Sixty Minutes for St George

by Sixty Minutes for St George (retail) (epub)

  ‘You fit? Eh?’

  ‘Only a scratch, sir.’

  Wheeler was blood from the waist down. Wyatt nodded. ‘Good man.’ He looked round at the others. ‘We’ll make another move now. We’ve got to get to those damn trenches, that’s the first thing. All we’ve got to do is move fast, surprise ’em, rout ’em out like winkles…’

  * * *

  Nick, on Bravo’s bridge, saw the leap of flame as the viaduct went up. He put his glasses on it: and that – what he was seeing now – had to be some sort of mirage… Men on bicycles, in mid-air. Then, as they whirled like leaves in a high wind and fell like stones into the rising gush of smoke, he realized what he’d seen: a German army bicycle platoon, hurrying to reinforce the mole defenders, had pedalled to a sudden, devastating doom. It was all smoke there now, under the glare of starshells bursting intermittently. He looked at Garfield. ‘Starboard twenty.’

  ‘Starboard twenty, sir!’

  Garfield was built like a GPO pillar-box. If you painted one navy blue and stuck a cap aslant on top of it, you’d have Horace Garfield, near enough. To knock him down you’d need to tie something like that charge of Amatol to his shortish, tree trunk legs. Nick had wondered briefly about Rogerson: now his attention, only a part of which had in fact been diverted, was concentrated entirely on Bravo’s current manoeuvrings, on the smoke off the mole’s tip, that gun battery on the extension which Bravo and Grebe had already engaged in passing – before they’d come across the moored barge with the gun on it, and sunk that… ‘Midships!’

  ‘Midships, sir.’ Cap tilted left, eyebrow cocked, flinging the wheel over. Bravo slewing to port still, leaving the floating net obstruction on her starboard beam, turning her stern to it now as she swung on. At any moment Thetis, the first of the three blockships, should emerge from that smoke which Welman’s and Annesley’s CMBs had laid. The CMBs were everywhere, racing in and out of their own and the MLs’ screens, replacing smoke-floats as they fizzled out or Hun gunners sank them; the screens had to be constantly renewed, since the wind had changed and was working in the enemy’s favour.

  Grebe was inshore, three or four cables’ lengths to the south of Bravo, engaging and being shot at by the Goeben battery. Shell-spouts were round her almost constantly. Her own guns were toys compared to the battery’s, but she was a small target for them – and she was under constant helm, circling and zig-zagging, darting in and out, no doubt driving the Hun gunners berserk with fury. Foolhardy, Nick thought, much too close: Hatton-Jones was a poker player, and he was playing this like a game of chance too. But, at the same time, serving an undoubted purpose. The whole of this operation, everything, was aimed at one objective, namely getting the blockships into the canal mouth: and if guns that might interfere with that purpose could be kept busy, particularly now that the crucial phase was due to start at any second… Shell-spouts leapt close to Bravo’s stern: Nick told Garfield, ‘Port fifteen.’ He shouted to Elkington, ‘Where did those come from?’

  ‘End of the mole, I think!’

  ‘Midships.’

  ‘Midships, sir.’

  Steering northwards, roughly. Mole-end fifty degrees on the port bow and about half a mile away. Smoke drifting clear of it: flaming onions – German flares – bursting brilliant above the smoke where it was thick offshore. Not brilliant enough to penetrate Brock’s smoke, though. He saw the flashes of the guns, and then Vindictive’s howitzer shells exploding like black, red-edged mushrooms. It was Vindictive’s rocket-barrage – rockets designed by Brock and fired almost horizontally from her stern ports to light the end of the mole extension, where the blockship would have to turn – making that firework display. Really very clever: to show them where to turn, and at the same time provide them with thick smoke-cover within yards of the same spot. Nick told Garfield, ‘Steady as you go… Number One – hold your fire!’

  Thetis, plunging out of the smoke. He had his glasses on her. This was what really mattered, what the whole thing was for. A CMB raced in between Thetis and the mole extension, smoke belching from its stern. Brock-type smoke: what the hell would anyone be doing without Brock? He had no way of knowing, at this moment, that Brock was dead, killed on the mole. The mole-end guns were all flaming, and Thetis was shooting back at them. That CMB’s captain – either Welman or Annesley, it must be – was a brave man. Welman, only two years Nick’s senior, was commander of all the CMBs. Thetis had rounded the point: now she was swinging to port, either to avoid the barge boom or hit suddenly by the eastward-running tide. Nick wondered if her captain, Sneyd, knew there was a barrage of net obstructions just off his bow.

