“They’re coming right at us,” said Lindemann. “They mean to fight.”
“It might be better for ’em if they turned to give us their broadsides,” answered Lutjens.
Telephones were squawking still.
“All turrets manned and ready!” announced the officer of the watch. “Turrets training!”
`They could see that from the bridge: the huge guns swinging round to point over the port bow.
“Remember what I said, Captain? We must be ready to blow any enemy out of the water at any minute, and here we are,” said Lutjens, binoculars to his eyes.
“Those aren’t cruisers,” said Lindemann. “Look! They’re coming round. That’s the Hood! The Hood! And that’s a battleship with her!”
His last words were cut off short by the roar of the first salvo from Bismarck’s guns.
“Hit her! Hit her! Keep on hitting her!” said Lutjens. The gunsmoke swirled round him.
In the operations room of the Hood the navigating officer was bent over his chart again, the one with the conspicuous black cross marked to the southward of Denmark Strait.
“There we are, sir. We ought to sight them during the next five minutes. We must be closing them fast.”
“Not long to wait now,” said the admiral.
“Guns loaded, sir,” said another voice.
Down in a turret, the guns’ crews were waiting beside the guns. Nobby was there, one of the guns’ crews. They were standing ready.
“Can’t be long now,” said the man beside Nobby.
“Now we do our stuff,” said Nobby. “Now it’s our turn.”
“Enemy in sight,” said the officer commanding the turret. “Stand by!”
“Turret’s training!” said Nobby, feeling the turret turn while the ship still heaved and rolled on the heavy sea.
The men exchanged glances. There were plenty of men among them who had not yet experienced action, who had never heard their guns fire at an enemy, who had never before waited—as they were waiting now—for an enemy’s deadly shells to come winging over the waves to crash against—or through—the armor beside them. It was a nervous little interval, those few seconds when everything was ready, when drill had carried them through to this moment, without time to think until now. Thoughts could make prodigious leaps in a few seconds, back to memories of homes in England, forward to vague, almost unimaginable horrors.
“Wish we’d start,” said somebody.
Somebody else was drumming with his fingers on the breech block in front of him.
“Keep your minds on your work,” snapped the gun captain.
Then the guns went off with a crash, and the long-practiced drill began, as the breeches swung open, the new shells came up—were rammed in—were followed by the charges, which were rammed in behind them—and the breeches slammed shut again.
“Right gun ready!”
“Left gun ready!”
Another salvo went off. The men bent to their work with frantic energy. A crash and a flash in the turret made them all stagger.
“They hit us!”
“Who cares?” said Nobby. “Come on!”
The next shells were rammed home as smoke came swirling into the turret.
The sea was boiling with splashes as the tall pillars of water rose up round the embattled ships. Funnel smoke and gunsmoke swirled over the heavy gray surface. The eye could travel across to the Bismarck, rolling deeply in the swell, and the imagination could penetrate through her armored side to the shellroom of the forward turrets. Here a small team of German sailors was at work, jerkily, putting the huge shells into the hoist, standing by for a moment, then sending them up and instantly addressing themselves to the next. A bearded German petty officer was standing to supervise; beside him was on e of the very young supernumerary officers. The petty officer was speaking, his speech punctuated by pauses as he checked the positioning of the shells in the hoist, and by the constant accompaniment of the thunder of the salvoes far overhead.
“This is our turn, sir, you see,” he said. “Me and my men here. They can make all the plans they like in the Marineamt in Berlin. Admiral Raeder can look at his charts, and Admiral Lutjens up on the bridge can make his plans, and Captain Lindemann can issue his orders, but it’s the guns that do the work. And if we down here don’t keep the shells going up, the guns can’t fire, and the admiral might as well be back at home. You see how it is, sir.”
There was a brief pause as he corrected the placing of one of the shells.
