“A proverbial shot across the bow,” said the Admiral, knowing that events now were careening down the course that he could scarcely control. The next salvo from this impudent destroyer might find the range at any moment, yet something within him whispered a veiled warning, urging him to turn about and leave the ship as it was. Even if he did so, the other ship was still churning forward with its brave challenge.
“Mister Nikolin. In your very best English, please warn that ship off. Order it to cease fire and turn about, or we will engage.”
“Aye, sir.” Nikolin began his hail, yet the other ship kept its heading, a second round firing and landing just a bit closer to Kirov’s bow.
Admiral Volsky sighed, realizing he would now be forced to take action, whether he wished to or not. His best option would be to disable the oncoming ship, but his heart was heavy as he gave the order to fire.
“Mister Samsonov, disable that ship with the forward cannon. Six rounds, no more. I want to give their captain second thoughts about his mad little rush. He should know we are prepared to defend ourselves. Fire!”
Kirov's forward turrets were fully automated. No crew fed shells to the breech of the guns, and the 100mm cannon at the nose of the ship could fire all of eighty rounds per minute if put on full automatic, though that was rarely attempted. Samsonov engaged the target with two short three round bursts, and seconds later the forward section of the destroyer was awash with sea spray from three near misses. The second burst struck the ship, one exploding on the lightly armored forward gun turret, others blasting into the deck and prow.
“A hit!” said Karpov, obviously relieved.
Samsonov looked over his shoulder. “I have a laser lock now, sir, the next salvo will all be on target.”
“Just a moment, Mister Samsonov,” the Admiral held up his hand, waiting.
~ ~ ~
Captain Hodges on HMS Anthony had found out all he needed to know about the vessel looming on his forward arc. He fired a warning shot across the bow of the oncoming ship, heard its surprising order for him to turn about, and then it had returned fire with a lethal reprisal. His ship was struck by a small caliber weapon from the looks of the damage, but his forward battery was out of action now, a small fire burning there. He might have pressed on, but what he saw in his field glasses convinced him he was putting his ship at grave risk.
“Hard about!” He shouted. “All ahead full! Make smoke! There’s no way we can tangle with the likes of that.”
He could clearly see that the ship was easily three times his size, a massive, threatening shadow on the seas ahead. Good god, he thought, it must be the Tirpitz. Admiralty had it all wrong, and the Germans have slipped another battleship out to sea to raise hell again. He clearly remembered that gray morning on 23 May when his ship steamed as part of the destroyer escort for Hood and Prince of Wales as they sortied out to look for the Bismarck. A day later, Anthony had been detached to Iceland to refuel, and it was there that she got the news that the mighty Hood had been sunk, blown up, all hands but three scuppered into the sea. Admiral Holland had gone down with her, and the shock resonated throughout the whole of the Royal Navy.
The next day he had sortied out again to join the Prince of Wales, aghast to see Britain's newest battleship bruised and wounded as well. Lord almighty, he thought, not another one. It's Tirpitz! He gave a brusque order to his radioman at once. “Signal Adventure, put it in the clear, large German raider now bearing on our position. Possibly Tirpitz or Hipper class cruiser.”
When Captain Grace got the message aboard Adventure he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. There have been no mention of the dread German battleship in any briefing he had attended prior to this mission. The Royal Navy had been preoccupied with clearing possible convoy routes from Iceland up to the Kola Peninsula, and this mission was just another sweep up north to take a poke at the Germans and deliver a few mines.
Tirpitz was supposed to be sleeping comfortably at Kiel, laid up for repairs. If she was out to sea, then the entire complexion of the campaign would change in a heartbeat. He knew the Royal Navy would stop at nothing until the German ship was put into a watery grave with her sister ship Bismarck. And here he was, standing on the front line of that possible action, first to see her and sound the alarm. He didn't have the guns to contest her, the radar to shadow her, nor the speed, and considering that, he had no intention whatsoever of attempting to do so. His only thought now was of saving his small task force from certain destruction. With all these mines aboard, he was a floating ammo dump, and if the enemy ship gave chase he could not outrun her.