  ‘Starboard fifteen.’

  ‘Starboard fifteen, sir!’

  Shell-splashes on the quarter, forty yards away. From the Goeben battery, probably. Elkington shouted, ‘Grebe’s been hit, sir!’

  ‘Midships.’

  ‘Midships, sir!’

  ‘Steady on north twenty west.’ He wanted to get closer to the end of the mole. Not much closer, but… He told Elkington, ‘When Thetis has cleared the range, try a few shots at the mole guns.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Elkington was trying to look impassive. It wasn’t easy for him; he had the sort of pale-skinned, fine-boned face that tends to show its owner’s state of mind. Grebe, inshore there, had a haze of smoke – or was it steam? – hanging over her amidships, and she’d slowed. It could have been a hit in one of her two boiler-rooms. If that was steam, it had been. But she was moving again, picking up speed, and her guns were still busy.

  ‘Tremlett!’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Make to Grebe, Are you all right?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Shells falling all round Thetis now. Some – too many – hitting her. And she was still swinging to port. At any moment she’d be in that net. The mole-end guns were firing at her about as fast as guns could be fired and re-loaded. By this time the landing parties should have captured them. He focused his glasses on Thetis. She was in the net! Carrying it away with her. Fine for the two who’d be following her in – but if she got it round her screws… He saw that one of the two German destroyers alongside the mole was firing at her now, and he shouted to Elkington: ‘Number One!’ The first lieutenant turned, with a hand cupped to his ear: he’d been watching the mole-end and Thetis, waiting for a chance to get the four-pounder into action. Thetis herself was fairly well clear now but there was an ML there with her now, trailing her; her attendant rescue craft. Nick told Elkington, pointing at the Hun destroyer, ‘Try a torpedo shot!’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  Leading Signalman Tremlett reported, ‘From Grebe, sir: Thank you, but we Grebes are tough chickens.’

  ‘Right… Number One. Hold your fire till Thetis has gone by. I’ll go in closer and we’ll fire to starboard.’ Elkington went to the torpedo-control voicepipe and began shouting orders down to Raikes, the gunner (T). Nick had intended to save Bravo’s two torpedoes in case of attack from outside, German ships coming from other bases, and also because the CMBs were supposed to be taking care of any destroyers inside the mole. But if those Huns were going to shoot at the blockships as they steamed in past them, it seemed a good use for torpedoes here and now. He told Garfield, ‘Starboard twenty.’ Thetis was passing now, about halfway from the mole-end to the canal mouth; she’d been hit hard, mostly by the guns on the mole extension; she’d developed a list to starboard and she seemed to be slowing. Garfield reported, ‘Twenty o’ starboard wheel on, sir!’ Nick took a quick look at Grebe: he thought she’d been hit again, for’ard this time. Hatton-Jones might think of himself as a tough chicken, but he was a damn sight too close to that Goeben battery. On the other hand, if they were shooting at him they couldn’t also be shooting at poor old Thetis.

  ‘Midships! Stand by, Number One!’

  Elkington was at the voicepipe, in touch with Raikes. They had a static target over there; it only needed a properly aimed torpedo that would run straight. You could
n’t shoot at those destroyers, because you might hit British sailors and Marines on the mole behind them. Thetis was past, heading directly for the canal, listing harder and moving rather slowly and still being hit: Nick saw gunflashes in a new location, suddenly – a little way back from the foreshore but to the west of the Goeben battery and quite near the eastern arm of the canal entrance. It would obviously be more than just a good idea to knock that lot out.

  ‘Steady!’

  ‘Steady, sir-south ten west, sir—’ Reversing the wheel… Nick heard Elkington yell, ‘Fire!’ Looking aft, he saw the splash of the torpedo’s entry. He told Garfield, ‘Steer that.’

  Just off the mole extension, Intrepid burst out of the smoke.

  Back at the binnacle, Nick beckoned to Elkington. He pointed out the position of that new battery: they were firing at Thetis now and the flashes were easy to see. Thetis was almost in the canal, just short of the two breakwater arms that made the approach to it funnel-shaped: he was thinking that it was a miracle she was still afloat when he saw that she was swinging off to starboard. He told Elkington, ‘Hit those guns. See if you can’t knock one or two off ’em—’

  He’d seen a bloom of fire and a blossom of black smoke on Grebe. If she stayed where she was much longer, she’d be a cooked chicken. Elkington had rushed for’ard to the gun. It would have been nice, Nick thought, to have had Mackerel’s four-inch instead of these pea-shooters. Intrepid had cleared the barge boom – a string of barges linked by chains and probably with nets slung under them – and there was no net boom there now to impede her, since Thetis had towed it in. He looked back at Thetis: she’d stopped, aground, on the starboard side of the fairway, well short of the canal entrance. One down, two to play! That battery was raising spouts all round her. Bravo’s twelve-pounder fired: a surprisingly loud and penetrating crack for so small a calibre.

