‘Load!’
He passed the steel bar over to the captain of the left gun, and went quickly back to his seat to lay the gun by pointer, following the director’s. The gun was ready just in time, and the second the interceptor switch was shut, it fired. They were loading again: cage up, rammer thudding over, projectile up the spout and then the charge hard up behind it. Cartwright thought he’d take a look, see what was happening out there; he got up, and put his eyes to the periscope.
Nothing. They’d heard a few German shells hit, from time to time, and one of them had blown muck of some sort over the outer glass. He could see some sort of wreckage; could be anything, just black. He felt Nile turning. He was back on his seat quickly, he kept the pointers lined up: gun ready ‒ fired ‒ recoiling ‒ running out… loading again, and no problems now. He spoke to Captain Blackaby on the telephone.
‘Cartwright here, sir. Don’t matter so bad, since we’re in director-firing but this periscope’s fouled up outside, sir. ’Appen we’d go in local control, wouldn’t be too easy, sir. Dunno we might send a hand out?’
Blackaby peered through the cabinet’s periscope. Nile had turned to port, and so had the ships ahead of her. It was a ‘blue’ turn, which had left the squadron in quarter-line, but the turrets had trained round on to the starboard quarter and still bore on the enemy.
‘If we get a chance, I’ll see to it.’ He hung the navyphone back on its hook. Midshipman Mellors suggested. ‘Say the word, sir, and I’ll nip out. Shouldn’t take a second.’ Blackaby was using the periscope again, and for a moment or two he didn’t answer. Warspite, for some reason that was difficult to fathom, had suddenly gone off on her own. She’d hauled out between the squadron and the enemy; and Nile, for the moment, couldn’t shoot at all. If there was ever going to be a moment to clear that periscope, this was it. He buzzed the gunner’s mate.
‘Cartwright. I’m sending Midshipman Mellors out. Break both interceptors.’
‘Aye aye, sir!’
With interceptor switches broken, the guns couldn’t be fired. And if ‘Y‘ turret did ‒ which was unlikely, in the next half-minute ‒ it would be on that after bearing, pointing the other way. It might frighten the snotty, but it wouldn’t hurt him.
‘Both guns at half-cock, sir!’
‘Right… Go on, Mellors. Be damn quick, eh?’
The boy scuttled out, and the hatch clanged shut behind him. Blackaby watched through his periscope, wondering what Warspite was up to. She certainly couldn’t be doing it for fun: she was being hit hard and often. It occurred to him that she might be out of control with steering jammed, or ‒ Christ, but the Huns were going for her! He felt Nile’s lurch as she began a sharp turn to starboard; checking on Malaya, the next ahead, he realised that this was yet another solo effort. The turret trained exactly as fast as the ship swung, since the director kept its sights trained on the enemy and the turrets followed the director. Nile was still under helm; still swinging, anyway: and Blackaby guessed that she was going out of the line to cover Warspite who was quite obviously in bad trouble. There wasn’t any other explanation.
Where the blazes was that snotty? Blackaby bit his lip; time was a peculiar thing, in action. Fifteen seconds could seem to take five minutes. But surely—
‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘Y’ turrets all fired.
He heard salvoes hitting, as German gunners switched to the new target which was being presented to them. Shut in an armoured turret it was difficult to know where the hits had been; there’d been savage, penetrating clangs and the deep thuds of detonations below decks. Three ‒ four ‒ and the other turrets had all fired again… Brook was calling on the navyphone from the Control Top.
‘What’s wrong, Blackaby?’
Blackaby told him he’d sent a man out to clear an obstructed periscope.
‘Well, for God’s sake get him back inside!’
‘Right.’
How? Panic stations up there, by the sound of it. The moment had not, after all, been such a good one to clear that damn thing. How long had Mellors been outside ‒ a minute? Less? Two salvoes, that would account for a minute and a third one now… Nile had steadied, but she’d begun a new turn, the other way: there was a thunderous explosion which seemed ‒ felt ‒ to have been astern, and Blackaby had nothing in front of his periscope but smoke.
