The Blooding of the Guns

by The Blooding of the Guns (retail) (epub)

  ‘Pass ’em out, there’s a good fellow.’

  Bantry seemed suddenly to lurch; a sudden plunge. For about five seconds there was a total silence on her decks, as if everyone alive or half alive was holding his breath: that thump could have been a bulkhead going, the beginning of the end. David was bent forward with the open cigarette-case out in his left hand. He froze in that position, and the rattling and groaning of the cruiser’s fabric and the rush of the sea along her sides were the only sounds anyone could hear. Then a sailor called boisterously, ‘Who ’ad beans for ’is breakfast, then?’

  A roar of laughter cracked the silence, and an oily hand took David’s last cigarette. He snapped the case shut, and felt in another pocket: ‘Here. Match…’

  ‘Ah you’re a toff sir. Mind lightin’ it? Can‘t see, not too clear.…’

  Not too clear. You could see, under the edges of the strip of bandage, the cordite-burns that had blinded him.

  ‘Look, David.’ West was groping in his pockets, ‘We’ve got cigarettes in the wardroom store—’ he cocked an eyebrow ‒ ‘and I don’t think fishes smoke… Here. This key, the small one. And this one’s the pusser’s stores ‒ there’s tins of pipe and chewing tobacco, you could get them too. All you can carry. Mind you lock the wardroom store behind you; we don’t want liquor circulating.’

  David stared at the grey sea sliding past: it was so impersonal that it was terrifying. It swallowed whatever it was given, and afterwards it looked the same: like that – secretive, malevolent… His hand tightened on the ring of keys, and he felt their edges bite into his palm. It was knowing what was happening down there, what had happened. Men trapped, others working to beat the fires and cut through to them: a sweet stench of blood which on its own was enough to make you vomit, and in it the reek of burnt corticene and paint and rubber cables. Pockets of cordite gas. Worst of all, the bodies and parts of bodies. There’d been one in the armoured grating above the for’ard boiler-room; it had been blow half through the grating. The surgeons were dealing with the wounded, not the dead, and the engineers were trying to reach the living. The dead stayed where they’d been thrown or dropped or—

  David opened his hand, stared at the keys as if he was wondering what they were, or whose… West was frowning, looking at him in that odd way again: ‘David? Will you do that?’

  ‘I’m – working out what’s the best route.’ He pointed at the base of the bridge superstructure. ‘In that way, I suppose, and down to the middle deck and aft along the port side, through the messes. If the fires are still mostly on the starboard side—’

  West slapped him on the back. ‘That’s it! Go on, they’ll bless you for it!’

  The blinded stoker had eased himself down on to one elbow. He waved the hand that held the cigarette: ‘All together now, lads! One ‒ two ‒ four ‒ It’s a long way—’

  He had a voice like a rusty hinge, but all his mates were joining in. David was on his way down the buckled ladder. He was reminding himself to walk carefully down there: the torn steel had sharp edges, razor-sharp, and it was easy enough to pick a safe path where the oil-lamps had been lit, but with a wrong step or a slip and blood in areas where the carnage had been worst did make it slippery ‒ where the compartments weren’t fully lit—

  Behind him the song rose, swelling: … to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know—

  Chapter 9

  At 9 pm the enemy was entirely out of sight, and the threat of torpedo boat destroyer attacks during the rapidly approaching darkness made it necessary for me to dispose the fleet for the night with a view to its safety from such attacks whilst providing for a renewal of the action at daylight. I accordingly manoeuvred to remain between the enemy and his bases…

  There were many gallant deeds performed by the destroyer flotillas: they surpassed the very highest expectations that I had formed of them.

  From paragraphs 20 and 24 of Sir John Jellicoe’s Despatch

  Nile forged southwards into fading light astern of the other Queen Elizabeths. In less than half an hour it would be dark.

  Hugh glanced at Mowbray, who was waiting in his usual stolid manner to take over as officer of the watch. The fleet had fallen-out from action stations; they’d stand-to again at two o’clock just before first light.

  ‘All right Mowbray. Course south two hundred revolutions. She’s all yours.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Hugh wondered what thoughts ‒ if any ‒ passed through the head behind Lieutenant Mowbray’s deadpan countenance. He’d never managed to draw the man out at all. His thoughts changed and he forgot him now, wondered what sort of night lay ahead. Jellicoe wouldn’t want a night action. But if Scheer tried to break through again, he’d have one anyway.

