V4CH39: HMS Devonshire

　"Captain! The Vemila is reporting water in her cabin and she has lost all power."

　　"Captain Westminster signaling distress, she can't hold out much longer."

　　"Captain, the Saladin is signaling a German submarine sighting, requesting next instructions."

　　"Captain, what should we do now!"

　　The bridge of the Devonshire was now in chaos, with everyone looking at Cartson, who was standing in the captain's chair.

　　Everyone on the bridge had been blindsided by the ferocity of the German submarine attack, the officers had lost their usual initiative, and the men were praying to the Queen for their captain to find a way to lead them out of this torpedo hell.

　　"Don't panic! Do you still look like the glorious Royal Navy?" Cartson roared to the panicked men.

　　He stood in the captain's chair and tried to bluff his way out. Now in his heart he was in complete panic, just like his men. If he still had the courage to fight when the first S-class destroyer Scout was torpedoed and sunk, the destruction of the other two V-class destroyers immediately afterwards completely destroyed his confidence to fight on. He knew that even if he could lead the heavy cruiser back to England, he would not escape the punishment of the Admiralty, and the court-martial would not spare any commander who lost the Empires' precious warships. But he was the captain of this battleship no matter what, he was still the commander of this small fleet, although this fleet had only two battleships left. He had to take up his responsibility, which is what a Royal Navy officer is taught from childhood, which is the tradition of the Royal Navy. He had to take responsibility for the surviving ships and sailors, even though he would be held accountable but still had to bring the two ships and sailors back to England safely.

　　"Tell Vemila to abandon ship, they are just a target now, the Germans will not spare her, she is finished. Westminster too, tell her crew to evacuate immediately. Order the lifeboats of both their ships to concentrate in one area as much as possible and wait for our rescue."

　　Cartson frowned and looked toward the two destroyers tilted in the distance with smoke billowing from the sea. These were two V-class anti-aircraft destroyers that had just been refitted. The original plan had considered that the greatest threat to them on this route was the Luftwaffe bombardment, so these two anti-aircraft destroyers were specially mobilized to protect them, but it was unexpected that they would be attacked by German submarines.

　　The most important thing that Cartson could not figure out was how to encounter German submarines here, the German submarines on this route usually sailed in the Luftwaffe defense circle, how could they run outside the air force defense circle, it was really puzzling. Moreover, the situation now clearly indicated that the Germans had more than one submarine, which was a nightmare for themselves. The heavy cruiser did not have any anti-submarine devices, and there was only one destroyer left to protect her. If she left herself to attack one of the German submarines, then Devon would be completely exposed to another German submarine, and then she would not even be able to fight back except to dodge. But if the Saladin was to protect the Devonshire closely and be fired upon by two submarines, the Devonshire would also die a horrible death. Now there was no time to think about this, he had to bring these two warships out of this submarine hunting ground safely, and he himself had to find a way to rescue those sailors struggling on the surface, otherwise he might never be able to hold up his head in front of the British people.

　　Thinking of this, Cartson ordered loudly to the helmsman to, "Right! full rudder! speed unchanged. We must retreat as soon as possible." Cartson turned to his first officer again and shouted, "Order the Saladin to be free to attack whenever a German submarine is sighted." Cartson then whispered to himself, "I hope she can save face for the Royal Navy."

　　Cartson's reaction at that time was theoretically flawless, he wanted to use the old S-class destroyer to stall one of the German submarines, and then he should be able to evade the other German submarine as long as he kept moving at high speed, maybe Saladin might even attract the other German submarine as well, if the old destroyer could sink even one German submarine it would be better, and I would be able to explain myself. Of course, in the meantime, it would be perfect if he had the chance to rescue the shipwrecked crew. If it was impossible to save them, then there was nothing to be done, we couldn't risk thousands of people for the sake of 300, the citizens would understand, Casement consoled himself desperately.

　　But he didn't realize that there was a fatal mistake in his plan, a mistake that could have killed his entire fleet, what he would have done if there had been not two but three German submarines.

　　"Periscope! 3000 yards to port. Periscope!" The lookout shouted in terror. Cartson hastily picked up the telescope and looked to port, only to see a black periscope rising from the distant undulating waves, which cut through the turquoise water with a snow-white wake, the splashes of which glittered brilliantly in the sunlight.

　　"German submarines, Captain, they're traveling parallel to us in the same direction, not as fast as we are, 3,000 yards away, should we shoot? Captain!" An officer asked loudly.

　　"Are you crazy, can we possibly hit a target that small with one shot? All right, she's starting to dive." The periscope was slowly descending from the surface.

　　"Keep your eyes peeled, they'll launch a torpedo attack, watch the torpedo trail." Cartson shouted back to the helmsman, "Watch your speed, full ahead, snake maneuver."

