Thunder at Dawn

by Alan Evans

  They fired three times, when Hill and Bowker could see the target and lay and train the gun. Slam of discharge, hiss of recoil, the acrid stench of the coiling fumes, the clang of the breech and the whirr and rattle of the hoist bringing up projectiles and charges from handing room and magazine in the bowels of the ship.

  In the fore-top Garrick strained his eyes to spot the fall of shot and succeeded, bitterly. “Short.” And again: “Short.” And for the third time: “Blast and bloody hell! Short! They’ve got the range of us.” He had expected it because it was a mathematical certainty; Thunder’s guns were old but even when she was new her guns had not matched those of the German cruisers. It was still a bitter pill. Garrick had less trouble with the smoke than did Hill and Bowker but the light was bad, the setting sun glaring redly into his eyes.

  In the fore-turret Farmer Bates, the layer, settled comfortably on his little seat and rested his chin on his arms, giving easily to the motion of the ship, whistling softly, absently. Chalky White grumbled, “That Hill won’t hit bugger all. He’s a useless layer.”

  Bates said placidly, “He isn’t useless. He’s not bad.”

  “If we was —”

  “If we was firing we wouldn’t hit nothing either.” The ranges were repeated in the fore-turret. “On account of we couldn’t reach the bastards any more’n he can. At this range we stand as much chance farting at ’em.”

  They felt the increased beat of Thunder’s engines and then the heel of the deck to starboard.

  Chalky White said, “’Ullo! Now mebbe —”

  “Mebbe. But I doubt it.”

  That was when the shell burst right before the fore-turret.

  *

  As Thunder hauled away from the few scraps of flotsam that marked the last of the Elizabeth Bell, Smith saw at least one survivor hauled in over the side. Then the salvo screamed down, but this time, a split second before the waterspouts rose, Thunder was hit. The impact was a hammer-blow, shaking the ship, deafening. The flash seared the eyes and splinters whined and droned and caromed around the upper-works of the ship. Smith was thrown against the telegraph, bounced off, staggered, grabbed at his cap. There was smoke and he could see flames but he could also see the fore-turret and it seemed intact, but forward of the turret the deck was ripped open and bent back as if some giant had hacked at it inexpertly with a tin-opener. Miles and his damage control and fire-fighting party came running towards the hole, canvas hoses snaking behind them.

  Wakely squeaked, “Engine-room reports no damage, sir!”

  “Very good. What about the fore-turret?” And: “Messenger! Ask Mr. Miles for a report on the damage forward, and quick!”

  Hit or no hit, Thunder was working up speed now that she was without the Elizabeth Bell. Smith swallowed sickly. Had he wished her sunk? That was nonsense. He knew it was and told himself so, impatiently, but he knew it was a doubt that would return to rack him. Now he thrust it away, turned to peer through the smoke astern and saw the cruisers grown larger, orange flashes prickling together, smoke puffing, shredding. “Hard aport!” … “Midships!”

  From the wing of the bridge he could see Knight and his party and the survivors from the Elizabeth Bell. Sarah Benson was there, down on her knees on the deck, bent over someone lying there. Knight knelt beside her.

  Smith bellowed, “Mister Knight!”

  Knight jumped to his feet. “Sir?”

  “What the hell are you doing there?”

  “One of the survivors, sir. A splinter got him. I think he’s dead.”

  “You won’t do anything for him laying on hands! The Doctor’s below. Get them all down to him and yourself up here.” Sarah Benson’s white face turned up to him, outraged. Smith bellowed, “This ship is in action, for God’s sake!”

  To underline his words the after 9.2 out-bellowed him and another salvo howled down into the sea to starboard, close enough to hurl water in tons across Thunder’s deck, knocking the damage control party from their feet but helping to put out the fire they fought.

  Smith swung back to the centre of the bridge. “Hard astarboard!”

  Thunder turned on another leg of the zig-zag. Starboard, port, starboard … Vary the length of each leg, the angle of turn, now two points, now four. Study the ships astern, watch for their firing. Look forward for Ariadne and beyond her for the coast. They were all factors to be weighed and used.