  The sea looked like oiled silk. Shiny, opalescent, with a haze like polish floating on it. Here and there, according to patches of thicker or thinner mist, the shine disappeared, and where that happened you could see that the surface was dimpled, slightly fleck-marked by the wind.

  ‘How’s the barometer, Pilot?’

  ‘Down a little, sir.’

  A wind would be an ally for Jellicoe. Wind dispersed mist, kept fog away, allowed the dog to see the bone. It was to be hoped – expected – that with the morning light of the first day of June the bone would be there to be grasped and crushed.

  There’d been some kind of action about an hour ago, down in the south-west, when the battle fleet had been steaming west to get closer to the enemy. Almost certainly it had been Beatty’s battle cruisers brushing against some outlying German squadron. Perhaps a cruiser action: but it had sounded like big guns. It was all quiet again now.

  Without wireless ‒ and Nile’s equipment was smashed beyond any kind of emergency repair ‒ one knew very little of what was going on. Only what could be seen, and signals passed by light or flags. The destroyer flotillas, for instance, had just been ordered to take up screening stations five miles astern of the battle fleet.

  The battleship divisions were each in line ahead and one mile on each other’s beams. Jellicoe in Iron Duke was leading the Fourth Division, which came roughly in the centre of the fleet, with three files of battleships on his starboard hand and the fifth to port, between him and these Queen Elizabeths. Outside this squadron ‒ actually on Nile’s port quarter, since they’d dropped back by two or three miles now were the Sixth Division, led by Marlborough. Marlborough, as a result of that torpedo hit on her earlier in the evening, was finding it difficult to maintain the ordered speed of seventeen knots.

  ‘Mowbray ‒ has the commander had his supper d’you know?’

  Mowbray nodded. ‘He was in the wardroom for about five minutes, sir. I think he had some sandwiches. He’s doing rounds of the messdecks now, sir.’

  Hugh turned aft. ‘Bates?’

  ‘Sir.’ A figure detached itself from the mounting of the twenty-four-inch searchlight. Bates had been chatting to the yeoman of the watch. ‘Supper, sir? Ready when you like, sir.’

  ‘Hot?’

  ‘’otter ’n that, sir!’

  ‘Right. In my ‒ the navigating officer’s sea-cabin, please.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  Hugh paused, looking out to starboard. There, against a dulling sky and a fading sea, was Admiral Gaunt’s Fifth Division: Colossus, Neptune, St Vincent, Collingwood. The King’s son, Sub-Lieutenant Prince Albert, was an assistant turret officer in Collingwood. Beyond Gaunt’s division was Sturdee’s ‒ with Jellicoe leading it in Iron Duke ‒ and that was where young Nick must be. There could hardly have been time for anything to have been done about his transfer to a cruiser or destroyer; one could only hope he hadn’t yet actually gone under report. And at least he’d been in action, had a taste of fighting, and that might help.

  David would know what action felt like too, if the smoke-laying cruiser had been Bantry. She’d certainly been one of the Minotaurs, and Rathbone had thought it was Bantry. Whoever she was, a natural appreciation of her captain’s intention to assis
t was tempered by a conviction that his judgement had been at fault. By the time he’d made his move, Nile had been through the worst of it; the Germans had been about to lose one target, and he’d presented them with a new one.

  Nile’s gauntlet-running in aid of Warspite had been a very different matter. For one thing, the timing had been right, and Nile was armoured to withstand punishment, which a cruiser of that class was not. But thinking about judgement, good or bad ‒ in the first minute after he’d put the helm over, hadn’t he been wondering whether he might have made a terrible mistake? Judgement ‒ or snatching at a chance?

  He told himself, judgement by instinct. One had seen what needed doing, and that it could be done. That cruiser captain had followed suit without recognising the differences in their situations.

  It was getting really dark now. He looked ahead, at Malaya. The gleam of white under her counter was as easy to follow as any stern-light. It would seem strange, when the war ended, to have ships festooned with lights again.

  ‘Pilot ‒ are we on the top line with recognition signals?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’re listed in the chartroom.’

  The yeoman of the watch PO Brannan, said, ‘Signalmen’ve got it all weighed-off too, sir.’

