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Ein Geleitzug

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Letterstime - Ein Geleitzug - Point of Departure

by Joseph Czarnecki

11 September, 1914, Office of the Secretary of State for the Navy, Berlin

Grand Admiral Tirpitz hastily half-turned from the door and stuffed a sheet of paper into the middle of a stack on the credenza at the sound of the knock on the door. He rubbed his face briskly then barked "Enter!"

"Reporting as ordered, herr Grosseadmiral," announced his visitor, a younger man in his middle forties, wearing the uniform of a Kommodore. Slightly stocky, of average height, with eyes best described as Atlantik in color, the man presented a curious contrast to the similarly built, older, and plump Grand Admiral. Where Tirpitz was gloriously bald, but possessed of an ostentatious forked gray beard, the younger man had a full head of closely cropped, dark hair little touched by gray, and went most unfashionably clean-shaven.

"Letters, good." Tirpitz searched through some papers on his desk, as the young Commodore settled himself into a chair with the unbidden casualness of a man in the presence of his patron. "Here," Tirpitz announced, thrusting out an official letter, "read this."

Letters glanced at the document then up at Tirpitz for a disconcertingly long moment in which the older man thought perhaps he would not take the paper. Then the moment was past and Letters was holding the page, reading it carefully. "Well?" Tirpitz prompted.

"Herr Grosseadmiral, surely there are others already assigned to that office whom are perfectly equipped to perform this task. There is so much to be done here, I feel my place is to remain and assist you." Letters made the observation levelly and emotionlessly.

Tirpitz grunted, not fooled for an instant. So, young Letters wants to know "Why?" he thought. Well, that's none of his concern. "You are most valuable to me in this new task, All[ard]. I need someone reliable, whose opinion I can trust, should I have to make a difficult decision."

Again, for a fleeting moment there was that hesitation in the junior flag officer that instant of intensity, of words forestalled before being spoken, or thoughts considered and discarded. "I'll report immediately, sir," was what Letters said, even as his eyes flicked past his patron's right shoulder, perhaps distracted by something moving outside the window. Best keep this one away from the action, Tirpitz mused. He thinks too much and battle leaves little time for thinking.

"Very well," Tirpitz replied. "Make swift work of it. You are correct, I do need you here, but I need this task done...right. Dismissed."

"Herr Grosseadmiral," Letters replied by way of departure. Once the door shut, Tirpitz turned to his right and pulled the letter and its foreign envelope from the stack of paper he had jammed it into, opened it and reread the contents. Different emotions played across his face ranging from anguish to fury, but the only sound he made was a single deep sigh of relief.

14 September 1914, Fleet Landing, Wilhelmshaven.

"Well, if it isn't Tirpitz's pet," said a voice with what was slyly called a "southeastern Konigsberg" accent and just enough of a chuckle to leaven the seemingly sarcastic remark.

Kommodore All[ard] Small[ey] von Letters, turned and smiled. "At least I didn't have to marry a Bachmann to get a Flag. How are you, Erich? Oh, excuse me--" Letters ostentatiously drew himself to attention and saluted the other man. "Herr Kontreadmiral Necki."

Necki tossed back a casual salute and a laugh. "Some of us aren't born with a von, you know."

"So you take every opportunity to remind me. How is Anne?"

"Well. Apprehensive. Christine?"

"The same."

Erich Joseph Karl Necki nodded and glanced out at the heavy evening fog gathering over the harbor. "So where are you bound?"

"Seydlitz, to speak with Kontreadmiral Hipper."

Noting the absence of a boat from the Seydlitz, Necki remarked, "It would seem you are not expected."

Letters grinned ruefully. "Surprise visits from the Inspector General's Office seldom are."

"Ah," Necki observed flatly, and Letters looked at him sharply. Necki knew the look, but he didn't volunteer anything. "Since you're going my way, why don't you join me on my barge? I can put you off on the Seydlitz before I return to Kaiser."

