1943

Chapter 4

Admiral Tovey had a great deal on his mind, as always, and it was also swirling around ships and planes. The losses had been mounting, and the fleet was beginning to feel the strain. The heavy cruisers have done quite well, he thought, but we’ve taken appalling losses among the light escort cruisers—14 ships sunk, to cut us in half in that vital category. Among the heavier ships we’ve lost Prince of Wales, Rodney, Valiant, Malaya, Queen Elizabeth, Barham, and then Renown. That’s a third of the battle fleet gone, and nothing coming to replace those losses.

Now that the Torch landings have been covered and carried off, the burden is lessening somewhat, but I still have the problem of re-establishing a secure convoy route to Murmansk, and now, the loss of Ceylon has been a major setback in the Indian Ocean. Those two valuable bases at Colombo and Trincomalee are now in Japanese hands, and those equally valuable aircraft carriers, Formidable and Illustrious, went down trying to defend that island. That makes three gone now, along with Courageous, and only the little escort carriers have come along to replace them. I suppose Somerville was lucky he was able to save Indomitable. We had no business trying to mix it up with the Japanese carrier squadrons. They’re just too skilled at that type of warfare, and our ships are not up to snuff when it comes to the carriers.

It was then that a knock came on the door, and in walked Admiral Fraser. Tovey had been expecting him, and the two men shook hands warmly. Fraser, along with Cunningham in the Eastern Med, was now one of Tovey’s ‘recruits’ to the ranks of the secret organization established within the Royal Navy known as the Watch. Its original purpose had been to keep watch for a mysterious Russian raider, but those moments existed now only within the mind of Tovey himself, and that of Alan Turing. Both men had been plagued with these strange feelings of déjà vu, odd recollections, snippets of memories they thought they had lived, and then there was that file box in the archive at Bletchley Park that seemed to document it all.

Little by little, Tovey was waking up. He was able to take hold of those memories now, and trace them back to their roots. He was remembering. Fraser still struggled with his own recollection of the events he experienced, unable to make any sense of the memories, which seemed to have him in the Pacific. Tovey listened with a very understanding ear when he spoke of them, but decided he could do nothing to speed things along. Fraser would either remember, or not, and in his own good time if he ever did.

Now the purpose of the Watch involved something else, still a guarded watch on the seas as always, for if one ship like the Russian battlecruiser Kirov could appear, and then the submarine Kazan, the Argos Fire, and the Funnies, what might turn up next?

Today’s meeting with Admiral Fraser was to discuss a few other mysterious ships, not at large on the high seas, but right in the slip yards and dry docks of the kingdom. A year ago, Fraser had taken some interest in the little engagement involving a pair of small American hybrid cruiser/carriers in the New Hebrides. They had intervened at a critical moment to defend a vital convoy, engaged and sunk the French carrier Bearn, and routed their small Pacific Squadron, and even tangled with the Japanese.

Then, during the Canary Islands, the Germans had sortied with a similar ship, deep into the South Atlantic, and scuttlebutt there was that they had taken a particularly rich prize. He found himself fascinated with the concept of the hybrid ship, and new intelligence now indicated that after the initial losses sustained in the Pacific War, the Japanese were working on several more of these vessels to quickly augment their carrier fleet. The Americans also rushed to complete two more in the same class, converting their Cleveland Class cruisers to these light, fast battle carriers that could carry a dozen planes.

The two men discussed that for a moment. “They might do well as convoy escorts,” said Tovey. “They would have the guns and speed to get after U-boats on the surface, and the planes to spot and attack them from the air. They wouldn’t stand against a serious minded German raider, but there’s another issue here—the Germans. They’re getting ready to commission another fleet carrier up north, and we still have to consider the two carriers they have in the Med. If they ever manage to get them all together, they’d have themselves a nice little fleet. Those Stukas were quite bothersome when we faced down Admiral Lütjens. Hood knows it, as does our lately departed Renown. Repulse is still in the dockyards as well.”

“That brings me to the main point of this discussion,” said Fraser, “Repulse. That project is coming along nicely. In fact, I’m told the ship can start sea trials soon—a little something to ease the sting after losing Formidable and Illustrious. I didn’t think the Admiralty would listen to me when I put the idea forward. The Director of Naval Gunnery called my idea an abortion.”

“I rather think he meant abomination,” said Tovey.

“And he went so far as to say the entire concept was the result of a psychological maladjustment in naval thinking. Can you imagine that?” Fraser gave Tovey an indignant look. “Good that I had seniority over that man. Repulse was the perfect trial for this concept. You and I both know that trying to put more armor on her to let her stand with ships the Germans were throwing at us wasn’t going to get round the block. The day of the battlecruiser has come and gone, but the day of the aircraft carrier is well upon us now, and we need to stay in the game.”

So Fraser had put forward the idea of converting Repulse to a carrier, but still retaining her forward 15-inch gun turrets. All that damaged superstructure was removed, and instead of taking nine months to rebuild it, an armored flight deck was laid down in its place. The interior spaces were cleared out to allow for 24 aircraft, and Britain would now have her first hybrid battlecarrier, even faster than the Repulse was as a battlecruiser at 32 knots. In her first trial at sea, with all new boilers, the ship ran at 34 knots.