  *

  The hit had sent them all flying in the fore-turret and left them stunned, groping feebly, disorientated and with ringing ears. Bates lost his placidity with the agonising smash on his funny-bone. He swore in black bad temper, climbed to his feet, dragged Chalky up by his collar and jammed him against the breech. He snarled at the rest of them: “Come on, you bloody idlers!” And to Lieutenant Fletcher who commanded in the turret: “Are you all right, sir?”

  Fletcher’s face was bruised and bleeding, his lips cut and already swelling. He mumbled, “Never mind me. Check the piece.” He lurched forward to join Bates and a few seconds later he was able to report.

  Gibb stood at his post, pale but trying to be still. Rattray grinned at him madly and looked right into his terrified soul and Gibb knew it.

  *

  Wakely said, “No damage to fore-turret, sir.”

  “Very good. Hard aport!” It was good news. And now Thunder, despite her erratic, evasive course was steaming for her life and closing slowly on Ariadne, running for the coast and safety.

  But Wolf and Kondor, running straight, were overhauling Thunder. He could see they had left the gunboat astern. He watched the cruisers and their firing and ordered the changes of course.

  Knight returned to the bridge and Smith was aware of him without looking as a salvo fell to starboard and spray slashed across them. “Hard astarboard! Mr. Knight! What was young Somers doing over the side? He was ordered closed up at his station in action.”

  “He says he knew there was no question of his gun firing because it was out of range and he reckoned Leading-Seaman McCann could manage without him, anyway.”

  That was probably true. McCann was old enough to be Somers’s father and well capable of carrying out Somers’s duties as well as his own. He had been Leading-SeamanGunner, off and on as he drunkenly lost and painfully regained his character, for the past fifteen years.

  Smith said grimly, “I’ll see him later.” And dress him down because it would be good for his soul, but it had been an act of deliberate bravery, a decision coolly taken and executed with speed and determination. He would mention Somers in his report.

  If he made a report.

  Aitkyne said, “I think that boy might do well.” Cautiously defending him, not looking at Smith.

  Smith grunted. Aitkyne might be right.

  He saw the cruisers fire and ordered the change of course as the after 9.2 fired. He had noted the fall of its shot the last three times it had fired and was certain it was within range of the cruisers now but off for line. He could guess at the gunners’ frustration — who were they? Hill — Corporal Hill and Private Bowker of the Marines. They had the same low, blinding sun that hurt Smith’s eyes and on top of that Thunder’s smoke, belching out now she was running at full speed and rolling down over the after turret and astern, blacking out the target. Add to that the continual sharp changes of course that meant big switches on the gun, continual relaying and training and an unstable platform. Conditions for gunnery were appalling. Another salvo burst frighteningly close and he hung on and shot desperate glances fore and aft but he knew they had not been hit. He would not need the evidence of his eyes for that. When they were hit they would know about it, that had been made clear to all of them.

  Aitkyne said, “They’re shooting very well.”

  “Yes, they are.” And they were alive to his tactics of evasion and trying to anticipate him.

  He ordered no change of course. The Coxswain on the wheel waited for it, ready for it, shifted restlessly when it did not come.

  Corporal Hill, mutteri
ng under his breath, expecting it, found instead that his target was in sight for all of ten seconds and the 9.2 got off a round.

  The next salvo plunged into the sea a quarter-mile away and Aitkyne yelled, “Fooled ’em!” And seconds later: “Hit her!”

  Smith had seen it, too. He lowered his glasses. “Hard aport!” And to Aitkyne and Wakely and the others, all of them agrin, “Not a hit.” The water-spout had been right on the bow of the leading cruiser but there had been no flash or smoke of impact. A very near miss. “But good shooting.” A little encouragement would be good for all of them.

