To Slip the Surly Bonds

by Chris Kennedy

  “They got close,” Lütjens said. His eyes flickered over the map. “They’re far too close.”

  “They also don’t know where we are,” Volker said. He was a little disturbed that the British had managed to get close to the task force, although it was clear the British didn’t know precisely where the Germans were. Bismarck hadn’t detected any radio transmissions from prowling British aircraft—or submarines. “We have the advantage of surprise.”

  “Four battleships,” Lütjens pointed out, his tone cautions. “Do you truly think we can take them?”

  My how quickly you go from arrogant ass to the King of Trepidation, Volker thought unkindly.

  “I think we can cripple them,” Volker allowed. He was no naval officer, but he could read a map and knew a little bit about his potential targets. Most of the British vessels were slower than Bismarck to start with. If they were damaged, Bismarck and her consorts could make their escape before the British rallied. “And we can launch repeated strikes to bring the British ships down.”

  “At least until we get out of range,” Lütjens mused. “Or until they launch aircraft of their own.”

  “If they have a carrier nearby,” Volker said. The recon flight hadn’t spotted a carrier, but that was meaningless. The British would be foolish to put a carrier in the line of battle. Graf Zeppelin was too close to the enemy battleships for his comfort. “Herr Admiral, I request permission to launch a strike against the enemy ships.”

  “Do it,” Lütjens ordered.

  * * *

  The aircraft felt heavy as she lumbered into the sky, the weight of the torpedo dragging her down. Karl braced himself as a gust of wind struck his aircraft, wondering if the weather was about to change at the worst possible moment. The squadron would have to try to return to their ship, after dumping their torpedoes in the water. He didn’t want to risk landing on an uneven flight deck if it could be avoided.

  And the only alternative is ditching in the sea, he thought, coldly. And that isn’t much of an alternative at all.

  He used hand signals to organise the squadron, directing them to follow him. The British ships were somewhere in the trackless wastes of ocean…they couldn’t have gone that far, he told himself, even if they had sighted him and changed course immediately. But…he put the thought to one side as he picked up speed, the aircraft whining uncomfortably as another gust of wind battered against the cockpit. They had to find the British before it was too late.

  And before the British bring up another carrier or two of their own, he reminded himself. They know better than to send their ships against us without air cover now.

  He winced at the thought. A Swordfish had come far too close to shooting him down. He didn’t want to meet a Spitfire or Hurricane, if the British had had time to transfer a squadron to the carrier. Intelligence had warned that the British were producing a naval variant of the Spitfire, and they’d apparently operated Hurricanes in the Med. Karl had faced enough Spitfires over England to know he didn’t want to encounter another if it could be avoided. The British had to be trying—desperately—to get the aircraft into service. They had no choice.

  They should have done it earlier, he thought, grimly. I think…

  He cursed under his breath as the British ships suddenly came into view. Four lumbering battleships, heading straight for Bismarck. He frowned, then cursed as he realised something he should have guessed from the start. The British ships had radar. They’d seen him right from the start, then followed his heading back towards the Graf Zeppelin. It had been sheer luck they hadn’t come into range before it was too late. A puff of smoke appeared, too close for comfort. The British ships had opened fire. If there was any doubt that the British knew they were there, it was gone now.

  “Prepare to attack,” he ordered. “I…”

  A glint caught his eye, coming out of the sun. He yanked his aircraft to one side, an instant before a hail of bullets could tear through his cockpit and blow him out of the sky. For a second, his blood turned to ice. A Spitfire flashed past him, followed by two more. He swore out loud as he realised what had happened. The British had flown Spitfires to their carrier…perhaps more than one carrier. Karl and his fellows had certainly made sure the British had room for the modern aircraft.

  He snapped out orders as the British fell on his aircraft like wolves on sheep. Karl saw four of his pilots die before they saw the threat, their aircraft plunging towards the water far below. He twisted and fired back, watching a British pilot swing out of the way with effortless ease. Karl swallowed a curse, then took better aim as another Spitfire overshot his aircraft. This time, the British pilot was unlucky. Trailing smoke, the other aircraft dropped like a stone.

