World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

Now, it's his turn.

9:03 AM.

Another shell struck the midships. The explosion ripped off the entire aft deck, and the X turret was thrown into the sea.

The Queen Elizabeth began to list.

Betty steadied herself by holding onto the window frame.

He glanced one last time at the east—the direction Jericho had come from, and the direction from which the sun was rising. Sunlight was streaming in from there, turning the sea a golden-red hue.

Very beautiful.

He said something softly, but no one heard him.

9:07 AM.

The Queen Elizabeth II listed more than 30 degrees to starboard, and water began to enter the deck. As seawater rushed into the bridge, Betty was still standing in front of the porthole, looking at the eastern sunlight.

Scheer stood in front of the porthole on the bridge of the Bismarck, raised his wrist and glanced at the nautical watch his wife had given him before the war—a brass case, a white dial, and the hands pointing to 8:17 a.m.

Thirty-two minutes ago, the Queen sank.

Sunlight streamed in from the eastern horizon, carving out geometric patterns of light and shadow on the steel floor of the bridge. Fine dust particles floated within those beams—not ordinary dust, but rust and asbestos fibers shaken from the ship after the shelling, swirling slowly in the air like some ominous premonition.

Scher's gaze passed over the dust and landed on the sea outside the porthole, where the killing had just ended.

There was oil. Large swathes of oil reflected an eerie, iridescent sheen in the morning light, like paint splashed on a deep blue canvas. Floating in the center of the oil swathes were debris—broken planks, empty lifebuoys, a British naval officer's cap, and several seabirds pecking at something. Scheer couldn't see clearly, nor did he want to.

Further away, a few scattered black dots rose and fell. Those were British sailors. British sailors who had fallen into the water. Some were still alive, waving towards the German warships, their shouts carried faintly by the sea breeze, intermittent, like the whimpers of someone on the verge of death.

"General." A voice came from behind.

Scher did not turn around.

Major Hans Meyer, the watch officer, stepped closer and stood to his side and slightly behind, his voice low: "Sir, the Tirpitz requests permission to dispatch a destroyer to retrieve the person who fell overboard."

Scher was silent for three seconds.

He recalled the Battle of Jutland. After that battle, the German fleet had also salvaged British sailors. He remembered one young British lieutenant who, when rescued, had lips that were purple from the cold, but still insisted on saluting him and saying "thank you." Later, that lieutenant was sent back to England, and during the prisoner exchange, he wrote a letter to Scheer, saying that he was doing well in the POW camp and hoped the war would end soon.

What now?

Scher turned around and looked at the young face of the watchman.

"I won't send it," he said.

Major Meyer hesitated for a moment: "General, those who fell into the water..."

“I heard that,” Scheer interrupted him, “but you don’t understand—the Queen must have sent out our coordinates before it sank. Jellicoe’s large fleet is now heading towards this area at full speed. Every minute, they’re getting closer.”

He walked back to the chart table, bent down, and pointed to the position he had just calculated:

"We are here. Assuming Jellicoe received the alert when he departed from Scapa Flow, at a speed of twenty knots... he is now about eighty nautical miles away from us."

"Eighty nautical miles," Major Meyer murmured, repeating.

"At the top speed of the Queen Elizabeth-class ships, that's a two-and-a-half-hour journey." Scheer straightened up. "But if we stop to retrieve the people who fell overboard, even for just half an hour, that distance will be shortened to... two hours."

He looked at the watchman:

"Two hours. Enough time for Jericho to appear within our sight."

Major Meyer lowered his head and said nothing more.

Scheer knew what he was thinking. Everyone on the ship knew. But no one would say it aloud—in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, the chances of survival for those British who fell overboard were less than thirty percent. Even if they were pulled from the water, they would become prisoners of war, spending the rest of the war in POW camps.

And now, even that 30% hope has been taken away.

It's not cruel. It's mathematics.

War is mathematics. The probability of one's own survival, the time of the enemy's arrival, the remaining fuel and range, the amount of artillery shells in stock—every number is coldly analyzed, and in the end, an indisputable conclusion is reached.

"Notify the Tirpitz," Scheer said, "all ships, heading 240, speed 28 knots. Target—the depths of the Atlantic."

He paused, then added:

"Destroyers, maintain formation, don't slow down. Those who fell overboard... let Jellicoe handle them."

The order was given. The engine room's reply came through the loudspeaker: "Main engines ready. Speed ​​28 knots."

The bow of the Bismarck slowly turned southwest.

Scher walked back to the porthole and took one last look at the sea surface where wreckage floated.

A British sailor was swimming this way. He was swimming slowly, clearly exhausted. His arms were paddling mechanically, his head sometimes submerging and sometimes rising, his mouth opening and closing as if he were shouting something.

The glass of the porthole blocked out all sound.

Scheer watched the black dot grow smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared into the white contrail left by the Bismarck.

He recalled what Admiral Tirpitz had said before his departure: "Every time I see a new warship launched, I don't think about how powerful it is. I think about—if one day it sinks, how long will the young men on board, their mothers, wait in the harbor?"

The old general thought to himself, "Today, seven hundred British mothers will be waiting forever at the port."

But he didn't say those words aloud.

He turned around, faced the chart table, and began to plan his escape route for the next three hours.

8:23.

A rhythmic tremor emanated from deep within the Bismarck's hull—the normal operating frequency of the main engines at twenty-eight knots. Scheer was all too familiar with this tremor; he was so familiar with it that he could sense even the slightest changes in speed with a part of his body.

But today, some strange sounds were mixed in with the tremors.

Every ten seconds or so, a low, clanging sound could be heard from the port side, like a loose steel plate swaying with the hull. From a compartment below the bridge, the faint hum of a continuous drainage pump could be heard.

Scher walked up to the communication tube and blew a whistle.

"Damage Control Center, report the situation."

The voice of Captain Karl Meyer, the damage control officer, came through the receiver, visibly weary: "General, damage control report. The Bismarck has been hit by a total of three bullets."

"One shot landed on the port side aft secondary gun deck, penetrated two decks, and exploded in a storage compartment. The fire has been extinguished, but there is a small amount of water ingress in adjacent compartments. The drainage pumps are working and are expected to empty the water within an hour."