Devil's Garden

Chapter 19

Karpov wasted no time getting the ship out to sea again, much to the chagrin of the crew. They had hoped to debark and spend time in the city, but the Captain thought it would be too dangerous at this early stage, and Rodenko agreed.

“At the moment we are the great unknown, a great surprise and novelty. They will spend the next week trying to get news from St. Petersburg about us, and in that time I plan to make a few headlines myself. Once we establish dominance here, there will be ample time for the crew to take some much needed shore leave. But for now, we have business to attend to.”

They slipped out of the harbor, and many watched the ship go, waving from the wharves and quays as Kirov sailed off. Karpov sounded the ship’s horn in farewell, and soon they were clear of the barrier islands and out into the Sea of Japan. He set course for the Tsugaru Strait, intending to take the most direct route to the principal Japanese ports near Tokyo. It wasn’t long before they ran into commercial traffic, outbound to the Sea of Japan.

Karpov paced on the bridge, pausing from time to time to peer at the distant steamers through his field glasses. They had seen the ships on radar long ago, cruising sedately off the coast of Japan in the Tsugaru Straits just south of Hokkaido. Kirov was approaching from the west, having sailed from Vladivostok the previous day.

How ironic, he thought. I believed I could get to Sagami Bay in 1945 to lay down a strong position for Russia. Now I sail there in 1908, and this time the Americans can do nothing about it whatsoever. The sea is mine! I am the sole authority in these waters now. No ship can darken my horizon without my knowing about it, and nothing can follow in my wake to ever overtake me. I go where I please; do what I please. Now I truly am the king of these seas, and I will soon issue the first of my edicts here.

He had scoured the ship’s crew to find someone who could speak Japanese. There were three men in all, and Chekov, a young mishman in the missile section, was ordered to the bridge. He was sitting next to Nikolin at the communications station, a headset covering his ears as he was being trained by the more experienced officer there, learning how all the systems worked. They would not need voice communications yet, as most ships of that day did not have radio sets, particularly old steamers like those they were approaching now. Instead they might tap out communications in International Morse code.

“Mister Nikolin,” Karpov turned to the two men. “Signal that ship and find out where they are heading and what cargo they carry.”

“Very good, sir.”

Nikolin began in International Morse, but he had Chekov at hand in case the Japanese used Wabun or Kana code, a special extension of the code that allowed for the sending of Kana characters and their Latin letter equivalents. Should they be received, Chekov would assist in translating.

Sure enough, Nikolin received a dash, two dots and three dashes as the prefix signal indicating Wabun code. He wrote down what they received and Chekov slowly translated the syllables.

“O-ha-yo-u-go-za-i-ma-su,” he said at last. “They are saying good morning, sir.”

“Yes, well have them answer my question, and be quick about it.”

The seconds passed as Chekov first told Nikolin what to send in characters, and it was tapped out on the telegraph set.

“They say they are the Tatsu Maru and behind them is Kanto Maru, both bound for Dalian and carrying rice and soy, sir.”

“Dalian? Isn’t that on the coast of the Yellow Sea?” Karpov went to his Plexiglas map and noted the position, seeing that it was just north of the old Port Arthur. “So this is a supply ship bound for territories lately seized by the Japanese-territories that were formerly controlled by Russia, I might add. How very interesting. Well, tell them they are to reverse course and make for the nearest Japanese port. No Japanese ship is authorized to enter the Yellow Sea from this day forward.”

Nikolin gave the Captain a wide eyed look, but then quickly began to piece together a message with Chekov. It was some time before they got a response. “They want to know who we are, sir?” Nikolin adjusted his headset, a little nervous now, as he could almost predict how these events would transpire.

“Send that we are the Russian battlecruiser Kirov. Send it in International Morse code and they are to respond in kind.”

Again there was a very long pause, and Nikolin could hear that the ship was also tapping another signal to any nearby shore station to indicate they were in contact with a Russian vessel.

They can see us now, thought Karpov. Good… Let them have a good long look. He even came a few points to starboard to present the full profile of the ship, and display its massive silhouette. Nikolin reported what the Japanese were saying to shore: Large ship sighted. Russian colors. Ship of war.

“Well?” Karpov’s impatience was obvious now. “What do they reply?”

“Still waiting, Captain.”

Karpov could see the steamer making a turn, away from Kirov but still obviously heading for the Sea of Japan. “Tell them they are to assume a course of 090 degrees east and return to Japan at once.”

