Letterstime - Ein Geleitzug: Homeward Bound? Part XL
July 8,
1915
---- Rheinland, course 080, speed 15 knots
Most of the
gunfire ceased. The lull would last for
nearly a half-minute, as though all had paused in prayer for Colossus’ eight
hundred dead. In secular reality, the
bursting and blazing pyre that marked Colossus’ demise had blinded most of the
gunners of both fleets.
One of the
exceptions was Rheinland’s stern turret commander,
whose eyes had been closed at the time of the explosion. After a glance through squinted eyes, he had
shifted to the ship astern of Colossus: Vanguard. His first shell landed short and skipped into
the leading edge of her bow twelve feet above the waterline, snipping out a
chunk of metal the size of a steamer trunk.
Observers aboard Agincourt directly on her beam wrote after the battle
that her bow had suddenly come to resemble a nicked blade. His next shot splashed just short of Vanguard’s
hull in line with her forward turret.
The fleet
cannonade gradually resumed then, though with odd irregularity as gunners
struggled to reacquire their targets with still-degraded night vision or, in
some cases, re-target entirely. Gunners
were forced to make individual decisions such that many ships split their
fire. The other two operable turrets
aboard Rheinland, for example, resumed shooting at
Marlborough, even after the stern turret had properly shifted to Vanguard. Posen also stayed on Marlborough, even though
Ostfriesland (ahead of her) had shifted to Colossus
(astern of Marlborough) and now further back to Vanguard.
Those crewing the 88 mm guns followed their training and went with
their ships’ searchlights. In contrast,
all the 150 mm gunners simply opened fire on the first enemy ship they
saw. For most of them, that was
Marlborough.
----
Marlborough, course 090 (varying), speed 17.5 knots (slowing)
Another
gunnery exception was Marlborough’s bow turret
captain. The glare originated completely
behind him so, if anything, it served to improve his visibility. His main problem was that his ship had just
jogged a few hundred yards off line as after-steering fought to regain control
of the ship and return her to the previously ordered course. The ship had also slowed then regained most
of what had been lost as the engineers pushed the on-line boilers to make up
for lost ones. With the range under
5,000 yards, the gunner could cope with small changes in speed and
position. What he couldn’t compensate
for were sudden lists, and that was what was happening as the steering engines
left Marlborough’s wake a bit on the snaky side. The first shells he fired after the great
flash astern splashed short of Helgoland as Marlborough’s wounded hull canted one way, then over her
masts as it tilted the other. He cursed
whoever had his hand on the wheel, not knowing that those hands - and the wheel
itself - were no longer aboard, having been blasted over the side by enemy
shells.
Meanwhile,
back in after-steering, the junior officer in charge there was quite
justifiably, at least in his opinion (NOTE 1) in a prince of a black mood. He was steaming along with two other
dreadnoughts and two other columns in some sort of great battle and he was
doing so despite being totally blind!
Where was the Admiral? His Captain? The Commander? Where
in the hell was everyone?!
“Sir! The secondary station! It’s Mr. Balzer!”
While
hardly one of the lofty officers he had just been hoping for, LT Balzer was senior to him, which made him senior enough!
“Yes, sir!”
Balzer’s
post had been at the three-pounders in the aft
superstructure. A few minutes ago, a 280
mm shell from Rheinland had effectively converted it
into a blackened inferno and, whatever that 300 kilo angel of death might have
overlooked, the many smaller demons that had followed had not. Malevolent re-visitations continued there
long after no living soul remained.
Balzer
was a Christian, and so he believed in hell.
If he had begun this night an atheist, the scene that met his eyes when
again he had opened them might well have converted him. One moment, he was exhorting his men - a full
two score - to vigilance as Hun torpedo boats had already been reported, and
the next he knew he was amidst flaming ruins and scattered body parts. Not two yards away, a viscous fluid was
sizzling at the edge of what appeared to be a Roman candle jetting out from
beneath a gun breech. From the smell, it
had to be blood. Hellfire, shellfire,
there’s only a single letter’s difference, he thought as he stared around him
in detached horror. There was little
else he could do, as that same gun mount had him pinned against the
bulkhead. Its mass had warded off all
the Beelzebub bits and saved his life, but he didn’t know that. Two of his men had appeared then and, after
cutting him out of his cork life vest, had dragged him out into a baptism of
rain on the lee side of battle.
Eventually, soaked and shivering, he returned from wherever it is that
men go in such situations and was able to get back on his feet.
Somehow, he
made his way to the secondary conning station, or what was left of it, which
wasn’t all that much. (NOTE 2) Jagged struts and dangling cables were about
all that remained even remotely recognizable.
Of the previous inhabitants, there was no sign at all. He and one of his men flattened themselves on
the deck there behind a stub of armor as the rain from the heavens landed cold
on their backs and the rain from the Huns landed all around them. Blinding lights, muzzle flashes, thundering
guns, and ear-splitting explosions pounded at him from all sides, but of the
battle itself he could make no sense.