  Karl forced himself to think as the dogfight spun out of control. There didn’t seem to be many British aircraft, but they had an edge. Karl’s aircraft was too heavy to manoeuvre properly, at least as long as he was carrying the torpedo. He thought briefly about simply dropping it—it might hit something worthwhile, although he had a feeling that was just wishful thinking—before sending his aircraft into a dive instead. The framework protested loudly—for a moment, he thought he’d made a dreadful mistake—as he struggled to level out, bare metres above the water. The manoeuvre worked, a pair of Spitfires breaking off as he hurtled low over the waves. The British aircraft had just started circling back when two shark-like shapes slashed into them.

  They launched the second squadron! he thought. Graf Zeppelin had kept a squadron of fighters in reserve just in case the British had launched an airstrike of their own. Clearly someone had noted the approaching Spitfires on radar and launched the hasty escort. Screaming in relief, Karl attempted to take stock of how many of his men had survived.

  Seeing two other Me-109Ts circling with their weapons, he waggled his wings for them to join up. Seeing the men slide into position, he turned to look for a target. Ten thousand meters away, a British battleship loomed ahead of him, its guns firing wildly in all directions as it turned away from a flight of 109Ts.

  Nelson or Rodney, he thought. Motioning, he led the three 109Ts down into the attack. In the smoke and haze, the British crew did not see the attacking bombers until far too late. Even as tracers flew around him, Karl slipped past a British destroyer and dropped his torpedo, aiming it towards the enemy ship. His two men followed suit, right before one of them was swatted from the sky by a direct hit.

  Come on, come on…Karl thought once he was through the cauldron of fire. The British battleship gamely tried to reverse its course but was far from agile enough. There was a spout of water forward and, a moment later, another near the stern. Karl felt a wave of elation as the battleship continued to turn, her bow swinging around in a giant circle.

  Maybe steerage, he thought. He saw a flash of motion out of his eye; a pair of Spitfires chasing a 109T.

  “All right,” he said. His aircraft was far easier to handle, now that the torpedo was gone. “Let’s see how you like fighting me now.”

  * * *

  “Two battleships damaged,” Volker reported. “The British aircraft were a nasty surprise.”

  “Recall the aircraft,” Lütjens ordered. “We can get out of here.”

  “No, Herr Admiral,” Volker said. “We can finish the job.”

  “No,” Lütjens said. “There’s a British carrier nearby. We have to keep our fighters…”

  “That carrier has launched all her aircraft,” Volker said. It was a guess, but he was sure he was right. “If she had more aircraft, she would have sent more aircraft. We can send her to the bottom before she has a chance to escape.”

  Lütjens hesitated, then shook his head.

  “No, we have done enough,” he replied firmly. “How many torpedoes does your carrier have left? How much fuel?”

  Volker pursed his lips. As annoyed as he was, he knew the admiral had a point.

  “Well, Herr Admiral, we have won something they will call a victory,” Volker snapped.

  Lütjens
gave Volker a sharp look, as if he suspected Volker of mocking him. The Luftwaffe officer coolly returned his look.

  “Well, perhaps we will have achieved what you flyboys could not last summer,” Lütjens replied. Volker felt colour rising in his cheeks as the admiral continued. “This will be a great shock; the vaunted Royal Navy having lost two capital ships and had another two mauled. Judging from the fact the three undamaged battleships turned away, clearly they have had enough for now.”

  Volker watched the man turn and look out the bridge window.

  “We will return, next time with Tirpitz,” Lütjens said. “Then we will sink their convoys.”

  “And then the war will be won,” Volker agreed.

  Visions of glory ran through his head, of German troops landing in a starving and helpless Britain. Perhaps, eventually, the Greater Reich’s Kriegsmarine would challenge the Americans and land troops in New York and Washington. Certainly fanciful, but with the Royal Navy vanquished, almost nothing seemed beyond their grasp.