  Hugh went down the ladder, to his purloined cabin. Bates was standing by a tray of food. He’d stiffened to attention; he had a tendency, in that position, to rise and fall slightly on his toes. Hands cramped against his thighs, thumbs pointing downwards among the inverted creases of bell-bottoms.

  ‘What’s the menu, Cox’n?’

  ‘Beef stew, dumplings, boiled spuds and carrots, sir!’

  ‘In the middle of a battle?’ Hugh sat down. ‘A few hours ago I was thinking you’d have been wise if you’d gone on with your swimming lessons.’

  Bates’s brown eyes blinked at him. ‘I got ’eavy bones, sir, that’s my trouble. Waste o’ time, all that… But beggin’ your pardon, sir, you done a treat. Reckon we’ll be ’oistin’ an admiral’s flag ’fore long, sir.’

  Hugh smiled. ‘Looking forward to flag rank, are you?’

  ‘Better ’n a crack on the snout sir wouldn’t it.’ Bates looked down at the tray ‘That’s the last o’ the good Stilton, sir… Coffee after, sir?’

  ‘No. A mug of cocoa, please. Any casualties in the gig’s crew?’

  ‘Robertson, sir. Shell-splinter in ’is arse Must ’a bin facin’ the wrong way, I tol’ ’im.’

  Robertson was a Glasgow man; he was a marksman and he’d done well in the Scapa rifle-shooting competitions.

  ‘You’ll have to replace him, temporarily. Pity.’

  Bates looked surprised. ‘’E’s not ’urt bad, sir.’

  ‘You think he can sit on a thwart and pull an oar, with a splinter in his backside?’

  ‘Useful ’and, is Robertson.’ Bates wasn’t a man to change his mind once he’d made it up. ‘’E’ll soon ’arden, sir.’

  * * *

  Petty Officer Toomey stood aside as they reached the ladder to the foc’sl. David stopped too, looking at him enquiringly. It was more than halfway to being dark now.

  ‘After you, sir!’ The petty officer’s voice was cheerful, encouraging. David climbed the steel stairway to the higher level.

  On the turret roof, Marine bandsmen were churning out their repertoire. It wasn’t doing much for anyone; there was a sort of incongruity about it, and West was wishing he’d left the men to their own sing-song. The cable party had finished ranging the cable ten minutes ago, with two shackles ‒ twenty-five fathoms ‒ up on the foc’sl. There’d been no point getting more up, and the light was going. West had had a bar put through one link of cable above the navel-pipe; they’d hove-in until the bar had the cable’s weight, then disconnected the capstan and unrigged its bars and swifter. At least the operation had made the men feel something positive was happening: the worst thing for morale was inaction. He’d told them, ‘That’s the best we can do, until tomorrow. Be easier in daylight.’

  He saw Toomey coming with David Everard, and went aft to meet them.

  ‘Hey, no smokes?’

  ‘What?’

  David Everard was gazing up at the bandsmen. They were at about half strength, as a band, and they were playing Billy Boy. Toomey told West quietly, drawing him aside, ‘Found ’im just wand’rin’ about, sir. Talkin’ to ’imself and not makin’ much sense, sir. I thought I oughter bring ’im along like ‒ well—’

  Toomey was embarrassed. West swore, under his breath. He put a hand on David’s shoulder.

  ‘Did you go to the stores, David?’

  ‘Stores?’

  Concentrating… Stores?

  He’d been on his way aft, through the messdecks on the port side, trying not to see more than he had to on his way through. This had been the worst, here; shells had penetrated and then burst when the compartment had been full of ammunition-supply parties, damage-control parties, a stand-by fire brigade. None of the dead had been moved ‒ well, who’d have done it? There were parts, bits of bodies, things your foot struck and moved… Had to be careful, avoid the sharp edges of lacerating steel, because a leather shoe-sole wasn’t proof against them; you trod in a puddle that was dark, looked like oil, and the surface broke and it was red, bright red…

  ‘Everard! Everard, my dear fellow!’

  Stench…

  ‘Everard, old chap?’

  Pickering, the padre. Looking more like a fugitive from a chain-gang than a man of God; blackened, blood-stained, hair on end, clothes torn, eyes that seemed to be all whites in a dirty, bruised-looking face. He looked as if he’d been fighting for his life: and there was an excitement ‒ no. desperation ‒ in his manner as he grabbed David’s arms and peered into his face.

