Between The Hunters And The Hunted

by Steven Wilson

“Port twenty,” Prader ordered.

  “Port twenty, aye-aye, sir.” Trunburrow relayed the command into the voice tube.

  The helmsman repeated it and announced: “Wheel twenty of port.”

  The harsh sound of a bugle over the Tannoy System called the ship’s crew to action stations.

  Prader studied the compass needle edge slowly to complete the course alteration, ignoring the turmoil around him. “Rudder amidships. Steady.”

  “Rudder amidships, aye-aye, sir.”

  “Number One, send to Harrogate that we’re going over to investigate. Tell them to remain at their station should this be some sort of Jerry trick to draw us off. Have Sparks contact Scapa Flow. Give them the coordinates and the details. Ask them if Tirpitz has come out and see if they can scare up a few aircraft to keep track of these blighters.”

  “Yes, sir,” Trunburrow said.

  “Well, Number One,” Prader said, pleased with himself. “We’ll tag along with this ghost ship, keeping track of her and keeping well out her range until this whole matter is resolved. Where she moves, we move, so it’s simply a matter of keeping our eyes open and our wits about us. Eh, Number One?”

  “Of course, sir,” Trunburrow said. The arrogance of the man was appalling and Trunburrow thought, but barely acknowledged, that once, just once, he’d like to see Prader truly shocked.

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  “FuMO’s picked up a target to the northeast,” Erster Offizier, I.O., Freganttenkapitan Kadow said to Mahlberg. “Hydrophone confirms it. ‘Steam turbine, high speed. Most likely a heavy cruiser.’” The Kapitan turned easily in his leather-covered elevated chair on the bridge of Sea Lion, throwing his arm over its back.

  “So?” he said with a smile. “How far out?”

  “Twenty-five kilometers.”

  “Our British friends, no doubt.”

  The bridge telephone rang and Wachoffizer Melms answered it. He listened briefly, acknowledged the message, and reported to Mahlberg.

  “B-dienst reports Morse code message to Scapa from targets.”

  Mahlberg nodded. “They’re sounding the alarm. They don’t know who we are or what we are, but they know that we shouldn’t be here. Let us sound our own alarm. Kriegsmarschzustand one, Kadow.”

  Kadow saluted. Battle stations, Code 1. Now they might have a chance to find out what Sea Lion could really do. Of course it would not be a fair fight because overflights of Scapa Flow reported the presence of one aircraft carrier, three battleships, six light cruisers, four destroyers, two submarines, and a number of other vessels. Group North had been quite clear on this; the capital ships of the British Home Fleet were still in Scapa Flow. What Sea Lion found in the Denmark Straits was one vessel—a cruiser probably, meant to patrol the narrow passage between the ice pack and the vast minefields and sound the alarm. She had done her duty. Now the question was, would Kapitan Mahlberg take Sea Lion past the insolent ship and on to her assigned target or would he alter course long enough to destroy them?

  To Kadow, the choice was simple: obey orders. Their objective was clearly defined and their instructions unambiguous. Everything else was a distraction. But he was not the Kapitan.

  Kapitan zur See Mahlberg was considering the same options: test his mighty ship in battle against a lesser opponent—but nevertheless a test under combat conditions—or continue on to his ultimate target. He could do both, he reasoned, because his ship was fast and his crew well trained. He could do both because the Prince of Wales would be denied the opportunity to dash across the North Atlantic, the Nord See: he laughed to himself; the Mord See—Murder Sea. Prince of Wales would encounter a cordon of Admiral Doenitz’s U-boats, strung from the ice pack at the base of Greenland down into the Atlantic. Beaters to drive Prince of Wales south, prolonging her voyage so that Sea Lion could come up astern of the British vessel and prolong her voyage indefinitely.

  “Message from FuMO, Kapitan,” Kadow said. “The enemy continues to shadow us. No change in course.”

  “I suppose he thinks that we will oblige him by allowing him to tag along. Very well,” Mahlberg said. He turned to First Artillery Officer Frey, who stood expectantly at his shoulder. “Frey, I’ll give you thirty minutes to destroy that British ship. She’d better be a smoking heap when we break off action or I’ll send you back to Wit in a cutter. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir, but I won’t need thirty minutes.”