  All that remains is the proper application of force, Volker thought with a smile.

  “Heil Hitler!” he said.

  * * * * *

  Historian’s Note

  Historically, the Germans were slow to develop the concept of carrier-based airpower. They lacked the resources to experiment with carriers, a problem made worse by scrabbles between the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine over who would control the naval air arm (and disputes within the navy between the capital ship enthusiasts and those who believed that a fleet of u-boats would be a better use of resources.) Graf Zeppelin was never completed and never saw active service, although—if she had been completed—she would have been more than a match for comparable British designs. In this timeline, the Germans have taken the plunge and—with help from the Japanese—completed their sole carrier in time for her to sail with the Bismarck in 1941.

  It is one of World War Two’s little ironies that Italy—yes, Italy—effectively led the world in radar technology, at least until 1943. A team of Italian inventors put together a series of radar sets but failed to interest the Italian Navy in actually using them until the Royal Navy taught the Italians the value of radar kits. By then, it was too late. In this timeline, the Germans are less resistant to using concepts from other countries and copied—stole—the Italian designs so they could be used by the Kriegsmarine.

  Although, on the face of it, the Bismarck was hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched by the Royal Navy, she was a very serious concern until she was sunk in 1941. She could—in theory—pick and choose her engagements, making it hard for the British to stop her from either picking off isolated warships or sinking convoys at will. A more successful career might have seriously weakened Britain in 1941, particularly if there were fewer warships available to go to the Far East. On the other hand, this might have worked out better for Britain in some ways. Prince of Wales and Repulse might not have been sunk near Singapore if they were needed in northern waters.

  * * * * *

  Christopher G. Nuttall Bio

  Christopher Nuttall has been planning sci-fi books since he learned to read. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Chris created an alternate history website and eventually graduated to writing full-sized novels. Studying history independently allowed him to develop worlds that hung together and provided a base for storytelling. After graduating from university, Chris started writing full-time. As an indie author, he has published fifty novels and one novella (so far) through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

  Professionally, he has published The Royal Sorceress, Bookworm, A Life Less Ordinary, Sufficiently Advanced Technology, The Royal Sorceress II: The Great Game and Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling with Elsewhen Press, and Schooled in Magic through Twilight Times Books.

  As a matter of principle, all of Chris's self-published Kindle books are DRM-free.

  Chris has a blog where he published updates, snippets and world-building notes at http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/ and a website at http://www.chrishanger.net.

  Chris is currently living in Edinburgh with his partner, muse, and critic Aisha.

  # # # # #

  Through the Squall by Taylor Anderson

  A Destroyerman Story

  In the years since we came to this mysterious, deadly…other Earth aboard the old Asiatic Fleet “four-stacker” destroyer, USS Walker, we’ve beheld countless wonders, experienced adventures beyond our imaginings, suffered tragic losses, and occasionally celebrated triumphs. Yet never have we discovered a sufficiently satisfactory, (to me), explanation for our arrival on this seemingly alternate world, peopled by representatives of often strange, sometimes very different histories. Still, as that statement implies, we were never quite alone. And even from the beginning, we always had each other aboard our battered, leaky old ship. Such was not the case for everyone, and we sometimes discovered the sad, abandoned relics of other “crossings,” occasionally—probably—from the very same world and circumstances we ourselves were drawn. One example of this was the forlorn, half-sunken hulk of a PBY Catalina flying boat that Ben Mallory salvaged off a lonely island beach and which, when mended a bit, gave indispensable service to our cause in the early months of the Lemurian’s bitter struggle against the Grik. Yet no one knew how the plane came to be there, and the fate of its missing aircrew remained still another melancholy mystery until a long-delayed account of its ordeal was recently related to me and I was able to record it here.

