The Twilight of Empire: Starting from Dunkirk

Chapter 155 The Last Piece of the French Puzzle

Just last month, with Mussolini's pride reduced to burning ruins by the combined skills of Cunningham and Tovey in the shallow waters of Taranto, the Mediterranean Fleet has completely freed the Italian battleships from their noose.

This means that Admiral Cunningham can now even free up extra capital ships to support other sea areas.

The full activation of the Mediterranean, coupled with the absolute excess tonnage of the home fleet due to the addition of the French fleet, gave the British Empire a strategic operational space that it would have never dared to dream of in the original timeline when facing that restless island nation in the Far East.

In the original history, the Royal Navy was bogged down in Europe by Germany and Italy, which meant that it could only send the HMS Prince of Wales, which had no aircraft carrier cover, and the old HMS Repulse to the Far East to die, ultimately losing the whole of Southeast Asia.

But now?

Arthur sneered inwardly.

Given the time, the Royal Navy is fully capable of drawing a truly strategically deterrent task force to the Far East from its ample budget—at least three to four new high-speed battleships, plus no fewer than four regular fleet aircraft carriers.

This is roughly equivalent to half the size of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet in 1942.

Faced with the all-out attack of the Japanese Combined Fleet, this force might still be insufficient, but the purpose of this fleet was not to fight any decisive battle in the ocean.

In Arthur's view, the barren coral reefs covered with coconut trees in the depths of the Pacific Ocean were worthless. In the early stages of the Pacific War, the fleet's sole mission was to consolidate its defenses and hold fast to the absolute core of the empire.

Deploying this fleet, which possesses powerful naval and air control capabilities, in Singapore is tantamount to driving an irremovable steel nail into the entrance to the boundary between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

To the north, it relies on the fortified air defense system in the Far East to block the Strait of Malacca; to the south, it relies on the barrier of the Dutch East Indies to firmly guard the gates of Australia.

Provided that fleet commanders do not make the elementary mistake of arrogance and underestimation of the enemy, they only need to keep the fleet under the protection of shore-based aircraft, or send out those extremely fast warships and carrier groups to frantically crush the Japanese's pitifully weak transport fleet like a pack of wolves, cut off their maritime lifeline, and prevent their army from launching a landing without restraint.

As for the main force of Yamamoto Isoroku's massive combined fleet?

Arthur sneered – he decided to pass this enormous trouble on to the equally wealthy Americans in Pearl Harbor.

Let the Japanese and Americans bleed each other dry in the vast Pacific Ocean, while the British Empire simply stands by and watches, guarding its rubber, tin mines, and oil refineries.

As long as this bottom line is held and the war drags on, by 1943 or 1944, when the shipbuilding frenzy in Britain has translated into a sea of ​​steel across the oceans, and when the Royal Navy is completely freed from the European theater; at the same time, when the Imperial Army's armored groups, having completed their refit, have swept across North Africa, through the Middle East, and connected with India, by then, this war machine on which the sun never sets, having fully warmed up and gathered resources from its global colonies, will send an overwhelming torrent of steel to the Far East.

By then, let alone a mere Japanese Combined Fleet that had to carefully budget even for heavy oil and couldn't even make up for its battle losses, even if you tied two Combined Fleets together, they wouldn't even be enough to fill a tooth gap in the face of the overwhelming production capacity and heavy firepower of the British Empire.

And the starting point for all this global strategic reversal lies in this moment, in the fleet docked in Portsmouth, flying the French tricolor flag.

Compared to Arthur's global strategy, Tovey's vision was simple: he had the capability to wipe out the German fleet at least three times.

If Raeder's pitiful German surface fleet were to be deployed now, Tovey wouldn't even need to use the Nelson and Rodney of his home fleet, or even the Hood. The French fleet bearing the Lorraine Cross alone would be enough to crush the Germans into dust in terms of tonnage and number of guns.

But the other side of the coin is the abyss of logistics.

Tovey's gaze swept over the quadruple main guns, and his brows furrowed slightly.

330 mm? 340 mm?

The British Empire's arsenals simply did not have armor-piercing shells of these calibers.

皇家海军的标準是14英寸（356mm）、15英寸（381mm）和16英寸（406mm）。

This means that once these French battleships emptied their ammunition magazines, they would become the most expensive floating targets on the sea.

Even more devastating was the fuel consumption. Two 35,000-ton high-speed battleships, even just maintaining minimum boiler operating pressure in port, consumed an astronomical amount of heavy fuel oil daily. The Royal Navy had already begun rationing its own fuel reserves.