“Damn the shore party,” he said. “Haul that anchor up now and go full ahead! Come round to course zero-six-five and signal Anthony to withdraw and match that heading. We are outgunned here, and I'll be damned if we’re going into the sea like Holland and Hood.” He crossed his fingers and whispered a silent prayer. If it was Tirpitz, she could make thirty knots. She could run him down and blow him to hell in a heartbeat.
To his radioman he said: “Code a message to Admiral Wake-Walker on Victorious. Sighted a large enemy surface ship, presumed Tirpitz, or Hipper class cruiser. Withdrawing to join main body at once.”
~ ~ ~
“That put the fear of the devil into them,” said Karpov, smiling. “He saw the oncoming ship suddenly lurch about, making smoke, clearly wanting no further part of the engagement with Kirov.
Discretion was the better part of valor, thought Admiral Volsky, at least this time. “Mister Fedorov, do you have a clear identification on the other ship?” he said into the intercom.
“The smoke is obscuring the action now, sir, but I have good video footage and we can enhance it with the computer.”
“Mister Karpov—is that a type 42 or 45 British destroyer?”
Karpov just looked at him.
“Very well, helmsman, come about on the port quarter, new heading of two-four-five.”
“Coming about to two-four-five, sir.”
The destroyer’s aft turret also fired as it sped away, the shells landing well wide and short of the mark again, and the Admiral did not return fire this time. Another nation, in a far distant time and place, had just joined the greatest conflict the world had ever seen, he thought. It seems we’ve chosen sides after all, and the British won’t like it one bit, will they. But my god, my god, what was happening? Kirov was lost, miles and long years from everyone and everything the crew had ever called home.
And now she was at war.
Part V
Engagement
“…God and the Devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
Chapter 13
Kirov sailed east where they loitered for some time to sort through the data and reach a conclusion. They were huddled around the video monitor in the officers wardroom for another closed-door meeting to review the tape, and this time there could be no possibility that NATO could have spoofed their cameras. Fedorov was zooming in and pointing out features of the ships he had observed, and flipping through pages of his copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships to show them similar images.
Captain Karpov could hardly believe his eyes, but it was clear to even him that these were the same ships, old ships that should have been busted up in the scrap yards years ago. He had a good look at the one they fired on, and it was not a Type 45 modern British destroyer, which would have been more than twice its size. At first he thought it might have been an older Type 42, but the distinctive forward radar dome was entirely missing, and when Fedorov enhanced his video he could clearly see this was an antiquated old tin-can destroyer from an earlier era. Yet it was flying the Royal Navy ensign from its top mast as it bravely charged at them. The destroyer even had the correct number on her bow, number 40 identifying the ship as HMS Anthony, and he had seen it with his own eyes. Then, as it wisely turned behind a smoke screen to run, Karpov’s mind wheeled about in its wake, amazed, astounded, yet convinced
at last that he was now sailing in another world.
There is something deep in the psyche of the Russian soul that believes that fate has the power to unhinge any reality and make a shambles of the mighty. Russia had seen the long dynasties of the Tsar crumble, the upheaval of a modern revolution, the invasion and fire of war from the time of Napoleon to Hitler. Though she emerged from World War II as one of the most powerful nations on earth, the Iron Curtain crumbled and the Soviet Union fell into decline as well. There was no government, no nation, that could escape the capricious machinations of fate, or so it seemed from a Russian’s point of view. And clearly this now applied to the ship itself. Fate had brought Kirov to a new place, though it was an old time in an old world that had been little more than a sad chapter in the history books for all of these men.
