Battlecruiser (1997) (12 page)

‘Captain. We are going for the enemy. Starboard bow. Full revs when I call for them.’ He did not wait for a reply. Nobody knew his job like Onslow.

‘Make a signal to Leader.
Enemy in sight. Prepare to engage with torpedoes.
’ He saw the yeoman in his wet oilskin coat watching him from the bridge wing: the one he had called Donovan.

‘Bright enough, Yeo?’ He saw the sudden understanding, and a faint hint of something like sadness. ‘Hoist Battle Ensigns!’

He took the tannoy handset from a midshipman, and felt the youth’s hand accidentally brush against his. It was ice-cold, trembling. But when he looked at him and asked quietly, ‘Ready, Mr Crawford?’ he saw the quick determination, the dissipation of fear.

The midshipman murmured, ‘I’m all right, sir. My first time.’

Sherbrooke pressed the button. The captain had to be above all traps like sentiment and sympathy. There was no
room for it: war did not permit such luxuries. He saw that Rayner was still beside him, strangely out of place in his leather jacket, his goggles hanging around his neck. He had killed some of the enemy. But in his heart, he had seen them only as airmen, like himself.

He said gently, ‘Stay, if you like.’

Their eyes met in a peculiar sympathy, as they had that day aboard Stagg’s launch.

‘Thanks, sir.’

‘This is the Captain speaking. We are about to engage the enemy.’

Rhodes unclipped a small vent in the screen and looked over at him. Even above the roar of fans and the surge of water along the hull, Sherbrooke heard it. They were cheering: men leaning out of their gun positions, rigged in anti-flash gear and unfamiliar steel helmets, cheering as they had at Jutland, when
Reliant
had swung defiantly away from the savage bombardment. Men he barely knew, some he had never seen. And they could cheer. It was like a madness, or some wild drug, where everything was larger than life and somehow unreal, even the huge White Ensigns streaming from each mast to match Stagg’s flag, bright red and white against the dull mist and cloud.

‘Target bearing two-seven-zero, range two-one-five, rate two hundred,
closing.
’

Sherbrooke gripped the rail below the screen and watched as the two forward turrets swivelled slowly to starboard, each pair of guns lifting, as if to sniff out the target. Down aft, the third turret, manned entirely by Royal Marines, was already training hard round onto the same bearing, the long barrels angled differently for the first testing shots. Each great turret weighed hundreds of tons, and yet they moved soundlessly, without effort.

From turret to magazine, quarters officers, gunlayers
and trainers, Evershed’s hard-drilled crews moved in time with the machinery which, from the moment the first order to
Load
–
Load
–
Load
had been yelled, had taken over their lives. The six guns were each loaded with a fifteen-inch shell, massive semi-armour-piercing projectiles which were timed to explode even as they tore into the enemy’s armour.

Sherbrooke saw one seaman duck and shield his face as a great gusher of grey water exploded high over the port bow, the sea fired with a brief orange glow like some volcanic eruption on the seabed. Sherbrooke glanced at the clock. The
Minden
had opened fire. In firepower, the German cruiser was no match for
Reliant
, but it took more than a broadside to win a battle.

Now.
Like another voice, or was it some memory? He called, ‘
Open fire!
’

The bridge seemed to reel as if struck by gunfire. All three turrets had fired together, and even now, as the shells ripped toward the clouds before the final descent, the smoking breeches would be open like hungry jaws, while the next shells, the next long charges, were thrust into position.

Lights would be flashing; more ranges and deflections would be pouring in from the Director Control, the gun crews sweating despite the bitter, clammy air.

Sherbrooke said, ‘Full revolutions, Pilot. Signal the escort . . .’

He felt the immediate response, the raked stem smashing through the water as the Chief opened his throttles, until the destroyers would barely be able to keep station on the flagship.

‘Layer on! Trainer on!’ The merest pause. ‘
Shoot!
’

Again and again, with another fall of shot from the invisible
Minden
, exploding perhaps where
Reliant
might
have been, but for her impressive increase of speed.

‘Up two hundred!
Ready! Shoot!
’

Somebody cried out as metal cracked across the bridge shutters, and something broke through part of the screen.

