What on earth happened?

The rest of the officers core had as little clue as the newly appointed captain. The six vessel large commonwealth alliance destroyer group had been right on top of them just hours ago, then just as they came within torpedo range, reportedly launching several torpedoes according to lookouts, they all vanished.

The last hour had been of little enlightenment as well. Kunz Hoehner had called for an officers meeting trying to figure out the recent turn of events and properly plan the next course of action.
The meeting had derailed completely and people had begun to trail off in all manners of strange theories.

Dimensional portals, time dilations, we all died and are now in the afterlife or ghosts, or simply divine plays.
The officers clearly read too much fiction and watch too many movies.
The most reasonable theory was a commonwealth prototype gas attack, this was a common tactic on the western front in Spain and resulted in many casualties until proper protection was developed.
However a gas attack on the sea was unheard of, and such a gas was frankly hard to believe. But lacking other reasonable alternatives that explanation would have to do for now.

The actual plan took a fraction of the entire time allotted to the meeting. After considering the options it was agreed.
The Bismarck would return to port in Spain, in the naval base of Gibraltar.
Getting there was going to be the biggest problem, the direct route was out of the way, since commonwealth fleets were plentiful in the area.
Going around the americas was also out of the way, too many enemies would intercept.

Kunz Hoehner cursed his history knowledge, if only the Suez canal had been funded, then they could have rounded africas horn and passed through there.
The north african confederacy while not an ally of the reich, would probably agree to passage.
Curse the commonwealth and their diplomatic pulls, had they not diverted the flow of funds to the Brazil deforestation and infrastructure movement their escape would have been simple.

Now they would have to sneak back home. Through the enemies gates.

The first course of action was decided, head for south africa. From there they could blockade a port or something to force them to give a radio or something. Then Bismarck would follow the western shores of africa and head for gibraltar.
The officers returned to stations and the operation "Hinken Haudegen" or limping warhorse was underway.

-"Helmsman, heading towards the horn of africa, give me 30 knots of speed, full power. Reduce detectability by lowering the colours." Kunz orders were acknowledged. He knew that lowering the colours were not going to do much for reducing their silhouette. But better be safe than sorry after all.

The journey would take a good 4 days roughly before reaching Cape town. Kunz knew that running the boilers on full power wasn't good in the long run, but better get as far as possible before they are found.
And a sunk ship wouldn't need to worry about the boilers anyway. So he figured the best course of action was to worry about any damage later.

Kunz looked through the haphazardly repaired windows of the bridge upon the iron cross of the kreigsmarine proudly painted on the deck of the ship on the prow. Its black simple design upon the white bottom reminded him of his duty to his men and to the fatherland. He would bring them home.