“Up you go, my beauty,” said the bearded petty officer. He blew a kiss to the shell as it vanished upward from sight up the hoist. It might perfectly well have been the very shell that had been sent aboard to the cry of “One more!” back in Gdynia harbor. Up the hoist it went; it slid onto the ring, swung round, rose up into the turret, was seized by the rammer and thrust into the breech of the gun with the turret’s sweating crew grouped round. The charge followed it and then the guns went off with a crash. Lutjens on the bridge watching through his glasses said:
“That’s a hit! Look! Look!”
An enormous pillar of smoke arose from the Hood.
Lindemann through his glasses saw it too. First there was the silhouette of the ship, sharp and clear now that she had emerged entirely from the mist. Then from somewhere just forward of the funnel came a jet of thick gray smoke. But before this had finished its course, before it had begun to mushroom out, a dozen other jets of smoke, each larger than the first, burst from the ship, expanding so that close above the ship they united, still soaring upwards and still expanding to form a dense cloud hanging over the ship from a great height, attached to it by a vague and slender stalk. It was in that moment that Lindemann, through his excellent binoculars, believed he could see great fragments of the ship soaring upwards to the cloud, outstripped by the jets at first but reaching the smoke now that it was nearly stationary. And he was nearly sure that he saw bow and stern of the ship rise up out of the water and the waist sink, as though a wanton child had seized a bathtub toy and snapped it across the middle.
It was only for that moment that Lindemann saw this. The broken-backed toy was instantly engulfed in further smoke, pouring from every aperture of the ship, lying low on the surface so that there was nothing to be seen except the few brief splashes as the high-tossed fragments of masts and decks and armor plate came arrowing back into the sea. And when this lower pall of smoke lifted and thinned there was nothing to be seen. Nothing.
And of Nobby and his friends in the turret there was nothing. One moment they had been hard at work, bending and heaving to the hard harsh light of the electric lamps; they were boxed up in their little room, separated from the world around them and above them by armor plate of steel a foot thick; below them the deep sea—below them the magazine and shellroom and three hundred tons of high explosive. For one moment it had been thus; the next, and the shell which Bismarck had sent hurtling towards them had crashed its way, as though endowed with malignant intelligence, through the chink in Hood’s armor, along the narrow unguarded route to the magazine below the turret, there to burst among those three hundred tons of high explosive. In that second, Nobby and his friends passed, without a chance of knowing it, from existence to annihilation.
In the War Room the tension was enormous. The rear admiral was still entertaining the air vice marshal.
“If Hood’s where we think she is they’ll be making contact any moment,” he said. “Daylight’s just beginning in Denmark Strait now.”
“Where’s Bismarck?” asked the air vice marshal.
“By Suffolk’s last report ten minutes ago she was HERE.”
The rear admiral pointed to the spot on the chart where the two courses marked in crayon intersected. He drew a black cross there.
“Signal from Suffolk, sir!” said the young officer at a voice-pipe at the table where the messages arrived. “Most immediate signal: HAVE SIGHTED Hood AND Prince of Wales BEARING SOUTHEAST, DISTANCE FIFTEEN MILES, COURS
E SOUTHWEST.”
“They’ve done it! They’ve got ’em.”
There was excitement and exhilaration throughout the War Room.
“Two minutes more and they’ll sight the Bismarck!” said the rear admiral. “That’s right.”
The last words were called forth by a sight of the messages already spoken down the voice-pipe now delivered by pneumatic tube. The rear admiral hardly glanced at it.
“Most immediate signal from Suffolk,” announced the officer at the voice-pipe: Hood AND Bismarck OPENING FIRE. Hood’S COURSE APPROXIMATELY, SOUTHWEST.”
“Hood’s closing in on her,” said the rear admiral. Once more he paid almost no attention to the written signal handed him.
“Most immediate signal from Suffolk coming through,” said the young officer. He was clearly pretending not to be excited; he was making a show of iron calm. And in that moment all his calm disappeared. He seemed to wilt. “What’s that? Repeat that.” He sat at the voice-pipe doing nothing for a moment.
“Get on with your job, man,” snapped the rear admiral.
The young officer turned a face of tragedy towards him.
