The Lion at Sea (37 page)

‘Engadine’s
moving, sir,’ he called. ‘We’ll have eyes, anyway.’

The shore lights of Leith and the Fife coast slid past in a long procession as the wind snatched at the flag hoists and chilled the lookouts behind the bilge screens and the guns’ crews huddled under the gunshields. May Island winked its last farewell as the bow slapped at the waves and the first spray came up to shower the forecastle. A bright phosphorescent wake started astern.

The three light cruiser squadrons were up to strength but the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron, under Admiral Hood, was still up at Scapa doing gunnery exercises. Then they saw the vast shapes of the dreadnoughts of Evan-Thomas’ squadron and the speculation as to what was in the wind began again.

Talbot was stuffing his pipe with tobacco, working at it carefully, painstakingly, as though it had to last him through any emergencies that might arise in the next forty-eight hours. Slowly he struck a match and lit it, puffing deeply and sniffing the air. For the first time since Kelly had known him he seemed alert, like a hound smelling the scent, his eyes keen, his expression hard and interested.

‘If the big boys are coming out,’ he said, ‘it
must
be the Germans.’

They had been out all night.

As they had cruised east in leisurely fashion across a calm sea to form an inverted U ahead of the battle cruisers, the calling gulls, which had followed like crows after a plough, had been left behind one after the other, and now the North Sea seemed empty.

The visibility was good and they could see the battle cruisers in two lines, with Evan-Thomas’ battleships to the north-west. Five miles ahead of
Lion
was the light cruiser screen, spread out on a line bearing roughly north-east to south-west. The squadrons were in two groups of ships, five miles apart with the First Light Cruisers on the northernmost end of the line, while the destroyers had come yelping up astern in the dark behind
Champion.
In a rush and rattle of spray-thrashed steel, their funnels glowing and the roar of the boiler room fans filling the air, they had taken up their positions with the seaplane carrier near the battle cruisers.

The midday sky was high but without colour or warmth between the cloud, and more than ever Kelly was aware of the smell of salt and the sting of the wind on his cheek. The ship seemed alive and eager, the runnels of spray on the paintwork edging downwards in the wind, the quiver and throb of the ship broken by the jar as she tossed her head and flung the swell away like a bridegroom throwing off the confetti on his wedding night. He seemed to be seeing things twice as clearly as normal – the light, the vibrance, the small waves picking up the colour of the sky – in a heightened sense of awareness, and he assumed that the possibility that he might be killed had made him more perceptive than usual.

As they continued to head east, they were sent below one after the other to snatch some
food and Kelly looked up as Chambers, the surgeon, entered the wardroom.

‘There’s death in the air,’ the surgeon said. He was a cheerful young man fresh from medical school and the words brought Kelly’s head up with a jerk.

‘Got the glumps, Doc?’ he asked.

‘No.’ Chambers smiled. ‘Actually, in spite of my profession, I haven’t seen much of death yet. Haven’t had time. Just aware that there’s something about us today. Aren’t you?’

Kelly
grunted. It was no time to brood or indulge in self-pity. ‘Don’t understand death,’ he said shortly.

‘You’ve seen enough of it.’

‘It’s different in the Navy. The sea swallows the debris.’

As they talked, Higgins, the wardroom steward, put his head round the door.

‘Lieutenant Maguire, sir! You’re wanted on the bridge. Signal’s just come through.’

Cramming the rest of his food into his mouth, Kelly went to his cabin to put on as many clothes as possible, and stuff his pockets with notebooks, pencils, chocolate and anything else he might need for a prolonged stay at action stations. As he headed for the bridge, he bumped into Rumbelo who gave him a quick grin.

‘This is it, sir,’ he said. ‘The big smash at last. We’ll have something to tell ’em when we go home.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Kelly agreed. ‘Let’s hope it isn’t someone else who has to go home and tell ’em what’s happened to us.’

There was a sudden tension about the ship that was obvious in the alert manner of her seamen, and the keenness of the eyes that scanned the horizon. When Kelly reached the bridge another message had been intercepted and Talbot and Heap were staring towards the east with narrowed eyes.

