Kirov II: Cauldron of Fire

Spanish coastline and with little room to maneuver to their starboard side. He knew he would not have the speed to get much under 20,000 meters as they approached, but he could engage well before that. The target was fast, but it would have to run for nearly an hour under his guns. The crescent moon had set five hours earlier, so it was very dark. The French had picked a perfect time to make their run, but if they could spot the enemy, he was confident his gunners would do the rest.

He looked at his watch and gave an order. “Very well. W/T silence lifted. Time to get a couple of watch dogs out in front to look for this ship gentlemen. Send Ashanti, and Tartar. We’ll hold the remaining escorts for the time being.” He wanted a couple of fast destroyers to flush this rabbit out for his big guns, and the two ships soon broke formation off his starboard quarter and accelerated rapidly. It was a little after one in the morning when word came back that a ship had been sighted to their northeast. Range was well out, but it was clear that something big was sailing just southwest of Cat’s Cape, and moving too fast to be commercial traffic. Syfret decided to send a more forceful message to this recalcitrant French ship. He knew his first salvo would be well off the mark, but it would serve him well as a proverbial shot across the bow before open hostilities ensued.

He selected A and B turrets, his foreword most guns, and opened fire with just the centermost barrel in each turret. There was something to be said for courtesy, even if this was war and deadly earnest business. And the thought that he was giving them his middle finger amused him as well. If the French returned his warning shots with a salvo of their own, then the bar fight was on, and he had little doubts as to who would come out the better. He noted that HMS Rodney had not fired, her dark shape tall and threatening some 5000 yards in his wake. He waited, calm and confident, until spotters on his lead destroyers caught the distant wash of white where his shells had fallen. They radioed back to report all shots wide off the bow and long by several thousand yards. It had begun.

~ ~ ~

Fedorov heard the first shells rushing overhead and their distant impact on the dark swells of the sea. He noted the time—01:10 hours in the early morning of August 14, 1942. A sea battle was about to be fought that never should have occurred. Men might die, perhaps on both sides, who might have lived. It was a maddening thought. The whole notion of war itself was a maddening thought, but here they were. His ship wanted sea lanes where another ship forbade him to pass. He briefly considered turning about and heading back to the Balearics, but knew that would only postpone this inevitable engagement. There was nothing left to do but fight.

In Karpov’s mind the equation was simpler. One side or another must give way, and it would not be Kirov. He looked at Fedorov, saw him waiting, an anguished look on his face, and then said. “I believe we are under attack, Mister Fedorov. We’ve had our dance with Varenka and your Operation Gauntlet has now begun. Let’s see what they have for us after the ball.”

Fedorov caught the reference to the famous short story by Tolstoy where a man had been bemused at a ball by the beauty and charm of a lovely woman named Varenka. Later that evening he walked alone and stumbled upon a military discipline where an escaped Tartar was being forced to run the gauntlet, and the punishment was being administered by Varenka’s father, a colonel in the army. It was cruel, and merciless as the soldiers were ordered to beat the man ever harder, and it shook his faith in human compassion so completely that he lost his ardor for the man’s daughter. He claimed this chance encounter had changed his life forever, and something died in him with each withering blow on the poor renegade’s shoulders and back.

Now Kirov was the renegade, a fugitive Tartar about to run the gauntlet of fire and steel. For the next hour the ship would be in the gravest danger, well within range of those lethal 16 inch guns. A chance encounter, a planned encounter, it mattered not which. In the end it was a madness at sea that would change the lives of every man present forever.

“Mister Fedorov?” Karpov prodded him again.

“That was just a warning shot,” he said quietly.

“Yes, well it would be nice to reply in kind, but I don’t think we can afford to waste the ammunition. I suggest we lock weapon systems on the target and give them a more direct warning. We have fourteen Moskit IIs remaining. Six should do the job.”

“These are not the Italians,” said Fedorov, deflated but coming round to the realization that this was a choice he had made hours and hours ago. Now the time was here, and they had to fight. He turned to Karpov and gave an order. “I want to put one P-900 on each of the two battleships immediately following their next salvo.”

“P-900s? They are very slow.”

“Yes, but I want them to see the missiles coming. See them clearly.” He had asked for the sub-sonic cruise missiles instead of the more lethal supersonic Moskit Sunburns. The P-900s were slow, but still dangerous with a 400 kilogram warhead and pinpoint accuracy.

“Very well—Mister Samsonov, ready on the P-900 system, two missiles, target your primaries.”

Samsonov could clearly read the positions of the two big battleships on his display. He moved a light pen, tapped each one, then selected his weapon system and keyed “ready.”

“Sir, two P-900 missiles keyed to targets and ready.”

They waited in the stillness. The satin of the moonless night seemed to flow in all around them, enveloping them with a suspended sense of profound uncertainty. Their faces were illuminated by the green luminescence of the radar screens, eyes searching the black silky night, as if they thought some horrible beast, a sleek panther, might leap upon them from the darkness at any moment. Then the distant horizon seemed to explode with fire and violence. Seconds later they heard a loud boom, thunder-like in the distance.

Nelson and Rodney had fired in earnest.

Fedorov shrugged, then looked at Karpov, a grim expression on his face. “Give them a little shove on the shoulder, Captain.”

“Aye, sir.”

Chapter 29

Syfret had never seen anything quite like it. The darkness lit up with distant flame and smoke, far off on the edge of the night. He could see something bright in the sky, arcing up, and then he heard a low, distant growl.

“What do you make of that?” he said to a Senior Lieutenant, pointing at the fiery light, which grew more prominent, and closer with each passing second. The slow approach had exactly the effect Fedorov wanted. Every man on the bridge seemed transfixed by the oncoming glow. They had seen burning planes plummeting into the sea at night, but this was nothing like that. It had a slow, purposeful movement, rising up and up, then leveling off to begin a gradual descent. Down it came, a bright burning tail behind it illuminating a trail of ghostly smoke. It was a plane, some thought—poor bloke going into the drink at last. Probably one of our search planes that got in too close.

But it wasn’t a plane… It wasn’t a plane! It suddenly seemed to leap at them with a mighty roar, a fiery dart aimed right at the heart of the ship. The P-900s had ignited their ramjet afterburners to make their final run into the target at mach three, but by that time every crewman with eyes out to sea had been transfixed by the spectacle.

In they came and Syfret to one step back, his hand reaching for a rail to steady himself as the fire in the sky came thundering in and crashed right below the tall armored conning tower of his ship. The concussion of the explosion shattered every window on the bridge, sending glass showering over the deck, but it had not struck high enough to cause any real damage there. Instead it came in low and rifled into the number three C turret where it had exploded with terrible flame and smoke.

It was all the Admiral could do to remain standing. Two midshipman were thrown to the deck. Black smoke poured in and choked every man among them and Syfret instinctively crouched on his haunches, as much to steady himself as to find better air.

“Mother of God!” he coughed. They hit us on the first bloody shot! But with what? Then all the rumors, and sailor’s stories he had quashed as nonsense for the past year came home to him—