Taking over this fleet was a windfall tactically, but a poison pill logistically.

Tovey glanced at Arthur Sterling beside him. He knew this was precisely why the young man was standing there. There was no tactical problem the Royal Navy couldn't solve, and no logistical problem Sterling Heavy Industries couldn't solve.

For Tovey's nearly driven quartermasters, the French's unique 330mm and 380mm main gun calibers, and those French high-temperature, high-pressure boilers that drank oil like water, were a despairing nightmare. But if you threw them at Arthur, it would just be a few simple industrial conversion processes.

Just a week earlier, the moment these French giant ships anchored in Portsmouth, six 10,000-ton oil tankers, flying the Panamanian flag but actually belonging to Sterling Ocean Shipping Company, had already quietly approached the breakwater.

They started their steam pumps at maximum power overnight, forcibly pumping tens of thousands of tons of high-quality Venezuelan heavy fuel oil, originally intended for shipment to the United States, into the French warships' extremely thirsty fuel tanks.

As for those non-standard caliber armor-piercing rounds that the Royal Ordnance Factory of the British Empire simply could not provide?

Sterling Heavy Industries’ heavy ordnance plant in Birmingham had already sounded the highest level of production conversion alarm forty-eight hours earlier.

Without even consulting Whitehall, Arthur directly ordered three thousand skilled technicians to adjust the cutting tools on heavy-duty lathes overnight, forcibly switching the imperial units on the production line to metric units. Custom-made 330mm and 380mm armor-piercing rounds, filled with Sterling's proprietary high-explosive RDX and possessing extremely high hardness caps, were being continuously forged on the assembly line.

By Monday morning at the latest, they will be unloaded, railcar by rail, directly onto the pier in Portsmouth via the Sterling family-owned rail network.

In the eyes of traditional soldiers, incompatibility in the logistics system is a devastating disaster; but in the eyes of true heavy industrial oligarchs, as long as the design blueprints are still there, as long as the molten steel in the blast furnace is not extinguished, it is nothing more than changing a few molds, paying the workers enough overtime pay, and opening a few more three-shift production lines.

But their gathering in Portsmouth today wasn't merely to review the Oran fleet, which had been anchored in the harbor for a week. They were there to welcome the final, most powerful, and most lethal piece of the French Navy's puzzle.

Following the beam of light from Master Pang Deyuan, one can see the premium berth at the deepest part of the harbor.

There, a super-giant ship that had just anchored less than six hours earlier was spewing pale blue, hot exhaust fumes into the gloomy sky through its massive smokestacks.

That was the battleship Richelieu.

Last night, the Portsmouth fortress sounded the highest level of air defense and anti-submarine sirens, and the Germans dispatched Dönitz's wolf pack in an attempt to intercept the giant ship.

But the giant ship was not attacked. With its terrifying speed of over 30 knots and the captain's almost insane ship handling skills, it took advantage of the darkness and thick fog to force its way through the blockade set up by German S-boats and U-boats around the English Channel and plunged directly into the Royal Navy's home port.

In the original historical timeline, due to Churchill's order to carry out the bloody "Operation Catapult," which sank the French warships in Oran, the captain of the Richelieu, out of extreme distrust and hatred towards the British, chose to remain in Dakar, French West Africa. There, a fierce artillery battle ensued with the British fleet, resulting in the destruction of two of its 380mm main guns, wasting two precious years of war in port.

But in this time and space, the course of history has been forcibly altered.

David Sterling's SAS commando operation in Oran not only preserved the French fleet but also elevated de Gaulle's prestige among French military personnel overseas to unprecedented heights. When a recording of de Gaulle's speech, accompanied by the Sterling family's promise of an "unlimited fuel and spare parts supply agreement," was sent to the bridge of the Richelieu, this proudest French warship did not hesitate to turn due north and sail towards Portsmouth with the British cruisers.

The group climbed up the heavy oak gangplank to the spacious teak foredeck of the Richelieu. Even the well-traveled Marshal Pound and Admiral Tovey paused for half a second when they stood on the deck of this giant ship.

No one could ignore the two quadruple 380mm main gun turrets, each weighing thousands of tons, that stood before them.

They are like two insurmountable steel mountains.

The turret's sloped armor was 430 millimeters thick, with a surface so smooth that even the slightest weld seam was difficult to detect. Eight robust main gun barrels were mounted in two massive turrets, a design that pushed firepower density to the extreme.