Cartwright, waiting for his glass to be cleared, was just as anxious. He was thinking they ought to shut the interceptors and get back into action. Things were much too brisk up top for a turret to be standing idle, and it seemed obvious that the midshipman must have come to grief. Even if he hadn’t, the guns would only break his eardrums.
The periscope was clear, suddenly. There was smoke, where before there’d been something solid: smoke, swirling thickly. Nile was being battered and that smoke was from shell-bursts; if you were out there, it’d be enough to gas you if you weren’t already dead. He put a hand on the navyphone and saw Midshipman Mellors’ face in the smoke. The boy’s eyes were staring at him ‒ into the glass of the periscope ‒ wide, dead eyes. Mellors was crouched on the roof of the turret, kneeling, bent over, staring at the periscope and his arms clamped across his belly. He seemed to be clasping a mass of blood and as he toppled sideways Cartwright saw it all just fall away… He ‒ Cartwright – had the navyphone in his fist: he raised it, and reported. ‘Midshipman Mellors is dead sir. Periscope’s clear.’ Mellors’ remains slid, vanished over the turret’s edge. Blackaby snapped ‘Salvoes – director firing right gun commencing ‒ recock!’
Back to four-gun salvoes…
In the torpedo control tower, just above ‘X’ turret and for’ard of it, Midshipman Greenlaws had been watching the movements of his friend Mellors and he’d seen everything that had happened to him. Greenlaws was leaning with his face against the starboard sighting hole: he felt sick and weak. He was leaning there when the first detonation of ‘X’ turret’s guns for two minutes flung him backwards against the corner of the range-finder, and knocked thoughts of sickness out of his head. Knox-Wilson, the torpedo lieutenant, said sharply. ‘And that was your own damn fault. Mid!’
He’d spoken roughly ‒ out of impatience and also because Greenlaws was a bright lad, by no means wet or soft, and he needed reminding of it. There was also the question of setting an example to the other members of this control tower’s crew. Knox-Wilson told Pugh, the communications rating, ‘Ask Mr Askell what progress he’s making.’ Pugh was putting his hand out to the navyphone when its light began to flash; Knox-Wilson muttered, his words lost in the screech of a salvo tearing overhead. ‘Speak of the devil…’ His eyes were on the smoke pouring out of Nile’s bridge superstructure, streaming away over her port quarter; sparks flew in it… But he was right, it was the torpedo gunner on the navyphone, and he was telling Ordinary Seaman Pugh, ‘The bugger’s clear now. You can use it when you want.’
‘Wait, sir, please.’ Pugh passed the message to Knox-Wilson, who nodded. ‘Good. Tell him—’ he paused, as the guns crashed out lobbing another fifteen-inch salvo at the enemy ‒ tell him—’ Deep thuds and the crack of hits came from somewhere for’ard; shell-spouts leapt in a close group flinging black water at the funnels. Knox-Wilson roared, ‘Tell him I’m firing soon, he’d better stay there!’
Askell was in the for’ard torpedo flat, which was way down below the waterline ‒ six, seven decks below the air and daylight and just for’ard of ‘A’ turret’s revolving hoist. The torpedo flat occupied the full width of the ship, with one tube aimed out on each side. The starboard one had run into trouble some while ago; they’d fired from the after torpedo flat at longish range, and as they were now a lot closer to the enemy it seemed a good time to take another shot.
‘Range?’
A salvo ripped over and burst just off the quarter. Nile had taken a fair number of hits: there’d have been far more if it hadn’t been for the way she’d been handled, the erratic dodging. Knox-Wilson wondered how many shells had penetrated, what things might b
e like below decks. ‘What’s the range, Kilfeather, damn it!’
He was trying to line-up his torpedo-firing disc, and being under constant helm wasn’t making it any easier… Leading Torpedoman Kilfeather, the range-taker, reported finally. ‘One-double-oh, sir.’
‘So if we take their course as north-east by east, the distance off track will be…’ he was muttering to himself, fiddling with the disc, and now peering over Greenlaws’ shoulder at the plotter. ‘H’m.’ He nodded, and yelled at Pugh, ‘Stand by!’
