Cauldron of Fire

Chapter 10

Aboard Kirov Rodenko was watching his long range radar screens with some concern. A small flotilla of five contacts continued to move east from Cagliari, and with the ship now slowed to just 10 knots while the divers were working astern, this put the contact on a direct intercept course. Fedorov seemed lost in his research, trying to ferret out any information he could concerning the details of the Italian presence gathering in the Tyrrhenian Sea. He began to make notations on the Plexiglas at the Nav station, and Karpov watched him out of the corner of one eye while he received reports from Byko on the status of the damage control operation.

Apparently a sizable piece of the exploding KA-40 had been flung against the side of the ship, causing some minor buckling, though water tight integrity was not lost on the hull. Kirov had a shrapnel wound there as well, but the divers were able to seal it off, and also clear some debris that was dangerously near their starboard propulsion shaft and rudder. Two hours later Byko was pulling his men out of the water, and he called up to the bridge to report that he could certify normal cruising speed in ten minutes.

“As for the Horse Tail sonar unit,” he said. “I will have to replace the retraction motors and a few cowling plates, but that will take another eight to twelve hours.”

“Well put your grandpa on it! We’ll need that system up as soon as possible.” Karpov was referring to the ship’s chief mechanic, often called the “Grandpa” when it came to all things mechanical. He passed the information on to Fedorov.

“Good enough,” he said. “I think we will have no major concerns for the next several hours. That contact to the west out of Cagliari will continue to make a gradual approach, but if we take no overtly threatening action we may just be able to slip by. I expect visitors from the north and east as well, but not for some time. The men need rest. Can you stand a watch until midnight?”

Karpov gave him assurances, and so he went below with several members of the senior bridge crew. Dusk gave way to a clear, dark night, returned to them at last since it was so rudely stolen, and the time slipped towards midnight. Karpov was grateful that Fedorov had enough faith in him to let him stand a command watch, though the Marine guard still remained at his post as a precaution. Still, he had the bridge for the first time in a long while, and slipped into the Admiral’s chair, remembering how it felt when he was the unchallenged master of the ship, and thinking how foolish he had been, how blinded by his own ambition.

He still struggled inwardly with it all, and his mind offered up arguments and justifications as it had so many times while he languished in the brig. But here he was given a second chance by the man he had betrayed, and that came to few men in the Russian Navy, particularly those charged with mutinous conduct. In any other circumstances he realized he would still be in the brig, and facing severe disciplinary action, or even a desultory court martial and possible death sentence.

Kalinichev was at radar when he noted that the contact he had been monitoring to their west, which had been steaming at fifteen knots, had suddenly increased speed. “It looks like that have increased to twenty knots, sir,” he reported, “And they are now within 15 kilometers.”

“Still bearing on an intercept course?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Range to horizon?”

“From the top of one of those ships, sir?” Kalinichev made a hasty calculation. “I would say we are probably on their horizon now, sir, but it is very dark.”

“Shut down all running lights,” said Karpov, concerned. “Rig the bridge for black.”

“Aye, sir.”

He considered what to do as the night seemed to flow into the bridge, the phosphorescent glow of the radar and sonar screens the only illumination. He could put on speed and race north to outrun the contact. This is what Fedorov would advise, he knew. But something in his bones refused to give way to these ships, galling him. He decided, in the end, to advise Fedorov and avoid any suspicion or charge that he was again attempting to engage the ship in combat, even if that was what he might prefer. He had given his word to Volsky, a man who had little reason to grant him the grace of his present position, and so he would honor it.

Ten minutes later Fedorov returned to the bridge, still bedraggled with half-sewn sleep.

“Captain on the bridge!” a watch stander called, announcing his arrival. He took a moment, adjusting to the darkness, then found Karpov near the radar station. “I relieve you, sir,” he said politely, taking formal command of the ship again.

“I stand relieved,” Karpov repeated the forms, still fighting off his inner demons in having to relinquish command to a former navigator. Yet he stood to one side, waiting as Fedorov studied Kalinichev’s screen.

The ship’s new captain had expected the contact would occur right around midnight, and he was gratified that events seemed to be unfolding as the history was recorded, like the well oiled mechanism of a clock. He made the decision Karpov had predicted.

“Helm, maintain course and give me thirty knots.”

A bell rang and the helmsman echoed the order. They could feel the powerful surge of the ships twin turbines as the Kirov forged ahead. Fedorov went to the forward view pane, noting Karpov’s field glasses. “May I?” he asked gesturing to the binoculars.

“Of course,” Karpov nodded.

Fedorov looked off their port quarter for a few moments, but was not satisfied. “The moon is still down,” he said. “Not that there will be much of it when it arrives. It is very dark. Nikolin, please activate the port side Tin Man and scan the horizon at 315 degrees.”

The Tin Man rotated and deployed its special night optical filter, with infrared capability, moments later they were staring at an enhanced HD video of a small task force to the northwest. The ships were right on schedule, cruisers Savoia and Montecuccoli, and destroyers Oriani, Gioberte and Maestrale.

“The contact is increasing speed to twenty five knots,” said Kalinichev. “Thirty knots now, sir.”

Karpov gave Fedorov a hard look. “They would not be making that speed for a casual rendezvous,” he said. “I suggest we come to general quarters, Fedorov. I can smell trouble here.”

“Anything else on the screen?” asked Fedorov. “Use your extended range systems.”

“Sir, I have two contacts at 25 degrees northeast at a range of 62 kilometers and three contacts at 55 degrees northeast at a range of 120 kilometers.” Kalinichev adjusted his screen, using their long range over the horizon radar system to report these additional sightings. Fedorov was suddenly concerned.

The numbers and bearings of the contacts did not surprise him, but their timing did. The first would be the heavy cruiser Trieste and a destroyer escort, the Camica Nera, the latter would be light cruiser Muzio Attendolo and two more destroyers, the Aviere and Geniere. They seemed to be early and he went to his old desk at the navigation station to study his notes again while Karpov fidgeted, his eyes watching the overhead Tin Man Display.

