World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

"Hood's signal...disappeared." The radar officer's voice trembled with disbelief. "Large-scale debris echoes on the sea. The Queen Elizabeth...is turning, heading 270, speed...she's accelerating!"

Scheer looked to starboard. In the rain and fading firelight, he saw the silhouette of the Queen Elizabeth rapidly receding, its stern leaving a long white contrail. The Hood-class sister ship clearly had no intention of continuing the fight.

"Should we pursue her?" Gunnery Officer Muller asked, his voice laced with suppressed excitement. "General, we can sink her! Two ships against one—"

"No," Scheer interrupted him. "Order the entire ship to cease fire. Signal the Queen Elizabeth with lights: 'Cease pursuit, retreat permitted.'"

"General?" Muller was stunned.

"Our objective is to demonstrate the power of the Bismarck-class, not to engage in a life-or-death struggle with the Royal Navy." Scheer turned to look at the nautical chart. "Besides... the Tirpitz is still creeping behind. If we chase after the Queen Elizabeth, what if the main British fleet is nearby..."

He didn't finish speaking. But everyone understood.

"What about the survivors of the Hood?" the chief of staff asked in a low voice.

Scher looked at the still-churning sea. The whirlpool had subsided, and now the surface was littered with oil, sawdust, rags, and… tiny figures. In the eight-meter-high waves, those who had fallen into the water were as small as ants, at risk of being swallowed by the next wave at any moment.

"Record the battlefield coordinates," Scheer finally said. "Once we return, notify the British through neutral countries. Now... order the fleet to turn south, heading 180. Return at full speed."

"Not going to provide assistance?" a young communications officer blurted out.

Scheer looked at him, his eyes cold. "Son, this is a battlefield. If we stop our rescue efforts, we could be ambushed by British submarines or destroyers. War is war."

The communications officer lowered his head: "Yes, General."

The order was given. The Bismarck began to slowly turn, its four steam turbines operating at maximum power, propelling the giant ship forward through the waves. Gradually, the area of ​​sea floating with wreckage and survivors was left behind, disappearing into the rain.

Scheer took one last look at the radar screen. There was no longer any signal from the HMS Hood, only the echo of the Queen Elizabeth II receding into the distance, and the slowly moving dot of light from the Tirpitz behind it.

He walked back to his command chair and sat down, taking a pocket watch from his coat pocket. The case was cracked in the fighting, the glass shattered, but the hands were still moving: 5:52 a.m.

From the first salvo to the sinking of the HMS Hood: eighteen minutes.

Five rounds fired simultaneously.

"General," the chief of staff handed over a glass of water, "we...won."

Scheer took the glass of water, but didn't drink it. He stared at the swaying surface of the water, as if he could still see the flames from the breaking of the Hood reflected in it.

"We won?" he muttered to himself, his voice so low only he could hear. "We've just killed a part of the Royal Navy's century-old glory. How do you think the British will respond?"

The chief of staff did not answer.

Scheer put down his water glass and looked out the porthole to the south—the direction of Wilhelmshaven, and an unknown fate.

"Order the entire ship," he raised his voice, "that you may celebrate, but remain vigilant. The war... has only just begun."

The all-clear bell rang throughout the ship. A few seconds later, cheers erupted from the lower decks, gradually spreading throughout the entire vessel. The sailors were celebrating an incredible victory.

But no one laughed on the bridge.

Scheer sat in the commander's chair, his eyes closed. The white light, the broken giant ship, and the figures struggling in the icy water kept replaying in his mind.

Then he recalled his visit to Portsmouth twenty years earlier as a young officer, and the first time he had seen the newly launched British battleships. At that time, the Royal Navy's battleships represented the pinnacle of technology and were symbols of global dominance.

The Royal Navy's most advanced warships are now sitting on the seabed of the North Sea, 41,000-ton steel tombs.

"We've awakened a lion," Scheer said, opening his eyes to his chief of staff beside him. "Write that down. We'll need to remember it in the future."

"Yes, General."

The Bismarck continued its southward voyage, leaving storms, wreckage, and death behind. Meanwhile, to the west, out of their sight, the Queen Elizabeth was fleeing at full speed towards safe waters in the distance, where Captain Goodnow had begun drafting a telegram to the Admiralty.

Three thousand five hundred meters below this point, the wreckage of the HMS Hood is slowly sinking to the seabed. The two broken sections of the ship will remain forever silent on the seabed, along with the vast majority of the one thousand four hundred and eighteen officers and men on board.

Only thirty-nine people were rescued by British destroyers that arrived later.

John Miller was not among them.

Tom wasn't there either.

Major General Wellesley and Colonel Tovey were also not there.

The storm in Beihai continued to rage, as if playing a requiem for this brief but brutal confrontation. The waves washed away the oil slick on the surface, trying to erase all traces.

But some marks can never be erased.

In London, in Berlin, in Dubai, and in war cabinets and command centers around the world, this naval battle, which took place in a storm and lasted only eighteen minutes, was about to create ripples that would change the entire landscape of warfare, like a boulder thrown into water.

And all of this began with the Bismarck's fifth salvo.

It all started with that shell that pierced through the deck armor.

It began with a design flaw, a tactical decision, and a bit of fatal luck.

The funeral of steel is over.

But the steel's revenge has only just begun.

The rain tapped against the windows of 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's official residence, the sound monotonous and lingering, as if it had come all the way from the North Sea to London.

Herbert Henry Asquith stood before the fireplace in his study, a telegram just delivered from the Admiralty clutched in his hand. The telegram was thin, but now felt as heavy as lead. The firelight cast flickering shadows on his face, but could not dispel the unfathomable weariness in his eyes.

There was a gentle knock on the study door.

"Come in," Asquith's voice was hoarse.

Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War; Sir Balfour, the First Lord of the Admiralty; and Sir Grey, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, entered the room one after another. None of the three had removed their coats, and their shoulders were still damp from the rain. Their faces, in the dim light, appeared ashen, as if they had just crawled out of their graves.

"Please sit down." Asquith walked to the desk and placed the telegram in the center of the table. "You should all have seen it."

A suffocating silence ensued.

Lord Kitchener's first action was to remove his monocle and wipe it repeatedly with a velvet cloth, even though the lens was clean. This was a habitual action of his, whenever he was emotionally agitated but had to restrain himself.

"Fourteen hundred and eighteen men," Kitchener finally spoke, his voice low and menacing, as if it came from the depths of the earth. "Adding the casualties on the Queen Elizabeth, we lost nearly two thousand of our finest naval officers and men this morning. And what did we get in return? A tactical retreat?"

"It wasn't a retreat, Lord," Balfour corrected, but his tone lacked conviction. "It was... a strategic disengagement. The Queen preserved its strength under extremely unfavorable conditions—"

"Preserve our strength?" Kitchener jerked his head up, his eyes bloodshot behind his monocle. "Arthur, we lost HMS Hood! Not a destroyer, not a cruiser, but one of the Royal Navy's most powerful warships! A 41,000-ton battlecruiser, sunk after five salvos! Do you know what that means?"

Balfour opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing.