south until he could gather his ships, and his wits, and determine what to do. He shook his head solemnly as he pointed at the chart.
“Wake-Walker is over 200 miles to the north, Brind, up above Reykjavik. If this enemy ship is where we think it is, how in the world could he have been struck up there? Furious has been gutted with fire. She took two hits just as we did, but we were lucky enough to have five times her armor protection. They've managed to put the fires out, but I’m afraid she's no good to us now-no planes and a shattered flight deck due to the explosions.”
“Best to get her into Reykjavik and then off home for repairs,” said Brind. “But the real question is this: what do we do about the Victorious? She's just as vulnerable, sir, and with little more than a few Fulmar fighters aboard, she’s not much good as a strike asset now. In fact, her planes can’t even reacquire the enemy ship on radar. Everything's gone haywire. None of the equipment seems to be working from these latest reports. Walker believes the Germans are using some kind of powerful jammer.”
“You're probably right. Signal Wake-Walker that he is to transfer his flag to cruiser Suffolk and make for Reykjavik as well to refuel his ships. It’s likely I’ll leave Victorious there. Without an air wing she’s just a target.”
“That pairs down Force P to just the two cruisers, sir. Unless you suggest we refuel the destroyers as well.”
“As soon as possible,” said Tovey. “We were fighting this threat as if it were a battleship, Brind. But it’s a carrier, or at least it fights like one. It stands off and strikes at us from extreme range, as any carrier would, but instead of planes it’s throwing these damnable rockets at us. So we can’t go steaming about like this, unescorted and without a proper screen. Yes, I want those destroyers along as well. And anything else in the harbor that’s in any way seaworthy.”
“The Canadians were going to send out three destroyers to pick up Prince of Wales, sir.”
“The more the merrier,” said Tovey. “And we’re going to rendezvous with that ship as well. It’s entirely too lonesome out here. Home Fleet is bloody well going to start looking like one again. Signal Force K and Vian’s two light cruisers and put them on a course to join with us. We need to form a larger task force, and the cruisers were made for screening duty.”
“Right, sir, but what about Repulse? She took two hits as well, and they bruised her quite a bit. Who knows how many more of these long-range rockets the Germans have aboard that ship? My god, sir, how in the world did they develop this weapon without us knowing about it?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Brind. Lucky for us that they gave us a couple of body shots. If King George V had been slapped about the head and shoulders, the damage would've been far more extensive. Not that we have a weak chin, mind you, but I’d hate to take one of those rockets here on the bridge. All things considered, we haven’t really been hurt that much. Repulse is seaworthy, and Tennant says he can still make thirty knots. Should we risk her further?”
“As it's been demonstrated the enemy rockets can penetrate her side armor sir, I’d think twice about that.” The two men still had dark thoughts over the fate of HMS Hood. Tovey thought about it for a moment, and then decided.
“She can still fight, but I don’t want her out in front on her own like this. Let's reel her in and put her in our wake again. Tennant won't like it, but there it is. We’ll bring Walker and Vian down to join with us with their cruisers and destroyers, and then we’ll swing south. I'm afraid it's an entirely new game now. As amazing as it sounds, we’re are on the defensive. I want to steer in such a way as to put our ships between the enemy and Prince of Wales’ route to Newfoundland. Our best play now is to form a covering force for her until we can make a proper rendezvous with the rest of the fleet.”
“We might simply send Prince of Wales home, sir,” Brind suggested. “Then we can stay in the hunt a while longer.”
“And we might try getting the Prime Minister to agree to that,” said Tovey, somewhat frustrated. “It's time we called in the heavy cavalry. Let's get a message off to Admiral Somerville and bring Force H out from Gibraltar into the Atlantic. He's got Ark Royal, Nelson, Renown, and several more cruisers he can sortie with. Strength in numbers. The pilots aboard Ark Royal have considerably more experience than Wake-Walker's boys did. After all, she stuck a few torpedoes into Bismarck, didn’t she? We could use her, even if we utilize her aircraft for spotting purposes only.”