“Something is wrong,” Fedorov muttered to himself, confirming his misgivings. “The Muzio Attendolo should not have received its orders to move this soon. Something has changed…”

Karpov overheard him, drifting in his direction. “Look to the screen Fedorov, not your history books. Something has changed? Most likely. Who knows what, eh? We lit up like a candle when that fire started earlier, and the British are obviously aware of our presence. Do not surprise yourself if the Italians have discovered us as well. All I can say is that the movement of those ships does not look friendly.” He pointed at the Tin Man Display, which was now good enough to zoom and show that forward turrets were rotating on the lead cruiser and coming to bear on their heading.

Fedorov stared at the display, his heart beating faster. The history had changed! As much as he might want to slip quietly away, Kirov’s presence was a shaft of fire and steel in the very heart of the Italian Navy’s innermost exclusion zone—the Tyrrhenian Sea. Now he realized that the early arrival of these other contacts and the sudden movement of the nearest group had to be related to their presence here. To make matters worse, Kalinichev spoke up again, in a loud clear voice.

“Sir, I now have airborne contacts in a large group at 255 degrees southwest, range 92 kilometers. They just emerged from the landform clutter of Sardinia. I’m reading twenty discrete contacts.”

Fedorov immediately knew those had to be Italian planes out of airfields around Cagliari. The situation was now spinning out of control and it was obvious to him that the ship was under coordinated attack. Karpov had been waiting impatiently, an exasperated look on his face. He was about to speak again when Fedorov cut in quickly with the words he hoped he would not have to speak this early in the campaign. “Battle stations! Sound general quarters!” The alarm was sounded, much to Karpov’s relief, and he nodded his head in agreement.

“Mister Karpov,” Fedorov turned to his Starpom, activate our 152 millimeter deck gun systems and prepare to engage the near contact on my order to fire.”

“At once, sir!” And Karpov was quick to pass the order to Gromenko, who was now filling in for Samsonov in the Command Information Center. “Feed your targets to the CIC, Kalinichev!”

“Aye, sir. The data is active and we have radar lock.”

Fedorov bit his lip, very disheartened now but committed. “Prepare to repel incoming aircraft,” he said quickly. “Expect 20 planes for a low level torpedo attack.”

Da Zara was also impatient tonight. The Italian Admiral squinted through his field glasses at the shadow on their horizon, wondering what he was getting himself into now. One of Italy’s most capable fighting admirals, he set his flag on the light cruiser Eugenio di Savoia, and was out from the division base at Cagliari to rendezvous with numerous other ships in preparation for an attack on the British convoy near Pantelleria the following day. In fact, he had pulled off this very same maneuver against the last British attempt to relieve Malta, leading the charge in a fast air and sea action that sent the British destroyer Bedouin to the bottom and heaped misery on the decimated convoy just as it was within smelling distance of its objective. He planned to do the same this time, until a priority message from Regia Marina changed everything.

He was ordered to hold his course and search out a suspected British cruiser that had been sighted near dusk by the Italian submarine Bronzo returning to port with mechanical problems, unable to take up its post on the inner picket line. The report was very odd. For a British ship to boldly entered the Tyrrhenian Sea was one thing that immediately jarred naval authorities. When the sub sighted it there appeared to be a fire aft. Was it damaged somehow? Thinking that Naval Aeronatuica already had its teeth into the intruder, the sub captain simply wired in the sighting and continued on his way.

“One ship?” Da Zara had said in disbelief when he received the message. There must be an error, he thought. It could not have come from their main convoy escorts, or our submarines would have surely detected it long before now. What has Mussolini been drinking tonight? Could it have sortied from the east as a diversionary operation? If so, it would be a sly devil to get this far in without being sighted. But yes, a fast cruiser could do this, particularly since all our planes, have been piling up out west on Sardinia for the initial round of air strikes on this British convoy. Who would think to look right here in our own back yard?

He was soon encouraged to learn that two squadrons of SM-79 Sparviero “Sparrowhawks” were already in the air to coordinate with his attack, and that orders had been given to send out ships from Naples to join him, along with 7th Cruiser Division at Messina, which would also be leaving early for the planned rendezvous near Ustica Island. But first, he thought, we deal with this thief in the night, eh?

“Gobbo Maledetto!” he said to his gunnery officer. Where are those damned hunchbacks? We’re too close! They’ll see us any moment if they haven’t already.”

The ‘damned hunchbacks’ were the nickname many gave to the SM-79s, with their odd three engine design and high dorsal hump, it seemed a much more suitable name than ‘Sparrowhawk.’ An old plane that had first been conceived as a small passenger aircraft, it was converted to a bomber as the war loomed and had served alarmingly well in that capacity. It was fast for its age, durable in spite of its wood and metal amalgam frame, and lethal enough if it could get in close for a torpedo run.

Da Zara stepped out onto his weather deck, his heavy sea coat hood thrown back, his gold braided admiral’s cap fitted smartly, gloved hands holding his field glasses. A handsome man, in his day he had been known to make more than a few prominent conquests, though now he set his mind on little more than his beloved light cruisers.

“Avanti!” He called over his shoulder. “Sparare!”

His command was answered immediately with the bright orange fire and sharp concussion of his forward deck guns. Eugenio de Savoia carried four turrets with two 152mm guns each, and his initial salvo streaked through the darkness toward the formless shadow on the horizon. His second cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli followed suit and opened fire as well, and the three destroyers in the van began to fan out to make their torpedo run, accelerating to high speed and leaving white frothy wakes behind them as they charged ahead.

At that moment Da Zara heard the low drone of aircraft overhead, looking back to see flights of the ungainly Sparrowhawks roaring to join the fight in a well coordinated attack. The smell of the sea and gunfire excited the Admiral, who had boasted he was the only fighting commander in the Italian Navy who had bested the Royal Navy at its own game. Now he was eager to make good his claim, and send this bold intruder to the bottom of the sea.