With a full-load displacement approaching 50,000 tons, the ship conceals extremely complex anti-torpedo compartments below the waterline. Even now, as it lies quietly in the harbor with its boilers in low-pressure standby mode, it still exudes a chilling sense of industrial oppression.

Charles de Gaulle looked up at the towering bridge, which integrated rangefinders and air search radar, and at the Lorraine Cross flag fluttering in the wind atop the mast. This French army major general, known for his coldness, fortitude, and even somewhat obsessive nature, now had slightly reddened eyes and his jaw muscles trembling slightly.

His country had fallen; the iron hooves of the Wehrmacht had trampled the cobblestones of the Champs-Élysées; the Nazi swastika flag was planted on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; the French Army, once hailed as the strongest in Europe, had collapsed; and more than a million young men had become prisoners of war.

As a traitor sentenced to death by the Vichy government, he had nothing.

But he hasn't lost everything yet.

He looked down at the giant ship beneath his feet, named after Richelieu, the most famous cardinal in French history and the founder of the modern nation-state.

This was the most powerful battleship in Europe at the time, bar none.

Its 380mm main gun caliber, its armored dome system that is immune to direct fire from 15-inch armor-piercing shells, and its high-temperature, high-pressure boilers that can reach 32 knots make it qualified to engage in a one-on-one death duel with any battleship in the world—including the Japanese Combined Fleet flagship Nagato or the German Bismarck before it entered service.

This was France's strongest trump card for its restoration, and also the sharpest sword in his hand.

The formal commissioning ceremony was held on the spacious aft deck of the Richelieu—the seaplane landing area.

During wartime, there were no lengthy military music performances, no lavish red carpets, and even champagne was omitted.

The ceremony was stripped of all superficial embellishments, retaining only the core political framework.

Admiral Jean-Sullivan—the French veteran who faced the difficult choice between surrendering to Germany, being sunk by Britain, or joining de Gaulle—was now dressed in a crisp white summer dress uniform of the French Navy, his chest adorned with numerous medallions.

He is currently the de facto tactical commander of this massive French fleet, and has far more substantial weaponry in his hands than de Gaulle.

The sharp carbon steel blade flashed a cold light in the gloomy sky.

He lowered the tip of his knife, pointed it at the deck, stood at attention, and gave General de Gaulle a perfectly standard and impeccable military salute.

"General," Jean-Sullivan's voice echoed throughout the premium berth via the deck's brass loudspeakers, "For the honor of France, and to prevent our warships from becoming accomplices of Nazi Germany in oppressing the free world, the Brittany Squadron and the Richelieu are officially reporting for duty to Free France. We obey your orders."

De Gaulle returned the salute, strode forward, and firmly grasped Jean-Sullivan's hand.

"France will not forget your loyalty, General. The deck of this ship is now an extension of the territory of the French Republic."

This is a perfect political stage play.

On the surface, the French government-in-exile finally gained control of its only armed force, and de Gaulle truly became the de facto leader of Free France.

Immediately afterwards, General Pound, representing the British government and the Admiralty, stepped to the microphone and read the joint statement in his impeccable London accent.

"The British Admiralty will regard this fleet as a half-brother of the Royal Navy. From today onward, the Free French Fleet will operate independently as a special squadron of the Royal Navy. We will provide it with the same fuel rations, ammunition replenishment, and dry-dock maintenance priority as the Royal Navy Home Fleet. We will share intelligence, share supply lines, and fight together against the Axis powers until final victory."

Scattered applause rose on the deck, which then turned into enthusiastic cheers.

British and French sailors greeted each other with blasts of their horns from their respective ships.

However, beneath the deafening whistles and applause, the cold undercurrents of power struggles were silently surging on the deck.

Everyone here, whether it's de Gaulle, Jean-Sour, Pound, or Tovey, is a veteran of geopolitics and military maneuvering.

They were well aware of the cruel reality hidden beneath this seemingly warm and sentimental facade.

When Jean-Sullivan saluted de Gaulle, a dramatic detail occurred. Both de Gaulle, standing tall and proud, and Jean-Sullivan, bowing his head to swear an oath, unconsciously glanced past the crowd, their eyes, filled with complex emotions, lingering on the young man standing behind Marshal Pound, leaning on his silver-tipped cane, calm and silent throughout – Arthur Sterling.

De Gaulle was well aware of his own limitations.

A month ago, the Free France headquarters he established in London consisted of just a few rented offices, and his army couldn't even muster a single infantry company.