  ‘Captain, sir!’

  Tremlett was pointing out to starboard.

  Against the mole: a great gout of smoke and spray, debris flying. That German destroyer: Bravo’s torpedo had struck her right amidships, under her second funnel. Men were cheering – on the bridge and gundeck. Nick shouted, ‘Well done, Number One!’ The four-pounder fired again, recoiled: shell-splashes sprang up close to the ship’s port side almost simultaneously. The battery was answering their attack: and that was to the good, it might even give Intrepid a clear run in.

  ‘Grebe’s hit again, sir.’

  Garfield said it; but his eyes were on the compass-card again now. They’d hit Grebe amidships again, as if they knew where it would hurt most and struck always at the same spot, like a cruel boxer inflicting a maximum of punishment.

  ‘Tremlett – make to him, Are you still all right?’

  ‘She’s calling us, sir!’ Tremlett jumped to the searchlight and gave them an answering flash. The four-pounder fired again. Garfield said, ‘We’re ’itting them guns, sir. Saw the muck fly, that last time.’

  ‘From Grebe, sir: Have been winged. A tow would help.’

  ‘Number One!’ He yelled into the engine-room voicepipe, ‘Full ahead together!’ Elkington came aft quickly. Nick shouted in his ear as the gun fired again, ‘Stand by to take Grebe in tow. Have to look slippy because we’ll be damn close to the battery. See that the other guns engage it as soon as they bear. Starboard ten, cox’n.’

  Intrepid was more than halfway to the canal mouth. Intact, going strong, hardly touched. Thetis had two cutters in the water, packed with men, and two MLs were closing-in on them, Elkington had gone down. Nick told Garfield, ‘Steer for Grebe’s stern.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Grebe shouldn’t be there at all, he thought, let alone in an immobilized condition, which presumably was what Hatton-Jones meant by ‘winged’. She was right opposite that battery, no more than half a mile from it, and only a little more than that from the Goeben guns. She was being hit repeatedly and the sea all around her was a mass of leaping shell-spouts. Hatton-Jones, who in civilian life was some kind of art expert and an international yachtsman, and was now an RNVR lieutenant-commander, could reasonably be granted a third description – that of bloody fool. It wasn’t only his chicken’s neck he’d put on the butcher’s block.

  ‘Aim in towards her quarter now, cox’n.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  ‘I’m afraid we may get knocked about a bit, in a minute.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet against it, sir.’

  * * *

  C3 had hit the viaduct at nine and a half knots, right in the centre of a section between two rows of piers. Only her captain had been in the bridge by the time they’d struck it; he’d had all the others on the other casing, behind the bridge.

  Striking, she’d ridden up out of water, on one of the submerged horizontal girders, smashed through the cross-braces and penetrated as far as the leading edge of the bridge. That had been the really solid point of impact, when the front of the bridge had slammed up against the lattice-work of steel and stopped her. So the Amatol charge had been thrust deep inside the structure of the viaduct, right in the centre of it and under the centre of the roadway overhead. When the bow had hit the underwater girder she’d jumped and jarred: on the casing they’d hung on, hearing the rush and scrape as steel struts snapped and ripped: then the final stop had knocked them off their feet, grabbing for fresh supports: above them in the darkness there’d been German shouts, yelled orders, then lights of torches, rifle-shots, bullets clanging and whirring off the casing. Tim Rogerson recalled a sense of confusion, of hardly knowing what had happened or was happening.

  Sandford’s voice cut through it.

  ‘Get the dinghy in the water! Fast, now!’

  Cleaver was at the for’ard fall. Rogerson cast off the after one, and the boat came down with a rush, its stern bouncing off the curve of No. 3 main ballast tank; the small, frail craft slid into the water almost on its beam-ends, then righted itself and floated.

  ‘Get aboard, all hands!’