“Hood’s blown up.”
“What?”
At this moment the written message rattled down the tube. A dozen hands reached for it and the rear admiral tore it from the container.
“Hood BLOWN UP,” he said. “Hood BLOWN UP.”
“But what—what—” stammered the air vice marshal. The rear admiral had only a look for him. All round there were people standing as if turned to stone.
“Hood!” said an officer at length. “My brother Dick—”
An elderly commander, most polite up to that moment, collided with the WREN officer beside the chart.
“Get out of my way, damn you,” he snapped, and then, his tone softened. “The Hood’s sunk! The Hood’s sunk!”
The rear admiral rallied.
“Go back to your duties,” he snapped. “We’ve more to do.”
Another message was being spoken down the voice-pipe, and the young officer braced himself to hear.
“Most immediate signal from Suffolk,” he announced, in a curious parody of his earlier tone: “Hood SUNK. Prince of Wales AND Bismarck EXCHANGING FIRE.”
“Perhaps Prince of Wales’ll do her business for her,” said the air vice marshal to an unresponsive audience.
The written message this time received careful attention.
“Most immediate message Suffolk,” announced the young officer: “Prince of Wales HEAVILY HIT. Prince of Wales ON FIRE FORWARD. Prince of Wales WITHDRAWING FROM ACTION BEHIND SMOKE SCREEN.”
“Prince of Wales beaten,” said the rear admiral in a voice devoid of expression. When the message was given him he stood holding it without a glance. Another officer at the table intervened at this moment.
“Wireless interception speaking, sir. Powerful signals in German code, originating in Denmark Strait. Bismarck calling Berlin, sir.”
“They’ll be telling the world,” said the rear admiral. “Oh, God! They’ll be telling the world.”
All through the Prince of Wales—in the engine room where the turbines sang their high-pitched song, in the magazine, in the wardroom, laid out as a hospital, in the turrets—the ship’s loud-speaker began an announcement, heralded by a pipe.
“Men of the Prince of Wales! The captain has ordered me to let you in on what’s going on out here. Captain’s secretary speaking from the bridge. Enemy’s in sight and we’re closing in on her. There’s Hood firing now. Our turn in a moment.”
The broadcast was interrupted by the bellow of the guns heard through the loud-speaker. Down in the engine room the civilian workman was saying, “Watch that collar there. It’ll run hot if you give it half a chance.”
Up in Y turret, another civilian saw the guns recoil, the fresh shells and charges come up, and the rammers flash into action and disappear again.
“All right that time,” he said. “I’ll get down and look at that shell ring.”
Two decks down was the shell ring with shells rising on the hoist and positioning themselves upon it. The loud-speaker was still announcing:
“Splashes all round the Bismarck. We’re doing well. The Hood—” The voice stopped for several seconds, and when it resumed it was in a broken tone. “The Hood—the Hood—”
The loud-speaker stopped with a click.
“What’s happened to the Hood?” asked one of the ratings by the shell ring.
“You just watch that switch there and don’t worry about anything else,” said the civilian.
“Men of the Prince of Wales,” began the loud-speaker again. The captain’s told me to tell you. The Hood's gone. Blown up and sunk. A brave ship and now we’ve seen the last of her. Now it’s up to us. We’ve got Bismarck’s measure and we’ll see it through.”
“Hood gone? All those chaps?” said someone by the shell ring.
On the bridge of the Prince of Wales the captain and officers were looking out through a forest of splashes. The captain’s secretary at the loud-speaker was saying, “Now it’s up to us. We’ve got…” and so on.
Down the voice-pipe the officer of the watch was saying, Course 240º.” In the operations room just below, the officer at the chart table heard the words through the tube and repeated them, bending over the chart.
Down by the shell ring the loud-speaker began again.
“Captain says you’re doing well, me. Keep on…”
The words ended in a frightful crash heard deafeningly over the loud-speaker.
“They’ve copped it up there,” said a voice at the shell ring.
