Greta almost referred to his long absence. She’d told him, ‘The spring run were grand, Nick. Ye’d no’ve believed the fish we took!’
‘Very glad to hear it.’ He’d hesitated. ‘I wish I’d—’
‘Och, ye’ll get your chance.’ Her father had put an end to the need to talk about it. Nick could read the thought in the old man’s eyes; if you had something to say, you’d say it, and if on the other hand you preferred to hold your tongue…
‘I’ve missed you all.’
Greta had laughed; ‘So I should hope!’
‘Come intae the hoose, lad.’ The old man stooped, leading the way into his gloomy little cottage. Greta stood back, smiling, making Nick go next.
He’d met the old man fishing. Over a period of months they’d encountered each other from time to time, at first with no more than a wave, a grunt. Then they’d begun to exchange a word or two – the weather, or the fish, or how the sheep were doing. Finally one afternoon Magnusson had invited him to the croft for ‘a dram tae keep the cold oot’, and he’d met Greta and her mother.
Escape and a lack of any kind of sham. The Magnussons had made Scapa bearable. They’d be wondering in a day or two where he’d got to; there’d been no way to send a message.
* * *
Peering into the binnacle he saw suddenly that Lanyard had swung nearly ten degrees off course.
‘Watch your steering, quartermaster!’
‘Aye aye, sir!’
Searching the horizon again, he checked suddenly: on the beam, that dark smear was the low protuberance of Fife. ‘Sub-Lieutenant, sir!’ The signalman was pointing ahead. ‘May Island, sir!’
Everything came in sight at once, as if a curtain had been rung up suddenly on the day. May Island’s lighthouse was a white pimple poking out of a grey corrugated horizon. Nick put his face down to the other voicepipe.
‘Chartroom!’
Johnson’s voice floated out of the copper funnel: ‘Chartroom.’
‘Fife Ness is in sight to starboard, sir, and May Island’s fine on the port bow.’
There was silence for about three seconds. Then Johnson told him, ‘I’m coming up.’
He was chewing, when he reached the bridge and his lips were wet. He crossed to the starboard side of the bridge and studied the land; glanced ahead, frowning, at the clearing shape of May Island.
‘How long have you had land in sight?’
I suppose a minute or—’
‘Look’ Johnson pointed. ‘The Ness is well abaft the beam. It was no further from us ten minutes ago than the nearer land is now.’
Nick agreed. ‘Visibility’s improved a lot in the last few minutes.’
‘Hardly that much.’ Pale eyes flickered at him, and away again. Judged ‒ condemned. Nick, smarting, held his tongue.
The destroyer’s motion eased rapidly as she closed May Island; there was shelter from the gradually engulfing land and at the same time the wind was dying. Johnson turned to him again.
‘Go down and get some breakfast. Back up here in thirty minutes.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
And the hell with you, too!
But he was still a damn sight better off, he told himself, than he’d been two days ago. He moved to the back of the bridge, over the lower level that served as signal-bridge and was dominated by the searchlight above it and, a few feet abaft the searchlight mounting, the slanting tube of the foremast. He nodded to the port-side lookout ‒ a man of about his own age, with a freckled face, a missing tooth, a gingerish tinge of beard. The sailor asked him, ‘Yon’d be the Forth we’re enterin’, would it sir?’
‘It would yes. What’s your name?’
‘MacIver, sir.’
MacIver. Ginger, freckles, tooth missing. There were a lot of names to learn; he’d start a list, add a dozen a day until he knew the whole ship’s company. He let himself down the ladder from the destroyer’s salt-wet, black-painted bridge, down to the upper deck. Turning aft, he passed the ship’s boats lashed and gripped in their turned-in davits, with the galley between them. Now the foremost of the pair of funnels: Lanyard was one of a small number of her class that had only two instead of three. Walking aft, he scanned the deck layout as he went, passing the midship four-inch gun and then the second funnel, and aft of that the first pair of twenty-one inch torpedo tubes, now the after searchlight platform, and the other pair of tubes. Mainmast: and an inch-wide brass strip marked the start of the quarterdeck. There was superstructure amidships here, a sort of deckhouse with a door in it, and inside the door a ladder led down to the wardroom and the officers’ cabin flat. Abaft it was the stern four-inch.
