Andrew Wareham - End to Illusion

“Right… No dining ashore at Mudros. No calling at Mudros if it can be avoided. Best go down to Alex if we need to restore our vital powers. Led south by a wily submarine, you know.”

“Of course, sir. Our pursuit was unbroken and damned unlucky to be fruitless.”

“Precisely, Adams!”

Such a breach of regulations would never even have occurred to Christopher in his previous incarnation as one of the gilded youths of the service. Now, it seemed moderately amusing.

“Have we a searchlight, sir? Submarines must recharge their batteries on the surface at night, I believe.”

“Nothing more than a signalling Aldis. I shall make the request. Could be useful.”

They breakfasted well and not too early. It seemed that sailing at dawn could be interpreted loosely on board Fanny Brown.

“Dress ship for leaving harbour, sir?”

“No. Too few hands, Mr Adams. Course?”

Christopher gave the commands for leaving Valetta and handed over to the First Lieutenant, Hamworthy retiring to his cabin as soon as they were safely out to sea.

Lieutenant-Commander Ephraim was heavily bearded and spoke with a slight accent. Enquiry disclosed that he was Canadian, had been working the Atlantic run since boyhood, had made master of a mixed passenger and freight carrier when war broke out and he volunteered for naval service.

“Trained for a month and then posted to Fanny Brown, standing by her in the dockyard while she was converted and then came out with her to Malta. Sat here for two months doing nothing until they decided on this game and sent the captain aboard to command the three trawlers as well as this ship. Too senior a posting for me. With luck, I shall get something of my own next year.”

Christopher doubted it. Ephraim did not sound exactly as was expected of a naval officer – he would not be trusted with any large ship. He might be given a clapped-out old wreck like the sloops Connaught had cared for. Nothing more than that – which was more than he himself could ever expect.

No gain to self-pity! Think of something useful.

“How do the hydrophones work, sir?”

“Fitfully, Adams! At very low speed, the operator sits with headphones over his ears, turning a sound receiver of some sort, in a cage under the bows. He listens for any noise out of the ordinary. Most of the time all he hears are fish farts. If there is a submarine, he will pick up the sound of her propeller, the electric motors being silent. Having got a sound, he will rotate his receiver left and right to establish on what bearing the sound is strongest. The captain will then turn the ship as he directs and close the distance, alerting the trawlers the while. If all goes well, the hydrophone operator will conn Fanny Brown directly over the submarine and will hear the noise die away behind him. Then he gives the word to the captain who will order the trawlers to drop their bombs. The operator takes off his headset so that the bombs will not deafen him and then he returns to listening. As soon as he hears anything, he starts the chase again. Odds are, you see, that the bombs will not fall close enough to destroy the submarine, only to wound it. Pressure hulls are strong and the bombs are not huge… It is envisaged that three or four attacks may be necessary.”

“That sounds rather hopeful, sir.”

“It sounds bloody unlikely to me, Adams! Picking up the sound once will be lucky. Getting it again after the first attack will be more than fortunate.”

Christopher was inclined to agree.

There were four merchant navy reserve officers who shared watchkeeping between them, leaving Christopher to deal with all course changes and spend such time on the bridge as he wished. It was a pleasantly relaxed life, the more so because they knew nothing of his history or his scandal and welcomed him into the wardroom, happy to have another man to talk to. They were not gentlemen in the naval sense, but all were professional seamen and had sailed most of the world’s oceans between them and knew how to talk, to keep a wardroom relaxed and within reason convivial.

None of the officers had seen action and they knew that Christopher had. They wanted to know what it was like and persuaded him to tell them. The fact that he had been dumped upon a flotilla of minesweepers escaped them.

“Basically, it was a matter of speed first, getting the guns into action quickly, and then accurate shooting. Compare it to the shambles at the Falkland Islands where Invincible could not hit the Germans for toffee! Nine tenths of the rounds fired were misses. The Germans had fired off all their armour-piercing, which is why Invincible eventually came out on top, with the aid of Carnarvon. Very slack!”

They were suitably shocked.

“What do we do if we have the bridge in action?”

“Give the guns a clear line of sight. Keep an eye out for torpedoes and try to offer a stable gun platform. Close the range if it is safe to do so. Have no hesitation in running from anything that is too big for us to handle. If we tangle with something faster than us, then get in as close as can be and ram if needs must. The Austrians have a few fast but comparatively lightly armed cruisers which could be difficult to deal with. What is Fanny Brown’s speed, by the way?”

They looked at each other and showed reticent. Eventually one of them admitted to ten knots, with a following wind.

“The engines were never up to much, Adams, and she is twenty years old now. The owners had her built to their own specifications – more important that she should be cheap to run than that she should make any speed. She was expected to carry grain to Liverpool, mostly, from Canada. Westward, typically she was empty apart from a few passengers. Speed didn’t matter. More often than not, we took her at the most economical rate of seven knots.”

“That’s why they chose her for the hydrophones, I presume, Helmand. They demand low speed work.”

“Yes, Adams.”

“Do you work the naval watches?”

“No. Never have. Four of us and we work eight hour watches, so we rotate days and nights naturally. Makes more sense than four hours at a time. Just one of us on watch and the captain or the chief mate when necessary. We have four apprentices as well, working with us and learning the trade. Helmsmen are on four hour watches, so as not to get tired. Your signalman stands watch as he sees fit. He has trained up two of the crew to read flag signals. No wireless set.”

“So, if we catch a submarine, we cannot inform any other ships of its presence and possible course.”

They nodded, unwilling to commit themselves to actual words.

“Crew sufficient to man all of the guns?”

“Not really, Adams. The four big guns are on the broadside, two and two, so they need just two crews between them. The machine guns have two men apiece and the three pounders are on the poop and can fire astern and to either beam, more or less, and so they have four men each.”

“Twenty-three hands to the guns?”

“And their ammunition parties, for the big guns, that is. Another dozen of them. The three pounders have big ready use lockers and the Vickers have spare belts made up and hanging in the wheelhouse.”

“Not really in the trade of fighting warships, it might seem.”

They laughed, uneasily.

“Thin-skinned and slow – we are hardly in the business of fighting at all.”

“We need be – we fly the naval ensign and are painted grey. That makes us a warship in any other vessel’s eyes. How do we stand for small arms?”

“I don’t actually think we have any, Adams, except perhaps a revolver in the captain’s cabin. Always have the one in case any of the crew go mad and have to be put down.”

“No boarding parties, it would seem!”