“End of September, sir. Weather might not be ideal just then.”
“The sun will shine on the righteous, Baker! Or so the staff hopes!”
Chapter Two
Black Prince armoured cruiser made her way out of the Mediterranean on orders to rejoin the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow.
Christopher Adams stood on her bridge, calling the course change to take her through the Straits of Gibraltar and then out into the Atlantic to go westabout Ireland and around the north of Scotland through the Pentland Firth.
The big ship responded slowly to the wheel, turning in her own time, increasing to the set cruising speed only slowly, her four funnels giving off a huge black mass of coal smoke, hundreds of feet high and tailing off behind for almost a mile. At more than thirteen thousand five hundred tons, she was almost as large as the predreadnought capital ships, though far less heavily armed with six nine point two inch rifles and a mass of six inch set low in broadside sponsons and unusable in anything other than a flat calm. If she had been designed at all, which many doubted, it was for long voyages on the Imperial sea lanes, policing the oceans of the world for the benefit of British trade. She was to be used with the Grand Fleet, was off to join the First Cruiser Division, whose possible function was to protect the battleships from torpedo attack by destroyers and light cruisers, all of which would be faster and handle far more easily.
“Awful waters, sir, northabout Scotland.”
The Captain nodded gravely.
“There is a possibility of commerce raiders in the eastern Atlantic – we are to watch for anything out of the ordinary, Adams. Doubt we shall see much. Policy is not to make the passage of the Channel and the North Sea. Full of submarines. Just starting to clear them, using airships, of all things! Don’t know what the Navy’s coming to! Flapping about in the air! What would Nelson have said to that?”
Christopher could not imagine, shook his head in dismay. Wise lieutenants did not argue with their captain, particularly those in his peculiar position. He suspected that Nelson would have enthusiastically supported anything that led to the confusion of his enemies – he had espoused new tactics and the innovation of the carronade in his day, would probably have demanded to fly in an airship. Not for him to say so on his captain’s bridge.
“Set additional lookouts, sir, on submarine watch?”
“Yes, the First will be setting double lookouts in daylight hours. No point to doing so at night – they can’t see anything then.”
“How close inshore on the Irish coast, sir?”
Intelligence reports insisted that German submarines had made contacts with Irish insurgents, delivering small arms and ammunition to them at the smaller fishing ports.
“I do not believe these tales of a great network of traitors in Ireland, Adams. A few madmen, that is all. We can ignore the very concept of whole villages seeing a German submarine and saying nothing. Remain twenty to forty miles distant from the coast, as convenient for keeping our course.”
Orders were to be obeyed and Christopher had no reason to suppose that Intelligence were particularly clever. Some remarkably strange officers gravitated into their ranks; he had been surprised not to have been contacted himself, being an obvious recruit, his career destroyed and himself potentially an embarrassment.
He was acting navigator, waiting on the formal confirmation of his promotion to the role, had every expectation of receiving the news quickly. His period as a pariah was over and he was accepted back into the hierarchy of the genteel. His career would never recover and he would be gently requested to send in his papers when the war ended, as part of the process of reducing the size of the wartime Navy; he was, however, no longer formally disgraced. He would leave with a respectable wartime record that might permit him to return to Town.
Only since he had been accepted again had he realised just how important his place in Society had been to him. His father would see to a career, he did not doubt. He wondered just how he would be able to serve the family, and whether they would actually permit him to remain in London. It might be that he would be acknowledged but sent off out of public view, banished to work in Ireland or France or some even more distant location where the family had interests. St Petersburg was a possibility, where there was at least a semblance of Society, or out to India, said to have some civilisation under the Raj; at worst Canada, known to be boring, or Australia which had still to recover from its convict days.
He had a future, other than suicide. It might still not be entirely attractive.
