Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (20 page)

Admiral
Scheer
made short work of the icebreaker,
and the gasoline on her decks went up like an inferno with Kranke’s third
salvo, which set off more explosions on the main deck as the splinters hit the
gasoline barrels. Kacharava was struck in the arm, bleeding badly, and soon
fell to the deck, lapsing into unconsciousness. Heavy black smoke mushroomed
over the ship, and the next German salvo penetrated to the boiler room, stopping
Sasha’s fitful engines. Vavilov lay lifeless on the coal dark floor.

Yet
topside, the brave Russian gunners continued to man a 76mm battery, firing
impudently at the German ship. Krancke closed the range and his forward turret
blasted again, finally silencing the enemy gun.

Chief
Bochurko knew he must not allow the Germans to board the ship, and he worked
his way past the licking flames to the radio room. There he found signalman Alexeyev,
and radioman Sharshavin gathering up all the maps, weather data, ice floe
reports and other code equipment. They threw everything into a rucksack and
hauled it out onto the weather deck.

“No!
Don’t throw it into the sea,” shouted Chief Bochurko. “Put it into the fire!” So
they heaved the heavy bag down onto the lower deck and watched as it was
consumed by the raging gasoline fire. Then the Chief told the two men to get
off the ship any way they could, and was last seen taking a ladder down into
the dark recesses of the stricken icebreaker. The survivors believed he
scuttled the ship, though no one ever really knew what happened to him.

At 15:00
Sasha
gave up one last gasp with an explosion amidships, then rolled
into the sea. The hiss of hot metal hitting the water was one of the last
sounds the survivors could remember. Then they saw the Germans launching boats
to rescue them, but stoker Matveyev would have none of it. He was shivering in
one of the few lifeboats that made it away from the ship, but when the German
boat came alongside, he threw an axe at the first man that tried to board.

There
passed the first hand to hand combat of the war between Germany and Russia,
with stoker Matveyev gunned down by a German officer wielding a luger, and the
other crewmen fighting to resist capture. German Naval infantry leapt aboard
the Russian boat, clubbing the sailors with the butts of their rifles. Three
leapt overboard to avoid capture, braving the icy waters in the hopes of
getting away. When it was over Kranke had fourteen prisoners, among them a man
named Zolotov, who was being ferried to a distant weather station to deliver
the new code books.

Kranke
had his
Kriegsmarine Funkaufklärung team
interrogated the Russians, but learned nothing of value, so he determined to go
after bigger fish, this time by making a raid on Port Dikson to the south. He
loitered for a time, then satisfied that there was nothing else to be seen, he
moved south, arriving off Port Dikson on July 8th. Little did he know that the
course he set would soon bring him afoul of the Russian flotilla that had been
hastily dispatched to the region.

“There
will be better pickings ashore,” said Kranke to his executive officer Heintz.

“Ashore?”

“Of
course, Heintz. We get their maps, weather information, vital data on this
northern convoy route, and possibly even their code machines this time. Just
you wait!”

“But
sir, we have already sunk two ships here! This will cause a major provocation.”

“Yes,”
said Kranke coolly. “It will.” He smiled, and Heintz immediately knew that
there was more in the Kapitän’s orders than he first revealed.

“That
first ship fired on us,” said Kranke. “We fired back. And you saw them train
those deck guns on us just now. I took appropriate defensive action, and now we
will punish the men ashore who gave the orders to attack the Kriegsmarine in
these neutral waters.”

“These
are not neutral waters, sir. We are well within the territorial limit claimed
by the Russians.”

“That
is not what the log books will read, Heintz. Get a head on your shoulders! It
will be our story against theirs, but none of that matters. The important thing
is that we have finally lit the match here, and now the fuse will be burning.
Besides, we didn’t start the shooting. The trouble started with U-46 and
Oberleutnant Grau.”

“Yes
sir,” said Heintz, feeling just a bit unsettled. “Grau started it, but one day
it must have an end somewhere—in either Moscow or Berlin.”

Kranke
raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing more.

* * *

The
cruiser
Kalinin
was supposed to have had a sad and
lonesome war. In Fedorov’s old history it was built in Siberia, the steel, guns,
and all other equipment shipped east on the trans-Siberian rail. Inactive
during the war, the ship would later become a floating barracks until it was
sold for scrap in 1963. But that history had changed in this new world. Instead
the ship’s parts were moved north to Murmansk, and the cruiser was commissioned
into the fleet just weeks ago, on the 8th of May, 1940. Designated the flagship
of the fledgling Red Banner Northern Fleet,
Kalinin’s
history would be
much more colorful.

At a
whisker over 10,000 tons full load,
Kalinin
had a respectable battery of
nine 180mm guns, a little over 7 inches and somewhat smaller than the typical
8-inch guns on a British heavy cruiser. There were also eight 85mm guns,
twenty-two anti-aircraft guns, a pair of triple 21-inch torpedo mounts, fifty
depth charges and over 100 mines aboard the ship.

Captain
Koinev commanded the new ship, and he also had a pair of sleek hounds at his
side that day, the destroyers
Kalima
and
Saku
. Originally meant
for the Black Sea Fleet under the Project 20, class, these new designs weighed
in at 3200 tons with a main armament of six 130mm guns and nine big torpedoes.
They also carried eighty mines, and were perhaps the fastest ships in the world
when commissioned into the Northern Fleet on direct orders from Sergie Kirov.
The destroyers easily could run at 40 knots, and at trials the
Kalima
even recorded a 43 knot sprint. They were ships that had never been completed
in the world Fedorov knew.

