Trying to draw the Hun towards Beatty – which was not a scouting cruiser’s job. A hatch slid open, and a signalman passed a message through to Rathbone.
‘Galatea to Lion, sir.’
Hugh read the signal. Galatea was reporting that the enemy had turned north, and that more smoke indicated the approach of heavier ships… Now another signal: Beatty was ordering Engadine, a seaplane carrier with the cruiser screen, to send up an observer ’plane.
One couldn’t envy any admiral having to dispose his fleet in the light of this haphazard scattering of information. Those light cruisers should have been pressing through to discover what lay behind the enemy light forces, not playing some decoy game. And a screening force wouldn’t be there to screen nothing.
‘Well.’ He pulled the door open. Then he paused and looked back at Rathbone. He was a shy, quiet man, this navigator, with his round face and alert, quick eyes. ‘Pilot, come out and take over.’
He went outside, and up the three steps to the compass platform. Evan-Thomas was grabbing a chance to close up slightly on the battle cruisers by cutting a corner instead of following astern of them. Wouldn’t make all that much difference, but every yard was one in the right direction. If it should turn out to be the High Seas Fleet that Beatty was charging at on his own, the sooner this squadron could bring its fifteen-inch guns and heavier armour up, the better.
Jellicoe would have had all those signals – for what they were worth. One could imagine his impassive, steady manner covering a desperate longing for useful, detailed information. He’d be working his battle fleet up to full speed, hurrying down to Beatty’s aid, still convinced that Scheer was in harbour and unaware that Beatty had managed to put twenty thousand yards, ten miles, between himself and his supporting battleships!
Rathbone had taken over the handling of the ship. Crick stepped down from the central island. He nodded in the direction of the battle cruiser squadrons.
‘Unfortunate we’re so far astern, sir.’
Hugh nodded. The situation, and what had caused it, was plain to both of them, but one did not, in conversation with a more junior officer, criticise one’s admiral. Crick murmured phlegmatically, pulling at one of his large, pink ears. ‘Want it all to themselves, perhaps.’
A signalman saluted: ‘W/T signal, sir.’
It was to Beatty and commander-in-chief, from the cruiser Nottingham, who reported Have sighted smoke bearing east-north-east. Five columns.
Hugh showed it to Crick. Nottingham was only a few miles from Beatty and ‘five columns’ sounded like Admiral Hipper’s scouting-group of battle cruisers.
‘Getting warmer, Tom.’
Crick looked up from reading it; he pursed his lips as he gazed out towards Beatty’s smoke. ‘Shall I get the hands up, sir?’
‘Not yet.’ As he said it, a light began to flash from that hazy, far-off line of ships. This time he’d been looking that way as it started, and he read the message for himself. Crick did too, muttering the words one by one as each burst of dots and dashes was followed by a second’s pause for the acknowledging flash from Barham. Beatty was telling Evan-Thomas:
Speed twenty-five knots. Assume complete readiness for action. Alter course, leading ships together, the rest in succession, to east. Enemy in sight.
Hugh told Crick. ‘Belay my last order. Get the hands up.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ The commander faced aft; tall, bat-cared, as benign and calm as an umpire at a cricket match: ‘Bugler, sound action stations!’
* * *
Below, in the battleship’s messdecks and compartments, the bugle call produced an effect similar to that of a stick pushed into an ant’s nest. Men were streaming from their messes to battle stations above and below decks; some only half-dressed, pulling jumpers on as they ran; expressions were tense, excited, joyful. This ship’s company had been called to action stations a thousand times, for exercises, target practices and so on, but in the last half-hour a buzz had flown round the ship that German units were at sea and perhaps not far away… Bit of luck, to be with David Beatty, who had a nose for Huns… Damage-control and fire parties stood back out of the rush as they assembled at key points, and were sworn at when they didn’t; they waited for the last of the rush, so that watertight doors could be shut and clipped and the quarters reported closed-up and ready.
