by Peter Albano
“Battery?” Geoffry shouted.
“Right gun manned and ready, sir,” Harwich answered.
“Left gun manned and ready, sir,” Chalmers sang out with his unmistakable Welsh burr.
And then from behind, “Range finder manned and ready, sir.” Without looking, Geoffry knew that Sublieutenant George Halstead and his two P.O.s were manning their station at the rear of the turret—a Barr and Stroud range finder, a smaller version of the range finder mounted in the main director, and only to be used in the event both the main director and the aft station were disabled. Geoffry liked young Halstead. The son of a wealthy viscount who owned over twenty thousand acres near Tunbridge in his own county of Kent, the youngster showed breeding. A graduate of Oxford, he dressed impeccably, obviously shopping at stores as stylish as Swan and Edgar, Selfridge’s, and Harrods.
Nodding, Geoffry barked into his phone, “’Q’ turret manned and ready. All hoists filled with full charge powder and A.P. shells.”
Captain Chatfield’s voice came back reporting the enemy ships only seventeen thousand yards away and a cold, heavy lump of dread began to grow under the turret captain’s ribs. Too close!
Immediately, the captain’s order came that told all hands the ship was irrevocably committed and that they were all at risk to face some of the most hideous deaths contrived by man: “Ship’s main and secondary armament load! Signal bridge, make the hoist, engage corresponding ship. Execute!”
Geoffry took a deep breath and then shouted, “Load!” with a steady timbre in his voice that surprised him.
Simultaneously, Harwich and Chalmers struck the breechblock locking levers with the palms of their hands and the massive, perfectly balanced breechblocks swung open. Hinged at the bottom, the great doors dropped down like foot-thick tables, convex “mushroom” faces of gleaming stainless steel surrounded by the ridges of their interrupted screw threads, exposing cavernous firing chambers. The Bank of England, Geoffry thought. Big as a vault.
Although Geoffry’s earphones buzzed with sighting reports, commands, and musters, he knew he could do no more than load his weapons and wait for Saxon’s commands. With turret silence in force, Harwich and Chalmers flashed their hand signals like choreographed mimes on stage at the Savoy. They were the best, bringing an old navy saying to mind: “Officers lead, P.O.s drive.”
The turret captain liked to watch Harwich, who moved as gracefully as Harry Lauder in one of his loose-limbed dance routines. Bending over the breechblock, the gunner extended one hand, palm down. Instantly, the primerman pressed a pedal and a 1,250-pound projectile rolled into the loading tray. A thumb forward through a short arc and the rammerman threw his lever to “Load” and the hydraulic ram—playfully painted by Harwich with the red and black head of a cobra with huge yellow eyes—leapt from its cylinder like an attacking serpent, driving the shell into the firing chamber. He flicked his thumb in the opposite direction and the cobra withdrew. Harwich turned a palm up and the powder hoist operator threw a switch and two 640-pound bags of cordite rolled into the tray. Quickly, the primerman and gun captain aligned them, then the ram drove and withdrew. Two more bags of powder were loaded before a palm on the breech-locking lever activated a hydraulic drive, sending the breechblock hissing into the breech, threads turning fifteen degrees and locking with a loud click. With a hard twist, the gun captain turned his locking lever while thumbing a button just to the right of the breech. A red light glowed on Geoffry’s gun-ready board. Then Chalmers’s left gun light came to life, followed by six more lights as all of the ship’s 13.5-inch guns were loaded.
Geoffry spoke into his phone, “’Q’ turret. Both guns loaded.”
“Very well,” Saxon’s voice responded.
With every man staring at him, Higgins watched the deflection and elevation dials of his Dumaresq calculator. At last they moved. “Gunlayers,” he shouted into his phone. “Elevation two-four-zero-zero minutes, direction forty-three degrees, deflection thirty-seven left.”
There was a whine of electric motors and the turret began to move, controlled by two men Geoffry could not see: the trainer who was seated in the left front of the turret, and the pointer who bent over his crank in his tiny compartment on the starboard side. Slowly, the turret turned to the right on its rack and pinion gear as the trainer cranked his motor to life while the breeches dropped, answering the pointer’s gear, elevating on polished steel trunnions like the fulcrums of perfectly balanced children’s teeter-totters.