  “Don’t be arrogant, Frey,” Mahlberg cautioned. “Just sink the bastard.” He turned to Kadow. “Execute zigzag pattern, Piper.”

  For an instant Kadow looked at Mahlberg in confusion. A zigzag pattern? In this narrow strait? There probably wasn’t an English submarine for five hundred miles. But Kadow quickly recovered himself and passed on the orders to Matrosenhauptgefreiter Rechberg. Thank God that the best quartermaster aboard Sea Lion was at his station—Kadow would not want anyone else at the helm. He noticed Mahlberg watching him, smiling.

  “Perplexing, yes?” the Kapitan zur See said.

  “A bit, Kapitan, but I know that you have good reason for every order that you give.”

  “Yes, Kadow,” Mahlberg said. “That is why I wear the piston rings,” he added, using the slang for the gold braid encircling his cuffs.

  H.M.S. Nottingham

  Trunburrow relayed the reports to Captain Prader as the parts of the ship prepared themselves for action. It was more than duty to confirm that A Turret or X Turret was ready. Or that the medical officer had taken over the wardroom and turned it into a makeshift hospital because the sick bay was much too small and exposed—it was a primal chant, each report elevating the blood’s heat as the men readied themselves emotionally, and physically, for combat.

  Trunburrow would not have thought of that or accepted the idea if it were proposed by anyone aboard or off the ship. He was without humor, artistic creativity, or any quality except the ability to focus on the task at hand with an intensity that, had it been examined by the medical officer driving his assistants—poultice mixers, the crew called them, to ready the wardroom—the M.O. might have shown real concern.

  But the intensity was not examined by the M.O. or considered by the captain, who thought it merely a sign of dedication, and rightly so—that’s what made a good number one. The captain, whose own dedication extended only as far as the machinery and workings of his vessel were concerned, misread that quality of his number one.

  Trunburrow was a coward and the intensity was his own desperate attempt to muzzle the fear that churned within him.

  The W.T. telephone on the bridge rang. Trunburrow answered it.

  “Bridge, Trunburrow.” He listened carefully, his eyebrows creeping together in concern. “Right.” He hung up the receiver. “Radar reports, sir,” he said as Prader glanced over his shoulder. “Targets have undertaken a zigzag pattern.” He was pleased to see that Prader was as surprised as he was when he got the news.

  “Out here? Do they know something that we don’t know?” Prader walked to the port side of the bridge in thought. “Have W.T. contact the Flow. Find out if we have any submarines out here. I shall be very unhappy if I’m sunk by one of our own blokes. Alert the mastheads. We’ll match the pattern as well. Navs? How close are we off the ice pack now?”

  Nottingham’s navigator, a chubby man with thinning hair, said, “Ten miles or a bit less, sir. Perhaps we should move off a mile or two.”

  “And put ourselves closer to that secret ship? I’d rather not, Navs. We’ll speed up and cross his bow when he comes into the starboard tack of his pattern.”

  Trunburrow looked at Prader. Now it was Number One’s turn to be surprised. “Cross his bow, sir?”

  “Oh, don’t be such an old woman about it, Number One. We’ll get ahead and swing around to his port side. We’ve got him on radar, haven’t we? Better than the best set of eyes in the masthead. At least fog doesn’t stop radar.”

  D.K.M. Sea Lion

  “B” Turret, Bruno, was Herbert Statz’s domain. Kuhn’s d
eath was never far from Gun Commander Statz’s thoughts, but when the alarm bugle sounded and he and his gun crews donned flash hoods and gauntlets and the garish white antiflash paint that protected their faces from the intense heat of the powder flash, every thought ceased.

  He positioned himself at the after turret hatch under the turret mantle and counted noses as the crew for Number One Gun disappeared into Bruno. Then he followed them and behind him he could hear the men who filled the control compartment: the telephone operator, ranger officer, sight-setter, rate officer, gun layer, gun trainer, local director sighter, and the officer of the quarters, who coordinated all of their efforts.