Major caliber hits shook the deck like a stick in a terrier’s jaws. Shrapnel rang off the little armor cowling or
made little ominous whirring sounds to mark their passage, metallic wasps with
lethal stingers.
“Tell him
the bridge isn’t answering,” the LT Bohemia instructed
his communicator below, then added enthusiastically, “And that we await his
orders!”
When his
man relayed that, Balzer did not even lift his head
to gaze forward. He had already done
that and the sight had only added to the water running down his face.
“Tell him,”
was all that Balzer replied, shouting.
“Aye, s’or.”
The sailor hardly flinched when another pair of 88 mm shells struck
nearby. It helped that much to be told
what to do. The flinching came below-decks at his shouted reply, the horror bearing
every bit the shock of shells.
Balzer
just wished someone would tell HIM! All
he knew was that the enemy remained somewhere to starboard; Marlborough’s
midships turret was pointing that way and even
occasionally shooting. To rise up from
his exposed position to look that way himself would be suicide. Nor could he see ahead or astern. The only direction he could see was to port,
where mighty and concussive muzzle flashes served to remind him that his was
not the only ship of His Majesty’s Royal Navy at sea. For the moment, it would have to do.
---- Necki-Hanzik-Ballin Force, course 150, speed 20 knots
“What?” Kapitain Dirk could
not help himself. He had just come onto
the bridge of von der Tann,
about to spell his XO, the doughty “Commander of the Horse” Bavaria. Now, he stood silently beside his XO at the
bridge rail.
They had
apparently succeeded in breaking contact with the British cruiser pair and – per the plot
spread out on von der Tann’s
chart table - were going to arrive at the designated point precisely on
schedule. In fact, they had slowed a
while ago lest they get there prematurely.
All that remained was to remake the formation in the pre-dawn glow
perhaps 90 minutes off.
“I have a
bad feeling about this,” Bavaria muttered mostly under his breath.
“Ich auch,” Dirk replied.
Derfflinger
had just sounded a blast from her great steam whistle - most definitely not
something one would expect an admiral to do while trying to avoid
detection. Another blast followed.
“I’d wager
a duchy that the Admiral just got a wireless – and one he was NOT expecting,”
said the titled equestrian.
“One I’d
not take,” Dirk replied, “even if my end were only a clipped groat.”
“Flags going up on the flagship!”
“Messenger! Here!
Off to the - oh!”
The sight
of another messenger practically jumping into the bridge stopped his
command. The newcomer was obviously
relieved to see both senior officers and came forward, extending a message slip
that both Bavaria and Dirk regarded much as they would a deadly serpent.
Much the
same scene was being reenacted all over the force. Admiral Hanzik read
his aboard Moltke with one side of his face still
lathered, though he had put down the blade before reading. One did not barge in on an admiral’s toilet
with trifles. So many kilometers, he
thought. So very many. Stang cursed and
called for Lucterhand, who had done the last coal
report.
The message
didn’t take long to read.
---- Room
40
The
oncoming shift had yet to arrive.
Turnover was still an hour distant.
“ ‘Schneller’?
That’s it?”
“Maybe
their admiral’s flagship just lost their wireless.”
“Better if
his whole bloody ship had just blown up!”
It had been a very long night and the Grand Fleet was fighting its way
out of a devilish German ambush. So far,
the honors seemed even, or possibly to their
advantage. But they knew that anything
could happen in battle - - and already had, as Colossus’ fate had yet to be
reported.
“Sorry, sirs. But the end strokes are there.”
“Meaning?” The questioner was clearly baffled. As was Commander Jan, bleary-eyed despite the
hole the coffee was busily gnawing through his stomach wall.
“That’s the
message, sir. All of it.”
“ ‘Faster’? ‘More speed’?
Isn’t that it?”
“Yes, sir. Pretty much. Unless.”
“Go on.”
“Unless it’s a code word or something.”
“Damn!” Huns and their little games! “Has their Admiral Necki
replied?”
“Just did,
sir!” This from a new
voice.
“What was
it?” “Did you get a fix on him?”
“Yes, sir,
but.” The young officer was clearly
unhappy at what he was about to say.
“Go on, man!”
“Not a good
one. Begging your
pardon, sir. It was just too
short. Acknowledgment
only – no message text at all.”
“And?”
“Put it up,
Andy,” the officer said, gesturing to the wall chart. As the yeoman complied, the officer reached
over the other’s shoulder with a red marker and drew a circle around the
position even before the man stepped away.
“Somewhere in there, sirs. Twenty
to fifty miles, northerly,” of the battle even then going on, “and we were
lucky to get that much.”
Twenty miles! Likely coming south at 28 knots with Admiral DeRobeck possibly about to turn north at 20!