Without Arthur Sterling's intelligence network, without his strong support from Major General Jeanson, and without David Sterling's ghostly SAS commando team twice appearing out of nowhere, Jeanson's fleet would have long been sent to the bottom of the sea by Churchill and Pound's orders to use 15-inch armor-piercing shells, and he himself might have already died in France.

His current prestige, and the confidence he has in standing here, are entirely supported by the Sterling family through guns, money, blood, and intelligence.

This made it even clearer for General Sur.

As a true fleet commander, his thinking was never about "honor" or "freedom," but rather about tonnage, consumption, and ammunition reserves.

This massive fleet, consisting of two super-dreadnoughts, two high-speed battleships, the Richelieu, and dozens of auxiliary vessels, could consume an astronomical amount of heavy oil every day—enough to bankrupt a small country's treasury—simply by keeping their boilers running, or even just by maintaining power and pumps in port.

Marshal Pound's promise of "equal rations" sounded like a joke to Sull. The Royal Navy's own escort destroyers in the Atlantic were almost out of fuel; where would they find the extra fuel to feed these French behemoths?

The real lifeblood of this French fleet came not from the British government, but from Arthur Sterling.

Not only the heavy oil, but also the shells, were all custom-made for them by Sterling.

Ironically, the monthly salaries that his tens of thousands of French sailors were just receiving, the cigarettes they were smoking, and even the coffee and French bread in their rations were all directly transferred from Stirling Bank's Swiss account.

The Stirling family was certainly not doing charity, and even if Arthur were willing, the old Earl would never agree. The supplementary clauses of the transfer agreement were clearly written in French: when the war ended and France was restored, this astronomical sum of military expenses advanced must be settled with interest.

Even brothers must keep clear accounts; that's Arthur's rule.

But so what? In this desperate situation where the country was in ruins and even dignity had become a luxury, for these tens of thousands of French sailors who needed bread to fill their stomachs and heavy fuel oil to keep their warships beating, Arthur Stirling, holding the checkbook and fuel valve, was the only God they could worship at that moment.

As Sue slowly removed his hand from the hilt of his sword, the sense of sanctity he had felt when saluting and swearing an oath to de Gaulle had been completely washed away by the harsh reality.

The veteran Frenchman knew all too well the kind of deal he had just made. In this world dominated by tonnage and steel, nothing is beyond price. This massive fleet ostensibly swore allegiance to the Free French Lorraine Cross, but in reality, everything from the fuel in the boilers to the ammunition in the gun barrels, and even the stomachs of the sailors, was tightly bound by a complete industrial and financial chain under Arthur Sterling's control.

The British Empire gave them a nominal safe haven, but the young man with the silver-tipped cane was the ultimate master who had actually bought out all the main gun firing rights for the fleet.

After the review ceremony, everyone left the deck of the Richelieu and walked along the breakwater toward the temporary operations room in the Admiralty Building.

With the issue of the French fleet's ownership resolved, a huge weight was finally lifted from the minds of the British high command.

The fleet's strength increased dramatically, which eased the atmosphere within the group somewhat.

Marshal Pound pulled an exquisitely crafted briar pipe from his overcoat pocket, skillfully filled it with tobacco, lit it with a match, and took a deep drag. He turned his head through the greyish-blue smoke, looking at Arthur walking beside him, a mocking smile playing on his lips.

"Brigadier General Sterling." Pound deliberately emphasized the army rank to draw a clear line.

"I overheard that old fogey Brook complaining on a classified phone call to the Department of Defense. He said you really made a name for yourself at the armored training range in Bovington and the artillery school in Laxhill the other day."

"I heard that you not only reprimanded the army's armored generals like students who had done something wrong, but also embarrassed a car tycoon like Lord Nuffield. You even directly changed the anti-tank firepower configuration of an army infantry squad with just a few cheap steel pipes."

Pound smiled, but that smile carried the deep-seated xenophobia and arrogance accumulated by the Royal Navy over centuries.

As the eldest son of the British Empire, the Royal Navy has always believed that it is the only force that determines the fate of the empire, and that the army is nothing more than a bunch of policemen rolling in the mud.

"What?" Pound exhaled a smoke ring, pointing with his pipe at the densely packed masts in the harbor. "You, dressed in an army uniform and wearing the rank of brigadier general, personally brought the French fleet to my port today. After the handover, you're still not leaving. Are you planning to give our navy a 'giving' inspection as well?"

Although it was meant as a joke, Admiral Tovey, who was following behind, couldn't help but narrow his eyes, his gaze filled with scrutiny.