Course set for the next three hours, he was at liberty to leave the bridge, nodded to the watchkeeper and stepped down to the wheelhouse, checking who was on watch there, before going down to his cabin. An unknown leading seaman had the wheel, was showing quietly relaxed and confident, easing the ship’s head as she crossed the Atlantic swell, not permitting the rollers to push her off course. Satisfied, he paced off to the wardroom, seeking a quiet cup of tea and perhaps a sandwich, having breakfasted early to be on the bridge for the passage through the Straits.
The Navigator had been taken off the ship by small boat as they passed Gibraltar, promoted to Commander in a predreadnought in harbour there. The promotion to full commander was welcome, the ship was not, and he had left Black Prince in some dismay, going from a cruiser renowned as a crack ship to an ancient battleship staggering off to take part in the bombardments off the Dardanelles and to spend the bulk of her days at anchor in Mudros as a defence against sorties by the Austro-Hungarian or Turkish navies. Christopher had felt sympathy for him, delight that he had taken over as Navigator, must be promoted soon. He did not think he would be superseded, replaced by another man; he had returned to the mainstream of the service.
He smiled to himself as he sat with his teacup to hand. A year previously and he had been one of the coming men, certain to be an admiral in his thirties; now he was happy that he would make lieutenant commander with a certainty that there would be nothing more forthcoming.
‘How have the mighty fallen’, he mused, entertained by his own philosophical acceptance of failure.
“You seem happy this morning, Adams!”
“Contemplating my blessings, Crewe. Back in the real Navy after playing about in the Med. Much to be said for a big ship, you know.”
The Gunnery Commander nodded ponderous agreement. Black Prince was an armoured cruiser and was definitely not a small ship.
“Hear we are due for a few months of dockyard time, Adams. Admiralty has digested the loss of Good Hope at Coronel and noticed some of the reasons why. Finally worked out that placing guns within six feet of the waterline don’t make sense!”
“That’s quick going, Crewe! Barely six months since the details became known to them!”
“Shook them, a bit. Losing Good Hope and Monmouth after the three cruisers on the Broad Fourteens – made them think. The death of five thousand men on our side for no losses to the Germans should have made anybody think, Adams!”
“Yes, we have not done well so far in this war, Crewe.”
“The Falkland Islands, which was badly handled. Sunk one battle cruiser at the Dogger Bank – and let four more go! All we hear down the grapevine says Beatty made a cock of that. The newspapers, of course, are howling victory! Apart from that, all of our successes have come from the destroyers. Torpedo work, not the guns. Makes you think, don’t it! Mind you, some of those youngsters have shown really well – at least one of them has made lieutenant commander with his own half-flotilla before the age of twenty-one and carrying a chestful of decorations. My brother is a sub on one of his boats, man by the name of Sturton, heir to Viscount Perceval as well. Big future ahead of that gentleman!”
“Is that so? I was same year as him at Dartmouth and did two years as a mid on St Vincent in his company. Got on well with him, a likeable man and a good seaman in the making, no doubt of that. Four of us, there were. Hector McDuff went down with Good Hope – pleasant chap and well capable. The fourth was Richard
Baker, and he was bloody useless! Never had a hope of making the grade and his father was asked to send his papers in, still a mid. Then he joined the Army and suddenly he was a hero – colonel now, I read recently. Same age as me. Engaged to Elkthorn’s daughter as well; saw it in The Times. Don’t know her but she sounds like a good catch.”
“That’s Baker the VC, is it? I knew he was one of us originally. Not uncommon for young mids to transfer across to the Army, of course, because they can’t get on at sea. Couple of very senior generals started off as sailors, I know. Sounds as if you were rubbing shoulders with the great, Adams.”
Christopher was shocked by that comment – until his misfortunes, he had been recognised as the greatest of the four. Now, he was the also-ran. That hurt.
He was surprised to discover just how much it pained him, to be disclosed as no more than ordinary, to be forced to accept that whatever his future might be, however far he might rise in a post-war occupation, he was no longer a golden boy. He might be successful; he could not be brilliant in other’s estimation.