The immediate problem of the next leg of his transportation fortuitously solved, Letters accepted the offer and followed Necki to his boat. Necki's staff coxswain saluted them both, welcomed Letters aboard and opened the hatch to the small cabin. It was already warm, speaking well of Necki's barge crew, and Letters unbuttoned his bridgecoat and removed his cap. Necki followed Letters aboard, spoke briefly with the coxswain, and entered the cabin. Like Letters, he unbuttoned his bridgecoat, but he did not remove his cap.

Necki appeared older than Letters, although by how much one couldn't really say. His hair was thinning, but not balding, and it was thoroughly shot through with grey. His eyes were the same leaden color as the pre-dusk misty shroud over the harbor, almost the same shade as the great warships lying in it. A few inches shorter than the Commodore, Rear Admiral Necki had much the same build.

"So how do you find 6th Division?" Letters ventured.

"Assymetrical," was Necki's laconic reply. "The 5th is much better designed."

"But less experienced," Letters suggested, and Necki nodded. "But I agree, we should have been following the Americans in that, not the British."

"They got it right from the start," Necki observed, "although they took their time about it."

Letters then wrinkled his nose, ever-so-slightly, before suppressing it. His eyes began to search about the cabin. "So what is next for you?" Idly, the two officers followed the progress of the barge's crew in casting off and setting the motor launch slowly on its way in the darkening harbor.

Necki shrugged. "That's almost a year away, but I have no idea. Since both Grosseadmirals for obvious reasons don't trust my loyalties I have, as the Americans say, 'two strikes against me,' and I'm probably swinging for my third with Ingenohl. He thinks I'm too aggressive. I'd guess a position under my in-law in the Baltic--if Prinz Heinrich wasn't his commander. Gesundheit."

"Pardon me," Letters replied, recovering from his sneeze, "but I really must point out that smell..." Necki saw the younger man's eyes narrow and focus near his shoes then begin a slow climbing examination of him, finally pausing lingeringly at his left temple. "You're damp and stained," the Commodore observed, "You've been hurt," an accusing finger came up to aim at the side of Necki's head, "And you stink like you fell in the harbor. What happened to you?"

Laughing, Necki took off his cap, fully exposing the modest bandage along the hairline of his left temple and part of his forehead. "I'll answer that only if I have your most solemn oath that Grosseadmiral Tirpitz will hear nothing of it from you."

Letters gazed hard at Necki, but the other simply gazed back, unflinchingly. "You have it," Letters muttered, his curiosity apparently getting the better of him.

"I crashed," the admiral announced without preamble.

"Why were you...? Wait. The barge is undamaged... Were you at Tondern?!? I did not hear one of those went down today!"

"A Zeppelin? Mein Gott, not one of those things! I'd have been burnt to a crisp!" Necki was grinning from ear to ear.

"A flugzeug?" Letters asked, mildly surprised.

"Da." The admiral was chuckling almost uncontrollably now.

"Since when have you been riding in flugzeugs? I hope the careless pilot has been disciplined."

Necki continued to laugh, a tear starting at one eye. "I should certainly hope not!"

Letters, normally the most unflappable of personalities, wore a look of surprise and began to grin himself. "Well, since you dragged that promise out of me, I guess he won't be. What happened?"

"Oh, a truly wonderful flight. Everything went as smooth as silk. The new machine handled perfectly and it was my best flight to date."

"Perfect flights don't leave you smelling of dead fish."

"How would you know?" Necki challenged, setting Letters back a moment, before being rewarded with a challenging scowl. "Actually, it's dead bird. Kormoran to be precise. Several of them."

"Did you land on them?"

"No, they hit me. They must have panicked at the sound of the engine and taken flight from wherever they were roosting in a little wood I was passing over. They burst out right in front of me and I couldn't avoid them. Still being in their climbs, they apparently were rather lacking in maneuverability as well. The airscrew shattered after hitting one or more of them, spraying guts, feathers and splinters everywhere. I'm not exactly sure how the aerofoils got torn in a couple of places, but with a smashed screw and holes in the wings, I made a rather hasty, unpowered landing in a marsh a bit short of the harbor."

