“Yes,” said Tovey. “I should have forced the issue with Bismarck long ago, when I had the chance. But it’s bloody well up to Rodney now, isn’t it.”
The loud claxon blared throughout the ship, jarring Paul awake where he rested in his cabin, lightly dozing, forgetful of the time. He looked at his service watch and his heart leapt. It was time! The hands read 22:57 hours, a little before 11:00 PM. Seconds later a loud roar shook the ship with a great vibration. Everything loose in his quarters rattled and his tin cup slipped onto the deck with a sharp clatter. Even the paintings on the wall were askew. Had they been hit already?
He rushed to quickly put on his jacket and cap, opening the hatch and pushing out into the hall. He nearly collided with a midshipman.
“What’s happening? Are we hit?”
“What? No, that’s just the old lady ripping off with the main guns up front. Hell of a din, mate. It’s beat to quarters now. Have you heard? Hood’s been sunk! We’re up against Bismarck!” The man shook his fist, clearly enraged, as if he had a personal stake in getting revenge on the German ship now. Then he ran off, obviously late to his assigned post and wanting to waste no more time with the American, even if he did wear the gold braid and stripes of a ranking officer.
Damn, thought Paul. I must have dozed off! Hood sunk already? Again? The irony cut him deeply. History did not really repeat itself, for this was a different battle altogether, but it certainly rhymed. What were the odds of Hood suffering the same disastrous fate? Apparently they were quite good, and her thin deck armor, an old and obvious weakness, was a much greater vulnerability than many had thought. The doors to the ready cache for ammo had been open and were suspected as a possible cause for the initial explosion that set off her magazines. Like throwing alighted match onto oil soaked rags, he thought. It was no mere fluke that Hood suffered such a dire fate. Then again, perhaps Mother Time herself was jealously taking back what was owed her, the floating Zombies of HMS Hood, men doomed on her accounts to find their way to the bottom of the sea, but he could think no more on it. There was a battle to fight!
He had planned to be up on the bridge when the action started, watching the big armored turrets turn and range on the target, belching out their fire and steel, the massive shells over six feet long flung out some twelve miles or more before they would come crashing down on the targets.
Rodney was here because he had steered her here, with considerable help from the big Scot at the helm, whose own best judgment wanted his ship pointed this way all along. But Paul was taking no chances this time. Simply dropping intelligence into the stew would not be enough. He wanted to be physically present, where he could use his foreknowledge of the history to do his utmost to get Rodney into the fight.
Hours ago, he had no idea how long it had been on the Meridian he came from, he and Kelly had poured over a battle map of the campaign fetched up by the Golems and they clearly saw that history was about to echo again with a dull, hollow sound of British defeat. Their planes would sight and strike at Bismarck, slowing her down, and one other Zombie soul Maeve had worried over would be taken home again when Lt. Campbell made his gallant attack on Bismarck, going to a fiery death to put his torpedo into her forward port side.
It was his hit that had been the decisive blow in forcing the action that was now underway. Force H was nowhere to be seen. Somerville was still hastening up from Gibraltar, but well out of the action. Perhaps she would yet have some part to play in this altered Meridian, but the chancy and very luck hit scored by the pilot off Ark Royal would not happen here. Not now.
Though the big German ship had slowed to 12 knots to make repairs, Bismarck had nearly finished the work, its sleek prow patched and most of the water pumped out. It was slightly down at the bow, for the damage had been far more extensive than first reported. But the engineers had patched her up, and she was ready to get back some speed when Admiral Holland suddenly came up on the scene, riding in with Hood and Prince of Wales, two doughty knights in armor, though one bore a hidden weakness that would soon prove her undoing.
Holland was dead by now, Paul knew, along with some 1400 other souls that Maeve no longer had to worry about. There were three survivors off Hood, the very same three that had survived the battle in the history Paul knew so well. And, as it also turned out, the dead men off Arethusa, the hapless cruiser that had become Bismarck’s first victim, numbered very few. Most of that crew made it into the boats and were rescued by a steamer out of Iceland not long thereafter.
Time was doing its best to balance her books, he thought. But this action, initiated by the roar of Rodney’s 16 inch guns, was something entirely new. In the history he had studied with Kelly Bismarck sailed on into Brest without further engagement. That was the clue they needed to make this intervention. Paul had insisted that Rodney was essential to the outcome, and he swore he could get the old battleship into the fight, one way or another. And here she was, face to face with the most formidable ship in the German navy.
When Rodney had faced the German raider in the history Paul knew so well, King George V was right there with her. This time she was alone, and the enemy crew had just destroyed the pride of the British fleet and put a KGV class battleship to rout for the second time in three days!
Rodney had labored to come even this near to the action that was before her and, had it not been for the timely course turns she made, the ship would still be far off to the north. For the last several hours she had been running full out at 21 knots, her old boilers straining, her worn propeller shafts and props turning and churning up the ocean swells. The ship’s smallest man, a boiler’s mate named Scouse Nesbitt had been crawling into her boilers wrapped in cold wet towels and rags and desperately trying to plug leaks in her heating tubes so she could keep up her speed. When she finally came upon her enemy the ship chugged and wheezed and rattled forward, her great heavy bow rising and falling, lifting those big guns up and down, up and down as she plowed her way forward. Her captain knew he would have to turn before engaging, first to bring all three turrets to bear, and then to see if he could find some stability abeam so the gun crews could best time their salvoes when the ship was level.
If the German crew of Bismarck was elated by their good fortune, the men on Rodney were anxious at their stations now, though you could sense that steady transition to restrained anger. Just a week or so ago they had been riding at anchor with Hood at their side in Scapa Flow. The men had scudded back and forth between the two big ships, mutual friends joining their comrades on the other ship for leave. The thought that all those lads had been scuppered into the sea weighed heavily on them, but the menacing roar of the big ship’s guns stirred their blood, and they bent to their tasks with renewed vigor. The caliber of Rodney’s weapons were unmatched. She had only to fling her monstrous heavy shells into Bismarck before the Germans did the same to her.
It was an odd match now, thought Paul, like a dogged Sonny Liston, big, strong and slow, climbing into the ring with then Cassius Clay, a chiseled, well muscled contender with lightning reflexes and a dangerous punch that would make him world champion for years to come.