He understood that Field Marshal Pound was using reverse psychology, and the meaning was clear: if the army can reap benefits from your Sterling family, shouldn't we, the eldest son of the navy, also get some good things?

Thinking about this, Tovi also became scrutinizing and skeptical.

He was very curious about what tangible benefits this oligarch, who had made his fortune as an army brigadier general and had secured several types of infantry pipes, could bring to the noble Royal Navy.

In the eyes of a pure fleet commander like Tovey, naval warfare was never the crude game of throwing grenades at each other in mud pits and behind hedgerows like in the army. It was a precise science with zero tolerance for error, a massive systems engineering project involving fluid dynamics, beyond-visual-range ballistics calculations, meteorology, and tens of thousands of tons of steel meshing together under extreme conditions.

There are no trenches to hide in on the open ocean.

The Royal Navy's centuries-old tradition absolutely forbids any layman from coming here with just a few blueprints and spouting nonsense.

However, Arthur stopped in his tracks when faced with the First Sea Lord's probing and teasing remarks.

Unlike his display of sharp tongue and mania when facing the incompetent Army Ordnance Department in Bovington, he didn't exhibit the same aggressive sarcasm and rage. Facing the biting English Channel winds, his face showed not even a trace of offended emotion.

Arthur simply bowed his head slightly and calmly straightened his clothes. The movement was elegant and composed, like a board chairman about to enter the workshop of his controlled factory and read out a proposal for mandatory asset restructuring to his employees.

"Marshal, General." Arthur's voice carried the aristocratic pragmatism of old London under the Union Jack. "Regarding the design of tanks and the configuration of infantry firepower, I frankly admit that I am just a novice who came to this field halfway through. Those things are not technically sophisticated. I just used the cost accounting logic of a normal person and the most basic common sense of physics to correct the almost criminal stupidity that they have accumulated over the past twenty years."

Arthur lowered his arm and slowly turned around.

He didn't look at Pound, but instead raised his silver-tipped cane and pointed to a huge dry dock in the depths of the bay, located in the No. 3 heavy dock.

There, a behemoth, no smaller than the Richelieu, is undergoing final outfitting before its launch.

The towering bridge structure and the iconic quadruple 14-inch main guns on the foredeck have been installed, and countless scaffolding structures, like a dense spiderweb of steel, cover the hull. Thousands of riveting and welding workers are busy on it like ants, the blue light of welding sparks flashing in the overcast sky.

That was the Royal Navy's newest and most advanced battleship, the future flagship of the Home Fleet—HMS King George V.

King George V).

"But what about the navy?" Arthur shook his head, a smirk playing on his lips. "No, Marshal. They don't need my guidance here at all. Because you all seem to have a delusion that you are the masters of the sea."

Arthur, leaning on his cane, took a step forward, his aura instantly overwhelming the two seasoned naval commanders.

"This place, this sea, this steel, has always been the home ground of the Sterling family."

Arthur's voice was soft, without roaring, only the facts.

"Marshal, you may think that the Union Jack represents chivalry and Nelson's tradition. But to me, it represents the gold standard, the Bessemer steelmaking process, and ruthless logistics."

"The breakwater you are standing on, capable of accommodating 30,000-ton warships, was built ten years ago by Stirling Civil Engineering using their proprietary sulfate-resistant silicate cement. Without it, your battleships would be stuck in the mudflats, eating sand."

Arthur's cane pointed again at the still-outfitting behemoth: "Admiral Tovey, the HMS King George V, which will soon become your proud flagship, has that 14.7-inch-thick layer of surface-carburized and hardened armor steel on its waterline. It took 40,000 man-hours to press it out on the 40,000-ton hydraulic press at the Stringling Clyde Banks shipyard. Without that steel plate, German shells would have torn it apart like butter."

Arthur's gaze swept across all the British warships in the harbor; the cruisers and destroyers seemed to transform into balance sheets in his eyes.

"Even the steam turbine alloy blades in the boiler rooms of your battleships, which you are so proud of, which can withstand temperatures of 400 degrees Celsius and pressures and drive tens of thousands of tons of steel at a speed of 30 knots, are all engraved with the patent number of the Stirling Metallurgical Laboratory."

The wind howled on the pier.

Marshal Pound's pipe stopped in mid-air, the ash blown by the wind and falling onto his spotless blue overcoat.

General Tovey's mouth was slightly open, but he couldn't find any words to refute it.