　　"Aye Captain, full speed ahead, snake maneuver, what is the turn distance?"

　　"750 meters."

　　"Aye, captain, 750 meters." The helmsman first hit the ship's bell to issue the order to the engine room for full speed ahead, and then began to twist the helm wheel to direct the battleship to turn.

　　"Captain! Captain Cartson!" Army Lieutenant Colonel Sanders rushed headlong into the bridge, and as soon as he saw Cartson he shouted, "German submarine! we are in the ambush circle of German submarines!"

　　"Calm down! Lieutenant Colonel! Calm down!" Cartson was disgusted by Sanders' disoriented look, especially at this extraordinary time when this rude Army officer dared to rush into his bridge and shout at him, which was even more inexcusable.

　　But Cartson, who was a man of honor and pride in the Royal Navy, was not willing to give up his manners, so although he was disgusted, he still tried to be polite and said, "We all saw that, Commander. We were indeed attacked by two German submarines, but please rest assured that we will soon be out of this predicament. I will bring you safely back to England, so please do not be so alarmed in front of my men."

　　Cartson then glanced at Sanders' runaway tie with a look of obvious contempt and said, "Grooming, Commander, I don't know what the Army is like, but I do know that a naval officer is expected to maintain his noble manners at all times."

　　Hearing these words, which revealed a heavy degree of unfriendliness, Sanders' face instantly turned red, and he resentfully straightened his uniform, straightened his tie, and then replied nonchalantly, "The Army is the same, and definitely not worse than the Royal Navy, Captain." Sanders then asked, "What do you want to do now, knowing that we are still under the threat of German submarines, you don't want to fight with the Germans to the end, knowing that you have already lost three ships?" When he said the word "lost", Sanders added a special tone.

　　This time it was Cartsons face to turn red, he now began to hate this army lieutenant colonel from the bottom of his heart, but he could not not answer this army bastard's words, otherwise he would lose his own momentum.

"Yes, it's true that we lost three good battleships, but that doesn't mean anything, we were met with a sneak attack by a German submarine. But it was time for the Germans' good fortune to come to an end; they had completely exposed their whereabouts. I could have easily eliminated them, but to take into account that we still had Army soldiers aboard our battleship, and to keep their precious lives from being threatened, I had to take a contingency plan, I had to retreat and we will now withdraw back to England." Casement replied coldly, as if he really endured the pain of retreating because he wanted to save Sanders' life.

　　"You mean to abandon this mission and flee back home?!" Hearing that Casement was going to retreat, Sanders instantly became anxious, and he couldn't even care less about the venom in Cartson's words.

　　"You can't do that, Captain Sir, do you know what you are doing? You are destroying the last hope of our allies."

　　Cartson coldly swept a glance at the anxious Sanders: "There is no more hope, this operation failed when the Scout exploded and sank. All our plans were based on concealment, but now that we have been discovered, the Germans have probably reported our movements to their Admiralty, and perhaps German interceptor fleets and planes are already on their way to intercept us. There was no way I was going to continue to carry out this plan that had obviously failed. The Royal Navy had done its best and paid enough. I cannot afford to lose both battleships again. We now had only two ways to go, one was to keep going and get punched into the bottom like a target by those Germans, the other was to turn around and escape these dangerous waters before the Germans could concentrate their intercepting force. I chose the latter, and I'm taking my boys home."

　　"Then..." Sanders wanted to retort something else, but he found he couldn't really find any reason to object to Cartson doing so, and he looked at Cartson's serious eyes with his mouth open, unable to speak.

　　"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

　　At this time a dull thunderous explosion came from the sea not far away, and everyone turned their heads to look in the direction of the explosion.

　　"Report Captain, that's Saladin, she's attacking a German submarine. It's the sound of a depth charge." A lookout soldier reported loudly.

　　"I see it, very good, soldier." Cartson looked excitedly at the old destroyer that was spinning there in wild circles. Saladin's attack also boosted the morale of the Devonshire's crew, and they swept away their downcast looks, one by one, shaking their arms and shouting for their comrades at their respective battle stations, the soldiers' loud cheers even carried up to the high bridge.

　　"Well done, finish the German pigs!"

　　"Send them all to the bottom of the sea and feed them to the fish!"

　　"The fish won't eat the Germans, they stink so bad that even jellyfish won't touch them."

　　"Since they like to be underwater, they should never float up!"

　　The rude shouts of the sailors now became less harsh to Cartson's ears, and he even appreciated the improvisation of some of them; 'the Germans were indeed all damned garbage', Cartson now thought deeply.

　　"Torpedoes! Port side 230, 1000 yards!" A voice suddenly rang out from the starboard side, a voice full of fear and panic.