‘
Galatea
’s sighted two hostile cruisers,’ Talbot informed Kelly. ‘Bearing east-south-east, course unknown. The fun’s about to begin, Number One. Go and tell the ship’s company.’

The atmosphere was electric and exultant. They were sailing into history at thirty knots.

But what history? Defeat or victory? None of them believed it could be the first.

They had been on the bridge since sailing, their nerves stretched to the utmost so that they longed to relax; and, strained by reaction and tiredness, Kelly found confused emotions were chasing through his consciousness. Though he was actutely aware of the danger, he brushed it aside. Feelings were a bit of a luxury anyway, at a time like this, and there was something obscene about physical danger and death that was best not dwelt upon.

As he made his way through the ship, he saw men moving to their action stations. The wardroom was being taken over by the surgeon and packets of bandages were being stacked in odd corners. Hoses were laid out ready and tense faces peered at him.

‘What’s up, sir?’

‘Germans are out. Well probably find ourselves in action before long.’

The boiler room fans were roaring to force the draught and Wellbeloved’s face was serious.

‘I hope we can keep up,’ he said.

‘Think we might not?’

‘It’s a long time since we slipped for bottom cleaning.’

The engine room telegraphs clanged and Wellbeloved’s eyes shot to Kelly’s face. ‘Increased revs,’ he said. ‘You’d better get back.’

When Kelly returned to the bridge, the destroyers were punching into the sea in a dogged manner to keep up with the bigger ships. Talbot handed him another signal form.

‘From
Galatea
,’ he said. “Enemy in sight.”’

Now that W/T silence was no longer an advantage, the whole of Beatty’s fleet opened up with a garrulous interchange by wireless, flag and searchlight. The horizon seemed to be filled with the masts and upperworks of ships from which, in darts of light or fluttering flag hoists, messages were hurriedly passed. Fifteen minutes later another signal was intercepted from
Galatea
.

‘Have sighted a large amount of smoke as though from a fleet… Seven vessels besides destroyers… They have turned north.’

The destroyers were pouring through the sea now like hounds after a fox. Despite the calm, it was a rough ride and the crash and clatter of the shuddering ship as she jolted between the waves was deafening.
Mordant
’s
wake cut through the water with those of the other destroyers like white lines scraped across a dark scalp by a giant comb. Above their heads the flags snapped and chattered, the halyards thrumming from the quivering mast.

Talbot was staring forward, his eyes alight. He seemed to have come alive, standing tensed and ready, one hand on the binnacle, the other on the single rail that supported the painted canvas screens which were all they had in the way of a bridge. To port the great hulks of the battle cruisers –
Lion
,
Princess Royal
,
Queen Mary
,
Tiger
– seemed to thunder through the water, leaving Evan-Thomas’ Fifth Battle Squadron wide and ten miles astern.

It was incredibly exhilarating and, for the first time since he’d joined the Navy, Kelly realised that he wanted to live and die in destroyers. He wasn’t a submariner by temperament – he hadn’t the coldly precise nature of a submariner, any more than he had the calm stolidity of a big ship man. This was what he wanted – the rough and tumble of small ships. Comfort meant nothing when set against this excitement.

Lipscomb, the yeoman of signals, appeared, his face solemn. ‘
Galatea
’s under fire, sir.’

A seaplane buzzed low over them, heading on a north-easterly course towards
Galatea
’s position, and they watched it until it disappeared in the patchy clouds.

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t run into a zeppelin,’ Heap said.

As they increased speed, the wind was carrying the puther from the funnels of the bigger ships across their line and they could taste the grit in it.

‘Finely divided particles of carbon,’ Talbot drawled. ‘Commonly known as smoke.’

Kelly’s blood was tingling in his veins at the knowledge of what lay ahead. He’d already seen more action since the war began than most men had, but there was a new and incredible excitement in the thought that he was about to take part in the first great fleet action since hostilities began, the big smash they’d been awaiting for so long, when hundreds of steel ships and thousands of men would pit their strength against each other for command of the North Sea.

Bunting was fluttering on
Lion
’s
signal bridge for the battleships trailing astern, then another hoist followed, topped by a blue and yellow destroyer flag. Lipscomb reached for the answering pendant as he read it aloud.

