by Alan Evans
“Bearing green one-three-oh! … Range one-five-double oh!”
The cruisers fired and now the crash of discharge followed only a blink after the flash. They were that close.
Through the shadows Wakely’s voice came clear, edgy, “Picket-boat still in sight, sir.”
So they had survived the second salvo but there was still the third, hurtling towards them now.
He could, must forget them.
This was the time.
“Open fire!”
There was an instant when he checked his breathing as if he was physically firing a rifle, then Thunder heaved as she fired her broadside. Simultaneously the searchlights crackled as their carbons struck arc to create the point of intense white light that was reflected by the big dished mirrors in the searchlights, beams flooding across the thousand yards of dark sea to swallow the dying flames of the guns and bathe the nearer cruiser in light — as the broadside struck her.
This was ‘Smith’s game’, that they had played so many times with the pinnace and they had learnt the rules by heart.
The broadside could not fail to hit, fired at point-blank range, the trajectory virtually nil and the time of flight of the shells less than two seconds. Their impact was seen as the echoes of the guns’ firing hung and their smoke still whipped on the wind.
It was Wolf. The ships were twins but Smith was certain that it was Wolf that took the broadside from the two turrets and the six starboard six-inch guns that fired as one seemed to take them all with leaping orange flash of burst, spurting grey smoke and explosion of impact that came rolling back across the black water.
He shouted, “Douse/” The searchlights expired and the darkness rushed in to smother Thunder but he could still see Wolf. She was afire in three places, one aft and two amidships. Flame painted her black and yellow and shivering but very clear, very close. She would be closer yet.
“Hard astarboard!” Thunder heeled as the helm went over. “Port torpedo tube stand by!” The forward-turret was grinding around. The after-turret would not bear as Thunders bow came around to intersect Wolf’s course again. The forward of the starboard six-inch still bore but pointed at the sea in that tight turn. The rangetaker’s chanting came down the voice pipe: “Eight-five-oh! … Eight-hundred! … Seven five-oh! …” Thunder pounded along, still heeling in the turn. The 9.2 fired from the forward-turret, the searchlights slashed once more across the dark sea but were beaten this time by the impact as the range closed. They stabbed probing white fingers that showed Wolf leaping at them broadside out of the dark, fresh columns of yellow flame soaring and smoke balling up. She was rushing at them but Thunder’s helm was still hard over.
Kennedy shouted, “Torpedo running, sir!”
Smith lifted one hand in acknowledgment and shouted in his turn, “Midships! Thunder hurtled down past Wolf at an acute angle, passing at their combined speeds of forty knots. In the swift-flying seconds as Thunder began to respond to the change of helm he saw on Wolf, lit now by a dozen fires, that her forward turret had swung to meet Thunder’s attack but too late. As searchlights shot their beams from her to chase Thunder a thumping explosion came from forward on Wolf. Then one more leaping flame.
Wakely screamed, “Torpedo hit, sir!”
They were barely a cable’s length apart. Wolf seemed to stumble in her headlong career as the torpedo struck. Orange flames spurted but this time it was her guns firing and there came a crashing impact as a shot hit Thunder. But now they were charging right past Wolf’s stern and the after 9.2 and port side six-inch guns fired right into her.
Smith did not see the result of that. As they cleared Wolf’s stern he ordered, “Hard astarboard!” So just as Thunder had settled to an even keel she heeled again into that swinging circle.
Wakely yelped, “Jesus!”
Kondor was also heading to cross Wolf’s stem, seeking for a sight of the attacker who had burst from the night and was masked from her by Wolf. Kondor and Thunder were on a collision course. All of them on the bridge grabbed hold and hung on like grim death, instinctively preparing for that collision. There was nothing they could do. But they missed Kondor, it seemed by only feet, and swept past her in the blinking of an eye but in that blinking the forward-turret hurled a shell into her. And Smith saw that already Kondor’s forward-turret had a gun pointing drunkenly; Thunder had done that thirty-six hours before. Guns fired on Kondor but they fired at a ship already storming away into the night, fired blind into that night.