  ‘You’re just the man I need to help me, Everard!’

  ‘I was on my way to get some stuff for—’

  ‘I shan’t detain you long, old chap!’ The chaplain’s action duty was with the first-aid parties, the part-of-ship back-up to the medical organisation. David wondered what he might be doing down here on his own. In the yellowish gleam of oil lamps, there were only horrors here.

  ‘Listen, Everard ‒ there’s someone still alive in this compartment! I know it for a fact! We were bringing the last of the stretchers through ‒ we were using the wardroom and officers’ cabins as an emergency hospital, you know, but with the water coming in aft naturally we had to move the chaps, you see ‒ well the last time we passed through this messdeck, just about this very spot, I heard some poor fellow cry out “Help help me”.’

  Pickering had waved an arm, indicating the whole length of the compartment. David stared at that hand as it fell back to the padre’s side; it was wet, gleaming red, with blood. He looked down at his own sleeves, where the man’s hands had grasped him: the dark stains looked like mourning bands.

  If one had to pick through bodies, heaps of dead, pieces—

  ‘I must try to find him, Everard, d’you see? Or at least be certain… The thought that some poor creature might be lying here alive, under—’ the hand waved again, and the padre smiled, a fierce, determined, almost threatening smile: ‘You will help? My dear chap, thank you, thank you!’ He’d pointed: ‘I’ve got as far as ‒ there… From the after bulkhead. If you were to start on that side, perhaps at the other end?’ He seized David’s arm again. ‘It’s not ‒ not a pleasant task, Everard.’ His voice had a shake in it. ‘One needs all ‒ all one’s strength. Or it may be ‒ God’s strength?’ That fanatic’s smile again and then it faded. ‘Well ‒ I cannot begin to express my gratitude…’

  Corpse by corpse. The foul, sweet stench and everywhere the ‒ the detritus…

  West leant forward, peered into David’s face.

  ‘You were going to bring up some cigarettes and things.’

  Everard looked surprised.

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Did you not go to the store?’

  ‘Store?’ David shook his head. ‘Look here.’ He showed West his ha
nds. ‘It’s everywhere.’ He began to laugh.

  ‘Oh Christ…’ West turned away, and spoke to the petty officer. ‘All right. Toomey, thank you. I’ll look after him.’

  ‘Right, sir. But‒ sir—’

  ‘Commander Clark’s down there, sir, where they’re tryin’ to get through to the engine-room, an’ he’s just about done in, sir.’

  ‘I’ll go down, in a minute.’ Johnny West looked up at the bridge, at the black ridge of its forefront silhouetted against the comparative lightness of the sky. There was more wind than there’d been all day: he could feel it on his face. He wondered if he could get Everard up there, out of the crowd, where he might be able to pull himself together. This ship’s company was marvellous: disciplined, brave, cheerful, more impressive than he thought he’d ever be able to express. The last thing one wanted was to have an officer wandering among them in this condition. Shock or madness ‒ the label you put on it made no difference. Everard had seemed peculiar earlier on: then he’d seemed to get better… West took his arm and drew him towards the ladder.

  ‘Let’s go up on the bridge, David. Up where it’s—’

  The starboard engine stopped.

  Sound, vibration, had abruptly ceased. There was a thin hissing sound from a steam-pipe on one of the funnels and you could see the whiteness pluming out. Like ectoplasm: Bantry giving up her ghost. As she lost way, she seemed to slump lower in the sea. The bandsmen stopped playing; they stopped one by one, so that the music died disjointedly, and now the silence was emphasised by the swish of sea alongside and that leaking steam.

  West looked round, at the pale faces of men patiently awaiting orders, guidance.

  ‘Lieutenant West!’

  Clark, the commander was using his short arms to haul himself jerkily up the foc’sl ladder. ‘Lieutenant West here?’

  ‘Here, sir.’ West met him, and saluted. Toomey had been right, Clark did look just about all-in. He could hardly stand. He panted, clinging to the handrail of the ladder for support. ‘Put lines on the rafts you’ve made, and get ’em over the side. Hold ’em there. Drop a scrambling-net over ‒ then get the wounded into the rafts.’