“Aye, sir. It can only be Prince Eugen. If this latest signal is authentic, then it appears the German task force may have split up some time ago.”
“Damn,” Tovey was clearly unhappy. “Bismarck has given us the slip! Yet we have no position coded on that message? Where did it come from?”
“We don’t know, sir. Could Victorious have a straggler?”
“See about that Brind, will you?” The Admiral was deeply distressed. He was burning a lot of fuel running up at 28 knots, and now he learned he may have been steaming away from his prey since the morning watch! Yet if he took this signal to heart, assuming it was Bismarck, he would have to relinquish his hold on the German cruiser ahead of him, and give up that chase. If Bismarck was still there, he would steam off and lose the two of them altogether. It was a critical decision. What should he do?
An hour earlier, a man had stepped briskly off a trolley bus on Rumford Street, Liverpool and was walking past a nondescript building near the Exchange. It was the entrance to Western Approaches Command HQ, moved here in February of 1941 to coordinate the complex convoy traffic.
For all intents and purposes, he appeared to be a simple business man, pressed trousers and wool tweed blazer under a stiff derby, and he carried an umbrella against the threat of rain. But that was not all. A plain manila envelope was tucked under his arm and he pushed in through the narrow door, immediately sighting the reception desk.
“Signals?” he asked. “I’ve a message for Admiral Sir Percy Noble. Very high priority.”
The woman looked at him, thinking him a bit odd, but she took the envelope he handed her and set it down on her desk with a nod.
“Oh, no, I’m afraid that won’t do,” he said, his more aristocratic English accent just a tad out of place for Liverpool. “This needs to go in at once.” The man tapped at his pocket watch. “Time’s of the essence.”
“Very well,” the woman stood up with the envelope.
“And please stamp this urgent. Highest priority, if you please. If the Admiral doesn’t see it within the next ten minutes, well, I wouldn’t much care to be in your shoes then. If I make myself plain, Madame…” He pursed his lips, eyes fixed on the woman, waiting.
“I see,” she said quietly, and then picked up her stamp and properly marked the envelope for highest priority signals decode. It wasn’t at all uncommon to receive messages like this—especially if they were of a highly sensitive nature, the type of message one would not want generally transmitted by any other means. Couriers came and went at all hours, though they were not quite so pushy as this man seemed. She gave the man a wary glance and started off towards the Signals section.
“Top of the stack, my dear,” the man said after her. “The very top now.”
Professor Nordhausen had done as much as he could, and only hoped his urging had been taken to heart. He smiled, elated to be back in England again, if only for a very brief time. Then that thought set him in motion, and he turned, walking quickly out the door, down the street, and then into an alley way.
A few minutes later he had vanished.
Aboard King George V Brind was back in short order. “Victorious says they have everyone aboard sir, but suggests Coastal Command may have Catalinas up this morning—one last look before the weather closes in. The signal could have come from one of their planes, but that is not yet clear. And then there’s this, sir. Admiralty is all in a dither. It seems they are revoking their last order to Rodney and telling her to steer a course south by southeast now. No details…”
“No details,” said Tovey. “Of course, no bloody details. That’s where the devil is, by God. Well, we’ll have to decide.” He ran his hand fitfully over his chin, thinking hard.
“Another message from Admiralty, sir.” The midshipman rushed in with a fresh cable and Brind took it, eager for news.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “This is interesting. Our Lonesome Dove has flown into Western Approaches with some very pointed intelligence, sir. The message is Tiger, Tiger, burning bright—sent to all fleet stations in the last hour.”
“That’s the hazard code for convoy WS-8B,” said Tovey.
“Aye, sir. It’s why they’ve moved Rodney then. It appears the Germans are steering for the convoy. Or at least one of their ships is.”
“Taken with this recent sighting it begins to mount up,” said Tovey. “Very well…” He decided.“Helmsman, come round to course 115 at once. Hard a port and steady on that heading.”
Brind swallowed hard. “We’ll lose Prince Eugen, sir, if that’s who we’ve been following.”
“That we will, Brind. Let’s just hope we haven’t lost Bismarck with her in the bargain. Signal Admiral Holland our intentions and new course. Have him conform to our movements. They’re moving Rodney for some reason. I intend to have a look out east.”
“They could be simply ordering her to cover the convoy, sir,” Brind suggested. “She’ll never get out this way in time, so that last order to steer 225 was of no use.”
“Yes, it seems Admiral Pound has been running his ships all over the board. How much fuel do you think I’ve got in the belly of this one, Brind? Not nearly enough to chase Bismarck out into the Atlantic. At least on this new heading we cover our own vital convoy traffic into Gibraltar, and I can get an oiler out here as well. If I’m wrong I’ll hear about it, no doubt, and I’ll suffer the consequences. Let’s get on with it.”
Miles away the pilots of Catalina Squadron Z-20 were settling into their cockpits and looking forward to a hot coffee now that they were finally airborne and on their heading. Flying out of Swansea, they were going out to scour the Celtic Sea on the off chance the German surface raiders might turn east into the heavy convoy traffic zones. Their biggest worry was Convoy WS-8B, another ‘Winston Special” dubbed “Tiger II” by the pilot. It was laden with troops, equipment and supplies for the Army in Egypt and Libya, and escorted only by a few destroyers and the cruiser Exeter.
That same morning Squadron 22 out of the RAF Coastal Command base at St. Eval in Cornwall were also taking off, a flight of three Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers. They were led by the ebullient Lt. Kenneth Campbell in the number one plane, with Lt. John Hyde and Sergeant Lane as his wing mates.
“Nasty weather, Campy,” said Hyde. “You reckon this is nothing more than a wild goose chase?”
“Goose chase? If you want to call those German battlecruisers the nice fat geese, then you’ll have it right,” said Campbell. “Least ways we won’t have to make another run at Brest this morning.” He shuddered to recall the near miss that had nearly taken his plane down as he made a low level approach to that harbor a little over month ago. The flack had been fierce and thick, for Brest was one of the best defended harbors in Europe now, with over 2000 AA guns encircling the town, and three special flack ships permanently moored by the Mole and outer quay. He was lucky to have escaped with his life, for his target, the battlecruiser Gneisenau, was not moored in the outer harbor where he had been told to look for it that morning. He vaguely remembered seeing signs of a fire there, and thick, oily smoke rising from the berthing pier.
“No Johnny,” he said. “They don’t strap that 2000 pound torpedo under our belly unless they hope we’ll be using it. It’s Bismarck we’re looking for now, and I intend to find her, if she’s nosing about.”