John Schettler - Golem 7

“Down scope,” he said, a disconsolate, defeated look on his face. He glanced at his executive officer, then at Souvad, the navigator who had urged him not to attack convoy HX-126. “She’s finished,” he said in a low voice, eyes averted now, shoulders slumping, and they knew at once he was not referring to Rodney .

“We did all we could, sir,” said Souvad.

“Not enough,” said Wohlfarth. “I should have listened to you, Souvad. I should have listened…”

The U-boat captain, his boat low on fuel, would return to the sub pens at Lorient, there to be greeted by Admiral Donitz himself and awarded the Knight’s Cross for valor and distinguished service. But he would never forget the sight of Bismarck bravely fighting and dying in her final hours at sea. It was to be his last successful U-boat cruise. On his very next mission, after a brief, well deserved leave in France, his boat would be hunted down by three British destroyers and forced to the surface. Wohlfarth and a number of his crew would be captured and spend the remainder of the war in a British prison.

As for Bismarck , she was indeed unsinkable. But there was very little of the ship left after another hour of pounding by the three British battleships. They fired all of 3000 rounds at her, until the ship was reduced to a twisted mass of burning metal and belching oily black smoke. It was a savage reprisal to avenge the loss of Hood , but as the battle wore on, the scene became a sickening vendetta, and soon the men aboard Rodney came to feel a strange kinship with the German sailors they saw leaping into the tumult of the seas.

The chaplain aboard Rodney made a direct appeal to Captain Dalrymple-Hamilton. “For God’s sake,” he cried. Can’t you see the ship is finished?” The big Scot would have nothing of that, sending the man below decks, the angry heat of battle still on him. But in time even he came to feel that each salvo he fired was nothing more than brutal, mindless vengeance. Yet the ship would just not sink! Finally he took a deep breath, peering through his field glasses for one last look at the dying German battleship. “She’s had enough,” he said in a low voice. “And we’ve had enough of this bloody business as well. Cease fire.”

A dark stillness fell on the scene, as both of Tovey’s ships also fell silent, the smoke still oozing from their guns. The big battleships had won the day. Now the cruisers and destroyers were vectored in to finish the job with their torpedoes, scoring several hits, but the ship would just not go down until the last remnants of her crew set off the scuttling charges deep in her bowels, finally destroying the marvel of her secret new hull and armor design, and seeing her roll over and slip beneath the restless sea.

On August 11, 1941 Bismarck would not sortie out of Brest to find and sink the Prospector of Convoy OS-85, along with three other ships, and a man named Thomason would arrive safely at his assigned post at Alexandria.

Months later he would lead a Royal Navy commando raid behind German lines near Bardia, and there he would gun down a Berber scout when the man sought to lead in a group of light German armored cars in an aborted counterattack. Kasim al Khafi would keep his appointment with death that night, and he would not wander into a bar in Benghazi years later, an old army veteran drowning his sorrows in stiff drink and the bosom of a willing barmaid. Kenan Tanzir would not be born, and would not spend a warm May evening in suite 911 at Le Méridien Oran Hotel as Americans thought to begin a busy Memorial Day weekend an ocean away. Nor would he be passenger fifteen aboard a charter flight into La Palma the next evening, leaping into the night over Cumbre Vieja with praise for Allah on his lips.

The day would dawn, clear and cool over the Canary Islands, with light breeze from the east and a chance of scattered showers later that evening.

They were gatheredaround the Golem Module, watching as the Weight of Opinion solidified, the lines of red and amber fading to light green, then solid deep emerald indicating all was well. Kelly checked the decimal readings, noting very high integrity percentages, particularly on Golem Bank number seven, which had reached an early conclusion concerning this intervention, leading in the other Golem Banks until there was a unanimous return. The continuum had healed, and all the course of the Meridian from 1941 to the present was now clear and safe.

“It was the damn torpedoes,” said Paul, “just like you said, Kelly. I was headed up to the bridge when Wohlfarth hit Rodney with those last two fish. That’s what pulled me below decks. Wohlfarth! If he hadn’t fired I would have been up on the bridge if I could get there. I can’t tell you how bad I wanted to see this battle.”

“So you closed a vital hatch below decks and saved Rodney’s own torpedo room,” said Kelly. “And that’s what slowed Bismarck down. Another damn torpedo. Thank God it’s over now. Just a few data variations, but the percentages look good. Minor stuff, really.”

“We were bound to get something off,” said Maeve. “There were deaths on the Arethusa , and so we may be missing a few ancestors.”

“Well, we won’t notice anything in this segment of the Meridian. Not on our watch. But there is a possibility that a few of these variation fissures may widen over time. They could get more serious in years hence, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I’m just glad the data is settling down,” said Robert. “I can at least expect to find the history in one piece, just where I left it, the next time I do research.”

“Any more lose twine in this report, Kelly?” asked Maeve. “I want no unfinished business this time.”

“Well now that you mention it,” said Kelly. “I was trying to run down more information on that Cargo ship, the Darlington Court .”

“The one that was supposed to have been sunk by U-556 ?”

“Right, but it survived in this intervention and reached its destination safely—then blew up in a rather spectacular way.”

“It blew up?”

“Big time. It was supposed to have been carrying wheat, but Paul’s suspicion was correct. There was something else secreted aboard that ship. It took out two other vessels, one over a mile away as it was approaching the anchorage. I didn’t think much about that at first, until Golem 7 produced another variant flag. Industrious group that bunch. Come to find out… the steaming order had been altered just before the ships came into port.”

“Someone was shuffling the deck again.”

“Right, and a few new ships were added to this berthing to make up for losses sustained during the U-boat attacks. One of them was named the Prospector, and it was supposed to be berthed right next to Darlington Court, but it was moved to another harbor at the last minute. The paper trail is thin, but I found a record of the transfer order, or rather Golem 7 did. It was signed by a Lieutenant Commander James Conners, Royal Navy, so I sleuthed him out as well, and get this—he was listed as a casualty during a German bombing raid during the blitz in late 1940…

“Curious,” said Maeve, “and very suspicious. Sounds like someone assumed Conners’ identity and shuffled some paper to get that ship moved somewhere else, and well away from Darlington Court .”

“Right, and Prospector was the ship that was later assigned to Convoy OS-85, the one carrying Thomason to Alexandria.”

It was clear that someone else had been operating here, with intention to spare the life of the Prospector , for one reason or another.