Petty Officer Alfred Cartwright, gunner’s mate and captain of ‘X‘ turret, heard the bugle in his sleep and was out of the POs’ mess before he’d really woken; up a ladderway between S3 and S4 casemates to the foc’sl deck, emerging near the screen door into the bridge superstructure. A destroyer racing past seemed almost alongside. He noticed a sailor on her after searchlight platform who was doing some sort of jig with his arms up above his head and his mouth opening and shutting – singing, or shouting for joy. Cartwright thought, daft bugger… He raced aft – past the funnels, the lashed-down cutters, whalers, pinnaces, and the captain’s gig with the sixteen-foot dinghy nestled against it like a baby just below the torpedo control tower and near the ladder – which he shot down, using his hands on the rails more than his feet on its steps – to the upper deck and the rear of his own ‘X’ turret. He swung himself up into it and pulled the hatch shut.
He saw at a glance that his crew was complete: Dewar, number two of the right gun, grinned at him cockily, and Cartwright scowled at the Scotsman’s impudence. They’d less distance to come than he had: and he had them trained, he’d have booted a man from here to Flamborough Head if he’d not come running like a greyhound to that call.
‘Turret’s crew number!’
Cartwright’s sharp Yorkshire eyes checked each man as he sprang into position. Gunlayers, trainers and sightsetters in their places: number ones at the loading-cage levers, facing the breeches, number twos in line with their breeches and facing the muzzles: number threes in front of number twos and number fours at the sides, facing inwards to the breeches. The second captain-of-turret and numbers five and six were below, in the working-chamber. Civilians, Cart-wright knew, outsiders, thought a turret was a round thing with a pair of guns stuck in it; they had no idea until you told them that below the gun-house – which was what they thought was the whole thing – was a lower part, a working-chamber below decks which was about as big as the gun-house; or that a great armoured tube called a barbette extended right down into the bowels of the ship – five decks down – and contained the revolving hoist, cages in which projectiles and charges were fed up to the gun-house, plus a magazine, a handling-room and shellroom. There were eighteen men under another petty officer in the magazine, and one more petty officer plus eighteen in the shellroom.
The numbering was complete, and Cartwright nodded, satisfied. It was a happy thought that perhaps he’d be blooding his guns, by and by. He turned about, went to the cabinet at the rear of the turret. Its sound-proof door was open. It had to be sound-proof, so that the turret officer could hear and speak over his navyphones to the control top and transmitting station.
Captain Edwin Blackaby, Royal Marines, nodded affably.
‘Well, Cartwright? Got your shooting boots on?’
Peculiar fellow. Mr Blackaby. Looked like a younger version of old Kitchener, and spent more time cracking his own idea of jokes than he did making sense. The men liked him, though. Behind Blackaby was Midshipman Mellors, his assistant.
‘Turret’s crew numbered and correct, sir.’ Nile heeled, and he realised she must be altering course. Blackaby put his eyes to the lenses of his periscope; he murmured from that position. ‘Right you are, GM. You’d best test loading gear, hadn’t you. And be quick – but for heaven’s sake don’t let ’em go mad, eh?’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Over Blackaby’s shoulder, young Mellors grinned at him. Mellors liked Cartwright. When he’d joined Nile – green as grass, and fresh out of Dartmouth – and been detailed as an assistant turret officer, he’d come to this gunner’s mate for advice and information, and Cartwright, showing him round th
e turret’s workings and then the cabinet’s fire-control equipment, navyphones and so on, had summed up what his function would be by telling him. ‘Captain Blackaby is turret officer sir; if we’re ordered to independent control ’stead o’ director-firing, it’s him as controls us. Tha’ sits up there wi’ him and tha’ works the rate clock, and tha’ takes charge if he should be killed; but ’appen if Captain Blackaby’s killed sir, so’ll tha’ be theself…’
He was back behind his guns now, bellowing, ‘Test main loading gear!’ Number one of the right-hand gun yelled it down to the crew of the working-chamber, and like a hollow echo the voice of number six below there took it up and passed it down to the magazine and shellroom. The number twos meanwhile had grabbed the breech levers and swung the breeches open; number threes roared in unison, competing with each other for sheer noise, exuberance. ‘Gun run out, breech open!’ Tripping the air-blast levers, since of course nothing had run out, while number ones were trying rather perfunctorily to raise the gun-loading cages while the telegraphs showed ‘not ready’ and the pedals were pressed down. It couldn’t be done; if it had been possible it would have proved some failure in the mechanism. Now they’d put the telegraphs to ‘ready’ and they were trying again with the pedal not pressed. It was as it should be; they were reporting this to Cartwright; and the number fours, who’d checked meanwhile that the chain-rammers wouldn’t work when the cages weren’t up, were confirming this point just as loudly. They were enjoying themselves, bawling out their reports and slamming the gear about. Cartwright warned them, shouting the whole lot down, ‘Steady, lads, now steady!’ Nobody wanted a jam-up, not at a moment such as this.
