Paradox Hour (19 page)

Kamenski shifted quietly in his chair, scratching his chin as he continued. “There are no ‘moments,’ only a constant expression of motion. That realization alone upsets Zeno’s applecart full of paradoxes. He was another fellow a bit obsessed by the notion of paradox. Take his assertion about the arrow, for example. He said that if every object occupying a point in space is at rest, and a moving arrow must past through a series of points in space, then it must be at rest in each and every one, and therefore could not be moving.”

“Very clever,” said Fedorov.

“But very wrong,” said Kamenski. “Old Zeno tried to prove motion was an illusion, that life was like a series of frames in a movie—or a series of positions in a chess game, but he actually had it backwards. This notion of fixed moments in time—that is the illusion, a mere convention of thought. To put it simply, things don’t stay put. They are never here, never in any frozen moment we may choose to call this present, because
there are no such moments
, only constant change and motion—constant uncertainty. And if they are never here, then they are never anywhere else either. In that light, time takes on a whole new meaning. 1941? 2021? These are not places, Fedorov, they are activities, movement in a dance. To go to one or the other you simply have to change your behavior—step lively, and learn the dance of infinity. You see, anything can be expressed in that dance—anything—but the opposite is also true. Nothing is just as satisfactory a state of affairs as everything, as far as the universe is concerned, and one may become the other in the wink of an eye…”

Kamenski set down his pipe with a sigh, watching the last curling wisps of smoke rise from the bowl, thin and insubstantial. When he finally spoke, his voice had a grave tone, and the usual glib confidence of the man was gone. Instead he was darkly serious, eyeing Fedorov with his unwavering gaze as he spoke.

“Your fear is that Lenkov’s fate is a foreshock of what is to come for the rest of us—for the ship. That may be so, Mister Fedorov. Soon it won’t be just the watch we quibble about, or those file boxes, or even the fate of this ship and crew. You see, time is not what you think it is. Nothing ever stays put, and things seem to be shaking loose in some rather alarming ways these days. If this continues, that word Miss Fairchild used to describe the situation we may be facing here was quite accurate—Grand Finality.”

Part VI

The King’s Business

“"Is there not here under thine hand spear or sword, for I have neither brought sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business requires haste"

―
1 Sam. 21:8

Chapter 16

Air
defense officer Lieutenant Don Campbell did not expect to be very busy that week. HMS
Rodney
left the Clyde some days ago, steaming with the troop ship
Britannic
, the third ship in the ill-fated White Star line to bear that name, and four destroyers,
Eskimo
,
Mashona
,
Somali
and
Tartar.
A bright faced young man, Campbell was glad he was not yet on duty in the gun director Octopodial behind and above the bridge. It was a lonesome, windswept eyrie high above the conning tower, and very lightly armored. While the men there had a splendid view of everything around them, they also suffered from numb hands, red noses, and cold faces, with too little to keep them warm. Instead, Campbell was on the bridge, seeing to some crew re-assignments with a staff officer.

“I’ll be one man short today,” he said. “Lennox is down with a gut buster. Anyone free for duty on my station?”

“I can give you Mister Byers when he’s finished ferrying Captain Coppinger back over to
Britannic
.”

“Good Enough. Shall we say zero nine-hundred hours?”

“I’ll have him there.”

Rodney
was well out to sea on her secret mission, the King’s business beneath a cover of old crates and boiler tubes all over the decks. A message had come in from the fleet flagship, and it was something Captain Dalrymple-Hamiltion wanted to discuss with Coppinger, Captain of the White Star liner
Britannic
. The two men were meeting in the plot room, their voices low and hushed, which was enough to arouse Campbell’s curiosity. Campbell was just about to leave when they emerged on the bridge again, and the ship’s Captain caught his eye.

“Ah, Mister Campbell, I’ll want you and your people sharp today, and I’ll have to ask you to take your watch station a bit early.”

“Of course, sir,” said Campbell, realizing that there went breakfast, and he would be lucky if he could even get down a cup of tea now before he went aloft to his assigned perch on the Octopodial. “I was just seeing to crew assignments.”

“Very good,” said Hamilton. “Because it seems we’re going to be paid a visit soon. You’ll probably be one of the first to make the sighting, so be on the lookout for a ship coming up from the south. We’re to make a rendezvous, and will have visitors aboard soon after.”

The staff officer heard that, realizing the man he had just re-assigned might be needed at his regular post. “Excuse me, Captain,” he said. “Will we be needing the cutter?”

“No, they’ll come to us when they get here.”

It was not the only thing coming at that moment. A watchman suddenly shouted out a warning: “Torpedo off the starboard bow!” Yet it was too late. Seconds later the was a dull thump, and then a shuddering explosion. Far beneath the sea, a man with a very peculiar fate had just struck a blow that would change the whole complexion of the mission.

* * *

Days earlier,
U-556
under her young captain Herbert Wohlfarth had left the submarine base at Kiel for his first patrol in this new boat. It was the third U-boat he had commanded, after logging nine kills in U-14 in the first eight months of the war, and then almost equaling that when he was re-assigned to U-137 in September of 1940, with eight more kills. The biggest feather in his cap to date had been the armed merchant steamer HMS
Cheshire
, at over 10,000 tons, and now he was hoping to better that on his maiden patrol in U-556.

Strangely, his personal fate seemed to be entangled with that of one of the ships now operating in these waters, and the connection persisted, like that of two entangled particles, even though this was an altered state of affairs. Newly built, U-556 had the distinction to berth right next to the mighty
Bismarck
while she was also fitting out, and came to think of her as an elder sibling.

