John Schettler - Golem 7

Whenthe message came in to Admiral Tovey he could hardly believe what he was reading. The signal man had shouted the news, prompting Tovey to quiet him. “No need to yell,” he said, waiting for Brind to bring him the printed signal. Even Brind, normally steady as a rock, had a tremor in his hand when he handed the note off to the admiral. There were just three words up top. “Hood’s blown up.” Then below, “Prince of Wales engaging.”

“Blown up?” He looked at Brind, aghast, stricken with doubt. How could this be? Yet the more he thought on it the more he came to realize what must have happened. The old British battlecruiser was too soft up topside. Her decks were not well protected. Holland most likely charged in, the better to close the range and, in doing so, flatten out the arc of the incoming enemy shells. But if one struck her a heavy plunging blow that would burst through her decks and explode in her gut… It was the only possible explanation.

He looked about the bridge, saw the faces of the men there drawn with strain and fear. Stiff upper lip, he thought, striding out into the center of the battle bridge.

“I trust our guns are well sorted out this time, gentlemen?” he said quietly. But the news came quickly after that the guns were not well sorted on Prince of Wales that night. She had two jams, one misfire, and that put three of her six forward guns out of action. Furthermore, she had taken a bad hit right on her bridge, and the executive officer had turned away, making smoke. There was no word on the fate of her captain, Leach.

“No word on damage to Bismarck?” Tovey was again confounded by sparsely worded report. Yet then again, the Prince of Wales was in a fight for her life. She had just witnessed the destruction of the flagship and was wounded herself.

Brind leaned in, arms clasped behind his back, his deportment and bearing stiff and professional. “We won’t get there in time to join the fight,” he said in a low voice. “Force H is coming, but I’m afraid Admiral Somerville is several hundred miles to the south. If Prince of Wales failed to slow her down then it looks like Bismarck is slipping away, sir. Unless Rodney is about with bad intent. She should be very close now.”

Tovey felt a quiet rage welling up within him, and he struggled to maintain his composure. Hood was gone, mighty Hood . Holland and the whole lot of them brewed up in the mad, savage seas, and here he was forging his way along in this futile, frustrating chase, hoping against hope that somehow, by some means, he would get one last crack at the German monster, and mete out just vengeance of the Royal Navy

“Yes,” said Tovey. “I should have forced the issue with Bismarck long ago, when I had the chance. But it’s bloody well up to Rodney now, isn’t it.”

The loud claxonblared throughout the ship, jarring Paul awake where he rested in his cabin, lightly dozing, forgetful of the time. He looked at his service watch and his heart leapt. It was time! The hands read 22:57 hours, a little before 11:00 PM. Seconds later a loud roar shook the ship with a great vibration. Everything loose in his quarters rattled and his tin cup slipped onto the deck with a sharp clatter. Even the paintings on the wall were askew. Had they been hit already?

He rushed to quickly put on his jacket and cap, opening the hatch and pushing out into the hall. He nearly collided with a midshipman.

“What’s happening? Are we hit?”

“What? No, that’s just the old lady ripping off with the main guns up front. Hell of a din, mate. It’s beat to quarters now. Have you heard? Hood’s been sunk! We’re up against Bismarck! ” The man shook his fist, clearly enraged, as if he had a personal stake in getting revenge on the German ship now. Then he ran off, obviously late to his assigned post and wanting to waste no more time with the American, even if he did wear the gold braid and stripes of a ranking officer.

Damn, thought Paul. I must have dozed off! Hood sunk already? Again? The irony cut him deeply. History did not really repeat itself, for this was a different battle altogether, but it certainly rhymed. What were the odds of Hood suffering the same disastrous fate? Apparently they were quite good, and her thin deck armor, an old and obvious weakness, was a much greater vulnerability than many had thought. The doors to the ready cache for ammo had been open and were suspected as a possible cause for the initial explosion that set off her magazines. Like throwing alighted match onto oil soaked rags, he thought. It was no mere fluke that Hood suffered such a dire fate. Then again, perhaps Mother Time herself was jealously taking back what was owed her, the floating Zombies of HMS Hood , men doomed on her accounts to find their way to the bottom of the sea, but he could think no more on it. There was a battle to fight!

He had planned to be up on the bridge when the action started, watching the big armored turrets turn and range on the target, belching out their fire and steel, the massive shells over six feet long flung out some twelve miles or more before they would come crashing down on the targets.

Rodney was here because he had steered her here, with considerable help from the big Scot at the helm, whose own best judgment wanted his ship pointed this way all along. But Paul was taking no chances this time. Simply dropping intelligence into the stew would not be enough. He wanted to be physically present, where he could use his foreknowledge of the history to do his utmost to get Rodney into the fight.

Hours ago, he had no idea how long it had been on the Meridian he came from, he and Kelly had poured over a battle map of the campaign fetched up by the Golems and they clearly saw that history was about to echo again with a dull, hollow sound of British defeat. Their planes would sight and strike at Bismarck , slowing her down, and one other Zombie soul Maeve had worried over would be taken home again when Lt. Campbell made his gallant attack on Bismarck , going to a fiery death to put his torpedo into her forward port side.

It was his hit that had been the decisive blow in forcing the action that was now underway. Force H was nowhere to be seen. Somerville was still hastening up from Gibraltar, but well out of the action. Perhaps she would yet have some part to play in this altered Meridian, but the chancy and very luck hit scored by the pilot off Ark Royal would not happen here. Not now.

Though the big German ship had slowed to 12 knots to make repairs, Bismarck had nearly finished the work, its sleek prow patched and most of the water pumped out. It was slightly down at the bow, for the damage had been far more extensive than first reported. But the engineers had patched her up, and she was ready to get back some speed when Admiral Holland suddenly came up on the scene, riding in with Hood and Prince of Wales, two doughty knights in armor, though one bore a hidden weakness that would soon prove her undoing.

Holland was dead by now, Paul knew, along with some 1400 other souls that Maeve no longer had to worry about. There were three survivors off Hood , the very same three that had survived the battle in the history Paul knew so well. And, as it also turned out, the dead men off Arethusa , the hapless cruiser that had become Bismarck’s first victim, numbered very few. Most of that crew made it into the boats and were rescued by a steamer out of Iceland not long thereafter.

Time was doing its best to balance her books, he thought. But this action, initiated by the roar of Rodney’s 16 inch guns, was something entirely new. In the history he had studied with Kelly Bismarck sailed on into Brest without further engagement. That was the clue they needed to make this intervention. Paul had insisted that Rodney was essential to the outcome, and he swore he could get the old battleship into the fight, one way or another. And here she was, face to face with the most formidable ship in the German navy.