by Alan Evans
His flotilla. One elderly, frail game chicken and one pot-bellied lame duck. They were his ships. But the men? Trist regarded both ships and their crews as problems. But Smith already had an affection for Sparrow and Garrick spoke well of Marshall Marmont’s crew. Garrick would always defend his crew but he was no fool and he was honest with Smith. So something could be, would be made of this flotilla…
He was still thinking about it when there was a whistling roar as a German salvo passed overhead and a second later burst in the sea in four massive spouts of upflung water. Well out to sea, well over, but that was a ranging salvo. The next would be shorter and these looked to be big shells, maybe eleven-inch, and they would be from the Tirpitz battery sited just south of Ostende. It was a well-hidden, well-protected battery. Over the last three years it had been shelled from the sea, from guns behind the lines at Nieuport, and the Royal Flying Corps had bombed it — but the Tirpitz battery was still intact and firing as well as ever.
The next salvo would be shorter — Smith called to the signalman, “Signal to Commodore: ‘Under fire from Tirpitz battery. Continuing bombardment.’”
The signalman ripped the sheet from the pad and slapped it in the hand of the bridge messenger who slid down the ladder to the iron deck and ran aft to the wireless shack between the first and second funnels.
Smith took two restless paces across the bridge and returned. He wished the Sopwith Triplanes could have shot down that balloon but they had their hands full with the Albatros V-strutters and now Smith could see another flight of the German fighters climbing. A commander in this kind of operation had to consider the safety of his ships and the lives of his men. At the same time the operation had to be carried out, the attack pressed home. Hazarding ships and men could bring a charge of negligence, while failure to press home the attack might be regarded as cowardice; your senior officer might think you had cut and run too soon. It depended on his point of view and in this case it was Trist’s point of view. Smith remembered Dunbar’s outburst: ‘We’re going to be put up like targets to be shot at!’ He shrugged uneasily. That was nonsense; this was just one more operation. But whatever Smith did, he had to be right. It was all a question of timing.
Brodie came up the ladder to the bridge with a biscuit-tin full of sandwiches, thick hunks of bread with cheese and pickles. The men were already eating at their posts and now Dunbar helped himself but Smith shook his head. He was not hungry.
Timing…
And here came the rain. A squall swept in from the sea, rain driven on the wind. From the look of the skyline, that, too, was only a ranging round and there was more to come. Dunbar called over his shoulder, “See if you can find me a spare oilskin. There should be one in my cabin.”
He spoke from a full mouth, was talking to the bridge messenger. But it was Buckley who answered, “Aye, aye, sir,” and dropped down the ladder to hurry aft as best he could on that cluttered deck.
Smith glanced absently across at Dunbar and noted that he already wore an oilskin, also that he was unshaven, pale under the blue-black stubble and his eyes were blood-shot. The bandage around his head was grimy now; you could not keep a bandage white on Sparrow’s bridge with the smoke and soot from her funnels rolling down over the bridge each time she turned. But appearances notwithstanding, Dunbar stood rocksteady and alert.
The next salvo from the Tirpitz battery came down nearer Marshall Marmont. So though the rain shrouded the ships it was obvious that the observer in the balloon, the bloody balloon, could see something. Enough. Sparrow was at the end of her southward patrol, clear of the smoke where the balloon and the darting aircraft showed still but the coast was hidden by rainclouds.
Dunbar ordered, “Port ten.” Sparrow started the turn.
The signalman said, “Signal from Marshall Marmont, sir. ‘Observer reports target obscured.’”
So the rain had reached Ostende. Smith could see nothing of it now because Sparrow was behind the smoke-screen again but he heard the salvo that howled in and plunged into the sea a bare cable to seaward, only two hundred yards from Marshall Marmont. He swallowed. That one must have lifted Garrick’s cap. The pace was hatting-up, growing too hot altogether and the monitor could do no good now the aircraft could not see the target. He ordered, “Make to all ships: ‘Discontinue the action. Weigh and take station as ordered.’”
