Alan Evans - Ship of Force

He clambered around in the turret where the gunners worked in its dull-echoing steel cavern, cleaning and servicing the twin fifteen-inch guns. He poked his head in at the magazine where they were stowing ammunition. And when the liberty men were piped to go ashore for their two hours of leave he watched while they paraded in their best dress to be inspected and lectured by the officer of the watch.

He bathed and changed his clothes and ate in his cabin but this time had Garrick join him, listened to him talk of his ship and his crew and his plans. And finally Smith told Garrick something of his own plans. Garrick was startled but doubtfully agreed.

The tap came at the door and the messenger said, “Mr. Chivers’s compliments, sir.” Chivers had the watch. “Sorry to disturb you but there’s a signal from the Provost Marshall. There’s trouble ashore with the libertymen.”

Garrick said, “Blast!”

“I’ll come.” Smith picked up his cap.

They went ashore in the pinnace, running up the channel past the lighthouse and up the length of the basin of the Port d’Echouage to the fish-market quay at the head of it. Smith climbed the steps with Garrick at his shoulder and found Dunbar already on the quay, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger and glowering at the party of seamen drawn up on the quay in four ranks. There were some thirty in all, a dejected, battered group. There were blood-stained jerseys and torn collars to be seen in plenty but few caps. Smith recognised men from Sparrow and Marshall Marmont , including the two young stokers from the monitor. The group was encircled by twenty or so military police and men of the Naval Shore Patrol under a petty officer.

Dunbar called them all to attention and Smith acknowledged his salute. “What happened?”

Dunbar nodded curtly at the petty officer, who barked in a monotone: “We was called along ’cause of a fight in that there bar, sir.” He gave a sideways jerk of the head and Smith saw the glass-littered road and the shattered windows, the door hanging askew on its hinges. The petty officer went on reciting: “We found ’em smashing up each other an’ the place in the bygoing. All well-known to me, sir. The same had hats from Wildfire and Bloody Mary —”

“That will do!” Smith’s rasp cut the man short. He went on quietly, “Take your patrol away.”

Garrick looked at him sharply when he heard that tone; he knew Smith a little now. The petty officer did not. He objected, “Sir! My orders was to see them embarked and —”

He stopped as Smith’s eye turned from the bedraggled group to fall on him. Then he blinked and saluted, turned on his heel and bawled at his men, marched them away. The corporal in the rear file said from the corner of his mouth, “What did he say, then?”

The petty officer muttered, “Nothing. Not a bloody word. But better them than me. He’s got an eye as goes right through yer.”

Smith looked at this sample of his flotilla. He knew he was no good at speeches and he would not make one now. He stood still, eyes going to each one in turn and holding theirs before passing on. A squall swept up the basin, hurling rain in the men’s faces and they hunched their shoulders, bent their heads to it.

“Look up!” He did not shout but the order snapped them straight. “I have never been ashamed of any ship in which I have served and I will not start now. You’re going to sea. All of you.”

He turned to speak briefly to Dunbar and Garrick while the men cast uneasy glances at each other. If they were all going to sea then surely Marshall Marmont’s orders must have been changed, they thought. But it was not so. Instead Garrick and Dunbar had to quickly compare notes and revise watch-bills. So that when Sparrow sailed an hour later a dozen of her complement who had not gone ashore were settling in bemusedly on board the anchored Marshall Marmont , while all the party from the quay were aboard Sparrow , as look-outs, ammunition numbers on the guns, or in the engine-room where two young stokers were being initiated into the painful and rigorous art of stoking a coal-burning ship. They were learning how to balance on the stoke-hold plating that in good weather rose and fell and tilted and in bad weather bucked like a horse. How to knock open the furnace door with the slice, the long-handled rake, probe with it at the white-hot embers and drag out the clinker and ash that pulsed with heat. How to shovel fresh coal into that roaring, red maw and spread it to burn evenly. Then move to the next furnace and do it all again. And again. Cursing their way steadily through the watch, the hours spent in sweltering heat, filth, steam, the deafening, churning thump of the engines and the roar of the draught that forced the furnaces to that white heat.

Sparrow ’s Chief grinned at them comfortably, “Well, if you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t ha’ joined.”

Sparrow ran down the channel in the last of the light with her crew manning the side. McGraw’s head thumped with every turn of Sparrow’s screws but like the rest of the men on her deck he peered up at the bridge. Faintly on the wind came the sound of a mouth-organ. Smith was on the bridge and Galt was playing at his orders. ‘Oh, I do like to be beside the sea-side!’

McGraw held his head. “Mad bastard!”

The next day Trist had a word with Smith. “That was a disgraceful business! I had a full report from the Provost Marshall. Disgraceful! The offenders have been dealt with?”

“Yes, sir. I took a very serious view of the affair.” Smith slipped the question. He doubted whether Trist’s view of suitable punishment coincided with his own.

Garrick had spoken to all of the offenders on the quay after Smith had gone, spoken in a voice tight with suppressed rage in a way that left them stiff-faced and silent. “You have commanding this flotilla the finest seaman and sea-fighter I’ve ever known. A man who will lead you and fight for you and never let you down. I won’t let him down if I can help it and, by God, neither will you!”

So Sparrow entered again the grind of patrol work. But they were lucky. Sparrow had steamed her seventeen days and came up for boiler-clean, so they got a break early on. She was laid up for three days and her crew sent on leave.

Smith was explicit on that. He told Garrick and Dunbar, “The punishments I leave to you. Work them as much as you like but I want no man’s leave stopped.”

So the men got their leave.

Smith got a summons. Naval Intelligence wanted to talk to Sanders and himself about Schwertträger . Smith thought it would prove a waste of time but with Sanders he crossed to Dover and took a train to London. He was right. Intelligence appropriated Sanders’s notebook with its record of the Kapitänleutnant’s last words, and questioned the pair of them to see if there was any scrap of information that had been forgotten or overlooked and so omitted from Smith’s report. There was none.

Sanders hurried off to his home in Wimbledon and a girl. Smith went to see Rear-Admiral Braddock — at Braddock’s request. “Heard you were in the building and visiting Intelligence.” He grinned at Smith. “I have an intelligence system of my own. A lot of people talk to me. Sometimes they even listen.” He scowled at that. Then he said, eyeing Smith, “That reminds me. We’re still pushing the convoy system and we’re gaining ground. The counter-argument now is that we can’t find enough ships for escorts. Rubbish! It’s just a delaying tactic.” He got up and took a turn around the room, stumping bad-temperedly.

Smith shifted restlessly in the chair.

Braddock said, “I hear you sank a U-boat.”