Andrew Wareham - Falling into Battle

The lookout pointed at the sudden burst of fire, well distant.

“Big shells, sir.”

“Night attack on Antwerp, on the fortifications there. Watch your sector, now.”

If Antwerp fell then they could expect to discover retreating soldiers hoping to be picked up from the beaches and fishing villages, but not for a few hours.

“Shoals, sir, white water, at three cables, starboard bow.”

“Mouth of the Scheldt. Call the captain.”

“No need, Number One. I am here.”

The shadowy figure stepped forward and demanded something hot to wake him up.

“Flare up of shellfire towards Antwerp about an hour ago, sir.”

“Night assault on some part of the lines there. Reports are none too hopeful, it would seem.”

“Falling back on the coast, sir, for evacuation?”

“No. Plan is for the Belgians to hold part of the country rather than surrender it all. They will drop back to a coastal sector right down on the French border, or so it is hoped. British forces will fall back as and where feasible. There is a strong possibility they will head for the Dutch border and internment rather than surrender.”

“Bit of a mess, sir.”

“To put it mildly!”

“Thirty minutes to Morning Nautical Twilight, sir.”

“We’ll see if we have any trade then, Number One.”

The port lookout called out.

“Twenty degrees on the port bow, at four cables, sir… looks like ships, black against the sea.”

They stared, uncertain.

Three voices called as one as a ship’s bows raised a tiny white splash.

“Yeoman, shaded hand torch at the stern, signal Robin, ‘Ships at four cables, port bow. Repeat Curlew and Blackbird.’”

The Yeoman of the Signals ran.

“Guns, ready to port.”

Parrett scurried off to the forward four inch. Simon ran to the after gun, warning the twelve pounder as he passed.

The minutes passed and the lookouts called three small ships in line on a northerly course.

“Ready all guns. Bridge lookouts to the Lewises. Yeoman, make the challenge.”

The light flashed, ‘What ship?’

A searchlight flared from the mast of a destroyer, not a Navy ship; none had searchlights in that location.

“Shoot! Lewises, darken that searchlight.”

The four inch guns fired and reloaded, far more slowly than the quick firing twelve pounder with its fixed ammunition. The machine guns rattled, the ratings trying to find the searchlight and smash it. The three other destroyers in the half section joined in, a dozen shells falling on and around the presumed enemy.

Guns responded from the destroyer and then from the ships to its stern.

The after four inch gunlayer yelled on his third round.

“Hit, sir! Bridge area.”

The destroyer fell silent, fires rising amidships.

“Change target to next astern.”

The four inch registered an immediate hit on the next ship, the range having fallen to six hundred yards, three cables, effectively point blank, requiring no aiming off.

Two more rounds and the cease fire was called.

A few minutes and daylight showed the destroyer heeling, sinking, two boats at its side. Behind it was an armed trawler and a small coaster with a single gun to the bows. The trawler was down by the head, certain to sink. The coaster had damage above the waterline but might be salvable.

Simon returned to the bridge.

“Destroyer is German, sir. Ensign showing.”

“That’s a relief. Bloody night actions! Knew it wasn’t one of ours but it could well have been a Frog, although there are supposed to be none in these waters. Robin to close convoy and take the coaster and pick up survivors, Yeoman.”

“The word was no German destroyers on this coast, sir.”

“So we were told, and where there is one, there may well be more. The boats work in flotillas, where possible. They might well have taken another harbour along the coast here, which is a damned nuisance, if so. The fog of war, Sturton! Which translates as our masters don’t know their arses from their elbows, yet again.”

“I wonder what they were doing, sir.”

“Our masters? They won’t know – they never do.”

“I was thinking of the Huns, sir. Too small a convoy for troops, surely.”

“Wouldn’t get half a battalion aboard that one small ship. You’re right, Number One. Yeoman, signal Robin to board the coaster and trawler and investigate their nature.”

Ten minutes of waiting, increasingly impatiently, and Robin signalled.

“Coaster set up for minelaying. Chart recovered from trawler suggests new field off Dunkirk.”

“Bloody hell!”

The destroyer sank seconds later and was followed by the trawler suddenly capsizing and disappearing under the surface. Boats from Robin were seen to be combing the sea where she had gone down.

“They must have had men still aboard her, Number One. Below decks, in the captain’s cabin trying to recover more charts and papers, I will bet.”

“Robin signalling now, sir.”

“Lost midshipman and four seamen, sir.”

“Silly little bugger! Trying to make up for the cock-up with the wardroom blackout!”

Simon nodded sombrely – it seemed likely that the boy had taken too big a risk and had killed himself, which was bad luck. Four seamen had died at his side and under his command; that was inexcusable.

“Bloody young fool!”

“Agreed, Number One. He would never have made the grade. Same age as you, within a year, I believe.”

“But still a boy, sir.”

“Exactly so, Mr Sturton. I doubt you were ever just a boy, were you?”

“I don’t know, sir. I was never part of a family, not that I remember, so I had no chance to be a protected little boy.”

Captain Smallwood was interested and sympathetic – that aspect of being an orphan was obvious now it was mentioned, but it had never occurred to him.

“What did you do on leaves from Dartmouth?”

“Remained at the College, sir. There were a few of us, mainly sons of the Empire, who had no place to go to. You know how it is, sir – parents in Australia or darkest Africa, that sort of thing. There was one lad, Mayhew, whose father was a district officer on the Papuan coast and mother long dead; he hadn’t seen his father since he was six, and he had no grandparents in England, so he was almost as much an orphan as I was. It wasn’t too bad, in fact, sir. We went sailing much of the time and were taken hiking on the moors and things like that. I learned a lot about the small boats and working along a coast. Christmas was not such fun – all very lonely with less to do except study at our books. It could have been worse, sir; I ended up with some of the highest marks in the tests.”

“A true silver lining! We must return to Dunkirk. Flotilla in line abreast, extra lookouts and rifles to the bows. Try to locate this damned minefield and hope it is not full of floaters. We need to discover what its boundaries are.”

Robin gave them the positions taken from the captured German chart and then it was a matter of crawling at two knots, watching for the ten or twenty per cent of the mines poorly laid and floating away on the surface.

They reached Dunkirk and made their report and saw the four minesweeping trawlers sent off to trail cables with cutters across the location of the field.

“A small field, probably no more than fifty mines, Number One. They might get most of them. Should pick up any that are loose.”

They noted the field on their charts, another hazard to be avoided.

“What will be done with the coaster, sir?”

“Send her in and they will likely put a volunteer crew aboard and sail her to German waters off the Kiel Canal and drop mines there, most likely. Possibly send her into the Baltic with a pair of underwater torpedo tubes in her bows. She’s obviously a German boat and could well not be noticed. Might catch a battleship out on gunnery practice. Might even not be spotted and get away afterwards. Worth a try. Sort of command they will give to an officer who’s blotted his copybook – come back successful and all is forgiven and forgotten. Don’t come back – no loss!”