Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series) by John Schettler Page B
Authors: John Schettler
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letter, it seemed, and Fedorov had been so intent on
getting his hands on the Chronology of the War at Sea that he did not
even notice it until he stood to leave. He passed a brief moment tussling with
the temptation to read the letter. The clear salutation was written at the top
in a firm hand, “My Darling Wife….”
He smiled to
think that if the Admiral had begun this letter earlier, when they were in the
heat of action in the Denmark Strait, the woman had not even been born yet! And
if he composed it in recent days it was clear that she could not have survived
the devastation they had seen as they cruised from one blackened shore to
another.
He was
touched by the moment, but his thoughts suddenly left him feeling very alone.
Every man finds his comfort somewhere within, he realized. Even the Admiral
needed someone to hear him out on the long, empty nights aboard ship, lost as
they were in this impossible dilemma, so he wrote to his unseen wife. Every man
held on to something—memories, places, people he had known and loved, all
wrapped up in that nurturing inner place he called “home.”
Is there any
place in this world where my heart can be at ease, he wondered? He had left no sweetheart
behind when he sailed. His books and his history were his only true
companions—the faces and haunting echoes of men, all long dead. He knew them so
well that they often seemed more real and vital to him than his shipmates, and
now here he was, thrown like a teabag into this hot water of time and in their
very midst! At this moment, he realized with his sharp grasp of the history,
Churchill was probably sitting down with Stalin in Moscow, and ready to break
the news to him that there would be no second front in the west any time
soon—if this was the year and month he now suspected.
The Eagle had been sunk on August 11, 1942. He had to be sure, and that pulsing urgency
snapped his reverie and set him moving again, out the door and on his way to
the bridge.
An hour later Fedorov had the answer to the
many questions circling in his mind. Nikolin had been monitoring radio traffic
closely, and the bands were slowly clearing up. He got hold of snippets of new
broadcasts, and segments from the BBC. One after another they began to paint
the gruesome new picture that Kirov now found herself in. The German 6th
Army had just crossed the Don and captured the town of Kalach as they drove for
their ill-fated attack on Stalingrad. Further south Operation Edelweiss was in
full swing as well, and the Russians had lost the oil fields of Maykop as they
fell back on the Black Sea coastal ports in considerable disorder.
There were
other gleanings, smaller engagements that were given passing mention in the
news stream. In the South Atlantic a U-boat attack sunk Norwegian SS Mirlo and all 37 crew members abandoned ship in 3 lifeboats to be picked up by the British
sloop HMS Banff . Fedorov was able to hone in on the exact time and place
of that attack in his research library: 2:27 PM, some 870 miles west of
Freetown, Sierra Leone—the work of U-130. The night raid on Mainz by 154 RAF
bombers was also reported, all events that had occurred on Aug 11, 1942. The
evidence mounted to the conclusion that Kirov had slipped into the
cauldron of fire once again.
Yes, thought
Fedorov, out of the frying pan of the North Atlantic and into the fire of the
Med! But they had lost all the days they had sailed in that black oblivion of
the future. They had never really determined what year they had been in when
Volsky set the ship on a course across the Atlantic, but now they were back,
just a few days after they had disappeared in that first engagement with the
Royal Navy, but a full year had passed in the war while they were gone. And
this time there was no easy option to turn off into the wide expanse of the
Atlantic and avoid conflict. This time they had sailed right into the bottle.
There were only three ways out of the Mediterranean Sea: Suez, the
getting his hands on the Chronology of the War at Sea that he did not
even notice it until he stood to leave. He passed a brief moment tussling with
the temptation to read the letter. The clear salutation was written at the top
in a firm hand, “My Darling Wife….”
He smiled to
think that if the Admiral had begun this letter earlier, when they were in the
heat of action in the Denmark Strait, the woman had not even been born yet! And
if he composed it in recent days it was clear that she could not have survived
the devastation they had seen as they cruised from one blackened shore to
another.
He was
touched by the moment, but his thoughts suddenly left him feeling very alone.
Every man finds his comfort somewhere within, he realized. Even the Admiral
needed someone to hear him out on the long, empty nights aboard ship, lost as
they were in this impossible dilemma, so he wrote to his unseen wife. Every man
held on to something—memories, places, people he had known and loved, all
wrapped up in that nurturing inner place he called “home.”
Is there any
place in this world where my heart can be at ease, he wondered? He had left no sweetheart
behind when he sailed. His books and his history were his only true
companions—the faces and haunting echoes of men, all long dead. He knew them so
well that they often seemed more real and vital to him than his shipmates, and
now here he was, thrown like a teabag into this hot water of time and in their
very midst! At this moment, he realized with his sharp grasp of the history,
Churchill was probably sitting down with Stalin in Moscow, and ready to break
the news to him that there would be no second front in the west any time
soon—if this was the year and month he now suspected.
The Eagle had been sunk on August 11, 1942. He had to be sure, and that pulsing urgency
snapped his reverie and set him moving again, out the door and on his way to
the bridge.
An hour later Fedorov had the answer to the
many questions circling in his mind. Nikolin had been monitoring radio traffic
closely, and the bands were slowly clearing up. He got hold of snippets of new
broadcasts, and segments from the BBC. One after another they began to paint
the gruesome new picture that Kirov now found herself in. The German 6th
Army had just crossed the Don and captured the town of Kalach as they drove for
their ill-fated attack on Stalingrad. Further south Operation Edelweiss was in
full swing as well, and the Russians had lost the oil fields of Maykop as they
fell back on the Black Sea coastal ports in considerable disorder.
There were
other gleanings, smaller engagements that were given passing mention in the
news stream. In the South Atlantic a U-boat attack sunk Norwegian SS Mirlo and all 37 crew members abandoned ship in 3 lifeboats to be picked up by the British
sloop HMS Banff . Fedorov was able to hone in on the exact time and place
of that attack in his research library: 2:27 PM, some 870 miles west of
Freetown, Sierra Leone—the work of U-130. The night raid on Mainz by 154 RAF
bombers was also reported, all events that had occurred on Aug 11, 1942. The
evidence mounted to the conclusion that Kirov had slipped into the
cauldron of fire once again.
Yes, thought
Fedorov, out of the frying pan of the North Atlantic and into the fire of the
Med! But they had lost all the days they had sailed in that black oblivion of
the future. They had never really determined what year they had been in when
Volsky set the ship on a course across the Atlantic, but now they were back,
just a few days after they had disappeared in that first engagement with the
Royal Navy, but a full year had passed in the war while they were gone. And
this time there was no easy option to turn off into the wide expanse of the
Atlantic and avoid conflict. This time they had sailed right into the bottle.
There were only three ways out of the Mediterranean Sea: Suez, the
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