  There was a lot of shooting now from directly above their heads. Now a searchlight blazed down, and the shots came faster. Scrambling into the little rocking dinghy: six aboard, and Roxburgh trying to start its engine. Sandford came down the side of the bridge like a trapeze artiste; he swung, landed on his feet on the tank-top where the sea washed over it: the submarine was stuck fast but the tide still moved her, grinding her against the girders that held her and supported her explosive bow. They were more than conscious of that five-ton charge now, because Sandford had lit the fuse before he’d left the bridge. He was climbing into the boat, shouting ‘Come on, shove off!’ The searchlight was blinding, petrifying, and a machine-gun opened up and fired one long burst that sent bullets screaming, rattling and ricocheting through the girders. The sea leapt all around the boat and splinters, large ones, flew from its port side. Rogerson heard himself say, ‘She’s holed. There’s a great—’

  The engine started. The machine-gun hadn’t fired again but the riflemen were hard at it, bullets singing through the struts and beams, clanging off C3’s tanks and sides and smashing into the boat’s planks. The engine whirred, screamed unnaturally, jarring oddly on the transom. Roxburgh shut it off.

  ‘Screw’s damaged.’ He shouted to Sandford, ‘Bloody propeller, sir. It’s no bloody good.’ Rogerson, feeling water round his ankles, asked the ERA ‘Where are the bilge pumps, can we—’ A whole section of the gunnel flew away. Sandford yelled over the noise of a fresh fusillade of shots, ‘Get the oars out! Tim—’ Rogerson’s ears were singing from the rifle-fire. He was already groping for the oars, bent over and trying to get his boots out of the way, tugging at the loom of one of them. He pushed at someone else’s legs that were in the light, got hold of the oar and dragged it up, and his own right forearm seemed to explode in front of his face. It felt as if it had been hit very hard with a hammer, but the skin and flesh had opened, tendons and bone flown out rather like the spines of a smashed umbrella: he was staring at it and thinking vaguely dumdums, then,
almost impersonally as if it wasn’t his own arm he was looking at. Cleaver had snatched the oar and shipped it in the port-side crutch, and Harner had the other one out to starboard; Harner was pushing at 03’s black, wave-washed side with the blade of his, trying to shove off; there was a lot of water in the dinghy now, from the bullet-holes riddling her planks, but Roxburgh had just got the second of the two special bilge-pumps going and it didn’t seem to be getting any deeper at the moment. The boat was slewing, coming clear, both oarsmen trying to get her moving out against the flood of tide: at any time it would have been hard work. Harner grunted, let go of his oar and rolled sideways, he was covered in blood and Rogerson suspected he was dead. He tried to take his place, seeing no reason he couldn’t row with one good arm, but Bindall got it and slid into the coxswain’s place on the thwart. The boat began to move away from the viaduct, shots whistling round, ricochets whining, water leaping, more holes in the boat’s sides. Bindall cursed, fell backwards, letting go his oar: Roxburgh grabbed its loom just before it vanished, sliding away out of the crutch – there were no spare oars, oddly enough, and there was a five-ton pack of Amatol a few yards away with a fuse burning steadily towards it and only a few minutes left: Roxburgh and Cleaver knew it, and they pulled like fleet champions at a regatta. Howell-Price was dragging the wounded or dead men clear of the thwarts and Sandford was at the tiller. Rogerson felt two quick hammer-blows, one into the top of his left shoulder and the other lower, in his ribs on the same side: he remembered afterwards thinking at that moment, not actually feeling pain but knowing he’d been shot twice more and that it was against any sort of odds for any of them to live through this, Well, that’s it, we did know the chance: weren’t too bright… The boat was being forced out against the tide, half full of water, both oarsmen straining, grunting with the effort of moving her and her water-ballast and seven men’s weight: another searchlight joined the first, and the machine-gun opened up again, and most of the stern and the starboard gunnel flew away like chips off a high-speed lathe: Howell-Price was taking over one of the oars, Sandford at the tiller had been hit, and a second machine-gun joined in. Sandford shouted, ‘Keep it up just another half minute, boys, and the swine’ll be blown to—’ He’d been hit again. He was all blood and he couldn’t finish his sentence but he was keeping the boat on course with his teeth gritted and his eyes shut: what made him open them was the Amatol exploding. It was as if the air, the whole night round them, were inflammable and someone had put a match to it: they were part of it, a deafening roar and an engulfing wall of flame. Rogerson, stupefied but vaguely aware that he was cheering, saw a lot of men on bicycles falling into space: some of them appeared to catch fire as they tumbled over. He thought he might be dead, or delirious, or mad. No searchlights now: the power cables to them had been blown apart, of course. Things were dropping everywhere, heavy things and small things, splashing down all round them: a wave came against the tide, lifted the dinghy and rolled it on its way. No shooting any more. Just one small foundering boat with dead or near-dead men in it. Sandford croaked, ‘We’ve done it! Look!’