He realised that Buckley was hovering behind him and holding up an oilskin — so Dunbar had sent for it for Smith. He pushed Buckley away impatiently. “Not now!” He wanted no distraction. He jammed hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the rain that fell solidly now, and watched, outwardly calm but inwardly chafing as Marshall Marmont laboriously weighed anchor and got under way, started to turn. Had he given the order in time or was a salvo — “What the hell is she doing?” The monitor was turning not to seaward but towards the line of launches, their smoke dispersing, themselves getting under way. “Signalman! — No, wait!”
A hoist broke out from the signal yard of Marshall Marmont. He could see bustle on her bridge, through his glasses he saw Garrick’s tall, bulky figure and his mouth opening and closing as he shouted his orders. The signalman read, “‘Starboard engine out of action. Rudder jammed.’”
Dunbar gave a humourless bark of laughter. “Good old Wildfire! Up to her tricks again!”
Smith snapped, “Signal the launches to take evading action! And tell the tug to stand by.” To Dunbar he said, “Close her a little. Not too close because we don’t want her ramming us.” But he wanted to be close enough to see through the fog of war, of smoke and spray and beating rain.
“Aye, aye, sir! Port ten, cox’n!”
“Port ten, sir.”
“Steady! Steer that!”
Smith muttered, “If one of those shells hits Marshall Marmont it’ll go clean through her deck and burst below.”
Dunbar said, “If one of them hits us there’ll be no deck or bottom or anything else!”
Sparrow closed the monitor and as she did so the salvo roared in and burst where Marshall Marmont had been anchored and dead ahead of Sparrow. Her bow lifted and dropped and they felt the tremor of it through the ship as if she had struck. She steamed on through hanging spray that stank of explosive and a sea that boiled. Smith wiped spray from his face. Well, he’d been right to shift the monitor. Now he had to get her out of this.
Dunbar said, “God A’mighty!” Peering through the rain that hissed into the sea, rattled on the bridge and the oilskins of the gun’s crew, they all saw Marshall Marmont still turning in a tight circle, running down on the launches, one of which was having trouble with her own engines, barely moving as the others scattered. Smith held his breath then blew it out as the monitor lumbered by the launch, close enough for her bow-wave to heel the little craft on her side before passing on.
He looked around and saw the tug butting towards them. “Make to Marshall Marmont: ‘Stand by for tow from tug.’”
The signalman’s lamp started clacking, flashing its message through the murk and the monitor acknowledged.
Lively Lady was on a course to collide with Sparrow but Dunbar ordered, “Starboard ten!…Meet her!…Steady!” And Sparrow came around so she was broadside to the monitor and coming up on her starboard quarter with the tug forging up to pass between them.
Smith said, “Slow ahead both, Mr Dunbar. I want to have a word with the tug.” The engine-room telegraphs clanged and Sparrow’s speed dropped away as the tug chugged up along her port side.
Smith picked up the bridge megaphone and stepped to the rail but Victoria Baines showed at the door of the tug’s wheelhouse, in yellow oilskins and a sou’wester dragged down over her ears. She bawled, “Don’t you rub up against me, young man!”
Smith muttered, “God forbid!” He saw Sanders lift a hand to hide a grin. Another salvo from the Tirpitz battery roared in and burst, tearing through Marshall Marmonts signal yard and sending yard, blocks and rigging cascading to the deck. The signal was gone an
d what rigging was left hung tangled. Smith called across to the tug, “Quick as you can!”
And Victoria Baines bellowed irascibly. “Don’t we know it! Business as bloody usual!”
“I’m glad to have you along, madam.” Smith lifted a hand in polite salute.
The woman ignored the gesture. “Don’t get in my way, damn your eyes!”
Smith winced and watched the tug pulling ahead of Sparrow as both of them came up with Marshall Marmont, her engines now stopped. He saw a crowd of men right in the bow, frenzied activity as they prepared the tow. And she’d lowered a boat that was pulling towards the bow. Garrick was going to use the boat to pass the tow, not wasting time with a heaving line. It could be done in this sea that was no sea at all. There was a lop, but no more than that. Garrick knew his business. For the rest, the rain poured down.
