Ship of Force

by Alan Evans

  Smith swung on Sanders. The Sub-lieutenant looked nervous and unhappy, trying to hide both and failing miserably. Smith remembered that Sanders was almost as much a stranger aboard this ship as he was himself. His promotion from midshipman had brought his appointment to Bloody Mary just two weeks ago. Smith sensed those weeks would not have been easy. When he had visited Sparrow that afternoon he had weighed up her commander and her crew and decided they were a tight-knit band of highly competent, hard-bitten veterans. The fresh young Sub would have a hard time fitting in, being accepted.

  Now Trist had ordered a bombardment and given Ostende to Smith and his tiny flotilla. He hardly knew a man of them except Garrick. And thank God for him, burly, solid, stolid, hardworkingly efficient and loyal. A good man. And Smith knew that even now Garrick would be worrying about his unconventional, unpredictable Commander, with his black moods and prickly temper, left aboard this old thirty-knotter among strangers. Hence the offer of Buckley. Smith found he was grinning again at the thought, saw the bewildered look on Sanders’s face and laughed outright. He saw Gow, the coxswain hauling his long frame up the ladder to the bridge, freeze at that laughter and peer aft, startled.

  Smith said, “All right, Sub.” He walked forward to the bridge. As the parties collected fore and aft and the little bridge filled up they glanced sideways at him, curious, new rumours flying now on the heels of others that had no doubt preceded him. Never mind. They would soon find the truth about each other.

  He looked around the bridge, crowded now with Gow at the wheel, the signalman ready with his lamp, the bosun’s mate at the engine-room telegraphs and the three man crew of the twelve pounder. The bridge was hardly more than a platform for that gun. Smith knew about thirty-knotters, he had commanded one as a very young lieutenant and the memory was green. Like coming home? To a thirty-knotter? Home? That was funny and he was grinning again now. But this was his flotilla, his ships and his men, for better or for worse, and he was taking them to sea.

  Sanders reported breathlessly, “Ready to proceed, sir.”

  It was time to start learning about this young man. Smith said, “Take her out, Sub.”

  * * *

  Sparrow hove to outside in the Roads as Marshall Marmont’s picket boat bucketted out of the darkness on a rising sea, bringing Leading Seaman Buckley to join the thirty-knotter. As she rocked to the sea and the wind that pushed her, Smith had doubts about Trist’s confidence in the weather for the morrow. It was a pitch black night, overcast. The day might start clear enough for shooting, but later…

  Gow glanced at Smith then quickly around the bridge. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  Smith had not missed that careful glance. He stood at Gow’s shoulder. Sanders had shifted out to the wing of the bridge where he watched as the pinnace came alongside. The bridge was still crowded but Gow was close and only Smith would hear him above the sound of the sea. He said, “Go on.”

  The coxswain said, “We’ve got a good ship’s company, sir. She’s a happy ship. I know the name she’s got and there’s no denying we’ve some hard cases that kick ower the traces and get intae trouble ashore, but at sea they’re the best.” He paused. When he did speak again it was as if he had changed his tack. “Yon Mr. Sanders, sir, is promising well. The skipper’s a wee bit hard wi’ the young officers but he likes them well enough. It’s just that he wants a job done right and he’s maybe a bit over strict and the young man takes it too much to heart. But I think he’ll dae fine if Mr. Dunbar’s left alone to bring him along.” He paused again, then: “The skipper’s a tough’un, sir, but fair. Well-liked. I reckon the Commodore has a down on him, sir. I think he doesn’t like the skipper; he should ha’ had promotion to a bigger ship long afore this. He’s been in Sparrow since 1914 and —”

  Smith cut him off. “That’s enough, Coxswain!”

  Gow’s mouth shut like a trap and his eyes fixed on the compass. There came a yell from the waist and Smith, looking aft, saw the pinnace hook on and Buckley swing himself up to the iron deck of the thirty-knotter. The pinnace sheered off, spun on her heel with smoke streaming from her stubby funnel then the midshipman at her wheel straightened her out and sent her plunging away into the night. Smith’s eyes flicked over Gow as he turned back to the bridge, to Sanders coming back to con Sparrow. Smith swore under his breath, thinking that Gow had been rash to try to plead for his captain. He might have hardened Smith if the latter had been in doubt how to act over Dunbar. Smith had not been in doubt, had long ago made his decision, but — But? Gow did not seem a fool or a hasty man. So he had not been pleading but simply endorsing what he was certain was Smith’s decision, expressing his gratitude. And Brodie, too, had said, ‘Thank ye.’