Thunder still canted in the turn. Smith swallowed. “Midships!” He clawed his way out to the starboard wing of the bridge. They had been at it only minutes but mad, hellfilled minutes. Thunder had been hit, one of the port six-inch being put out of action and the after-bridge wrecked but she had come off relatively unscathed compared to the damage she had inflicted on Wolf. He could see her now, lit by flames from end to end and in that light she looked down by the head and scarcely moving. He could see Kondor too, clear of Wolf now and heading out to sea in pursuit of Thunder. He could see her against the growing light in the east but they would have their work cut out to see Thunder in the outer dark.
“Starboard ten … Midships!” Thunder steadied on the new course and the starboard six-inch battery and the afterturret bore on Kondor. The guns recoiled and bellowed. “Hard aport … Midships!” Thunder headed out to sea again. “Port ten … Midships!” It was the turn of the after-turret again but this time with the port six-inch battery.
Thunder dog-legged erratically out to sea and she was scoring. Smith could see Kondor and he could see the hits. He could also see that she was firing hard and steaming hard after him, but she was firing at a dimly-seen, jinking target. He saw the water-spouts of the falling salvoes and some were close but none of them hit. Kondor’s course was diverging from that of Thunder, not making a stern chase of it but trying to claw her way out of that stretch of sea that lay between Thunder and the growing light, light that she knew marked her in sharp silhouette for Thunder’s rangefinder and layers.
That diverging course meant that despite Thunder’s swerving the range was opening.
“Range five thousand!”
They were nearing the extreme effective range of Thunder’s old six-inch guns.
She fired her starboard broadside and he ordered, “Hard astarboard!” And this time she kept on turning through sixteen points and headed back into the light, and towards Wolf.
*
Smith could see all of his ship now in that grey light and the faces of Aitkyne and Kennedy and Wakely, all the bridge staff, all their faces strained but excited. Thunder was fighting a good fight and they knew it.
He had a bleak moment in that dawn. He conned his ship, keeping her jinking to confuse Kondor’s guns, but he looked ahead with cold certainty. The element of surprise was gone, the advantage of the dark was going and Thunder was still badly out-gunned. And Kondor was shooting well, very well indeed. A salvo plummeted into the sea close alongside, emphasising the point as the hurled water lashed across the bridge.
Finally, Kondor would have the edge in speed.
And Wolf? He thrust off the mood as Wolf took shape again. Thunder was racing down on her and she was still burning and she was not moving at all. He thought he could have left Wolf to her fate, would have wished to, but he needed her. Away to port Kondor had also turned and was roaring back towards her consort.
He said, “We’ll shift to the conning-tower,” and himself passed the word to Garrick before leaving the bridge. From the circular conning-tower below it, with its eleven inches of armour, their view was restricted to what they could see through the observation slits. It would have to serve. In the darkness he had risked fighting his ship from the bridge because he had to see. But now the day was upon them, from the conning-tower he would see enough and it was senseless to stay on the bridge.
They were under fire from both Kondor and Wolf now though the latter’s firing was ragged. Thunder scored hits but was hit herself. And a
gain. A starboard six-inch gun was reported out of action with the loss of its crew of ten men.
Smith warned, “Pass the word to look out for torpedoes!” Wolf still had teeth.
They ran down across her stern and a mile away and at Smith’s order Garrick shifted the target from Kondor to Wolf and fired a broadside, raking her. Thunder turned to port and ran down past Wolf, pounding her. She was shrouded in smoke and the sun was above the mountains now so that Wolf’s rangefinders and layers had to peer through that smoke and squint against that low early morning glare, but she fired and, as Thunder pounded her, was pounded in return across two miles of sea.
They left Wolf astern and came under fire from Kondor. Smith ordered the target changed to her and, as the guns roared out, the change of course that pulled Thunder right around again in a sixteen-point turn to pass once more the blazing hulk of Wolf.
She was not only down by the head but listing to port now. Fires sprouted all along her hull and they saw her through rolling clouds of smoke. Thunder fired into her twice more and Smith thought he saw a solitary gun flash in reply but it might have been the flash of a burst.
