by John Masters
‘Yes, sir,’ Bidford said. ‘Florinda, Marchioness of Jarrow. A very wonderful lady … I suppose I shouldn’t even mention her name in a ward-room, but I don’t care. She is a great lady, though she’s …’
‘Daughter of a factory cleaner, and granddaughter of the best poacher in Kent,’ Tom said. ‘I know her … knew her when she was a little girl. My family comes from that part of the world.’
It was Bidford’s turn to stare. He said, ‘Of course … It never crossed my mind, but you must be a relation of the air ace, Guy Rowland – the Butcher.’
‘My nephew,’ Tom said.
‘My rival … I think,’ Bidford said. ‘Florinda has never said so, but she has a big photograph of him on the mantelpiece in her flat.’
‘Another pink gin, please, Florio,’ Tom said. He was getting a little tight. The waiting was awful. Seeing young Sherwood and lusting after him was worse. If that were Russell Wharton sitting there opposite him, he could come out and say just what he was feeling, what was on his mind. Here, he couldn’t. Damn the bloody navy. Bidford too ordered another pink gin, the navy’s drink of drinks.
Tom said, to himself, to hell with it. Aloud, he said, ‘As soon as this is over, I’m resigning my commission.’
Bidford kept his face neutral. Tom said, ‘The navy won’t give me a sea command, because …’ He couldn’t bring himself to state the full reason – ‘I want to be a couturier … dress designer. When I was in the Admiralty – Anti-Submarine Division – I was studying with Arthur Gavilan in my spare time.’
Bidford whistled – ‘High society, sir. He’s about the best we have in England. It’s his Spanish blood, I suppose.’
Tom said, ‘Well, I don’t have any Spanish blood, but I’m going to be as good as Arthur – when I’ve learned.’
Bidford said, ‘If you know Arthur, perhaps you know Russell Wharton, Noel Coward, Ivor Novello. They’re all friends of mine, and of Florinda’s, come to that.’
Tom said, ‘I know them all. Good fellows … good actors … good friends.’
Bidford had taken him up, realising that his mention of Gavilan was a hint that he was a homosexual; all the three prominent actors whom Bidford had named were well-known homosexuals. But Bidford himself wasn’t, surely?
Bidford, seeming to sense Tom’s thoughts, said, ‘I was brought up in London … indulgent guardian, more money than was good for me … I was taking out chorus girls when I was at Eton. I’ve been financing plays ever since … keeps one in close touch with pretty actresses … So I’m in the theatre but not of it, if you know what I mean.’
I know, Tom thought; he’s saying that he appreciates that I’m a pansy; that he knows and likes many others of the same hue; but that he’s not one himself. Fair enough.
Tom looked at his watch. ‘Time to return to my ship.’
Bidford said, ‘Me too, sir. Though mine’s moored alongside while all hands take a shower. You can’t believe what we smell like after two weeks in a CMB.’
They were up on deck now, and both fell suddenly silent. The sky was covered with high clouds. The underside of the clouds was irregularly lit by dull flashes, glows … purple, red, yellow, orange. The surface of the sea shook to the shudder of artillery. Over there, by Arras and Bethune now, the British Army was still fighting for its life. They said nothing. Bidford saluted and went to the starboard side, while Tom ran down the port gangway to the whistle of the pipes, to return to Orestes.
‘Force R will sail at noon by Method G-4.’
The sodden flags flapped heavily in the slow, wet wind. The answering pennant hung from Orestes’ signal yard. Vindictive’s signal came down, the acknowledgments whipped down in every ship. It was half-past ten in the morning of April 22nd. Tom, on the bridge, watched as the long-practised preparations for sailing were put into actual effect. Smoke drifted blacker from the funnels as the stokehold crew – they constituted nearly 90 per cent of the total – brought the boilers up to full pressure. Dominion’s motor launch passed rapidly down the line of ships, handing over packets at each gangway. As soon as it had passed, the gangways were raised and stowed away at action stations. The launch reached Orestes’ side, paused a moment, hurried on, its propellers churning up a greeny-brown wake in the shallow estuary. On the bridge Tom was studying the chart for the hundredth time. He would be at his post here for the next forty-eight hours, more or less. He had no navigating officer or officer of the watch – he would do it all, to be replaced by Hardwick if he were wounded or killed.