Fedorov saw the distant flashes on the horizon, too close to give him any comfort. His plan to slip past the unknowing Italians had been foiled. They must have been spotted, by one means or another, while Byko’s engineers were putting out the fire and seeing to the damage below the waterline. The instant he saw the distant muzzle flashes he knew the ship was in real peril. Kirov was never built for close in action with well gunned adversaries. Even though these were only light cruisers, those six inch shells would cause serious harm anywhere they struck the ship. Only the command citadels had sufficient armor protection from them. No—the ship’s power was in standing off and pummeling her enemies from long range, using the speed and lethality of her anti-ship missiles to decide the conflict before the enemy had even knew they were there. He had counted on the night, the darkness, and a witless opponent, and now found himself regretting the decision to wait so long. They had been spotted and were now under fire, a circumstance that never should have happened for a fighting ship like Kirov.

The first enemy salvos were short, and laterally wide off the mark, which did not surprise him. The Italian ships had no radar to speak of, relying on good night optics to site their guns. And this particular naval gun had a history of different problems. The lateral dispersion on salvos resulted from imprecise size and weight in both the main rounds and their propellant charges. Beyond that, the guns were prone to misfire, as much as 10 percent of the time, and mechanical faults or delays in loading, insecure breech closure, and problems with the shell hoists seriously reduced their rate of fire. The gun’s designers had claimed three rounds per minute, but tonight Da Zara’s ships would do no better than two.

Fedorov looked at Karpov, resigned to the fact that Kirov had to fight. “Mister Karpov,” he said quietly. “Deal with those ships.”

Karpov smiled. “My pleasure, sir.” Then he turned to Gromenko and gave the order to fire. Now it was Kirov’s turn with her three twin 152mm gun turrets, the same size in real weight as the enemy but with far more accurate fire control systems with precision round tracking, water cooled barrels, lightning fast loaders, and ammunition that was state-of-the-art. The guns fired with a sharp crack, both barrels recoiling to fire again and again. Gromenko had the interval set at three seconds, and in the long minute while Da Zara’s force was struggling to load, sight and aim the four forward twin gun turrets on the two cruisers, Kirov unleashed all of twenty salvos, 120 rounds to the 16 shells the Italians finally managed to throw their way. And every round the big battlecruiser fired was radar guided, streaking across the sea in a violent storm of steel.

Chapter 11

Before Da Zara could get his field glasses focused on the target to spot his salvo geysers, his ship was rocked by three direct hits with one near miss, and he was nearly thrown off his feet.

“Madre de Dio!” he exclaimed, then he saw Montecuccoli erupt with fire and smoke, shuddering under two, then five jarring hits. Her forward turret exploded, sending one of the gun barrels cart-wheeling up and away from the ship like a hot lead pipe. Two of his three destroyers were riddled with fire as well. It was as if someone had crept up on his task force with a massive shotgun and blasted his ships at close range! He gave the order to come hard to port, hoping his aft batteries could get off at least one salvo, but his enthusiasm for this sea battle was suddenly gone.

As Savoia heeled over she was struck three more times, the final round very near the bridge quarterdeck, sending the admiral down onto the hard cold iron. He groaned, coughing with the smoke and feeling the heat of fire below. Then he gaped in awe at what he saw in the skies above him!

Flights of Sparrowhawks thundered amid a wild display of streaking light and violent explosions. Fiery trails of orange clawed the dark sky, like molten fire arrows flung at the bombers, and they were being picked off with lethal accuracy. Three, then five, then nine, the night shuddering under the intensity of the sound, the wine dark seas gleaming with reflected fire. He crossed himself, watching the carnage of his fellow countrymen as they died. Then he reached for the hand rail, clutching it with a bloody glove and dragging himself to his feet.

He cleared his voice and shouted one last command. “Avvenire! A tutta velocita. Andiamo via de qui!” And as his ship lurched about, her aft guns plaintively firing one last salvo, he shook his head, as much to gather his sensibilities as anything else. This was no mere cruiser, he thought. It’s a battleship, and it blew my task force away with nothing more than its secondary batteries! But Madre de Dio! What was it firing at the hunchbacks? He looked at it one last time as the cruisers and destroyers made smoke to mask their retreat. The British have avenged their losses of a few months past, he thought. And now he knew how this one ship might be so bold as to sail here on its own. It was a behemoth of vengeance and a devil from hell!

They had inflicted heavy damage on Da Zara’s squadron, but it gave Fedorov no real satisfaction when he saw the ships turn and run. Then the flights of low flying bombers arrived, and he watched how Karpov coolly ordered the use of the same Klinok medium range SAM system that had caused the accident earlier, only now he was utilizing silos mounted on the forward deck. There was no malfunction on this occasion. The missiles were smartly up from their silos at three second intervals and streaking away towards the incoming aircraft. Seconds later they heard saw the awesome display in the sky as missile after missile found targets and ignited in brilliant spheres of fiery orange on the horizon. It was as if a terrible thunder storm had broiled up over a dead calm sea.

Karpov had activated two batteries of eight missiles each, and true to protocol, he had Gromenko fire the first six missiles in each battery, holding two in reserve. All twelve missiles found targets, and the shock of the attack sent the remaining eight SM-79 Sparrowhawks into wild evasive maneuvers, insofar as they were able for a lumbering tri-engine plane. Four bugged out completely, turning and diving low on the deck to roar past Da Zara’s burning cruisers while the Admiral shook his fist at them, the remaining four carried on bravely, three launching torpedoes and then quickly turning away, the last stubbornly bearing in on Kirov.

“What is the range of those torpedoes?” asked Karpov as he watched the planes on the Tin Man display.

“Don’t worry about them,” said Fedorov. They need to be inside two kilometers to have any chance of hitting us.”

Karpov considered that, then gave the order to secure the Klinok system and activate the close in defense Gatling guns. The AK-760 gun system was the latest replacement for the navy’s older AK-630M1-2 system. It was housed in new stealth turrets, and still utilized the six barreled 30mm Gatling gun, though its rate of fire was an astounding 10,000 rounds per minute. Oddly, the under mount magazine held only 8000 rounds during normal operations, so it was rare that the gun would ever fire full out. Instead it would bark out short fiery bursts of HE fragmentation rounds that could shred an incoming missile at a range of four kilometers. With radar, optical sighting, TV control and laser lock systems, it was amazingly accurate, and Karpov waited confidently until the port side guns locked on and then fired two short bursts when the plane reached the 4000 meter mark.