For Karpov, however, is was something entirely new now. In one sweeping realization the whole creaking, calcified power structure of the Russian Navy had just collapsed like a badly made bridge. There was no longer anyone back in Severomorsk as a check and balance on the decisions and actions of any man aboard this ship. They answered only to their own inner compass now, or to the cruel whim of fate, but the long rein of accountability, the game of fawning and planning and currying favor with just the right men, that was gone now, extinguished in one startling moment in the Captain’s mind. In its place came that vague thrum of anxiety again.
Severomorsk no longer had any say in the matter. They would never answer their plaintive radio calls again. Fate had set him down on this sea of uncertainty, and now his own personal fortune was in his own hands, or so he thought, with only one man standing senior to him on the most powerful ship in the world.
He turned to the Admiral, a glint in his eye. “What now?” he asked, eager and strangely energized. Yet Volsky could perceive a darkness there, and a yawning ambition that warned him to be cautious.
“We must consider our situation carefully,” said the Admiral. “First off, this will be difficult to explain to the crew. We have spent two days discussing it and testing the proposition with one scenario after another, and only now do we begin to believe the impossible. There will be many among the crew who will not accept this explanation any more than you did, Captain.”
“We had to be certain,” Karpov said defensively as he folded his arms. Was the Admiral calling him a bull headed ox? He overlooked the insult, and made another suggestion. “You are correct, Admiral. At least for the foreseeable future, I suggest we do not make a general announcement. The men will not understand it, and it will be bad for morale. Orlov might convince them in time.”
“Yes, but we do not need to bully them,” the Admiral looked at Orlov, the strict disciplinarian on the ship. “Cut them a little slack, as the Americans might say. This is going to be a difficult adjustment for all of us. I am sure you have all stopped a moment to consider the fact that our wives, our children, our friends… They are all gone. Many have yet to be born! Perhaps they never will be born. This will be a shock to the men when the realization hits home, as it was to me when I first accepted the situation we so obviously find ourselves in now. We need time to pull ourselves together. Perhaps you are wise, Karpov, we must grieve it ourselves before it settles in to the bone; give it time. What do you suggest, Doctor Zolkin?”
“I could not have said it better, Admiral,” said the Doctor. “And we will likely have many long days to dwell on the memory of those we once knew and loved back home. If we do inform the men, we should do so gradually, perhaps in small groups. But what you say is sadly true. We have no home. Yes, we are sworn to protect and defend the Rodina, and that we can do with this brave ship and crew, but we can never sail this vessel into Severomorsk to be taken by the Soviet government as it stands now. The government that sent us here was bad enough. But Stalin? That is a black hole I do not think any of us might wish to return to.”
“Why not?” said Karpov, immediately challenging the Doctor. It was a reflexive comment. A part of him seemed to want to put the old world he knew back—to keep the old power structures in place, any power structure that he could cling to again instead of this awful void. None of the men knew anything real about Stalin. He was just a name in one of Fedorov’s history books, and a dark shadow from their past. As far as Karpov knew, Stalin left Russia as one of the most powerful nations on earth. Her fall after that may have largely been due to the corruption that grew in that shadow, and the fear and mistrust it bred at every level of society. Why couldn’t they fight for Russia now, he thought?
“Think of it, Captain. Ninety-nine percent of all the computing power now on earth is right here on this ship. We have technology, weapons, capabilities that will not be developed for nearly a century! Should this vessel fall into the wrong hands…”
“Since when is our homeland a place to be feared?” said Karpov.
“What do you know of Josef Stalin, Captain? I mean you no disrespect, but consider what would Stalin do, right now, this very day, if he could command this ship in battle?”
“He would most likely rename it at once,” quipped Volsky. The one time hero of the revolution, Sergey Kirov, did not survive Stalin’s purges after opposing his policies in the politburo.