Smith allowed himself to be bundled belatedly into the oilskin by Buckley but broke away with the wind flapping it around him as another salvo came down inshore of Marshall Marmont. He peered anxiously through the rain then sighed with relief again as he saw the launches had not been touched. He lifted his gaze, looking for the shore, and though the smoke screen had dispersed he could make out nothing through the rain. The German observer would be equally blind but he would not waste ammunition. He must have seen the monitor’s erratic manoeuvring and the tug hastening up before the weather closed in and made a shrewd deduction. They’d be laddering up and down on the last bearing, firing blind, but if they kept at it they could find the monitor or the tug or both where they lay still, passing the tow.
He said, “Steer north-east! Mr. Sanders! Make ready to drop one of the life-rafts over the side and get some waste and paraffin from the engine-room. I want the raft packed with waste and all well-soaked in paraffin.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Sanders gave him a baffled look but dashed away.
Dunbar looked questioningly at Smith but got no explanation. Smith was shifting restlessly about the bridge, his gaze going from monitor to tug to the launches that were hauling out to seaward.
Sparrow came around and headed north-east, leaving the monitor and the tug astern as another salvo burst still farther inshore but still on that same bearing that lay across the monitor and now they would lift the range again, feeling towards her.
Sanders bawled up from the iron deck. “Raft’s ready, sir!”
Smith snapped, “Stop her, Mr Dunbar.”
“Stop both!”
The way came off Sparrow and she rocked gently to the sea as the raft was lowered over the side, held briefly until Sanders, at Smith’s shouted instructions, lit a handful of paraffin-soaked waste and dropped it on to the raft.
Sanders yelped, “Shove off!” The raft was thrust away, smouldered and smoked then burst into flame with a roar as Sparrow pulled away.
Smith wondered if it would work, thought it had a chance as he peered through his glasses at the monitor and the tug seen dimly through the murk and saw the salvoes come down, one short, then tense minutes later one just over, so close that the men on both ships must have been beaten by the spray, shaken by the blast.
Sparrow was heading back to them now, coming up with the monitor. He glanced astern and saw the flaming orange beacon that was the raft.
They waited for it. Then it came, the too-familiar, gut-tensing roar and shriek and they saw the salvo fall to seaward, a quartermile to seaward and astern; and it had been fired at the blazing raft.
Dunbar snorted, “Fooled ’em!” He grinned appreciatively.
Smith was just glad. And if the ruse had been successful it would not succeed for long. The raft would burn out and anyway the squall was passing and soon would no longer hide them. Set the launches to making smoke again? But the tug was easing away, making her own smoke as she slowly took up the slack of the tow. For an instant she checked with the tow barely curved. Smith held his breath. But Garrick would have that hawser made fast to a shackle of the monitor’s anchor cable to give weight to the tow, more elasticity and thus more strength. Lively Lady nudged ahead and drew Marshall Marmont after her.
Smith thought it was none too soon, though Mrs. Baines had proved she knew her job, and more. He sent the launches off to find their own way home. Sparrow steamed around and around the monitor and tug, keeping again her watch for submarines and making smoke that was needed now to cover the creeping ships as the squall swept on and left the same grey sea and sky with a rare glimpse of a watery sun. The shore batteries shifted target from the burnt-out raft and fired steadily. They got close to the monitor and once, by mistake, dangerously close to Sparrow, the salvo bracketting her and setting her tossing, deafening all aboard, hurling spray that again stank of explosive across her decks. She steamed through it and as Smith’s ears ceased ringing he heard one of the crew of the twelve-pounder singing dolefully, “Oh, I do like to be beside the sea-side! I do like to be beside the sea…”
Smith’s little command limped away and gradually the range opened until the shore batteries ceased firing. For a few minutes there was peace as Sparrow swung around ahead of the tug and monitor and turned to pass down to seaward of them. Then came the look-out’s yell, “Aircraft bearin’ green two-oh!”