The bridge messenger said, ‘Morning paper, sir.’
‘Any letters for me?’
‘One, sir.’
Tom saw that the letter was from his sister-in-law, Louise Rowland, and opened it quickly. Louise had somehow got an inkling of what he was doing, and wished him safe return, though she wished even more strongly that the war could be over, and such missions unnecessary. Laurence Cate was missing in action in this ghastly German offensive; Stella Merritt had been found, and was at home, though not well; Virginia’s husband, the one-armed Battery Sergeant-Major, had been accepted as Head Porter at Wokingham School, and would take over in September; and Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu had had a baby boy, of which the father was her own son, Boy. She wanted Tom to know, because she and John were very happy about it. Boy had gone, but he would live on in this, their grandchild.
He put the letter down and scanned the newspaper headlines … GREAT BATTLE CONTINUES … ENEMY ATTACKING NEAR ARRAS … GALLANT DEFENCE … Then the paper reprinted a part of Field Marshal Haig’s Order of the Day of April 11th:
To all Ranks of the British Forces in France.
There is no other course open but to fight it out! Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must resolve to fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind alike depend on the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.
D. Haig. FM
A moving message, Tom thought, but not the sort that politicians relished, for it acknowledged openly that things were going badly. ‘Backs to the wall’… well, that was the way British soldiers liked to fight, as at Agincourt. He looked at his watch. One minute to noon.
From the fo’c’sle the 1st Lieutenant called, ‘Cable straight up and down, sir.’
‘Weigh!’ Tom said. ‘Half ahead both … port ten … revolutions for nine knots, Mr Arrowsmith. Secure the fo’c’sle.’ The cruiser slowly gathered way. ‘Follow the wake of Vindictive, quartermaster. We shall be at four cables.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Force R, the West Swin contingent of the 140 ships in the Ostend-Zeebrugge raids, headed east down the estuary at nine knots. Tom paced the bridge, keeping one eye on Vindictive ahead, the two Liverpool ferryboats waddling along on each of her flanks. Ahead the destroyers were spreading out into a screening line. CMBs followed in their wakes, and others weaved across the stern of the block ships and monitors, guarding flanks and rear.
The rain ceased. The glass was steady, rising a little. This time, perhaps … Tom looked carefully round the sky. He had told the crew that the success of the operation depended on timing; but it also depended, and to a much greater extent, on luck. Secrecy was of the essence. If the Germans got a hint of what was coming, it would not take them more than a couple of hours to mine the approaches to the channels, send out three or four U-boats to lie in wait, and reinforce the Mole defences. And the attackers would be steaming for about five hours, in broad daylight, from the general rendezvous off the North Goodwin Light, straight towards their destinations; there was no time to spare to make any feints. So the hint could come from one U-boat, returning from or going out on routine patrol; one German aircraft passing over en route to anywhere; one Gotha or Zeppelin going to or returning from a raid; one hostile-minded neutral vessel equipped with wireless. The enterprise was already one of extreme hazard, as Admiral Keyes had personally ma
de clear to every man and officer. If it was discovered, it would be a holocaust, and a total failure.
Tom said, ‘You’re not following exactly in Vindictive’s wake, quartermaster. Port ten until you are on … then straighten back.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Tom lifted his binoculars off his chest and carefully scanned the horizon. Sea, calm. Wind, south-west, about three knots. Nothing. The force sailed on.
Tom Rowland peered at his watch by the light of the binnacle. Ten o’clock. Time to transfer half his crew to the minesweepers that had been running on each beam since the meeting off the North Goodwin Light. ‘Stop engines,’ he commanded. Astern he saw the faint outlines of the other block ships hold position, as they too stopped. The allotted minesweeper – a converted trawler – loomed out of the darkness to port and surged alongside. The scrambling net was out on that side. Tom stood in the port wing of the bridge, looking aft. Sherwood was there … that was his job now, to get the men into the minesweeper. The seconds ticked by. The trawler skipper was holding his little vessel alongside with his engine and rudder … Tom thought, surely I’d see forty men sliding down the net, even in the darkness?
Four minutes gone. What in hell was happening? Sherwood came panting on to the bridge, and gasped, ‘Sir … mutiny! The men won’t go! They’re all lined up on deck but they won’t go!’
‘They won’t leave us?’
‘No, sir.’