Nick paused and leant beside the door. The land was easy to see now, even from this lower level. Lanyard was only about five miles offshore, and the sun rising in the east was floodlighting that coast for her at the same time as it would be blinding anyone ashore: the light-gauge, Uncle Hugh had called it, explaining how an admiral would try to deploy his ships so as to have the advantage of it. It was strange how thinking back to Uncle Hugh’s talk about the Navy still gave one a whiff of excitement and enthusiasm; it was as if Hugh Everard’s own attitudes were infectious, strong enough to break through one’s own more recent disillusionment and renew the longing for things which one now suspected to be myths. Daydreams; rose-coloured, like this sunrise flush that was turning the sea milky while a pink glow seeped through slats of cloud low on the diffuse horizon. But how could one explain Uncle Hugh’s attitude to a Service that had treated him so shabbily?
In any case, thanks to the boost which the Falklands success had given to his resumed career, he was back now almost to where he would have been if they hadn’t forced him out. Hugh Everard was captain of the brand-new battleship Nile, one of the crack Queen Elizabeth class super-dreadnoughts. Nile, with the others of the fifth Battle Squadron, had left Scapa for Rosyth only a day ahead of Lanyard; and might Uncle Hugh, Nick wondered, have had something to do with this move of his? Might he have pulled a string with the admirals before he sailed?
There was no reason why he should have. Nick hadn’t asked for anything, or complained; he hadn’t said a single word to anyone, not even to Sarah ‒ from whom, if he had told her anything about his feelings of dead-end hopelessness, it might have got back to his uncle.
He shrugged. It had happened, that was all. All he had to do was take advantage of it, make a go of things here in Lanyard ‒ if they’d let him. And meanwhile ‒ breakfast. Nick shot down the ladder, almost colliding with the surgeon lieutenant, Samuels, who’d been starting up it.
‘Sorry―’
‘If you break your neck, don’t ask me to mend it.’
They seemed a friendly bunch. Reynolds, whose quiet voice and high forehead made him seem more like an academic than a naval officer, was eating breakfast. Hastings, a Reserve sub-lieutenant who was Lanyard’s navigator, had just finished. Tall, fair, with the skin of his cheeks pitted, presumably by smallpox; he’d pushed his chair back and he was stuffing a pipe with tobacco.
Nick sat down. ‘Good morning.’ He nodded to the steward: ‘Morning, Blewitt.’
‘Morning, sir. Bacon and egg, sir?’
‘Please.’ Nick told Hastings, ‘We’re almost up to May Island.’
‘I know. I looked.’
‘You’d imagine—’ Reynolds addressed Nick ‒ ‘that a pilot worth his salt would be up there looking after this vessel’s safety. Eh?’ Nick didn’t commit himself. Reynolds shook his head. ‘Not this one. He sits here eating hearty meals while we officers of the watch do his job for him. What truly aggravates him is to have to use his sextant ‒ should stars happen to become visible at night, or a sun at noon or—’
‘Don’t worry.’ Hastings raised a hand in greeting as the gunner, Mr Pilkington, joined them. Wizened wiry like a jockey. ‘I’ll con the old hooker in for you, by and by.’
‘My dear fellow, how kind you are!’
Nick told them, ‘I’ll be up there too.’
<
br /> ‘Haven t you just come down?’
‘I gather I’m on permanent watch until I’m considered safe to do it on my own.’
‘Well, that’s reasonable.’
Hastings asked him, ‘Haven’t you done any destroyer time before this?’
‘A few months, earlier on. Most of that in the Flow and Lough Swilly.’
‘Ah.’ The navigator winked at Reynolds. ‘Reckon he’ll be getting some destroyer sea-time soon enough.’
Reynolds frowned. ‘Even if there was anything to it, Hastings—’
‘To what?’
Hastings answered Nick, ‘I had to go with the CO to a briefing before we sailed. Carry the chart for him, you know? Anyway, it seems there’s the makings of a flap. Or there may not be, but—’
‘Flap?’
‘It’s no more than the weekly buzz, Sub.’ Reynolds was testy. ‘Meaningless, like all the others.’
‘The Hun sailed sixteen U-boats on May seventeenth. Thirteen days ago. And none of ’em showed up anywhere. Not so much as a tip of a periscope. Well, a fortnight at sea’s about their limit; so if it’s some fleet operation they’re out to cover, it must be about due. Right?’