　　"Full port rudder!" Cartson gave the order to turn the rudder without even thinking about it, his years of experience in combat made him make the right decision to handle the situation in an instant. He then grabbed his binoculars and ran to the bridge to look in the direction of the incoming torpedoes.

　　"Torpedo, 240. 700 yards!" The lookout was still reporting the parameters of the torpedoes, and you could hear from his voice that he was on the verge of collapse.

　　"Recruits!" Cartson couldn't help but shake his head.

　　Two torpedoes were coming towards the Devonshire with terrifying speed, but the strange thing was that they didn't go underwater like the other torpedoes, and their movements could only be detected by the feathery wake on the surface of the water. These two torpedoes were different; they floated almost entirely on the surface of the water, like two speedboats frantically splitting the water, cutting through the waves and almost bouncing towards the Devonshire.

　　"Stupid Krauts, they even forgot to set the depth for the torpedoes." Cartsonlooked at the two torpedoes and sneered.

　　By this time, the Devonshire had already started to turn sharply, and the huge bow of the ship turned violently to the left, and the waves caused by the bow even hit the deck. The huge ship, like a nimble speedboat, made a beautiful turn in a flash, and the powerful centrifugal force made her 10,000-ton body tilt over violently.

　　"Torpedo, heading 270, 200 yards."

　　The watchman's voice was noticeably calmer, and now anyone could see that the two torpedoes would never hit the Devonshire. A few seconds later, the two torpedoes slid past not far from the stern and continued bouncing off into the depths of the sea.

　　"Captain, that was beautiful." The first officer said as he wiped cold sweat from the side.

　　"If you had ordered right full rudder at that time, we might have been hit."

　　"That's the lesson, my Major, if I had turned right, my stern would have been shot. Now you've learned a little." Casement said with a smug smile.

　　At that moment the lookout's voice sounded once again, this time even more anxious than the last one, practically hoarse.

　　"Torpedo, heading 270, 600 yards. Coming right at us!"

　　"What!" Cartson's heart girded, and he was too late to give the order. Cartson rushed to the helmsman's side, pushed the helmsman away, and desperately punched up the full rudder to the right.

　　"Left car full speed forward, right car full speed backward! Hurry!"Cartson hissed at his men.

　　"Captain! 300 yards to go!" The first officer took his binoculars and reported the parameters of the torpedo.

　　"200 yards now, Captain." The first mate's voice was tinged with sobs.

　　"It's too late, Captain!"

　　"Pull the collision alarm!" Cartson let go of the tiller wheel and pulled tightly on the ship's bell on one side.

　　The Devonshire's sailors had also spotted the two trails flying toward them, and if they hadn't been concerned about military orders, they would have been in a tizzy. Now the sailors could only grit their teeth and watch as the two white trails, representing death, grew closer and larger.

　　The collision siren on Devon screamed like a banshee, and the sailors on deck had long since grabbed all the stationary equipment around them and waited for the moment when they were hit. Before the alarm had finished sounding, two huge columns of water had risen from the tall side of the battleship, and with the violent explosion, the whole battleship trembled twice, many soldiers on the anti-aircraft gun positions were thrown out of their positions, and the sailors standing on the deck could not control their balance and fell on the hard deck.

　　The Devonshire's speed dropped violently, and after she struggled to stir up the last row of huge waves, she spun uncontrollably like a whale that had been hit in the vitals, and then slowly came to a halt and fell limp to the surface.

　　"Report the damage! We've been hit somewhere." Cartson stood up from the floor of the bridge and loudly asked his men.

　　"Hold on sir, I'll investigate right away." the first officer replied loudly and then ran towards the row of intercoms on the bridge wall.

　　"How did this happen and why did you find it so late. It only took 600 yards to spot the torpedo. How could this happen." Cartson looked at the lookout and questioned loudly.

　　"I don't know, Captain, they just came out of nowhere." The spotter looked fearfully at the angry captain.

　　"What, are you trying to tell me that the enemy attacked from 600 yards away?" Cartson shouted angrily, "How is that possible, how could the Germans have just fired their torpedoes at 1,000 yards and immediately rush to 600 yards to fire again. Unless... " Cartson himself was stunned by his own assumption.

　　"Unless, the Germans have more than just two submarines here. Oh, God!"

　　"Captain, the German submarines, the German submarines are floating up. They... They're right next to us!" At that moment another lookout shouted at Cartson, and in an instant the entire bridge officers ran to the bridge-side platform to look over the side of the ship.

　　It started as a command tower, and with an ear-splitting exhaust and a high jet of water, a huge German submarine rose majestically out of the water, its gray hull glinting in the sun.

　　To Casement's disbelief, the submarine was only fifteen meters from Devon, and even the tiny black Imperial eagle emblem on the command tower could be seen clearly, with the white half-man-high markings on either side of the tower indicating her identity.

　　The German Navy ocean-going submarine U-37.