Tom paced the bridge once. Should he go down and personally order them over the side? What if they ignored him? Was he to take a revolver and shoot some of them, for refusing to be left out of the really dangerous part of the operation? He turned on Sherwood and snapped, ‘Tell ’em to get back to the engine-room … and wave the sweeper skipper off.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ The sub-lieutenant dashed away and Tom said, ‘Full ahead both … port ten … we’ve swung off course … Steady on east by north a half north.’
‘Aye, aye, sir … Steady it is. East by north a half north!’
Tom peered astern. The other blockships were following, picking up speed as Orestes was. He wondered if in them too the skeleton crews had refused to leave. Probably. The ships had been together a long time in the West Swin, and British matelots always seemed to know what was going on, even with no apparent means of communication. At the Swin, there was Dominion to act as a gathering point to such a plot … Thank God for a navy that would hatch such a plot.
An hour and three quarters to go … CMB 148 was in position on the starboard beam, a low shape sliding easily through the water, with little wake, at what was for it a crawl.
Eleven o’clock … eleven-fifteen … the monitors were due to start their bombardment of the German coastal batteries in five minutes … four, three, two … one … there they went, brilliant orange flashes in the night way off to the south, close in to the sandy coasts between Zeebrugge and Ostend. Orestes’ engines throbbed steadily. They had been a worry to Tom from the beginning, for on this mission only the engines really mattered. He could if necessary keep station without a compass or any other crew but himself at the wheel. There were no guns. But if the engines failed before the ship was in the Zeebrugge channel the mission would have failed.
A deeper drumming, dead ahead, filled the night, and suddenly the darkness was split by close, livid flashes, seeming like Guy Fawkes’ Day rockets as the first covering wave of CMBs accelerated to full speed in front of the force, heading straight for the Mole, firing smoke canisters and star shell. Vindictive followed suit, and Tom watched, spellbound, as the brilliant stars fell down through layers of cloud, burning, disappearing, their tails twisting and turning and winding as chance fires in their midst forced them sideways or even back upward for a short trajectory … Eleven forty-five; the block ships were five sea miles off the Mole now: Vindictive, Daffodil, and Iris II barely two miles; and the submarines CI and C3 a mile and a half.
In the wheelhouse of CMB 148, standing beside the Leading Seaman at the wheel, Billy Bidford peered ahead at the appalling but wonderful spectacle exploding over Zeebrugge. The noise had become deafening, even at this range. He could distinguish mortar bomb bursts, machine-gun fire, and the whip cracks of Vindictive’s shells at almost point-blank range.
Behind him his Chief Petty Officer gasped, ‘Sir! Green four five! Is it …?’
Bidford started … something, a metallic gleam in the glaring, fading, flickering lights from the star shells and explosions … a number! He grabbed the wheel, pushing the sailor off his stool and rammed the throttle lever all the way forward. ‘Prepare to ram!’ he shouted, a towering excitement boiling in his veins. The bow of the big motor boat lifted … too close range for the torpedoes … it was a U-boat, crawling in on the surface, right in the middle of the fleet. The U-boat’s deck gun was manned. Orange fire flamed from the gun and the shell cracked low overhead with a deafening bang. Again, and a splintering crash from forward on the starboard side told Billy a part of his bow had been shot away. Then they were on the submarine, aiming direct for the conning tower. The CMB hit it at twenty knots, smashing a huge hole in the thin steel plate. ‘Board!’ Billy yelled. He cut the engine back and jumped up, shouting to his CPO, ‘Take over! Back her off as soon as we’re on the sub. Then stand by.’
He slipped out of the little side door and ran forward, followed by three seamen with revolvers, and jumped down on to the U-boat’s deck forward of the conning tower. The crew of the gun had vanished, knocked overboard by the shock, or jumped for their lives. Billy scrambled fast up the steel rungs fixed to the outside of the conning tower, and looked over. Inside, the hatch was battened down … just. He heard the last screws being tightened under the hatch even as he jumped down on to it. Furiously he fired three shots at the hatch with his revolver, without effect. The U-boat’s engine was running, but the CMB had made a big hole below the conning tower: it could not submerge. But the CMB was still stuck fast, and being dragged along sideways. What the hell to do?