Anxiously, the turret captain watched his elevation and deflection indicators until they coincided with Saxon’s. Immediately, he pushed his ready button. Now he must wait, listen to the flurries of commands on the gunnery circuit as Lion and her adversary probed with ranging shots, squaring off for their moment of truth. But there were no rules—no Marquis of Queensberry. It was kill—or be killed.
He felt pressure mount in his chest like an uncoiling spring and his dry throat was lined with sandpaper. Strangely, the excitement seemed sexual in intensity and Brenda was back. In his mind’s eye he saw her again—the way she looked the first time they met. It was in her family’s mansion on New York’s fashionable Fifth Avenue. He had been seated in the study with her father, John Ashcroft, discussing a textile merger, when she glided in as if moving to music. Sheathed in a tight green silk chemise that clung to her slim body like mist to an undulating landscape, her narrow waist was spectacular, flaring into hips sculpted like the curve of a Venetian vase. Her breasts were large, perfectly formed and pressed so hard against the silk he could see her nipples.
He had known many women during his business travels as the young owner of one of England’s biggest textile firms: Nicole in Paris, Nona in Birmingham, Jacqueline in Bristol stood out. And there had been dozens more, most just faces and purses. All had been beautiful—select and choice, befitting a man of his station. Yet, they were ordinary when compared with Brenda. She had a long aristocratic neck that balanced her head like an orchid on its stem. A straight chiseled nose and large azure eyes above high cheekbones gave her face a Grecian flair. Fine silky hair tumbled to her shoulders in lustrous folds like watered silk. Colored the rich hues of a tropical sunset, it flickered with glowing red evening stars each time she moved her head. Yet, he never knew, never was aware of her true beauty until their honeymoon at Cannes when he first saw her naked. Her skin was hot marble, her breasts even larger than he thought, hard round areolas growing like buttons under his lips. And his tongue found hers between the small perfect teeth, a slithering serpent dwelling in a wet, hot lair. He remembered thrusting into her, mad with desire. Her moans. Again and again. . .
“Left gun ‘A’ turret, fire!” came through his earphones. The chimes rang, he felt the ship tremble, and the corrections came through. Frantically, he reset his dials, relayed the commands to his gunlayers. More ranging shots, changes, and the first German salvo avalanched in, the dull thudding roar shaking the turret, vibrating up from the floor plates to meet in his middle—in his guts and genitals. With each new salvo, the hair on his forearms and at the back of his neck came erect and his bowels seemed to drop out of his body. Brenda was gone now; was only part of the past; could not exist in the future because now he knew in war there is no real future.
Suddenly, his mind was filled with the greatest horror—a dread that always lurked in the shadows of his mind, even in his dreams; the nightmare of all men who fight at sea. The ship was sinking and he was trapped in a pitch black compartment, water pressure superheating the air, tearing bulkheads from their frames, rupturing watertight doors while the cold sea roared in to claim its screaming victims.
Mercifully, he was shocked from the horrific vision by Saxon’s shout of “Ship’s main armament, salvo fire!” The chimes began and the gun captains stepped to the sides of the breeches. Every man was a statue. Despite his gripping the panel, the concussion of eight 13.5-inch guns firing as one staggered Geoffry.
/> Like twin battering rams, the two cannons recoiled a full two feet into their gun pits while a great roar filled the turret. Deck plates rattled, the ship heeled and staggered sending the parallel rules sliding off the plotting sheet. A loose rivet popped from the calculator, stinging Geoffry’s cheek before ricocheting to the deck. Dust drifted down from the overhead.
“Load! Load! Continuous fire!” Geoffry shouted, pulling a reddened finger from his bleeding cheek. Blood. A glorious wound. He almost laughed thinking of his heroic return home, cheek bandaged, a Victoria Cross hanging from his neck.
Automatically, the well-drilled gunlayers brought the guns back to battery and the two gun captains opened the breechblocks. Smelling like incinerated paint thinner and paneling, the stench of burned cordite filled the turret. There was the hiss of high-pressure compressed air as both barrels were blown clean, then the gun captains wiped the “mushrooms” with damp cloths while sticking their heads into the yawning firing chambers, looking for the tiny bit of burning silk that could destroy the ship. Again, the silent palm-waving ritual, the lights, and “Q” turret was ready to deliver her load of death.