  The sun was almost down, slipping below the horizon. The coast was close now but not close enough. Ariadne was a deal closer and her lead being cut every second; Thunder was making all of her top speed of nineteen knots so Chief Davies had proved his claim albeit under duress. Smith estimated Ariadne would not enter neutral waters for at least fifteen minutes and more. Before that they would be up with her and the cruisers might well allot her a share of their fire. At the moment they were concentrating on Thunder, their prime target. He had another decision to make, and soon.

  The sea was moderating and the ship was making better speed. Down in the belly of the ship where that speed was created was a scene from hell where the black gang in the stokehold, stripped near-naked and oily with sweat that formed a glue with the coal dust, laboured like souls in torment to feed the roaring insatiable red maw of the furnaces. The life of the ship and the lives of all in her rested in the hands and strength of those men on the rack of continual physical exertion. There was no glory, only back-breaking labour in a killing temperature and the knowledge that at any moment a shell might rip into Thunder and turn the illusion of hell into reality.

  There were places in the ship where that awareness was even more acute: in the magazines. Benks the steward worked in the magazine below the forward 9.2, his job to load the charge into the gun-loading cage beside the projectile fat with death, to be whisked up the hoist to the turret above. It was not heavy work and anyway, so far he had done nothing; the fore-turret had not fired. But it was claustrophobic. He sweated coldly.

  He had waited, strung taut inside for the inevitable hit. When it came right above him the shock tore at those taut nerves. He had heard stories, only too many. Invincible was a battle-cruiser, twice the size of Thunder, but at Jutland she had taken a shell amidships, in the magazine there, and she broke in half and sank like a stone. The middle was blasted out of her. Where the magazine was. Just obliterated. Nothing left of anything, anybody.

  He lifted his face, turning it up to heaven and the sky but he saw only the thick steel above his head that sealed him in. He prayed.

  *

  Thunder twisted her old frame at thrashing full speed, swerving, heavily jinking, like some lumbering old nanny puffily playing tag with her charges. But effectively. Barely effectively. The cruisers astern had her range and were firing’ well, very well indeed. Time and again only the change of course hauled Thunder clear of a falling salvo, sometimes seeming to pull in her skirts as the towers of water rose right alongside or astern. At times she seemed to steam through a forest of tall trees, dark green in the trunk and blossoming dirty grey, through a fog of spray. So that Ballard in Ariadne cursed and held his breath, to whoosh! it out and curse again as she came through trailing her black plume of smoke.

  She bore a charmed life; or maybe she had a wizard on the bridge. On the bridge they thought so as they braced against the heel and turn, tensed not only to ride that but for the orders that Smith gave curtly, absorbed. They lived from second to second and he gave them each second and they knew it. They were naked on the bridge.

  He had to make his decision. The luck was running out as the range closed. Knight said, “They’re firing their secondary armament, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  The fire had intensified. Now added to the four 8.2s that each cruiser fired were the two 5.9s that would bear forward in this stern chase. Thunder could reply only with the after 9.2, her elderly six-inch being still out of range. Just. But soon …

  The coast was close but so was Ariadne, very close, with a hundred and thirty souls aboard her. Sunset was upon them, the darkness rushing in over the sea. Smith watched and gave his orders. They had to give Ariadne a little more time, or let her take her chance, which would be miserable because she was a huge and fragile target. And Thunder’s chances? Throughout the ship they would be mentally hunched against the continual salvoes they braved and could do nothing about. Chafing. Wanting to hit back, make a fight of it. That would be a madness, an invitation to disaster. But now …

  Smith snapped, “Hard astarboard!” and Thunder’s bow swung and this time kept on swinging until, when he ordered, “Midships!” she ran at a right angle to her previous course and that of the pursuit. The turrets were already drumming as they trained round. And the sun was down. Smith took a breath. Now then. “Broadsides!”

  Thunder still charged along at her maximum nineteen knots but she was running straight. She still belched smoke from the labour of the gasping, sweating stokers but now it rolled away to port on the wind and at last the layers and trainers could see. The sun was down, no longer sending shafts of blinding light directly into their eyes, but leaving instead just a red afterglow against which the pursuing cruisers stood out stark, clear black silhouettes, beautiful targets for gunners and the rangefinder.