Letters was actually laughing. "I guess they chose to sacrifice a few of their own to remove you and your impertinent machine from their realm."

"So it would seem. At least my own independent unpowered flight and abrupt second landing washed off the feathers and most of the offal, but I'm afraid I'll be buying a new uniform. Two actually. I've made a note of having some sort of special flying attire made."

"You're surely not going to do this again?"

"And waste the effort I've already expended to successfully fly alone! Certainly not after passing my examination flight."

"Your instructors passed you after a landing like that?" Letters asked incredulously.

Necki waved the matter off. "They're hardly uncommon. All but one of the instructors has had a mishap in the last week. So long as you can walk away from it, the landing is graded at least satisfactory. Machines are expendable. Aviators are not."

"It sounds more like you swam away from that landing."

"No, the water was shallow enough to stand up in it," Necki replied with a smirk.

"Why this suicidal avocation, Erich? Didn't you get close enough to death in 1904?"

Necki shrugged again, but he was no longer laughing, and something dark passed through his expression that suggested he was nowhere near as happy-go-lucky about his accident as he was putting on. It passed quickly and he continued more conversationally. "I met a man last year in the American Navy named Kenneth Whiting. He had some interesting ideas about aviation and navies."

"Such as?"

"Nothing I'm prepared to discuss as yet. The technology is still too crude," Necki replied cryptically.

Letters let that pass. "So when do you flap away on your next foolhardy adventure?"

"I already have. You have to get back on the horse. Of course, it wasn't as good of a flight."

Cringing inwardly at the possible revelation of a second disaster, Letters asked, "What happened?"

Waving off Letters' concern, Necki chuckled. "Nothing. After the surgeon bandaged my head, I walked right over to the other machine and flew a short flight around the field. I only spent about 20 minutes in the air. It wasn't pretty, but it sufficed." When Letters looked askance at that, Necki shrugged and said, "I wasn't very smooth on the controls; my hands were shaking too much."

"It's a young man's game."

Snorting, Necki challenged, "Then it should be you up there!"

"I'm not a 'crazy Russian.'"

Necki let that pass, his whimsical aire of the last several minutes vanishing. "You know you're being used," he said abruptly.

It was Letters' turn to shrug. "It's in the nature of things. There must be investigations, facts gathered, lessons learned and new plans made."

"Good men side-lined out of personal pique...?"

"Excuse me, Admiral?" Letters said coldly.

Necki stared right back into Letters' eyes. "You've been sent to write a particular report, for a particular purpose. Don't think he'll accept for a moment any other conclusion. He's ruthless, and he'll cast you aside the moment you're of no use to him...or displease him." Letters said nothing, waiting. Necki sat back, in no hurry to continue and seemingly listening to the motor chugging, and the water sliding past the launch's hull.

Finally the older man went on. "Franz is a good man. He made his way up by merit. In fact, he has less staff time than I do, and more time at sea. But, as I'm sure you're tired of hearing, he doesn't have a von, and a couple of his captains who do are very aware of that. They write letters that don't go through the chain of command, and don't present a flattering picture." Still Letters remained silent, but now Necki could tell he was thinking, probably at double speed. Idly, Necki wondered if there would be any way to get Letters to sea and into a fighting command where he belonged. The High Seas Fleet needed sharp aggressive leaders who could think--leaders like Franz Hipper and All[ard] von Letters.

"Tirpitz," Necki added, "also writes letters. Vitzeadmiral Lans, of 1st Squadron received one that I overheard him whispering about. Tell me, where is your patron's son Wolf serving these days?"

The question apparently surprised Letters. No doubt the young Commodore had been devoting his considerable mental energies to his duties at the Admiralstab and not the social aspects of power, something Necki found refreshing and uncommon about the nobleman. "I believe Wolf Tirpitz is assigned to...the Mainz." Realization dawned, and Letters scowled and clenched his jaw. Necki could almost see his mind switching gears and speeding along a new tangent. "Still, that doesn't mean there's nothing to find."