The whole bridge was a mass of flaming wreckage and heaped corpses. In the chartroom below, the navigating officer saw something drip out of the voice-pipe onto the chart before him.
“What on earth? He put his hand out and touched it. “My God, it’s blood!” It went on dropping thickly down upon the chart.
Upon the bridge a tattered, smoke-blackened figure crawled to the voice-pipe and pulled aside the corpse which lay across the mouth.
“Hard a-port. Steer one-five-o. Hard a-port.”
Hard a-port,” repeated the navigating officer in the chartroom. The ship heeled violently as the helm went over, so that the navigating officer had to hold on to save himself.
Far in the depths of the turret down in the traverser space the heel was felt and the men had to hold on. There was a clatter and crash and the ring slipped from its rollers and crashed over lopsided. A shell slid off and trapped the civilian worker there by the leg with its three-quarters-of-a-ton weight. He cried out with pain. As the shell ring crew turned to help him he forced himself to speak normally.
“All right, chums. Tell ’em up above the ring’s jammed. Y turret won’t fire until you’ve cleared it.” The shell moved a little on his leg.
“A-ah,” he said in agony, and fainted.
On the bridge of the Bismarck Lutjens and Lindemann were looking through their binoculars with the guns bellowing below them. On the horizon lay the pall of smoke which marked the end of the Hood. Not far from it was the silhouette of the Prince of Wales, almost masked with smoke and shell splashes.
“Battleship’s turning away,” said Lutjens. “More smoke. Yes, she’s making smoke. She’s running!”
The guns fell suddenly silent and a staff officer at a telephone reported formally. “Range obscured.”
Simultaneously Lutjens and Lindemann took their glasses from their eyes and faced each other.
“This is victory, sir,” said Lindemann. “A crushing, decisive victory for which your name will always be remembered. It is my proud privilege to be the first to congratulate you.”
They shook hands; the rest of the staff were standing by with exultation on their faces.
“Thank you, Captain,” said Lutjens. Even while his right hand was still being clasped he was gesturing to his chief of staff with his left.
“Send this news to Berlin at once,” he sa
id. “See that it gets off instantly.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
In the broadcasting station in Berlin an announcer, script in hand, stood at the microphone. At a gesture from the controller behind the window a trumpeter put his instrument to his lips and blew a long triumphant fanfare.
“Citizens of the Reich!” began the announcer. “We interrupt our program to bring you marvelous news. Our ships in the Atlantic have won a great, a marvelous victory. Our Reich Navy is triumphant at sea. The proud British battlecruiser Hood has been blown to atoms, has been sunk with all hands under the guns of our naval forces. The rest of the British Navy has turned and fled, hiding themselves behind a smoke screen from the vengeance of the Reich. Another British battleship has been hit over and over again, and by this time she has probably gone down to join the Hood in the icy waters of Denmark Strait. Ten thousand British sailors have paid the price of obedience to the warmongering Churchill and his Jewish clique. Let us all join in heartfelt congratulations to our Führer, who made this possible. One people, one State, one Führer!”
All over Germany the news was broadcast. It was heard with exultation in houses and in factories, in hospitals and in cafés.
In the British Ministry of Information telephones were ringing.
“Berlin’s got the news on the air already. Hurry up with that announcement. Better to hear it from us than from them. Hurry up with it.”
“Not easy to write a bulletin about defeat,” answered the telephone.
“Give the facts, man. They’ve got to hear about it, and they can take it.”
In the factories light music coming over the wireless ended abruptly and a calm B.B.C. voice made itself heard:
“The Admiralty regrets to announce the loss with all hands of H.M.S. Hood this morning as a result of enemy action in Denmark Strait. Further action is imminent.”
In the bombed-out streets of Portsmouth an elderly mother was walking with her shopping bag. She stopped when she saw a newspaper seller beginning to write up a headline on his contents bill.
“H-O-O-D,” he began, and then went on “S-U-N-K.” The woman stood staring and horrified for some seconds, the tears beginning to run down her cheeks. She turned away, bowed with sorrow.