The pilot of the last brave hunchback was clenching his stick and ready to pull the release on his torpedo when he felt his plane shake violently as the fragmentation rounds ripped off his right engine and half the wing. Low over the sea, his plane went into an immediate and unrecoverable dive, plunging into the water with a huge splash.

Up in the citadel they could hear the sound of the men cheering on the decks below as the last plane went down, and Karpov smiled, giving Fedorov a sidelong glance. “You may secure your gun system, Gromenko.”

Fedorov breathed deeply, his lips tight. He had no real idea how to fight the ship as Karpov did, but he stowed the lesson away. Karpov stepped over to him and spoke quietly. “I know how you feel, Captain,” he said in a low voice so that none of the other officers would hear. “What must be done is sometime very unpleasant. When it comes down to their ships and planes or the loss of ours, you will know what you must do.”

Fedorov looked down, still unsatisfied within, but he nodded, acknowledging what Karpov was saying. Then he straightened up, turning Gromenko. “How many missiles remain for our Klinok system?”

“Sir, my board notes 17 missile fires in the last two engagements, and we now have 79 missiles remaining in inventory on that system.”

“Something to consider,” he said to Karpov. “We have a long way to go before we reach safe waters.” He looked about, noting the time. “Helm—left fifteen degrees rudder and come to course 315.”

“Left fifteen and stead on three-one-five” echoed the helmsman “Speed thirty knots, aye, sir.”

“Walk with me, Captain.” Fedorov had heard Admiral Volsky say and do this, when he wanted a private talk with an officer, and it seemed appropriate for the moment. Karpov grinned, but followed respectfully, and the two men entered the briefing room at the back of the citadel.

“I’m going to take us up to the Strait of Bonifacio,” Fedorov began as he switched on the digital wall map and displayed the region. “At thirty knots we should be there by dawn, roughly six hours. It would be better if we could run the strait at night, but I don’t want to linger in these waters any longer than I have to.” He pointed to the map where the ship’s current position was clearly indicated with a bright red dot, and there were several blue dots north and east of their position indicating other contacts already designated and tracked by their long range radar system. He tapped one of these contacts, well east of the ship.

“This is the heavy cruiser group,” he said, “Bolzano and Goriza— both with 8 inch guns and better armor than the ships we just engaged. There will be another heavy cruiser here, Trieste, and each group will have destroyer escorts. This other group out of Naples will be another light cruiser. By steering 315 I’m taking the most direct route north to get us out of the Tyrrhenian Sea. These cruisers are fast, but I think we can stay well ahead of them at thirty knots and reach the strait before they can pose any threat. And my understanding of the Italians at this point in the war, I don’t think the lighter surface action groups will attempt to engage us without support from more air units or heavier ships. There is considerable air power mustered near Cagliari, and we may remain in range of planes from those fields for some time on this route. But they have a mission against the British convoy as their first priority, and we may simply be an inconvenient barb in their side at the moment. They had a run at us, but with little more than twenty percent of the strength they might deploy in a well planned attack. At dawn, however, we will have to get past the naval base at La Maddalena. And we could also face some danger from German and Italian planes at Grosseto. That airfield would be here, very near the Island of Elba on the Italian mainland. The other route north around Corsica takes us very near the major Italian base at La Spezia. Thankfully, the really dangerous ships are at Taranto. They didn’t move their battleships to La Spezia until later in 1942.”

“No matter,” said Karpov glibly. “If they were there, and they dared to send them against us those ships would get the same treatment.”

Fedorov let that remark pass and simply said: “Well my hope is that we can avoid engagement whenever possible, Captain.”

“Very well,” said Karpov. “I agree that we must conserve our missile inventories, but what about this naval base?”

“There will not be much there, a few destroyers, perhaps a few swift boats and other auxiliaries. I think we can get by without much difficulty. But the strait is only 11 kilometers wide and there will be little room to maneuver in the channel. We can expect minefields, and possibly even enemy submarine activity.”

Karpov’s eyes darkened at this. If there was anything that he truly feared at sea, it was an enemy submarine. Yet these were not the fast, stealthy modern American attack subs he had drilled against so often in their training maneuvers. These were old WWII subs, and he took heart in that, his confidence still unflagging.

“The loss of one of our KA-40s was regrettable,” he said. “And I am still concerned about the Horse Tail sonar. That said, I think we have more than enough capability to deal with these old boats.”

“They are diesel, and can run on battery as well,” Fedorov cautioned him. “I need not remind you that we were targeted earlier, and found these submarines difficult to find when they are simply hovering. So I want Tasarov on the sonar when we run the straits.”

“He’ll be there,” said Karpov. “With the best ears in the fleet. And with your permission sir, I’ll check on the status of systems repairs. We have trouble with radar sets, the aft Klinok systems, and the sonar there. Now that we are one helo short, we will need to be more deliberate in the event we encounter enemy forces, particularly undersea boats.”

“You believed I waited too long to engage here?”

“I do, sir, with no offense intended.”

Fedorov nodded. “None taken, Karpov. I know I have much to learn, and I will be relying on you and the other senior officers as well if we have to fight again.”

“Every man will give you their best, sir,” said Karpov. “With no doubt.”

Fedorov paused for a moment, then said something else that had been in the air between them and harbored inwardly by both men. “I know this must be difficult for you, Captain—I mean, being reduced in rank and placed beneath me this way. I am not saying I have earned this position either. I know I have no real experience in combat, or even running the ship, though having been a navigator I can maneuver well enough.”

