William Forstchen - Down to the Sea

Another explosion overhead sheared off the foremast. Heavy debris rained down, forcing him to run to the shelter of the cupola. He ducked inside as steel and wood slammed into the deck.

Nagama barely spared him a glance. “Still forward?” he asked.

Bullfinch took a deep breath. They were in the middle of a fight now. To even get signals out in all the confusion with the fore gone and the main signal station in the maintop most likely gone as well was impossible. If he tried to turn out, the other ships might see, might think that the flagship was out of control, or worse yet, running.

“Forward!” Bullfinch cried. “Close with that big bastard directly ahead.”

The big bastard, as he called it, was less than a thousand yards off.

Even as he looked at it, the ship’s forward gun fired, followed several seconds later by one of its aft guns.

Some instinct told him they were aimed straight at him, and a couple of seconds later, even inside the cupola, he heard the shriek as the round came in. The first one passed within feet of the deck, plowed into a wave cresting off the port side, and blew; close enough that fragments tore across the deck, taking out a gatling crew. The second one hit a wave just forward, failed to detonate, tumbled, and slammed into the bow, penetrating the armor, and went crashing through the main gun deck.

Through one of the speaking tubes he could hear the tearing of metal, followed almost instantly by screams of agony. Up on the deck steam vented out from a severed line.

Another blow hit and then another, slamming him to the deck. He pulled himself back up, saw Nagama kneeling, mouth a smear of blood. The captain was coughing, spitting out broken teeth, wiping his face, then standing back up. Bullfinch looked out through the viewing slit. The bow was a mass of crumpled wreckage. The steam catapult for the scout plane, which had been left behind, was standing nearly straight up and then twisted back like a bent piece of wire.

The ship was shearing off. Nagama, coughing and gagging, tried to shout orders through a speaking tube. The wheelman was down, hands over his face. The signal officer took over the helm, struggling to bring the ship back to a bearing straight at the battleship ahead, less than seven hundred yards away.

He looked to starboard and felt a swelling of pride that brought tears to his eyes. Two of his armored cruisers were still with him, the Spotsylvania and the Sumter . Both were trailing fire and smoke, Spotsylvania with all three masts shattered, forward turret a smoking ruin, Sumter its entire aft end wrapped in flames.

Behind them he could see several of the enemy cruisers were turning, but at least two others were aflame. One of them was listing heavily to starboard. Its railing was already below the water, and antlike figures were falling into the raging sea. Frigates, both his and the enemy’s, crisscrossed back and forth across the foaming sea, trading shots, gatlings firing, light guns flashing. The wreckage of a frigate, one of his, drifted past to port. Its fantail rose out of the water, propeller still turning; from the bow all the way up to the superstructure it was submerged. Just beyond it an enemy frigate was burning furiously and then disappeared as its magazine detonated.

“Forward gun, can it still fire?” Bullfinch shouted. Nagama looked over at him, eyes wide. Bullfinch shouted the question again, and still Nagama didn’t respond. Bullfinch realized the man was deaf, eardrums shattered by the last explosion.

He gently moved him aside, found the speaking tube to the forward turret, and uncapped it.

“Bullfinch here,” he shouted, “can you hear me?” Curses and the sound of steam vents echoed with a tinny shriek through the brass tube that snaked down from the bridge and then up into the turret.

“Here, sir.”

“Can you still fire?”

“Reloading now, but steam for the rammer is dropping.”

“Get it done and aim for the battleship straight ahead. Hold fire till I tell you to shoot.”

“We’re trying, sir.”

“Just do it!”

He left the tube uncapped, looked over at the signal officer at the helm and simply pointed ahead.

He could do nothing now but ride out the storm and pray they’d survive the next few minutes.

A drumroll of exploding shells marched across the wind-tossed seas, visibility dropping from the smoke. With the sun setting, a surreal gray-green twilight engulfed Bullfinch’s world, punctuated by brilliant thunderclaps of fire.

“ Sumter !”

He didn’t know who had shouted, but turning, he saw the valiant cruiser breaking apart. A shell had torn into the burning stern and exploded, tearing off the aft end. The ship skidded around, fantail breaking off, bow beginning to rise as tons of water poured into the bowels of the ship.

He looked forward. His target’s two aft turrets fired almost in unison, and he braced for their impacts. One of the shells passed so close to the cupola that the turbulence staggered him. An instant later it felt as if the entire aft end of the ship was rising. The concussion slammed him against the side of the cupola. Stunned, he lay there for a second, trying to sense what had happened to his ship. One of the speaking tubes whistled, and he pulled himself up and uncapped it.

“Who is this?”

“Engine room. Something hit us. The plates are buckled, and we’re flooding…” The words were cut off by an explosion that he felt in the soles of his feet even as it blasted through the speaking tube. He could hear screaming and what sounded like steam venting. Even as he tried to shout a question, smoke came boiling up out of the tube.

They were losing speed and he looked over at the signal officer. He was turning the wheel, but it was no longer attached to anything. It was spinning freely.

“Can you go below and steer with the main cables?” Bullfinch shouted.

“I’ll try, sir.”

He sensed it was useless, but sent him anyhow. The ship was beginning to die, and the target was so tantalizingly close, four hundred yards off.

Another of its forward guns fired. Another geyser shot up just forward of the bow an instant later. Damn, was their gunnery that bad? But even as he wondered about it, he saw the Spotsylvania take a devastating hit amidships. The smokestack tumbled overboard, and the mid deck superstructure peeled back. The blow had detonated deep inside the ship, fire soaring upward.

“Forward gun.”

“Still here, sir.”

“Ready?”

“In another minute.”

“Shoot when you can bring it to bear. Try to hit the bastard toward the stem, get its engines and steering. Can you do that?”

“Well try, sir.”

“Good luck.”

There was no reply.

An enemy frigate cut directly in front of them, all guns firing. Tracers walked up the deck, and a round shrieked through the view slit, pinging around inside the cupola like an angry bee. Everyone ducked and cursed until it fell spent on the deck floor.

Something exploded against the side of the cupola. A heavy fragment broke off on the inside, slicing across the narrow space, smashing the wheel to splinters.

Several seconds later the forward gun fired, startling him. He looked forward, and then howled with delight as a blossom of fire ignited just above the waterline of the enemy ship, astern of its rear turret. The force of the fourteen-inch shell visibly shook the behemoth, and a secondary explosion followed several seconds later, peeling back part of the deck.

The triumph, however, was short-lived, for his wounded foe now returned fire. Its four heavy guns fired in sequence. The first two shells missed but the third one landed a devastating blow.

For a moment he wondered if he were dead. The sensation reminded him of when he was hit at the Battle of St. Gregory’s, when an explosion destroyed one eye and left him temporarily blinded in the other. The world was black. He felt a building panic.