Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

“Seventeen of us can fit in, sir, with space to sit down. Small cabins but adequate. The subs and mids share a gunroom, proper navy fashion, sir. Big enough for the four, possibly giving them a bit more space than the officers have. The hands are jam-packed in together, sir. Wartime additions to the complement together with the extra bodies needed for signals have pushed her up to three hundred and twelve. Peacetime would have been about two-eighty. The Doctor wants at least one more orderly, sir, and Guns wants a chief petty officer.”

“Tight. Have you spoken to the Coxswain yet?”

“Young for the job, sir. I doubt he is much more than thirty. If he joined as a seaman boy, that could still give him more than fifteen years at sea after his training. He looks right, sir.”

Strachan had a sufficiency of experience to be able to weigh men up.

“Good enough. I do not know how long we have, Number One. Assume that we may be at sea within two days. Try to have us ready in that time, anyway. Have you heard why the ship is missing both captain and premier?”

“Nothing yet, sir. Have you eaten yet today, sir?”

As Strachan knew, he had not, far too busy on the slow run back to Harwich and bustling since making harbour. It was one of the First’s duties to keep an eye on his captain’s well-being.

“Not since dinner last night, in fact. Now you mention it, I’m bloody starving!”

Packer’s voice came from the sleeping cabin where he was busy.

“Beg pardon, sir. In hand, sir. Spoke to the Cook PO when I got aboard, sir. He’s putting something together now.”

“Thank you, Packer! You do me well!”

Strachan nodded; he would ensure that the blind eye applied to Packer, knowing that he would bend regulations on occasion in service to his captain. Having accompanied him through two ships, he was now a servant for life, would be discharged to a pension and cottage on the Perceval estate if he became old before Simon retired, would leave the service with his master otherwise. As such, he remained a seaman but was to be treated as more of a civilian, a naval compromise that none aboard could see as odd.

“What’s your feeling of the ship, Mr Strachan?”

A formally expressed question, requiring a careful answer.

“In no way out of the ordinary, sir. Harbour routine, obviously, with the bulk of the hands off-duty and one watch ashore on liberty from mid-afternoon to twenty-three hundred hours. Those aboard are almost all in the messdecks, within reason quiet, a little of singing and whistling, many I saw with a mug of tea, which means boiling water to hand in the galley, everything as normal. I don’t know what happened, sir, but it was all kept shtum.”

“Strange. Not to worry. It will all come out sooner or later.”

Strachan shrugged – it might be that they would never know exactly what had occurred. They might well have to rely on the grapevine which often overstated when it did not actually invent.

“What is the plan for the morning, sir?”

“Lieutenants in order of seniority to the cabin, you to announce each – gives you a chance to put name to face. Call the Paymaster to me now, please.”

Lieutenant Biggleswade appeared, in his best reporting uniform, having expected to be called to the Lord and Master before any of the other officers. He was in charge of ship and flotilla administration, knew where to find every piece of paper and what to do in any eventuality involving stores or men. Despite his title, he did a lot more than simply see to the men’s pay. Simon had been told that the Paymaster was a direct descendant of the Nelsonic purser, the function brought into the uniformed Navy rather than left as an anomalous cross of service and civilian role. Like most in his branch, he had been shifted across for being unable to meet the demands of a deck officer – some had weak chests, a large number were colour blind or needed spectacles.

“Welcome aboard, sir.”

“Thank you, Biggleswade. Officers’ personal reports, are they all up to date? Any out of the ordinary?”

The paymasters knew everything about their fellow-officers. They normally kept their mouths firmly closed, except in confidence to their captains.

“Nothing untoward, sir. Most were posted here, to a new ship, as a reward for showing more efficient than most. The sole anomaly, as one might say, is a young gentleman by the name of…”

“Let me guess,” Simon interrupted. “Higgins?”

“You have been forewarned, sir?”

“He came to me as a midshipman on Sheldrake, followed me to Lancelot as a sub and I thought I had finally got rid of him after he was decorated and promoted for an act of pure, unadulterated idiocy. Brave, mind you, but remarkably stupid. We came upon a cluster of new small craft not so far from Zeebrugge, were able to shoot them up and one almost collided with us. Higgins, will you believe, jumped aboard her and squashed two of her crew underfoot and shot most of the rest – no more than half a dozen all told.”

“Remarkable stuff, sir!”

“Unthinking! He has remarkable little to think with! Anyway, he is mine and we are lumbered with him.”

“He seems a pleasant young man, sir.”

“Well bred – very good manners. It may be his breeding that is the problem, the reason why he has been cosseted in the service.”

Biggleswade showed blank. Simon saw no reason to enlighten him.

“The remainder are all competent, you would say?”

“More than, sir. They have produced an efficient ship.”

Simon noticed the words the Paymaster had chosen. Normally, it was the captain who made a ship what it was.

“What of the gunroom?”

“Two subs, either capable of stepping up, sir, as soon as there is a vacancy. Both have their certificates. The two mids are both wartime intake and have a lot of learning to do. Both have messed about in boats as boys and are capable of coxing their cutters. Neither is another Nelson.”

“Few of us are, Paymaster. What of the flotilla? Seven captains, one of them a lieutenant commander, I presume.”

“Griffin, sir. Funnily enough, he is probably the least competent of the lot. He was working with minesweepers; due to a cousin on Beatty’s staff, he was able to swing a destroyer when he was made. Because of seniority, he had to have the half-flotilla, of course. The little I have seen of him, suggests you may well need to ease him out, sir. That will be difficult, because he is one of Beatty’s people and you are not. Service politics, sir.”

Simon had not been aware that he was known to be one of Jellicoe’s people. He had never met Jellicoe, knew of him only as one of Fisher’s products and the most senior of seagoing admirals.

“Yes, sir. You are one of Commodore Tyrwhitt’s followers, sir, and he is a strong supporter of Jellicoe. Actually, sir, to be precise, he dislikes Beatty far more than he approves of Jellicoe. Like any senior officer, he has to belong to one party or the other. No room for neutrality in today’s Navy, sir!”

An advantage of the widespread nature of the factions was that neither admiral could do much to disadvantage the opposition – there were simply too many bodies involved to be able to post out the other’s people.

“So, wait until he makes a visible faux pas and then send him on his way… Let us hope he sinks no ships, kills no men the while.”

“More like to sink a few buoys trying to pick up a mooring, sir. Not a good idea to put him alongside if it can be avoided, sir. He insists on conning the ship, won’t hand over to the coxswain but is used to an eight knot sweeper.”

“That could be funny. I must think of witty signals to send. The other six captains?”

“Destroyermen, sir. Small ships through and through, several of them with service dating back to the introduction of the oily wads. Joined as mids and able never to leave the boats.”