“Think of that ship on convoy escort,” said Fraser.

“I might do so, but the problem I have with hybrid designs is that the ship seems to have an odd sort of identity crisis. Is it a carrier, or a battleship? In either category, it becomes a weaker, less capable ship than one built with a single purpose in mind. You fight these ships quite differently. Battleships are hunters, built to intercept and destroy enemy capital ships in a good gunfight. Carriers hang back, like a woman in skirts. They flirt with their planes and wave from afar, but never want to let the other fellow get close enough to plant a kiss. So then… if I deploy Repulse as part of a battleship task force, perhaps as a scout, what happens if she were out in front and encountered the Tirpitz? She’s certainly out gunned. Just one good hit on that flight deck puts it out of business, and even two turrets up front won’t be enough to let her stand and argue with Tirpitz.”

“Ah, but her planes can let her find the enemy before they get close,” said Fraser. “They won’t be flirting and waving, but dropping thousand pound bombs and torpedoes. If Tirpitz gets cheeky and tries to close the range, then Repulse has the speed to avoid an unwanted encounter, like a proper lady. Now then, suppose this German raider is something else—a young buck? A Hipper class heavy cruiser wouldn’t dare show its face against those 15-inch guns. If such a ship gets too forward, Repulse would slap it easily enough. You see? It’s the old argument that led us to build battlecruisers in the first place—strong enough to beat any cruiser they encounter, and fast enough to outrun anything that can outgun her.”

“Not quite,” said Tovey. “Don’t forget the Kaiser Wilhelm. That ship has six 15-inch guns, and can run two knots faster than your new hybrid Repulse.”

“Academic,” said Fraser. “I’ll match those 24 aircraft on Repulse against that third 15-inch turret on Kaiser Wilhelm, and we’ll see who comes off the better. In any case, that nasty little Kaiser is nicely bottled up in the Med, where I hope we’ll keep it. Without Hindenburg to lead the way, the Germans have kept that one safely out of the game at Toulon.”

“That’s where Bismarck is,” said Tovey, “and the Germans are very close to getting that ship back into service. Along with the Normandie, now Fredric de Gross, they will still pose a grave threat. Another problem with Repulse is that she had short legs—only 4,000 nautical miles.”

“We’ll get her up to 5,000 as a carrier,” Fraser put in.

“Less than half what an Illustrious Class carrier can give us,” Tovey countered, “and she’ll carry only half as many planes. You see, when such a ship is acting as a carrier, she hasn’t got punch, and a carrier has no business trying to slug it out with another ship built for surface action. All that aviation fuel and ordnance for the planes is just too volatile. So if this is something to be avoided, then why put the guns there in the first place? Why not just build a carrier?” Tovey thought he had a good argument with that, until Fraser reminded him of something.

“Do you recall that encounter with HMS Glorious in the Norwegian Sea?”

“Who could forget that. The young man Wells saved that ship damn near single handed, just as Admiral Volsky saved our HMS Invincible.”

“Well now,” Fraser smiled. “I wonder if the Twins would have wanted to mix it up with Repulse if they had found her. She’d be lobbing 15-inch shells their way before the Germans could close the range, and our Fulmars and Albacores would be all over those rascals in short order.”

“I suppose you might have a point with that. Yet now that we’ve put Gneisenau down, the new Twins are Bismarck and Tirpitz. I don’t think your new hybrid design would discourage those two sea demons.”

“Lütjens had them together in the Atlantic and we held our own,” said Fraser. “And may I remind you that it was the Stukas off the German carrier that put that serious damage on Hood.”

“Thank god we haven’t got this Graf Zeppelin to worry about any longer,” said Tovey. “But we do have to worry about his brother, Peter Strasser. Admiral, you do make some good points here. If you ask me if I’d rather have Repulse back as a battlecruiser, or as this hybrid, then I think I’d side with you. You are correct, the planes by far outweigh that third 15-inch turret from a military standpoint. Repulse might help out in the Norwegian Sea, or even in the Atlantic, I’ll grant you that, but we’ll need something a little better for the Pacific. Implacable and Indefatigable are in the works, but a long way from being ready. They’ll carry over 80 planes, just like the new American carriers, and still run at 32 knots. In the meantime, while we wait for them, Somerville is sitting on his thumbs at Madagascar and hoping the Japanese don’t get a notion to take that island as well. He’s no offensive capability at all, and can barely serve to try and safeguard the Winston Special convoys to Australia.”

“Suppose I could give you something with the same capability of Implacable this year,” Fraser teased. “That’s where my idea concerning those hulls for the Lion Class comes in. This time our Mister Goodall, the Director of Naval Construction, said I should look to building out the Audacious Class carrier concept on those hulls.”

“Audacious Class?”

“That’s the reworked carrier design with dual hangar decks. I’m afraid we won’t get anything like that in this war. But those Lion class hulls were just sitting there begging to be useful.”

“Ah, yes, we once thought the splendid cats were going to prowl the seas again, but work was stopped on those. I thought the orders were cancelled?”

