The Lion at Sea

by Max Hennessy

  Charley Upfold never questioned his assertions, because she expected her whole life to lead towards marriage with him. She told him so when she was barely out of the nursery and had repeated the announcement regularly since.

  Bored, he shifted from one foot to the other. Somewhere to his left he could see a group of senior officers in heavy dress coats and glittering epaulettes.

  ‘Discussing the racing at Goodwood, shouldn’t wonder,’ Verschoyle murmured, and Kelly had to admit he was probably, right. With their intense concentration on gunnery and torpedoes, while they excelled at technical details, they rarely appeared to think about strategy, let alone pass it on to their juniors. Only a few of them had done the course at the war college, and the very idea of lesser beings being interested, seemed to be enough to take their breath away.

  As the breeze increased, the flags began to snap in the wind and the water slapped more heavily against the side of the ship. Kelly shivered and began to wish he’d put on something warmer under his uniform.

  ‘Probably rain before long,’ Verschoyle observed quietly. ‘Then we’ll all get wet and the fireworks will be spoiled.’

  Certainly the sun had not reappeared and a long low bank of cloud, the forerunner of rain, was moving up from the south-west, like the vanguard of an advancing army. The popple and slap of water increased and a sudden gust set the halyards thrumming and the flags clattering noisily. Verschoyle had been growing more and more restless in the increasing cold and Kelly finally heard him give a deep sigh.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have joined if I couldn’t take a joke,’ he muttered, and before Kelly realised what had happened, he had slid to the deck.

  There was an immediate scuffle and a murmur of voices and the Divisional Officer turned, scowling at Kelly and Kimister.

  ‘You two! Get him below!’

  Picking up Verschoyle’s shoulders while Kimister grabbed his feet, Kelly bundled the limp figure out of sight. Below deck Verschoyle pushed them away with a smile.

  ‘That’s all right, chaps,’ he said. ‘I can manage on my own now. I think I’ll go and have a fag in my hammock.’

  ‘But it’s the King!’ Kimister’s face was shocked. ‘God, you are a swine, Verschoyle!’

  Verschoyle smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve often thought so myself.’ His smile died. ‘But at least I’m not a wretched little bore like you, Kimister. Now, shove off back to mummy on deck and leave yours truly to enjoy the first bit of peace he’s had on this bloody ship since he joined.’

  Kimister bolted, terrified he’d miss the chance to salute his sovereign. ‘It’s so beastly unpatriotic,’ he said in a high, indignant voice and Kelly grinned. Although Verschoyle was a rotter, he thought, at least he was a rotter with style.

  He had barely taken up his place again in the division when there was a stir on his left.

  ‘Here she comes!’

  A petty officer – in fore and aft rig with a made-up bow tie – spoke sharply, the words carrying down the line on the breeze, then he saw the royal yacht, small and gay-looking among the preponderance of grey paint, and there was a sudden bang that made him jump, as Lord Nelson fired the first gun of the royal salute. It was taken up at once by the rest of the fleet, and for a few noisy minutes Kelly had a rough idea of what a battle might sound like. As the royal yacht drew nearer, old-fashioned and civilian among the angular shapes of the battleships, he saw groups of people standing on her deck, and the bright colours of women’s clothes. The water was white under her forefoot and her flags were streaming in the wind, and she was near enough now for him to see her seamen with their jumpers tucked into cloth trousers, even the silver badges on their arms. Huguenot’s band burst into the National Anthem, a little unsteady at first but picking up quickly into an uneven blare of sound. Then somewhere behind him there was a clatter of blocks as flags rose to the yardarm and, as the royal yacht came abeam, the high twittering of bosuns’ pipes. Someone called for three cheers, and suddenly, bewilderingly, it all seemed worthwhile. After all, the little man just across the water represented in his person the strength, the power and the dignity of the British Empire, and like Nelson himself, he’d always been noted for his kindness. Into the bargain, he was a sailor king. He’d served at sea and loved the Navy. And he was their commander-in-chief and, if it came to a pinch, could even lead them into battle. His very smallness, even his pop eyes and knock knees, seemed to lend him a sort of homeliness.

  There was a crash of cheering all round Kelly and caps were lifted. As he caught sight of the star-studded figure in blue and gold on Victoria and Albert’s bridge acknowledging the cheers, he decided that if the King’s heart was as full of pride as his own was at that moment, then his throat probably also felt choked and his eyes were probably dim with moisture.

  Some fool was screaming his enthusiasm and to his surprise Kelly realised it was himself. Verschoyle, he decided impulsively, didn’t know what he was missing.

  Two

  The fleet was dispersing. The royal yacht had gone, followed by the German Emperor’s yacht and all the other foreign ships. All the bunfights ashore had finished, all the gatherings marked by splendid uniforms, champagne and caviar; with the heads of state and their ministers, all splashed with ribbons and decorations, all being cautious and diplomatic as they tried to be enthusiastic, while their womenfolk fought to outdo each other for colour and style and poise.