“I understand your feelings, Fedorov, but I must shoulder my burden now as best I can. I asked the admiral for this post, and he was good enough to give it to me. I may have been wrong, even reckless before, and what I did should not be easily forgiven—not by the Admiral, or by you, or even by the junior officers. Yes, I admit it to you now. I had time enough to think about it in the brig these last ten days. You tried to warn me that the American carrier was no threat, but I had more on my head than I could hold at the time, and I acted… stupidly…”

“Alright, Captain,” said Fedorov. “I’ll make you a deal. You keep me from acting stupidly when it comes to fighting the ship, and I’ll do my best to keep you from acting stupidly.” He smiled, and Karpov clasped him on the shoulder.

“Done,” he said.

An hour later the ship was again brought to action stations when yet another squadron of Italian bombers approached from the southwest. Karpov suggested they break up the formation early with one well placed S-300.

“If we throw a firecracker into their beehive they may just have second thoughts about attacking us,” he said confidently, and he was correct. He had Gromenko fire a single long range SAM at the formation, and it was able to kill two planes and send the remaining eight scattering in all directions. Nikolin could hear the pilots chattering on the radio, clearly distressed by what had happened. Then, one by one, the planes broke off and turned southwest for Cagliari.

“That was just a probing attack,” said Fedorov. “They have much bigger fish to fry later today when the British convoy approaches the Skerki Bank. The history records attacks by 20 aircraft at 08:00 hours, a major attack by 70 planes at noon, and then the real show before dusk with over 100 aircraft. Needless to say, I think we can feel fortunate that they are so preoccupied to the south. Tonight they will still be receiving aircraft from Sicily and the air crews will be getting the planes ready for those operations. They know where we are from that last abortive jab. My only hope is that they do not put us on their target list again in the morning.”

He looked at Nikolin, a sly gleam in his eye. “Here is a job for you Nikolin.”

“Sir?”

“I think it’s time for a little ruse…”

Chapter 12

Hut Four at Bletchley Park was a nondescript extension off the main mansion complex, with plain pale green siding and a tar black roof. Its special purpose was decryption of naval signals intelligence and photo analysis, and one of its frequent denizens was Britain’s top cryptographer Alan Turing, who was lounging at his desk a few minutes past midnight when the envelope first came in. Unlike all the other parcels received at Bletchley Park, it was delivered by a uniformed Navy courier, somewhat breathless as he clomped in with soiled boots, which immediately caught Turing’s attention. Most everything else would come in at six in the morning, in a quiet, routine manner, the adjutant making the rounds, desk to desk, with a squeaky wheeled cart. For a courier to burst in at this ungodly hour meant something rather important had been caught in the intelligence nets.

“Lucky enough to find someone up at this hour,” the man huffed.

Turing sat up, nodded perfunctorily as he signed the man’s clipboard, and then eyed the package he was handed with interest and a good measure of curiosity. Of late the load of intercepts, reconnaissance film and photos wanting the attention of the boys in Hut Four had lightened somewhat. It was marked URGENT — TOP SECRET, as they all were, and he flicked a lock of dark hair from his brow as he looked more closely at the source.

Something out of the Med, he thought. It had come in by special overnight courier flight from Gibraltar, which led him to believe that someone there wanted to give it some rather pointed attention. My God, they put the rush on this one! Curious, he opened the clasps, and unsealed the envelope, not surprised to find a reel of video footage, typical gun camera film, and a few enlargements. He took one in hand, immediately turning it over to see the notation and date. It was very fresh, not a day old, which was again quite surprising. The date read 14:thirty Hours, 11 AUG 42. Takali Airfield — MALTA — REQUEST ID. That raised an eyebrow, as he hadn’t seen much out of Malta for some time, particularly with an ID request. Most every enemy ship and sub operating in those waters was well photographed and documented. What are they fussing over now, he thought? Probably some recent aerial photography over Taranto or La Spezia. Or perhaps some low level runs over the German U-Boat base at Salamis. Could Jerry have slipped a new U-Boat type into the Med? They had been operating with a handful of Type VIIs in their 29th Flotilla. What now?

He flipped the photo over, surprised again to see what looked like a capital ship at sea, awash in a hail of gunfire from an attacking plane, and very oddly exposed. Something about the light on the sea drew his eye, and the peculiar darkness of the ship itself, an ominous looking shadow. It was hard to see much detail in the grainy photo, so he decided to rack up the film reel and give it a spin in the video room. Moments later he was deeply absorbed in what he saw. He ran it through once, finding he had slowly leaned forward for a close look by the time the film ended, then he rewound the whole thing and ran it again. It was very curious, and something seemed to turn in his stomach as he watched it the second time, a thrum of anxiety mixed with a thimble full of adrenaline. When the reel ended he looked at the two photos he held in his hand.

“Request ID…. Indeed,” he said aloud. His eyes seemed searching, darkly bothered, and his brow was low and set with the focus of his mind. He got up and walked with a fast, deliberate pace to the file room at the back of the hut. When was it now? Some time ago. He went through several files before the date came to him again. Yes…That was it. The file…

He had called it simply that in discussion with a select handful of mates there at the hut. “The File.” It had commanded their attention this very month, a year ago, and set the whole Royal Navy on its ears with the surprising emergence of a new German raider in the North Atlantic. The weapons the ship had deployed were awesome. Particularly the final blow that had been struck against the American Navy. It was a weapon of enormous power, frightening in its effect. And it prompted the whole intelligence community to work overtime for the next six months. They had been frightened half out of their wits when the photos on that monster came in. Yet just as the Royal Navy and her American allies were closing in on this phantom ship, it disappeared, and was presumed sunk in that final action. The Americans put it out that their gallant destroyer flotilla had charged into close quarters with this sea faring goliath, and died to a man sending the dreadful ship to the bottom of the sea. Yet the matter was never fully set at ease insofar as British intelligence was concerned.

The public never knew about it, as the whole incident was a closely guarded secret, spun out instead as a dastardly combined German U-boat and surface raider attack on a neutral American naval task force. Few knew all the details of the encounter, and those that did lived with a terrible fear those next six months. They waited, eyes white with fear, every time a flight of German bombers would appear over London, thinking the next one would surely deliver another fatal and catastrophic blow with this horror weapon, but it never came.