“Not at all,” said Fraser. “My good man, I took this little problem right to the Former Naval Person to see what he might think, and did so just after the DNC wrote that cancellation order for the Lion Class, in 1939.”

“Indeed?” Tovey inclined his head. “And what did Mister Churchill think?”

“Not much in the beginning, though he said he would try to see the work along, particularly on those new 16-inch gun turrets. However, shortly after Hood took that hit, he told me that he wanted them built out as fast carriers, and as quickly as possible. You see, if we try to build them out as fast battleships, the job will never be done in time. He agreed with my argument on that point.”

“And here I was hoping for some good fast battleships to run with Invincible,” said Tovey. “Lion is to become a carrier?”

“We won’t be using that name,” said Fraser with a wave of his hand. “Too much like the German tanks for my liking. The other two hulls were going to be Conqueror and Thunderer, a bit difficult to roll off the tongue, so I suggested Incomparable.”

“Four or five syllables? You should just stay with Lion, or you might try something like Superb.” Tovey looked at his good friend and colleague, curious. “Well… Don’t just sit there with that smile on your face. What about this ship?”

“Superb… I rather like that. Perhaps I’ll recommend it to the DNC, because it’s coming along nicely,” said Fraser with a wink. “The first two hulls were laid down before the war, and the DNC tried to cancel them shortly thereafter. That’s when I stepped up, and had my little chat with Churchill.” Fraser smiled.

“What? You mean to say they’ve been building this ship for two years, and as a carrier?”

“That’s the ticket,” said Fraser. “Fly over the damn thing and it looks like a battleship that will never be completed in any good time. Why, you could only see the beginnings of what might be the main superstructure, and one stack. But down deep, all the boilers and propulsion systems are finished, and the hangar decks have all been laid out. That bit of superstructure is the island, and now all it needs is a good armored flight deck. They’ll start building that out this week.”

“My word… This hasn’t been in any of my fleet status reports.”

“Churchill wanted it that way. He said that, if it came down to discussion at the Admiralty, there would be no end of change proposals and such, and the ship would simply never get built. So he gave the project to me, and I’ve been shepherding things along, nice and quiet like.”

“Really quite irregular,” said Tovey, though he was inwardly pleased at this news. Nobody knows everything going on in this bloody war, he thought. Not even the Commander of Home Fleet.

Chapter 5

“Now,” said Fraser, “they had to thin out the belt armor a wee bit to get the speed we wanted, but she’ll still have 250mm through the gut, and 150 at the bow and stern. That will handle 8-inch rounds well enough, and the two forward turrets will handle anything that throws one at her.”

“Two forward turrets?”

“They never stopped work on those, as I’m sure you know—the 16-inch guns for the original Lion design. But that’s all they managed to build in two years, and it was going to take another two years to finish the job. That just would not do. Admiral, a bird in hand, that’s what we have now. So we just used the two turrets we had ready, and they went on last month. The Germans still think we have half a battleship there, and with no superstructure.”

“Just as I thought,” said Tovey. “And one might think the Commander of Home Fleet might be better informed than the Abwehr!”

“Sorry John, but this was all very hush hush. Churchill insisted. Not even Pound knows the details I shared with you here.”

“And good that he doesn’t,” said Tovey.

“So then, with only A and B turrets, it saves a good deal of weight, eliminates another barbette and magazine, and increases speed to 30 knots. The main elevator area is now aft where Y turret would have been.”

“And the planes?”

“Here’s the good part,” said Fraser with a smile. “You are certainly correct about the lack of capacity on our carriers. We need planes with folding wings, just like the Americans. Well, waiting for that is like waiting for spring in November, so I suggested we just buy them from the Americans. They have good folding wing fighters and dive bombers right now. We even have a few Martlet Squadrons deployed. Only this new plane we’re getting is even better than the Martlet. The Americans are calling it the F6F Hellcat, and they’re going to build them in droves. The wings can fold hydraulically, or manually if necessary. It promises to be a good rugged plane, just what we need.”

“What about the Seafires?”

“We got 30 of the Mark IIIs. Somerville even had a dozen at Ceylon, but not enough to matter. Oddly, the damn wings won’t fold on that lot. Now what was that all about? They build a carrier fighter with wings that won’t fold! Well, we got the matter corrected, and the Seafire will make a fine plane if we can get enough of the new version with folding wings. In the meantime, we’ll take these Hellcats and put them to good use. I’m told that given the current hangar and deck space on our old Lion, this new hybrid can still carry 24 of them, and have enough room left over for two dozen more strike planes.”

“Why, that’s no more than Illustrious could carry.”

“True, but Illustrious didn’t have those 16-inch gun turrets up front.”

“I’m not sure they would have done her any good. She never saw the ship that launched the planes that sunk her.”

“Well,” Fraser smiled. “With two such ships, side by side, we’ll throw 96 planes into the sky, and have more firepower than the French battleship Normandie at our disposal at the same time.”

“Two such ships?”

“My dear man, we always build them in pairs. Hood and your G3 Class being the only exceptions. I like Superb… Think of a good name for the second one, will you?”