“True Admiral,” said Zolkin. “But how would he stop the Germans as they close in on Moscow, choking off the nation’s breath, smothering her, killing and raping and leveling whole cities as they come? Do you think he would hesitate for one moment to unleash the arsenal of nuclear weapons we have aboard? We sit here, with the hindsight of history as our guide, and we tell ourselves not to worry, Russia wins the war, one way or another. Yet a man like Stalin will not see things in this light. He will want to use this ship for any expediency that comes to mind, and he will be as ruthless and merciless as we all know he was. How many died at his command in the next few years? Give him this ship and he will destroy Germany first, yes, but god only knows what else he will do when he is finished.”
They were all silent, the gravity of their situation finally becoming apparent to them. The agony of the Great Patriotic War was not something any of them understood on a personal level. Even the oldest man aboard the ship, the Admiral himself, had been born in the year 1957. The Second World War was just a dark gray story of generals and armor, old black and white photographs and lines on maps. They knew nothing of the terror, the horror of war. The six rounds of 100mm ammunition Kirov had just lobbed at the oncoming British destroyer was one of the few times a Russian naval vessel had actually fired in anger in nearly a decade! They had trifled with a few Somali pirates, using a few rounds of their close in defense Gatling guns, but the ship had never once employed its formidable missiles in real combat.
“Yes,” said Admiral Volsky, “God only knows. It is clear to me that we cannot simply sail home to Severomorsk, as tempting as that prospect might be. There is no way we could make certain that the technology and weaponry on this ship could be kept from the hands of a man like Stalin, short of destroying the ship outright first.”
“We might consider that,” Doctor Zolkin suggested lightly. “Suppose we find some nice Pacific island, well south of the conflict there, and then off-load just a few weapons and all our supplies before scuttling the ship.”
“Are you insane?” said Karpov sharply.
“I’m a psychiatrist, Captain, at least grant me some latitude here. We don’t just have Stalin to worry about in considering the things we have on this ship. We have the British and Americans too! What would they do if the ship, or any of the technology we have aboard, were to fall into their hands?”
“Some say the Germans aboard Bismarck scuttled the ship to prevent the British from towing her off and discovering the secret of her hull design,” said Fedorov.
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. “This ship must not fall into enemy hands. Period. And I am afraid that given the knowledge we have of the history of these years in Russia, Stalin will have to be considered an enemy as well. Do you agree, Admiral?”
&nbs
p; “You make a good point, Doctor,” said the Admiral. “We must not allow either side to gain possession of the technology we have, let alone the weapons. Yet if I understand what Mister Fedorov was trying to tell us earlier, we may soon be in a fight for our very lives. Mister Rodenko tells me the main body of the fleet we were tracking yesterday has halted its eastward progression and reversed course. It seems that the word is getting out, one way or another, that there is something dangerous prowling the waters of the Arctic sea. We may have to move south soon.”
“My guess is that they will be as confused as we were at first,” said Fedorov. “In fact, they will logically conclude we are a German ship. So far they have seen nothing of the weaponry and capabilities we truly possess. We fired all of six rounds of what would be considered a small secondary gun mount on any ship of this day. But we look threatening. This is a big ship, as large as any typical battleship the British put to sea in the Second World War. They've spotted us, that much is certain, and it's likely the phones are already ringing in the Admiralty with the news that a big German battlecruiser is at large again. And believe me, Admiral, Captain Karpov, the Royal Navy will stop at nothing to hunt us down, just as they did with Bismarck. This destroyer was no match for us, but their fleet has many more powerful ships, and they will use them all.”
“It may come to that,” said Karpov, “but I assure you, if the Royal Navy wishes to tangle with this ship they will pay a terrible price. We may have to sink them all.”
“You had best think on that a while, Captain, and let us keep our Ivans bundled up,” said the Doctor. He was referring to Ivan the Terrible, the brutal Tsar who had become legendary for his cruelty, and a distant forerunner to men like Josef Stalin. The mindset was deep in the Russian psyche, and it was said that every man had his “Crazy Ivan” under three woolen shirts, something he hid deep within himself in the normal discourse of life, and sometimes put to sleep with vodka, but a demon to keep a careful watch on lest it be given free rein and devour his soul. Zolkin continued.
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