Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(153)
“Secure everything!” Horn had shouted, heading back to the turret officer’s booth. With a sympathetic glance back at Brassey, he added, “Undo everything we just did.” With the ram retracted and the tray folded down, their Grik slammed the breech and locked it.
“We loaded them because we’re going to use them,” Captain Stuart Brassey now shouted into the gun pit. “And they won’t keep sending ammunition if we don’t.”
Lange and even Pokey were shouting over the comm in reply to strident calls from the bridge. Becher took his hand off the Press to Talk switch. “We cannot keep this up much longer. They demand to know why we’re not firing. First I told them our gun’s crews were frightened by the blast of the number one turret and we were trying to return them to their duty. Then I told them we haven’t received any instructions from fire control. That’s when they became mistrustful.” He hesitated. “There is no central fire control for the main battery! The secondaries have their own directors, but not us. Something has happened to it, and I—whoever Herr Chartier was—would’ve known we must fire in local control! I pretended to be flustered—not difficult—and Pokey, posing as my assistant, assured them all is now in order, I think, and we’d commence firing presently, bu—” He listened to the rant over the speaker a moment more. “Fire the guns at once, Mr. Horn,” he urged. “They are suspicious and suspect Chartier of cowardice, at least. They may send a party to relieve him. If they cannot enter, they will certainly cut off our electricity, and we can do nothing more. Miss your targets, but fire the guns. Only that will give us time to do what Mr. Brassey intends. I don’t think missing will earn greater reproach than is being heaped upon the crew of the forward turret. They’re not doing well either. But they are firing. So must we.”
“Okay, damn it,” Horn said, staring through the eyepiece. “Crap. I never actually did this part before!” He turned a knob until Ellie’s magnified shape became as clear as the haze would allow; that was how the range finder worked. Far beyond her, above the coast of Africa, dark clouds still loomed, laced with lightning. The wind had shifted and he wondered if the storm would return. He shook his head and checked the numbers. He wanted to make sure they missed over. “Okay,” he said in the voice tube to the gun pit. “Range is about six thousand yards. Make your elevation . . . hell, say five degrees. Belay that! Shit, this is all in meters, I guess. What the hell’s a meter? Uh, make it four degrees. That should be plenty.” Brassey looked at him anxiously, his self-assurance flagging slightly as the gunhouse rumbled when the huge, coarse-threaded screws under each breech turned. Horn continued. “Trainer, aim to hit behind our people. If you try to miss forward, you’re liable to lead them just enough to hit!”
“Okay,” came the doubtful reply, and the gunhouse lurched to port. “Whoa,” Horn yelled, watching Ellie edge out of his vision. “Not that far. They’ll know we missed on purpose!” He sighed. “Aim right at her. We can’t hit, then.” The huge steel contraption eased right a little, still tracking slightly, the crosshairs in Horn’s periscope bisecting the distant DDs stacks. “Okay, damn it. God help us. Fire!”
With a noise like God beating the armored turret top with a hammer the size of a truck, both guns recoiled inward. Horn watched though his optics, guts twisting, as the two shells converged toward Ellie, but then she edged away and it was clear they’d fall far behind and beyond. The muzzles gushed smoke as the guns were blown out, and they lowered themselves to their reload angle. “Reload!” Brassey yelled, slamming the brass tray in place after their Grik opened the breech and jumped over to join him. Horn glanced at Lange, who gave him a strained grin and an uncharacteristic thumbs-up sign. “Now they only complain that we did not hit,” the German said. “Apparently, this turret has the most advanced range finder and should have performed better. Possibly why they were so annoyed earlier.”
“They’ll be a great deal more upset in a moment!” Brassey swore.
In less than a minute, the reload was complete, and Horn found Ellie’s range again. She’d turned toward them, becoming a smaller target. The guns elevated and turned. Then, suddenly, Horn called his Khonashi trainer to center the turret. It rotated quickly, as if to engage the frigates now exchanging a furious fire with the Grik cruisers, but Horn settled his crosshairs on the Grik battleship directly in front of them, less than five hundred yards away. “Elevation, minus one!” he called. “Right a little . . . Stand clear! Fire!”
The two huge projectiles that spat from fiery brown clouds were HE (high-explosive) rounds, not armor piercing. HE was all Contre-Amiral Laborde had expected to need. Nothing facing them had any appreciable armor, certainly not the frustratingly agile little destroyer. A direct main battery hit almost anywhere might destroy her, and even near misses would cause hull damage and flooding. The only things on the water that day that might’ve been somewhat protected against such large HE shells—at a very great distance—were the Grik battleships. At a mere five hundred yards, however, though their improved armor would turn a hundred-pound roundshot with ease, it made no difference at all when two 13.4″ shells weighing about a thousand pounds apiece and traveling close to 3,000 feet per second struck the rear casemate of the battleship, close to the weather deck that was almost awash. The entire thing blew open like a pecan hull, and the weather deck over the fantail was shoved forcibly down. Even as the sea rushed up, over, and into the gaping chasm, the forward casemate bulged outward as boilers burst and exploding magazines blew what was left all over a square mile of choppy gray sea.