Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

He breathed deeply. He was free. His two suitcases were at his feet … thin smoke from Monmouth’s funnels drifted away on the trade wind, the sun shone, the pinnace plunged and lurched, for the waves were high even in this sheltered anchorage. And there, four cables ahead, Penrith heaved and jerked at her anchor. He had known her previous commander only by name. He was sorry that the man had been attacked by cerebral malaria; sorrier for the sake of his family that he had died a week ago. But it was pure good luck that her next senior officer was a junior lieutenant commander, not yet in the zone for promotion; and that Monmouth had a lieutenant commander well inside the zone, and a favourite of Brandt’s; and that Penrith’s Captain Leach was a friend of Tom’s … The exchange had been authorized, and here was his new ship – not his, but John Leach’s, and Leach was a good man, cheerful and wise, beloved of the lower deck. Any ship of John Leach’s was a taut ship, and a happy one – a combination not always easy to achieve. She was a Guzz ship the crew half West Countrymen, the other half the ubiquitous cockneys, Scots, and Irish.

  There she tossed, a light cruiser of the old Grey Funnel Line, built in 1911 – long, low, 25 knots designed maximum speed, no armour but some protective plating, a narrow knifelike bow, a turret mounting two 6-inch guns on the foredeck, then a marked step down under the bridge to the after deck, five turrets on each side, each mounting one 4-inch gun … four tall, raked funnels, the middle two with three white stripes painted round near the top. The 6-inch guns could hit at 11,200 yards, the 4-inch at 9800 … but in a seaway the turrets on the main deck were liable to be flooded if the ship rolled more than a few degrees. She carried 375 men and displaced 4800 tons.

  He could see the officer of the watch on the quarterdeck now, telescope under his arm. Now another officer was appearing from below. He counted four gold stripes on his sleeve … good old John, coming out himself to greet his new commander!

  ‘Slow ahead!’ the midshipman commanded. The pinnace came round slowly, its heavy motion easing as it came under Penrith’s lee. A sideboy was on the gangway, and the boat’s coxswain handed him Tom’s gear. The midshipman saluted, and Tom said, ‘Thanks. Good luck.’ He stepped lightly across the small rising, falling gap on to the gangway’s platform. Behind him he heard the midshipman order, ‘Bear off! Full ahead.’

  He was up the gangway, at the top, saluting the quarterdeck. The Officer of the Watch was formally reporting his arrival to the captain, but John Leach was coming forward, hand outstretched. ‘Tom! Welcome aboard. I am really delighted to see you … and have you as commander.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. So am I.’

  September 28

  The wind whistled through and round and over and under the thin bridge plating as though it had not existed. Wind was the predominant impression Tom had of Punta Arenas, the small Chilean town and port on the west shore of the Magellan Strait – the southernmost town in the world. The wind had been blowing when they arrived in the morning, hot in pursuit of the elusive German cruiser Dresden, rumoured to be in the South Atlantic. It had blown all day, while boats scurried to and fro – taking officers ashore to receive and send dispatches from the Admiralty via the local British consul, for wireless could not yet reach London from ships anywhere at sea, nor vice versa. From London, signals went by cable to the consuls, thence by land line to such wireless stations as were in British hands, or were permitted by their governments to accept messages in cipher – messages arranging for coaling, collection of mail, buying stores and hardware to replace sea damage … Then, at dusk, when Captain Leach came back from a conference on board HMS Good Hope, the armoured cruiser which wore the flag of Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, commanding all British naval forces in the South American region, he had immediately summoned Tom and the navigating officer, Lieutenant de Saumarez, to his day cabin. As soon as they were seated round the big table Captain Leach had said, ‘You remember on the 25th – three days ago – we met the liner Ortega?’

  ‘Carrying French reservists from Oceania back to France, wasn’t she, sir?’ Tom said.

  ‘Yes. Her captain told the admiral that on the 18th – ten days ago – he’d met Dresden in the Pacific, but managed to escape by entering neutral waters. We didn’t know where Dresden had gone after that, but probably to join von Spee in the Pacific, so we set off after her.’

  ‘And didn’t catch a glimpse,’ Tom said.

  ‘Not unnaturally,’ the captain said, ‘because she’s been sighted since in Orange Bay. The consul told the admiral this morning. How far is Orange Bay, pilot?’

