Kirov (21 page)

Orlov
grinned. “You’ve been thinking about this from a few different angles, haven't
you, Captain? Your point about securing a better position for us after the war
was well taken. Yes, we have a very powerful ship here, but consider what the
Admiral said… We have just sixty missiles on board, and we are lucky to have
even that many. The reloads for the Moskit-IIs are stacked high in the crates
below decks, so if we
were
to take a hit, we would go off like a firecracker.
We must be careful in the early going, no matter whose ships are out there, no
matter what year it is. The silence from Severomorsk is also very disturbing. I
don't know which scenario frightens me the most. If things turn out to be the
way you see them, and this isn’t World War II, then World War III might have
started eight hours ago. Take your pick. It’s a nightmare in either case as far
as I’m concerned.”

“If
that is so, then we are in the fight of our lives, Chief. Yet we have the means
to defend ourselves adequately, and we can punch harder than any ship in the
world.”

As
Orlov stood to leave, Karpov left him with one final thought. “Yes, we have
limited ammunition, and we must be very prudent in the way we use it. But we
have other means, and I am not so squeamish as the Admiral when it comes to
using them.”

At
that, Orlov said nothing. He took his leave, out to make the rounds below decks
and see that the scheduled maintenance checks had been finished.

Karpov
sat with his dinner for some time, though his appetite had vanished. He ate,
reflexively, sopping up the gravy with some good black Russian rye bread, but
his mind was wandering in distant fields. As usual, except for those times when
Orlov was with him, he ate alone. None of the junior officers seemed to want to
share his table, and when he was in the officer’s mess they often stilled their
conversation as well, talking in hushed tones with one another as if they might
disturb the Captain.

Karpov
was used to such reactions from the men under him. In one sense, he took it as
a sign of respect, though deep down he knew they shunned him out of fear. One voice
in his mind believed that was good. The men should have a healthy fear and
respect for their senior officers, yes? But a deeper feeling that could only be
described as loneliness whispered something else to him about it. He did not
want to listen to that voice.

Yet,
by and large, he was alone in the world. Take him out of this small
kollectiv
on the ship and there was no one back home waiting for him. When the ship
returned to Severomorsk, all the other crewmen would rush down the gangways and
into the waiting arms of wives, children, parents, but not Karpov. His parents
were long gone, and he had been too preoccupied with the machinations of his
career to ever contemplate marriage. There was no secret photo tucked away in
his wallet of a sweetheart left behind. Yes, he had rank and authority now, but
even the lowly
mishman
, the warrant officers he would post to the watch,
and the able seamen busy with menial tasks below decks had something, someone, where
he was denied. It made their banal and pointless existence bearable, he thought.
They were too easily contented by the fat cheeks of their
devushkas
and
babushkas
.

He
was still perturbed with Fedorov, that damn
z’opoliz
, an ass kisser if
ever there was one. The man seemed to have read the Captain’s own
book—buttering old Volsky’s bread as he pushed his war books and silly ideas on
him. Yet, the more he thought about it, the more he realized Fedorov had
nothing of the cold, hard ruthlessness in him to make any use of his new found
connection to the Admiral. Fedorov was too naive to have any notion of the game
where real power was concerned, except perhaps to be a good victim. He was just
a little
chaynik
, wet behind the ears, he thought, and he dismissed him
as another young fool of an officer, and by no means an opponent worthy of his
attention. He could crush Fedorov any time he chose.

That
said, the Lieutenant’s suggestions seemed to be driving their mission now—a
junior officer’s advice taken over that of a Captain of the First Rank! The man
had turned this tactical maneuver behind Jan Mayen into a fishing expedition
for his theories. He considered all the arguments again, that something had
happened to the ship, to all the facilities on Jan Mayen, to the entire Royal
Navy as well. It was entirely nonsensical, yet even Orlov was vacillating in
doubt now, and he had to admit that last briefing had shaken him somewhat as
well.

What
if it were true, he wondered? Every time he let that thought take center stage
in his mind there was a thrumming pulse of anxiety in his gut. If it were true,
then there was no one back home at Severomorsk they would ever have to answer
to again—not for him, nor for anyone else. Suchkov, the God of the navy, would
be a four year old boy! A line from Dostoyevsky entered his mind soon after
this thought: ‘If god is dead, then everything is permitted.’

Another
thought, or more a feeling came to him now. There was no one waiting for any of
the men now either. They were all just like him now. Every man aboard was
alone, cut off, isolated here in the
kollectiv
of the ship.
Kirov
was the only reality for them now, the only vestige of home they would ever
know again. Why did that thought make him so uneasy—the thought that every man
among them was now a derelict in time, as lost and forlorn as he felt at times?
‘If God is dead…’

The
bulk of the crew did not know any of this as yet. Only the senior officers and
the
mishman
warrant officers of the bridge crew knew what they had been
dealing with. The rank and file had no idea what was happening. He dragged
himself up from the table and buttoned his jacket before he ventured out to
walk the ship for a bit.

As
he passed small groups of men quickly came to attention, and Karpov forced a
wan smile as he greeted them. If it were true; if Severomorsk and the entire
world they knew were gone now, then they were all just zombies, walking dead
men, dispossessed souls adrift in the cold seas of the world.

They
were all just like him now.

Chapter
12

On
board HMS Victorious
,
Admiral Wake-Walker
was studying his plotting map carefully, with
Captain Bovell at his side. “This message from the Admiralty has done it,” he
said with some irritation. “Sounds like Admiral Pound is worried the Germans
may be trying to slip another raider out into the Atlantic. I can’t imagine
what ship this is. We put a torpedo into
Lutzow
and laid her up at Kiel
with
Tirpitz
, but they’re having another look to see if anything has
moved. Apparently this report of a cruiser to our north has got the boys over
at the Golf, Cheese and Chess Society all in a dither.”

