"It could be better." Sergei left it right there. The engines, which had barely stopped, fired up again right away. That was something, anyhow-not much, but something. The SB-2 bounced down the runway and took off. It felt uncommonly agile; he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone up without a full bomb load.
He had to swing back to the east and come over the airstrip again to head for Soviet territory. Shells were dropping on the dirt runway by then. Any of the planes still hiding in revetments would have a devil of a time getting away. Sergei wondered if groundcrew men would have to set them on fire to keep the Germans from grabbing them. He also wondered whether any groundcrew men were hanging around to take care of such things. Trucks kicked up tall plumes of dust as they hightailed it toward the old border.
"Well, we're in it now," he said to Mouradian as he checked six to make sure he had no Bf-109s on his tail.
"No. The damned Germans are in it now, and they aren't screwing around the way they were before. That isn't good, either, especially with Japan jumping on us too," the Armenian replied.
"Not even slightly," Sergei agreed. "But what can we do except fight as hard as we know how?" Anastas Mouradian had no answers for him. Sergei wished Mouradian would have, because he had no answers of his own, either. THE HORIZON WASN'T ENTIRELY EMPTY when Julius Lemp swung his binoculars around the horizon. But that smoke didn't come from a freighter bound for Britain. Nor did it rise from an enemy warship. There to the north sailed the Admiral Scheer. The pocket battleship was cruising the North Atlantic at fourteen knots, a pace the U-30 had no trouble matching.
A swell raised the U-boat, giving Lemp a glimpse of the Admiral Scheer's angular profile. She could do a lot of damage if she got the chance. If… Lemp couldn't help wondering how many U-boats the Kriegsmarine could have built with all the steel and labor that went into the big armored cruiser, and how much more trouble they could have caused the British.
Well, too late for such questions now. There was the Admiral Scheer-and there, at the edge of visibility, was her signal lamp flashing urgent Morse. Lemp peered through the binoculars, but shook his head in frustration. "Can't make it out," he said, and then, to the bosun, who was up on the conning tower with him, "Tell them we need to approach, Matti. Let's see if they can read us."
"Aye aye, Skipper," Matti said, and the louvers on the sub's signal lamp clacked as they went up and down.
Lemp called down into the U-boat for a change of course. The boat swung north. He peered toward the Admiral Scheer through his field glasses again. With a wry snort, he said, "They say they can't make out what we're sending. They want us to come closer. Tell 'em we're doing it, for Christ's sake."
"Right you are," Matti answered. The louvers clacked some more. Lemp could read Morse by ear as well as by eye. The bosun said what needed saying as quickly and economically as anyone could want. He'd spent years in freighters before joining the German navy. He knew his onions, all right.
The pocket battleship's lamp flashed again. Word by word, Lemp read off the message: "Smoke… to… northwest. Several… ships"
"A convoy!" Matti exclaimed.
"That would be good," Lemp said. The other possibility would be several warships. The Admiral Scheer might fight off or escape from several British warships, especially with a sub on her side. All the same, freighters counted for more. Freighters fed England. Warships were nothing but nuisances: the dogs that kept sea wolves from feeding off the big, fat, slow sheep.
All the ratings up on the tower swung their glasses to the northwest. Closer to enemy shores, Lemp would have reproved them. An airplane could come out of nowhere and start shooting you up or bombing you before you even knew it was there. Not out in the middle of the Atlantic, though. Nothing that flew had the range to come out here and get back to land.
Back to land… What if one of those unknown ships out there was a carrier? Lemp spoke to the ratings after all. They resumed their usual scan. He peered intently toward the northwest, first with the binoculars on a strap around his neck, then with the more powerful pillar-mounted glasses each U-boat had.
He soon spied the smoke trails himself. He muttered to himself. If they were thick and black, he would have been sure they came from coal-fired steamers. Maybe they came from oil-burning freighters. Or maybe they poured from stacks that belonged to destroyers, cruisers, battlewagons-or a carrier.
No, probably not that last. The British would have seen the pocket battleship's smoke by now, too. If they had a carrier out here in the middle of the ocean, its planes would already be buzzing around the Admiral Scheer like so many stinging wasps. One or two of them might have found time for the U-30 as well.
More signals from the Admiral Scheer. "Commencing… firing," Lemp read. "Jesus Christ!" he added on his own. That answered all his questions. The Panzerschiff wouldn't have opened up on freighters at long range-she would have closed to make her kills sure. Those were warships out there.
Smoke and flame belched from the pocket battleship's six 280mm guns. Their thunder reached the U-30 several seconds later. It was still loud despite the kilometers between the pocket battleship and the submarine.
"They really mean it, don't they?" Matti said.
"You don't play skat with guns that size," Lemp agreed. The bosun chuckled.
But it was no joke, and the British weren't playing skat out there, either. Incoming shells splashed into the Atlantic several hundred meters short of the Admiral Scheer. They kicked up great columns of water: water dyed red, so the enemy officers would know which ship of theirs had fired them. A moment later, another salvo made green splashes. Lemp thought by the size of them that they came from cruisers rather than battleships. He thought so, yes, but he wasn't sure.
The Admiral Scheer fired again. She was fighting, not running. That also made Lemp believe she wasn't facing battleships. She wouldn't have lasted long slugging toe-to-toe against seagoing dinosaurs more heavily armed and far better armored than she was.
Off to the northwest, Lemp spied sudden heavy black smoke. "She's hit something!" he said, and the ratings up on the conning tower with him cheered and pumped their fists in the salt-smelling air.
But the Royal Navy hadn't quit. More shells came down around the pocket battleship. Around… Lemp ground his teeth. They'd straddled her. That meant they had the range. Sure as hell, one round from the next English salvo slammed into the German ship. More smoke spurted. The Panzerschiff kept on sailing and firing, though. Even if she wasn't armored like a battlewagon, one hit-that one hit, anyhow-wouldn't knock her out of action.
Distant across a much longer stretch of seawater, reports from the enemy's guns also reached Lemp's ears. And the Admiral Scheer sent another signal his way. "Turning… toward… you." The words came out one by one, maddeningly slow. "Surprise… unsuspecting… targets."
"Donnerwetter!" Lemp muttered. No doubt the order seemed easy to Captain Patzig-which only showed he didn't know much about how U-boats operated. Could the Admiral Scheer bring the enemy warships by on courses that would let the U-30 get a decent shot at them? Or would the U-boat turn into a harmless spectator the moment it submerged? Only one way to find out-and an order was an order. Lemp nodded to the bosun. "Send 'I shall conform to your movements,' Matti."
"'I shall conform to your movements.' Aye aye, sir." Matti sounded much more serious than usual. And well he might, Lemp thought. The signal lamp's louvers clacked yet again.
Lemp wanted to stay on the surface as long as he could, to get the best notion of what course the Royal Navy ships were sailing. That would tell him what he could do-and whether he could do anything. The English skippers wouldn't notice him right away-he hoped. They'd focus all their attention on the Admiral Scheer-wouldn't they?