Tovey shrugged. “I suppose if I won’t get a new fast battleship any time soon, the hybrids will have to do.”

“I wouldn’t be so pessimistic,” said Fraser. “All the delays regarding the Lion class gave birth to yet another proposal. You see, the difficulty was in getting those new 16-inch guns ready—all new turrets. Yet we had perfectly good 15-in turrets stored from Glorious and Courageous when they were converted to carriers. Why not use them, or so the logic went. Those guns are tried and true.”

“Yes, I was in on that meeting,” said Tovey. “Churchill supported it as well, if I’m not mistaken—an all new fast battleship, but armed with her grandmother’s teeth.”

“They’ve made some modifications on the new project for Vanguard,” said Fraser. “The guns can now elevate to 30 degrees to improve range, and they’ve added additional faceplate armor and also mounted gun directors.”

“You make it sound as though the ship is already built. The last I saw of it there were still four big holes fore and aft where the turrets should be.”

“Yes, she’s not quite finished, but the guns are ready, and they might mount those turrets very quickly. So you see, you just might get one more fast battleship before long, HMS Vanguard.”

“I won’t hold my breath, for that ship or these hybrids you’re so fond of. The new Knight Class has been useful. A few more of those would fill the bill.”

“Don’t worry, the Admiralty is firmly committed to filling out the Round Table.”

“Good,” said Tovey. “If I had all these ships now, I would feel a good deal better, but more to the immediacy of our present situation, and speaking of both the Former Naval Person and Admiral Somerville, we have to consider what to do about Ceylon. The Indian Ocean Squadron is toothless now. Somerville has retreated all the way back to Madagascar and Kenya, and he can now barely serve to put out a thin cover for Cape Town and Durban. The Japanese have Trinco and Colombo, and Churchill is at his wit’s end over these developments.”

“Somerville deployed too far forward,” said Fraser. “His effort to cover Port Blair was ill considered. He should have withdrawn southwest of Ceylon, perhaps operating from Addu instead. He was lucky to save Indomitable and those three old battleships.”

“And the cruisers,” said Tovey.

“What do you propose we do about Ceylon?”

“The Japanese have settled in there, with land based planes at both bases, so that won’t be an easy proposition. Yet the loss of Ceylon has made all the convoys around the Cape, and into the Red Sea, a hazardous undertaking. We’ve had to double down on destroyer escorts, because the Japanese have based submarines at Colombo. Thankfully, they withdrew their carrier squadron for operations in the South Pacific, so while the cat is away….”

“Yes,” said Fraser, “but what can we possibly do?”

“We have a lot of troops on Madagascar, and there is certainly plenty of shipping in the region. We still have a presence at Addu and Diego Garcia, as well as Mauritius—seaplane bases, fuel for the navy, and a few fighters at each outpost. Thankfully the Japanese haven’t moved a lot of bombers to Ceylon yet. They could do a good deal more than they have to interdict our sea lanes, but they have their own difficulties to contend with. It isn’t easy to keep their troops and planes on Ceylon supplied. They’ve been sending weekly convoys from Singapore, but we’re on to them now, and our subs have been lingering in the strait of Malacca and off Batavia, now that Krakatoa has settled down. Churchill doesn’t think that’s enough. The rubber shortages are beginning to be felt at home, and that has forced us to look to South America for new supplies. The oil shipments from the Persian Gulf are also in some jeopardy, and now Churchill wants a plan for a counterattack on Ceylon.”

“You mean by sea? An invasion?”

“My,” said Tovey. “It seems Churchill doesn’t confide all his secrets. This is one he whispered in my ear, as I’m the man who’ll have to arrange things. We pulled it off on Madagascar well enough.”

“Yes,” said Fraser, “but that was against the Vichy French, and without having to worry about the Japanese navy or air force. Somerville is down to Indomitable, and little Hermes. That’s enough deck space for an air raid, but not to cover an amphibious operation.”

“Quite so,” said Tovey. “So if this plan does get teed up, it will mean Somerville will need more carriers. We only have five fast carriers left. Eagle and Hermes are too slow for something like this. In fact, I’ve recalled Hermes to join Force H in the Med, along with Furious, and the American carriers. That should be sufficient to cover those operations as we make the push towards Tunisia. I need at least one carrier for the Norwegian Sea, and I’m turning that beat over to Glorious. Cunningham still has the Argus and Eagle in the Eastern Med, so we get no help there.”

“Ark Royal,” said Fraser with a glint in his eye. “That’s the perfect ship for the Indian Ocean. Why, she can carry over 60 planes, and even more if we utilize the deckpark strategy the Americans use. She’s fast, nimble at sea, tough in action with all the AA defense we put on her, and she has a fairly thick skin as well.”

“That’s what it came down to in my mind as well,” said Tovey, “Ark Royal and Victorious. We don’t need them for Force C in the Canary Islands any longer, so they can go to Somerville. They have better endurance and carrying capacity for this Ceylon business. Damn if we don’t miss Illustrious and Formidable now, but I’m told I shouldn’t complain.”

