John Schettler - Golem 7

“Aye, sir. All ahead full battle speed.”

“Now then,” said McGrigor. “Let’s see if Jerry cares to pick on someone her own size.” Moments later he gave the order to fire and the Renown’s six big 15 inch guns growled out their warning salvo. He did not yet know whether he faced one or both of the twin German battlecruisers, but he would let his guns announce his angry presence nonetheless.

“So we have our answer,”said Paul, leaning heavily on the desk next to Kelly. The two men had been perusing the history for some time now, comparing the narrative to what they had recorded as the actual history in their RAM Bank data.

“Tiger convoy was a tempting target,” said Kelly.

“But it doesn’t seem as though the captain of the Gneisenau was much aware of it until he was well out of port. Yet I suspected the answer had something to do with Sheffield . That ship was simply too vital to the sinking of the Bismarck . And now we’ve got a double whammy here— Sheffield out of action and another battlecruiser loose in the Atlantic.”

“You mean Gneisenau? I didn’t note anything on that. here let me see what happens.” He keyed in a specific Golem search and soon called up a document from the altered time line on the service history of the German battlecruiser.

“Well I’ll be—” he began. “She gets hit in the engagement too! Got a little too eager chasing Sheffield and Renown came up on the scene a few minutes later. The Gneisenau wanted no part of her, and turned away, but Renown got off three salvos from her forward guns and scored a hit high up on the German ship’s superstructure. It took out radar and fire control to one of her forward turrets and so the captain wisely turned full about and sped northeast, back to Brest. Then the damn thing gets hit in that same RAF attack that damaged her in our Meridian.”

“Wow,” said Paul. “The continuum is fairly elastic here.”

“More like quantum memory foam,” said Kelly. “The German ship never should have left Brest in the first place, and that’s exactly where she ends up again after this little sortie.” Kelly pointed to a passage in the narrative he had been reading.

“Yes,” Paul agreed. “I like that, Kelly. Time tends to resist change. We’ll have to make a new entry in the lexicon. Gneisenau was supposed to have been moved from number eight dock to a berthing out in the outer harbor and hit by that torpedo attack. Instead it suffers damage in this engagement and returns to port. The only difference is the life of that airman—what was the pilot’s name?”

“Campbell,” said Kelly.

“Well he’s one lucky man. I wonder what happened to him, as he was supposed to be shot down and killed in that attack. Yet he held the plane steady enough to deliver a torpedo before he crashed in the real history. The damage was enough to lay up Gneisenau , and the RAF got to her again in short order. She was out of commission for seven months, which is why she was unavailable to sortie to Bismarck’s aid.”

“Well that’s what happens after Gneisenau returns to port in this altered Meridian,” said Kelly.

“But while this big cat was out on the prowl she managed to at least take one good bite out of the history, enough to take out Sheffield ,” said Paul. “Pretty amazing!”

“It was that damn fishing trawler,” said Kelly. “He made right for the spot where Gneisenau was to have been berthed in our Meridian—or at least in our old Meridian.”

“Yes, and it’s suspicious that the harbor police never apprehended the skipper of that boat either.”

“It does have a smell about it,” said Kelly.

“Well let’s see if we can put some flesh on these bones,” said Paul. “Suppose that was their intervention, to simply sail that fishing trawler in the night they were planning to move Gneisenau from number eight dock. How do we counter-operate?”

Maeve had been in the kitchen warming up one of the three loaves of freshly baked bread she had salvaged, and they decided to get her in on the discussion. Robert was off at another desk, doing further research comparisons between the new and old history data. Kelly took a moment to read Maeve some of the altered history they had uncovered concerning Sheffield .

“Well it’s pretty clear that ‘Old Shiny’ is a fated ship in this scenario,” said Maeve. “Was it badly damaged in the battle with Gneisenau?”

“Enough to lay it up in Gibraltar and take it out of Force H,” said Paul.

“Which is why it wasn’t there to be spotted by the incoming swordfish strike from Ark Royal ,” said Kelly.

“Right, right,” said Maeve. “ Sheffield is not on station behind Bismarck , and that means no case of mistaken identity and no knowledge of the faulty magnetic pistols on the torpedoes.”

“So the air attack on Bismarck fails,” Paul finished. “It’s a perfect little line of dominoes, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Maeve agreed, “but a counter operation is going to be difficult here as well. The trawler could have come from anywhere.”

“Well it would have to be within a reasonable distance of the harbor,” said Paul.

“True, but what kind of cruising speed does it have? If it could make as much as ten knots then we’re looking at a lot of potential coastline here, either north or south of the harbor. You don’t have any idea when it started on its way either. Suppose the trawler left six or eight hours before it arrives at Brest? In that case we’re looking at over a hundred and fifty miles of coastline, so trying to shift in at its point of origin for an operation is out of the question.”

“Then we’d have to be at the destination, right there in Brest,” said Kelly.

“That sounds more plausible, but it will be dangerous,” said Maeve. “Wouldn’t that be a secure area? How would you get to the docks?”

“We’d just shift in there,” said Kelly. “It would be dark, quiet in the pre-dawn hour. I could put someone right on the money, close enough to that berthing site to intervene.”

“And do what?” said Maeve. “Are you going to hang a no vacancy sign?”

Paul pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting off a mild headache. What could they do? He went round and round with it in his mind, considering possible plans.

“Well… We could pose as fisherman,” he began, and sort of lay claim to the area—“

“Fat chance,” said Maeve. “You’ll need fishing tackle, rods and reels, bait, and a bad temper if you want to stop a trawler from docking. You’d only stir up trouble for a moment.”

“Then we’ll need to pose as someone with authority,” said Paul. “A gendarme or harbor patrol officer. We could wave the trawler off as it tried to berth.”

“And if he plays dumb and just forges ahead?” Maeve was a real devil’s advocate. “Remember, the fire starts when the boat nears the mooring, at least according to the narrative Kelly read me. He could just barge right in, no pun intended, and wait until that oil drum goes up. Then his purpose is achieved. I don’t think the presence of a couple policemen will dissuade him, particularly given the stakes involved.”

“You’re probably right,” said Kelly. “This is sounding more fishy all the time.”