Never Again!

"We have not journeyed all the way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we were made of sugar candy."

CHAPTER 13:

THE S.S. BRITTANIC

Ahead of the Brittanic lay the Gemini, an occasional exploding shell, and the resultant smoke, almost hiding her from view. What could be seen of her, her upper works, were tilted, perhaps fifteen to twenty degrees to port. Through the breaks in the wafting air, the Commodore saw what he had not expected to see: her battle flag, though tattered and dirtied, still hung from her!

There was only one destroyer to be seen; an oily, smoky fire burned on the sea off the starboard side well ahead of the liner, indicating where one ship must had been sunk. The other, on the liner’s portside, was hardly moving and firing infrequently at the American ship. She was in an unusual position: vertical to the Gemini and stern-on to her

He eased his binoculars down, and estimated the distance between the liner and the destroyer. It was time to act. He turned to the helmsman, standing but a few feet from him, and gave him a clear, deep forceful command: "We’re going for that destroyer. Turn hard to port!"

The helmsman, for the second time, looked at the Commodore incredulously.

"Do it, Lad. No time to argue or we’ll miss her. Now!"

The helmsman acknowledged the order and obeyed it. The huge liner slowly began to make her turn to port, leaning outward on her starboard side as her turning increased.

"Swing her fifteen degrees more. Keep turning. I want her just right. Then we’ll be able to take her the other way and right in."

The Brittanic continued to turn, until she was almost parallel with the destroyer. Beads of sweat formed on the helmsman’s forehead. He was being ordered to do the impossible! Seventeen years at the helm had taught him to avoid just this type of situation, the worst imaginable: a collision! Seventeen years of developing the deft ship handling skills and a six sense of feeling impending trouble had more than once saved himself--and his ship--from just such an event. Now he was told to do it: Look right at another ship, a ship about to die, and plunge the Brittanic right into it!

"Now, Lad, hard starboard! Head right for her!"

The ship responded to the helmsman’s handling.

"Skipper! Skipper! You ain’t going to believe what I’ve go to tell you!"

"Mathias, I can’t handle any more bad news right about now, thank you."

"Skipper, it’s great news! She’s back!"

"Who’s back?"

"The Brittanic, Sir! She’s back!"

He was pointing to the east-north-east. Commander Johnson, and every man who heard the excitement in his voice, followed him back to see what was happening. They were not disappointed: the great liner bearing down on the Tiger.

Commander Johnson could only gasp: "Dear God in Heaven: Thank you!"

The Brittanic had settled down on an even keel, racing through the water at twenty-eight knots, the partially blackened white hull bearing down on the black destroyer, sixty thousand tons being propelled toward a ship one-thirtieth her size, sixty thousand tons of a ship who’s bow was structurally reinforced to break through solid ice, aiming at the soft midsection of a ship that had less than an inch of steel to protect herself.

Maybe a mile separated the two; barely two minutes. A black puff of smoke emitted from the destroyer’s stack, a frantic effort to get her underway, but it was useless. She had been too damaged to raise sufficient steam for any chance of escape. So busy had her crew been on finishing off the American ship, repairing her own battle damage and attending to her wounded, no one had seen the liner – and who in their right mind would have expected her to return? – until now, until it was too late. Her last 5-inch gun began to turn toward the oncoming liner, a last, futile, frantic effort to try to divert her.

It never fired. Hatch covers flew open instead, and the gun crew headed for the railings of the ship. Pandemonium spread as the rest of the crew learned that the great ship had returned and was bearing down on them. Those that didn’t go over the side immediately, those that hesitated and took a few seconds to look for themselves, saw the high prow of the liner rapidly looming over them: they saw in that brief instant not the beautiful, sheered whiteness of her finely sculptured hull, but the terrible deliver of black death!

From the bridge of the Brittanic, the destroyer loomed even smaller and lower in the water as the liner came up on her; then only parts of the destroyer’s bow and stern were visible, as the liner’s own bow obscured the destroyer’s midsection.

The Brittanic struck the escort abaft the stack, sixty thousand tons at twenty-plus knots shredding her open and rolling her on her starboard side, snapping her keel under the liner’s monstrous hull. The liner shuttered a few times as she completed wrenching the warship in two, a half of the ship passing down each side of the liner as went through.

The Brittanic executed a turn to port, and Commodore Burkenwood began to survey the situation. The stern had already disappeared. The bow had only a few vertical feet above the sea; in thirty seconds it, too, disappeared. Only an oil slickened mass of debris, a few wisps of smoke, and seamen – some alive; some dead – were all that was left to bear witness to where, but a moment before, had been the Tiger.

The battle was over.