Three Kings (Kirov Series) (2 page)

They called for a brief cease
fire and came forward under a white flag, offering generous terms again, only
this time they would tell Liddell what they were going to be forced to do if
their offer was not accepted. Kübler refused to attend the conference, so
Colonel
Lahousen
was sent to make the final threat.

“We will not lose any more of men
to persuade you to accept what you already know is inevitable,” he told
Liddell.

“Oh? Well I must tell you,
Colonel, that if so ordered I am prepared to lose this entire garrison to
forestall your occupation of this place.”

“Have you ever seen man burn to
death?”
Lahousen
asked. “It is not a pretty sight.
Then again, the fumes from thousands of gallons of gasoline will be another
agony, a choking death for some, until I decide to end the matter and use
this.” He reached into his pocket and took out a book of matches, setting it
squarely on the table between the two men and smiling.

“Good day, General Liddell. We
will give you the three days you request, and await your decision. Do not force
me to become the monster I may now seem to be. After all, this is war.”

Liddell waited those three days,
and put the matter to Whitehall, where it went round for a good long day before
Churchill finally decided, delivering a speech that he had made at an earlier
time in the history Fedorov knew. This time it was the loss of Gibraltar that
inspired the eloquence of his rhetoric.

 “Our enemy has threatened a
most barbarous reprisal should the brave defenders of the Rock remain adamant
at their watch. They have threatened to burn the whole mountain black as death
itself, consuming every last man alive in that awful fire. I cannot permit such
an atrocity, and in this threat we now know the mettle of the foe we face in
the Nazi war machine, which will stop at nothing to grind us under its heels. I
have ordered General Liddell to stand down rather than face such a terrible
end, but the task of resistance passes now to all of us. The fire that might
have made an end of the brave defenders of the Rock must now burn in each of
us, and forge the steel of our continued resistance.
We
are the Rock
now, every man woman and child left in these British isles, and in our colonies
throughout the empire. We may have suffered another hard knock, but they have
not put us to the fire—no—not yet.

“We shall continue to fight them,
resolute, on every frontier. We shall fight them in the deserts of Egypt. We
shall fight them on the high seas, where the Royal Navy maintains its watch
with ceaseless vigilance. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing
strength in the air. And should they dare set foot on this sacred soil, our
homeland of England, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall
fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall
never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a
large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas,
armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in
God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to
the rescue and the liberation of the old. We shall prove ourselves once again
able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive
the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”

The phrase “We are the Rock” went
out like a clarion call, across the airwaves to inspire every man on the far
flung fields of battle. Yet stirring rhetoric was one thing—the grim procession
of British troops filing out from their caves and tunnels quite another, and
the Germans countered Churchill’s eloquence with newsreels of the event,
rubbing salt in the wound they had inflicted.

When the operation was finally
concluded, Admiral Raeder sent Hitler a congratulatory note, praising his
decisive will to prosecute the battle and secure this vital objective, He
summarized again in that note many of the arguments he had made in favor of the
plan:

“The significance of German
occupation of Gibraltar is increased by the recent developments in the
Mediterranean situation. Such occupation safeguards the western Mediterranean;
secures the supply lines from the North African area, important for Spain,
France, and Germany; eliminates an important link in the British Atlantic
convoy system; closes the British sea route through the Mediterranean to Malta
and Alexandria; restricts the freedom of the British Mediterranean Fleet; complicates
British offensive action in Cyrenaica and Greece; relieves the Italians; and
make possible German penetration into the African area via Spanish Morocco.
Spanish ports, like Ferrol and Cadiz, are necessary for submarines and
battleships, to facilitate attack on convoys. Occupation of Gibraltar is of
great importance for the continuation of German war plans, if not decisive.”

For his part, the Kriegsmarine
had played a secondary role in the Gibraltar campaign, one that was largely
designed to tie down the assets of the British Home Fleet and prevent them from
reinforcing Force H. But Raeder had strong ships at sea, a task force under
Admiral Lütjens with
Hindenburg
,
Bismarck
and supporting ships.
They had successfully raided the Faeroes and savaged Convoy-HX-69, and now they
were in a race south to reach the French Ports before the British could catch
them. Everything was going according to his wishes.

* * *

Britain
was in a quandary as
to how to proceed with the war after Gibraltar. Only a few doughty souls
remained hidden in the Rock. Six were concealed in their “Stay Behind Cave.”
And one other was hidden in a place he had not yet come to realize or
understand.

Sergeant Hobson had tried his
best to get the engineers to have a look behind that imposing rock blocking the
lower passage of Saint Michael’s cave. There was too little time, he was told,
and where might it lead? These were the same arguments the Sergeant had run
through his own mind, but a curious and stubborn man, he decided to have one
last look when the word came down that the garrison would capitulate.

Somehow, he worked his way behind
the rock, straining and squirming to get through a crevice so narrow that his
head and shoulders could barely fit through. But he could smell fresh air
there, a cool draft that had to be coming from some place, so he continued to
squirm until he had managed to squeeze on through.

In that last week before the
final surrender, he resolved that he would not be marched off to some German
prison camp in Spain. Life might be better there than what he now contemplated,
but comfort was one thing, a man’s pride and character quite another. The
recollection of that young Lieutenant in the Artillery Corps that had taken up
a rifle as the final retreat began was still with him. He remembered how the
lad had thrown himself on that grenade, making the final sacrifice to save his
comrades in arms.

“And here we are about to hand
the Rock over to Jerry,” he muttered bitterly. “Some murderous German General
holds up a match book and that’s the end of it. Well, not for me.”