More corrections, a resetting of dials, the chimes, the concussion. Like jolts of summer thunder, the German shells kept roaring in, laddering closer. Lion was in trouble and every man knew it. Then Higgins’s spirits soared as the cockney voice came through his earphones, “We’ve ‘it ‘er—by crikey, we’ve ‘it the bloody blighter!”
But then came the cockney’s reports of hits on Indefatigable and cataclysm. Higgins pulled down his periscope, saw the Vesuvian horror astern, the great mushroom-shaped column of smoke standing three thousand feet tall. More corrections. Salvo firing. He was becoming numb, like a machine.
There was a thud like someone had swatted a fly next to his ear and the dials on his calculator spun crazily. The main director. Saxon’s grim casualty report came through his headset, but the commander would not relinquish fire control.
Geoffry turned to Sublieutenant Halstead, who was peering through the eyepiece of his range finder. “Stand by to take over. The main director’s caught one and the aft director’s out.”
“Ranging, sir,” the sublieutenant answered, training the periscope around. Then Geoffry heard Halstead’s P.O.s begin reading ranges and bearings as the range taker mumbled, “On target, on target. . .”
Lion got off two more salvos before a single 12-inch shell struck her starboard side, penetrating the starboard dynamo room and knocking out the gunnery circuit. Immediately, Higgins heard Saxon’s whistle coming through the gunnery voice tube. Snapping it open, the turret commander heard a shattering blast, then Saxon’s last scream—a high-pitched shriek of pain and anger that turned his blood to ice.
Captain Chatfield’s voice on the tube shocked him from his terror. “All turrets, local control. The starboard dynamo room is out. Port is overloading. Switch to battery.”
With Saxon’s death shriek still curdling his blood, Higgins reached up to the control board with a trembling hand, turning his firing key to “Local” and the power supply switch to “Battery.” He shouted into the voice tube, “’Q’ turret on local control and battery power.”
“Very well. Continuous fire.”
“Range twelve-zero-zero-zero,” came from one of Halstead’s P.O.s.
“Bearing zero-three-eight,” the other added.
Geoffry set the dials of the Dumaresq calculator, made a quick reading, shouted at his gun captains and gunlayers, “Elevation two-three-three-zero minutes, direction zero-three-eight, deflection three-five left, range two-zero-zero minus twelve-zero-zero-zero. Continuous fire.” Within seconds, the guns were elevated, trained, pointed, and red lights glowed.
Pulling down his periscope, Geoffry focused on Lützow, which was clearly visible. He pushed the firing button. There was the usual concussion, stench of cordite followed by the twenty-second wait for the fall of shot. Knowing at flank speed Lützow could steam over two hundred yards before his shells landed, he clung to his lenses anxiously, praying his deflection was correct.
Fascinated, he watched Lützow’s entire length flash with flames like snakes’ tongues as her eight guns fired. But there were too many explosions. The enemy’s bridge and forecastle erupted, steel plates blossoming from her like petals from a storm-tossed rose and her number one turret spun crazily around to her starboard side.
“We have her taped!” Halstead cried triumphantly.
“Continuous fire. No changes!” Higgins shouted without taking his eyes from the eyepiece. Mesmerized and oddly calm, he watched as a covey of enemy shells approached. They impacted just a few yards off Lion’s starboard side, raising a curtain of tortured seawater two hundred feet high, dumping tons of saltwater on Lion’s weather decks.
“Mother of God,” a lookout’s voice agonized through the voice tube. “The QM.”
Geoffry swung his periscope astern. Queen Mary—sister to Lion and the third ship in column astern of Princess Royal—was only fifteen hundred yards behind Lion. Geoffry watched with awe as the battle cruiser glowed red amidships like a furnace in a steel mill and then opened up with great balls of flame, pulsing suns that rolled skyward hurling men and chunks of steel and debris in a huge circle. With disbelief, he saw her fifty-foot steam picket boat soar three hundred feet straight up. But there was no sound; Lion’s own guns and the roar of Lützow’s incoming salvos drowning out everything. Then Queen Mary was gone, leaving only a spreading brown mushroom cloud to mark her end.
Magazines! Magazines! “First Indefatigable and now QM,” Geoffry cried to himself, shuddering and staring at his own jammed hoists.