  Was it so obvious then that Smith intended to cover up for Dunbar? Was Smith’s nature so plainly written in his face? He did not want his emotions read so easily. He growled badtemperedly, “Let’s get under way, Mr. Sanders.”

  “Aye, aye, sir! Half ahead both.”

  Brodie came on to the bridge, enamelled mugs hooked on the fingers of one hand, a jug of cocoa steaming in the other. Smith took the proffered mug and sipped at the cocoa that burned his tongue. He asked Brodie, “Well?”

  “Aye, sir. Empty and sleeping.” They were talking about Dunbar. Brodie had got the whisky out of him. He said, “It’s a bluidy shame, sir.” There was genuine concern in the steward’s voice. Gow had said Dunbar was well-liked. Smith watched Brodie clamber down the ladder from the bridge and head aft. The little man had been given some training in first aid because thirty-knotters did not ship a doctor. So Brodie did the best he could for sick or wounded until they could be put ashore. It was a responsibility Smith would not have wanted.

  As he turned to face forward he saw a burly figure at the back of the bridge. Buckley was a big man but he had slipped in there unobtrusively. Smith asked, “All right?”

  “Aye, sir, thank ye.” Buckley sounded cheerful and Smith reflected that life aboard a monitor swinging around her anchor in Dunkerque Roads would not suit Buckley and he was doubtless glad of this change.

  Sanders conned Sparrow through the shipping anchored in the Roads and the shoals off Dunkerque. She slipped through the night past one shadowy, looming ship after another. Sanders’s orders to Gow at the helm were crisp, but Smith could sense his nervousness that jerked the words out of him. The Sub was handling the ship for the first time under the eyes of this new Commander — and Smith knew his own reputation as a shiphandler. So he kept his voice quiet behind Sanders, steadying.

  The Sub-Lieutenant was grateful for it. Another thirty-knotter came up at them out of the darkness, anchor party at work on her turtle-back fo’c’sle. Sparrow swept around her stern and Smith murmured, “That’s Gipsy. She’s escort to the other monitors.”

  The monitors and the drifters were assembling now at Hill’s Pocket, the anchorage to the north-east of Dunkerque, and Sparrow was threading through them. He said, “Marshall Marmont fine on the port bow. You can just see that tall turret of hers.”

  Sanders could. That was distinctive enough. As Sparrow steamed past the monitor he saw that she, like Gipsy, was anchoring in the Pocket to wait for the dawn. But Sparrow steamed on. The port look-out called, “Ship on the port bow!”

  Smith’s head whipped around and he reached for the glasses that hung from their strap on his chest. He had borrowed them from Lorimer, the seventeen-year-old midshipman who was at the chart-table under its hood abaft the first funnel, keeping the ship’s track. Smith started to lift the glasses, but paused. The ship was near enough and clear enough for him to see that she was no enemy destroyer but a drifter. “Ask her number.”

  The signal lamp clattered and seconds later light stuttered erratically from the drifter. The signalman read, “Seven…three…five.” He looked at his list. “That’s Grimsby Lass, sir.”

  Smith told Sanders, “Come about and run alongside her. I want to talk to her skipper.” For Sparrow had been sent to look for two me
n and had precious little information on where to look. ‘Off the Nieuport Bank’ covered a large area of dark sea.

  Sanders ordered, “Port ten.” He sounded a little more confident now, not relaxing but not strung tight any more. Smith noted the tiny signs and grunted approvingly to himself.

  “Port ten…Ten of port wheel on, sir.” replied Gow.

  Sparrow’s head swung through a half-circle until Sanders said, “Ease to five…steady.”

  “Steady on two-oh-five, sir.” intoned Gow.

  Sparrow had turned into the drifter’s wake, was now running down to overhaul her and Sanders waited, eyes on the narrowing gap, then ordered, “Slow ahead both.” The bosun’s mate worked the handles of the engine-room telegraphs and Sparrow’s speed fell away. The way on her took her alongside the drifter but there she stayed, keeping station.

