Alan Evans - Ship of Force

Lorimer saw the ready-use charges burning by the wrecked sixpounder under the bridge and kicked them over the side. As he started aft, seeing flames there, he tripped and fell. A bursting shell had minutes ago hurled him across the deck and now something ground in his arm; every movement was agony. He sobbed with pain and frustration but got up. He was the sole survivor of the damage-control party. He could see Smith on the bridge, saw his head turn and met the cool stare, saw Smith grin at him. Lorimer started aft again. He would carry on.

He had heard the other shells, but this one he did not.

Buckley slapped open the breech of the six-pounder, turned to seek the next round. It felt as if he was kicked. When he came round he was sprawled on the deck with his head near the side and the seas bursting over him. As he dragged himself inboard and on to his feet he saw the six-pounder was dismounted. His head ached. He staggered forward and almost fell over a body, unrecognisable but the uniform, what was left of it, was of a midshipman. So it had to be Lorimer. Buckley shook his aching head, sick, and went to help McGraw.

Sanders shouted, “I think — they’re going to ram!”

Smith nodded. They were rushing down on Sparrow , big as houses and growing bigger and making all their thirty-odd knots. Bare seconds away now and Sparrow was slowing. “Hard astarboard…meet her…Steady!” Sparrow swung sluggishly but her falling speed made her turn the shorter and just in time so she turned from broadside to the big boats, bow swinging until it pointed at the gap between them, but the one to port would be the closer, very close. She was hurtling down on Sparrow like a train but she would miss now. Her captain was trying to turn but his speed was against him and he would be too late. She was firing every gun that would bear, Sparrow was hit every second and machine-guns were rattling now. The other boat was not too late, had room and time to turn and would ram Sparrow . Smith whispered, “Come on, old lady.” He shouted, “ Hard aport !” And into the voice pipes, “ Stand by to ram !”

Sparrow turned in on the big German boat and Gow collapsed over the wheel. Smith grabbed at him and the wheel together and held Sparrow steady, feeling the blood on his hands and the spokes as Sparrow crossed the narrow strip of sea in brief seconds but even then the destroyer raced ahead, slipping across Sparrow ’s bow that pointed at her bridge and then was ticking off the funnels as the high length of her went streaking past, but not all of her. Sparrow ’s stem struck her ten feet from her stern.

Smith held on and had his arms nearly jerked from their sockets as Sparrow changed from a warship charging along at fifteen knots to a steel wreck. Her bow had cut into the destroyer’s stern but Smith could see Sparrow ’s turtle-back bow was crumpled and twisted upwards. The German boat was not stopped, though her engines had stopped. The way still on her dragged Sparrow along until the old thirty-knotter tore loose, as the big boat shook her off.

The crew of the twelve-pounder was standing in on the gun but there were only two of them now. Sanders was shouting, “Shift target! Destroyer on the port beam!” And jumping to heave the gun around. Smith saw that the captain of the other destroyer had seen Sparrow stopped and crippled and changed his mind about ramming. He had reduced speed, slipped past Sparrow ’s stern and was now turning to close on his crippled consort and to deal with Sparrow on the way.

A messenger appeared below the bridge. The ladder had gone altogether now and he bawled up, “Forrard bulkhead’s stove in and the sea’s coming in!” It was McGraw, naked to the waist and the sweat running down his body. He shook his head. “There’s nae stoppin’ it, sir!”

The twelve-pounder slammed and at the same instant Sparrow was hit forward on that crumpled turtle-back. Smith’s eyes caught the flash as the blast-wave hit him and threw him off the bridge.

He lay on the iron deck and stared across the sunlit sea at the destroyer, cruising slowly now, guns flaming, pounding the life out of the already dying Sparrow . He lay and seemed remote from it all. He tried to get to his feet but his legs would not work properly. Then he saw Sanders climbing down from the bridge and felt a hand grip his arm and lift him so he stood wide-legged and wavering. It was Buckley.

Smith said thickly, “Thought you were on the after six pounder.”

“Was, sir. Got knocked out, it an’ me together. Come around wi’ the sea washing in on me. Got a bang but me skull’s too thick, I suppose.”

Sparrow was listing and down by the head. He remembered McGraw’s message. And here came the Chief, black with oil and soot and the hair scorched from one side of his head. “Engineroom’s filling up, sir. I’ve pulled the lads out.”

Smith turned on Sanders. “Get the wounded up. Get them all out, Sub. Abandon ship.” And to Buckley: “Let go of me and lend a hand with the wounded.”

“Sure you’ll be all right, sir?” They both peered at him, concerned, where he stood holding on to a buckled stanchion.

He snapped irritably, “Yes, damn it! Get on!”

They left him, and he almost fell.

The destroyer had ceased firing. She was passing a tow to the other that was down by the stern but she could have kept up that terrible pounding just the same. Her captain must have seen that Sparrow was finished and ordered the ceasefire. That was an act of humanity.

Beyond the destroyers, beyond the drifting smoke and the smell of burning the battlecruiser Siegfried moved in another world. Smith stared at her. She had been hit, was on fire and the damage inflicted by Marshall Marmont might make her leave the convoy alone — but only ‘might’ because the damage had not slowed her. Her twelve inch turrets were trained around towards the invisible shore, long barrels at high elevation. They fired. So now she could reach Marshall Marmont , was firing at her. Sleek, smooth and swift, she was running on, her course unchanged, running for home and towards the convoy.

Smith watched her and waited. Sparrow had done all she could and so had Marshall Marmont and he thought they had done enough. He could only watch and wait as they dragged up the wounded from the wardroom through the hatch aft one at a time and laid them on the deck in a rapidly lengthening line. A fire burned in the waist because there were no hoses, no pumps, no pressure on the water, and nobody to fight it. The smoke hung around Sparrow where she lay heeling, sinking under him. He seemed to watch it all from a distance as if he floated above the deck. His vision would blur and then clear and he clung to the stanchion and peered out through the smoke to the bright, blue sunlit sea beyond.

Marshall Marmont was Garrick’s first command in action. He did not bemoan the fact that she was a ship only in that she floated. Marshall Marmont was his and Smith had given him the chance and he was grateful. He was an unimaginative man but he saw very clearly that it was an opportunity he might regret and he might be lucky even to live to regret it. That was irrelevant. He had a command and an action to fight. He stood on his bridge and through his glasses he watched Sparrow ’s smoke that showed where she steamed hull-down over the horizon and saw from that smoke that she had turned. Towards the enemy, of course. He turned, sea and sky blurring in the glasses, then stopped, steadied them. He could see a lot of smoke but there would be more than one ship because the battlecruiser would have an escort.