John Schettler - Kirov

If Hipper showed its face, he had two cruisers here to deal with her. Even if he was spotted, the Germans wouldn't have much to throw at him out here. Oh, the Do-18 might return again and attempt a bombing or torpedo run, but with two Royal Navy aircraft carriers present, it was more than likely the Germans would use these planes to keep a distant, wary eye on the British fleet's movements. U-boats were another consideration, however. The Germans would likely vector in anything they had in the area, but his task force was well protected with all of seven destroyers.

All things considered, he had little reason to think of canceling this mission, though he was comfortable with his decision to keep both carriers together for the time being. Perhaps an opportunity might arise in the days ahead to let Adventure complete her delivery, but for now she would stay with the main fleet. He watched the takeoff of Grenfell’s Fulmars with satisfaction, noting that Furious had also spotted and launched two of their Sea Harriers. The planes circled the task force once and then sped off into the distance.

Moments later the Admiral was interrupted by his radioman.

“An odd message, sir.”

“Home Fleet?” He turned, expecting to be handed a decoded signal, yet his radioman was still at his post, listening on his headset as if monitoring a live transmission.

“It’s in the clear, sir,” he said incredulously. “I think you had better hear this, Admiral.”

“Well, put it on the loudspeaker then.”

The radioman flipped a switch and they heard a clear hailing message, in English, yet the speaker had just the hint of an accent that was immediately apparent to the Admiral.

“Force contact at latitude seventy degrees, forty-two minutes, forty-five seconds; longitude zero degrees, forty-six minutes, forty-eight seconds; speed fifteen knots, please identify-over.” The message repeated.

“Someone is out of his bloody mind,” said Wake-Walker. “Breaking radio silence like this? What, has he given out our position and speed as well? Captain Bovell, if you please, sir!”

“Admiral?” The ship’s Captain was at his side immediately, returning to the bridge from the plot room. The Admiral inclined his head to the overhead loudspeaker, and waited as the incoming hail repeated.

“Damn sloppy,” said the Captain. “What do we have out there, sir, some imbecile in a fishing trawler?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Wake-Walker. “How could a trawler be quoting our position chapter and verse like that? Blast! First we get this sighting by a Jerry reconnaissance plane, now this! If that transmission is intercepted our entire cover will be blown. Anything from the watch?”

“No one has reported any surface contacts, sir. Grenfell’s Fulmars are up now, and we can have a look around. I'll check the watch and advise them to be on the lookout for any commercial shipping.”

The hail repeated.

“Very well, Mister Sims. Turn that damn thing off.”

The radioman pursed his lips, again looking at his Admiral, wondering if he should bother the man as the open band hail began to repeat again. Before he could speak, however, a message came over the speaker tube from the radar room.

“Air reconnaissance reports a strong surface contact north by northeast, approximately 40 miles out from our position. No contacts on the ship’s surface radar.”

Admiral Wake-Walker raised his thin brows, surprised. A surface contact? He turned to Captain Bovell to assess the situation. “What do you make of that, Captain? Have we found our fishing trawler?”

“Probably a stray steamer, sir. Could even be a German supply ship, though I can’t see that they would be broadcasting a message like that in English. More likely Norwegian traffic, though we have no notifications of commercial shipping from the Admiralty. Yet this could be our loose cannon. Can’t imagine how they may have spotted us, though. Shall I have Grenfell vector in one of his planes to overfly the contact?”

“That would be prudent,” said the Admiral, and Bovell gave the order to the radioman at once, who seized upon this opportunity to relate the recurrence of the hail he had been receiving. “They just keep repeating it sir, and the operator sounds somewhat edgy, if I may say.”

“Edgy?”

“Might it be a distress call, sir?”

“Perhaps, yeoman. We’ll see to the matter. Carry on then.”

“Aye, sir.”

Minutes later Kirov would activate her forward missile array and paint Admiral Walker’s ships with their targeting radars, yet the British would be entirely unaware of that. Kirov was well outside the range of their own rudimentary surface contact radar, and had no equipment aboard capable of detecting and analyzing the radar signals being beamed at them in any case. In effect, Kirov was squaring off and shouting at a deaf man. When one of their fighters finally spotted something on its radar set, they naturally vectored that plane in to have a closer look.

As the plane approached Karpov, seemed more and more ill at ease. Walking to the forward view screen, he turned and wagged his finger at the Admiral. “You could be making a serious error,” he said. “One we may not live to reconsider!”

Admiral Volsky felt the gesture strayed very close to insubordination, yet he was too preoccupied in the intensity of the situation to deal with that for the moment. Rodenko's timing had been very accurate, and soon they looked to see a distant mark on the gray horizon that was apparently the silhouette of an inbound aircraft. Somewhat relieved, Volsky was gratified that he would finally have the evidence of his own eyes to throw into the odd mix of conflicting information they had been dealing with. The Admiral clearly expected to see the profile of a typical British seaborne helicopter, but it was soon clear to him that this was a plane, flying low already, and still descending as it bore in on their heading.

Karpov reached for a pair of field glasses where they hung on a peg near the forward view port and snapped them up to peer at the contact, his movements tense and driven by obvious adrenaline. Volsky saw his jaw slacken, mouth opening with astonishment. “What in god's name…”

The aircraft sped in, perhaps no more than 300 feet over the water now, and Volsky could clearly hear the drone of a standard propeller type engine.

Fedorov leapt to his feet and was out through the side hatch at once, eager to get a closer look at the aircraft as it overflew the ship. He smiled with amazement, seeing the telltale concentric circles on each wing, the Royal Navy insignia, and he immediately knew from the profile of this aircraft what it was. The plane passed overhead, its engine loud as it banked quickly, climbing swiftly up toward a drift of low clouds.

Back on the bridge Karpov’s shoulders slumped, and he gave the Admiral a sallow look, field glasses in his hand betraying a slight tremor there. He took a deep breath, exhaling the tension, for he had expected the ship might even now be a flaming wreck. The over-flight had been a simple reconnaissance, not a strike mission as he had feared, yet what in the world were the British up to? What did he see just now?

Fedorov was back inside, sealing off the hatch to the exterior watch deck, his face alight with excitement and amazement, nose red from the cold.

“Mister Fedorov,” said the Admiral, “you will kindly maintain your post in the future. Compromising the integrity of the citadel is a serious breach of conduct.”

“I'm sorry, Admiral,” said Fedorov, “but did you see it, sir? That was an old British fighter plane, a Fulmar II from the look of it, the same planes that would be assigned to these carriers in the Second World War, sir!”