There was a clang of steel striking steel, a whiplash detonation that shattered his eardrums and hurled him to the deck like a sack of potatoes. Heat. Screams. The choking, pungent odor of trotyl explosives. Stars flashed in his head and eyes—some from the crashing impact with the floor plates, others retinal memories of the flash of the exploding shell.
Lying on his back, he wondered if he were dead. Incongruously, there was a fresh breeze blowing the smoke away and he could see the ship’s after mast and more stars overhead. Not stars in his scrambled brain or overwhelmed retinas, but real stars and constellations. And his hearing was returning. Then he felt more heat. Smelled cordite. Heard a high soul-wrenching wail like an animal caught in the steel jaws of a trap.
Despite terrible pain in his chest where the Dumaresq calculator had struck him breaking ribs and tearing flesh, and spitting blood from a tongue lacerated by his jarred teeth, he pulled himself to his feet by gripping the ruined, bent control board. Looking to the rear, holding his ribs and spitting blood, he saw Halstead and his ratings where they had found death in a common heap of smashed bones and mingling blood and viscera. Screams turned him to the gun bay. Tilted skyward at maximum elevation from the weight of the breech mechanisms, the breechblocks of both guns were open, spewing smoke and bits of burning silk. Not one member of the gun crews was on his feet. Both rammermen were dead, one cut nearly in half, intestines snaked on the deck in a heap, the other almost decapitated and hurled into a corner where he oozed blood from severed veins. Gunner Dennis Harwich was draped over the breechblock of the right gun, the yellow custard contents of his skull pouring onto the deck from a head shattered like a dropped melon. Both primermen were stretched full length on the deck either dead or unconscious while the two powder cradle operators had been smashed to bloody pulp and lay side by side moaning.
Again the animal wailed. It was gun captain Stephen Chalmers, seated with his back to the breech of the left gun, holding his stomach. Blood welled between his fingers and a bit of intestines protruded like a gray snake. Two ripped powder bags were at his feet and cordite was scattered over the deck and piled in corners.
Holding his chest and choking back an atavistic urge to run, to flee this slaughterhouse, the turret captain shook his head and looked up. With
his brain clearing, he realized that an enemy shell had hit the turret’s front plate at its joint with the roof plate, blowing the top off the turret like peeling the top off a tin of bully beef. Lion was in danger of blowing up like her sisters.
A flash of flame turned him back to the gun bay. A small pile of cordite next to the left gun was flaring. Again the impulse to run. But Lion would die—die hideously like Indefatigable and QM. More flames. Heat. A trail of fire across the deck, snaking toward ripped bags and the loaded hoists. Praying that the circuits were still intact, he reached up to the ruined control board and threw the red switch.
Instantly, the emergency gong rang in the magazines and Higgins knew Marine Major Harvey would flood the racks of powder and shells. Just as the sound of high-pressure water reached his ears, fire crept to the broken bags of cordite. There was the flash like a thousand suns at noon and Geoffry Higgins had time only to scream “Brenda!” once before his immolation.
I
Fog-filtered sunlight crept into the room muting the color of the royal blue bedspread pulled back from the George III gilt-wood bed. It was a large room hung with Raphael tapestries, paintings by Vuillard and Renoir, and with French windows that gave on the misty Kent countryside. If the morning had been clear, one could have seen broad views of the Kentish weald as far as Canterbury, dappled with cherry and apple blossoms. A proud William and Mary cabinet stood against one wall and a massive Chippendale library table squatted in front of the windows. It was beautiful, enormous, sterile, and cold, and would have dominated any room except this one.
Brenda Higgins stood quietly, looking out at the weald. She despised southeast England in the spring. In fact, she loathed the whole damp, foggy country regardless of the season. Every day thunderheads built up all around, tall silver ranges of clouds turning purple gray and sullen leaden blues threatening rain but never making good that threat, though thunder rumbled and lightning flickered on the horizon like dueling armies. June was a time for Cannes, Greece, Monte Carlo, or Capri, yet, because of “Kaiser Willie,” travel was restricted and civilized people were forced to give up their Mediterranean spring. June of 1916 was especially depressing. With the war two years old and no end in sight, she looked forward gloomily like a prisoner of old Newgate to more confinement in the rambling old house.