  Statz was at home in the compartment of Number One Gun, the thick outside bulkhead protecting him from shell fire, the longitudinal flashtight bulkhead on the other side of the gun offering at least a little protection if Number Two Gun exploded. Beneath the deck on which he stood were the upper and lower shell rooms, the upper and lower powder rooms, and all of the hoppers, machinery, hoists, roller conveyors, cylinders, shields, and tanks, as well as two hundred men responsible for turning the twelve-hundred-ton turret or training the one-hundred-ton guns.

  They were out of sight and Statz did not care about them unless they failed to give him shells or powder.

  Statz glanced up at the gun director seated in his narrow perch, a vast array of dials and switches in front of him. It was strangely silent in the cramped quarters of Number One Gun. There was almost no room for the men who served the gun, who fed her and cleaned her, and kept her in action. That was as it should be—she was the most important occupant of the room.

  Suddenly a load bell sounded, shattering the silence.

  “Prepare to load!” Statz shouted as the gun elevated to five degrees off the horizontal for loading. He activated the gas ejector, clearing the gun tube of any debris, and opened the breech. He inspected the bore and depressed the bore-clear switch. In the shell powder rooms, and high above him in the fire director’s station, other sailors would know that Number One Gun of Bruno was ready to receive her first meal. As the signal went out he checked the mushroom stem hole and inserted the primer that would actually activate the powder. He signaled the spanning tray operator by quickly throwing a finger in his direction.

  The spanning tray operator, a new man named Steiner who still seemed to remain unsure of himself despite his training and thus made Statz unsure of him, extended the spanning tray efficiently. Statz studied the man’s performance—he might yet prove to be a good gunner.

  Statz heard the low rumble of the 2,700-pound projectile coming up the shell hoist. The hoist door opened and the shell slid onto the spanning tray. Statz noted the color of the shell: yellow, High Explosive. He expected Armor Piercing but let the gods up in the heaven of Fire Direction determine which lightning bolt to throw.

  The shell was rammed into the breech until the locking ring fit snugly in the barrel and the ram was returned. The powder hoist door was opened in the longitudinal bulkhead and three bags of black powder rolled onto the spanning tray. They looked like big marshmallows, silk-wrapped bundles of destruction that propelled the shell on its way. The rammer pushed them into the gun and Statz signaled the hoist operator for the next three. They followed the first three bags into the breech of Number One Gun and the ram was retracted. The hoist door was closed and the spanning tray retracted.

  “Close and seal the breech!” Statz ordered, although he was the one that was responsible for the action. He made the order out loud so that his gun crew understood where they were in the sequence of preparing the gun to fire. He pushed the lever home, sealing the breech, stepped back on his narrow platform, and raised both arms.

  The gun director saw the signal he had been waiting for, checked the gauges to make sure that there was enough air pressure on the recoil cylinders, and turned the Bakelite knob that activated the Ready switch from Safe to Ready.

  Statz looked at the gun director for confirmation. The gun director mouthed, three-oh. Statz shot him a disgusted look. Thirty seconds. What a miserable performance. If they came up against Nelson or KG V they had better improve on that.

  He glanced around the crowded interior to make sure that his crew was at their proper stations. Now he waited to hear the three quick rings of the fire bell. When he heard that signal, they’d be on the devil’s shovel.

  Kadow took the receiver and listened. He turned to Mahlberg. “Hydrophone reports the enemy vessel has turned to port and is attempting to cross our bow.”

  Mahlberg smiled broadly. “How accommodating of them. Confirm that with radar. Send out the range and bearing to Frey. Tell him to ready his monsters.”

  H.M.S. Nottingham

  Tea was brought to the bridge and passed around. Kye was too heavy and made a man constipated if he drank too much of it, but the rich thick chocolate did have a way of driving out the cold. The officers and men spoke in hushed tones; orders were passed and acknowledged calmly, but under the calmness was the sharp edge of expectation. The enemy was out there.

  The watch had been changed in the mastheads, the heavily clad seamen carefully climbing down the icy ladders, their replacements ringing in to the bridge to acknowledge the change and that the line still worked. Far below the mastheads the torpedo men of the exposed mounts huddled round the black-box heaters in the Oerlikon tubs. There was no reason for the Oerlikon crews, or any antiaircraft gunners, to be at their action stations so they remained below, ready to serve with the supply parties.

