February 17th, 1919
The destroyer USS Allen
25 miles off the northern coast of France
Chief Petty Officer Kyle Widholm sneezed twice in quick succession.
"Bless you, Kaiser!" returned Corey Zsigmondy, a sailor of the same rank who had long ago bestowed upon the aforementioned torpedo-tube operator the unfortunate moniker of "Kaiser Widholm" but had had to suffer the indignity of being incessantly referred to as "Ziggy."
But both of them had bigger things to worry about. First of all, it was cold. Really fucking cold. Secondly, they were right in the path of a massive column of German battleships and armored cruisers which was steaming towards the tidy little American fleet as they spoke. Thirdly, it was really fucking cold.
Yes, Widholm thought, they were fucked. However, the imposing silhouette of the gigantic battlewagon
Florida a hundred yards away was a reassuring sight.
Suddenly there was a call from the bridge. "Target sighted by
USS Caldwell!"
The one hundred men on the tin can tensed. The destroyer continued moving forward with the rest of the fleet. After two minutes which felt like years, the sound of gunfire rang out. The
Allen,
Florida and every ship which Widholm could see began to turn port. He noticed that the
Florida's turrets began to train to starboard. Wonderful, he thought. The
Allen would be right in between the American and German battleships.
The wind picked up and began blowing away billows of fog. Widholm sneezed. Then he sneezed again, and again, and again, and finally a fifth time.* This time no one gave him a "bless you." He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his uniform and looked up, wondering why everyone was shouting, and hoping that his suspicions wouldn't be confirmed. But they were.
The shapes of large ships were clearly visible off the starboard side of the ship. The
Florida's big gun turrets fired in quick succession, and the concussion quickly gave Widholm a headache.
Then the
Allen turned starboard and began speeding towards the German fleet. The captain kept the destroyer moving and turning quickly, in big curves and zigzags. The
Allen's 4" guns started firing at the nearest German ship, which appeared to be an armored cruiser. During all this time, the bigger ships in front of and behind Widholm's tin can were blasting away incessantly at each other.
German shells began landing around the
Allen, making huge splashes. It appeared that the armored cruiser was shooting at them with everything it had, in addition to the secondary guns of a German battleship.
Widholm knew perfectly well what he had to do, and ordered the petty officers and seamen around him to maneuver the torpedo tubes in position for launching a spread.
There was only one triple torpedo launcher, and it was located on the ship's starboard side. The asymmetry had bothered Widholm for a long time.
An armor-piercing shell ripped through the
Allen's hull. Another ripped through one of the ship's funnels. After that, a large high explosive round hit the side of the forecastle and detonated, causing the ship to shudder violently. Then the
Allen made a hard turn, bringing it frightfully close to the German armored cruiser. Now it was moving alongside it. Widholm could see German seamen and officers running around its Swiss-cheesed superstructure.
"Fire the torpedoes!" roared an officer closer to the bridge. "Clockwise!" Widholm shouted, and crewmen helped him push the launcher into a better position. Widholm triggered two of the tubes, and felt no small relief when the
Allen began to turn back towards the fleet. But it was losing speed quickly. A huge shell hit the destroyer's hull just aft of where Widholm was, and the resulting blast knocked Widholm to the ground.
One of the torpedoes struck the enemy cruiser, and a huge fountain of water rose up as the ship seemed to stagger, then slowly list.
Eventually, the
Allen began listing to starboard as well. Assuming that the
Allen would sink soon, Widholm launched the third torpedo in the general direction of the enemy ships, and hoped none of his commanding officers would notice him scurrying over to the lifeboats. Uh-oh, he thought. Some of them had been smashed by gunfire.
More shells began exploding in and around the ship. The bridge received a direct hit, and the ship's prow began to lift out of the water as the stern sank. "Abandon ship!" called an officer, and many others echoed the same. Widholm began helping deckhands hoist the remaining lifeboats into the water. He crawled inside one of them and helped the others row back towards the American fleet.
Suddenly, a large splash caught him off guard. The Germans were shooting at the lifeboats! He felt a surge of hatred. He decided that their only chance was to turn around and surrender to the enemy fleet, but then he realized that the German ships were turning away (except for the sinking armored cruiser, and a larger ship which was further off in the distance). He looked back at the American ships. Many seemed to be badly damaged. For a moment he thought he saw the prow of a sinking battleship raised high in the air, visible out of the corner of his eye. Before he got a good look at it, fog blew in and the doomed ship was invisible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* I sneezed seven times while writing this. That's more than a coincidence, because I have photic sneeze reflex, it was sunny outside, and my computer is near some big windows.
