Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

Simon had not the slightest idea.

“As I suspected. Leave it to me. A necklace will never come amiss, in my experience of the female! What does the Navy most need in Belgium, do you think?”

The sudden change of topic flustered Simon for a few seconds. He was able to find a reply.

“Bigger and faster destroyers and some means of locating submarines under the sea. More minesweepers, designed for the job. Some imagination amongst the admirals.”

“I can do nothing about the latter, I fear. I will pass the word on the other three items.”

Scapa Flow was tedious. Black Prince sat at her mooring for weeks on end, waiting at eight hours notice for steam, her crew busily polishing themselves and everything else they could find. Every few days a warning notice for sailing arrived as it seemed possible that the German High Seas Fleet was moving; it was inevitably cancelled within a few hours and the stokers were told to stand down.

Life was particularly boring for Christopher Adams. As Navigating Officer he had no other responsibilities, no division of men, no section of ship to care for. His sole activity was to spend a couple of hours a week correcting his charts and a few more training up the sublieutenant and midshipman allocated to him. Both youths were sufficiently bright to assimilate the knowledge he offered; neither knew anybody from his stratum of Society or had any interesting conversation.

He played a good hand of bridge – it had been a necessity for a flag lieutenant – and that occupied a few hours of every day. He had a few books in his cabin and was able to exchange them with other reading officers. Much of his time was spent in the wardroom, talking with whoever was present.

He was not interested in hunting the fox and shot no more than was socially necessary, so sporting converse was a pain to him. The war, politics and women were banned topics in the wardroom and that left very little else to chat about. He had played Rugby on occasion and was able to listen to the Gunnery Officer, who had played for the Navy, as he interminably relived exciting matches he had taken part in.

‘We went into a ruck’ was a phrase liable to haunt him to his dying days, he feared. Guns had done little other than ruck in his whole life, or so it seemed. He was sure it was jolly good fun.

Black Prince was anchored behind Duke of Edinburgh, senior ship in the class. Connaught had been sent off to the East African coast where a heavy ship was required in case something large and Germanic appeared to interfere in the long-dragging campaign there. The pair of armoured cruisers sat and waited, occasionally debating just what they might do when the fleet eventually sallied forth.

The commander discussed their function often when he was on the bridge with Christopher.

“Thing is, Adams, we in the Cruiser Squadron are too slow to catch a destroyer and too small to say anything to a battleship or battlecruiser. Bit pointless, in fact.”

“Are we not supposed to catch destroyers at a distance, before they can launch torpedoes at the Grand Fleet, sir?”

“In theory, yes. Six nine point twos and six now of six inch, all usable, says we can lay down a respectable broadside – more than fifteen hundred pounds weight of explosive shell. Won’t need armour-piercing for our work, of course. Trouble is, Adams, that I am not entirely certain we could hit a small and fast target like destroyers, particularly at more than three thousand yards, outside effective torpedo range. The shortage of ammunition means we get little target practice, as you know. The shooting on the range is at stationary targets – and we don’t hit them too often over more than a mile.”

It seemed that Black Prince must reduce the range if she was to hit destroyers.

“That seems to imply that we should leave the fleet and close on the Germans if we are to be effective, sir.”

“Exactly, Adams. The captain is aware of that. I suspect that may be his intention, you know. The Fleet Orders place us ‘on the beam’ unless specifically sent elsewhere. The implication is that we shall be behind the line of battleships until we are called on to meet a destroyer attack when we shall cut through the line and do our job before returning to safety. The Orders are not entirely specific and a willing mind can query which beam we should be abaft. Add to that, when we are sent out to deal with destroyers, there is no specification of how far we should go. I rather suspect that we are seen as a minor unit and that the orders for us were drafted by a junior man on Jellicoe’s staff and passed through on the nod. The great man himself has probably given us very little attention. The captain seems to wish to take advantage of that.”

Christopher could see the possibilities.

A cruiser captain who distinguished himself in the great battle would receive immediate promotion, certainly moving to a battleship command, possibly as a rear admiral with a squadron. There would be decorations, perhaps a knighthood. All of the senior officers would be recognised.

Black Prince had three torpedo tubes as well as her guns, could hit hard at close range. She could sink a lightly armoured battlecruiser, almost of a certainty, if she could get close to the far faster ship.

“Shifting out to meet a night destroyer attack, sir, and then venturing a little closer than might be expected to the German line, coming across one of their big battlecruisers in the darkness… Might be a chance of putting down Derfflinger or Seydlitz if all went well. If all three torpedoes hit then three or four rapid broadsides of armour-piercing might do the trick. Demands a deal of luck, sir, right place at the right time, sort of thing.”

The Commander was less enthusiastic.

“All very well, Adams, but when did we exercise the torpedoes? Add to that, any battlecruiser will be in company. While we are hitting your big target, which we might do, there could be up to a dozen of battlecruisers and battleships in range and doing their best to hit us. It is likely that we could get the torpedoes away and a couple of broadsides… After that, with eleven and twelve inch shell raining down on us, how long would we live?”

The only answer was ‘minutes’. Black Prince could take bold action; there would be very little chance of surviving it.

“Can we exercise the tubes in dumbshow, in harbour, sir?”

“We should. The Gunnery Officer sees no need, expecting never to use them. He has them manned by stewards and officers’ servants at action stations, seeing no need to waste useful hands on them. I am not sure they could even load one torpedo into its tube, let alone all three, and, as for reloads, forget it! It takes muscle to heave a torpedo out of its rack and into a cradle and then move it across to slide it into a tube. Stewards are known for many things, Adams, but physical strength ain’t one of them.”

Christopher agreed. Stewards rarely carried anything heavier than a tray with a glass of gin. Manhandling three quarters of a ton of torpedo was certainly beyond them. The officers’ servants were almost all ancient ABs, good seamen beyond their prime, too old to be employed on deck or at the guns. They would try their best with muscles that were past it.

“Not a great chance of hitting with the torpedoes. No certainty even of firing them. Is the captain aware, sir?”

“He discounts them in any case. Good gunnery at close range, using HE for best effect. No need to worry about damned new inventions when firing at a thousand yards, Adams!”

“I met that attitude on Connaught, sir. The Gunnery Officer there could not believe in armour-piercing. Fortunately, the target was an ancient Austrian predreadnought at anchor and two out of four torpedoes from our consort hit her. Twenty-one inch and squarely amidships, one of them, destroying the boiler room. No nets or booms in the way. She turned turtle in minutes. Even on such an old vessel, her armour was sufficient that HE had very little effect. Same at the Falkland Isles. The Germans had expended all of their armour-piercing at Coronel and the HE did not penetrate Invincible or Indefatigable. Killed one man, their sole effect. A touch-up of the paintwork and off we went. Fortunate, that was.”