‘Out rammers, free the cage!’
You couldn’t do that, either. So many things you couldn’t do. Safety precautions, all of them. With fifteen-inch guns you weren’t dealing in weights of pounds or hundredweights, you were handling moving steel parts that weighed tons.
‘Withdraw rammers!’
Not halfway through, yet. But routine they knew by heart, orders which they’d die – as old men if they were lucky – still knowing. After main loading gear, there was secondary gear to be tested. Then the firing circuits to be checked, and training- and elevation-receivers to be lined-up with the director-trainer’s transmitter in the director tower.
‘What’re we fightin’, GM. d’ye know?’
Number two of the right gun, Able Seaman Dewar, was glancing round over his shoulder. Cartwright ignored the question. He pointed: ‘Interceptor there, ye gormless clown!’ Dewar snatched at the interceptor switch, broke it, and the right gun-ready lamp went out. He looked round again, rather furtively; Cartwright told him, glaring. ‘Tha’d best stay awake and lively. Dewar!’ He went back to the cabinet, where Midshipman Mellors had synchronised the turret officer’s receivers with those of the director and the guns; Blackaby told his turret captain, ‘Load the cages with common shell. GM, and then stand by, and don’t let ’em play that gramophone!’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Blackaby hated Dewar’s gramophone. His main complaint of it had been that Dewar always put on the same record, a well-worn hit called Everybody’s Doing It. But when Dewar had borrowed a couple of other ragtime records from some pal of his, Blackaby had been just as discouraging. He should worry. Cartwright thought; all he needed to do was shut his cabinet’s sound-proof door!
‘Stand to!’
Laughter and banter died away. He faced them at attention; a tallish man, deep-chested, black-brewed, with a strong-boned, open face. Glancing round the turret, he met each pair of eyes in turn, asserting an essentially personal control.
‘Wi’ common shell, load the cages!’
Dewar jumped to the voicepipe to the working-chamber, and number three grabbed the handle of the magazine telegraph and whirled it round to rest at the word LOAD.
* * *
Three thirty-five pm: the enemy battle cruisers were in sight from Lanyard’s bridge. There was a mass of smoke in the north-east, and under it five grey, ship-shaped objects. They were about fifteen miles away, and steering roughly east- south-east.
Lanyard’s turbines normally whined but now, at full power, they were screaming. Her bridge was juddering, jolting, wind-whipped as her funnels belched black smoke to mingle with her flotilla’s and the battle cruisers’, She felt like some creature that was alive and suffering, panting, dragging each last ounce of effort out.
This fleet and the distant, silent procession of Hun warships might have been two fleets passing, without contact!
In fact they were converging on each other rapidly. Looking to his right as Lanyard clawed painfully up the port side of the British battle cruisers Nick saw that their turrets had been trained round to point at the far-off enemy, the great gun barrels cocked up to maximum elevation, ready to send their projectiles whirring skyward and away. Everything was silent, now: the silence of waiting, the silence of eyes at range-finders and periscopes, of guns loaded and waiting only for the fire-gongs’ clang. It was a tense, not a peaceful silence; but what struck one as incongruous was the sense of detachment between the two converging fleets, the feeling that neither had anything to do with the other. It was difficult to convince oneself that in that remote grey battle line on the north-eastern horizon there were eyes watching instruments, indicator-dials clicking the ranges down…
The sky had cleared a little, or was clearing. Clouds still drifted in the light south-easterly breeze, but there were gaps now through which the sun was greening and glossing the sea’s flat surface. But the sun was westering already, and the Germans would have their targets silhouetted against its brightness.