Sherbrooke said, ‘Report damage!’ He saw the midshipman staring at him, his eyes wild, terrified.
Reliant
had been hit. But the guns were still training round, the stained barrels like long grey fingers opening to seize their target.

‘
Shoot!
’

‘Damage Control reports one hit in the forrard mess-deck, sir.’ It was Lieutenant Frost, Rhodes’s assistant. He sounded calm, detached even, as he added, ‘Three casualties, sir.’

Evershed again, his self-control momentarily gone. ‘Captain, sir! A
straddle!
Target is slowing down!’ A gong rang tinnily in the background as the six guns thundered out again. They had the target in a straddle. Her fate was already decided.

‘
Shoot!
’

‘Target is stopped, sir!’

Sherbrooke raised his glasses and stared at the nearest destroyer. She was clearer now, and her flags looked very bright against the dull water. The mist was lifting. Even as he watched, he saw the white-painted anchor cables on the forecastle deck, some huddled seamen in helmets dragging a hose around the port side, the damage control team going to support their companions where the shell had exploded, perhaps prematurely, before it could penetrate more deeply into the hull, to fuel bunker or magazine.

Shells ripped overhead, and exploded harmlessly far beyond the destroyer screen.

A signalman was holding out a telephone. ‘The admiral, sir.’

Sherbrooke lowered his glasses. He had not even heard
Stagg’s call. He had just seen the enemy for the first time since that terrible day. He knew it was
Minden
, even though
Reliant
’s gunnery had transformed her into a smoking wreck. Guns pointed impotently to the sky or towards the open sea, several fires blazed unchecked, and were visible through great gashes in the lower hull. But one gun was still firing, although the shots were few and far between.

Stagg said, ‘Finish it. Signal
Mulgrave.
Attack with torpedoes.’ He could not hide his excitement, his pleasure. ‘I shall make a signal to Admiralty.’

Sherbrooke raised his glasses with one hand; they felt as heavy as lead. He heard the clatter of the signal lamp, and saw the destroyer’s diamond-bright acknowledgment.

The big M-class destroyer was already breaking away, torpedo tubes swinging across her streaming deck, her captain, who had been tipped for flag rank, going in for the kill.

‘The enemy has ceased firing, sir.’

Sherbrooke saw smoke pouring from the nearest muzzles. Evershed would fire no more, unless so ordered.

Rhodes asked, ‘Will we recall
Mulgrave
, sir?’

Sherbrooke shook his head.

‘When it’s over, Pilot.’

He saw Rayner watching him, feeling it, perhaps sharing it.

Sherbrooke walked to the bridge wing and out into the bitter air.

A seaman gunner, strapped into one of the bridge Oerlikons, swung round in his harness and called, ‘We done it, sir!
We done it!
’

They were staring at the enemy, hugging one another; they had made a small part of this war’s bloody history.

And the convoy was unharmed, those thousands of soldiers saved, for some more impressive fate.

But all Sherbrooke saw was a ship dying. Like watching himself, watching
Pyrrhus.
There was a muffled explosion, and then another. Two torpedoes would be enough:
Minden
was starting to go fast, the smoke changing into steam as the sea burst into her engine and boiler rooms. The destroyer was thrashing away from the sinking cruiser, and seconds later the dullness was torn apart by a great flash, so vivid that even the sea regained its colour.

Sherbrooke watched the stern section of the cruiser rising very slowly, some tiny figures, like ants even through his powerful binoculars, as they tried to clamber higher and higher, some madness making them believe there was still safety for them if they remained with their ship. Perhaps sailors never changed . . . He felt
Reliant
give a long shudder. As if she knew: as if she had always known.

He said, ‘Signal
Mulgrave
to pick up survivors.’

There was another massive explosion. When he looked again, the destroyer had the sea to herself.

He remembered the words he had used to Rayner on the subject of
Minden
’s seaplane.
They would have done it to you, given the same opportunity.
Or the moment when he had given the order to open fire, as if the words had been spoken for him.

A victory, then?
Minden
was no more, and some of her people, who were out there gasping and crying now for aid, might know what his own men had suffered when their ship had been blasted from under them.