Greenlaws had worked out the deflection. Kilfeather, with his eyes at the lenses of the range-finder, called suddenly, ‘Range about to be obscured, sir!’ Knox-Wilson leant to the sighting hole, and stared out; he saw a cruiser laying smoke, coming southwards at high speed; she was about to pass and hang the curtain of her smoke between Nile and the tail end of the German line. Within seconds they’d be cut off from each other’s sight; and with the cruiser where she was there was no chance of getting a torpedo away quickly, before that happened. Arriving on an opposite course as she had, she’d less approached than suddenly appeared.
The enemy’s salvoes were already thinning out. But the cruiser was about to pay for interfering in the Germans’ sport. Ahead of her the sea was alive with shell-fire. They were smaller splashes, probably from the battleships’ secondary armament, but it amounted to a rain of fire, an explosive hailstorm she was steaming into. From the shape of her forepart, which except for the brown cordite haze flung out by her own guns was clear of smoke, he guessed she was one of the Minotaur class. She’d almost passed now: watching her, Knox-Wilson found himself willing her to turn, praying she’d put her helm over now, retire behind her own smoke-cover. She’d done the job: he whispered in his mind, Now go on, get out of it for God’s sake!
At last. .He realised he’d been holding his breath. He let it out, and sat back a bit.
Nile was getting out of it, too; turning away. There’d have been no chance now of firing that torpedo. She was swinging her stern towards the Germans, who would probably still have her masts and upperworks in sight above the smoke: but they wouldn’t have for much longer, in any case it was the cruiser they were bombarding now. He saw a salvo hit her as she altered round; two hits amidships, twin orange bursts of flame that seemed to split the swirling smoke, and then a streak of fire that shot up the side of her bridge superstructure. Seeing it, imagining what it might be like to be on that bridge, he winced; and in the same instant a new salvo came whistling down on Nile.
* * *
Lieutenant-Commander Mortimer was staring aft, with his binoculars levelled at an area of smoke way out over his destroyer’s starboard quarter. He was trying to catch some glimpse of Nile or Warspite or of the cruiser Warrior.
There was still a vast quantity of smoke down there, and he couldn’t see any of them; it was only that in these changeable conditions of visibility one did from time to time get a clearance, an unexpected view through haze which as suddenly clamped down again. He’d seen Defence blow up; in fact her destruction must have been witnessed from as many as fifty different ships, when the battle fleet had been starting its deployment and every Tom, Dick and Harry had been rushing across its van. He’d also seen Warrior reeling from salvo after salvo, burning, slowing to a crawl, trying to creep away somewhere like a wounded animal to lick her wounds. That German cruiser ‒ he’d thought she might be the Wiesbaden ‒ which Defence’s squadron had rushed out to attack, had been still afloat though burning from end to end, and a destroyer ‒ Onslow, from Lanyard’s own flotilla ‒ had had a crack at her with torpedoes, and scored a hit, but got badly smashed-up herself in the process: she’d lain stopped, licking her wounds, then incredibly got going again for a solo attack on the Hun battleships. He’d lost track of her about then because it had been at this stage that he’d seen Warspite’s helm jam.
Lanyard had been on the Fifth Battle Squadron’s port bow, then, shaping course to get round astern of the battle fleet. There’d been no shells falling near them ‒ which had made a pleasant change, a breathing-space ‒ and there’d been no visible prospect of action in the immediate future: so when Everard came up to the bridge to report he’d completed various jobs, it had been a good moment to send him down to do another. Consequently Everard hadn’t seen Nile come out and charge the enemy: and that might be just as well.
Considering all things, Lanyard herself had been lucky, so far. When one thought of Nestor and Nomad, left behind… Nestor’s captain, Bingham, had waved a ‘leave-us-to-it’ signal to Nicator. It wouldn’t have made sense to have hung around and there would have been no time to take her in tow. Even to have attempted it would have been a matter of throwing away another ship; it would have cost lives, not saved them. But it still hadn’t been easy, to steam away and leave one’s friends in the lurch.
‘Sir. You sent for me.’
Mortimer glanced round, and saw Worsfold, his commissioned engineer.
‘So I did.’ Worsfold’s face was set, inscrutable. The man had that kind of face anyway, but there was also the circumstance ‒ which was in both their minds ‒ that the last time he’d appeared on the bridge Mortimer had threatened him with death.