‘Unless—’ Reynolds sighed – ‘they’ve sailed right back again, and our clever cipher boys only think they’re still out. Or they’re out and looking for targets and haven’t found any yet. Or—’
‘The other titbit, Everard—’ Hastings raised his voice, to drown out Reynold’s attempts to cut him off ‘the other meaningless item of intelligence is that there’s been the devil of a lot of wireless signalling going on over there. As one knows, our wireless interception’s quite hot stuff these days.’
‘Your breakfast, sir.’ Blewitt put a plate in front of Nick. ‘Take my advice, sir, eat it while it’s ’ot. Cold, it’s ’orrible.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Hastings, with the steward present, had stopped talking. Reynolds muttered, getting to his feet, ‘I’ll see you lads up there, by and by.’ He looked at Nick. ‘Here’s advice for you, Sub. Before you come up topsides, treat yourself to a shave.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Our captain may adopt a somewhat bizarre appearance when at sea, but informality is not encouraged in his officers.’
‘Right. Thank you.’
‘Good day.’ Worsfold, the commissioned engineer, slid into a chair at the end of the table. Dark, small-boned with deepset eyes. The others nodded to him: ‘Morning, Chief.’ Reynolds had gone. Nick, chewing bacon, stared at Hastings, thinking U-boats, wireless activity: we do hear it once a week.
Chapter 2
The Firth of Forth was misty, shiny-grey; the snake-humps of the bridge two miles seaward looked from here as if it was mist they floated on, banks of haze they linked. The mist would rise soon, as the day warmed up; there might even be blue skies later, and one of those days when grey old Edinburgh perked up, grass and granite sparkling… It was good, Hugh Everard thought, to see Edinburgh again.
He turned at the stern end of his battleship’s quarterdeck and paced briskly for’ard again, with his hands clasped behind his back. It was going to be good ‒ more than good, thrilling, to see Sarah again, too; after ‒ what, a year? He gazed out over Nile’s starboard side, to Queensferry and beyond ‒ way beyond, where the Pentland Hills’ blueish shapes rose dimly above land-haze. Edinburgh itself lay between him and those distant ridges, while here, close to his own ship, were moored the others of the Fifth Battle Squadron: Malaya, Warspite, Valiant, and at the head of the line Admiral Evan-Thomas’s flagship Barham. Each of them displacing about thirty thousand tons, with fifteen-inch guns and an amour belt thirteen inches thick, they were the most powerful ships in Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet, all as yet untested in battle. One wondered sometimes whether they’d ever be more than the crack squadron of a ‘fleet in being’.
The name-ship of the squadron Queen Elizabeth, was in dock for a refit, here at Rosyth. She, at least, had fired her guns in anger: she’d done a stint in the Dardanelles, as a bombardment ship in support of the Gallipoli landings ‒ until Jacky Fisher had insisted on withdrawing her, and had a blazing row with Lord Kitchener in consequence.
Seaward, close to the bridge, Hugh could see Beatty’s six battle cruisers: the flagship Lion, with Princess Royal, Queen Mary, Tiger, New Zealand and Indefatigable. The battle cruisers were faster, sacrificing amour and fire-power for a few extra knots. The ‘strategic cavalry of the fleet’, Churchill had called them; and it had been Churchill, not Jellicoe or Fisher, who’d put Sir David Beatty in command of them.
One had such faith in Jellicoe; as a seaman, a leader, a professional. One was less sure of Beatty’s suitability for high command. You couldn’t help thinking, for instance, of the Dogger Bank action, last year, when Beatty with his ‘cavalry’ had managed to sink one German armoured cruiser, the Bluecher while the more powerful units of the German raiding squadron steamed away to safety. It was all very well to blame Rear-Admiral Moore for it; the simple truth was that Beatty’s ambiguous and unnecessary flag hoists had muddled his subordinate commanders. The public, ignorant as ever, had applauded a great victory; but the frightening thing, to Hugh Everard’s mind, was that Beatty had seemed to regard it in the same light. His flagship Lion had been badly mauled; he’d claimed innumerable hits on the German ships, whereas Intelligence reports had now indicated that the British shooting had been extremely poor. Beatty remained arrogant, confident, the public’s sailor hero, with his cap at a slant and his uniform cut to his own design. Hugh Everard frowned, questioning his own feelings ‒ whether there might be envy, jealousy sharpening them.
