Chapter Sixteen: The Trump Card (9)

  Originally intended to write until the moment when the dawn breaks, it was found that more than a thousand words were still needed, so it had to be divided into two chapters. However, the greatest battle of the steam era is about to begin, what a hot-blooded and great era!

  In the fog, the main force of the Grand Fleet is carefully reorganizing its formation, expecting to launch a thunderous attack on its old enemy on the right wing. The British Fast Squadron is still unaware of the impending danger and is searching for the non-existent First Scouting Force in the fog. Meanwhile, the so-called "First Scouting Force" is taking advantage of the sea fog to make a desperate dash towards the Seventh Division.

  "Mueller sends a telegram: German battleship No. 2 has entered the sea fog area, and the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron has lost its target for bombardment!"

  After sinking the Number Three vessel, the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron's four fast capital ships, still unsatisfied, began to concentrate their fire on the German Number Two vessel, but before the rangefinders could get a lock on the target, the Germans had already disappeared into the fog bank.

  The soaring high spirits suddenly wilted, the hot blood and rainbow-like momentum came to an abrupt halt. David-Betty, who had been fighting with trepidation all night, couldn't help but clench his fists and slam them heavily onto the 10-inch thick armor of the Lion's command tower.

  "This blasted sea fog!" After a few deep breaths, Betty forced herself to calm down and turned her head to ask her assistant Lampard: "Deputy Commander, what's the outcome of the battle?"

  "Tiger, Indomitable and Inflexible concentrated their fire on the German Second Squadron, severely damaging it; the four battlecruisers of the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron concentrated their fire on the German Third Squadron, sinking it after its magazine exploded. Deputy Commander Limpard waved his arm in a powerful gesture, triumphantly: 'The Dogger Bank Sea Battle was said to be unsinkable, but the Moltke has finally been sunk by the British Empire's gunfire after months of hiding!'"

  "Wait a minute, something doesn't add up!" The victory was sweet, but Betty detected a hint of Hamlet's poison in Lamppost's triumphant tone. After hesitating for a moment, her desire to confront her lifelong enemy Heidemarie Seiler began to fade away. Instead, she replayed the encounter with the so-called First Reconnaissance Fleet in her mind and soon found the obscure clue: "Did the Germans counterattack?"

  "The German battleship had counterattacked, but their main gun shells seemed to have less power than usual, with a faster firing rate. The secondary guns, however, had greatly increased in power." Admiral Lamped was still basking in the excitement of heavily damaging one German battlecruiser and sinking another, and he responded somewhat absent-mindedly to Davide-Betti's inquiry: "Commander, the Germans' main gun shells have always followed the idea of light-type shells with high initial velocity, using shells with strong penetration but insufficient destructive power is also to be expected; after the Battle of Dogger Bank, almost all German capital ships returned to the shipyard for reconstruction, and it's unknown whether the German battlecruisers replaced their secondary guns with more powerful ones. As for the firing rate issue, the technology of half-turret firing has been seen many times before, perhaps this is the reason for the high firing rate."

  "Absolutely not!" Betty's reply was decisive, with a hint of worry in her brow that almost turned to ice: "The No. 1 ship is clearly a Defflinger-class battlecruiser, its main gun caliber of 350mm is right there, and even if the latest lightweight shells are used, the power of the large-caliber shells will not be limited to this! As for the firing rate, even if it's full turret semi-automatic fire, the German shooting speed shouldn't reach nearly 240 main gun firing frequencies. Moreover, after each round of firing, Lion's rangefinder corrected the distance between the ships, but the angle correction was quite significant, which means that the target ship's speed couldn't keep up with the fast fleet's 24 knots."

  Rampart Lieutenant graduated from Portsmouth Naval Academy's Advanced Command Major, with a poetic temperament, but also an old hand in naval battles. Reacting quickly, Rampart swiftly pulled out paper and pen to recalculate the previously neglected correction angle.

  "The speed of the German fleet was only about 19.5 knots from start to finish!" Cold sweat instantly wetted Admiral Limpard's chest and back, and the shocking news blurted out: "So that wasn't the First Scouting Group!"

  Lampard's shout drew the attention of the busy fleet staff and department heads in the Lion's command tower. Everyone was still reeling, but the Royal Navy's pride, David Beatty, had already issued crisp and effective orders.

  "Order, fast fleet to quickly disengage from combat, right rudder thirty, course northeast by north, 40 degrees correction. Each ship strictly enforce radio silence and light control, full speed ahead! Inform Admiral Jellicoe, the fast fleet has encountered the Grand Fleet's main force, breaking through to the northwest is no longer possible, request support at Skagerrak Strait!"