It was when he’d just left Nestor sinking, and lost two officers and Lanyard’s coxswain. Worsfold had picked a bad time to come up with his bleat about how the destroyer’s engines should or should not be used.
‘All right now, Chief‘?’
‘I’d say we eased up just in time, sir.’ Worsfold hesitated. ‘Used a lot of fuel, of course. But so long as there’s no more prolonged high- speed—’
‘You know damn well I can’t guarantee anything of the sort!’
They stared at each other. Worsfold added. ‘Slight leak on one feed-tank, sir. We can cope with it if it gets no worse.’
‘What caused it?’
‘A hit aft, sir. I think when the gun went overboard.’
‘Yes.’ Mortimer nodded. He cleared his throat. ‘Chief, I’m afraid I lost my temper, earlier on. I apologise, and I congratulate you on the job you’ve been doing. You and your staff.’
The engineer’s thin lips twitched. Mortimer had turned to stare at the destroyer ahead of Lanyard; she’d done a sudden jink to port, but it had probably been only a helmsman’s momentary aberration. In any case, Hastings had his eyes on her. Worsfold murmured, ‘No firing squad this time, sir?’
‘Chief.’
‘Sir.’
‘I can’t stand having my bridge cluttered-up with bloody plumbers. Get to hell off it, would you?’
Hastings winked at Worsfold as he turned away. At the same moment, the battle fleet’s hitherto sporadic gunfire seemed to thicken, solidify and rise to a crescendo, as if every ship in the vast line of dreadnoughts had suddenly found a target.
Mortimer had whipped up his glasses.
‘My God, look at that!’
Emerging from thick haze in the south was the head of Scheer’s battle line. And the leading German battleship, as she came thrusting out of the murk into clearer air, was being hit simultaneously by Agincourt, Bellerophon, Conqueror, Thunderer, Hercules, Colossus, Benbow, Iron Duke, Orion, Monarch, Royal Oak, and Revenge.
The leading German ship had burst into flames. Her whole forepart was ablaze, and the rest was smoke.
‘She’s turning away!’
Mortimer added, murmuring it to himself, ‘Can’t say I blame her…’
The battle cruisers up ahead, who had also felt the rough edge of Jellicoe’s welcome, had swung off to starboard, and the front division of Scheer’s dreadnoughts was now following them. The entire High Seas Fleet was tightening its curve away to starboard as its leaders flinched from the concentrated fire-power of the British squadrons.
Nick, with Garret close behind him, climbed into the bridge. Blewitt muttered, pointing, ‘They’re blowin’ the ’uns to kingdom come, sir!’
The mist was lifting. Three, four, six German battleships were in sight now, and all of them were
being hit repeatedly. Scheer, the layer of traps, must know now ‒ now, in what must have been his most terrible moment ever ‒ that what he’d steamed into was the mother and father of all traps. Jellicoe’s deployment, the decision he’d taken on no more than scraps of information, had put his squadrons into the perfect position for the destruction of the High Seas Fleet.
The noise of the cannonade was tremendous; and in between the crashes of gunfire and the echoes of bursting shells there was a new sound ‒ cheering. Guns’ crews, bridge and signals’ staffs, every man on any upper deck ‒ their cheers rose, swelled, rolled across the grey-green sea from ship to ship and were drowned only in the renewed thunder of the guns. The smoke and flames of detonating shells smothered the German line. They were shooting back, but compared to the punishment being dealt out to them it was no more than a token resistance as their line bent, sheered away. And as the leaders turned, others were pressing up astern to get their rations.
Mortimer, holding his glasses in his left hand and pointing with the other, shouted, ‘They’re running away, by God!’
Whenever there was a view of German ships, through gaps in the British line and where the mist was thinnest. Scheer’s battleships were swinging away to starboard in a simultaneous about-turn. They were reversing their course, retreating into the cover of the mist.
One had heard quite a lot of this emergency-turn manoeuvre. The Germans had one of their long words for it, which when translated, meant, ‘Battle-Turn-Away’ – a splendidly Teutonic euphemism for ‘cut and run’!
The Blooding of the Guns Page 17