Kirov Saga: Altered States (Kirov Series) (24 page)

“I would, sir.”

“Rodenko?”

“Admiral, if we must intervene in any way I cannot see the ship supporting Germany, particularly if they do attack Russia again in this war.”

“And if we are to make friends on these seas the Royal Navy would be a good place to start,” Volsky concluded. “Very well. See if we can assist these two cruisers and jam that German radar.”

“Any idea what frequencies I should target, Fedorov?”

“Give me a second…” He was already working on his pad device, calling up facts and figures from the war. “Here it is. The
Seetakt
radar operated at 368 megacycles, initially at 14 kW, though the sets were upgraded to operate at 100 kW on the 80 cm wavelength.”

“Good enough. They’ll be blind in ten minutes. Just let me recalibrate our jamming equipment.”

They turned on 090 east and soon found they had broken through the weather front where the British were hiding, though the lowering sun was still masked by the heavy cloud. The rising sea had a dull gleam of polished steel, and the tang of coming rain. Temperatures were dropping ahead of the front, promising a cold night ahead.

Admiral Volsky was out the weather bridge where he had been watching the sea alone for the last ten minutes. He could still see the stain of dried blood there, and made a mental note to have it cleaned, but the sight of it brought Karpov to mind again.

So, Vladimir, we have made a choice you may not have agreed with here, he thought. You were adamant that the British and Americans were our enemies, and every intervention you made was aimed at trying to defeat them. But as you have seen, these are nations destined to rise on the world stage, and not so easily cowed. Suppose now there is a man in Moscow that Churchill and Roosevelt might trust and not also fear as they did Stalin? Suppose that man is Sergei Kirov, and that he is there because of Fedorov’s lucky chance and his quiet whisper to the man at that railway inn? Suppose we save these two British cruisers from harm here and make amends with the Royal Navy? This war does not have to end with an Iron Curtain dividing East from West and fifty years of cold enmity. What if we see that does not happen by making a friend here, and not trying to crush the British as an enemy?

You may have had something to do with this all along—you and Orlov. Something tells me he bore you no good will after that first failed attempt to take the ship. I gave you my forgiveness and a chance to redeem yourself, but Orlov’s lot was demotion and a posting to the Marines on the Helo deck. I wonder what really happened on that KA-226? What was Orlov doing there? Was there really a fire, or was he trying to jump ship? One way or another, the dominoes fell. Fedorov went after Orlov and now look at us, and look at the world that resulted from that mission.

He breathed in deeply, smelling the rain coming, the cool texture of the air, a sailor’s rain. It would not be a bad storm. His tooth told the tale, and it was not throbbing as it might in a real cruel low pressure zone, with the wintery blast of an icy wind at the leading edge. No, this is around a thousand millibars. Just a typical low coming in from the west. But it will rain tonight, and the air smells fresh and clean, does it not?

The farther north they went, the more the air seemed to carry the scent of home.
Kirov
was like a salmon, swimming upstream again to the place it was spawned, returning home, battered, weary, but home. It was a last brave struggle to fulfill some unseen destiny, just as that salmon came home to spawn again. What will we give rise to if we keep to this course, he wondered?

He passed a moment thinking of his wife, not yet born in this reality, yet somewhere in a future he might never see again, sitting quietly by the fire at home with her tea and a book. We give up so much to go to war, he thought. So very much…

He came in through the hatch, his nose red from the cold, reaching in his pocket for a handkerchief. The bridge crew was quietly at work, selfless, dutiful, yet obviously having thoughts as he might. They, too, had left wives, children, lovers, girlfriends and everything else behind, sailing out to what they thought would be a routine cruise, just a simple live fire exercise and then a long pleasant cruise to Vladivostok. Well, we had to take a few detours along the way. God bless these men, he prayed, and help me keep them from harm.

Fedorov came up to greet him. “We’re running on a converging course to those two contacts coming up from the south, Admiral. I suggest we come either east or west to avoid a collision.”

 “Use your best judgment, Mister Fedorov.”