“Oh? By who, if I might ask?”

“That young Russian Captain, Fedorov. We spoke on that secure encrypted radio of his last week and I mentioned these difficulties. He then let slip that in the history he knows, we had already lost five carriers by this time in the war, not three. He told me our Captain Wells was never supposed to have saved Glorious as he did, and was in fact killed in that incident.”

“Really?” said Fraser, feeling just a touch of the macabre in that revelation.

“Yes, and he went on to say that Ark Royal was to have been sunk by a German U-Boat, and that the Eagle went down in the Med. For that matter, HMS Invincible was never built, and I’d wager that Lion, or that ship by any other name, was never commissioned in his version of these events—as a battleship or a hybrid carrier. He’d probably say the same about this Vanguard project you mentioned.”

“Very strange,” said Fraser. “I mean to think that this man can quote us chapter and verse like that, about things that haven’t even happened yet. It gives me the shivers.”

“Yes, but things are different here—the history. We’re writing it all anew. He tells me Ceylon was never taken by the Japanese, and a lot of other things have been turned on their head.”

Fraser nodded. “Has he told you who wins this damn war?”

“Yes, we pull through, though from my perspective, it will be a long hard slog before we get there.”

“That’s at least encouraging.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Tovey. “If all these other things never came to pass in his version of the war, then we might not be able to take his prediction to the bank just yet. In any case, we must never be so complacent as to think we have a sure thing on our hands here. I tell myself that every day, just to keep my mind sharp.” Tovey pointed to his forehead. “We could still lose this war, and must never forget that.”

“Alright then,” said Fraser. “Victorious and the old Ark go to Somerville, so let’s do the math. I’d say that would bring about 160 planes to the fight between the three carriers. That’s twice what we brought to cover the operation at Madagascar. Is that going to be enough?”

“It will have to do,” said Tovey. “Intelligence says the Japanese may have no more than 36 fighters on Ceylon now, but they could always send more from Rangoon, so we should go heavy with our own fighters. If you can get hold of any of those new American planes, all the better. With good intelligence, we’ll hopefully get in there without Japanese naval opposition. It seems they have their hands full with the Americans. A remarkable recovery they’ve made this year! They had six fleet carriers in the Pacific last year, lost four of them, and now, as the new year dawns, they still have five, and two new little hybrids to boot.”

“Interesting mathematics,” said Fraser. “If only we had that kind of shipbuilding capacity.”

“If wishes were horses,” said Tovey.

“Will the army bring enough to do the job?”

“16th and 29th Brigades—both for Colombo. That’s the place we want. The Japanese will have only their 21st Brigade there, so we’ll outnumber them two to one.”

“Numbers never seemed to matter before when we were up against the Japanese,” said Fraser with a cautionary tone.

“There’s still the 21st East African, 27th Rhodesian, and the 7th South African Motorized—three more Brigades at hand on Madagascar if we need them. They could also recall one of the good British brigades from the Burma sector. I’m told that front settled down a bit.”

“Seems adequate, and I assume we’ve got the shipping to lift all these troops?”

“We’ll make do,” said Tovey.

“Who’s to lead the invasion? Surely not the Rock of the East again. Not Montgomery.”

“No, he’s busy enough in the West these days. This time it goes to Slim, and I think they’ll work in Mountbatten. There’s another man who’ll support these crazy ideas for new aircraft carriers. I’m told he was even in on that plan to build one on an iceberg.”

Tovey was referring to a hair brained idea proposed by one Geoffrey Pike, Project Habbakuk. He literally proposed that an iceberg, natural or manmade, could be reinforced with a wood pulp material called Pykrete and even refrigerated to keep it from melting. Hangar space for planes and an air strip could be carved out, and motors attached so the “Bergship” could actually sail about on its own power, with a hull composed of 40 feet of ice on either side that was reinforced and deemed to be torpedo proof. Mountbatten would eventually pitch the project to Churchill, Roosevelt and Admiral King, drawing a pistol and shooting at a normal block of ice, which shattered, and then at one reinforced with Pykrete, which ricocheted off the block and almost struck Admiral King’s leg. None too fond of the British to begin with, the irascible King was not amused. It was later determined that the cost of a full-scale ship would exceed that of many conventional aircraft carriers, and Mountbatten discreetly withdrew from the project.

“Whether we build them on battleship hulls or ice bergs,” said Tovey, “I’m beginning to think that the more carriers we can put to sea, the better off we shall be. Since we aren’t likely to get our own naval rockets any time soon, planes will have to do, and we need to stop thinking like battleship commanders, and start thinking like aircraft carrier commanders. That’s what the Japanese taught Somerville, and I hope we’ve learned the lesson. I suppose these new carrier projects are a step in the right direction, but frankly, I’ll miss the day when it was just good steel, guns, and a little backbone in a battle at sea. When that Stuka pilot put his bomb on HMS Hood, he went and ruined everything.”

“That he did,” said Fraser. “And Pearl Harbor showed us just what might happen at Scapa Flow one day if the Germans ever catch us napping. Admiral, I think we’ll name this new hybrid carrier Superb, just as you’ve suggested. Then you can take her out yourself—the best of both worlds, guns, steel, and planes alike.”