"Perhaps," Necki granted, "and I trust you to do what you believe to be right and in the best interest of the Fleet. I've known you for twelve years, and I believe I know that much about you. I just wanted you to know what other agendas are at work. I don't know if there's a graceful way out, but I expect if anyone can figure out how to maneuver himself out of it, it's you. Despite the grief I give you, it's not just Tirpitz and that von that have brought you this far."

Letters' mind was now fully engaged on the new problem. "What's your stake in this, Erich?"

Necki's serious expression didn't change. "You mentioned it before. I've been swimming twice; I don't want to do it a third time and most particularly at the hands of the English." Glancing out a port, Necki noticed a large ship's stern light looming close aboard. "I believe this is your stop." A change in the pitch of the barge's motor confirmed the fact.

Letters looked unhappy, angry and hurt all at once, probably something only someone who had known him as long as Necki could discern. "I hope you're wrong."

Necki nodded. "I'm sure you do, but I had another interesting conversation last year in America, with another naval officer named Pratt. That one wasn't about flugzeugs, but about loyalty. He mentioned that there are two kinds. One we understand very well here in Germany, and that is 'loyalty up' as he called it. The other is 'loyalty down.'"

As the barge bumped ever-so-slightly against Seydlitz's accommodation ladder's float (more a gentle announcement from the coxswain than any lapse of his skill), Letters gathered up his cap and began buttoning his bridgecoat. "I take your point, Erich. And I'll say thank you, although I'm not sure I really feel thankful. This has been a very disturbing conversation, and not one I expected."

Necki looked down at the deck, lips pursed and face grim. Without looking up, he replied, "All[ard], a friend is someone who tells you that you stink of bird guts even when you don't want to hear it, or it might be embarrassing."

"Permission to debark, Kontreadmiral?" Letters asked.

"Permission granted, Kommodore. Good luck."

Letters nodded to Necki, but did not salute inside the cabin, then proceeded up on deck. It was full dark now and eerie haloes surrounded the dimmed stern and ladder lights. Two sailors from Seydlitz were holding the barge's lines, and a junior officer was looking down from the deck above. The Commodore complimented the coxswain and stepped off onto the ladder's stage, hearing the appropriate bells rapped out lightly above. Even as he stepped quickly up the ladder, the barge motored away slowly toward wherever the Kaiser was anchored. At the top of the ladder, Letters saluted and requested permission to come aboard from the young Leutnant zur See on watch.

As the young officer diligently read the orders the Commodore handed him by shielded electric torch, another figure appeared on the quarterdeck. An average-height, balding man, with what remained of his hair very close-cropped, walked up. He wore a mustache and a small goatee in the common fashion and his eyes held a suppressed mirth. He also wore the uniform of a Rear Admiral. Letters saluted, but the uncovered admiral waved it away. "At ease, Kommodore, and welcome aboard my flagship. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" Almost, but not quite unnoticed in the dark, the admiral's nose twitched twice.

"Kontreadmiral Hipper, I've been asked to investigate the action of the 28th."

"Good. It's about time. I have a great deal I'd like to share with you about that," Franz Hipper replied in a manner so utterly genuine that Letters smiled faintly. As Letters retrieved his orders from the lieutenant, Hipper placed a hand on the back of his shoulder and turned him toward the darkened hatchway leading inboard. After a few steps, Hipper asked, "Forgive me, I don't mean to be rude, but I should tell you there is a vaguely unpleasant smell that seems to be coming from..."

Letters laughed. "It's a long story, Admiral."

Hipper smiled. "Well then I suppose you'd best start telling it."

"I'm afraid the protagonist would be most upset if I did," Letters apologized.

"That scamp, Necki?" Hipper guessed, and laughed. "Do you know he wrecked one of my flugzeugs today? Probably thinks I don't know about it, yet. Whatever he told you can't possibly be any stranger than what happened to him aboard the U-1."

Letters looked over at Hipper as he was about to step into the darkened vestibule of the inboard hatch. "What happened on the U-1?"

"Oh, now that's a very long story..."

--30--

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