Alan Evans - Ship of Force

“I’m very glad, sir.” Smith said it without expression.

He wondered if others had gone behind Trist’s back. Had whispers reached the Admiralty from Trist’s Staff? He remembered the unhappy faces of some of them when Trist had ordered Sparrow to make her ‘offensive’ patrol of the coast.

But Trist was saying, “My successor will find the affairs of my command in order. I have always contrived to keep up to date, with the help of a loyal Staff. It only remains for me to write my report and my reports on officers and make my recommendations.”

Smith knew what that meant. Trist would report on him and it would be there in black and white, or knowing this devious, cautious man, dirty grey. Forever.

Trist said softly, “So. I have my orders and you have yours and your flotilla. Carry on with my blessing.”

Smith stood in silence for a moment. Now he had to ask. Trist knew it and was waiting for him. He said slowly, “Sir. Marshall Marmont’s engines —”

“Will be repaired at Chatham. I have issued the orders.”

“Yes, sir. I know. But I need a monitor. My orders call for me to take appropriate action depending on what I find.”

“Your orders call for you to act ‘with the forces at your disposal’,” Trist quoted. “Those forces you have.”

“That’s only Sparrow, sir! There are twelve-inch monitors lying in the Roads. If I might have one of those —”

“There are monitors in the Roads because I ordered them there. They are there for the defence of this port. This command has already been stretched thin by the appropriation of ships. You know of the monitors already detached. What you don’t know is why they were detached. I will tell you, in strict secrecy. A landing is planned on the coast north of Nieuport. It is timed to link up with a big push on the Ypres front. That is why the General and his Staff were here yesterday. We were taking the planning a stage further. The intention is to capture the entire Belgian coast and deny the enemy the use of that coast and the ports of Ostende and Zeebrugge as bases for U-boats. These are matters of strategy which lie outside your sphere unless or until you are involved but I tell you for a reason.”

Trist paused. Smith thought he was boasting, demonstrating his power, that he was privy to the innermost secrets of the conduct of the war. Why?

Trist went on: “I tell you because more ships are being demanded for the landing. The only ones I can spare are Marshall Marmont and the two other destroyers I promised you. Those two are at this moment sailing for convoy duty from Hook of Holland to the Thames; the convoy assembles off the Hook a couple of hours after first light tomorrow. When they return they and Marshall Marmont will be detached. I have made this commitment. My successor will have to honour it.”

So he had destroyed Smith’s flotilla. He was left with nothing but Sparrow . Trist had created it out of paper and now he had destroyed it with paper. Smith was silent. To attempt to carry out his orders with a single, old torpedo-boat destroyer would be madness. Trist knew it and was having his last laugh.

But the Commodore had not finished. “For the present — well, you can ask your friends to try to obtain further orders to augment your force but I don’t think they’ll find it easy. I told you I knew more than you thought. Quite simply, your mystery has been exploded. The enemy bombarded the lines at Nieuport for twenty-four hours, starting yesterday evening. You may know that. What you probably don’t know, because you were scheming in London, is that they attacked today, and successfully. They’ve pushed forward to the Yser river. Not an attack inland but on this coast. There’s your stab in the back! I expect the reserves they used were hidden in the woods by De Haan and brought up in the night.” He smiled. “You have the satisfaction of knowing that you were at least partly right, there was a plan.”

He was almost laughing. Smith thought Trist was relieved because a weight of responsibility was being lifted from him. And Smith, who had been a thorn in his side? Trist could stop him by just doing nothing. It was a perfect Trist solution. Smith rubbed at his face. Through the window he could see the leaden sky, rain spattered the panes. The room was a place of shadows.

Trist said, “The Admiralty knows this of course. I would not be surprised, therefore, if you were to receive further orders shortly. I suggest you return to Marshall Marmont and wait for them.”

Trist was wrong. The attack on Nieuport was just another attack. Why should a U-boat commander be involved? Had the woods hidden nothing but the reserves for this one attack, and for weeks on end? No. The precautions, guards and Albatros fighters, were too elaborate. Trist was right in one respect: his information would raise doubts again in London and there would be orders coming for Smith to countermand those in his pocket. He could do nothing.

Sunset was three hours or more away but there was no sun. There was the lowering sky and the rain that drove in on the wind from the Roads, though the Roads were hidden in the rain’s grey murk. He was striding blindly along, tramping through puddles that sprayed mud from under his boots when the shaft of yellow light blinked across the quay and was gone as the door closed. He came to a dead stop and stood under the rain with legs braced as if he was at sea and stared at the door. It was not the same door, not the same bar but — He stood irresolute for a moment, contemplating the risks, bearing the distant rumble of the guns at Nieuport but today there was also another, natural thunder and the tight that flickered out to sea was not gun-me but lightning. The rain beat on him and he made his decision, then moved on, walking quickly again but now with a new purpose.

Victoria Baines parted the curtain that hung over the door of the bar and peered out through the chink at the quay. The rain was still falling but she thought she’d finish the glass and go back to the Lively Lady and tell them to stand down. She had told them to keep steam up and they’d wanted to argue about that because they weren’t on call but she had refused to listen or explain. They could call it a woman’s whim if they wanted but she commanded Lively Lady and if she wanted steam up she’d damn well have steam up. She did not know why. She was just — restless, uneasy in her mind. That Hurst girl with her calm face hiding her misery — but it was not only that. There was something brewing…she had felt like this the night before the captain was lost at sea and she prayed the boys were safe…

A band of yellow light from an opened door stretched pale across the quay in that early evening. Beyond it showed a solitary, slight figure seen like a wraith through the blurring rain. The light blinked out. For a moment she still stared out into the rain, then she closed the curtain.

Smith pushed in through the door of Le Coq, shut it behind him, shook water from his cap and looked to the back of the room. She sat at the same table, stiff-backed and red of face. She wore a black hat that was circled in flowers and sat slightly askew on the grey bun. She was sipping from a glass, daintily, and her little finger was fastidiously crooked. Again he hesitated, remembering the story he had been told of how she had bawled at an officer, “Put a poor old widder woman on the beach, would you? Take away her livelihood?” There could be more than a grain of truth in that and he did not want to be that officer but…

He went to her slowly and said, “Good evening, Mrs. Baines.”