He made up his mind and yelled, ‘Back aboard! Hurry, man!’ They scrambled back on to the CMB. Billy shouted, ‘All hands to the stern, back, back!’ When everyone else was as far back in the CMB as they could go, Billy, alone in the wheelhouse, again opened the throttle wide. The weight of the crew pushed the stern down, the racing propellers dragged it further down, and the gathering speed of the U-boat helped with a sideways pull. The CMB backed clear in a boil of water, its stern momentarily going under. The CPO came forward, gasping – ‘Shall we ram her again, sir, further forward?’
Billy said, ‘No. We’ll torpedo her.’
A seaman said, ‘We’re taking water at the bow, sir!’
Billy said, ‘Make twenty knots, that’ll keep the bow up.’ He stood behind the Leading Seaman, who had returned to his post at the wheel. The boat’s bow rose slowly, and Billy heard water sloshing aft below. ‘Port fifteen!’ he said. ‘I’ve lost her …’
‘Red twenty, sir … about half a mile … six hundred yards … five hundred.’
‘Got her! Stand by to fire starboard torpedo … Fire!’
The long cylinder leaped out of its tube with a powerful hiss, splashed into the water, and raced for the target. Billy counted the seconds: should be about fifteen seconds …
A tremendous explosion lit the night straight ahead, and the submarine became luridly visible, as the conning tower flew into the air, and two long shapes, the two halves, broken-backed, lifted skyward, then slid back in a white boil of water.
The CMB’s crew raised a ragged cheer. ‘Back on station,’ Billy said briefly. ‘Starboard twenty … See if there’s anything we can do to patch the bow, Chief.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
The block ships moved steadily on, hidden from the Germans on the Mole, by now spitting fire in all directions, and almost from each other, by the dense clouds of drifting, acrid smoke. Tom Rowland, on the bridge of the leading block ship, steering by compass and by guesswork, knowing that he was close, but not just how close,
stood a foot behind the quartermasters, one at the wheel and the other at the engine-room telegraph, and barked his orders as loud as he could, but even so they could barely be heard above the din of the fight.
12.15 … Vindictive should have been alongside fifteen minutes ago. And there she was, for the tops of masts gleamed now and then above the drifting black smoke set by the first wave of CMBs.
‘Starboard fifteen,’ Tom snapped; his present course would take him too close to the end of the Mole, if Vindictive was in the right position. He must get further out to avoid the sandbanks that invariably accumulated at the end of any such mole or sea wall as this at Zeebrugge.
The bow swung to port. ‘Steady as she goes!’
‘Steady, sir, steady!’
12.20. Tom bent to the engine-room navyphone and said, ‘Arrowsmith, give her everything we’ve got. We should round the Mole in five minutes.’
‘You’ll get it, sir,’ the engineer lieutenant answered. The engines, already at official full speed, began to grind faster as the ship’s ancient boilers and ill-balanced reciprocating gear shook and heaved in a last frantic effort.
12.25. A tremendous explosion to starboard, louder than anything before, battered Tom’s eardrums and seemed to send Orestes reeling to port. Pieces of shining metal arched far up above the smoke covering the sea, and a huge ball of orange fire momentarily blinded him. For a few seconds, by the sheer power of the explosion, everything else seemed to have become silent.
Gradually the noise of the battle climbed back to its normal, frantic level. Tom said to himself, but aloud – ‘One of the submarines … or both, absolutely together.’
Now the end of the Mole was certainly isolated from shore. He could see it, close, and the unlit beacon light on it. Vindictive was 400 yards down. One of the ferryboats appeared to be pushing at her flank, holding her against the Mole …
Orestes shuddered to a shell, hitting her amidships. It did not explode, range too close, perhaps. The attacking wave of CMBs were still at work in the enclosed space between the West and East Moles – the West Mole was the one being attacked, the other was much shorter, not continuous, nor joined to land. Ahead, clear in the star shells now being fired by supporting destroyers behind him, he saw the line of buoys marking the anti-submarine nets which hung from them across the harbour entrance, to entrap any British submarine trying to get in from seaward. There was a boom, too, all as shown on the aerial photographs taken a month ago. The Germans could have made many changes in a month, but Admiral Keyes had decided not to risk arousing any suspicions about Zeebrugge by repeating the photographic mission. The harbour guns were hitting Orestes regularly now, smashing through the cruiser’s tall thin sides … and these shells were bursting. A CMB ahead was launching torpedoes at German destroyers moored on the Eastern Mole …