Sailors who had been involved in the battle spread rumors in spite of warning to hush the matter, and the fleet soon came to believe that the Germans were developing fearsome new naval weapons to counter the Royal Navy’s advantage at sea. But they were never seen again. Even in skirmishes with the last big German battleship, the Tirpitz, lurking in the cold icy water of the Norwegian Sea where this strange raider had first been spotted, there was no further deployment of the “wonder weapons” this ship has used with such deadly effect.

Weeks became months, and became a long year. All the information, Admiralty reports, interviews with senior officers in command and individual ship diaries, along with all their signals logs had been bundled, collected, classified, and coalesced under one file—“the file” as Turing had once called it—and a copy was still here, sitting right there in Hut Four with a plain white typewritten label on the box that read simply: “GERONIMO”.

Something in the feeling that lodged in his gut sent Turing right to this very file, and he opened the box with some trepidation, reaching first for the sheaf of photo samples that had been obtained— all too few considering the resources that had been thrown at this raider. He took the best of them out, remembering how he had squinted and stared at it when he first saw the image a year ago, and how he had noted the shadow of a man standing there on the long foredeck to work out the scale and length of the ship. Now he held the photo in his left hand, and compared it to the new arrival in his right. He stared at them, for a very long time, his eyes darkening further as he studied them both under a magnifying glass. Then he sealed up the box and walked briskly back to his desk and picked up a telephone.

“Special line,” he said tersely. “Admiralty.”

“Right away, sir.” A switchboard operator returned, and he was soon patched through on an encrypted channel. There was a brief delay, that seemed like long minutes to Turing, and in time a voice answered on the other end.

“Admiralty, special operations and intelligence.”

He identified himself, saying simply “Turing, Hut Four. Geronimo. I repeat. Geronimo.”

There was a pause, a very long pause it seemed. Then the voice said in quiet confirmation. “Very good sir. Geronimo. I’ll pass it on to the proper authority.”

In the early morning hours of August 12, 1942 a telephone rang in the personal quarters of Admiral and Commander-in Chief, Home Fleet, John Tovey. Its strident alarm roused him from much needed sleep, and he groped fitfully for the receiver on his nightstand, finally grasping it and muttering an irritated “yes?” that was clearly tinged with “how dare you.” Yet he knew, on one level of his still sleep fogged mind, that he would not be receiving a call at this hour without real urgency behind it.

What could it possibly be this time, he groped? Home Fleet had no operations in progress. The Dieppe Operation was not yet teed up. Operation Pedestal was not in his purview. The only thing on his calendar was the laborious agony of hosting the Turkish Ambassador and Naval Attaché aboard King George V tomorrow. All Russian convoys were suspended after the disaster of convoy PQ 17 and also because of the transfer of Home Fleet units to the Mediterranean for Operation Pedestal. He had received the bad news concerning HMS Eagle before he turned in for the night. What more could have happened? Good God, he thought suddenly. Don’t tell me they’ve put another carrier at the bottom of the sea—or even one of the battleships.

“Yes, John Tovey. What is it?” This time there was less irritation and more accommodation in his voice.

“Admiralty intelligence on the line sir. Please hold while we secure the connection.” Tovey waited in the darkness of his quarters, dreading the inevitable bad news. It was far too early to hear any good news concerning the only major operation they had going now in the Med. So it had to be bad. What else?

The line cleared. He heard a low tone indicating an encrypted connection had been established. Then a voice came on the line with a single word, and his heart seemed to skip a beat when he heard it. “Geronimo.”

There was a long silence while the other party waited, and Tovey realized the caller was needing his confirmation that the codeword was received and understood. “Very well,” he said haltingly. “Geronimo…. Has First Sea Lord Admiral Pound been notified?”

“Yes sir, and Admiralty would like to request your participation in a meeting this morning at zero 8:00 hours, sir. The usual location. A Fleet Air Arm plane will be waiting for you at Hatston in… one hour, sir. I’m very sorry for the short notice, but we only just received this. Home Fleet staff has been advised that you have been taken ill and will not be able to receive the Turkish Ambassador this morning at Scapa Flow.”

“I will confirm my attendance now—anything else?”

“No sir, that is all.”

That was quite enough, thought Tovey as he hung up the receiver. It seems he would not have to suffer the boredom of formal protocols this afternoon after all. Instead it would be Sir Dudley Pound and all the other hatbands and cuff stripes at the Admiralty after a long, cold flight to London. Yet the nature of the call—that single word known to so very few—filled him with dread and foreboding. Intelligence has got their mitts on something new, he thought. What could it be?

He eased out of his bed, reaching for the light. There was very little time to waste if he was going to catch his plane at the appointed hour. God help us if there’s been another ‘incident,’ he thought, thinking that word so completely inadequate for what he and his men had gone through in the North Atlantic…well…a year ago, wasn’t it? Yes, a full year, almost to the day.

They put him on a fast Coastal Command Beaufighter, which was no surprise if they wanted to get him to the Admiralty in good time. The plane climbed through the typical shroud of low lying fog and up into a drab pre-dawn sky, the throttle opening up to near full power for most of the 500 mile run in. They landed at a little used RAF station, as close to Whitehall as possible, but one requiring a short drive to reach the Admiralty citadel. The grey dawn was breaking by the time Tovey’s car reached his destination, and he was all of thirty minutes early, working his way in through security to eventually reach the citadel command center of the Admiralty, Special conference room 1. The door was plainly marked: MOST SECRET — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

A solitary Marine guard stood to attention and saluted as he approached. When Tovey had returned the salute, the guard turned, knocked quietly on the door with a white gloved hand, then opened it for the admiral, standing stiffly to attention again as Tovey entered. The door was pulled quietly closed behind him, and he crossed the antechamber, opening the inner door to find four other men seated at the conference table. The guest list was not surprising. First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound sat at the head of the table, flanked by his Second Sea Lord Sir William Whitworth and then Tovey’s old friend Sir Frederick Wake-Walker, now Third Sea Lord. The fourth man was not in uniform. He wore dark pressed trousers, white shirt under a fine knit vest and a grey tweed jacket. His tie looked over worn and ill tied, as though he threw it on as an afterthought. A dash of straight brown hair fell on his forehead above coal dark eyes, bright with fire.

