Good god, thought Paul. What have I done? What chance did Rodney have if Hood and Prince of Wales together could not back down the German battleship? It was all a matter of Time, he knew. King George V was still out there, and Prince of Wales was wounded but alive. It was up to Rodney to hold the German ship engaged, even if that meant laying on the ropes and taking everything the Bismarck could throw at her. Rodney could punch at least, that much he knew. He had done all he could to bring about this engagement, but now all was thrown to the whim of chaos and fate. There was no way he could control or influence what was now underway. If she could just get a hit or two on Bismarck with those big 16 inch guns….
Paul started down the long corridor, heading to the bridge if he could get there. He was high enough up that he could stop now and look out a starboard side porthole to witness the action. He squinted through the thick, sea dappled glass and saw nothing but blackness, then the flash of guns and the ominous silhouette of Bismarck was outlined for the barest moment in a corona of gold fire. He could not help but smile. There she was, the ship he had dreamed about, read about as a boy, poured over in his gaming all these years. There was mighty Bismarck in full throated anger in what he now still hoped would be her very last battle.
His excitement darkened as quickly as it came, however, because the history of this battle was not yet written, no matter what the Golems had fetched up. His presence here was a vast and wide variable in the equation, and he realized that at any moment one of Bismarck’s 15 inch shells could come crashing down on him—at that instant hot metal was arcing up into the charcoal sky and plummeting down with a horrid wail. There was a swoosh and plunk, a loud yet muffled crack, and he saw two huge geysers leap up from the tumult of the sea, too close for comfort. Bismarck was slowly ranging on her target.
At that moment he heard a shudder and was thrown back on his heels against the far bulkhead. There was a loud boom and he knew the ship had been hit. The sound was below him, however, and a thin grey smoke wafted from the gangway just a few feet off. He went and peered down into the passageway below. A man was there, shouting for help.
As much as he wanted to climb higher into the unwieldy superstructure of the ship and get up to the battle bridge, the man’s call was plaintive enough to compel him to render aid. He looked at his watch, seeing he had precious little time now. Then started down the ladder to the lower decks. He would soon find out that he was not the only Free Radical engaged in the fray at that moment.
Chapter 27
The last time Lütjens had seen HMS Rodney he was aboard the battlecruiser Gneisenau in March of that very year. He had been chasing a small, plucky Chilean Reefer in the Atlantic, blasting away at her with the ship’s sizable 11 inch guns as the impudent prey bravely steered this way and that to avoid being hit, firing her puny 4 inch gun back at the German ship for good measure. Rodney had heard the smaller ship’s distress calls and left her convoy to see if she could render assistance, and she came up on the scene some time later, her tall superstructure towering over those three massively threatening 16 inch gun turrets.
The Germans spotted her first in the darkness unaware that Rodney had not even seen Gneisenau. By the time she did, and signaled by lamp for identification, Lütjens had thought twice about engaging her. He replied by lamp that he was the British cruiser Emerald, then turned tail and sped away at 32 knots, comforted to know there was no way the lumbering armored behemoth could catch him. Discretion was, at times like that, the better part of valor.
Earlier in his career the German Admiral, then a captain, had the pleasure of actually boarding Rodney for a formal meeting and proper British afternoon tea. At that time both men and ship had all been dressed out in Navy white, the shiny brims of their gold braided hats gleaming in the sun, the sleek barrels of Rodney’s guns freshly painted and neatly capped. Now they were darkened with battleship grey, and long years and the contention of arms and bitter conflict soured the memory.
This time Rodney had not come to serve up tea. But this time Lütjens would not turn and run either, for Bismarck was easily a match for the British ship, in every aspect that mattered. She was heavily armored, well gunned, the apex of German naval engineering out on her maiden voyage. She was a generation ahead of Rodney in design, rumored to be unsinkable. If she had brought along her sister ship Tirpitz, or if Lütjens could wave his hand and summon up his old ship Gneisenau at that moment, there would be no question as to who ruled the seas in an encounter like this. There would be no question which ship might be given to quail at the odds and turn away. Only Rodney could not run. She was too slow to escape should Lütjens get the upper hand here.
Gneisenau was over 400 miles away, still berthed in the harbor of Brest, though Captain Fein and his crew of engineers were working feverishly to get her ready for a possible sortie. Lütjens had only to get within the protective arc of the Luftwaffe air cover, and Gneisenau would ride out to escort the Bismarck home.
Earlier that day the Admiral had passed a moment of doubt when a German Focke Wulf Kondor maritime reconnaissance aircraft spotted Rodney steaming on an intercept course. His signal intercepts had long since heard the chatter between Admiral Tovey and Holland, and he already knew that at least three more British battleships were hot on his heels. Given the odds he was facing at that moment, and down to 12 knots for the last two hours, he wisely elected to forsake his planned raid on Convoy WS-8B, and steam instead for the protection of the French coast.
When Hood and Prince of Wales came up, he had no choice but to increase speed and hope the temporary hull patches fitted by his engineers would hold. The damage was held in check while he engaged the enemy, stunned and elated when his ship had scored a direct hit, causing a massive explosion on Hood before she sank. It was a thrilling and awesome moment, and his weary crew took heart when they saw Prince of Wales also hit and turning away behind a smoke screen. They had now faced three British battleships and prevailed in every case, clearly demonstrating the superiority of German engineering and fighting spirit. Though he knew better, seeing the ship in action now could indeed convince him that Bismarck was unsinkable.
But the action had taken a toll. The patch on Bismarck’s bow had slipped and she was again taking on water. The ship was down slightly at the bow, but the water was still being pumped out and he had good buoyancy. Now to deal with this fourth battleship. He stared through his field glasses, giving the order to fire at once.