Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

“Gunboats, sir. No torpedoes.”

“Signal flotilla to close action, open fire. Searchlight.”

The leading boats were inside the range of the searchlight, were set up perfectly for the four inch quickfirers of the other three destroyers. The motorboats were lost in a mass of splashes, the scarlet of hits showing frequently in the spray.

“The biters bit, sir. They thought to run an ambush on us and had the tables turned!”

“One of them made it through, Number One, heading directly towards us.”

“Turning away now, sir. It’s escaping not attacking.”

“Coming close, Mr Canning!”

The helmsman of the motorboat was more concerned with the shellfire behind him than with watching ahead. He saw Lancelot almost too late, put on full rudder and passed down the side, bows to stern, throttling down, less than a fathom distant. Higgins was at the bows with his party of rifles, saw the boat almost directly underneath him.

“Jesus, sir! That bloody young fool has jumped aboard her!”

The twin-Lewises fired a short burst.

“Mr Higgins has got the wheel, sir. We put down the pair of Huns on the stern gun, sir!”

They watched in silent amaze as Higgins brought the motorboat round in an unsteady circle and tried to come alongside. The Coxswain swore and did his best to make a lee while Simon yelled down the voicepipe for steerage way.

Five frantic minutes and they had the boat secured and four men under a petty officer aboard her.

Simon leant over the bridge, shouted to the boat.

“PO! Take her into Dunkirk under her own power. Can do?”

“An engineroom hand would be useful, sir. We have two wounded prisoners, sir.”

Two more minutes and Malcolm himself ran up on deck.

“Only man who’s ever handled a petrol engine, sir.”

“Take her in, Chief.”

Simon had no fears for his engineroom in Malcolm’s absence. He was certain Malcolm would have trained up two men, either able to take his place if he fell to a stray bullet or had a heart attack.

“Mr Higgins! To the bridge!”

Simon managed a full-throated Atlantic gale roar, probably heard clearly on the Belgian coast.

Canning interrupted him before he could deal with his errant sublieutenant.

“Lightning reports two unwounded survivors, sir. Four bodies picked up. Congratulations on Lancelot’s capture. Lynx and Lucifer have a wounded man apiece and add their plaudits.”

Simon was deflated. He could not hang Higgins out to dry, much as he wanted to. The boy had committed an act of gallantry, the bloody young fool, and must be congratulated. They had captured a new motorboat, fresh off the stocks, and Naval Intelligence would be delighted. Their Lordships must be pleased as well, to discover exactly what had been up the Hun’s sleeve.

Higgins limped onto the bridge.

“Beg pardon, sir. Cut my leg a bit when I landed. Right on top of a machine gun and it had sharp bits somewhere. Might have been its crew, sir. They were underneath me and stayed down when I kicked them and jumped up and down a bit. I shot two men on the bridge, sir. With my revolver. The Lewises killed two, sir, and the man in the engineroom gave up. The gun at the fore, sir, a pompom, two pounder, I think, was unmanned when I got there. Hit by shell splinters, I think, judging from the state of the deck. The men blown overboard.”

“Well done, Higgins. You seized the opportunity, it would seem.”

“Thank you, sir. I just thought, sir, ‘what would Captain Sturton do’, and jumped.”

SNO Dunkerque was delighted.

“Captured a German boat, Sturton! Just what I would have expected of your ship. Well done indeed. Sunk a whole flotilla of new motorboats between you and brought one back for us to inspect. She’s just small enough to go up on the davits of one of the predreadnoughts in place of the steam picket boat. Take her back to Chatham or Portsmouth safely that way. The Naval Constructor’s people have already been on the wireless. We’ll have her in a dockyard before tomorrow morning. Prisoners as well. One of them an officer, probably in command of them all. Might be able to find out what they thought they were doing.”

An hour and SNO was aboard Lancelot to congratulate Higgins and to inform Simon that they had found written orders tucked away in a little chart table in the bridge.

“Monitors are always accompanied by small craft, sloops or tugs. The motorboats were to sink or take them. If they were lucky enough to find them towing the monitor – not an uncommon event by their observation – they might be so fortunate as to run it aground. Whatever, it would be a feather in their caps.”

“Damned embarrassing for us if they had succeeded. A good thing you had an escort out, sir.”

SNO was much convinced of his own wisdom, had to admit that the plan had originated with Commodore Tyrwhitt.

“With my full support, of course, Sturton.”

“Of course, sir. What do we do with Higgins now?”

There was a deep belly-laugh in response. SNO had met Higgins and had discussed him with Simon, knew his capabilities.

“ We , Sturton? You are his captain, are you not? It is up to you to make the appropriate recommendations – and I wish you the best of luck!”

“So be it, sir. I shall have my written report to you within the hour. I am waiting on Lightning, Lynx and Lucifer for theirs to include, sir. Good shooting on their part. Sunk eleven boats between them. Small fast targets illuminated by star shell and a single weak searchlight. I am very pleased with them, sir.”

“Their captains could go to bigger boats, do you think, Sturton?”

“All three are well capable of commanding a bigger destroyer, or of taking their own half-flotilla.”

“Noted. I shall pass the word up the line. What do you intend to recommend for Higgins?”

“DSC in recognition of the bravery of his act. I do not think he is ready to be made full lieutenant yet, but there may be no choice in that. They are talking of Coastal Motorboats, I believe. Some of them gunboats, others with a torpedo. Give him one of those and set him to patrolling the coast somewhere. Every chance that he might slip a tinfish into something worthwhile. An equal likelihood that he will not come home one night for taking too many chances, probably without realising that he’s doing so.”

“Three man crew, I believe. Captain, gunner and mechanic. The torpedo boats will carry a single eighteen inch in a trough to the stern. Line up the boat, dump the torpedo in its wake and turn away fast. Easy to aim. They will carry a Vickers, maybe a twin, if they can work out how to arrange that with the belt feed.”

Simon thought for a moment, decided that could not be done.

“Need a three man crew at least. Twin Lewises work, being pan-fed; Vickers won’t. These new Hotchkisses might. What would the gunboats carry?”

“Being argued just now. They would be a bit bigger than the torpedo boats and have more in the crew. A six pounder QF to the stern and a pair of machine guns was the most likely suggestion.”

“What do you do with it, sir?”

“Shoot up small torpedo boats at close range. Make a nuisance of oneself in and around small harbours. Pretty bloody useless, in fact, but they sound good.”

“Like too much of this war, sir.”

The Senior Naval Officer had not reached his eminence by criticising his elders. He backed away from any disparaging comment.

“We are too close to the action, on the front line, you might say. Unable to sit back and appreciate the overall plan, Sturton! I will admit that occasionally it all seems rather strange, but I am sure Their Lordships know exactly what they are doing.”

There was no gain to pursuing that topic.