“Then I will turn on 305 degrees, sir. That will take us into the storm and towards Greenland. The chance we might be sighted visually again would be much reduced.”

“Do so,” said Volsky. “Who might be on those ships of any note, Fedorov?”

“If you’d like to scout them with the KA-40 I could give you a much better answer, sir. They’re about a hundred kilometers southeast of us now.”

“Do they have radar as well?”

“Possibly, though we don’t know what ships we have there yet. If it’s one of the battlecruisers, then it may be a little early for them to have anything active in the way of radar. HMS
Hood
fitted out with the Type 279M, installed during refits at Rosyth in early 1941. Same for the Type 284 sets. The former was primarily for detection of aircraft, the latter for gun direction. The rest of the battlecruiser squadron was fitted out in that same time period, if that history holds true.”

“So there may be no reason to also jam the British radar.”

“I don’t believe that is necessary, sir. I think we might just skirt west and slip away here, even if we can only make 26 knots now.”

“We’ll have to address that condition and get some additional work done on the hull, and soon. I was looking at the map, Fedorov. Do you suppose we could sneak into a fiord near Iceland or Greenland and anchor for a day? It would give Byko some time to put divers down again to check on things.”

“There’s still a lot of sea ice west, sir, but I’ll see if I can find us something.”

“Admiral,” Rodenko came up. “I think the Germans may have sighted those British cruisers again.”

“Sighted them? How can you know this, Rodenko?”

“I’m tracking the arc and fall of gun shells.”

* * *

The
Germans had found their quarry again. They had been steering 215 southwest and then adjusted ten points to starboard to follow a long range contact on the
Seetakt
radar. A short while after they made that turn their sets were all clouded over with interference, which they attributed to the oncoming storm front.

Kapitan Hoffmann was leading the way in
Scharnhorst
, setting the pace at 30 knots for the last hour. The ship’s boilers had been acting up again, with the super heaters doing their work too well, but thus far they had been running at good speed. Their brief encounter with a pair of British cruisers had encouraged them when
Scharnhorst
scored a hit, clearly setting one of the ships afire amidships. Now their blood was up, and they thought they would pursue.

Hoffmann knew his real mission was to evade these cruisers and get into the Atlantic to attack the convoys, but something about the sound of the guns and that beautiful long shot they had scored spurred him on. The British would likely slip away in the weather, he thought, but if I come upon them again, why not sink them?

At 19:00 hours they had turned to run directly into the wind of the oncoming storm, and their speed was down to 28 knots now, but whether it was by chance or fortune, the low clouds ahead seemed to split to offer him a long narrow valley of open sea and sky. The last rays of the falling sun pierced the edge of the clouds and painted the way in liquid gold. He sailed on, the fading light gleaming off the wet steel, the bow awash with the rising sea. Then the lookouts saw something ahead, just a glimpse of what looked to be two ships through a gap in the clouds—two cruisers.

Smiling, he gave orders to open fire with the forward turrets to stick a fork into this quail and see what they had in front of them. The sound and sight of his two triple turrets opening fire was bracing. Good to be in battle on the sea, he thought. Too bad we let that damn carrier slip away in the haze and smoke. Those god cursed super heaters! Something tells me we’ll need six months in dry dock to rip them all out and get the boilers right.

Enough of that. Focus on the guns. He imagined the cold metal rammers feeding the next shells into the yawning gun breeches. Soon he saw the barrels elevate again, looking for the range. The blast of the second salvo shook the ship, first Anton, then Bruno, the two turrets firing one after another.

“What do you make the range, Schubert?”

The ship’s chief gunnery officer, was quickly at his side. “Another long shot,” he said. “17,800 meters,” but we are gaining on them. It will only be a matter of time unless these clouds roll in on us and they slip away.”

“Good, we’ll have a pair of young pheasant for dinner this evening—”

There came a hard thunk, and Hoffman knew enough to realize the ship had just been hit, right on the side armor, but with a small caliber round.

“They are shooting back at this range?”

“Impossible,” said the Gunnery Officer.