He turned from her because they were done with Wolf but she had served her purpose. Kondor was driving inshore of her to chase Thunder. Kondor had not finished with them. She was chasing and firing hard, Smith could see the salvoes as the flashes rippled along her hull in awful beauty. But she, too, had been hurt, her second funnel leaned crazily against the next astern and —
Aitkyne drawled, he had to shout but being Aitkyne it still seemed a drawl, “I don’t reckon she’s making up on us, sir.”
It was hard to tell but the feeling was there. And if she was making up on them it was so slowly as not to matter. She should have the legs of them but she had been punished. Smith grunted.
And then the salvo hit them.
Aitkyne was thinking that because of Smith they had still not felt the weight of Kondor’s fire.
Then the salvo struck. They had left Wolf astern and Smith’s mouth was open to order yet another change of course when the salvo roared in like a train. It skittled them all except the Coxswain at the wheel and he staggered, recovered, picked up the course again. Smith pawed his way to his feet and felt Thunder listing. From the rear of the conning-tower he saw the cause of that list, the after funnel a battered cylinder of wreckage hanging over the starboard side. It slipped and the ship heeled further, slipped again and then ground over the side with wire stays parting and flailing and Thunder righted herself.
She steamed on and Smith croaked, “Starboard ten!” And: “Midships!” Thunder headed out to sea once more, the smokewrapped hulk of Wolf came between them and Kondor – and the guns fell silent. He called up the voice-pipe to Garrick: “Engage the ship astern of us!”
Garrick’s voice came back, rusty and metallic, “Port an’ starboard batteries don’t bear on this course, sir, and the afterturret is out of action. No contact with them and I can’t see much because of this damn smoke —” Thunder’s three remaining funnels still rolled it out — “but I think they took a direct hit. Can’t see the other cruiser.”
Yet. Smith said, “You will. You’re doing very well!”
He found Kennedy at his elbow, who said, “After-turret a total loss, sir. We’ve a fire aft —” Smith could see that, flames leaping pale in the sun and bending on the wind — “and damage in the after boiler-room.”
Thunder’s speed had fallen away.
Smith ordered, “Port ten! Steer one-seven-oh!” He stepped to the voice-pipe and called the engine room. The Chief’s voice was strained. In the background a man was screaming and another shouted, “Put the poor sod out of his agony or get him out!”
Smith asked, “What speed can you give us, Chief?”
A second’s hesitation, then Davies began: “I think —” He stopped, knowing Smith would not like that woolly answer. He said definitely, “I can maintain revolutions for fourteen knots.”
“Thank you!” Smith called to Garrick. “Engage the enemy when sighted.”
“Sir!” And Garrick added: “This light is hell.”
It would be lancing into Garrick’s eyes as he strained them towards the rising sun. Smith said, “Do your best.” He had Kondor where he wanted her, where he had to have her and the bad light was a price they would have to pay for that. They would pay far more before they were done.
Kondor thrust out from behind Wolf, pointing at Thunder who steamed broadside to her on the new course, and opened fire as Thunder heeled again to her broadside. The battle closed down around them.
*
They entered, and existed in, a world of thunderous discharge and shuddering impact as hits ripped into the old ship’s frame. Damage reports came in by voice-pipe or gasping, staring messengers. Smith conned his ship, swerving her to try to unsight the enemy, listening to the endless reports of damage and death, to the ranges called: “Double-five-doubleoh! … five-six-double-oh! …”
The range was opening. “Port four points!” Smith set to closing it again. The enemy was edging away, trying to open the range and make it a big gun battle. Thunder had only one big gun now.
Minutes later Kondor opened the range again, and again Smith ordered a closing course. The message he sent was clear: If Kondor edged away he would follow her until she ran aground. But he knew the Captain of Kondor would not just accept that.
When Wakely shrieked, “Torpedo! Red-four-oh!” Smith leapt to his side and peered at the tell-tale track.