Even as Nikolin sent that instruction, Chekov was translating the last signal from the Japanese, still truculently in Kana code in spite of Karpov’s order to the contrary. He passed the information to Nikolin as he finished sending. They received only four characters, which Chekov had translated as: “sa-yo-na-ra.”

“They say goodbye, sir. That is all.”

Karpov just looked at him, somewhat perturbed. “Goodbye? Nothing more?”

“Still waiting, Captain.”

“Well, perhaps I can hurry them along,” said Karpov, this time turning to Samsonov. “Activate the 100mm bow gun,” he said tersely.

“Aye, sir,” said Samsonov. “Gun ready!”

Karpov watched the forward turret quickly rotate to bear on the steamer. Mounted right out on the bow of the ship, it had been moved there during Kirov’s redesign to allow for the installation of the larger 152mm twin batteries behind the main missile deck silos. The bow gun was a single cannon, a 100 mm/L60 DP gun from the original battlecruiser Kirov that was retained in the refit. As he watched the turret smartly turn Karpov passed a fleeting moment thinking that this could be the first round of the war that would change all future history from this point forward, his private war on history itself, to redress the wrongdoing of so many nations who had opposed Russian ambitions and curtailed his country’s rightful place here in the Pacific and the world. That would all change from the moment he gave the order to fire.

Then another memory suddenly returned to him like a haunting ghost. He recalled that brief moment on the quay at Vladivostok when Admiral Volsky had called to him from his car, just after they received word that the Chinese and Japanese were fighting one another over the Diaoyutai islands.

“…Do what you must,” the Admiral had told him. “But we both know that there is something much greater than the fate of the ship at stake now, something much bigger than our own lives. We are the only ones who know what is coming, Karpov, and fate will never forgive us if we fail her this time.”

He could still see the look in the Admiral’s eye as he slowly drew out his missile key, handing it off to Karpov-the same key the two men had struggled over in the North Atlantic. Volsky was handing him more than the power and responsibility that key represented. He was also handing him his hope for a future they might win together.

Another memory crowded in behind that image. It was the conversation he had with Sergeant Troyak soon after he had formally returned to the ship, mending fences with the indomitable Marine. He remember how he apologized for his behavior in opposing Volsky.

“Sergeant, I have come to apologize to you for what I did in the Atlantic; for the position I put you and your men in, trying to set you in opposition to the Admiral. I was a stupid fool. I should have been severely punished, and instead I was handed forgiveness. I am here to see if you might spare me a little as well.”

Troyak nodded gravely, and the Captain continued.

“I was wrong to do what I did, and I have only the Admiral’s grace to hold for the fact that I am standing here now and still wearing these stripes. I should be in the Brig, or worse, but Volsky gave me this chance and I am pledged to the service of this ship. I won’t let him down, or this crew down, ever again. Understand?”

I won’t let him down…ever again… The words seemed a searing brand on his face now, considering all that had happened since he left Vladivostok as nominal commander of the fleet. What had he accomplished? He engaged the Americans, first jousting verbally with Captain Tanner on the carrier Washington, then engaging that battlegroup in a brief, violent battle in the waters just south of the Kuriles. Who knows how it might have ended were it not for that Demon of a volcano that sent us careening into the past?

Then he had the temerity and headstrong will to confront the entire US Pacific fleet in 1945-eighteen carriers, six battleships, over twenty cruisers and ninety destroyers with more than three thousand aircraft at their disposal as well. What was he thinking? The hubris and arrogance he had demonstrated quickly led to the loss of the Admiral Golovko, and all hands aboard, and probably the loss of Orlan as well. What kind of commander was he in the end? Every time things came down to a decisive moment, he had reached for the overwhelming power of the nuclear warheads on the gleaming tips of his missiles.

Now the words he spoke to Sergeant Troyak that day seemed to lash at him. The Sergeant had given him his much needed absolution, and pledged his support.

“You can rely on me, sir.”

“Yes…But I think that will be the easy part for us, Sergeant Troyak. When it comes to a fight we will know what to do easily enough. Yet we have both seen what was left of the world on one black day after another. Something tells me we are steering a course that way even as we speak. I don’t know how yet, or what we can do about it. I once thought that if I could just get the ship home safely it would be enough, but there is something more in front of us now. We may be called to war soon, but if we are ever to avoid that other world we saw, we’ll have to become something more, you and I. We’ll have to become men of peace as well.”

“I understand, sir….At least I think I do.”

