Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

The Commander had heard that the battle had been less glorious than the newspapers had announced, knew none of the detail. Christopher had pleasure informing him.

“Three percent accuracy at range. Less than fifty at two thousand yards, you say, Adams?”

“Seen by my own eyes, sir. I was counting.”

“Good God! I wonder, would we do any better?”

Christopher thought it might be tactless to answer.

“A change, gentlemen! We are to spend a week at Queensferry, replacing our searchlight in the yard and changing some of the three pounders for anti-aircraft guns, of all things!”

The Captain was openly scornful of the imposition of such innovations on his ship. He turned to his senior officers, gathered in his cabin.

“Aeroplanes! Who cares about them? Have any of you seen an aeroplane at sea?”

The question had been asked and could not be ducked. Christopher raised a finger.

“An Austrian seaplane, sir. Off Split. Looking for Connaught after she sank the old battleship there.”

“Reconnaissance, you say, Adams?”

“Yes, sir. Rather foolishly, it dropped a pair of tiny hand grenades which left a soot mark on one of the main battery turrets. I suppose, sir, that if they had been lucky and had dropped on the open upper bridge, then we might have lost officers. Chances were against it. If aeroplanes get bigger, and carry larger bombs, then a flotilla of a dozen all attacking at once could do great harm. At the moment, sir, I do not think we need fear them.”

The Captain snorted. He had been about to say the same. Now, he had to think of something different because his rank demanded he should have the last word.

“Well put, Adams. What I will say, thinking on it, is that we don’t want scouting aeroplanes with these damned wirelesses sending back details of where we are and what we are doing. Bad enough to have Zeppelins wandering about. Can see them at least, even if we can’t do much about them. They are going to give us four three inch twelve pounders with some sort of special shell – timed fuses or some such thing to explode in the air. No need to make a direct hit. Means we need another twenty men, Guns. See to their messing with your division. Get them some practice as soon as we leave Queensferry.”

The Gunnery Officer signified his understanding of the order, shaking his head unhappily. The mess decks on Black Prince were already overcrowded with additional wartime postings; where to put another twenty men was beyond him.

The Commander tapped Guns’ shoulder.

“See me afterwards, Guns. I can find an unused compartment. Belonged to the band and we have set them ashore.”

The remainder of the daily meeting drifted to its end, nothing else of importance mentioned. The Captain said that the Admiral was disappointed in the general level of smartness of the Grand Fleet. He had seen a number of slack pulling boats in the Sound, reminded all ships of the need to turn their boats’ crews out smartly.

“Provisioning, gentlemen! The boats were returning from the butchery with sheep and bullock carcasses, recently slaughtered and running blood. What does he expect? No captain is going to dress his men in number ones just to get them ruined with blood and guts! Getting the twitch, if you ask me, sitting on his backside up here instead of sailing out to seek battle. Not the way Nelson ran a war!”

The officers left, smiling openly at these disloyal words. None of them wanted to stay another day at Scapa Flow; all were willing by then to sail direct to the Kattegat and round Denmark in a great assault on the Baltic Sea and Kiel and to hell with minefields and submarines both.

“Queensferry this afternoon, Adams. Gin pennant flying as soon as we are tied up.”

Christopher welcomed the prospect. The gin pennant – an invitation to all ships’ wardrooms to come aboard for a drink – was long overdue. He was looking forward to seeing new faces, talking to different people.

“What’s in port, sir?”

“The Battlecruiser Division, eight of them. Defence and Warrior of the armoured cruisers. Six flotillas of destroyers. That’s all of the respectable ships. The submarines are at their own base and won’t join us. Minesweepers and such are all reservist boats, won’t go poking their noses in with their betters.”

“I might find an hour to go aboard some of the trawlers, sir, especially if the Star boats are based here. Remarkable seamen those Arctic trawler skippers, sir. Rough men but sound – willing to tell an admiral exactly where to put his orders when they didn’t like them!”

The Commander was not certain that was a good thing.

The evening was long and wet, all of the officers rolling into their bunks more or less the worse for wear. It made a pleasant change.

Christopher surfaced with a memory of accepting an invitation to attend a ball of some sorts – the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, he believed. He made his way to the wardroom for breakfast, glanced at the noticeboard, newly decorated with cards of invitation. He was right, there was a ball that evening. It would make a pleasant change, it was years since he had put on his best bib and tucker, his smartest dress uniform. He called his servant to dig it out of his trunk and to set to with smoothing iron and produce a perfect dress shirt as well.

It was quite like old days he thought as he joined the other senior officers in the carriage they had hired, more appropriate than a mere taxicab for such a function.

“I say, Adams, you outshine us all! Full formal ball dress according to Holding’s Pattern Book!”

Christopher smiled deprecatingly, aware as any that the full-tailed cutaway coat over marcella waistcoat and navy-blue breeches with a snowy white neckcloth made a handsome setting for a lean-bodied, athletic young man. He would catch every eye, he much hoped.

No point going to a ball if one was not to partner the prettiest of the young ladies. He might keep an open eye for any eligible young female as well. A wife would make sense soon after the war if he was to become a man of affairs in the business world.

They were announced as they entered the ballroom, in the most old-fashioned way.

“Captain Gilpin-Brown and officers of Black Prince cruiser!”

They proceeded as naval tradition demanded, making a beeline for the refreshments, turned to survey the throng over full glasses.

“Been here before, Adams?”

“Not since October last, sir. I was with Iron Duke then. Little seems to have changed in the better part of a year.”

A few minutes and he realised just how true those words were.

“Mr Adams, you have returned! And as Lieutenant Commander as well! I am so glad to see you again.”

The youngest daughter of the Duke of Blair beamed dewy-eyed at him, her hero returned from the war to her arms.

“Miss Atholl, a pleasure to see you again, ma’am!”

He surveyed her left hand hopefully, saw neither wedding band nor engagement ring. He had to accept that the young lady was still single, and as earnest as ever in her pursuit, it would seem. He could not leave her standing there, begged her to dance, swept her onto the floor, damned his luck as he discovered it to be a waltz with its inevitable close contact.

They made an attractive couple – the young lady handsome by most standards and officially beautiful, being a duke’s daughter; the gentleman the son of a prominent viscount and a serving officer and dressed better than any man in the room. The match was instantly made in the eyes of the elder ladies, they informing the senior gentlemen of the fact. There were no fewer than three admirals present; all had congratulated Christopher on his conquest before the evening was over.

The officers met over breakfast, most of them grinning as Christopher came in.