Statz heard the loudspeaker call out the first salvo over, but he wasn't concerned because he was sure that the fire-control station would find the range, deflection, and speed of the enemy vessels and he would hear: Good Rapidâfire for effect.
He could taste the cordite and his ears rang from the explosion of number-one gun and he felt, as he always felt when they first fired the gun, a little dizzy. The breech swung open and the spanning tray clanked into place and Statz heard the distant rumble of the heavy shell as it sped up the hoist. The hoist door flew open and the shell, dull gray except for its brilliant yellow nose, dropped easily on the spanning tray, waiting impatiently for the rammer to slide it gently into the breech.
“Come on, boys,” Statz urged happily. “Don't lag. Just like training. One foot in front of the other. One, two, one, two.”
“Now he's got us in the army,” Wurst chimed in, pulling the rammer back.
“Not me,” Scholtz said, allowing three powder bags to roll onto the spanning tray. “I'm a sailor.”
“You're a shit!” Manthey offered loudly, and the gun crew burst into laughter.
They worked like a machine, Statz noted proudly. They were happy because they were no longer training. This was not simply the routine of load, fire, load, fire with the 8.8cc subcaliber gun that was inserted in the sixteen-inch barrel for practice firing; this was battle.
When Bruno fired, it was the Fellow Upstairs speaking to them in a voice that shook not only the turret but also the entire ship. God in heaven shouting encouragement to them in words that traveled down to the shell flats where
Bootsmanns-maats
directed teams at each shell hoist to send the shells to the gun rooms. And each hoist team was supported by three
Matrosenhauptgefreiters
in the forward part of the shell room who replenished the shell supply on the inner ring near the hoists from the fixed storage area. They were big men, strong men who used lashing chains and bucklers, applying a snubbing rope below the shell's rotating band so that they could slide the shell across the steel deck plates and into position.
Each step in the turret, each movement, each action related to another until the gun controller sitting on his tiny platform switched the indicator to lock, ready, shoot.
The firing bell shattered the interior of gun number one. Statz turned away from the gun, clamped his hands over his ears, and opened his mouth to lessen the chance of having his eardrums burst. Despite all of this, he still managed a contorted grin of satisfaction.
Â
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H.M.S.
Firedancer
Â
Things started getting very interesting for
Firedancer
when
Sea Lion
's port secondary battery of 150mm L55 SK-C/28 and 105mm L65 SK-C/33 guns began to fire. The sea around
Firedancer
erupted in fountains of angry foam.
“Bloody hell,” Hardy shouted as cold sea spray rained across the bridge. “Are we the only bloody bastards out here? Shoot at someone else, won't you?”
Land was guiding the ship through the voice tube to the quartermaster on a wildly erratic course to throw off the German gunners. So far they had been remarkably successful at dodging the shells. But the noose was tightening.
Firedancer
had to get close enough to
Sea Lion
to launch her torpedoes.
Firedancer
had to engage the enemyâ
Firedancer
had to offer up herself as a tempting target.
Cole knew that it was a matter of percentagesâX number of German shells fired in Y amount of time from Z number of German guns against an overage British destroyer darting about the ocean for its life, and each minute trying to get close enough to fire its torpedoes, equals. Equals . . .
“Well, Mr. Cole,” Hardy shouted to him above the crash of shells and the fiendish hiss of the towers of spray falling back into the sea, “fancy a transfer back to Coastal Command?”
“I'll fill out the papers tomorrow,” Cole said.
“It'll get worse, Mr. Cole,” Hardy said. “We're not within range of their quadruple-mount antiaircraft guns yet.” He staggered back to the bulkhead, trying to keep his footing on the slippery deck, and cranked the handset. “Torpedo Station? Bridge. Captain here. Deploy your tubes to port. Repeat, deploy your tubes to port. I shall fire them from the bridge. Acknowledge. Right.”
“They haven't fired their aft main batteries yet,” Land noted.
“Indeed,” Hardy agreed. “Some trick, I assume.”
“You've got to steer a relatively straight course in for the torpedo run,” Cole said, shaking his head with admiration at the patience and skill of the German gunners. “They'll let go when we start our run because they know that we can't vary our course.”
“Why, the bloody bastards!” Hardy said. “It's not enough that they try and kill me with everything they've got. Now they want to trick me in the bargain. Well done, Mr. Cole. Well done, indeed.”
“Not at all, Captain,” Cole said, wiping the salt spray from his face. “I was once told never to assume anything. It makes an assâ”
“Go to Hades!” Hardy snapped.
It was then a 150mm shell landed close to
Firedancer
, peppering her with shrapnel. The explosion startled the little ship and she hove to, throwing the bridge party against the bulkhead.
Cole heard the splinters hit, a rapid barrage of thudsâsome sounds thick where the splinters hit the hull, some quick, innocent rips where the splinters sheered through the thin steel of gun tubs, funnels, or deck housings. He felt his heart beating against the walls of his chest. It was the feeling that he had felt aboard
N-for-Nancy
. He was scared again.
Hardy pulled himself to the voice tubes. “Wheelhouse, Bridge. Port ten. Port ten, do you hear?” Cole could tell from Hardy's voice that he wasn't the only one who had been frightened by that close call.
“Can anyone see
Prometheus
, for God's sake?” Hardy shouted.
“Here, sir,” Land said, blood streaming down a gash near his temple. Cole watched as Number One ignored his wound and trained his binoculars back to the smudge of smoke aft. “I've got her masthead, sir. She's just coming around.” He scanned to the left. “
Windsor
and
Eskimo
are both turning to starboard. They've stopped making smoke.”