  The gun crews of the main batteries—A, B, X, and Y Turrets—waited patiently in their damp, cold caverns. Moisture oozed from the bulkheads, decks, hatches, and pipes—from every piece of machinery aboard Nottingham; it was driven out of her rust-streaked gray skin by the unremitting cold and deep into the bones of her crew. If a seaman were lucky, or fast, or had rank enough, he could sling his hammock under a hot-air louver and dare a man to touch it.

  Trunburrow could have used the presence of a hot-air louver and the glowing comfort of a Horse’s Neck as the burning liquid slid down his throat and radiated into his numb limbs. But the hot-air louvers were deep in the bowels of the ship and he preferred to be where he could see the sky—even if it were a never-changing lifeless gray. And he did not drink. So he kept watch on the bridge with the captain and the others as Nottingham patiently shadowed whoever was out there.

  “Number One, have we not heard from the Flow?” Prader said irritably.

  Trunburrow fought back the urge to be just as disagreeable by saying, Did anyone present you with a message? Do you think that we might have received one and kept it from you? But he did not. “No, sir,” he simply said.

  “Well, we can’t take on that monster on our own. Even Nottingham must have a bit of help now and again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She is a wonder of English engineering, wouldn’t you say, Number One?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “We are most fortunate, all of us, I mean, to be aboard Nottingham. We’ve our machinery and training so that we can well handle anything that comes our way. Am I right, Number One?”

  “Yes, sir.” Oh, shut up, you silly old fool!

  “That is what modern naval warfare is all about. Machinery, I mean. Technology. It is unerring. When I walk about her, Nottingham of course, I am continually amazed at the care and forethought given to her design. Remarkable.”

  “Indeed, sir. I’ve noted it as well.”

  “Radar and whatnot? Technology is the ultimate weapon. Have you given attention to the new arms of the warrior?”

  The masthead telephone rang as Trunburrow said: “Yes, sir.” He wished vehemently that the old windbag would wander off and become engaged with examining the whatnot that he so adored. He picked up the telephone and said: “Bridge.” He knew before the lookout spoke, he sensed what was coming through the telephone lines, as sure if it were a jolt of electricity, that it was a catastrophe.

  “Foremast! Enemy vessel red thirty,
range ten miles. Enemy vessel red thirty, range ten miles!”

  Trunburrow dropped the receiver, grabbed his binoculars, and looked to port. He heard a commotion behind him, shouting, questions, and he felt others join him. The masthead was twenty feet above the bridge and the lookout had been very professional in his report—stating the information twice over as he had been trained to do. He had told Trunburrow, in an almost conversational tone, that death was in view just ten miles away.

  It came into the narrow field of his binoculars, an indistinct gray mountain trailing a thin smudge of smoke behind it. Trunburrow watched it approach and was struck by the thought that the world that existed between that monster and him was, unaccountably, calm. Then he realized in terror that everything he felt, saw, and thought had happened in a matter of seconds.

  Then huge clouds of black smoke erupted from the distant ship.

  Chapter 16

  The Admiralty, London, England

  Admiral Sir Joshua Bimble entered the conference room with his secretary, an extraordinary brilliant man named Hawthorne, just in time to hear Captain Harland say: “All hell’s broken loose in the Denmark Strait.” At the sight of Bimble, Harland’s face reddened and he and the other officers on the admiral’s staff quickly took their seats around the table.

  Bimble turned his attention to Captain Macready, who immediately took this signal correctly, because Bimble seldom wasted words when a glance would suffice, to bring the admiral up to date.

  “At 0900 Greenwich mean time H.M.S.Nottingham, operating with H.M.S. Harrogate in the Denmark Strait, made contact with an unidentified target traveling south-southwest. Said target”—Macready littered his briefings with legal terms as if they strengthened the value of his reports—“was identified as a capital ship with two destroyers acting as escorts.”

  Harland was surprised to see Bimble’s right eyebrow rise slightly; the old bastard seldom exhibited any reaction to any news that he received during the morning conference. The ancient badger was impressed.

  “Nottingham closed to within twenty-five miles of the target and confirmed that it was a German battleship with a destroyer escort.”