‘“Destroyers take up position…”’

As he finished reading, the answering pendant rushed up to the yardarm.

‘It’s going to be a general engagement,’ Talbot said. ‘Two months after joining, Number One! You’re going to be lucky! I’ve been waiting for two years and barely seen a sight of ’em. If we don’t catch ’em this time, the fleet’s going to demand blood for supper.’

Turning north-east to where the contact had been made had brought them to the starboard side of
Lion
and soon afterwards the flagship turned south-east and the battle cruisers formed line astern, a great phalanx of grey steel drawn out towards the horizon.

‘Looks as though they mean business,’ Heap observed. ‘I think we must be trying to get between the Hun and his base.’

In the middle of the afternoon, they sighted smoke to the north-east and the flotilla increased revolutions, pressing on at full speed in showers of spray, while the First and Third Light Cruiser Squadrons took station astern of the battle cruisers. Then, as they turned into line, Kelly caught a flash on the horizon and realised he was looking at silvery hulls and battle cruiser upperworks. Beneath the smoke he could distinguish five shapes accompanied by torpedo craft. The outlines of masts were joined by funnels and the upper parts of hull.

‘There, sir,’ he said, pointing. ‘The Germans! Fine off the starboard bow. I see two funnels. Looks like
Moltke.
’

‘Range fourteen miles!’ The call came on the wind in a bored well-drilled voice, and he saw the men at the forward gun lift their heads and begin to stare ahead.

The turbines were howling at full power now and they had to cling on with both hands to stay on the shuddering bridge as the ship bucketed through the water. His glasses to his eyes, Kelly called over his shoulder.

‘They’re steering a converging course!’

‘So much the better,’ Talbot said. ‘We’ll reach ’em quicker.’

It was an electrifying sight. After two years of waiting and expectancy, the two great fleets had finally met. Tension filled the ship, reaching from the bridge into every compartment and gun position. Glancing down, Kelly saw Rumbelo closed up on the forward gun, his bulky figure tense and alert.

Talbot was leaning forward over the bridge rail, his pipe trailing a thin stream of blue smoke. His boredom was gone with the weariness of two years of waiting, and he was as eager as anyone else in the ship, his manner so projecting itself that Kelly found his blood quickening at the thought of what lay ahead.

‘They’ll have to fight this one to the bitter end,’ Heap pointed out cheerfully. ‘No running away this time. And if Jellicoe’s out and heading towards us, we’ve got them.’

The battle cruisers had turned east-south-east and were crashing towards the Germans between two lines of destroyers, with Pakenham’s
New Zealand
and
Indefatigable,
also surrounded by destroyers, five miles to the north-east. Not a man could be seen on their decks. Volumes of smoke poured from their funnels, and their turrets, trained expectantly to port, made them look eager for battle.

Kelly found himself holding his breath, waiting for the first crash of guns, the overture to the coming battle. His mind was occupied with responsibilities and his eyes were all over the ship. The clouds were clearing a little now, and the surface of the sea was picking up the light, though there was a faint mist covering the water and making the horizon hazy. The flotilla’s speed had increased slightly and
Mordant
had slipped back a fraction. Talbot had stopped chattering now and
Mordant
’s
bridge was silent so that the crash of steel against the water, the hiss of the waves, and the shuddering of the ship filled their ears. Over the roar of the blowers, they could hear a constant clatter and tinkle below, as if the whole vessel was full of loose objects all being thrown around.

‘Flagship’s signalling, sir!’

Flags fluttered up from
Lion
to be passed down the line of ships. ‘“Assume complete readiness for action in every respect”’ the yeoman read out.

The battle ensign jerked to the yardarm. All over the ship men were testing communications and instruments, and fire parties were assembling at their stations. Gasmasks, goggles and life-saving mats were placed ready as the final preparations for action were made. Splinter mats, boxes of sand, stretchers, spars and spare electrical and engineering gear were laid out and secured. Galley fires were damped down, surgical instruments sterilised and anaesthetics prepared. There was a strange sort of cold-bloodedness about all the preparation for death and destruction that took the breath away, but the very intensity of the preparations drove away any thoughts of foreboding.