  ‘Over three hundred miles, by the Channels, south-east,’ de Saumarez answered without hesitation. ‘It’s one of the bigger bays north of Horn Island … but there are hundreds of them – bays, sounds, channels, inlets …’

  ‘The admiral has ordered our squadron to sail for Orange Bay at 0300, local time, in the order Flag – Glasgow – Penrith – Monmouth – Otranto. No sound, especially from the anchor cables. No lights whatever until Flag puts on her station-keeping lights, then all ships follow suit. Moonrise is at 0307. Speed, 16 knots, which will bring us to the mouth of the Magdalena Channel at first light.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that, sir,’ de Saumarez muttered. ‘The channels are a nightmare to navigate at night. Doing it gave me grey hairs, four years ago.’

  ‘The admiral is well aware of that, pilot,’ Leach said a little testily. His eyes were red-rimmed, and underscored by dark circles. The ship had been running in heavy seas for a week before reaching Punta Arenas, the crew at readiness all day and with all guns manned at night. The captain had spent twenty hours a day on the bridge, for ten days in succession …

  At 3 a.m., the light of the crescent moon thrown faintly up from under the horizon on to the scudding cloud patches, the squadron sailed – dark, silent, the sea a whitish blur, capped by whiter patches, shimmering, moving. The departure had not been seen or heard by any of the many German sympathizers living in the town. Half an hour after sailing, the flagship lit her dim station lights, and the others followed suit. Leach and Tom were on the bridge with de Saumarez. Tom said quietly, ‘Why don’t you have a kip, sir, until we reach the Magdalena? This is easy … comparatively.’

  Leach hesitated, muttering to himself, ‘The Strait’s wide enough. The guns are manned. God, I’m tired, Tom. All right. Pilot, you too, two hours shut-eye. Tom, you have the ship until the Magdalena. I’ll be in my sea cabin.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  The captain disappeared, followed unwillingly by the navigator. Tom knew how they felt; they were doing a brave thing, especially John Leach, for a captain could never pass on or share his responsibility, and the Magellan Strait, though wide, was not an easy waterway even in the best of conditions – which, according to all the sea lore Tom had ever heard, never existed. But it was also a wise thing, for ahead lay ‘the channels’, 140 nautical miles of twisting waterways, strewn with islets, reefs, and rocks, unlighted, shaken by sudden waves and cyclonic wulliwas. Both captain and pilot would need all their skill for that stretch, before they could relax again in the wider passage of the Beagle Channel.

  It began to snow. Tom huddled deeper into his greatcoat, and pulled the thick wool scarf a little higher round his neck. Under the greatcoat he was wearing his cold weather serge uniform and two thick sweaters. His hands were encased in two pairs of wool gloves, and his feet in two pairs of thick socks.

  He rocked back and forth on his feet to the roll of the ship, watching the moonlit bulk of Glasgow ahead. He gauged the apparent size of her and the relative positions of the station lights, for those were the only ways he had of judging her distance ahead, and hence whether Penrith was keeping station.

  It was a relief to be working with a trained and practised crew. Three-quarters of Monmouth’s lower deck hands had been reservists, posted into the ship after her hurried refit. The flagship was in even worse state, with over ninety per cent reservists – but Penrith and Glasgow were in the middle of commissions started long ago,
in peace time; and both had been on foreign stations at the outbreak of war, where reservists could not easily be sent; so neither carried more than a handful of them.

  Glasgow seemed to be a fraction smaller than she should be, and he said, ‘Up ten revs.’

  Sub-lieutenant Mountjoy, the officer of the watch, standing the other side of the quatermaster at the wheel, repeated the order, then leaned forward and spoke down the voicepipe to the engine room. ‘Up ren tevolutions.’

  The tinny voice from the engine room came back, reconfirming.

  Mountjoy said, ‘Glasgow’s turning to starboard, sir.’

  ‘I see it, Sub.’ He waited, his eyelids half-closed against the stinging snow, until Penrith had reached the same position at which Glasgow had made her turn, then ordered, ‘Port ten.’

  ‘Port ten, sir.’

  ‘Ten degrees of port helm on, sir.’