“Yet she'll be vulnerable to these German rockets, sir; so is Renown. As for Nelson, she can't make much more than twenty knots, and that will slow down Somerville considerably.
“Twenty knots will have to do for the moment,” said Tovey. “I need ships with big guns and the armor to stand in a fight for a time. Nelson may not be able to catch this German ship, but we might, and if we get her by the ankles and hold on tight enough, then Nelson can come up join the party, just as Rodney did against Bismarck. Let's get on a heading to the south. This German ship is not likely to try steaming into the Labrador Sea. They'll be heading south as well. Eventually we can work our way to join up with Prince of Wales. As long as Somerville will be making no more than twenty knots, if he has a fast tanker in port at Gibraltar, tell him to bring it along. Vian’s cruisers would be in need of fuel by the time we get down south. It's either that or we send them home soon.
“Very good, sir,” said Brind, thinking. “What about the Americans?” he said at last. “Don’t they have a convoy headed for Iceland at the moment? They'll have warships bound for this meeting in Newfoundland as well. It would be wise if we brief them as to the nature of the threat, sir.”
“Yes, they’ll run right afoul of this rogue and won’t have any idea what the Germans are capable of. We’d best warn them as soon as possible.”
“Admiral Pound is aboard Prince of Wales with the Prime Minister,” said Brind.
“Let's leave the Admiral to his tea and crumpets for the time being,” said Tovey. “He’s likely to sit on things if we go through channels. We’d best let the Yanks know directly. I'll take full responsibility.”
“Very well, sir. I'll see that the orders are sent out at once.”
Kirov raced south, passing the distant Cape of Greenland to the west and heading into the North Atlantic. She pushed on through the Denmark Strait without the slightest scratch from the enemy. Karpov was pleased when Rodenko informed him the British battleships had turned about, heading southeast for a time until they vanished, beyond the range of his surface radar. The British carriers that had been following also disappeared from Rodenko's screens.
Tovey was steaming south on course almost parallel to that of Kirov, but Karpov could not know this unless he sent his KA-40 helos up to extend his sighting range. For the moment however he was content to have shaken off his pursuers. He had given the British another hard lesson, demonstrating that he could strike them heavy blows well outside the range of their guns. They had turned tail and sped away, bruised and battered by his missiles. Yet before he had too much time to gloat, he needed to handle a maintenance problem that had come up at a most inopportune time.
Chief Dobrynin in engineering had called up and asked him to make slow revolutions on the turbines again while they investigated a reactor cooling problem. There was no immediate danger, but Karpov knew that a ship’s reactors at sea could be temperamental pieces of equipment, and there had been more than one ‘incident’ in the navy over the years. What had happened to the Orel? As much as he wanted to get down south quickly, his better judgment led him to slow the ship to a sedate 10 knots while the engineers investigated. There was nothing wrong with Kirov’s radars, and she could defend herself from any and all threats well before they became a problem. Yet he wanted speed when he needed it, and so he decided to linger on the 5th of August and effect repairs. It would put the ship in its best, battle worthy condition, and also give him time to think as he set his mind on bigger fish to fry.
Somewhere to the east there was another British battleship at sea, he knew, and she carried a gaggle of high-ranking officials, and officers from every arm of the military, including fat Winston Churchill himself. He thought what a tempting target Prince of Wales would make for his Sunburns. Then again, he could allow the ship to complete its journey and see all the eggs in one basket, there in Argentia Bay of Newfoundland, where he could keep them as long as he wanted, or deal with them in any way he saw fit.
With the American president and the British prime minister holed up, he had any number of choices. One was to join the negotiations himself, standing in for his uninvited countrymen and assuring that the Soviet Union would not be marginalized in the postwar environment the two Western powers were now scheming to build.
He passed a moment imagining his arrival, with all three helicopters used to ferry in an honor guard of
