This one is very short, sorry. RL has been pressing. I have written the scene here a bit further, but could not find or reach a later decent stop point.
Among the things I still have to get done before 7 PM Wednesday is put togther some working rockets out of the dozens I once had made from scratch. And
support gear. My launch boxes have not been touched in perhaps a decade, and I have no clue if anything is in there that I can salvage.
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Letterstime - Versuchung - XV
("The Vogel Variation")
July 16, 1915
---- Pillau, course 090, speed 25 knots
At least for the moment, the British appeared content to remain on a parallel course, just out of range directly abeam to the south.
"Sir, flags going up on Frankfurt."
Korvettenkapitän Heinz Walzieben turned in some surprise towards the still-distant, but fast-approaching near-sister ship to his own Pillau. What in the Devil was Vogel up to?
It was too far to read the signals, especially with the cruiser's speed pushing the flags generally away from view. Still, the other cruiser's aspect .... He'd expected Frankfurt to make a circle and eventually come alongside on the same course as Pillau. There, with a full flotilla on their lee side, the pair of German cruisers might possibly torment the British some more at long range. What the ...?
---- Frankfurt, course 240, speed 25 knots
"Answering 25 knots, sir. Steady on course 240."
"Very well," acknowledged Korvettenkapitän Richard Vogel, and he shifted his glance to his five torpedoboats. Flags were running up their smallish halyards. Two, three ....
"Flotilla has acknowledged, sir."
"Very well," Vogel repeated, and looked west, verifying again that they were not going to foul the other German cruiser and halb-flot.
Vogel had given the situation a bit of thought and, after a confirmatory look at the plot, had decided, as the chess masters liked to put it, to introduce a variation.
"Execute."
---- Southampton, course 090, speed 25 knots
"New contact. North-easterly, sir. Plume, bearing 045."
Commodore Nott might have spotted it before the lookouts, having spent most of the last half-hour with his glasses on the west and northwest arcs. Just moments before, however, Dedmon had seen him turn his attention and penetrating gaze nearly due south, even pacing off the starboard wingbridge, across the bridge, and out onto the port wing to improve his vantage.
Commander Dedmon had beamed a bit when the Commodore strode away south. After all, with the enemy in full view and pacing them to the north just out of gun range, it was a gesture of confidence in him, and the rest of the crew.
The shouted sighting came with the illustrious flag officer standing at the outboard end of the little wing-bridge, binoculars up and pointing in almost the precisely wrong direction. Nott, spun like a top at the report, but clumsily, briskly precessing his ribcage into a bridge rail stanchion. (NOTE 1)
All eyes had snapped onto the new northeasterly bearing, of course, and so no one witnessed Nott half-folding over on the southernmost point of the wing-bridge.
---- HMS Dublin, 250 yards astern of HMS Southampton
LCDR "Cy" Phonone, like everyone else with a grain of sense, disliked being under fire. Being unable to return fire was beyond destestable; it was literally depressing. Such had been the state of affairs, however, for more than a few minutes until the Commodore had altered course to due East, too adroitly for the Germans to stay in range.
"Sir, Southampton ... contact bearing 045."
"Very well," Phonone replied easily. The absence of unanswerable incoming ordnance had already lifted his spirits, so the advent of more Huns dismayed him not a whit. Who were these guys, he wondered, feeling almost like a newman. His pulse began to rise, however, as the range continued to drop. They had no Main Body upon which to retire, so there were a certain few German ships he'd rather not encounter just now.
He could name them, in fact.
After a few more minutes, he realized that the range must have dropped significantly, as superstructure began to show at the base of the plume, revealing the newcomer to be merely a second singleton light cruiser. The initial range report must have been mistaken, as the new enemy was hardly more than 20,000 yards distant. Not a long range to a large ship, but a shorter range to a smaller ship.
Southampton's wake had never wavered a wavelet throughout, so the Commodore had obviously perceived it instantly, having never shared Phonone's misconception and concern. He shook his head admiringly, reflecting that that was why Nott was Commodore and why he, Phonone, was not.
---- Pillau, course 090, speed 25 knots
Walzieben kept his eyes on Frankfurt now, just glancing south every few seconds to check that the Britishers were not attempting some mischief.
"Sir, Frankfurt's flags are, "Course 210, speed 25".
As Walzieben watched, the other cruiser flashed across his bows some 18,000 yards ahead, stooping down upon the Britishers like some metallic byrd of prey. Numbly, he noted that Vogel had his halb-flot well off his after starboard quarter, perhaps as much as 500 yards diagonally in his lee.
Gott in Himmel!
"Hoist, 'Attack - torpedo'!"
---- Southampton, course 090, speed 25 knots
Dedmon turned as the Commodore made his way onto the port wingbridge at a deliberate, no, a frankly casual pace.
Up in the superstructure, the Commodore's attention to bearings other than 045 had apparently not been lost upon the watch chief, as Dedmon heard scathing shouts ranging from "Stay on your arcs!" to " ... like bloody chickens!"
Dedmon managed to restrain a grin, helped by the odd expression on Nott's face. He was looking past him.
"Sir, the enemy has opened fire!"
Author's NOTEs
1) See:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gyroscope_precession.gif
2) This is really an update to NOTE 6 of Letterstime - Versuchung - VI. There I described how I had, as research for Letterstime, brought in a tomato plant in
a container ahead of the onset of Winter, and put it in front of a basement window where it could catch only the afternoon light (and not also the morning
light) to better mimic Wilhelmshaven/Edmonton conditions. As I reported last, it bore those red thingies well after the Winter solstice. I brought it out as
Spring began to turn warm weather, it bloomed early like crazy, and the plant already has more of those green things on it that will turn red later.