“That wasn’t a gull blown in on the storm, Schubert. And he pointed forward out the weather ports where they could see the spray of two near misses”

“Damage control, Kapitan.” A midshipman came in with the message. “A small hit below B turret on the side armor. It did not penetrate, sir. No significant damage.”

“So they get their lucky shot as well.”

“We’re in this open trough between those two cloud formations,” Schubert suggested. “They can obviously see us much better than we can see them.”

When the next salvo came in spot on target, straddling the bow of the ship with two shells in quick succession, Hoffmann frowned. “They nearly hit us again, but look there, that other salvo of three fell at least three thousand meters short.”

“Two ships, two gunnery officers,” Schubert said matter of factly.

“Yes, well get to work, Schubert. Get to work!”

Chapter 21

The
battle was joined again in spite of every effort by Captain Madden to evade the fast German ships. He had turned into the oncoming storm, seas higher now, wind up, visibility diminishing. There he thought he might work round to the west, then turn north and allow the Germans to sweep past him in the scudding grey clouds, but the raiders had the scent, or at least enough of it before
Kirov’s
first tentative intervention in jamming the enemy radar. They had surged up a rift in the front, chasing the falling sun and caught a glimpse of the British cruisers laboring on at just 20 knots.

Manchester
had four Admiralty 3-drum boilers, and her number two boiler room was completely down. The fire had finally been put out, fire parties working feverishly for the last hour and a half, but they had lost all steam there cutting speed by a quarter. That and the oncoming weather front with rougher seas had them down to a little over twenty knots when the Germans saw them. Madden was out on the weather bridge, the rain already beginning in short, lashing squalls when he saw the first flash of the enemy guns.

That was a half salvo for bearing, he thought, but if they find the range as quickly as they did before, we can only hope the weather saves us now. Forty seconds later the first three rounds fell, slightly off bearing and well short. It was too far for any chance that his 6-inch guns might find their targets, though he could clearly see the leading German ship bathed in the pale light and last searching rays of the sun above the rising thunderheads. The dark wall of clouds seemed briefly crowned with gold, as if on fire.

He gave the order to fire anyway, the two rear turrets on
Birmingham
barking out their warning as he watched through his field glasses. Then, well before those rounds should have fallen, he saw what looked like a telltale gout of water rising off the bow of the leading German ship, and a second round hit home. Surprised, he looked behind him, thinking
Manchester
had fired the rounds, for he soon saw his own salvo falling well short, as he expected.

“Mister Ward, is
Manchester
firing?”

“No sir, they were waiting on our order.” The Lieutenant was at his side now coming out from the armored conning tower into the weather, the collar of his overcoat blown up by the wind, reaching to keep his hat in place and pulling it low on his brow.

“Well then who the devil scored that hit?” The Captain pointed to the thin trail of smoke from the side of the German battlecruiser out in front. Then they saw the guns there glow with fire again, heard the rolling peal of thunder that was echoed and answered soon after by the advancing storm. This time they heard the rounds whistling in and saw them make another close straddle of
Manchester
behind them.

“Never mind for now. Make smoke!” said Madden. “Signal
Manchester
the same.” He looked for the thickest segment of the oncoming squall and decided to steer for it. “Port fifteen and into the rain, gentlemen. This is no place to be at the moment.”

“Another hit sir!” Ward was pointing now and the Captain’s heart leapt, thinking
Manchester
had taken another shell. When he turned, however, he could just barely see the small fire that had broken out amidships on the leading German raider. Yet he could see
Manchester
well enough, and her guns were completely silent, not even sighted on the pursuing enemy. Someone else is out there, he thought suddenly, but who? Could Holland have closed the range this soon?
Hood
is fast, but not that fast. His last reported position was over 100 kilometers to the south.

This was no time for solving mysteries. He started for the open hatch, heading for the wheelhouse to get the ship to safety, thanking his lucky stars that there was an unseen angel at the edge of the storm coming to his aid. Yet in the back of his mind he knew this was not
Hood
. Those were small caliber rounds, and the Germans just shrugged them off.
Hood
would have opened with her main batteries. So someone else is close by, perhaps another cruiser or even a destroyer out of Reykjavik. Good for them.