Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

“Bloody stuff, Mr Strachan! How are men to sit at rangefinders, making precise readings and calculations with their heads swimming?”

“Fighting spirit, sir! They will be right when the time comes.”

Simon thought that to be one of the more stupid responses he had ever heard. He accepted that it was typical of the Navy.

“From Lisle, sir, repeated Lark. ‘Smoke inshore. Four ships. More at distance’.”

“Make ‘Observe. Do not enter Dutch waters’.”

The flag signal was sent down the line, acknowledgement returned. Simon preferred not to use the wireless so close to Germany and its superior facilities. Intelligence insisted that the German codebreakers could listen in to all wireless traffic and send information to their own ships within minutes.

“Would have been useful to know what the ships were, sir.”

“Visibility is patchy, Number One. It’s possible that all they can pick up is four black clouds. Must be coal burners and probably large – old light cruisers or protected cruisers even. No reports of anything bigger down on the Belgian coast. No gain to harassing Lisle for more – they will send along everything they see without me on their backs.”

Nearly an hour passed before the next message that there were four large and at least three smaller vessels, course appeared to be northwards, possibly towards Heligoland. Speed of the ships was no more than twelve knots.

“Old coal burners, as we suspected, Mr Strachan. Might be merchant shipping, working the Dutch coast, possibly a protected convoy to Denmark or Sweden… There is an amount of neutral trade into the Baltic. Twelve knots is high for merchantmen, so unlikely.”

“Dutch navy, sir? Responding to news of battle by heading north to protect their waters against incursions by either side?”

That was likely; it would be a rational action to take.

“Yeoman, ‘flotilla to close on Lisle’.”

The ship heeled and led the way to form line a mile outside Dutch territorial waters.

Naiad was higher than Lisle, the gunnery officer could see farther with his telescope.

“Thick haze inshore, sir. Seven vessels, line astern. Two small to the fore. Four of large three- and four-funnel ships, one very large. Single small ship bringing up the rear, sir. Three escorts, perhaps.”

It was possible that a neutral convoy would be escorted by the Dutch navy, taken up to Danish waters and handed over there…

“Reduce speed to fourteen knots.”

The flotilla would reach international waters off the Friesian Islands ahead of the convoy, if that was what it was, but still well in sight.

There was a whistle from the wireless cabin voicepipe. Simon bent to hear what was said.

“Indefatigable and Queen Mary lost, sir.”

“Jesus!”

Presumably Beatty had met up with the whole High Seas Fleet and had been unable to disengage. As Simon remembered, Beatty had six battlecruisers while Hipper in a similar scouting role had only five. Add to that, Beatty had recently been backed up by the squadron of superdreadnoughts, fast and with fifteen inch guns. He could not have been defeated by Hipper’s battlecruisers, must have met up with something much greater.

He passed the word to the bridge, nodded to the Yeoman to officially inform the flotilla. The word would have been passed by hands semaphoring from the stern, it could not be kept quiet.

“Aeroplane, sir. Southeast, approaching.”

“Do not fire on the aeroplane.”

They watched, saw a seaplane with Dutch colours coming towards them. It circled, the observer waved and the plane pottered off towards the unknown ships, flew around them for a few minutes before returning and dipping low over Naiad.

“Message canister, sir!”

A running hand grabbed at the trailing ribbons, plucked the fist-sized canister out of the air, brought it to the bridge.

“Well done, Hardy. We would have lost that if you had not been so quick.”

Hardy ran back to his gun, pleased that the captain had recognised him, knew his name.

The Yeoman opened the container, as was only proper as it must contain a message, and passed a sheet of paper to Simon. He read the message aloud.

“Seven German warships, in breach of Dutch waters. Three patrol boats. One predreadnought, Braunschweig class. Three old cruisers. Good luck.”

The Dutch were neutral – that did not mean even-handed. German incursions into their waters had been creating increasing ill-feeling and cooperation with Britain on the sly.

“Blood for supper, gentlemen, provided they leave territorial waters. I wonder where they came from?”

Simon spent a few minutes composing a careful message to Harwich. He must keep Tyrwhitt informed, did not want prescriptive orders restricting his initiative. He leant to the voicepipe.

“Wireless cabin! Commodore, Harwich. Shadowing German squadron in Dutch waters – position whatever – course for Heligoland. At current speed, interception in night hours.”

Strachan ran down with a note of precise latitude and longitude, waited while the message was sent.

“Operator reports poor transmission quality, sir. There seems to be jamming of our frequencies, whatever they are. He cannot guarantee that Harwich will receive our message or that he will pick up any reply.”

“Log that, please, Mr Strachan.”

He had done his duty. It was almost as good as Nelson’s blind eye.

The attack on the four big ships must be by torpedo. The patrol craft were too small, must be taken by the guns, Naiad’s six inch being the most sensible.

Simon briefly discussed his plan and the signal he would send with Strachan. His second in command must know what was going on in case of a shell hitting the bridge.

“Captain Faulds and half-flotilla to be ready for torpedo attack on big ships. Naiad with Loring to pair of patrol boats ahead. Laker and Launceston to sink patrol boat astern and close with torpedoes at their discretion.”

Strachan agreed, suggested he should add the words ‘close-range’ to Captain Fauld’s orders.

“Oh! Do you feel that to be necessary? I had not noticed.”

It was difficult to ask in public whether Strachan thought the captain was shy.

“Inclined to be a thinking man, sir. One who might calculate the odds rather than go in hell for leather.”

“That will never do! Not in the boats, Mr Strachan.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“I really think we must grant him the opportunity to be a hero, you know. Instead of ‘close-range’ put ‘at night range of no more than three cables’.”

“That should do the job, sir. His whole bridge will read that signal.”

They picked up occasional messages through the late afternoon and evening. There was a battle, a hundred and more miles to their north. It was confused, visibility was poor, the High Seas Fleet had outmanoeuvred Jellicoe, turning away when he had looked to cross their T. All they could gather was of a long range action in which German gunnery was showing far better. There was a massive and confused destroyer action ongoing, torpedoes everywhere, almost none of them hitting. The submarine trap that had been feared had not eventuated. A third battlecruiser had been sunk, and two at least of armoured cruisers. There was remarkably little reported by way of German losses.

“As battles go, it’s all very tentative, it seems to me, sir.”

Strachan was trying to make sense of the clash.

“If the dreadnoughts of both sides had come together in a determined fashion, we would have heard of a dozen battleships sunk, at least. On both sides. Probably more German losses than British simply because we have the larger guns. The German ships have eleven and twelve inchers; we have twelve, thirteen point five, fourteen and fifteen inchers. Add to that, we outnumber them. The feeling I get, sir, is that Jellicoe is more concerned not to lose than he is to win.”