He
was referring to the GC&CS, which stood for Government Code & Cipher
Station at Bletchley Park, some 40 miles outside of London where the code
breakers worked over intercepts to try and piece together clues of what the
enemy may be up to. Also called “Station X” or simply “BP” for Bletchley Park,
the code breaking effort had been aided by the capture of several German cipher
machines in recent months, machines that had been provided by Royal Navy units
intercepting German auxiliary ships in the region. Since the recent sortie by
Bismarck
had jangled the nerves of the entire system, it seemed particularly sensitive
to the report of any lone warship steaming in the frigid Arctic waters with the
possible intent of working its way over to the Denmark Strait west of Iceland
for a shot at the Atlantic convoy traffic.

“It
was a fairly unusual contact, sir. Perhaps they want us to have another go at
identifying that ship.”

“Well
it seems that they do, Captain. I have informed them that
Adventure
and
Anthony
were detached yesterday with just this intent, but they want us to linger
until we get some confirmation.”

“And
then there is this unusual signal from Jan Mayen, sir,” said Bovell. “Something
about a helicopter landing there? Admiralty says the Norwegians thought it was
Russian. I'm aware of the fact that the Russians were working on these, but
intelligence indicates they have made no significant production or deployments
of such an aircraft even if they do have it in development.”

“It
might've been a German machine,” said the Admiral. “I read reports about a Focke
Wolf model, number sixty-one I believe. It was tested in 1936. Nothing more
than an old biplane with its wings taken off and a pair of rotors mounted on
struts where the wings might be.”

“The
signal did say it had twin rotors, sir,” said Bovell.

“Yes,
very curious. Could the Germans have something like this in production? If they
do, Norway would be the perfect place to deploy such an aircraft, what with all
the mountainous terrain and all. Yet Jan Mayen is some 600 miles from the
Norwegian coast. The Focke Wolf-61 had a maximum range of no more than 150 miles.
Unless Jerry has been exceptionally busy of late, I doubt they managed to fly an
FW-61 out there.”

“It
was said a full squad of infantry landed with this aircraft sir. The FW-61
might carry one or two men of the most, but a full squad? And they were a
little too polite to have been Germans, wouldn’t you say?”

“Quite
so…” Admiral Walker was somewhat perplexed over the report. “Well, perhaps
Adventure
and
Anthony
will shed some light on the subject. In the meantime, it
seems operations to the North Cape area have been put on hold until we can
learn more one way or the other. Vian’s Force K was out making a run up to
Svalbard off to our east. First time a Royal Navy ship has visited that island
since Nelson's day. Well, it looks like that's been put on hold as well. The
Admiralty wants us to coordinate with Force K in the event this unknown ship is
a German cruiser. I'm afraid we stuck our foot in it by sending off that report
yesterday.”

“It
seems so, sir.”

“We
are to move back west toward Jan Mayen to support our scout detachment in the
event this contact firms up. See to it that Grenfell is notified about this,
will you? I'll want his boys up by mid-day.”

~
~ ~

HMS Adventure
was riding at anchor off the narrow neck of Jan
Mayen, there to check on the status of the Norwegian weather station. Aside
from tall tales of an unusual aircraft that had landed the previous day, all
seemed well. The Norwegians seemed to think the craft was Russian, noting the
single red star insignia it bore, which seemed odd. The station team leader,
Ullring, was a reliable man, and his report was taken and relayed on to the
Admiralty as well as Wake-Walker with Force P. At 10:00 hours, however, the
lookouts spotted what looked like a large vessel on the southwestern horizon.

Captain
Norman Grace was peering through his field glasses with a worried expression on
his face. What would the Russians be doing with a whirlybird out on Jan Mayen?
Ullring’s report made some sense. If the interlopers had been German he doubted
they would have left the station intact or any of the Norwegians alive. It was
all very curious, but the Captain had more to worry about than he bargained for
now.

His
ship was at anchor, he had a shore party still on the island, and beyond that
his engines had been doggy ever since he was detached. They could make no more
than 22 knots the whole way up. A mine layer and AA picket by trade,
Adventure
had run afoul of one of her own mines off Liverpool earlier in the war and was
laid up for repairs. Live by the sword, die by the sword, he thought.
Apparently there had been unseen damage to one of the turbines, and he was
getting a noticeable wobble at high rotations. He had his stokers and ERA men,
the Engine Room Artificers, working the boilers and turbines below, but nothing
seemed to solve the problem. Now this!

From
the look of it he was seeing a fairly large ship, obviously a warship, and with
a dangerous looking silhouette at that. Undoubtedly this was the vessel he had
been told to be on the lookout for. He wanted to get underway immediately, but
to possibly buy him some time to recover his landing party he waved down an
Ensign and gave an order, his voice edged with just enough disquiet to be
noticeable.

“Make
to
Anthony
,” he said. “Tell her to up anchor and steam out to that
contact and see what we have. I’ll be underway as soon as possible.” He raised
his field glasses again, a look of real concern on his features.

Captain
John Michael Hodges received the message with some chagrin aboard the
destroyer. “What’s this?” he said. “I’ve got four 4.7 inchers and a lot of gall
running out against a ship with the looks of this one.” He, too, had seen the
approaching vessel and did not like the look of it one bit. “I’ve a bad feeling
about this.”

“Portia
in Arduia,” said his Executive officer, repeating the ship’s motto, ‘brave
under difficulties.’ And it was soon apparent to the Captain that he would have
to be exactly that. He sounded general quarters, got up steam quickly enough,
and was off to the races, heading southwest toward an ominous silhouette on the
horizon.