There was so much to do, signals to be prepared, damage to be assessed, casualties to be comforted.

He touched the dripping steel as he turned away from the sea. It was a moment he could share with no one, except with that other captain.

But victory? Not yet.

Captain Guy Sherbrooke blotted the letter carefully and placed it in the tray on his desk with all the others. This one was so different from the rest, official letters which required his signature, forms about stores, and a pad of signals for operational approval.

But the letter in his own handwriting, with an Edinburgh address, was personal. Part of the ship, therefore a part of him too. Of
Reliant
’s three casualties, one had been killed outright by blast as the shell had exploded prior to penetrating the empty messdeck. All three men had been stokers, members of the damage control section. It had been bad luck, when the enemy cruiser had already been too badly mauled to survive much longer. Of the other two, one had lost an arm; the other had sustained only a cut above the eye.

He stood up restlessly and walked to the nearest scuttle. It was strange to feel the ship so still, trapped in this great spread of noise, rust and vivid welding torches. Like any other busy naval dockyard, Rosyth was filled with ships being repaired, rebuilt, or patched up in some cases, when they had already been worked to death. Rosyth Dockyard was also headquarters of the vice-admiral commanding the coast of Scotland.

Hard to believe he was seeing the same old Forth Bridge
again, last viewed from Stagg’s launch when he had taken command of
Reliant.
Leith lay on the other side of the Firth of Forth, lost in mist and the steady drizzle which had accompanied their noisy return, sirens and whistles, and welcoming cheers from ships’ companies and dockyard maties alike.
Reliant
must have made a proud sight, her hands smartly fallen in forward and aft, her flared bows peppered with splinters, and the jagged shell-hole in her side, which Stagg had insisted, with his characteristic flair for the dramatic, should be uncovered for the occasion.

He glanced at the letter again. Should he tear it up? Leave it to officialdom and the welfare people, who were far more used to such delicate matters? Edinburgh. The dead man’s wife might even have seen
Reliant
coming in, have known it was her man’s ship, and believed that all was well. He could not recall the man in question, but he had heard the Chief and Commander Frazier discussing the possibility of his first child being baptized in the ship’s bell. No, the letter would not help. But later on, perhaps . . . A sound from the door interrupted his troubled thoughts.

‘Come in!’

It was Frazier, cap beneath his arm, eyes moving quickly around the cabin as if he expected to find some personal revelation in it, some clue to distinguish this captain from Cavendish.

‘Libertymen are all ashore, sir. I’ve granted local leave for the others.’

Reliant
was to remain at Rosyth until the repairs were completed. Ten days, they said. He listened to the ceaseless rattle of rivet guns, like metallic woodpeckers, and the occasional crash as something heavy was dropped onto a jetty or dockside.

‘You’re off then, John.’

Frazier watched him uncertainly. ‘Unless you need me, sir?’

Sherbrooke shook his head. ‘No, make the most of it. You’ve earned it.’

Frazier did not seem to hear. ‘I wish you could meet my wife, sir. She’s staying in Edinburgh – until things get more settled. But I expect there’ll be a lot to catch up on. You know how it is.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘You’re not married, are you, sir?’

‘No.’ It always came out like that, like a door slamming. There was nothing to say. It had been finished before it had even begun.

‘Pilot’s taking over, sir. If you need anything . . .’

Sherbrooke heard thuds overhead and knew that the chief boatswain’s mate, the Buffer, would be hounding the dockyard workers every hour they were aboard to make certain they did not scratch, scrape or stain one single plank of
Reliant
’s immaculate quarterdeck. It was always an uphill battle.

Frazier said, ‘It was on the news this morning, sir . . . about us.’

‘I know. They made it sound like a real battle.’ He glanced at the ship’s crest. ‘She did well, though.’

He had left the bridge after
Reliant
and her escorts were clear of the arena where that brief but fierce engagement had been fought. Most of the German survivors picked up by
Mulgrave
had been transferred to the flagship.
Reliant
not only had better facilities for dealing with casualties, but also carried a senior medical officer, Surgeon Commander Farleigh, a formidable man who brooked no interference with his department, and was unintimidated even by Stagg.