  She left one more salvo plummeting into her wake as the guns rose and fell like a blind man’s questing fingers but Thunder was no longer blind. The long barrels steadied and an instant later the salvo bells rang and the broadside crashed out in tongues of flame and jetting smoke. Thunder heeled to it, recovered as the guns had already recoiled. The ammunition numbers in turrets and casemates shoved forward with projectiles as the breeches clanged open, the fumes swirled and the gun-loading cages rattled empty down the hoists. Shells were rammed, charges inserted, breeches closed, trainers and layers spun madly at their wheels then slowly as the sights came on. The layers’ fingers went to the triggers.

  Thunder fired again, heeled again.

  Wakely said, “They’re turning, sir, turning broadside.”

  Smith nodded. The cruisers were matching his manoeuvre to return broadside for broadside. It was what he expected and Garrick in the fore-top would be expecting it. The cruisers could fire twelve 8.2s and six 5.9s to Thunder’s two 9.2s and two six-inch, because the main-deck guns could not be fired in this sea even if they had been manned. The cruisers had an overwhelming advantage in firepower, but they were no longer closing the range. That was what he wanted.

  He let the glasses hang, resting his eyes, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Oddly, while the engines hammered and the broadsides thundered out, while somewhere above him only seconds away the cruisers’ monstrous salvoes fell towards him, he could relax. For just this breathing space he had no orders to give. Now it was up to the gunnery jack, Garrick, and the long chain of men that stretched down from him in the fore-top to the layers with their fingers on the triggers. He had given them a target they could see and a stable platform.

  He had given Ariadne time.

  Given? Nothing was free. Somebody would have to pay.

  Thunder got off three broadsides and two salvoes fell in return, one short but close, briefly interfering with vision, one very short. They were laddering, of course, in Wolf and Kondor, one salvo below the rangefinder range, one at it, one over. The third would be over — or a hit. This clicked through his mind as that second salvo hurled water at the darkening sky and as Thunder’s broadside heeled her again and the flashes of the cruisers’ salvoes rippled with awful beauty along the black silhouettes.

  “Hard aport! Turn sixteen points!” Thunder heeled again but this time turning in her tracks to plunge back along her course as the turrets hammered around and the crews of the two six-inch guns on the port side, not engaged thus far, hitched at their trousers and licked their lips as they held on against the sudden cant
of the deck.

  The salvo came down on the port quarter, where Thunder would have been but for the violent change of course, but one rogue shell burst so close that the hammer blow was felt through the hull. Corporal Hill felt it in the after-turret and swore, but just the continual cursing he had kept up since the action started, either angry or happy, now frustrated at the change of course when they had the bastards dead to rights for once …

  Benks felt it in the magazine and quivered.

  Thunder steadied on her new course.

  In the fore-top Garrick was a professionally exalted man. He had his problems; there was still some smoke and the way in which the entire ship vibrated to the pounding of her engines and the thumping discharge of her broadsides made use of the big, mounted spotting equipment a waste of time. The images shivered to that vibration. Instead he did his spotting shifting around the fore-top with a pair of binoculars.

  The rangetaker muttered under his breath at the vibration. The rangefinder with its twin lenses gave him two images of the target and by twiddling the adjusting screw he could make the two coincide and at that point read the range. The vibration set the images dancing. “Bloody hell! He’s like to run them engines right through t’bottom. Wish they could come here and have a fist at it. Hold still yer daft cow!”

  But he was reading ranges.

  Garrick was a happy man. He had a good target at last and his guns were shooting well. He also noted with professional appreciation that the enemy cruisers were firing well. He could not judge the ‘overs’ that fell somewhere behind him but the ‘shorts’ were well together with little spread. It was good shooting, frighteningly good. He was aware also that Thunder was a broadside target and that the zone of the guns firing at him might be anything up to two hundred yards; that is, that a shell aimed incorrectly to fall short of Thunder by a hundred yards or more might still carry and hit her. Hit him.