Beatty, after all, was exactly his own age… Cavalry of the fleet? Confidence was fine ‒ so long as there was some basis, some reason for it. But mere dash, panache, an assumption of Nelsonian superiority: that, in terms of what was needed in a modern fleet commander, was more dangerous than beneficial. No, one’s view was not distorted by personal feelings. Sir David Beatty’s ambitions and his view of himself were his own business, but the effectiveness of a vitally important section of the fleet was a matter in which others were entitled to be concerned.
Commander Tom Crick came stooping under ‘Y’ turret’s massive barrels. Straightening his long, ungainly frame, he saluted.
‘Boat’s alongside, sir.’
Crick was tall ‒ several inches taller than his captain, who was himself only a hair’s breadth under six foot and pink-faced, with ears that stuck out like wings, seeming to support his cap. He’d served with Hugh Everard in the Falklands expedition, and when Hugh had been offered command of Nile Crick had come with him as second-in-command.
He fell in beside his captain, pacing aft, picking up the step. Hugh asked him. ‘Any problems?’
‘None worth bothering you with, sir.’
‘Defaulters?’
Crick pulled at one of his outsize ears. ‘We seem to have made some inroads into the crime rate, sir.’
Hugh’s glance rested on Lady Beatty’s yacht Sheelah which, fitted out now as a hospital tender, was anchored half a mile off Hawes Pier.
‘I’ll be out at Aberdour. Until about the middle of the afternoon, probably. If you need to, you can reach me by telephone at this number.’
The deep-water moorings had shore telephone connections at their buoys. Crick’s long fingers pushed the folded sheet of signal-pad into a pocket of his reefer jacket. He asked diffidently, ‘Are you visiting the Admiral, sir?’
The Beattys had a house at Aberdour.
‘No. It’s a ‒ a personal ‒ er—’ he hesitated: then he finished gruffly, annoyed with himself for being self-conscious about it, ‘A private visit Tom.’
His own words echoed in his head as he tested them, wondering how they’d sounded, and at the same time aware of a distinctly pleasant feeling of excitement and expectation. He’d written from Scapa, when he’d been told of the squadron’s forthcoming move south, to suggest to Sarah that she might find it a good time to visit her father, who was living in re
tirement near Aberdour. It might do her good, he’d suggested, to get away for a while from that great, gloomy house down in Yorkshire.
It was more than a year since he’d seen her. Writing that letter, he’d rejected the thought that his motives for proposing what amounted to a clandestine meeting might be open to misunderstanding. What was wrong with seeing his brother’s wife in her own father’s house, her father’s presence, probably? He’d hinted, rather than put the proposal bluntly; but she’d replied by telegram. He’d thought, reading her wire and immediately crumpling it in his fist. She feels it too, then… And then at once, angry with himself, he’d questioned, feels what? He liked her, cared for her, his feelings for her might be avuncular or paternal or big-brotherly, there could be no question of any sort of ‒ well, there was no such question. Neither he nor Sarah felt anything except friendship, affection, empathy.
He was concerned for her. With John away in France she must be feeling very much alone now.
Although ‒ to be truthful about it ‒ with John at home, he’d have had even more sympathy for her.
He told Crick, ‘It’s my brother’s wife’s family, I’m sure you’d be more than welcome, Tom, if you’d care to test your land-legs one day?’
‘Most kind, sir.’ Crick beamed. Genial, lobster-pink Crick was a torpedo specialist, and a great deal cleverer than he looked. They’d halted now: Hugh Everard had, and then his commander had followed suit: they stood side by side, looking towards the light cruiser squadrons’ anchorage. Three squadrons, twelve cruisers; those were the scouts, the eyes of the fleet. Hugh looked to his right, at the new destroyer pens and inshore moorings crowded with the low, black hulls of the first, ninth, tenth, and thirteenth flotillas. There were about thirty destroyers altogether, with two more light cruisers as their leaders.
‘Well. I’ll be on my way.’ As he turned towards the gangway he was aware of Crick’s signal to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Mowbray. Mowbray snapped. ‘Man the side!’ There was a swift surge of movement round the gangway’s head: the side-boys mustering, the Marine corporal of the watch hurrying to join them, the bosun’s mate wetting his lips and thumbing the mouthpiece of his silver call as he took his place there. Hugh murmured to Crick. ‘Telephone me if you should need to. Otherwise grant shore leave as usual. I’ll let you know when I want the gig inshore again.’
The Blooding of the Guns Page 2