  Presumably, the affair had been a success. Receptions had been held for the principal British and foreign officers on board Victoria and Albert then she had left for harbour, followed by the thuddings and bangings and the drifting blue smoke of a farewell salute. The firework display ashore had not reached expectations because of the rain, and even the illumination of the fleet had not come up to scratch because the downpour had caused fuses to blow in lighting circuits. One great ship was able only to illuminate its admiral’s flag, and when Kelly had arrived in Huguenot’s steam pinnace with a message for her captain, he had found the commander, with a face like an old seaboot, storming up and down the foredeck looking for someone to throw overboard.

  There had also been a few alarms and excursions. Achilles’ cutter had been swamped after a collision with a picket boat off Clarence Pier, and a steam pinnace from Implacable, taking guests ashore to see the George Hotel, where Nelson had spent his last hours in England before Trafalgar, had been rammed by a pinnace from another ship and dumped a party of naval ladies in the water – fortunately without much damage except to dresses and hair styles. A few officers had attended a daring new farce at the Theatre Royal but only one-fifth of ships’ companies had been granted leave so that, apart from senior officers and a few favoured juniors, nobody had profited greatly from the affair, a fact which had prompted a letter in The Portsmouth Evening News attacking the social conditions in the fleet and suggesting the ultimate horror of a trade union for all naval personnel to improve hours, wages, leave and food.

  The weather had grown considerably colder now and the wind rippled the surface of the grey-green sea between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, and sent up little showering cascades of spray as waves broke against the hulls of those ships still gathered in the anchorage. The wild screeching of birds gave the day a feeling of heaviness, and the sky, pearl-coloured with overcast, arched bleakly overhead, its sombreness reflected in the waters of the Solent.

  A sprinkle of rain came on the wind as Kelly took his boat away from Huguenot’s side, its polished brass winking, its stanchions decorated with turks’ heads and other tiddly items of cordwork. ‘A ship is judged by her boats,’ he’d been told very early in his career. ‘So tend to your boat’s wants as carefully as you would to your mistress’. And see to it that to your eyes she is just as beautiful, because a mid who cares for his boat and manoeuvres it satisfactorily will invariably behave with equal credit on the bridge of a ship.’ He had remembered it well.


  In the distance, he could see the dreadnoughts of the Third Battle Squadron beginning to move away in line ahead, great steel fortresses, powerful and swift but, because of their sheer weight, so ungainly in the turn they were known as the Wobbly Eights. It was said they needed all of a mile to change course and Kelly stared at them from the pinnace, hoping he’d never have to serve in one. The spit and polish were said to be formidable.

  Jacky Fisher had built them during his years as First Lord. He had wanted a big ship of over 17,000 tons, capable of 25 knots with twelve inches of armour plate and twelve 12-inch guns, and there they were, right in front of him. In fact, they’d turned out to be somewhat heavier than Fisher had wished, had only eleven inches of armour plate and ten 12-inchers instead of twelve, and could do only 21 knots, but at least no one had wasted time. From the laying down of the keel to the launching of the first one, it had taken only a matter of months.

  While most of jingoistic Britain thought them masterpieces, however, the people who served in them were not so sure. They threw too much smoke over the gun control and above all they were wet in rough weather. It was even claimed that they’d been too hurriedly thrown together and that all that had been done was produce a new kind of ship on which all the other powers were now improving. Admiral Beresford argued that Britain had declared herself to be the bully of the seas, while others had noted that to pay for the super-ships Fisher had sent a hundred and fifty lesser vessels to the breakers on the grounds that they were old and outdated and could neither fight nor run away, seeing naval warfare, his critics said, only as a fleet action and forgetting that in places as far away as the Pacific, India and Australia, even old tubs would be useful if there were trouble. Only Verschoyle was eager to be posted to a dreadnought – and preferably to the flagship, spit, polish and all. ‘That’s where a chap will be noticed,’ he said.

  Kelly frowned. He didn’t see himself in a dreadnought or a battle cruiser. Destroyers probably. Sleek, swift, black-painted little ships that in bad weather were hell to be in, uncomfortable little ships in which even a mere lop on the ocean made eating and drinking difficult, and bad weather could dump the whole wardroom – officers, chairs, fiddles, crockery, glass, stewards and everything – underneath the table in a swill of soup and sea water. They were cramped little vessels where cabins were like rabbit hutches so filled with pipes it was almost impossible to stand upright, but they were also always the hounds when it came to a chase, always the first into action and last out; and a destroyer captain was noticed not for his manners but for his initiative and skill with a ship, while his very duties placed him as far as possible from interfering senior officers.

  The wind was cold, punching into Kelly’s face and sending spray over the canopy to clatter against the funnel. Just ahead of him he could see Verschoyle in the petrol pinnace bumping in the swell. Verschoyle, being Verschoyle, had been carrying personal messages to the admiral all day while Kelly Maguire, being Kelly Maguire, was merely carrying mail.

  Thick smoke was pouring from the pinnace’s funnel and the stoker put his head out of the hatch to sniff the wind before dumping a bucketful of ash overboard. The wind caught it, to scatter it over a wide area on the lee side of the boat in a greasy grey patch.

