Andrew Wareham - Falling into Battle

The Yeoman of Signals would not have made the comment if he could have read the flag hoist. Unfortunately, travelling at twenty knots the flags streamed fore and aft and were impossible to pick out.

“Sparrow leaving the line, sir.”

Sparrow was second in the line and was probably being sent out to act as a repeating ship, put in a position where she could see and be seen. The gross inefficiency of the system was no reason for installing wireless – the Admiralty knew that flags were better for signalling after centuries of experience with them.

A delay of three minutes and the Yeoman called out again.

“Robin repeated Sparrow. Unknown ship at green twenty, distant fifteen thousand yards.

Flotilla to intercept. Maximum practical speed. Executive, sir.”

Some of the flotilla had had recent boiler cleans and others were overdue. The Class had been built in different yards and although theoretically identical, their top speeds differed by as much as two knots. Captain D was giving them their head, allowing the fastest to close the unknown ship first.

“Full speed ahead. Ten of starboard wheel on, quartermaster.” Captain Smallwood bent down to the engineroom voicepipe. “Emergency speed, Chief! We have a possible enemy in sight.”

The Coxswain came to the wheel, taking over when in action.

Sheldrake surged up to her maximum of twenty-seven knots and then continued to put on speed, the Chief ERA choosing to disregard safe working pressures and to stretch his turbine a little further than she was designed for. It was the Chief’s engine and he had worked on it since he had joined Sheldrake when she was part-complete on the slip. Hopefully, he knew exactly what she could do; if he was mistaken the blown boiler would kill him first.

“Twenty-eight point two, Mr Dacres!”

“Impressive, sir! Sub to stern four inch, sir?”

The bows could not be seen, green water sweeping across the forecastle and making the forward gun unworkable. There was a cloud of white spray rising to twenty feet, almost as if she was submerged.

“Go, Sub. If it is a Hun, I will give you the ‘fire at will’.”

Simon saluted and ran to the stern, knowing that if his gun scored a hit in these conditions it would be little short of the miraculous, but very good for his future.

Two minutes after he reached the gun the command came.

“With common shell, load, load, load!”

The breechblock opened and the thirty-one pound shell was thrown in, the silk bag of the charge following and the breech closed and a detonator inserted, all in fifteen seconds.

“Train forward, starboard twenty degrees.”

Simon expected Captain Smallwood to turn as soon as he came within easy range to give both guns that would bear a better view of their target.

“Ship is a minelayer. Fire at will.”

“Bloody swine, sir! Got to have left port before war was declared, sir!”

The gunlayer seemed quite upset by this example of forethought on the part of the Germans.

The minelayer was a converted passenger ferry at a glance, higher out of the water than a naval vessel and probably thin-skinned, without armour on the hull and fast. She would have been able to make a dash into the French coast and lay a field outside Calais, hoping to catch the troopships.

“Range is five thousand yards, sir.”

Sheldrake was rolling heavily as she came around.

“Wait. Fire when we come on course. Wait… Shoot.”

The gunlayer delayed a couple of seconds until Sheldrake ’s deck was level before pulling the lanyard. The crew ran into the reload, shaving a second off their practice time.

“Short one hundred, left fifty. Shoot.”

Simon kept his glasses on the target. He saw splashes from other ships’ fire, tried to ignore them, counting down their own shell.

“Hit! Forward, almost on the bows. Shoot.”

The gunlayer made his minor corrections and achieved an over. His next shell hit the bridge superstructure. Seconds later a shell from one of the others in the flotilla landed in the stern, among the remaining mines waiting to be laid. The explosion blew the minelayer apart, her bows visible for a few seconds, pointing vertically upwards before sliding under.

“Cease fire. Secure the gun.”

The gunlayer supervised the delicate process of unloading a hot gun, far slower, step by step and each procedure confirmed.

“Well done! Good shooting and fast. The captain will be pleased with your work.”

Simon reported to the bridge.

“Good shooting, Sub. Two hits from four rounds at speed. Well done. The twelve pounder got seven rounds away and missed with them all.”

The Yeoman called a signal.

“From Robin, sir. Good work. Half section to form line abreast on Woodpecker and make slow speed sweep for floating mines.”

“Your boarding party to the forecastle, Sub. With rifles. Sink or explode any mines seen.”

That was a far less popular duty.

International Law stated that all mines must be held in place by sinkers and that minefields should be plotted and all neutrals informed of their exact location. Drifting mines were strictly forbidden.

The few naval officers of any country who had bothered to inform themselves of that law regarded it as a nonsense.

Woodpecker sent her orders and the three others of the section formed up on her, distant three cables, and proceeded to crawl at five knots along the track of the minelayer. They presumed that the aim would have been to catch troopships crossing between the Channel ports, which limited the possible placement of the mines. Ten minutes saw Woodpecker herself spotting the first floater; they heard her rifles firing and then saw a spout of water high in the air, perhaps eighty yards off her bows.

“That will give their engineroom a shaking, Sub.”

The explosion would be magnified below water level, drumming in the big spaces of the engineroom. Unpleasant, Simon thought.

Nothing for a few more minutes then a rifleman calling from the bows.

“Object, sir, dead ahead one cable.”

Sheldrake made an emergency turn away, lay hove-to with the mine in easy sight off the port bow. The rifles fired and missed, repeatedly. The mine was not a large target in itself at two hundred yards and its horns, the detonators that exploded when they contacted a ship’s hull, were even smaller.

“For God’s sake, Sub! Get up there and do something about it!”

Simon ordered the twelve men to cease fire and to reload.

“On my command, three rounds, rapid fire…” He waited on the roll, called the command. “Shoot!”

One of the rounds hit a detonator. The mine exploded with a roar and the whole ship shuddered; a great cloud of dirty, smelly water blew down the wind and drenched them.

“That stinks, Sub!” Captain Smallwood called.

“It does too, sir… That’s a mine under Woodpecker’s bows, sir!”

The round black lump, horns just visible, was no more than ten yards distant from the ship, rolling free in the low swell.

They whooped the steam siren and yelled and waved and pointed but were too late. Woodpecker rose on a wave and dropped onto the mine. The explosion blew Woodpecker’s bows off almost as far as the bridge and she went straight down, engines still running and pushing her under. Sheldrake was at the scene in less than a minute but found no survivors, nothing more than a very few bodies thrown from the deck.

Sheldrake took command of the half-section and continued the search for mines until dark, as ordered. They arrived three-strong at Harwich soon after dawn, signalled for ambulances to remove seven corpses.

“Make to Captain D. ‘Woodpecker mined all hands’, Yeoman.”