Wohlfarth had developed a strange connection between his boat with
Bismarck
, perhaps like a pair of entangled quantum particles, as Director Kamenski might have explained it. He had pledged he would defend the mighty
Bismarck
in any sea, and do his utmost to keep the ship from harm. And now he was to get his chance in a way he could not yet truly fathom.

His big brother had been gone for some time, sailing in the Mediterranean with the fleet flagship, and Wohlfarth had been appalled when he heard the news that both ships had been hit by a strange new British weapon at sea—a rocket. It worked just like a torpedo, or so the rumors had it, only it flew through the sky instead of hiding beneath the sea, and like an aircraft, it had a very long range.

Wohlfarth went so far as to request his next mission might end in a French port instead of seeing him return to Kiel, thinking he might slowly work his way into a berthing at the new German base at Gibraltar, and a Mediterranean patrol to be closer to
Bismarck
. He learned that both Bismarck and
Hindenburg
 would be laid up in the French port of Toulon for some time, getting refitted with fresh armor plating and a few innovations designed to give them better protection against these rocket weapons. Then news came that
Hindenburg
was returning to the Atlantic, and
Bismarck
would be coming along with the flagship to prey on the convoys Wohlfarth had been feasting on in his earlier patrols. What could be better!

He set out from Kiel ten days earlier than he did in the history Fedorov knew, and soon got his first chance at action when he encountered a small 160 ton steam trawler off the Faeroes Islands. He had been ordered there to observe and report on operations at the new British airfield, but when he encountered the
Emanuel
, he could not resist. Not wanting to waste a torpedo on a small vessel like that, Wohlfarth surfaced and sunk it quickly with his deck gun. It was a small kill, and nothing much to boast about, but he would take it, and sail on with the hope of getting many more.

Fleet rumors had been circulating at Kiel, saying that the whole navy was out to sea now, and something very big was in the works. The truth of that was soon made apparent to him when he was ordered to scout the channel between the Faeroes and Iceland.
Tirpitz
, the sister ship of
Bismarck
, was leading another powerful German task force there, intending to break out and join the
Hindenburg
group in the Atlantic.

It was a grand operation, and he was proud to be a part of it. Then came the coded orders from Group West that befuddled him. He was ordered to alter his course immediately, turn south, and be on the lookout for any British convoys escorted by battleships.

“A pity,” said Wohlfarth. “We’re going to miss seeing the
Tirpitz
in action. All the fun will be further west.”

“Perhaps,” said his navigator, Sub-Lieutenant Souvad. “A convoy to the south sounds like good prey.”

“Escorted by a battleship? You know they only assign the older ships to that duty,” said Wohlfarth. “They are too fat and slow to run with the action out west. And where those ships sail, there will be destroyers.”

“Still, we might find better fare there,” Souvad suggested. “Destroyers are always a problem, but this new boat is very quiet. And remember,
Bismarck
is coming out of the Med. You may get a chance to make good on your pledge, Kapitan.”

“
Bismarck
has good company now,” said Wohlfarth. “But orders are orders. Come to one-eight-zero. We will see what has Group West all in a tither.”

A few days later he had his answer. There, right in the center of his periscope, was one of those old battleships he had been talking about, and a nice fat steamship liner right in her wake! Wohlfarth had come upon a small, heavily guarded convoy, and he knew immediately what he was looking at.

“Good lord,” he said. “That’s the
Rodney!”

HMS
Rodney
, an interwar build, had an unmistakable silhouette because all of her big guns were on the forward segment of the ship, with her armored superstructure and bridge con well back of the huge turrets, like a solitary iron tower. Slow and heavily armored, the
Rodney
was often used in convoy escort roles, as her best practical speed was in the range of eighteen to twenty-one knots, though she normally cruised at fifteen to eighteen knots. From the size of her bow wash, Wohlfarth estimated the ship was moving with some urgency, and he could see a pack of fast destroyers steaming in escort, four in all, with two well ahead, one behind and one closer to
Rodney
, yet on the far side of the ship.

Four destroyers… There must be some reason these two ships are given such an escort. He wondered what it was, having no idea of what
Rodney
carried in her hold, or the fact that there were 550 precious pilot trainees embarked aboard
Britannic
at that moment, bound for training in the US under a secret agreement with the Americans. It was the business of war, made even more vital by adding in the King’s business. And yet no one back in London, or Buckingham Palace, knew the most precious thing at stake at that moment—the key embedded in the base of the Selene Horse, crated away in
Rodney’s
hold.

He had been lucky enough to get this sighting in a perfect position to fire, and perhaps he could get both these big ships before those destroyers forced him to run for his life. The temptation was overwhelming.

Sink an oiler or merchant ship, and they say well done when you get back home, he thought. But if I were to hit that battleship… That’s a knights cross sitting out there, right in front of me, and right behind it is my oak leave cluster. This is too good to be true!

He turned to his Executive Officer Schaefer with a gleam in his eye. “Pass the word for battle stations, but make it very quiet. No alarm. There are four destroyers up there!” His blood was up and he was eager for a fight.

“You’re going to take a shot at that battleship?”

“What do you think they give us torpedoes for, Herr Schaefer? I think this is the ship we were told to look for.”

“Are you certain?” asked his navigator Souvad. The thought of those four destroyers was none too comforting.

“Look out for convoys escorted by battleships,” said Wohlfarth. “Well, that is exactly what we have in front of us.”

“Shouldn’t we report it first?”

“And let it slip away? The damn ship is probably zig-zagging. It could turn at any moment, and right now, we have perfect alignment, and plenty of torpedoes. Ready forward tubes!”

And so he fired his underwater version of a naval rocket. The torpedoes had a very short range, but they were very deadly, and soon struck home with a big water splash and booming sound that they could all hear. U-556 had put its hands on HMS
Rodney
, interfering with the King’s business, and it was going to complicate things more than anyone realized just then.