  Sanders ordered, “Hold her there, cox’n.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Sanders had timed it almost perfectly. Was it skill or luck? There had certainly been a little experienced anticipation on the part of Gow at the helm and Smith suspected Sanders was a shade relieved.

  Smith grinned. “That was well done.”

  The drifter was one of scores sent to sea to lay nets or sweep mines, patrol the barrages or escort the fishing fleets. A fishing vessel herself, she was built of wood, around two hundred tons gross with a wheelhouse aft and a three-pounder that was no more than a pop-gun, right in the eyes of her before the foremast. Grimsby Lass was barely creeping, she looked to be wallowing along, lower in the sea than she should be and water jetted continuously in streams from her deck; she was pumping.

  Smith used the bridge megaphone to hail her across the narrow strip of sea that boiled between her and Sparrow. “Grimsby Lass!”

  He saw a figure drop down from the wheelhouse to the drifter’s deck, caught the sheen of oilskins as the skipper lifted his hands to bawl between them, “Aye!”

  “I’m off to search for that Harry Tate you reported down in the sea. What can you tell me?” Smith lowered the megaphone.

  The drifter’s skipper bawled. “We was out on the coast barrage but making for Dunkerque. She was in a fight north of us wi’ three o’ they German fighters. When they turned back for home she turned an’ all and headed for Dunkerque but she was near down and her engine on fire when she passed over us. It was getting dark but near as we could see she came down to seaward of the Nieuport Bank. Judy’s gone to look for her.”

  He paused and Smith said, “You’re pumping. Are you holed?”

  “Not holed. We were sweeping up some Jerry mines. Suppose some U-boat laid ’em. Anyhow, one went off a bit close and sprung the old girl’s timbers. We’re making water but we’ll get home all right so long as we take it steady and keep pumping.” He paused again, then added, “Wished I could ha’ gone wi’ Geordie Byers. He’s skipper o’ the Judy an’ a good seaman but he’s new to the Channel and a hare-brained bugger. You’ll need to watch him. I says to him, ‘You’ll have your work cut out, Geordie, wi’ the dark an all.’ ‘I can burn a flare,’ he says! I told him not to be so bloody silly but I don’t know if it did any good.”

  ‘Bloody silly’ was a mild phrase. It would be madness to burn a flare when the Nieuport Bank was only three or four miles from the enemy-held Belgian coast and the guns there, and barely ten miles from Ostende where the Germans had destroyers and from whence came U-boats. Smith raised the megaphone. “I’ll look out for him. Thank you.”

  The oilskinned figure lifted an arm in acknowledgment.

  Smith ordered, “Port ten.” And “I’ll take her now, Sub.”

  Sanders said, “Lorimer reports course is six-seven degrees, sir, on this leg.”

  Smith had laid off that course himself before Sparrow got to sea. He told Gow, “Course six-seven degrees.”

  And to Sanders, “I want a good man in the chains.” As they would be running through shoal waters.

  “Aye, aye, sir.” answered Sanders. He turned on the bosun’s mate. “Get McGraw. Send him for’ard.”

  It was a long time since Smith had served in the Channel. He would have to remember a lot of things and very quickly. “Revolutions for ten knots.” There were two men in the sea and it was Sparrow’s and Smith’s job to try to save them, but it would do no good to run Sparrow aground or into collision and Geordie Byers’ drifter Judy was somewhere in the darkness ahead.

  They turned to starboard when short of the minefields that closed the gap at the southern end of the mine-net barrage, reduced to five knots and stole over the Smal Bank with McGraw in the chains and swinging the lead, chanting the soundings. Sparrow turned to port, increased to ten knots and headed up the West Deep. To starboard a searchlight stabbed at the night, swept briefly, went out. That was the monitor on guard at La Panne and a landmark for Smith. Nieuport was another, of sorts. There was a glow in the night off the starboard bow that faded then brightened, a pulsing glow from the guns’ firing and the flares that went on through the night and every night. Men were dying there.