They were flying high, heading out from the Belgian coast, specks against the grey sky and now seen then lost as cloud hid them. But then they were coming down in a dive that was shallow at first as they turned towards the ships, then steepened. Smith watched them through his glasses until he could see the crosses on the wings and then lost those crosses as the machines swept down on the sea.
Smith said, “Take station astern of Marshall Marmont.”
“Full ahead both!” Dunbar rapped it out then jammed the glasses to his eyes again. He said, “Rumplers.”
Smith grunted, took his word for it. They were biplanes, buzzing like hornets as they came in low over the sea, barely a hundred feet above it. Heads showed like footballs above the open cockpits. There was a machine-gun mounted in the after cockpit and bombs in their racks under the wings. Their exhausts stuck straight up from the engines for a foot or more and seemingly right behind the propeller. They streamed oily smoke above the pilot’s head.
Sparrow had run down past monitor and tug to seaward of them and swung around well astern of Marshall Marmont as Dunbar yelled, “All guns commence!”
Sparrow’s guns opened fire, the six-pounders barking and the twelve-pounder slamming away on the bridge, the smoke whipping away on the wind of her passage, the ejected empty cartridge cases flying and clanging across the deck. Marshall Marmont was firing too. Not the huge fifteen-inch that would not bear aft anyway, but the two anti-aircraft guns she carried in the stern. And then as the Rumplers tore in, their speed now suddenly apparent as they closed the ships, the Vickers machine-guns on the ships added their chatter to the din. There were bursts all around the aircraft but they grew in Smith’s eyes until they lifted, snarled overhead and on, higher now, two hundred feet or more. One — two — three. A spread line, one behind the other, a couple of hundred yards apart, leaving Sparrow and heading for the fat target, the monitor dragged along at the end of the tow. They swept over her and Smith saw the bombs fall, the Rumplers shedding their entire load so the bombs seemed to rain down. They fell abeam and astern and ahead of her. The tug’s stern lifted and fell and a tower of water half-bid her. Was the tug all right? The Lively Lady chugged on and Marshall Marmont followed her.
The guns ceased hammering and chattering in response to bellowed orders as the Rumplers shrank and became tiny with distance, climbing far ahead. But they were turning. They wheeled, seemingly slowly, and their formation broke up as they scattered to come back at Smith’s flotilla, one on either side, one from ahead.
Sparrow was making twenty knots now and pouring out smoke from her funnels as she thrust up abreast of the monitor and tug and then passed them to take station ahead. Smith glanced astern and saw them receding, said quietly, “Good enough.”
“Half-ahead both!” Dun
bar ordered.
Now Sparrow was again where Smith wanted her, where she could meet the attack first but the Rumplers were split now — “Turn her broadside to ’em Mr. Dunbar!”
“Port ten!”
Sparrow turned, showing her side to the raiders so she could at any rate fire her puny broadside of the twelve-pounder and three of her six-pounders and they opened up as the Rumplers came in, starting to dive and weaving with their biplane wings rocking. They snarled in and passed low over the ships with the trails from their exhausts criss-crossing. The one that ripped over Sparrow seemed to flick past the masthead. Smith saw the scarf trailing back from the pilot’s throat like a pennant, the machinegunner standing up in the rear cockpit to fire down at the thirtyknotter right under him. Then the Rumplers were gone, forming up again beyond the ships and heading for the coast. The guns ceased firing.
Dunbar mused, “Unusual.” And when Smith glanced at him, “They’re usually content just to chase us off, stop us bombarding. They don’t chivvy us like that.”
Smith grunted. It was just another oddity. He had plenty to think about. He wondered about the aircraft endlessly patrolling over De Haan.
The rain came in squalls through the rest of that day and brought dusk early. As night was falling Garrick reported the monitor’s rudder and engines repaired, just as the main force passed them, undamaged, returning from their bombardment of Zeebrugge at an easy ten knots. Trist signalled from his flagshipfor-the-day, the monitor Erebus: ‘Do you require assistance?’
Smith snapped, “Reply: ‘Negative! This flotilla will cope!’” He saw the exchange of grins on the bridge.