Nelson was third in line at the head of the formation as the ships steamed out into the North Sea at twenty-three knots (the highest speed all ships present were capable of). The battlecruisers Hood and Renown led the fleet, the battlecruisers less armoured than their colleagues, but also capable of a higher speed and able to forge ahead to scout the way if necessary, flanked by an escort of cruisers and destroyers. Nelson followed, and behind her came the rest of the battleships: Malaya, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth respectively.
All three remaining battleships were of the same Queen Elizabeth-class, and were veterans of the First World War. All three had given sterling service against Germany twenty-five years before, and were now ready to provide good account of themselves once more. All were also armed with the same tried and true ‘Mark’I’ 15-inch guns (eight apiece, in four turrets) that also armed HMS Hood (also four twin turrets) and HMS Renown (three twin turrets). Powerful and supremely accurate, the weapon was probably the best large-calibre gun ever fitted to a Royal Navy warship, and although nearing obsolescence by the beginning of the Second World War, it could nevertheless pack a heavy punch under the control of skilled gunners and fire directors (of which the British were the best trained in the world). Following up the rear and protected by a cluster of destroyers, the carrier Ark Royal cruised with the fleet, ready to fly off her aircraft in support should the enemy be located.
Harwood shivered against the cold that managed to bite at him despite the long, heavy woollen coat he wore over his uniform, and lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes. An almost-full moon struggled to cast any illumination through a layer of low-level cloud, but the dark outline and winking navigation lights of Renown were nevertheless faintly visible eight hundred metres ahead through a soft, misting rain that quickly coated everything it touched in a damp sheen. His body shuddered a second time, this time in recognition of the task laid before them. Currently aboard his flagship, HMS Hood, Admiral Sir John Tovey had been more than clear in his assessment of the situation, and Harwood and the other commanders knew the how bleak that situation was. They also knew there was no chance of the RAF stopping the Luftwaffe, or keeping the skies clear over England or The Channel, let alone finding spare aircraft to interdict the Kriegsmarine invasion forces. That left the bulk of the task to the Royal Navy, and as such The Home Fleet — their fleet of just thirty-six warships — was the only major force within range that had any chance of slowing or halting the enemy’s movements across the Channel.
For all that, Nelson was in the company of some fine veterans. Of the other capital ships present, only Hood had been completed too late to see service in the Great War, and both Warspite and Malaya had served twenty-four years before at Jutland (a battle the Germans knew as Skaggerak). In that greatest of naval battles of the First War, Admiral Jellicoe had mustered no less than two dozen battleships to face the High Seas Fleet in an engagement that saw both sides proclaim themselves to be the victors once the smoke had cleared. At Jutland, Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet had intended to trap and destroy their German counterparts, and thereby ensure British dominance of the waves and freedom of the sea lanes between the Britain, the United States and the rest of the Empire.
The end result of the engagement had been a source of debate ever since. Although on paper, Germany could in some ways claim victory in terms of outright losses, the Royal Navy had held the ‘field’ of battle at the end of the day and was ready to continue the fight, whereas their enemy was not. It could be reasonably argued that victory at Jutland had gone to the British as a result, at least in spirit if not in actual fact, and many certainly believed that as armistice loomed two years later in 1918, the memory of Jutland alone had been enough for the crews of the German High Seas Fleet to threaten mutiny rather than engage the Royal Navy again in battle, as some of their officers had desired.
Harwood remembered it all well enough. Royal Sovereign hadn’t been commissioned in time to participate in the battle, but Jutland was ‘required reading’ as far as naval warfare was concerned, and was also famous within naval circles as the most successful ‘crossing the T’ manoeuvre in history, as all of Jellicoe’s capital ships were at one stage able to concentrate their entire broadside fire on the van of the German fleet in a terrifying bombardment that spanned the entire horizon. But Harwood, Tovey and the others also knew there’d be no repeat of Jutland in the hours to come. Aircraft hadn’t been a potent force at the time of the Great War, but there was no denying the power of the Luftwaffe in the present one… and even without the added danger of aerial attack, the Home Fleet didn’t have twenty-four battleships to throw at the Kriegsmarine, or anything even remotely close to that number of capital ships.
There were warships of various sizes and classes, from patrol boats to some older battleships, moored in ports right around Southern England, but individual ships engaged in single actions weren’t going to stop an invasion force — assuming of course the Luftwaffe let them to survive long enough to put to sea, which was in any case unlikely. The next closest RN fleet of any real strength, ‘Force H’, had indeed also mobilised and was heading north from Gibraltar at full speed, but the truth was they were too far away to be of any immediate assistance, and the rest of the navy was spread around the world, guarding the British colonies, territories and protectorates of an empire that spanned the globe. The Home Fleet was the only force that had any hope of disrupting German shipping across the Channel, and he, his fellow ships’ captains, and every man on the vessels they commanded were well aware of that fact.
The entire Hindsight group had crammed themselves into their usual briefing room within twenty minutes of the alert being raised around the base. Thorne allowed the group a few minutes of hushed but active discussion before climbing onto a chair in a far corner of the room and clearing his throat. All eyes turned to him in that moment and the room fell silent, all watching expectantly as he prepared to speak.
“Approximately fifty minutes ago,” he began slowly, visibly unsettled and shaking faintly in reaction to the ramifications of what was happening, “a general alert was broadcast throughout the British isles following confirmation of massed landings of enemy parachute troops all over Kent, Sussex and Hampshire.” The statement sent a collective gasp rippling through the crowd: despite having feared exactly such news, the reality of it was no less dramatic. “There’s been a general mobilisation right across the Southern Defensive Zone, but it’s far too early to determine how any of the engagements are progressing. There have been no confirmations of any seaborne landings as yet, however Whitehall’s certain these are the opening moves of Operation Sealion… the opening moves we’ve been both fearing and expecting since our arrival here.” He took a deep breath.
“What intelligence we do have suggests the Wehrmacht won’t have sufficient reserves to support an effective beachhead across the Channel and make a concurrent move against us here with any kind of credible force. That means that we should — emphasis on the word ‘should’ — be relatively safe here at Scapa Flow for the time being. They’ll be throwing everything into this invasion… they can’t allow any chance of defeat, no matter how unlikely that might seem on paper.” He shrugged, as much for his own benefit as theirs. “That being said, we’re not taking anything for granted… from now on, we remain on a five-minute-warning status at all times and will be prepared for immediate take off, should any enemy force indeed makes a move toward us.