“Indeed,” said Tovey, but he still liked his seat on the bridge of HMS Invincible, though it felt different now, particularly after that round from the Germans had nearly put an end to him. Thank God Admiral Volsky was there, he thought, his mind resting fondly on the man, and wishing he could sit down with him again and sort all this business out.

He did not know just how soon that would happen, for miles away, gliding beneath the cold arctic ice, a man was sitting on a stealthy submarine with more on his own mind than he could handle.

Chapter 6

Volsky awoke.

He never could sleep on a submarine. The dreams always bothered him, but nothing like this. He awoke with a start, sitting up with a gasp, as if he had stopped breathing in his sleep, and nearly hit his head on the bunk above. A bright light glared at him, and he blinked, holding up his hand to ward it off.

“Sorry to disturb you sir,” came a voice… He knew that voice, the quiet, steady tones, the sureness when it spoke. Then his eyes adjusted to the light, and he could see the other man’s face, framed in the open hatch to his room. It was Captain Gromyko.

“The officers were going to have a little New Year’s celebration in the wardroom, and we thought you might want to join us. If you’d rather sleep sir, that’s fine. Sorry to disturb you.”

Gromyko looked at him now, his face suddenly registering concern. “Are you alright sir?”

Was he alright?

His mind was spinning with sudden recollection. Gromyko… the submarine… Kazan…. The mission…. It was all coming back, a flood of images that washed over him like a tidal wave, saturating his mind in a confusing and disorienting rush. Yet the mission was over, was it not? They had found Karpov in the Sea of Japan, or at least they found the ship. They had slipped beneath it like an unseen denizen of the deep, and the workings of that arcane magic in the reactor room had saved the day… yes…. Rod-25. How could he be here now, back on the submarine; back on Kazan?

What had happened to all the days after that, returning to the ship, standing on the weather deck off the bridge and seeing the stain of blood there, Karpov’s blood…? Then Fedorov was at his side again, trusty Fedorov, and together the two of them led the ship and crew into June of 1940, but Kazan was nowhere to be found.

There had been battles, the meeting with Tovey in the Faeroes when the Admiral first came aboard Kirov, and it was all playing out in a strange new world—a world only made possible by the interventions they had made with the ship in the past. Where was that other world, the world where this same British Admiral chased me through the North Atlantic, he thought? Where was the world we found when we sailed into the Med, and tangled with the Italians, Germans and British alike? Where was the world that sent that Japanese plane crashing down onto the battle bridge, and saw the ship hounded and pursued by the relentless efficiency of the Imperial Japanese Navy?

That was all gone now, lost, for here they were in a time before any of that had ever happened—June of 1940. The seconds and minutes there would tick off, their sound growing ever louder, through one engagement after another, until that dreadful hour when they approached the time of their first arrival in the past, July of 1941.

But they never reached that time.

Something happened.

It was as twisted as the misshapen warp in the deck, or the sad fate of Lenkov, who found half his body embedded in the galley deck, and the other half inside a Marine locker. It was as mysterious as that thing Fedorov had taken from Orlov, casting it away into Peake’s Deep to be forever lost and forgotten by the world.

Then came the grey mist, the endless sea fog that not even the KA-40 could rise high enough to penetrate. Then came the aimless swell of the sea. In time, he knew, they were lost on that sea, for it lapped the shores of infinity itself, and for them, there would be no safe haven where they would ever drop anchor again.

One by one the men went missing… One by one. Orlov was gone, and Tasarov, and Dobrynin. Then Fedorov vanished one day, a loss that some among the crew did not even notice. It was as if he had never even been there, never even existed, but Volsky remembered. He would not forget.

Then it had happened to him. The feeling had been creeping up on him for many days. He remembered when he had called Rodenko to his cabin, to prepare him for what he knew was coming.

“Mister Rodenko,” he whispered. “I must tell you that I have felt very odd of late.”

“We all have, sir.”

“No,” said Volsky with a wag of his thick finger. “It is more than this confusing madness that has been plaguing us. It is very strange… I feel… empty.”

“Losing a man like Fedorov will do that to you sir. And we’ve lost so many other good men.”

“Yes, but that is not what I mean. It is as though I was just not all here. I’m forgetful, listless, and very fatigued. The other day I was on my way to the bridge and found myself on the wrong deck.”

“It’s just the whole situation, sir, this fog, the missing men, Lenkov’s legs.”

“It’s more than that. Mister Rodenko, I must tell you that you should not be surprised if I am the man who fails to make his next assigned shift. I feel all thin and stretched… I feel like something is pulling at me, reaching for me, but I cannot see it or understand it. If I should suffer the same fate as our good Mister Fedorov, then realize that all this business will then be on your shoulders. Understand?”

Who could comprehend what happened next? There he was, back on the ship, sitting in his chair on the bridge, that dull ache in his sea tooth, the one that would always plague him in the cold waters of the north. There he was, wondering what in hell had happened to the sea, and why the Orel failed to return their hails? There he was, his mind emptied of all that he now remembered, innocent, like a child; unknowing.