“Hard aport!” Thunder turned towards the enemy and the torpedo. The alternative was to turn away but Smith would not open the range, would not show Thunder’s stern with her after-turret incapable of firing, still smoking. The torpedo ran down Thunder’s side, well clear of her and clear away. Smith stared at Kondor as Thunder held the turn. Kondor was already turning, intent on running back along her wake and then clawing out to sea where she could dictate the course of the fight. Smith held the turn, then: “Midships!”
So they were running again on parallel courses five thousand yards apart and Thunder a steel door between Kondor and the open sea. Kondor hammered at the door; the nerve-battering, brutal slogging match went on.
In the conning-tower, thrown about, deafened, bruised, Smith took the reports as they came in. They came baldly, without lurid description that would only have understated the horror of a ship and a crew being torn apart.
The twin after six-inch casemate on the port side took a direct hit from an 8.2-inch shell that wrecked the main-deckgun, the upper-deck gun above and decimated the crew of the latter. Only Daddy Horsfall walked out of it and clear around the splinter-swept chaos of the upper-deck before consciousness crept in slowly from his body to his mind. He felt for the carefully sock-wrapped bottle that held his illegally hoarded tots and found that as miraculously intact as himself. He drank as if it was water then looked for a way off that exposed upper-deck and for work for his hands. He ducked below and headed forward. Behind him, a minute later the after starboard casemate was mangled beyond recognition.
The port forward casemate took a freak hit on the muzzle of the gun that left its crew tossed about like dolls but still alive. That was Nobby Clark’s gun. He bellowed at them, dazed and deaf, “All right! Don’t lie there idling an’ scratching your arses!” He started to shove them out of the smoking wreckage like a dog herding sheep. His intention was to aid any short-handed gun; there would be gaps from casualties now. Before he got them out another shattering hit sent them all flying again. But once more he rounded them up. One of the port side midship casemates had ceased to exist, blasted clear out of the ship into the sea, leaving a smoking hole.
The upper-deck was an obstacle course from a nightmare, unrecognisable, a strange place of ripped, curled plates, jagged-edged; piled wreckage and tangled rigging; sprouting fires fought by ghosts that came hoarse-voiced, haggard and filthy out of the smoke, trailing hoses, and were lost in it again; over all rolled the smoke, from the fires
, the clanging guns, and Thunder’s belching funnels. Clark fought his way through and hauled and herded his crew along by willpower and discipline. He lost his layer to a hit somewhere forward that filled the flaming hell with screaming splinters and threw them all to the deck. Clark would mourn for the layer as a friend but later. He led the rest below to a starboard six-inch with a dead crew they dragged aside.
They manned the gun moving like automata. The shell and the charge came up after Clark talked on the voice-pipe with Sergeant Burton who now seemed to be running some of the magazines. It was a miracle that repeated itself while they laboured unaware that fighting had run the magazines low and some were lost and locked under water in flooded compartments. The ammunition that came up the hoist, which was worked manually because the power had failed, had travelled half the length of the ship from a port side magazine. The few men of the ammunition parties that were left carried those shells and charges along narrow ammunition passages. These were in almost total darkness, smoke-filled, blocked in places by wreckage they had to climb around or over and the projectile a huge deadweight.
Elsewhere in the ’tweendecks men toiled in the smoke and frying heat, hauling at canvas hoses as they choked, with weeping eyes but fighting the fires. They saw the horror around them, the littered dead in the bloody, smoking wreck that Thunder had become but they kept on. Duty was something to hold on to in a world gone mad and being blasted apart around them.
Clark in the layer’s seat squeezed the trigger and the gun slammed into action.
Down in the forward 9.2 magazine Benks continued the praying he had begun before the action, with only a break for the catch of his breath. He knew nothing of the progress of the battle, down there below the waterline in his hushed little monk’s cell with the charges. He only knew the turret still fired rapidly and he was kept hard at it filling the demanding hoist. And that Thunder had been hit and hit again more times than he could count but he had felt them all, shuddered to them. He had commended his soul to God and now prayed for the men in the turret above him. He had not expected they would all live this long.