It was a burden to carry, to cope with - no longer to be the cynosure of all eyes, to be the man all others must be compared against.
He managed to laugh in his turn, to tell the appropriate lie.
“Always knew that Sturton would be an admiral, and young. You know how one can tell that some of the youngsters have got that extra spark in them?”
Crewe did, regretted that it was not to be observed in any of the midshipmen or subs aboard Black Prince. Christopher agreed they were an ordinary bunch – little to distinguish any of them.
“You were saying something about the six inchers, Crewe?”
“Oh, yes. All to be shifted. The broadside sponsons to be removed and just six to be placed in turrets or casemates, uncertain which yet, on deck amidships. Only half the number of them, but all of them usable! At the moment we have twelve, and none of them can be fired in anything other than a flat calm! Reduces the guns, increases our firepower! Hopefully, they will give us new guns, not simply shift the existing barrels; the new marks of six inch have greater range and quicker loading, not that the range matters.”
“What about the three pounders, Crewe?”
“Bloody things! Twelve of them, using up gunlayers and crew and valueless in any practical sense. Sixty men and the ammunition passers and too small to do any good at all. Supposed to be used against torpedo boats, being small quickfirers, easy to lay on a fast-moving target – which is true enough, but a three pound shell is valueless in practical terms. Do much better with four or six twelve pounders.”
“Are they to be changed?”
“Not a chance, Adams! The Admiralty loves its three pounders and will not do away with them. They are a pretty gun, one must admit, with that long, slender barrel, and they can be tucked away into every odd corner on deck. ‘Bristling with guns’, like the old wooden walls they really wish we were still sailing. The Admiralty still hopes, in its heart of hearts, that the Grand Fleet will steam into battle at two cables distance and smash the High Seas Fleet before taking them by boarding. They will never be truly content with less. They still issue cutlasses, you know. Got four hundred of them tucked away somewhere. Supposed to hand them out whenever we go to action stations, believe it or not!”
Christopher shook his head in sympathy.
“When I was with the trawlers at Alex, before we moved into the Red Sea, we put in for revolvers for our boarding parties. Slave patrol - we stopped and searched a hundred bloody dhows! As I say, we asked for handguns and some old fool from the Gun Wharf turned up with cutlasses and a grindstone and a fellah to keep them sharp for us. Threatened us with court martials when we refused them and insisted on revolvers. Unbelievable. Luckily for us, we had rifles aboard from the submarine patrol days.”
“Heard about that, Adams. Some sort of merchant cruiser and a few trawlers and you actually killed one sub.”
“More luck than judgement, Crewe. We were shut down listening in the night and heard her engines revving high to charge her batteries. Managed to creep up on her on the surface and shell and ram her. The trawlers were set up for the Arctic, had bows reinforced for ice.”
“That’s the same trawlers they sent into the Red Sea, is it?”
“Exactly, Crewe! Unbelievable, except that I will now believe anything of the Admiralty. Shocking the things they will do unthinkingly. Incapable of thought, more likely. Jacky Fisher did a lot of good for the Navy in getting rid of deadbeat ships; a pity he could not do the same for the men.”
Crewe was shocked. Some of the old-timers were out of date, perhaps, yet they had the right ideas fundamentally.
“Still makes more sense to capture the enemy than to sink them, old chap. In Nelson’s day, more than one in ten of the Navy’s ships were French or Spanish or Dutch or Danish originally, captured in battle and used to our advantage. Good idea to close and capture, you know, Adams.”
“It is impossible with modern guns, Crewe. The explosive shell is a ship sinker. That’s why we should be practicing at ten miles and more, using the big guns as they should be. In Connaught, earlier this year, we opened fire on destroyers at twenty-eight thousand yards and drove them back to port before they had reached twenty-four. That’s how the guns should be used.”
“Good God! How did you do that? Never tried a target over five thousand, myself, and far more inclined to wait for three. Ridiculous sort of thing to do, when you consider it. How are you going to take their surrender at that distance?”