In those last days he went about
rounding up much needed supplies. If six other men would stay behind, so would
he. One by one, he forced the small supply packs through the crevice, and then
he finally squeezed through himself.

He took out a matchbook, shaking
his head as he did so. “The Germans think they’ve taken the Rock with a single
match,” he said aloud. “Well this one says we haven’t given up yet, not while
there’s still one Barbary ape here on the rock, just as legend has it. By God
there’s one down here somewhere, and I’m going to find it!”

He used the match to light his
oil lamp, watching as it illuminated the strange shapes of the carved walls of
the cave. “Now then,” he said, standing up in the dark, grateful that there was
at least enough head room in his cave to allow for that. “Where have you gone,
my young little weasel of an ape?”

Chapter 2

The
cold light of the waning
gibbous moon fell on other ships that night, as they surged through the rising
seas like steel shadows. They were running full out, engines straining, the
water high on the sharp bows as they pushed ahead.
Bismarck
was in the
van, its dark shape illuminated in the cold pale moonlight, a grim silent
presence on the sea. Behind it came an even greater mass, the looming hulk of
the
Hindenburg
as it followed the wide frothing wake of the other ship.
Kapitan Adler was on the bridge, fretting and restless that night, and ever
mindful of the third shadow on the sea, well behind them yet still there,
doggedly following their every move. He could not see it now in the darkness,
but he could feel it, the threatening presence of another enemy battleship on
the seas behind them.

Adler was still steaming with the
thought that they should have turned and fought this ship the moment it first
appeared on the distant horizon. But Lütjens had turned away, and he had
received a stiff rebuke when he made an unwise comment intimating that the
Admiral seemed to have no stomach for battle. It still bothered him as he felt
that presence behind them, and he stepped out onto the weather bridge to have a
look through his field glasses.

The night was cold and wet, a
light mist on the air that was more than the spray from
Hindenburg’s
bow. Rain was coming. He had checked with the weather man and knew the pressure
was falling. So they would have a storm to shroud their massive steel shoulders
soon, and thickening clouds overhead. That would keep the
Goeben’s
planes on the deck for the foreseeable future, so he could not count on the
Stukas
driving off this meddlesome British battleship. But here he had the most
advanced ship in the German Navy under his feet, its power and mass so evident
as it plowed the seas—and they were running!

He shook his head, wishing he
could make a sudden turn and rip open the night with those terrible 16-inch
guns. That was how he would have handled the matter, but Lütjens had been
adamant. They had their feast. Convoy HX-69 paid the terrible price for the
meal in ships lost and blood and fire on the sea. Then, at the height of their
feeding frenzy, the Royal Navy had appeared, a battleship challenging them off
the starboard bow, and the Admiral had turned away, leaving the wrecked convoy
behind, along with the prospect of a good battle that Adler knew they would
have won if the Admiral had found his backbone.
Bismarck
took the lead
and he had followed, reluctantly, still stinging from the threat leveled at him
by Lütjens.

Throw me in the brig, will he?
Adler steamed, glad for the cool wet air of the night on his face now. Then he
had second thoughts, realizing that his remark had been too much of an insult
for Lütjens to permit, particularly on the bridge, in front of the other
officers. That realization still burned at the back of his neck, and he knew he
had invited the Admiral’s angry reprisal, but that did little to comfort him.
He would have to be more careful, he thought, yet he must make his voice heard
as well. He was Kapitan of the
Hindenburg
, a posting any man in the
fleet would envy, and not without reason. He was an experienced sea Kapitan,
young, with a good fighting heart, a loyal party man. Why else was he here if
not to find and fight the enemy? His judgment was sound, and he would have it
heard, but he had to be more careful.

Lütjens was not a party man. He
was a good, loyal officer, but not one to click heels and stiffen to the salute
before the Nazi flag. It was said that when the Führer came to tour the ship
before it sailed on this first maiden voyage, the Admiral offered a traditional
naval salute, and not the one armed salute that had been adopted by the party.
Lütjens seemed to have misgivings about National Socialism, reservations that seemed
to manifest as a quiet disdain at times. Perhaps I can use that, he thought,
but he put the matter aside.

In the future I will state my
opinion in a more direct manner, he thought. No innuendo with a man like
Lütjens, but I can have anything I say entered into the ship’s log. If I
disagree, then it can be made a matter of record, and perhaps then the Admiral
will think twice before he so lightly dismisses the advice of this ship’s
Kapitan.

Even as he thought that, he
realized how hollow it sounded. This ship’s Kapitan… He was on the flagship of
the fleet! Yes, an enviable post, but one that was ever fated to stand as vice
Chancellor in the hierarchy of command. There would always be an Admiral on
this ship, another man’s shadow ever darkening his chair. He would play second
fiddle here—unless he became the Admiral on this ship one day, and that thought
set his mind to a more promising compass heading.

They had been running full out
for ten hours after their feast on the convoy. Now they had come to a position
about a thousand kilometers east of Glasgow, well away from British air cover,
though he gave that little mind now with the
Goeben
along. Marco Ritter had a clutch of good fighter pilots out there somewhere.
The escort carrier was steaming with the new battlecruiser
Kaiser
in
escort, another good reason they should have turned and sunk this British
battleship.

He sighed, turning to greet an
adjutant coming out to see him with a message.

“Fleet communiqué, sir.
Wilhelmshaven reports they have radio intercepts on more capital ships that
have joined the chase.”

Adler took the message, squinting
at it in the darkness. “What does it say?”