Lanyard felt and sounded as if she’d tear herself apart if she kept this pace up much longer, straining her steel guts to keep up with her flotilla and get into station ahead of the battle cruisers. Nick ‒ Johnson had told him to stay on the bridge for the time being, although his action station was at the after four-inch guns ‒ could almost feel the strain in his own muscles as the destroyer struggled on, overhauling the big ships easily enough but slipping back in comparison with her sisters. They were not sisters, that was the trouble; Lanyard was an L-class destroyer, the only one of that earlier type in a flotilla consisting otherwise of more modern, faster craft, N’s. O’s and P’s. She was supposed to be the fastest of the L’s, and that was the reason for her having been included in such scintillating company. Theoretically, according to the results of fairly recent speed-trials. Lanyard could work up to almost her designed speed of thirty-five knots.
The theory wasn’t exactly being proved today. If she was making thirty-five, then Nestor, Nicator and Nomad must have been making thirty-seven, which nobody could have claimed for them.
The ensign whipped overhead in the wind, mast and rigging hummed, the deck trembled and jolted and the canvas lashed to the bridge rail thrashed and boomed. Every loose fitting rattled and they were all, apparently, quite loose. But Lanyard had passed Beatty’s flagship now and she was thrusting on to take up her station in the flotilla’s port division astern of Champion, their leader, who was waiting for them now two miles ahead of Lion. The ninth and tenth flotillas had been ordered to get up there too, but that group’s four L-class weren’t making it at all; they were well astern, fouling the battle cruisers’ range with their smoke. At any minute now Beatty would tell them to drop astern and clear the range, and Nick could see in the grim anxiety in his captain’s face the recognition of that frightful hazard: that if Lanyard failed to keep up, she might be relegated, forced to join those others. It might seem logical, to some minds, to lump all the L’s together. But Lanyard was making it, or seemed to be. So long as she didn’t bust a gut.
There was one plain purpose in sending the destroyers up ahead, and that was to dispose them in a situation from which, when the vice-admiral considered the time was ripe, they could fulfil their destiny, perform the function for which they’d been designed and built and for which their officers and crews had been trai
ned ‒ to attack the enemy battle line with torpedoes.
Nick checked the time: three forty-five. And almost there. Mortimer had just shouted down, ‘Four hundred revolu-tions!’ He was easing her speed almost to twenty-five knots, the speed of the fleet, as Lanyard closed up astern of Nicator in the port column. Ahead of Nicator were Nomad and Nestor, who was the leader of this division. In the centre. Champion led Obdurate, Nerissa and Termagant; to star-board Narborough led Pelican, Petard, and ‒ closing up now ‒ Turbulent.
Off on Lanyard’s beam as she settled into station in the port column Nick saw two boats from the ninth or tenth flotillas: two M’s who’d left the slower L’s and pushed on to join this faster group.
Two flag-hoists had broken simultaneously at Lion’s yards. Mortimer straightened from the voicepipe ‒ he’d reduced the revs again, to three hundred and eighty ‒ and pointed: ‘Garret?’
‘Aye, sir, I’m—’
Having problems, by the look of it. Nick snatched up the signal manual and moved over, ready to help. Garret had binoculars pointed at the bright clusters of flags; his legs were braced apart against the ship’s jolting, pounding motion… But he wasn’t, after all, going to need the manual.
‘Line-of-bearing signal to the battle cruisers, sir. Can’t make him out, not—’
‘What’s the other?’
The glasses moved fractionally. ‘Alter course east-sou’-east, sir!’
‘Very good. Doesn’t matter about the first one.’ Nick realised that a course of east-south-east would be parallel to the enemy’s; Beatty was squaring-off for the fight. That signal was fluttering down, and up ahead Champion’s wake grew an elbow in it as she put her helm over. Glancing back at the battle cruisers, expecting the thunder of the first salvoes to come at any moment, he saw the line-of-bearing forming as the great ships swung to their firing course; the line-of-bearing ‘staggered’ them, so that instead of following directly in each other’s wakes their tracks were spread. It meant that no ship would be steaming entirely in her next-ahead’s funnel-smoke, and this should make it easier for the gunners. Nick stared out to port, at the distant line of Germans. He was watching them in that second as they opened fire.
The Blooding of the Guns Page 8