Because what Arthur said was indeed true. Before, they discussed this topic with the old count, but now it was Arthur who was talking about it.

They suddenly realized an extremely cruel logic: the army has the right to use weapons and bleeds for them; but this young man in front of them has the right to create weapons and the right to survive.

Even without the Royal Navy, Arthur Sterling remains a heavy industrial tycoon who controls the economic lifeline of the empire; but if the Sterling family’s heavy industrial foundation is removed, and those financial chains and technological patents are cut off, the Royal Navy will degenerate into a fleet of wooden ships that can only sail by wind within three months.

"So, put away that sense of superiority you have when you're facing the army." Arthur straightened his storm collar, his eyes turning cold. "I'm not here in Portsmouth today to instruct the navy on how to fight. That's not my business."

"I'm here to provide after-sales service for the product. By the way, I'll be giving your outdated target acquisition system, which is practically useless in the dark, a mandatory system upgrade."

After a series of cold rebukes, Arthur dropped his aggressive capitalist demeanor.

He knew that the stick had been swung out, and now it was time to offer the carrot.

He pulled a top-secret document from his black leather briefcase and handed it directly to Marshal Pound.

It was a copy of a battle damage report jointly compiled by MI6 and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Written in stark red ink, it detailed the losses in the Battle of the Norwegian Sea, as well as the specific tonnage of the recent Atlantic convoy attack by German U-boat wolfpacks.

"With the addition of these French giants, I admit that we now possess an absolute advantage in surface warfare against any nation, including the American fleet." Arthur cut to the chase, "As long as the sun is in the sky and visibility exceeds ten thousand yards, we fear no surface fleet, not even the German 'Bismarck'."

"But that only works during the day. What about at night?"

Arthur pointed to the increasingly thick clouds overhead.

"The German U-boats, and their S-boats (torpedo boats) with extremely high speed and very shallow draft, were like ghosts in the night."

"Our battleships suffer from severe night blindness when sailing at night. To guard against submarine attacks, the fleet is forced to implement strict light control, and even cigarette butts are not allowed to be lit on the deck."

"But in combat, once contact is made, our battleships have to turn on their searchlights to find their targets."

Arthur paused, his tone becoming incredibly stern: "Marshal, in modern naval warfare, the limit of optical aiming is the limit of the human eye. And in the dark, turning on a searchlight is like raising a bright torch in a dark forest. Before you can even see the enemy's face, your position, course, and speed have already been completely exposed to torpedo tubes several kilometers away. You're not searching for the enemy; you're providing the perfect bullseye for the German torpedoes."

"You might think, 'Then why don't we just avoid fighting at night?'" Arthur chuckled. "But do you think the Germans would agree?"

These words precisely and cruelly struck at the Royal Navy's most vulnerable point.

Marshal Pound's face darkened completely, and he lost even his appetite for smoking his pipe.

Night battles were a persistent nightmare for the British fleet.

A few months earlier, the U-47 submarine, commanded by German Navy ace captain Prien, took advantage of the cover of night to silently infiltrate the heavily guarded Scapa Flow anchorage of the Royal Navy and torpedo the 20,000-ton battleship HMS Royal Oak to the bottom of the sea, resulting in the deaths of more than 800 sailors.

That was not only the loss of warships, but also the greatest disgrace of Pound's tenure as First Sea Lord.

The sense of powerlessness during night battles left the entire naval leadership feeling like they had a fishbone stuck in their throat.

"The fact that you're raising this question at this time, and saying it in such a harsh way, means you already have a solution?" Pound stared intently into Arthur's eyes; he knew this young man never spoke without reason.

Since he pointed out the scar, he must be holding a Band-Aid in his hand.

"Tonight, I've brought a miracle cure for the Royal Navy's night blindness." Arthur turned to Admiral Tovey, who had remained silent. "Admiral, may I borrow your current flagship—the battleship HMS Rodney? I heard it has just completed its routine overhaul, and the boilers are in excellent condition."

"What are you going to do?" Tovi asked warily.

This involves fleet movements, even outside of ports.

Arthur glanced at the Patek Philippe mechanical watch on his wrist, then turned his gaze to the gray Atlantic Ocean, which was about to be swallowed by the night.

"I'll show you what happens when a true technological gap emerges, and what happens to the centuries-old logic of naval warfare." Arthur's voice carried on the wind. "Tonight, there will be no lights, no searchlights, no flares."

"I will demonstrate to you two supreme commanders of the Imperial Navy what it means to carry out a one-way transparent massacre in absolute darkness."

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