The men stood to greet him, and Admiral Pound extended an arm as they exchanged handshakes. He made the introduction. “I can see you were surprised to see a man in civilian clothing in these chambers, Admiral,” he said warmly. “May I introduce Professor Alan Turing, called in this morning from Bletchley Park.”

“My pleasure,” said Tovey as he shook the man’s hand. “If I understand correctly, you led the decryption effort for German Navy Enigma traffic?”

“I did my part, sir,” said Turing, his voice high and thin. “The chaps in Hut Eight had a good deal to do with sorting it all out.”

“Well it’s been a godsend, in more ways than you can imagine. First rate, but I’m inclined to think that we’ve just bit into a fairly salty cracker considering the number of stripes in this room.”

Pound got right to the point, “Professor Turing received some gun camera footage taken by a Coastal Command Beaufighter at mid-day yesterday. Air Vice Marshall Park of the Malta Air Defense had a look at it and thought he better send in on to Gibraltar, where it was received at 17:00 hours and just happened to catch the last plane out an hour later. It’s a miracle it got in to Bletchley Park as soon as it did. I’m to understand that Park also phoned ahead and set a watch on the parcel, putting the spurs to it, if you will. Just our good fortune that Professor Turing was also working very late last night, and round midnight he had a look at the footage and made a rather alarming deduction.” The Admiral gestured to the chairs as all the men seated themselves.

Tovey’s heart sank as he knew from the code word he had received what the general subject of this meeting was to be about. Admiral Pound settled in, and then extended a hand to Turing, inviting him to take the floor.

The young man cleared his throat. “Well gentlemen,” he began, his eyes widening a bit as he spoke, “it was a simple enough request for identification of a vessel sighted in the Tyrrhenian Sea yesterday. There were two photos, he pushed a file over to Admiral Pound, “and I’ve taken the liberty of including photography taken of the Geronimo raider incident last August as well. I ran the footage and something about the look of this ship just set my stomach turning—considering the impact Geronimo had on our operations.”

Pound had seen the photos and he passed them to Whitworth on his right, who studied them closely, a look of intense interest on his dignified features. He had been in the Royal Navy since the turn of the century and had commanded the Battlecruiser Squadron with its flagship HMS Hood in the first years of the war. No stranger to combat at sea, his flag was on the battlecruiser Renown when he mixed it up with the German raiders Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the Norwegian Sea, besting both ships in the action and driving them off to lick their wounds. Just a few weeks before Bismarck sortied, he had been recalled from Hood to the Admiralty to take up a new post as Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and Second Sea Lord. The loss of Hood days later was a shock to him, and he realized the change of command may have very well saved his own life, though he still regretted not being with his ship when she made her last desperate voyage. He ran a hand through his grey-white hair, high on his forehead now, but still full.

Whitworth passed the photos to Wake-Walker, a man who’s career had been dogged with some misfortune, though it did not impede his steady rise in the ranks to his present position as Third Sea Lord. He had been found liable for mishandling his ship, then HMS Dragon, in 1934. Last year during the hunt for the Bismarck Admiral Pound had faulted him severely after the sinking of Hood for not re-engaging with Norfolk, Suffolk and Prince of Wales. In that incident Tovey had to come to his defense and threatened resignation if charges were brought forward, saying he would sit as a defense witness in any proceeding brought against Wake-Walker. The matter was eventually dropped. Then, scarcely a few months later, it had been Wake-Walker’s carrier Force P that had first sighted, shadowed and engaged the Geronimo raider, which is why he took particular interest in the photos, staring at them a long time before he gave them over to Admiral Tovey.

“Please note the antennae situated on the secondary mast, on both photos,” said Turing. “See how the panels are tilted at the same angle. Some thirty degrees off the vertical? That was one similarity that immediately caught my eye.”

Tovey looked up, somewhat surprised. “You believe the Italians have mounted radar sets on their capital ships—perhaps technology given them by the Germans?”

“That was what I suggested,” said Admiral Pound. “It’s clear that this could not possibly be a German ship.”

“My pardon, sir,” said Turing, “But isn’t that what we deduced a year ago—that the Geronimo raider could not have possibly been anything in the German inventory?” They had scoured every harbor, every shipyard, and came to the conclusion that the ship they had faced a year ago in the North Atlantic had been a pariah. Every other known ship in the German Navy that could have exhibited its speed, and characteristics had been accounted for. Yet this ship was a complete mystery. How it could have been built by the Germans without being seen and documented by Royal Navy Intelligence was a matter of lengthy discussion, and it had forced the Boys at Bletchley Park to review reams of signals traffic for months after. Yet they had found nothing whatsoever that in any way hinted at the existence of the ship, let alone the weaponry it deployed and used with such dramatic effect.

In the end they simply came to call the raider “Geronimo,” after the renegade Indian chief that had been harried and pursued by the Americans, hunted down by a select group of Federal cavalry. The Royal Navy had its own select scout ships out in the hunt when this raider first appeared, followed by carriers under Wake-Walker and then Admiral Tovey’s battleships from Home Fleet, but it did them no good. In the end they had acquiesced to the American line that the enemy ship had been sunk by the their own Desron 7, though none of the eight destroyers that formed that group survived the encounter to provide any real confirmation of that claim. Not a single survivor had been found, nor was there any sign whatsoever of wreckage on the sea, not even a drop of oil to mark the place where they must surely have fought the enemy to the death.

It left an uncomfortable feeling in the stomachs of men accustomed to much more certainty when it came to the intentions and capabilities of the enemy they were still facing. The intelligence failure had been profound. That was the way Churchill put it, and when the doughty Prime Minister stuck his umbrella in your gut it was sure to get your attention. Yet that was how they left it—a stinging black eye where the Abwehr had jabbed them blind. But Turing still had deep misgivings about the ship, and the weaponry it displayed. He kept it largely to himself, but inwardly never believed any of the official lines about the incident. He thought it useless to raise his suspicions with all the intensity of the brou-ha-ha then underway in the intelligence community. Yet he never gave them up or was able to put them to rest.

