“What?” Sanford could scarcely believe it. “Break off and pursue this other contact? My god, man, we’re just about to head into battle here!”
It was another occasion where Sanford was killing the messenger, and Ensign Bob Willard stood there with a sheepish look in his face, not knowing how he could respond. Thankfully, the Captain realized the Ensign was not the man he needed to confer with now, and stormed off to find his First Officer.
“Mister Laurence,” he said. “What in the world do you make of this?” He handed the man the signal, and Laurence read it dispassionately.
“Admiralty order,” he said. “They must have wind of something sir.”
“Yes? Well, while they’re sniffing about in the wind, I’ve had my hand on the tail of this German raider all bloody night! Now what’s this all about?”
“Might it be that third contact we had on radar sir? We know there’s a German tanker out here somewhere. They’ve been trying to refuel their ships, and it may be that the carrier broke off last night to do exactly that. Whatever the case, HMS Trident made the sighting, and tickled the Admiralty’s fancy.”
“Right, and now they want us to leave the bird we have in hand and go running off to look for another in the bush!”
“Two in the bush, sir. The German carrier must be out there planning to meet up with this tanker. Didn’t you say that ship would likely be our best prey? If we can catch them in the act, we might have a better time of it than we would running up north after this battlecruiser, and under German land based air cover.”
“But that carrier broke off to the east. This order will send us southwest.”
“Indeed,” said Laurence. “The carrier might have doubled back,” he suggested. In any case, Trident must have seen something of interest…” He let that dangle there, eyeing the Captain to gauge his reaction.
Sanford thought about that. It was, in fact, the same assessment the Admiralty had made, and the recent loss of Suffolk had also weighed in their decision. These were two shiny new heavy cruisers, and they reasoned the crews had little or no time to cut their teeth for battle. In spite of Sanford’s arithmetic on the disparity in guns for the prospective engagement in front of him, Kaiser Wilhelm had already amassed a fearsome record at sea, with a proven, battle hardened Captain and crew. The gallant charge Sanford was planning to make seemed much more appealing to him, but as his First Officer had just pointed out, it was also going to be much more dangerous. And here was an Admiralty order in hand, compelling him to turn about and make his best speed to the southeast to look for this tanker.
“Damn,” he said unceremoniously. “Well orders are orders. We’ll come about to the heading indicated in that message. The Admiralty knows damn well what I have in hand now, and instead they give me this business to attend to. So it seems we’ll have time for breakfast after all. Be certain Sir Galahad gets the message, if they bloody well didn’t get it first, like the last time. The turning point will be in ten minutes.” He looked about for Ensign Willard, but he had also made an abrupt change of heading after handing off the signal, and was already well on his way back to the W/T room.
“Now where has that infernal signalman gotten himself to?”
Ten minutes later the two ships made a graceful bow and turned away, and with that one simple maneuver the war itself reached a grim turning point, and one that no man involved on either side could perceive in any way at that moment.
Orders were orders…
Chapter 3
Falkenrath lowered his field glasses, satisfied to have verified the watchman’s count of four men on the upper weather deck of the ship ahead. All the other signal lights had been proper, and so he was confident that they were slowly coming up on the Ermland.
Seas were still rough, too rough to spot planes, and now he wondered if they would be able to keep the ships steady enough to even take on fuel. Goeben had very long sea legs, some 18,000 miles, but by his estimate, they had come 8000 miles since last taking on fuel deep in the south Atlantic, and there had only been enough on hand to fill his bunkers al little over half way at that time. He was down under 10 percent remaining, enough for about 1700 miles at 18 knots. That was only half the ship’s top speed, and if he had to ramp up the power, that fuel could diminish very quickly.
We might make Tan Tan if I were to turn now. Yet god only knows whether they have any fuel bunkered there, or even the means to get it onto my ship. Casablanca is about 1800 miles northwest, and I would have to reduce to 12 knots to make that. So we will have to try to fill our belly here and now.
He could already see the German crews working to position the long fuel hose aft as Goeben crept into position astern of the tanker. An hour later, after trying to float back the line three times, they had to give up and reel it back in. The seas were simply too heavy and the hose was swamped half the time, or batted away by the waves. It could not be snared and secured, and even if they had managed that, sea keeping would have been near impossible. Under the circumstances, they had no choice but to cruise in formation and attempt to wait out the weather. And since every hour was another hour of valuable fuel lost, the two ships turned northeast on a heading of 060, a course that would take them towards the narrow channel between the Canary Islands and the southern edge of Spanish Morocco.
That decision had just set up a very dangerous collision, for like a train coming from the opposite direction, Captain Sanford and his two Knight Class ships were now heading straight for the Germans. They had been close enough to Kaiser Wilhelm for the German radar on that ship to see them break off and take a new heading, and feeling just a little more secure, Kapitan Heinrich decided to break his radio silence and send Goeben a warning—be advised, two British cruisers now on a heading of 220 SW.
That was good news for Kaiser Wilhelm, for it meant that there would be no battle that morning to decide the fate of the hidden cargo that ship carried, but it was now a very big problem for the Goeben and Ermland. The tanker signaled that they might attempt to cruise abreast of one another at 6 knots and try to secure the fuel hose that way, but it was soon found that they needed to maintain at least 12 knots in the heavy swells to prevent either ship from being batted about by the waves.
After an hour of difficult navigation, they relented and tried one last time to attempt to receive the fuel hose, with the Goeben astern and very close to the Ermland. This time a burley crewman on the bow of the Goeben exerted himself and finally managed to snag the line, and six men leapt to the scene, ready to pull the hose up and get it attached. They battled against the tug of the sea to do so, but managed to prevail. Yet the connection was very dangerous, with the bow of the carrier rising and falling in the swells, and the line prone to tightening and loosening as the two ships moved.