“You are not, Crewe. You must sink them. A destroyer that takes one of our nine point two inch bricks won’t survive very long, anyway. In these days of torpedoes, one must keep the small ships far distant. That means sink them at least five miles out.”
“Ten thousand yards? Hit a tiny destroyer at that range, old chap? Not sure that I would like to try, you know. No, blast them with six inch when they come to a reasonable distance. Open sights at half a mile is best. Can always dodge their torpedoes, you know.”
Christopher gave up the unequal argument. Crewe was incapable of assimilating any new ideas, it seemed. God help Black Prince if she ever went into battle.
“Not to worry, old fellow. Sun’s over the yardarm, is it not?”
Crewe agreed it was. A pink gin would be just the thing to set them up for the day.
The Atlantic was pleasantly calm, as it could be in summer, long low swells and little wind and a bright sun. Pleasure cruise weather. Black Prince made her way north, the west coast of Ireland just in sight and the lookouts scanning the sea for periscopes or anything out of the ordinary.
“Sailing vessel, four-masted barque, nor’west. Fifteen miles.”
Christopher put his glasses on the speck, picked out the masts and sails and little else. He waited for the officer of the watch to act.
Lieutenant Chalmers took up a large, old telescope, inherited from a sailor grandfather most likely, certainly of higher magnification than Christopher’s binoculars, had a little trouble finding the merchantman, finally settled onto her.
“Swedish flag. Two thousand tonner, thereabouts. Big. Four masts. All fore and aft sails. No topgallants. Smoke from a boiler on deck…”
He seemed puzzled by his last observation.
“Power winches, Holmes, to set sail. She can probably make do with a dozen deckhands.”
“Never heard of that, Adams.”
Holmes seemed faintly offended as if it were somehow wrong that a sailing ship should make use of steam power.
“Course from the States to France, perhaps, Adams?”
It was legitimate to ask the navigator’s advice on such matters.
“Or to Portugal – salt fish from the Grand Banks, maybe. Could be to Spain with American or Canadian wheat. Might be bound into the Med. Unlikely to be heading for an English port. Just possible she’s bound for Cork. What tack is she on?”
“Starboard, easy on the wind. Not beating up.”
Holmes w
as at a loss for what to do next, did not want to ask for advice on the actions he should take. Christopher made no attempt to say anything – he was not a watchkeeper.
“Captain to the bridge!”
Holmes had finally given an order. The wrong one in Christopher’s opinion, refusing all responsibility and taking no action.
Captain Gilpin-Brown appeared within the minute, assessed the situation within seconds, called a series of commands to respond.
“Close up main armament. Ten of port wheel. Increase revolutions for twenty knots. Yeoman, make the challenge.”
The merchantman raised another Swedish flag to the maintopmast in response.
“No signalling lamp. Don’t know the flag code. Typical merchantman. Any deck cargo?”
Deck cargo would be shrouded in tarpaulins, which might be concealing guns or torpedo tubes rather than crates if she was a commerce raider in disguise.
Christopher scanned her decks, saw them to be clear from bows to stern. No deck cabins; no cargo. He waited for Holmes to give the confirmation, there being no urgency.
“Clean, sir. Just a boiler by the mainmast.”
The Swedish flag was painted large on her hull, the gold and blue shining bright.
“Steer to pass within hailing range at five knots, Holmes.”
The Captain left it to Holmes to translate that command into a precise set of orders, noticed how long it took him to do so.
Christopher suspected that Mr Holmes’ personal report would have a couple of sentences added before evening, that he would be a long time waiting on his promotion.
A brief conversation with an English-speaking officer confirmed the Swede to be an innocent neutral bound for Cadiz with grain. She had made a quick passage and had seen nothing, which was normal for a neutral which had no business giving information to belligerents, possibly compromising their own status.
The Death of Hope Page 3