of his position some time ago. He noted the time at 2000 hours, or 8:00 pm.
By now Admiral Lancelot Holland on the Hood had been ordered to forsake his refueling stop at Iceland and proceed directly to his assigned patrol station in the Denmark Strait. Almost due south of his position Admiral Tovey was at sea with the Home Fleet, though he was some 200 miles away. Still, it gave him comfort to know the fleet was there. All these great ships were waiting on the cruisers, he thought. Unless they caught sight of the German raiders soon the big battleships could do little more than steam about wasting precious fuel. It was his job to see what could be done about that, and he had already spent the better part of two long days in a fruitless search.
He did not have long to wait.
Off in the mist, shrouded by low lying clouds and fog, her forward watchmen thought he saw something dark against the slate gray sea. He looked again, waiting, until the clear shape of a superstructure and hull emerged from a bank of sea fog.
“Ship sighted, right ahead!” he shouted, and it was a monster.
The warning claxon sounded, and the crew beat to quarters, manning her small six inch gun turrets, though Arethusa was not there for a fight. Her captain immediately gave the order hard to starboard and the cruiser careened through the heavy sea, her wake fuming as the screws spun up to high revolutions for 32 knots. She sped away, heading east towards the nearest friendly vessel as her signals operator tapped out the warning that would now set every other ship at sea in motion, tens of thousands of tons of heavy metal suddenly energized by the call to arms.
“Bismarck sighted, 22:07 hours, NNE my position.”
Days earlier, U-556 under her young captain Herbert Wohlfarth had been lucky enough to find a few ships as well, convoy HX-126, inbound to Liverpool from Halifax. With 38 ships in all, two other German U-boats had already picked off a few stragglers, and now it was Wohlfarth’s turn.
His U-boat had an odd connection to events that were about to transpire. Newly built, it had the distinction to berth right next to the mighty Bismarck while she was also fitting out, and came to think of her as an elder sibling. When his boat was to be commissioned in late January, 1941, Wohlfarth had petitioned the splendid band aboard Bismarck to mark the event with a stirring song. To make his plea, he had gone so far as to send a cartooned drawing to the battleship’s Captain Lindemann, depicting his tiny U-boat as a bold knight fending off torpedo attacks against the larger German ship, and towing her safely away from harm. Lindemann was good humored enough to have it framed on his wardroom wall, and sent along his band. Thereafter, Wohlfarth had pledged he would defend the mighty Bismarck in any sea, and do his utmost to keep her from harm.