Andrew Wareham - Falling into Battle

“Yes, sir. Not quite where I thought we were, sir.”

The fog eddied, opened a little.

“Ships to port beam, sir! Destroyers!”

“Full ahead. Hard to port!”

The fog closed in again and the destroyers were gone.

“What course were the destroyers on, lookout?”

“Northeast, sir.”

“Steer fifty degrees, Coxswain.”

A light cruiser appeared from nothing, fired at them, missed and disappeared.

“That was Arethusa, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certain, sir.”

“Bloody fog! Slow ahead.”

There was silence except for the muted whine of the turbine.

“Hear something, sir. Reciprocating engines.”

Bigger than a destroyer, possibly an old battleship.

“Port bow, sir, on the quarter somewhere.”

“Torpedo tubes to port, Mr Harker.”

“Big ship, sir… Armoured cruiser, sir, port twenty, one mile.”

“Ready torpedoes, Mr Harker!”

“It’s Cressy, sir.”

“Belay, Mr Harker!”

The fog swirled thick about them again.

The big old cruiser continued her stately way, slowly disappearing. A stern six inch gun fired a single round. They neither saw nor heard the shellburst.

“To starboard, Coxswain. Course due east.”

Captain Smallwood thought there was a chance the cruiser might have seen them readying a torpedo attack. He preferred not to be identified.

“Gunfire, sir. Somewhere to starboard.”

“Steer towards.”

They spent four hours in the fog, chasing sound, spotting dark shapes they could not identify or locate a second time. They came close to running aground, presumably on Heligoland. Eventually the fog thinned and they heard the crashing of big ships’ guns.

“Flotilla leader in sight, sir.”

“Fearless signalling, join line, sir.”

Sheldrake slipped onto the tail of three destroyers of different classes following the leader.

“Port two miles, sir. Light cruiser, German, foundering, sir.”

“Fearless signalling course for Harwich, sir. Destroyers closing, sir.”

By mid-afternoon the flotilla had come together again and was en route for home.

The officers of the whole flotilla met next morning, in their own shore mess which was their depot so that they could sleep in comfort away from the cramped confines of the destroyers.

“What happened?”

“It was a cock-up!”

There was general agreement with that statement. They made a tally of all they had seen, jointly.

“Three light cruisers and one destroyer sunk. Definitely. Damaged, at least six other destroyers and two cruisers, one of them a heavy of some sort. Our damage – none sunk, Arethusa severely hit. Total dead, fewer than forty. Qualifies as a victory. Barman!”

The newspapers said the same.

Captain Smallwood gave the unofficial summation two days later.

“The German battlecruisers never appeared. Beatty sent three more to back up New Zealand and Invincible, so it’s a pity the Hun did not turn up. The submarines fired at six cruisers. Luckily, they missed, as the positions make it clear they targeted Arethusa and Fearless three times each. Cressy reported seeing torpedo tracks across her bows – from whom is unknown – it was almost us. The Germans lost more than a thousand men and their admiral, a bloke named Maas. A definite victory. The word is that the High Seas Fleet has now been ordered never to set sail without specific permission from Kaiser Bill himself. The effect is that we achieved the exact opposite of what we wanted – instead of drawing the Germans out, we have made sure they will stay at home.”

“What does Admiral Keyes have to say, sir? His submarines did not quite cover themselves in glory.”

“The Admiral is not best pleased, it would seem. He is no longer convinced that the submarines should try to work in conjunction with surface craft.”

Two days later and the destroyers were back at sea in their half sections, hunting small craft along the Belgian coast.

Dacres sat back in their wardroom, drinking tepid tea.

“Reports say armed trawlers in some numbers. Escorting small coasters bringing munitions along the coast. Where to is unclear. The whole situation is a mess. The German army has reached the Belgian coast in several places and has taken some ports to its own use, as we know. There are Belgian enclaves as yet unconquered but it is almost a certainty they will be unable to hold out. We are to assist Belgian troops to evacuate, if we locate any. Primarily, we must not allow any German vessels to penetrate to the Channel.”

The conclusion that they were losing the war seemed obvious.

“The Germans are going to get destroyers and cruisers into Belgian ports soon, sir. Then we will be in trouble.”

“Agreed, Mr Sturton. Probably destroyers only – too bit a risk for cruisers! Word is that the Dover Patrol is to be beefed up. Nothing bigger than a light cruiser, but a number of them. There is a plan to locate big guns on the white cliffs to prohibit the British half of the Channel, and others in France, if the Frogs will agree, to extend coverage to the whole. Old battleship twelve inchers will do the job. Plenty of them in the predreadnoughts and going spare. The Royal Naval Air Service is to be busy as well, though doing exactly what is unclear.”

“The German navy has been very slack, leaving the Channel unchallenged, sir.”

“The Kaiser’s personal policy, Sturton. He won’t risk his battleships at sea. They are the fleet in being – a threat rather than a reality.”

“Don’t understand it myself, sir. Glad he’s a fool, anyway.”

“Mr Sturton! The Kaiser is Queen Victoria’s grandson. He may be an enemy, but he can’t be a fool – that is official.”

“Blue blood can never be stupid, by order, sir.”

“Precisely. You should know – it runs in your veins.”

“Only very thinly, sir.”

“No excuse, Mr Sturton. What do you propose to do about these trawlers?”

“Sink them, if we can locate them, sir?”

“Most of them will carry a four inch on the forecastle and a machine gun or two elsewhere. Some may have a pair of twelve pounders. Certain to be QF. The sole advantage we will have is speed. We cannot shoot accurately at high speed, and not at all from the forward gun.”

“Yes… Give me a couple of days to think about that, sir.”

They saw nothing in the dark of the moon, which was not surprising. There were no reports of attacks on troopships.

“Very little happening, in fact. Tyrwhitt is proposing that we go across to the Belgian coast and lay up there during the day, sneak northeast in the last of the daylight in the hope of finding convoys tight inshore. They know we work at night and may be sailing when we ain’t about.”

They went across to Dunkirk in the morning and tied up to the long pier.

“Fish market is busy, sir.”

Captain Smallwood shook his head.

“Selling fish, I expect, Sturton. Don’t like fish. They eat drowned sailors – don’t seem right to eat them in return.”

“No fish, sir. What about crabs?”

“Equally bad for sailors – you need to avoid them, Sturton.”

Simon was not sure he understood that comment, but it was obviously funny, judging from the grins of the ratings who had heard it.

“Aye aye, sir.”

If in doubt, give the stock reply.

“No to lobsters and mussels as well, Sturton, before you ask. Be content with English beef.”

“Don’t see any of that, sir. All the corned beef is Argentinian.”

“Nit-picking! Go and buy some bread – the Frogs are good at that. But not their cheese – soft and sticky, damned stuff! My parents used to feed it to me on holiday. Appalling!”

Simon obeyed orders, bending them just a little by purchasing cheese strictly for himself. He ate it happily before they sailed in the early evening.