“Salvo from
Sea Lion
,” Cole called out at the telling flash, followed instantly by the rolling cloud of gun smoke that seemed to consume
Sea Lion
.
Three sets of binoculars trained on
Prometheus
.
“They'll have her straddled this time,” Hardy said bitterly. “Or close to it.”
The six German shells hit within a split second of one another, far off
Prometheus
's starboard quarter but close to
Eskimo
and
Windsor
. There were five fountains of yellow water thrown high into the air. They hung for a moment as if observing the battle and then fell lazily, harmlessly back into the sea. It was the sixth shell, maybe one of the first fired, or the last, maybe from Anton or Bruno; but it was the one that killed a destroyer. There was a huge explosion followed by a blast of smoke and debris that filled the sky.
“Who is it?” Hardy shouted. “Who got it?”
Land's glasses dropped and he said: “
Windsor
. Direct hit.”
Cole found the stricken ship through the lenses of his binoculars. Black-brown smoke boiled from within her, fed by fierce yellow flames that raged from the bridge to the second funnel. She appeared distorted somehow and he was about to adjust the focus when he realized her back was broken. Her bow jutted out of the sea a good fifteen degrees and her stern only five degrees, but it was twisted to port, wrenched from the body of the ship by the explosion. She would not die slowly. The sea would claim her through shattered bulkheads and sprung watertight doors, or the fires would reach magazines and set off shells and torpedoes. There would be no survivors. If the explosions did not kill them, then the sailors of H.M.S. Windsor would die in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, falling into a deep, comforting sleep that led to death.
“God help those men,” Hardy said and then called down the voice tube. “Starboard thirty.” He moved to the other tube. “Engine Room, Bridge. Smoke, and lots of it. Now, unless you want to end up like poor
Windsor
.”
Cole threw Land a questioning glance.
We're turning away from
Sea Lion, he thought.
What the hell's going on?
Turning away, he asked himself,
Or running away?
“Captain?” Land said.
“We're showing
Sea Lion
our stern, Number One. We've gone and joined the Reciprocal Club. She can't tell our bow from our stern at this angle, so she can't tell if we're coming or going, and by God, I want them to see us going.”
“Captainâ”
“Did you see the size of those bricks, Cole? Big as houses, they were. Poor
Windsor
. Cunningham was a fine man. No drinker he, but a fine man. Wheel amidships if you please, Number One.”
What the hell is going on?
Cole wondered.
Has this guy gone crazy? First he pumps smoke into the air and then begins a big circle as if he's hightailing it out of here and now
. . . Cole couldn't help the smile.
“Ah, you've got it, Cole,” Hardy said. “Kudos to you, young man. Number One, we shall go out a bit with the smoke covering our movements and then turn sharply to starboard and run with all speed at the enemy. At the appropriate time we shall turn hard to port and being just off her bow, launch a full spread of torpedoes. That should give her pause.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Surely you did not think I had intentions of running from the enemy?” Hardy said.
“I had my doubts, sir,” Land said.
“Yes,” Hardy said slowly, gazing at the smoke plume that marked
Windsor
's grave. “After seeing what happened to that poor devil, I had my doubts as well.”
Â
Â
“Swing them to starboard, swing them to port, and now the bloody simpleton on the bridge wants them amidships again,” Chief Torpedo Gunner's Mate Baird said as he sat in the cramped cockpit on top of the four torpedo tubes and cranked number one back into position. He leaned over the back of the cockpit, a low tub that housed the compressed air indicators, training gear, and backup firing mechanism, and called to Engleman.
“Did you see her go up?” he shouted.
“Too right, I did,” Engleman said, standing by at the torpedo shack. He led the sailors who winched the additional torpedoes deep within the stores, up through the open doors of the shack, and into the tubes. Once they were loaded and the compressed air was charged, number-one station would be ready to fire a spread again. “Was it Cunningham on the
Windsor
? That tall skinny chap with an Adam's apple as big as a coconut?”
“As if you've seen a coconut,” Baird said. “Heâ”
“Number One Station,” Sublieutenant Morrison called crossly as he quickly passed the station. “You will direct the tubes to starboard.”
Baird watched him disappear beyond the funnel, making for the second torpedo station. “Lord Nelson always favored those bastards on Number Two Station,” he said, pressing the brake lever and gripping the handles of the turning wheel in each hand firmly. It was geared to the machinery that spun the tubes in the proper direction and moved smoothly enough considering that all the power called upon to move it was located in the muscles of one man. “Tommy Blessing? Are you standing by, Boy Seaman?”
“Yes, Torps,” Blessing said, stationed at the thick compressed air hoses that fed the tanks of the torpedo tubes. It was a blast of compressed air that shot the torpedoes out of the tubes and engaged their onboard engines so that once the torpedoes hit the water their screws were spinning in a blur. The torpedoes should right themselves and come to a proper depth and cut a straight line to their target and with any luck one of four would hit, or with better luck make it two, or with phenomenal luck and the help of the sea gods there would be three deep explosions. And if someone on board
Firedancer
had sold his soul to the devil or the Royal Navy, then all four might hit.
“Don't worry about bricks,” Baird said. “
Firedancer
's too small and too fast for that nonsense. You just keep your mind on my air and all will be right in the end.” The condition of the compressed air tanks was critical. If the pounds-per-square-inch were inadequate due to the tanks or hoses being pierced, the torpedoes would rest impotently in their tubesâuseless.
The number-one torpedo station swung into position and locked with a clang. Baird released the brake, licked his lips, and waited. Glancing around for Lord Nelson, he pulled a cigarette and a pack of matches from his coat. He pulled the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled appreciatively. “Boy Seaman,” he called to Blessing, “run down to the pub and get me a pail of Guinness and a blowsy barmaid.”