Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

“Make to Elizabeth Bell : ‘Copy my changes of course’.” The signal was hoisted and broke out then the minutes dragged by as Knight muttered under his breath but finally reported. “ Elizabeth Bell acknowledges, sir.”

The reports were finished and the ship was quiet, her decks deserted.

The sea was moderating, still heavy but nowhere near as bad as the night and improving every second. It was a lovely evening but Smith took no pleasure in it. Thunder could be running now but she was tied to the eight knots plug of Elizabeth Bell .

Smith stared at the two four-funnelled ships, eyes narrowed against the sun but still able to make them out under the thick black smoke. God! They were steaming! He wished Thunder was making smoke like that. He heard Wakely say to Knight, “Wonder how long before we get a shot at ’em?”

Smith lowered the glasses, rubbed at his eyes, looked again and answered the question himself: “Probably not very long now.” Light sparked from the bows of the cruisers, smoke puffed brown and was whipped thinly away. “Steer four points to starboard.”

“Four points of starboard wheel on, sir.”

Thunder’s bow swung through the arc, pointing away from Elizabeth Bell .

“Midships.”

“Midships, sir.”

Thunder steadied on the new course. Smith glanced at the Elizabeth Bell , opened his mouth to snap the order at Knight to signal her, then clamped it shut. She was turning to parallel Thunder’s course and was now on the port bow. Smith saw light flicker on the cruisers again and smoke shred. The first salvo would be falling now, past the culminating point of its trajectory three thousand feet up and plunging down on the target. On Thunder .

The report came down from the rangefinder on the upper bridge: “Range one-three-four-double-oh.” And as Smith thought: ‘Maximum range’, the first salvo howled down from the atmosphere and the sea erupted astern of Thunder in four tall columns and crashing bursts.

“Hard aport!”

“Hard aport, sir!”

“Midships!”

“Midships, sir!’’

Now Thunder was on the opposite leg of the zig-zag. Elizabeth Bell should follow. She had not. Had that salvo shaken them out of their senses? Smith snarled, “Come on, damn you!”

Knight stared at him, startled. The second salvo was on its way, plunging now. Smith snapped, “Make to Elizabeth Bell — ”

He did not get the chance to finish. The second salvo rushed over them and burst, water lifting, noise beating at them. And Knight shouted, “Christ! She’s copped one!” The Elizabeth Bell had taken a direct hit amidships and another forward, each from a two-hundred-and-forty pound projectile plunging at a near vertical angle. She listed immediately and her bow went down; smoke billowed, sparks flying in it and flames leaping beneath it.

“Hard astarboard!” And: “Midships!” And Thunder raced down on the Elizabeth Bell , now laying like a log and going down by the head. Smith rattled off orders to a string of rapid acknowledgments. “Slow ahead both! Dead slow! I want to edge alongside …! Mr. Knight, I want lines over the side and strong men on them. Warn the Doctor to expect survivors.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Open fire!”

He heard that last passed to Garrick. Seconds later the after 9.2 recoiled, spat flame and smoke and the crack ! racketed through them, the shudder ran through the ship.

Thunder closed the wreck of the Elizabeth Bell , slowing. He could see a party on her superstructure just forward of the gaping hole in her deck that poured forth smoke. They were trying to lower a boat and making a hash of it in the smoke as the ship tilted under them, her bows already under water and the sea reaching up greedily for the superstructure. He snatched the megaphone and ran out to the port wing of the bridge. Close now. “Starboard a point!”

“Starboard a point, sir!”

“Midships!” He lifted the megaphone as a salvo crashed down and plummeted into the sea beyond Elizabeth Bell , hurling more tons of water aboard her and starting a few more plates to hasten still further her already horribly swift end. She was awash as far aft as the superstructure and sinking before his eyes. Thunder’s bow slid by her stern, creeping along her starboard side. Thunder rolled in the beam sea but the little tramp lay steady with the stillness of a corpse. Thunder’s funnel smoke coiled down around them and she rubbed against the other ship and ground along her side to side. Knight and his men were swarming along the rails right forward and hurling the lines far ahead, fishing for the survivors on the tramp’s heeling settling superstructure. Smith picked out the flutter of a skirt. The Benson girl. He bellowed through the megaphone, “Take the lines! We’ll haul you aboard!”

He moved up to them, over them, as Thunder , dead slow, ground forward. Through the swirling blanketing smoke from Thunder’s four funnels and the huge hole in the deck of Elizabeth Bell he saw the skirt fly like a flag then flicked away on the wind and the girl seized a line.

The after 9.2 roared again. The stern of the Elizabeth Bell lifted and Smith saw Sarah Benson tying the line around a man who lay on the deck. He saw through the smoke another man leave the deck of Thunder at the end of a line and walk down her side, or rather ran, going down in great bounding leaps as the seamen above him paid out the line. It was Somers and Smith saw him lunge at the girl as the man she helped was whipped away from her on the line and as the stern of the tramp reared and she went down.

A salvo burst and Wakely said behind him, “Short!” And: “That one was short, sir!”

They had dawdled only minutes but that was too long, far too long.

The Elizabeth Bell went down as the 9.2 shook their ringing ears. She stood on her head with her rusty stern and idle screw perpendicular, slid down with a roar of escaping steam and dull thumping internal explosions. Leaning far out he could see only six, no seven, figures swinging on the lines as they were hauled in and one of them was Somers and the other Sarah Benson.

The salvo roared over and burst in the sea in high spouts of upflung water, off the port bow and over by less than a hundred yards.

One under, one over. It was time; high time. He bellowed through the megaphone, “Mr Knight! Get ’em aboard !” Knight and the men with him were doing their best but he could give them not a second more. “Full ahead both! Hard a’starboard!” He strode across the bridge as the helm went over.

Corporal Hill had fumed and chafed internally from the moment the after-turret closed up through the long waiting when the glimpses he had of the big cruisers showed them overhauling Thunder hand over fist. He only caught glimpses because spray burst continually across the deck, misting his layer’s telescope and because Thunder was trailing her own smoke, wreathing and rolling around the after-turret, blinding him. But finally the speed fell away until Thunder rolled in the swell and the spray was less. The crew of the turret eyed each other, not understanding it, not liking it. Why were they lying like this, a sitting target? Then the concussion came throbbing through the hull to reach them in the turret as a tremble of steel under their hands.

Somebody asked, “What was that?”

And somebody replied, “They dropped one close.”

Day, Lieutenant in command of the after-turret, snapped edgily, “Shut up!” But then the order to open fire broke the tension.