“You are the business end of a platoon of highly trained men, Sergeant. But not every blow is struck to do harm. This is the only way I can think to understand it. Sometimes we fight to do some good, and we do what we must when it comes to battle. But Fedorov once told me to think also of what we should do, and this time I will keep his advice in my front shirt pocket, and heed it well.”

What was he about to do now, take on the entire world here? Was this blow meant to do harm, or good? Is this what he should do in this situation? He was clearly not at risk here. The ship was truly invincible in this era, and he did not expect to ever find himself in any situation they could not easily handle, as long as he kept a wary eye on his munitions and missile ordnance inventory, and used his power judiciously.

He could let these ships steam on their way… Sayonara. They obviously wanted nothing to do with his threatening ship and were doing the only thing a sane sea captain might consider by trying to slip away. Yet if he was to assert himself here as planned, and set history to rights, then he had to start somewhere. What was he doing here? Was he to be a man of peace, as he had lectured Troyak, or was he just a man of war, a mindless shark with the sharpest teeth in the ocean? Was he right to presume he could redress all the wrongs of the centuries yet to come? What was it that upstart American pilot had said to him before the Americans foolishly pressed that first attack on his fleet? Might makes right, the words of Iron Mike.

All that said and thought in his mind, he still felt compelled to do something that would get the attention of the current Japanese government. Yes, might makes right. If he gave them a pin-prick here it might save more pain in the end. He would at least give them the opportunity to comply before he resorted to any further action. With that thought in mind he decided to offer these steamers that one chance as well.

“Samsonov, fire a warning shot across the bow of that lead steamer. Nikolin-signal that if they do not immediately assume a course of 090 degrees east they will be sunk. One round please.”

“Aye, sir, firing now.”

The bow gun recoiled with a sharp crack and the round plunged into the sea ahead of the steamer, a relatively small splash in the water considering the huge mass of the ship that had fired. Kirov was merely clearing its throat.

Karpov was watching through his binoculars, hoping the Japanese Captain would not force him to better his aim and hit the ship. He saw the steamer make another ten point turn to starboard, but then it held steady on.

“Have they increased speed?”

Radar immediately reported. “Yes, sir. They have gone from eight to twelve knots.”

“Any further message from them, Nikolin?”

“No sir. But they are sending a distress signal now to any coastal station in range…. S.O.S… Tatsu Maru …Under attack.”

“They’re calling home for help. Well, that will do them no good, and I suppose we might achieve something more here by making an example of this ship. Very well, Mister Samsonov. Kiss that ship’s backside with the bow gun. Aim well and put a single round into them.”

Samsonov was quick to fire, and the round was equally quick to the target. Karpov saw it strike the aft quarter of the ship and bloom up in an angry explosion. The second steamer had turned completely about and was running as well.

A flash of anger bothered him as he waited, peering through his field glasses. The lead steamer was still trying to get away. Foolish little men, thought Karpov. Can’t they see what’s in front of them? He turned to Samsonov with a final order. “Sink that lead vessel with the bow gun. We’ll allow the other to pick up anyone who goes into the sea. After all, we aren’t monsters here, and these are non-combatants. But we must establish that our word is steel, we are men of steel, and that when we give an order it is to be obeyed. After that all should be well.”

Men of steel, thought Nikolin. Another man had called himself that too-Josef Stalin, the man of steel. So now we are a ship of little Stalins at large in an unsuspecting world. He wondered just how far the Captain was going to take things, but being a junior officer he knew it was not his place to speak up in this situation. He found himself wishing that Rodenko was here on the bridge. The Starpom was below decks on his relief shift, and the Captain had nothing more than his own internal muse for council.

Now the sound of the forward deck gun punctuated the still airs sharply-crack-crack-crack, and Samsonov methodically fired in tightly controlled salvos of three rounds each. He had a solid radar lock on the steamer, and within minutes Tatsu Maru was a flaming wreck. Nikolin looked to see hapless crewmen leaping from the fiery deck into the sea. It brought to mind the same image of men leaping from the devastated hulk of the Admiral Golovko when the American battleship had scored that lucky hit with one of its big main guns.

All it took was that single round, he thought. But the Captain does not seem in any way concerned here. He believes we are invulnerable, and perhaps we are. That said, the Japanese Navy here beat the entire Russian Pacific Fleet, and those ships must be harbored somewhere close at hand. Something told him he would soon be watching more men go into the angry sea, and he hoped he would not be one of them.