  As the men in the RE8 might well be. If they were not already dead. Smith knew something of the effect of a flimsy aeroplane smashing into the solidity of the sea. It would break up. The engine would sink like a stone and drag some of the aircraft down with it. And maybe the men. There would be floating wreckage because the Harry Tate was mostly fabric and wood but spotting that wreckage on a night like this would not be easy. He knew what it must be like for the men in the sea and the darkness, the cold darkness. He shivered and one of the crew of the twelvepounder looked at him curiously. This wasn’t cold. Not really Channel-cold.

  Chapter Two

  They reached the Nieuport Bank. Smith ordered, “Revolutions for five knots.”

  Sanders spoke into the engine-room voice pipe and Sparrow’s speed fell from ten knots to a creeping five. Except for Gow at the wheel and intent on the compass, every man on the bridge and on deck was searching the dark sea for wreckage — or a man. Smith knew how easy it was to run down a man in the sea and so had reduced speed, but even so they would be on him almost as soon as they saw him.

  Smith glanced around as someone climbed on to the bridge. It was Dunbar. Smith said, “Course is five — five degrees and that’s Nieuport coming abeam. We’re looking for a Harry Tate that crashed in the sea a couple of hours ago.”

  Dunbar was silent a moment then said huskily, “Poor devils. It’ll be hell’s own job finding them on a night like this.” His head turned, eyes going over the ship.

  Smith said dryly, “I haven’t bent her nor lost the wireless shack overboard.” Sparrow had not been designed for wireless so the equipment was housed in a shack erected between the first and second funnels.

  Dunbar said stiffly, “Of course not, sir.” Wooden. Formal.

  It irritated Smith. Dunbar wasn’t going to make excuses and he was being stiff-necked. Then Smith with his uncomfortable habit of self-criticism remembered somebody else who could take refuge in being stiff-necked and formal. He smiled wryly and said, “Sanders kept the log. All routine stuff, taking me aboard and so on. You’ll need to make it up.” The log seen by Trist would be completed by Dunbar and signed by him, showing him as being in command throughout.

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Dunbar was silent a moment as he took it in, then: “Thank you, sir.”

  Smith said nothing. That was the end of it so far as he was concerned but he knew it was not the end for Dunbar. The loss of his wife and child would haunt him for God only knew how long. Smith had not been hurt that way but he had been hurt. As a naval cadet he had been the odd man out, a solitary introspective small boy in a rough, extrovert society. He had been hurt physically and mentally but he had survived. Later there had been love affairs when he was a very young officer with only his pay, a ship and a career to fight his way through. No family, no home. Not a marriage prospect. Young women had hurt him then as the young always hurt each other. He was sorry for Dunbar but there was nothing that he could do. />
  There was silence on the crowded bridge, an edgy, taut-nerved silence. All of them peered into the night, searching for the airmen but with little hope. They were also looking for the enemy because Sparrow was in the Germans’ backyard now. In one way the Royal Navy’s command of the sea gave the Germans an advantage because they knew that any ship they met must be an enemy and so could shoot on sight while the Navy had to assume another ship was most likely friendly, and had to challenge. If Sparrow used her signal-lamp to challenge in these waters it was possible the only reply would be a shell screaming out of the night.

  Smith said, “There’s a drifter, Judy, out on the Bank somewhere.”

  He saw Dunbar nod and heard him answer, “I know her. That helps but there could be a score of us out here and still not find those airmen.”

  Smith thought of the men out there, if they were still alive out there, and wished to God that he could use a light.

  It was as if his prayer was answered. For ahead of them came a spark of light that immediately blossomed and grew into a ball of fire that lit up the underside of the clouded sky, the dark sea and the tar-black shape of the drifter on which the flare burned. It burned from the foremast and in its light and with his glasses Smith could see her little gun and the men shifting about her deck. She was moving slowly across Sparrow’s course and a mile or so ahead.

  Gow said, “God!”

  Dunbar groaned, “Geordie Byers! Bloody fool!”

  “Maybe he’s seen something,” ventured Sanders.

  “And maybe somebody’ll see him!”

  “Quiet!” Smith rapped it and lifted his voice. “Keep a sharp look-out!” They might as well make use of the light now it was burning.

  And there came a yell from the starboard look-out: “Twenty on the starboard bow! Right on the edge o’ the light! There’s summat in the water and I thought I saw it move!”