  Tom waited till the turn was nearly completed, and then ordered, ‘Starboard five!’

  ‘Starboard five, sir!’

  ‘Five degrees of starboard helm on, sir!’

  ‘Midships!

  ‘Midships, sir.’

  ‘Steady!’

  ‘Steady, sir … Course north 160 west.’

  Penrith steadied on the new course. The wind slashed deeper through all Tom’s clothes. The six men on the bridge were frozen into their duties, their positions. At the after end two seamen messengers were shrunk into themselves for warmth, far apart, one on the port and one on the starboard side. Tom glanced back, as he did every few minutes in a long-learned reflex, to check the ship astern … no undue sparks from the funnel, nothing amiss with the outline of masts and boats and guns, nothing unusual about the way the sea ran along the barely seen flanks of the ship.

  Glasgow was closer. ‘Down ten revs!’

  The order was passed in the prescribed ritual sequence. No one moved.

  ‘Port five … Midships … Up ten revs! … You’re wandering all over the channel, quartermaster! Watch your steering, man! Port five! Midships!’

  A wardroom steward came up with a mug of hot cocoa for Tom and another for Mountjoy. With Tom’s permission, the boatswain’s mate sent one of the messengers to the galley for cocoa for all the bridge watchkeepers. The quartermaster was relieved and went below, yawning and rubbing his eyes. An hour passed, the quartermaster was relieved again, and also the officer of the watch. Tom stood at his post, his lids grown heavy and his eyes beginning to smart. His feet were aching with cold. Every now and then spray hurled across the bridge as Penrith plunged into an unusually big wave. The wind blew from the south-west at thirty to thirty-five knots, without cease. Snow draped the whole forecastle and the 6-inch turret almost directly below the bridge.

  He had received a letter from Dick Yeoman while at Santa Catherina, just before transferring to Penrith. The letter had been written early in August. Dick hoped he was well, told of a good day’s sail in West Bay, and regretted that Tom would not be able to join them this summer – unless the Huns caved in very quickly: did Tom think they would? It was an innocent letter, but it had made Tom uneasy. Was young Yeoman of the same persuasion that Guy said Russell Wharton was? Or was he just innocent? Could he, Tom, have imagined what he was sure had happened in the flat? He wrenched his mind away … but it would not go far. What show was Wharton in now? Something better than that second rate collection of music hall clichés he’d taken the boys to, he hoped. The very night he’d been ordered to join Monmouth. Wharton had looked perfectly normal, not like what they said he was. But what were they supposed to look like? Oscar Wilde had been a big, powerful man, and …

  ‘Sir! Commander!’

  He looked up and realized at once what Skyring, the officer of the watch, had been about to say: Glasgow was closer than she should be.

  ‘Down ten revs!’ he snapped.

  The moon was dim, and Glasgow no more than a faint blur. He eyed the shape closely. Penrith had only been half a cable out of station, and slowing fast now: no danger of a collision.

  Skyring went back to his post. Tom said nothing. In this sort of situation you couldn’t take your attention off the ship for a moment – your whole attention.

  And dawn was close. De Saumarez came up on to the bridge, saluted, and said, ‘I had a good kip, sir. Cape Froward bears 272. We’re twenty minutes from the mouth of the Magdalena Channel.’

  Tom looked at the eastern sky, and stooped over one of the brass-throated pipes arrayed in a row along the front of the bridge screen – ‘Captain, sir.’

  The voice answered at once, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bridge, sir … First light. Twenty minutes to the Magdalena.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom. I’ll wash, and shave, and be up in ten minutes. Send for a cup of kai for me, will you?’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  He swam slowly up out of sleep, thinking of someone. Dick Yeoman? No, someone older … The Engineer Commander, who had begun to show the same reasonless hostility towards him that Captain Brandt had? Perhaps that was it … It was unpleasant, and would become more so, for the cramped wardroom was not a place where enemies could avoid each other. But what could he do? He thought of Quentin. He had received no letters from the family, and did not know whether Quentin had been at Mons and Le Cateau, the Marne, the Aisne, or at Ypres but he thought he probably had, for an English language newspaper brought aboard in Montevideo had mentioned the gallant stand of the Weald Light Infantry at Le Cateau. On land, all movement, forward or backward, seemed to have stopped, though not the killing. Strange sort of war …