Now
Koinev was pacing on the bridge, impatient in spite of the speed he was making.
He was leading the cream of the Northern Fleet out to see about the numerous
reports of ships and shore installations coming under fire from what was
finally identified as a German raider. The war would not begin on the Polish frontier,
he thought. No, it begins here, in the cold north, and this incident will soon
be forgotten when the fighting starts on the ground. He knew the situation was
very dangerous now, but he was determined to defend the motherland with all the
skill he could muster.

The
radio intercepts painted a grim picture by the time he reached the channel near
the Port of Amderma after a 600 kilometer run east from Murmansk. The two
destroyers had come up from Archangel to join him along the way, and by the
time they reached Amderma the news of the loss of
Siberiakov
, old
Sasha
,
had angered the crew when they heard it. The German raider had slipped away and
had not been sighted since, but soon word came in from Port Dikson that a large
warship had been sighted rounding Cape Anvil and heading into the port.

“We
are under attack!”
came the urgent
warning, and the old port had little more to fight back with than three
antiquated 152mm siege guns positioned by the quay at the edge of the harbor.
There were no reinforced gun emplacements for them, and little ammunition, but
the gunners rushed to man them and fired bravely in the hopes of warding the
Germans off.

“Two
ships sighted… boats in the water… they are coming!”

Admiral
Scheer
was at work again, her 11-inch guns
pounding the harbor and providing ample cover while a detachment of 180 well
armed naval Marines went ashore.

“Damn!”
Koinev swore. “We are not ready!”

“There’s
a good local militia there,” said Rykov, his gunnery officer. “Perhaps they can
hold out until we get there.”

“Yet
what are we up against, Rykov? Reports are very scattered. They say the Germans
have U-boats and fast cruisers running wild in the Kara Sea, yet not a single
ship has been properly identified.”

“We
don’t need to know a ship’s name to put it at the bottom of the sea, sir. Just
give me a target, and I’ll drive them off. And let them try to run from
Kalima
and
Saku!”

Koinev
nodded, his confidence returning, but he was still pacing, restless on the
bridge when another message came in:
Kuibyshev engaged and sinking! S.O.S!

They
had run through the pale Arctic night, still lit by the sun, and cut through
the narrow Malygina Strait, heading due east for Port Dikson, but he was too
late to stop the Germans. Word came that they had overwhelmed the militia,
captured the port command buildings, and looted the place. Then they quickly
withdrew, setting buildings afire and blowing up the piers as they went.
Kuibyshev
was sunk on the way out.

The
watch soon spotted the mast and smoke of a ship, and the alarms sent all the
crew to action stations. The Germans were trying to move west into the Kara Sea
again, and a race ensued as Koinev turned up his speed and released the two
hounds that were leading his flotilla.
Kalinin
quickly worked up to
battle speed at 36 knots, but the new destroyers easily pulled ahead, both at
just over 40 knots as they raced to run down the German raider.

But
there were two ships now… The second sighting was called out almost immediately,
and Koinev knew he now had a battle on his hands. Ready or not, he whispered to
himself, here it starts, and here we come.

* * *

Kranke
had a long look at the ships approaching off his port
quarter. The Germans had pounded Port Dikson, stormed ashore and made off with
a rich haul of intelligence, leaving the Northwest Naval Command headquarters
there in a shambles. Now he was in the Kara Sea on a northeasterly course that
would take him up above the great barrier island of Novaya Zemlya. He could see
what looked like a pair of fast destroyers and one larger ship behind them, coming
up off his aft port quarter.

“Those
ships are fast,” he said. “We are running at 28 knots and it looks like they
will catch us in half an hour.”

“We
could turn northeast, sir,” Heintz suggested. “It would be an hour before they
could get close enough to engage.”

“Too
much ice there. We do not run, Heintz. Don’t forget that. We will have them in
range soon, but let’s see what we have here before I show them my guns.”

“It was
only a matter of time before they came out to challenge us,” said Heintz. “Soon
we will see how the Russian Navy fights.”

“Come
15 points to starboard. Let’s make them work.”

The two
destroyers were closing on a converging course, exceeding
Admiral Scheer’s
speed by over ten knots. They were outpacing the bigger ship behind them to the
west, obviously with orders to run the German quarry down.

Kranke
signaled
Nürnberg
to follow him. The light cruiser could run at 32 knots
if it had to, but it was clear to Kranke that there was going to be a fight
here. The Russian ships seemed much faster, and so he wanted to keep his ships
together. The Kapitän slowly pulled on his leather gloves, his jaw set, a
determined look on his face.

“They
are requesting name and country of origin.”

“Tell
them to come and find out for themselves.” Kranke was in no mood for the
niceties of international protocol.
Admiral Scheer
remained silent after
his curt reply. The next message would be sent with their 11-inch guns. At 11:00
he fired a single warning shot, and then sent a message for his log books:
Your
intent appears hostile. Break off or be fired upon. This is your final warning.
The Russian destroyers replied with their forward deck guns, though the rounds
fell well short.

“Well
gentlemen, let us begin.” Kranke nodded to his gunnery officer and
Scheer’s
turrets rotated into position, their triple barrels training on the target.
“Fire!”

The
roar of the guns shook the ship, and even as the rounds began to fall the barrels
were elevating to fire again. Kranke saw his spotting salvo was close enough,
and now the targets turned slightly and looked to be positioning themselves for
a torpedo run. The guns fired again, and this time he saw the tall splashes
dollop the waters just ahead of the lead destroyer. The enemy would prove to be
a fast and elusive target, zigzagging its way forward, and yet maintaining a
speed of 40 knots the whole run in.

“Such
speed!” Kranke exclaimed. “Those ships are faster than anything we have in the
fleet. Engage with secondary batteries.”

The
smaller 15cm guns would fire faster and train better at a high speed target,
and the Germans were going to need all the gunnery skill this ship and crew
would become famous for if it survived this battle. A hit was finally
registered on the lead ship, with smoke on the bow marking a small fire.