  ‘Any more of that?’ Kelly demanded.

  ‘No sir.’ The stoker looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

  ‘Well, if there is, save it for the return journey. I wouldn’t like any to drift through the admiral’s scuttles.’

  A ship in the distance was flashing a signal and Kelly read it carefully for practice, then another slash of cold water came over and he realised his attention had wandered and he was not watching the boat’s head.

  Perhaps no one’s thoughts were entirely on the job in hand. The fleet review was still too much in the mind. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Kelly Maguire and he had happily ditched his complaints in a wave of enthusiasm and patriotism. It was uncomplicated, unsophisticated, probably even unintelligent, and with his mother’s rebellious Irish blood coursing through his veins, perhaps even treacherous.

  Being the son of Catherine de la Trouve Kelly, it had taken him a long time to feel at ease with the unquestioning royalism of the Navy. And even more so to feel at one with its strange attitude of putting ceremonial before efficiency. He had been brought up to believe that the Navy was a weapon, but it hadn’t taken him long to realise that the chief concern of many of the senior officers was less how to learn how to use that weapon in time of war than to hold to the Victorian ideal of keeping it spotless. ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ seemed to be the motto of most admirals, and he had once heard his father boast how he’d made a habit of tossing practice shells overboard rather than spoil the paintwork by firing the guns.

  It was at that moment, in fact, that he realised for the first time why his father had never flown his flag as an admiral. He belonged to that old navy Fisher had tried to change. He was a great believer in the fact that so long as the Navy simply existed, Britain need never tremble, and with the great fleet dispersing in the increasing rain, he suddenly seemed to Kelly as out-of-date as the dodo. He was probably even the reason why Kelly had never had any particular desire to go to sea. At thirteen, when it had all started, in fact, he’d had no particular wish to go anywhere at all, but, because his father had finally managed to scrape home to flag rank and because his elder brother, Gerald, had followed his grandfather into the army, the step had become inevitable. He had spent hours when the move had been announced sulking in a bitter resentment against an institution which had seemed in the past to add little to his life or even to that of his mother, who had always resented his father’s absences and the fact that he was undoubtedly enjoying his life in foreign ports while she had to bear the burden of the debts he ran up. Kelly had long since even suspected there had been other women in his father’s background – though they were never mentioned – and for some reason had always blamed this on the fact that his father was a sailor and took his pleasures where he found them.

  The rain was heavy now and Kelly spat it from his lips as he saw the water round the flagship crowded with boats. With nothing more urgent than the mail, they might have to wait a long time, and he saw one of the seamen in front of him cursing their ill-luck.

  Kelly frowned. He was due before long at Greenwich to sit his sub-lieutenant’s examinations. After that he might call himself a fully-fledged officer and a grown man. The fact that London was no place to have handy when you were trying to concentrate on getting good marks was always a little disconcerting. On the other hand, it meant a good feed at the Upfolds’ town house. Charley’s family always moved from Ireland to London for the season with a view to finding Charley’s elder sister, Mabel, a husband; and since Brigadier-General Upfold was not short of money there was always plenty to eat, something that held a considerable appeal to a growing young man kept short of food in his own mess and lacking the wherewithal to buy anything to supplement it.

  The boats were queuing up round the stern of the flagship flow, spray leaping up between them from the trapped waves. In front of him a boat from Argonaut was jockeying for position and doing it none too successfully, then he saw Verschoyle alongside him, skilful, languid, handsome as the devil and apparently indifferent to the weather.

  ‘I’m going to take a chance and try the starboard ladder,’ Verschoyle called out as the two boats bounced alongside each other. ‘This way, we’ll wait until Doomsday.’

  Kelly nodded and, considering it might be good idea to do Verschoyle in the eye by getting there first, increased revolutions and pushed in front of him, the funnel spouting smoke and cinders.

  A wave slopped on board, heavier and wetter than he’d expected, but at least there was no one ahead of him, and his attention fully occupied, he headed for the flagship’s side. A sailor on the gangway made a warning gesture with hi
s hand but, occupied with outdoing Verschoyle, Kelly took no notice and the Marine corporal with the mailbag moved towards the bows.

  Well aft, the flagship’s ladder was a good twenty degrees outside the line of the ship. But Kelly wasn’t worried because he knew from experience that when he ran his engine astern his bows would kick to port. Unfortunately, the battleship was yawing to starboard on her cable and, overconfident of his ability, he put his engine into reverse just too late. The swell lifted the boat and he saw the sailor on the gangway run for his life, then the lower platform of the ladder crumpled as it holed the port bow of the pinnace. With a crash it spread itself outwards with what seemed a horrifying slowness that Kelly felt he might have halted if he’d thought of it in time; then the treads flew apart and came down on him in a shower. One of them hit him on the head and a second went down the funnel with a clatter and a puff of soot, and he heard a heavy voice from below yell in alarm, ‘What the effing Christ was that?’ and he became aware of the Marine corporal hanging like grim death to the ladder falls, the strap of the mailbag between his teeth and his eyes sticking out at the devastation, like prawns on a plate.