Feeling something wet on his face, Eric reached up to touch it and came away with blood. He frantically reached up to feel if he had a wound, and only came away with more blood. Looking around in horror, he suddenly realized that the blood was not his, but that of a British rating who was now missing half of his head, neck, and upper chest. Eric barely had time to register this before a litter crew came bursting into the bridge. The four men headed to the aft portion of the structure, obviously there for the man who had been screaming before a gag had been shoved in his mouth. Eric followed the litter team’s path, then immediately wished he hadn’t as his stomach lurched. The casualty’s abdomen was laid open, and Eric saw the red and grey of intestine on the deck before turning back forward.
Oh God, he thought, then had another as he thought about the injured man’s likely destination. I hope Rawles is okay.
“Hard a starboard!” Gordon barked. Eric braced himself as the Exeter heeled over, the vessel chasing the previous salvo as her guns roared back at the German pocket battleship. He noticed that the guns were starting to bear even further aft as the cruiser maneuvered to keep up with the remainder of the British battleline. Looking to starboard, Eric saw the battleship Nelson drifting past them on her starboard side. The vessel’s forward-mounted triple turrets, still elevated to port, fired off a full salvo once Exeter was past, but it was clear that the battleship had suffered severe damage.
“Sir, we took one glancing hit to the bridge roof,” the OOD reported, pointing at the hit that had sprayed splinters into the structure. Eric was amazed at the man’s calm. “We took another hit aft, but it detonated in the galley.”
“King George V signals commence torpedo attack with destroyers,” the talker interrupted. “All ships with tubes to attack enemy cripples.”
Six waterspouts impacted approximately three hundred yards to port, and Eric found himself questioning the wisdom of staying aboard the heavy cruiser after all.
“Well, looks like this ship will continue her tradition of picking on women bigger than her,” Gordon observed drily. “Flank speed, port thirty degrees. Get me the torpedo flat.”
Eric looked once again at the hole in the bridge roof.
A step either way and I’d probably be dead, he thought wildly. Or worse, if that shell had it full on we’d all be gone. Shaking his head, he turned to look off to port as the throb of Exeter’s engines began to increase.
“You ever participate in a torpedo attack during your summer cruise, Mr. Cobb?” Gordon asked after barking several orders to the helm.
“No sir,” Eric croaked, then swallowed to get a clearer voice. “Our cruisers don’t have torpedoes. I’m familiar with how to do one theoretically…”
Exeter’s guns banged out another salvo, even as the German pocket battleship’s return fire landed where she would have been had the cruiser continued straight.
“Well, looks like you’re about to get to apply some of that theoretical knowledge,” Gordon said, bringing his binoculars up. The man scanned the opposing line.
“The three big battleships are turning away under cover of smoke along with the majority of the cruisers. That Frog battlecruiser looks about done for, and that pocket battleship and heavy cruiser will soon have more than enough to deal with when the destroyers catch up,” Gordon said, pointing as he talked. Exeter’s master turned to give his orders.
“Tell Lieutenant Commander Gannon his target is the pocket battleship! Guns are to…”
The crescendo of incoming shells drowned Gordon out, this time ending with the Exeter leaping out of the water and shuddering as she was hit. Once again the bridge wing was alive with fragments, and for the second time Eric felt a splash of wetness across his side. Looking down, he saw his entire left side was covered in blood and flesh. For a moment he believed it was his, until he blissfully realized that he felt no pain.
“Damage report!” Gordon shouted again. “Litter party!”
“Sir, I believe I am hit,” the OOD gasped. Eric turned to see the man’s arm missing from just below the elbow, blood spraying from the severed stump.
“Corpsman!” Gordon shouted angrily, stepping towards the lieutenant. The captain never made, it, as the OOD toppled face forward, revealing jagged wounds in his back where splinters had blasted into his body.
“Helmsman! Zig zag pattern!” Gordon barked. “Someone get me a damage report! Midshipman Green, inform damage control that we need another talker and an OOD here!”
“Aye aye, Captain!”
“Leftenant Cobb!”
“Yes sir?” Eric asked, shaking himself out of stupor.
“It might be prudent for you to go to the conning tower,” Gordon said.
“Sir, I’d prefer to be here than in some metal box,” Eric said. “With the shells that bastard’s tossing it won’t make a lick of difference anyway.”
“Too true,” Gordon said. “Looks like the heavy cruisers and that pocket battleship are covering the bastards’ retreat.”
Gordon’s supposition was only partially correct. In truth, the pocket battleship Lutzow had received damage from the Exeter and Norfolk that had somewhat reduced her maximum speed. This had prevented her from fleeing with the rest of the screen, their retirement encouraged by a few salvoes from the Nelson. Realizing that she could not escape the closing British destroyers, Lutzow’s captain had decided to turn and engage the smaller vessels in hopes of allowing Scharnhorst to open the distance between herself and the British. Unfortunately, Lutzow had failed to inform the heavy cruiser KMS Hipper, trailing in her wake, of her desire to self-sacrifice while ignoring Admiral Bey’s signal to retire. Thus the latter vessel, her radio aerial knocked out by an over salvo from the Nelson’s secondary batteries, found herself committed to engaging the rapidly closing British destroyers along with the larger, crippled Lutzow.
The British destroyers, formed into two divisions under the experienced Commodore Philip Vian, first overtook the damaged French battlecruiser Strasbourg. Adrift, afire, and listing heavily to port, the Strasbourg wallowed helplessly as the British destroyers closed like hyenas on a paralyzed wildebeest. Just as Vian was beginning to order his group into their battle dispositions, flooding finally compromised the battlecruiser’s stability. With a rumble and the scream of tortured metal, the Strasbourg rotated onto her starboard beam and slipped beneath the surface.
That left the crippled Scharnhorst, the Lutzow, and the hapless Hipper. Still receiving desultory fire from Nelson and Warspite, the trio of German vessels initially concentrated their fire on the charging Exeter and Norfolk. After five minutes of this, all three German captains realized Vian’s approaching destroyers were a far greater threat. The Lutzow and Hipper turned to lay smoke across the retreating Scharnhorst’s stern, the maneuver also allowing both vessels to fire full broadsides at their smaller assailants. The Hipper had just gotten off her second salvo when she received a pair of 8-inch shells from the Norfolk. The first glanced off the heavy cruiser’s armor belt and fell harmlessly into the sea. The second, however, impacted the main director, blowing the gunnery officer and most of the cruiser’s gunnery department into disparate parts that splashed into the sea or onto the deck below. For two crucial minutes, the Hipper’s main battery remained silent even as her secondaries began to take the approaching British destroyers under fire.