Pound looked at him, somewhat perturbed. “Would you say this is a cruiser? It looks to be something quite more.”

“That is what struck me immediately,” said Turing. “I can tell you definitively that this is not an Italian cruiser, sir. We have all those ships accounted for. Their battleships are very low on fuel, and they’ve taken to leaving them in port and using their oil to refuel smaller ships and submarines. Our operatives can verify that Taranto has not sent anything of this size out of in the last three days, and the same for La Spezia. Now we do know that Admiral Da Zara has sortied with his 3rd Cruiser Division out of Calabria—two light cruisers and three destroyers. And he is also moving the 7th Cruiser Division out of Messina and Naples with a couple of heavy cruisers and a handful of destroyers, but those ships were not anywhere near these coordinates when this photo was taken.” He indicated the message decrypt record, also a part of the file, which listed the exact coordinates of the sighting.

“I can verify that,” said Whitworth. “I had a look at the latest intercepts this morning. We’ve got all those ships under observation. But there’s more to this sighting than these photographs. First off this ship was sighted alone, with no other escorts.”

Pound shifted uncomfortably as Whitworth continued.

“We sent 248 Beaufighter Squadron from Gibraltar to Malta on the 10th of August. They were the planes responsible for this sighting, and I have Park’s latest communiqué indicating this same group flew a strike mission on the afternoon of the 11th. They found the ship again, and, well…they were cut to pieces for their trouble. Four of six Beaus went down, and only two crews came out alive. And here’s the rub—they were shot down by some sort of naval rocketry.” He folded his arms gravely, looking at Wake-Walker and Tovey.

“Rocketry?” said Wake-Walker, the memory of his own squadrons off Furious and Victorious still an unhealed wound. “You mean to say the Italians have these weapons now?”

“Apparently so,” said Pound quickly. “It’s my belief that the Germans have brewed up a new lot of these fire sticks and they’ve shipped them to Regia Marina in an effort to tip the balance of the war in the Mediterranean theater. For that matter we might expect to find Tirpitz or their other heavy ships equipped with them in the near future as well. And should they be carrying anything more…” His implication was obvious to them all.

Turing had a strange look on his face, set and determined. He had not heard about this second strike mission or the use of rockets until just this moment. Now his very worst suspicions were confirmed, at least in his own mind, but how could he broach the subject with the cream of Admiralty? These men were no-nonsense naval royalty. They had centuries of combined experience between them and were accustomed to having things nailed down with brass tacks and well in order at all times. Yet he could not remain silent. He had to say something.

“Well sir,” he said to Admiral Pound. “I must say that from my close examination of the photography in hand, I do not believe this ship is anything in the Italian naval inventory.”

Pound gave him a hard look. It was enough that he had ventured to contradict the First Sea Lord, but even more that he would suggest…What was he suggesting? “See here,” he began, somewhat perturbed. “Then you are telling me that this is not an Italian ship? It bloody well isn’t a German ship. That leaves us with something out of Toulon, and it would be quite a stretch of the imagination to believe the French would be at sea, and even more so with weapons described in that last communiqué from Malta.”

A remnant of the French Navy was still holed up in Toulon, and it included some rather formidable ships, including the battleships Dunkerque, Strasbourg, and Provence, and numerous cruisers and destroyers, some 57 surface ships and numerous subs, torpedo boats, sloops and auxiliaries.

Wake-Walker came in with another angle. “Could the Germans have gotten their hands on one of these French ships, and rigged her out with these new weapons? I dare say we haven’t kept a very close watch on the French Navy since Aboukir Bay.”

“Hut Four cannot confirm that,” said Turing, “and I can say definitively that we have not seen anything in the Enigma coding that would in any way lead us to that conclusion over at Hut Eight.”

Pound frowned at him. “I wish I could feel more reassured in hearing that, Professor Turing. After all, Bletchley Park had that same line concerning this Geronimo incident in the first place.”

Turing ignored the obvious barb in the remark, feeling that the discussion was sliding away towards conclusions that would lead the Royal Navy to make a grave error. He had come to a far different conclusion about this ship when he first saw the gun camera footage and, as he tried to muster the courage to express his feelings, he realized that it was very likely that he would be scapegoated for any further intelligence failure here. Kill the messenger. It was all too common, even with all the apparent chin chin civility of these men. He girded himself, then finally began to speak his mind.

“Admiral Pound,” he said flatly. “I have examined this photography very closely. The ship depicted is over eight hundred and twenty feet in length, and I estimate it to displace at least 30,000 tons or more. That is a hundred feet more than either Dunkerque or Strasburg from the French Navy, 60 feet longer than the Italian battleship Littorio, and the equal of our late departed HMS Hood. It has no visible armament above a few small deck guns, and yet it managed to bloody the nose of the entire Home Fleet: two carriers, three battleships, five cruisers and nine destroyers. Furthermore, it has demonstrated a speed in excess of thirty knots—faster than our most modern battleships of the line, and even some of our cruisers—yet it has no visible stacks, and has never been seen to be making steam of any kind, even in this latest photo…” He let that last bit dangle, his high voice somewhat strident as he realized he had let his passion for the point get the better of him.

Pound made no effort to suppress his anger now. “Preposterous!” he slapped his hand on the table, more than annoyed now with the truculence of this upstart professor. He had heard a few barbed rumors about the man—that he was eccentric, given to strange flights of fancy, and that he had other peculiar habits that Pound did not wish to entertain further in his mind. Now to have him make such statements in this room, before the highest ranking officers of the Royal Navy. Preposterous was not half a word for what he felt at the moment, and his face clearly exhibited his displeasure.

“Are you suggesting this latest photo is identical to the images we obtained a year ago—that the two ships are one and the same? Preposterous!”