  He considered where Penrith was – in the maze of channels and islands between the southern tip of the American continent and Cape Horn: and what she was doing – hunting for the German light cruiser SMS Dresden. Dresden had been in the Atlantic when the war began, but had promptly vanished from British ken. It seemed clear that her best hope was to join von Spee’s powerful squadron, which had left China weeks ago. Von Spee had tried to coal at Tahiti on September 22nd, but been driven off; so was in all probability heading for this same area – the southern tip of South America – with the intention of rounding the Horn and making his way to the focal points of the Allied shipping lanes between Montevideo and the West Coast of Africa. So while it was Dresden they were looking for, it was quite possible they might come upon von Spee’s whole squadron, with or without Dresden.

  He remembered meeting Admiral von Spee earlier that year in Tsingtau, when his ship had visited the German base on a courtesy call … a big man with wide shoulders, a short greying torpedo beard and remarkable eyes, that were somehow like his nephew Guy’s, except that the German admiral could combine the hardness of Guy’s blue and the softness of his brown in the one colour, sky blue. And his squadron proved his drive and the power of his personality: it was a beautifully trained machine, and showed it at sea as well as in port. To overcome that squadron now would not be an easy fight, even if weather and all other circumstances conspired to help the British.

  Still no one had called him. He yawned, thinking the commander is a sort of spare part, really. He was surplus until the ship was in action when, as damage control officer, he had a great deal to do. Otherwise, he was responsible for the discipline of the crew, and was President of the Wardroom Mess, while the captain dined alone in his own cabin: he was not a watchkeeping officer, so he had no responsibility for the bridge unless specifically sent for: he was not the navigator, the First Lieutenant, the gunnery officer, the chief engineer, the wireless officer, the surgeon lieutenant-commander, the paymaster lieutenant … all had their specific responsibilities. His were all, under the captain – and none.

  He got up, shaved, dressed, went to the wardroom, and was given bacon and eggs by the steward, while the youngest sub-lieutenant sprawled asleep on a sofa and the surgeon played backgammon with an engineer lieutenant at the far end of the mahogany table.

  He went up on deck, and to the bridge, saluting the captain. It was still snowing, but the wind, or perhaps
a vagrant hour of sun, had cleared the ship of the previous snow; the new snow was falling on bare steel. He could see Good Hope and Glasgow ahead, and Monmouth astern, the taller bulk of the armed merchant cruiser Otranto bringing up the rear. They were still doing sixteen knots – Otranto’s maximum in a seaway – and the navigating officer was calling a continuous series of orders to the quartermaster and engine room as the squadron plunged on through low cloud, snow, and sleet. Rocks and low islands appeared and disappeared on either side, the bow waves of the leading ships washing over them. Sea birds swooped and circled, settled on the gun turrets and mastheads, and flew off. Six seals swam in Penrith’s wake for a time, then sheered away. The captain stood close to the binnacle, watching, but did not interfere with de Saumarez’s running of the ship.

  After a time he said without turning his head, ‘ ’Morning, Tom. Had a good sleep?’

  ‘Plenty, sir.’

  ‘We’re just about to leave the Cockburn Passage.’

  They were facing the Southern Ocean. The waves rolled in twenty feet high, wind-whipped foam along their crests blending into the driven snow above. Penrith plunged deeper at each wave, water bursting upwards and outwards in giant green-white explosions, to be driven back – the wind now dead ahead – to drench fo’c’sle and bridge and everyone on them. Below, the skeleton crew huddled in A Turret, arms wrapped round the stanchions and gun levers. On the wings of the bridge the lookouts peered forward and to the sides, gloved hands dark and wet, eyes rimmed with snow.

  ‘Starboard fifteen,’ de Saumarez called.

  ‘Starboard fifteen …’

  Glasgow was turning again, broadside on now. Now Penrith. The huge waves were smashing into Glasgow as though she were a wall of rock, pouring over upper decks in solid masses. Now it was Penrith’s turn. She heeled over under the blows, now coming from the starboard side as the squadron turned into Brecknock Channel.

  ‘Past Aguirre Island, sir,’ de Saumarez said to the captain.

  ‘How far to the entrance to the Murray Channel, pilot?’