Everything seemed as it once was—except Fedorov. Something was different about this young navigator, and the way he drew sparks with Karpov was most surprising. Yet what could be more astounding than the things Fedorov began to assert—that the ship was not where they thought it was, that time itself had slipped into their boiling wake, and that they now sailed in the cold uncertain waters of WWII. The impossibility of that was something the mind had to chip away at, with one test after another, until every scrap of evidence they had about the world they were then sailing in served only to vindicate what Fedorov was saying.

I had lost the memory of everything that happened after that first arrival, he thought, but it is all back now, crowding into my weary head like a throng of theater goers jostling for too few seats. We went south that first time, through the Denmark Strait, but not that second time. No. The second time we turned for home, Murmansk, Severomorsk, and who could have believed I would discover that the Captain skulking on my bridge, worrisome, suspicious, conniving with Orlov, ever at odds with Fedorov, would be replaced by the sinister and devious figure of the man I met in Severomorsk—the Siberian.

Two Karpovs! Two ships; two worlds….

Then I went south on the submarine, not Kazan, but that antiquated old British boat. Yes… I went south, with that thing in my pocket to deliver to Admiral Tovey, Fedorov’s gift—the key. What was that all about? How did Fedorov come by that key, and what did it have to do with any of this madness and mayhem that had swept through their lives, and shaken the fate of the world to its knees?

Then there came that awful moment, in the heat of red battle, the loud boom of the guns, the ear shattering crash on the bridge when that heavy 16-insh shell burst in through the wind screen, and yet did not explode. Men were lying senseless all around him, Tovey one of them, the blood streaming from his ear and neck.

I was stunned and dazed, he thought, but at least had the presence of mind to get Tovey safely back to that aft compartment off the bridge. Then to the wheel, to the ship stricken, headless, careening through the wild sea. Then to the fire of battle, my hand tense on the wheel, legs straining as I threw my weight into it, turning, turning…. Then darkness came upon me, endless silence, the black of unknowing, my very self was torn asunder, lost, lost… until now…. Until this very moment when everything I once was, everything I lived out in both those worlds, now comes pouring back into my head again with its animated fury.

“Sir?” said Gromyko. “Shall I call the ship’s physician?”

He held up a hand, reassuring the Captain that he was alright. “All is well, Captain,” said Volsky, still struggling to place himself here in the mad rush of recollection. Other memories were there, beneath the torrent that now cascaded into his mind, memories of yet another life.

He had been sitting at his desk in the Red Banner Northern Fleet headquarters in Severomorsk, when in walked a most remarkable man—Director Kamenski. He sat himself down, a worn book under his arm, and a familiar light in his eyes that Volsky knew he had seen many times before.

“I have a request to make of you,” he said. “It has to do with the submarine that only just returned to us—the one we lost in the Norwegian Sea.”

“You mean Kazan?”

“That is the one. Admiral…. I need to speak with you about that submarine, and a good deal more….”

They talked, and for a very long time, the subject becoming darker and darker, more convoluted, more impossible to believe, like a story that was pulling him deeper and deeper into its web, until he felt himself to be one with it, just another character in the flow, through time, and tide, and long hours at sea.

Those were the things I now remember, he knew. Kamenski asked me to come aboard and put out to sea with Gromyko, and here I am. Yet when I first stepped aboard this boat, nothing of the maelstrom of recollection that is now raging through my mind was even present. I was another self, from yet another life, and one much quieter and sleepier than these other two I now recall. I think I was to stay put in that life—none of this mucking about in time as Kamenski put it to me, but no, it seems I was fated to become a traveler. That is how he explained it. I was meant to be a part of the longest story ever to be written… right here, right now. It continues at this very moment, in the thrum of the engines that I instinctively perceive whenever I go to sea, in the eyes of this man before me now, wondering, concerned, Gromyko.

“Yes,” said Volsky. “I will join you. I think I need some air.”

The Admiral shifted out of the bunk, feet heavily on the deck, and stood up on unsteady legs. “My sea legs aren’t what they used to be,” he said, gripping the side of the bed rail hard. Gromyko stepped forward to render assistance, still worried. He knew the other man was an old surface warrior, and they had been down under the ice a good long while. Some men never really could find their sea legs on a submarine, and it seemed that Admiral Volsky was one of them.

“Here sir,” said Gromyko. “Let me give you a hand. Then we’ll both raise a toast to the new year—unless you don’t feel up to it.”

“What?” said Volsky. “Captain, I was just dreaming, but I can still drink most any man I have ever met under the table. What year have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

That was the question, for Kamenski told him that, while they would slip out to sea in the year 2021, Kazan would dive into unsounded depths when it reached the Kara Sea.

“You will wake up to all of this soon,” Kamenski had told him. Here, this will help.” He handed him that weathered book, and Volsky remembered eyeing it with passing curiosity—the Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945. And there was something else. He blinked at it stupidly when Kamenski gave it to him, wondering what it was all about.

“Keep that safe for me a little while, will you?” said the Director. “You can just tuck it away in your pocket if you will. Don’t worry about it. These things have a way of minding their own affairs.”