  Excerpt from Courtney Bradford’s The Worlds I’ve Wondered, University of New Glasgow Press, 1956

  * * *

  March 1, 1942

  Ensign Mike Hayes was tired, damn tired, and he’d drifted off almost as soon as the big, lumbering PBY-4 flying boat climbed out of Tjilatjap, Java, at dawn. He’d managed this despite the mind-numbing roar of two engines almost directly overhead and the dull, gut-clenching fear that had twisted his insides for the last three months. Oddly, the disaster in the Java Sea and the virtual annihilation of the US Asiatic Fleet—to which VP-101 Squadron of Patrol Wing 10 had been attached—hadn’t really made his anxiety any worse. Nor had the departure of the squadron’s only other surviving plane for Perth, Australia. It was like he’d reached a point where mere dread, regardless how profound, couldn’t pass. And the realization “Big Boobs” was the last, biggest, slowest prey—in the air, at least—for Japanese planes prowling the south coast of Java, simply couldn’t conquer the exhaustion he’d accumulated. Fear and danger, inspired by strange, relentless invaders in an exotic setting, had become the norm for the 22-year-old from tiny Harrisville, Michigan. Only a call to duty or something unusual was likely to stir him at the moment.

  Mike Hayes got both when he heard the nervous voice of Big Boobs’ pilot, Lieutenant (jg) Dave Wheeler, murmur “What the hell?” over the interphone headset covering his ears. It was the tone more than the words that jerked him awake. Wheeler wasn’t Superman; he was only 24 himself and had to be just as scared on some level as the rest of the hard-used PBY’s diminished six-man crew. But he was born to lead, and he’d never, ever, let fear touch his voice before. Mike pushed the brim of his ball cap up and straightened in his co-pilot’s seat. Blinking, he followed Wheeler’s gaze out forward and slightly to the left. “Whatcha got?” he asked.

  Wheeler glanced at him apologetically, and his voice firmed. “Ah? Oh, sorry, Mike. Didn’t mean to wake you. I know you, Garza and Pike worked all night just so this turd would fly.” Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class Neville (call me “Nev,” dammit) Garza was Big Boobs’ flight engineer, and AMM3c Jed Pike currently manned a .50 caliber in the starboard observation blister in the waist. Both were solid guys, and Mike doubted either—or Radioman Second Class Don Frazee, who’d been up almost as long—had been asleep. He felt especially sorry for the 18-year-old Frazee who’d have to scramble forward from his radio compartment to the nose turret, if called on, and man a gun he’d never fired. He would’ve been the bombardier there, too, if Big Boobs carried bombs th
is trip. Wheeler and Mike had to fill in for the navigator the plane didn’t have.

  There was only one other man in the plane, Seaman Third Class Colin Sanford, and it was pointless asking him to take up any slack since “slack” pretty much described the tall, gangly, redhead. He’d come to Big Boobs as the sole replacement for three good men killed or injured when the PBY got shot up attempting to bomb a Japanese cruiser. Disgusted and mad, Garza compared the mission to sending a pelican to lay a crap on half a dozen goose hunters. Big Boobs limped back to Surabaya, her base at the time, but lost a third of her tight-knit crew. Sanford only added insult to injury. Mike originally thought his surly, uncommunicative manner was his way of coping with a new assignment in the midst of their current predicament, along with the same fear everyone felt, but it went deeper than that. He flat didn’t care about anybody but himself, and never became part of the crew. Worse, though he wouldn’t refuse an order, he’d carry it out with such sullen incompetence that somebody else always had to fix what he screwed up. Jed Pike absolutely hated him, but couldn’t cover both waist guns by himself. That was probably the only reason he hadn’t thrown Sanford out of the plane.

  Mike yawned. “Skip it. I think…” he stopped when he saw what caught Wheeler’s attention. A large greenish rain squall loomed ahead like a miles-long, impenetrable cliff, standing as high as they flew. Mike blinked. Squalls weren’t unusual here, even sometimes as heavy and dense as this, but most were filmy, insubstantial things, building up to touch the sea with wispy gray fingers before passing away. Not seeing a squall somewhere on the horizon would’ve been remarkable, especially in the afternoon. But this one was different, the color all wrong, and it radiated a disconcerting sense of…energy unlike anything he’d ever seen.