  Orders are carried out without reservation, everyone knows they provoke an unbeatable opponent with ignorance and arrogance.

  "The Grand Fleet is coming sooner than expected, so what about the High Seas Fleet?" Betty wondered.

  ****

  "The Grand Fleet is still twenty miles from the Skagerrak Strait." The Chief of Staff of the Grand Fleet bluntly stated the desperate situation facing the fast fleet, and ended with a cold tone. The Chief of Staff had been trying to remain calm in front of his subordinates, but the two words "still" inadvertently revealed a hint of worry.

  In March 1915, the British Empire suffered a crushing defeat in the Dardanelles, where cheap Turkish torpedoes sank a battleship. The First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and the First Sea Lord Admiral Fisher both resigned, but even this could not calm the anger of the people of London. Faced with demonstrations and riots that the army could not suppress, Andrew Bonar Law, the Conservative leader who had been Prime Minister for only a few months, announced on the night of 3 March in Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament that the Grand Fleet would take strong action to restore the situation by the 4th.

  Andrew Bonar Law, the Prime Minister who had accepted office in a moment of crisis, was unaware that his avowed policy of reprisals had already led to a situation from which it would be difficult to recede: the eagerly awaited swift fleet had either severely damaged or sunk one German battlecruiser, and another prize might be a Nassau or Helgoland, representing the pride of the High Seas Fleet, or possibly a Braunschweig or Preussen, an old and discredited type.

  In the context of the sinking of HMS Royal Princess and the forced withdrawal from combat of HMS Indomitable, this weak victory could neither redeem the doubts and curses of the British Empire's subjects towards the Grand Fleet nor satisfy the Prime Minister's eager expectations. At 2:50, the remaining eight fast battleships of the fleet unexpectedly "ran into" the main force of the High Seas Fleet, which almost cut off Jellicoe's last route of retreat.

  Maintaining a weak victory has become a luxury, now it's time to think about how to lead the little guys back home!

  Inside the command tower, eyes focused on the gloomy face of the Grand Fleet Commander, dumping bitter glory or heavy responsibility on the Navy Admiral who had been suffering from their criticism.

  "With the Grand Fleet pursuing from behind, and the Westfalen battlecruiser squadron blocking ahead, while the Fast Division is on the Germans' right flank, relying solely on its own strength, Beatty's force may find it difficult to break through the encirclement and reach the rendezvous point in Skagerrak. Jellicoe, who had been prudent and cautious for half his life, paced back and forth with his hands behind his back in the cramped command tower of Iron Duke, his eyes growing increasingly cold and piercing as he scanned everyone's face, his dry mouth spewing out biting words one by one."

  Jellico's calm demeanor shames everyone. Accustomed to hanging the interests of the rice flag on their lips, at the crossroads of choice, they unceremoniously abandoned their former ambitions and pushed away the responsibilities they should have borne with ease.

  Admiral Jellicoe did not hesitate, he chose to act independently. Over a hundred years ago, the naval god Horatio Nelson spent two hours at Trafalgar deciding on the final deployment, while Jellicoe took only twenty seconds at Jutland to make the "M" signal that would change history. This was perhaps his boldest and most unimaginable decision in this life, but the return was the silence of the Grand Fleet and the unpredictability of sea warfare!

  "Notify the fast fleet, shift the rendezvous point southwest by 20 degrees for 50 nautical miles, must shake off the enemy as soon as possible and join up with the main fleet!"

  Jellicoe leaned over the chart table, his back to the signals staff, and dictated the final decision. The signals lieutenant wrote swiftly on a yellow telegraph form, filling it with words that would go down in history as momentous, then handed the form, along with a heavy steel pen, to the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet.

  The refined and elegant English gentleman unconsciously tightened the uniform's buttons, slowly turned around, smoothed out the wrinkles on his clothes, adjusted his military cap, polished the medals on his chest, picked up a pen to sign his name on the telegram paper, and with a shiver, staked the entire fate of the British Empire, the most effective gamble of the empire where the sun never sets.

  "This is our supreme lord,"

  "He dried up the deep."

  "He has opened up for us a way leading directly to ultimate reality!"

  The orderly had gone far, Jellicoe stood staring blankly at the corner where the orderly last disappeared, his eyes dull and bewildered. Suddenly, Jellicoe began to recite Kipling's "Song of the English", that magnificent poem which symbolized the unyielding spirit of the British Empire.

  "The Song of the English" has inspired generations of Royal Navy sailors to battle against the wind and fight across the oceans. The hastily written poem, after decades of vicissitudes, has had its ink dry up, its white paper worn out, and its ideals forgotten. This time, can the declining British Empire hold on?