What in the world did Kamenski mean by that?

He had given me that book, and now I know exactly why. Volsky smiled, spying the volume on the night stand beside his cot. And he gave me something else, something I did tuck away in my pocket just as he advised, the key. I didn’t know what it was for when he handed it to me in my office, but by God, I certainly know now.

The memory was there—right there in his weary old head, as if it had always been there, mixed in with everything else. He was speaking with Fedorov about it, the two of them wondering what it was all about…

“This has been a most remarkable journey,” Volsky had said to his young ex-Navigator. “Yet what you say about these keys is very alarming. What are they for, Fedorov?”

“I’ve spent some time piecing it all together, sir. Both Kamenski and I now agree that it all dates back to 1908, the Tunguska Event. That impact did more than level trees in Siberia and provide fodder for the fire of many stories and legends thereafter. It also fractured the fourth dimension, time. It seems that several fissures resulted, like cracks in that mirror, as I tried to explain it before. Some were discovered, and because of the obvious danger should anyone move through them to another time, they were well secured and guarded—put under lock and key.”

“By who?” Volsky scratched his head.

“This we do not really know, but we now believe it was done by the same people who made these keys—the same who sent those signals back through time to the ships of the Watch. You remember when Miss Fairchild told us about that?”

“Yes… Then men from the future did all this?”

“I know it sounds fantastic, sir, but considering the fact that we are men from the future meddling about here makes it easier to believe.”

“How did these keys appear here, in the past? You say Director Kamenski has had one for decades?”

“They must have been brought here,” said Fedorov, “possibly by using the very same time rifts they secured. I’m not sure how long the Watch knew about them, or how they came into their possession. Kamenski didn’t say how he came by his key, though he alluded that it was probably obtained by the KGB. Who knows when?”

“The British have keys too?”

“Miss Fairchild certainly has one. She used it to activate one of the rift sites, at Delphi.”

“How many keys are there, Fedorov? Did you learn that?”

“Fairchild says they knew of at least two others. One was in the possession of another member of the Watch, though she did not name that person, and she said nothing about any time rift associated with that key. The second was in the Selene Horse, aboard Rodney.”

“What about Ilanskiy?” Volsky asked the obvious question. “Is there a key for that rift?”

“The British knew nothing of that,” said Fedorov. “In fact, I may have been the one to first discover it. Even these men in the future did not know about it, which leads me to think that our mission, the ship, my actions, are deeply implicated in all of this. We’re a wild card in the deck, sir.”

“But you say those stairs took you back to 1908, Fedorov. That means anyone could have used them. It’s a long way between 1908 and the 1940s where you stumbled upon it. We know Sergei Kirov used them, and Volkov. Look what resulted!”

“True, sir. That’s very worrisome. All the other rift zones were well guarded, but not Ilanskiy. I think this is what unhinged the key makers plan—Ilanskiy.”

“What plan do you speak of?”

“I’m not sure, sir, but I’ve been thinking about all this for some time. If men in the future discovered these time rifts and secured them, then they were obviously trying to prevent this Grand Finality Miss Fairchild told us about. But they failed—at least that is what Fairchild believes. She tells me the voices went silent. The watch stopped receiving instructions, and their last message urged them to gather and secure all the keys to the rift zones, and one thing more. It was a warning.”

“About this calamity you mention?”

“In one sense, but it was much more specific. It was about us.”

“About us? You mean the ship?”

“Yes sir. That is why Tovey founded the Watch, to keep vigil for our next possible appearance.”

“Yes, and understandably so,” said Volsky. “But this sounds a little more sinister, Fedorov. You say they were told to secure all these keys, but then they are warned about us? What do these men from the future think we are going to do?”

“I don’t know….” Fedorov had a frustrated look on his face now. “When I first heard about these keys, these other rifts, I thought I could finally set down the burden I have been carrying, thinking all this was on my shoulders.”

“On our shoulders, Fedorov, the ship and every man aboard. Do not be so greedy and try to take all the blame yourself.”

“I have tried, sir, but learning about this warning leads me to suspect our part in this tale has not yet run its course. We’re going to do something. This is how I see things now. We’re going to do something that could make it impossible to prevent this calamity Fairchild talks about—this Grand Finality.”

“And it has something to do with these keys?”

“Apparently so, sir…. It’s as if the lines of fate are setting course for some distant rendezvous point, a nexus point, and I’m not sure what is supposed to happen there. We are living all this through moment by moment, and groping like blind men.”

“You want certainty, Fedorov, but you know that is impossible. There is no way we could know this—know something we might do in the future.”

“But there is, sir. We’ve seen the results of our actions. We can look ahead in time and know what we have done. These men from the future might also know. To them this would all be history, but they have gone silent. The only thing we have is that last warning. Beware a ship… beware Kirov…”

Admiral Volsky frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

Volsky smiled grimly to himself, particularly after he now remembered that long conversation he had with Kamenski before he came aboard.

“Captain, our little lightning rod has worked its wonders. Yes? What year have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

“Why, 1943, sir. 1943.”