“Signal Admiral Holland to make his best speed. I want him to engage at the earliest opportunity. We’ll get there when we can. And what about the convoy? Surely they’ll have destroyers about.”
“I believe Phil Vian has that duty, sir.”
“Well signal Vian get his hounds after that fox at their best speed,” said Tovey. “If they can engage her, all the better. We’ll be there in short order. Now, what about Rodney?”
“It seems she is well positioned now as well, sir, in spite of all those conflicting orders out of the Admiralty today. She was slightly northeast of the sighting coordinates, and less than seventy miles out.”
Tovey looked at his map in the plotting room off the main bridge. “Well done, Rodney,” he breathed. “It seems our captains have kept their wits about them and steered true, Brind. That puts her in a good position to cover Sir Winston’s convoy there.” He pointed at the position of Convoy WS-8B.
“The convoy is being diverted now, sir. Force H has finally got off their run to the Eastern Med and is coming out to join us and meet the convoy. Somerville will have Renown and the carrier Ark Royal. I’m afraid Sheffield is laid up for repairs, but I can pull additional cruisers from the Azores if need be.”
Tovey clapped his hands and rubbed them together with great satisfaction. “By Jove, if that hit slows Bismarck down, I think we’ve got her, Brind! I don’t think they realize how close we are, or have any idea how much power we can bring to bear.”
At 22:40 hours, with the light nearly gone and all eyes puckered against the shadowy horizon, or glued to the milky radar trace reports on the small oval screens, the word went out to Admiral Holland at last. “Contact! One ship bearing green and running 115. That has to be Bismarck, sir. There’s no one else out there.”
The ship’s crew had been smartly at battle stations for the last two hours, the restless hands manning the guns, which were already fully loaded and eager for action. Holland’s group was coming in from the west, behind the enemy, and though the purple dusk had faded, he was still slightly silhouetted in the fast diminishing light. He was in the van, on HMS Hood, the old lady and pride of the Royal Navy. He half considered falling off and letting Prince of Wales lead in the squadron. She was the better armored ship, particularly considering the long opening range. Hood would be vulnerable to plunging fire at distances out to 18,000 yards and beyond. It was his hope, however, to get well within that range in due course, closing on the enemy without initiating hostilities unless Bismarck fired first.
She did. The inky night was suddenly torn open by bright fire from many big guns on the distant horizon as the first enemy salvo came in. Five white plumes jetted up from the sea, well wide of the target. It was too late for juggling his ships about now. Holland decided to mount his charge, his forward guns firing as he came on, and hope for the best. It was a mistake, but he would not live to regret it.
“Steady,” said Holland. He was running straight at the enemy, and the forward turrets angled slightly to bear directly on the target, the big guns well elevated and drenched with wild sea spray as they waited. “You may reply, Captain Kerr,” he said quietly, his eyes covered by field glasses. “Execute.” The number five flag went down and the order to open fire followed seconds later.
HMS Hood fired her big 15 inch guns in anger for the first time since that distasteful day at Mers-el-Kebir, Oran, so long ago it seemed now, when she had opened up on the anchored French fleet. Then her first salvoes had fallen long, crashing into the harbor, 1600 pounds of hurtling death obliterating the row of small buildings by the quay where the big shells fell, and snuffing out the lives of a Berber woman and her son. When the father staggered through the shoulder high rubble, running from his shop just down the street, he saw the ruin of his home and knew the worst.
Tears streaked the char on his face and he fell to his knees, his eyes fixed on the distant silhouettes of the British battle fleet. His name was Kasim al Khafi, and he whispered a low prayer as sorrow consumed his heart. “As Allah wills it,” he said, weeping for his loss. “But a curse on every ship in that harbor. A curse on the British in their homes and colonies, and may Allah visit those who have done this, with swift and just vengeance.” And if Allah was remiss, he thought, he would spare no effort, from that day forward, to hasten the day of judgment and retribution on his own.
Many months later, far away on the windswept oceans of the Atlantic, the battle of the Celtic Sea had begun, and the echo of his curse would resound in the raging fire of Bismarck’s main guns.
When the message came in to Admiral Tovey he could hardly believe what he was reading. The signal man had shouted the news, prompting Tovey to quiet him. “No need to yell,” he said, waiting for Brind to bring him the printed signal. Even Brind, normally steady as a rock, had a tremor in his hand when he handed the note off to the admiral. There were just three words up top. “Hood’s blown up.” Then below, “Prince of Wales engaging.”
“Blown up?” He looked at Brind, aghast, stricken with doubt. How could this be? Yet the more he thought on it the more he came to realize what must have happened. The old British battlecruiser was too soft up topside. Her decks were not well protected. Holland most likely charged in, the better to close the range and, in doing so, flatten out the arc of the incoming enemy shells. But if one struck her a heavy plunging blow that would burst through her decks and explode in her gut… It was the only possible explanation.
He looked about the bridge, saw the faces of the men there drawn with strain and fear. Stiff upper lip, he thought, striding out into the center of the battle bridge.
“I trust our guns are well sorted out this time, gentlemen?” he said quietly. But the news came quickly after that the guns were not well sorted on Prince of Wales that night. She had two jams, one misfire, and that put three of her six forward guns out of action. Furthermore, she had taken a bad hit right on her bridge, and the executive officer had turned away, making smoke. There was no word on the fate of her captain, Leach.
“No word on damage to Bismarck?” Tovey was again confounded by sparsely worded report. Yet then again, the Prince of Wales was in a fight for her life. She had just witnessed the destruction of the flagship and was wounded herself.
Brind leaned in, arms clasped behind his back, his deportment and bearing stiff and professional. “We won’t get there in time to join the fight,” he said in a low voice. “Force H is coming, but I’m afraid Admiral Somerville is several hundred miles to the south. If Prince of Wales failed to slow her down then it looks like Bismarck is slipping away, sir. Unless Rodney is about with bad intent. She should be very close now.”
Tovey felt a quiet rage welling up within him, and he struggled to maintain his composure. Hood was gone, mighty Hood. Holland and the whole lot of them brewed up in the mad, savage seas, and here he was forging his way along in this futile, frustrating chase, hoping against hope that somehow, by some means, he would get one last crack at the German monster, and mete out just vengeance of the Royal Navy