I had only just come out of the engine room when the torpedo struck us and, finding it impossible to enter it again, I came on to the boat deck, trying to get my lifebelt over my head, when I was washed over the side. When I came to the surface I looked for wreckage but could not see anything except the blazing tanker, British Security, directly astern of us, which was torpedoed immediately after us. The flames were about 60 ft. high, and a huge column of smoke appeared to come out of the water and burst into flame. I swam about for 3 hours and about 16:00 I managed to reach our starboard lifeboat at the same time as the captain.’”
“So it’s clear from our touchstone data that Darlington Court was attacked by U-556 well before British Security,” said Paul.
“Until things changed,” said Robert. “Now then… Here’s the eyewitness report from our RAM Bank of Captain B. Green of the Cockaponset. This was to be the third ship sunk that night by U-556. In our old history this is the ship Wohlfarth wastes his last torpedo on, not Darlington Court as Kennedy had it in his book. The times in these reports confirm that. He uses Greenwich Mean Time here, which accounts for the difference between this and the Commodore’s report, but the basic sequence of events is the same. Listen: ‘At 12:50 the Darlington Court, which was No. 41 in the convoy, was torpedoed. About 2 minutes after the Darlington Court was torpedoed a Tanker astern of her (this was British Security in station 42) was struck by a torpedo, and almost immediately caught fire. Another tanker astern got into the flames from the other tanker, and when she came out we noticed that she also was on fire, continuing to burn for 3 days. At 12:55 we made an emergency turn of 90° to port and proceeded at full speed, but we had to make more than 90° turn in order to keep clear of the flames.
At 13:10 when in position 57.24N 40.56W, the sea being calm, wind S.E. force 2, the weather fine and the visibility good, we were struck by a torpedo on the starboard side in No. 4 hatch. All the hatches were blown off and the ship immediately listed and water came over the after deck. No one saw the wake of the torpedo.’”
“Well that about nails it,” said Paul. “He gives the exact times each ship was hit, and Darlington Court gets it first. Yet in the altered Meridians—at least as far as we could tell—that ship is the survivor.”
“Every time I looked,” Robert emphasized. “So here is a suspicious case of a survivor that changes the history again, just as Maeve warns.”
“It does have a smell about it,” said Kelly.
“Are you suggesting the Assassins may have done something here—operated directly within Convoy HX-126?”
“Well, you all have been talking about how easy it would be to divert a ship like this away from harm—and yet how difficult it is to reverse that and assure its destruction. This is a clear case. It’s an easy intervention for the Assassins to make, and one we can’t easily reverse.”
“They’ve got their teeth in this pretty deep,” said Paul. “It is suspicious.”
“There’s more,” said Robert. “Here’s the report from the Commodore of Convoy HX-126. He uses local time: ‘About 09:37 Aurania (an escort) hoisted signal Sub in sight 080° and almost immediately afterwards at 09:38-09:39 Darlington Court first, and British Security immediately after, were hit. Darlington Court rolled over onto her port side at once and sank in 2 minutes. I consider 2 torpedoes hit her. British Security burst into flames fore and aft. A few men were seen getting away in her starboard quarter boat on the weather side. As soon as it was seen that attack was from starboard 9T was hoisted and a long blast blown followed by 2 short blasts. All convoy turned 90° to port together perfectly, just as at exercise, but some were hampered by the blazing tanker whose rudder was hard a port, evidently put on to avoid Darlington Court when she was torpedoed. At 09:45 – The Signals TR, (Proceed at utmost speed) – and SM, (Drop smoke float) were made and obeyed. 09:50 – "Scatter" was made. Whilst scattering, roughly between 09:55 and 10:00 Cockaponset (63) was torpedoed.’”
“And our history credits that last kill to Wohlfarth and U-556,” said Paul. “It’s clear that someone has been messing with the history here, but how would they have managed to spare Darlington Court?”
“Good question,” said Maeve. “The more we study this the more we uncover clear information that seems to indicate someone has been running interventions here.”
“It was obvious what they did earlier with that fishing boat bursting into flames at Brest,” said Kelly.
“Yes, but this is much more subtle. They are operating around the whims of a Free Radical, our good Kapitan Wohlfarth. He’s got five torpedoes in his lower ship when he finds this convoy, and he uses four of them to get these first two ships. Then he picks off Cockaponset with that final torpedo. But in the alterations we were able to observe Cockaponset is hit earlier on, and it’s Darlington Court that survives. How could they achieve that?”
“Someone messed with the convoy steaming orders,” said Robert. “There’s further evidence of this in the Commodore’s report, but another odd thing happened here. Several ships in the convoy reported a very large undersea explosion. Well here, I’ll read it to you verbatim from the reports: ‘John P. Pedersen was still afloat, burning before the bridge structure as late as 11:50. (Local time. She had fuel oil cargo. At 10:50, a very heavy explosion shook the ship. No cause for it could be seen. So heavy was it that Nicoya, four to five miles on our starboard quarter stopped and blew off steam. Dorelian, two miles astern, had some men at work on boat deck blown overboard. She stopped and lowered boats.’”
“Ships two to five miles away reacted that way?” said Paul. “They had men literally blown off their decks?”
“That’s what the reports indicate,” Robert tapped his notebook with a pen. “The subsequent investigation had this to say: ‘The captain of Cockaponset says the following: "About 20 minutes later (meaning, after all survivors of that ship had gone in the lifeboats) there was a loud explosion which shook the boat considerably and brought a quantity of dead fish to the surface. There was no water thrown up, but just before the explosion it felt just as if something was tapping under the boat. ”
“That almost sounds like a mine,” Paul suggested. “But I doubt a typical sea mine could produce an explosion that serious, with effects so far ranging. It had to be an explosion on one of the ships that had already been sunk.”
“Well here is what the investigation concluded,” said Robert, reading again: “‘No satisfactory explanation of this explosion has yet been deduced, though three possible causes occur:
a) Darlington Court or British Security, which had been torpedoed at 09:38, blew up. – Unlikely, as the former’s cargo consisted of 8000 tons of wheat, and the latter, a tanker, is reported to have still been blazing on the surface some hours later.