The Lion at Sea

by Max Hennessy

  A zeppelin raid on Edinburgh served to make them resentfully happy that other people were having to endure a measure of discomfort, too, but the war seemed no nearer ending. Fisher and Churchill had gone from the Admiralty after the Dardanelles disaster, and there was nothing but stalemate in France. Kut had held out longer than anyone had expected but half the Indian Army seemed to have gone into captivity with its fall. On the credit side, the Germans continued to put their foot in it. They’d already angered the Americans by shooting Nurse Cavell in Brussels and sinking the Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale. And, with their country beginning to chafe under the naval blockade, it was firmly believed that the Big Push that was to come on the Somme was going to end the war. Everybody talked about it openly in the pubs.

  Only in the North Sea was there no news. The raid on Lowestoft remained unforgotten and there was still an angry murmuring going on that the Navy was letting such ‘insults’ be inflicted with impunity. If they had a Grand Fleet – and some people were actively beginning to doubt it – then what was it doing swinging at anchor in the north instead of getting out and retaliating? There was a rash of bloody noses and split lips among the liberty men returning aboard, and Kelly came face to face with Rumbelo who was sporting a black eye.

  ‘Hello, Rumbelo,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think there was anybody big enough to give you a shiner.’

  Rumbelo grinned. ‘Probably there isn’t, sir. I let him get away with it.’

  ‘Let him get away with it?’

  Rumbelo sighed. ‘It’s not easy having a pint these days, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s always trouble with the dockies and the chaps back on leaf from France.’

  ‘Is that what it was? A dockie?’

  ‘No, sir. A Gordon Highlander. Just a little feller. But he’d been shot at in the mud round Ypres ever since 1914. He’d lost all his pals and was fed up. And he looked it. Coat plastered with dried mud and eyes like somebody had been peeing in snow. He wanted to know if the fleet needed any assistance from his mob.’

  Kelly frowned. ‘And you? What did you do?’

  ‘Tried to talk him round, sir. Only he didn’t fancy being talked round and he took a swing at me.’

  ‘Hit him back?’

  Rumbelo gave a wry gentle smile. ‘No, sir. I thought he’d been through enough.’

  Talbot was not unaware of what was going on. Only a deaf man could have been, because the criticism of Jellicoe could be heard everywhere. ‘It’s about time,’ he said, ‘that somebody organised a plan to bring out the High Seas Fleet.’

  As it happened, he hadn’t long to wait.

  A royal command round of golf with his captain on the Queensferry links took Kelly ashore and they were just returning aboard when he noticed a flag hoist on the signal bridge of the flagship.

  ‘“Lion to battle cruiser force and Fifth BS,”’ he read. ‘“Raise steam for 22 knots and report when ready to proceed.”’

  Talbot applied a match to his pipe, unperturbed. ‘Another false alarm, I expect,’ he said.

  But as they went aboard, the signal was also addressed to the destroyers and Talbot raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Inform the engineer officer, Number One,’ he said.

  Shortly afterwards, Talbot was called aboard the flotilla leader, the cruiser, Champion. When he returned he looked more bored than ever.

  ‘What’s on, sir?’

  ‘Gather we’re supporting a minelaying expedition in the Bight. Our destination’s a rendezvous near the Horns Reef. Another routine show. Tell the engine room to get a move on with raising steam.’

  ‘We’re raising steam,’ Wellbeloved snarled in answer to the message.

  ‘The owner requests “as fast as possible.”’

  ‘We’re not just practising!’

  The sky was full of blazing red and orange, striking out in rays from behind storm clouds. It looked foreboding and Kelly was reminded of what Fanshawe had said aboard Clarendon as they’d reached Kiel – all those years ago in 1914. There had been a vermilion sunset then and Fanshawe had said it looked like blood. He wondered what had happened to Fanshawe. He’d never heard a word from him since the beginning of the war and somehow it seemed to accentuate the briefness of naval friendships, perhaps even their existence.

  The buzz had already gone round the lower deck – as though they could read the admiral’s thoughts.

  ‘Are they out?’ Hatchard asked Kelly. ‘Is it the big smash?’

  ‘Captain says it’s only routine,’ Kelly insisted. ‘But we’ll run a check on the guns all the same.’

  The afternoon was quiet and Kelly noticed that, despite Talbot’s gloom, Hatchard called the gun captains to his cabin and demanded a check on every inch of the weapons systems. ‘If the Germans are coming out,’ he told Kelly, ‘then I’ll take back a lot of rude remarks I’ve made about them in the past. It’s been bloody uphill work keeping the chaps up to scratch for nothing.’

  Wellbeloved reported the engine room ready and the glare of the afternoon light was just changing to the muted shades of evening when a steam pinnace arrived from Champion. An officer climbed aboard – without a word to any of them and they watched with interest as he disappeared to the captain’s cabin. He left in exactly the same way, causing a great deal of speculation about his errand, and as they talked, Lieutenant Heap, his telescope to his eye, pointed out that the battle cruisers appeared to be preparing to slip.

  ‘Heavy stuff for a minelaying expedition,’ he observed drily.

  Talbot appeared, his pipe between his teeth and dressed in his best uniform. He looked as though he were ready to dine with the admiral. ‘Let’s get under way,’ he snapped. ‘Send the town criers round.’

  As the bosun’s mates went through the ship, on the messdecks everything became purposeful confusion. Stokers struggled to get below to the boiler rooms. Pulling on jumpers, seamen struggled to get up the hatch and fall in on deck. Guard rails were taken down and life lines rove and the accommodation ladder hoisted inboard and stowed. Rumbling noises aft and the clanging of bells indicated that the engineers were trying the steering engine and telegraphs.

  ‘They think the Germans might be coming out,’ Talbot finally admitted. ‘Torpedo boats and seaplanes sniffing round the North Sea have decided that there are more submarines about than usual. A whole lot sailed on the 17th and, ever since, they’ve been sighting wakes, periscopes and flocks of seagulls following things that aren’t wholly visible. In addition, Admiralty direction finders have established from W/T traffic that the High Seas Fleet’s moved one and a half degrees west, which takes them from Wilhelmshaven to the Jade Estuary. And that means something’s afoot.’

  The evening lights were shining palely along the Firth, and the teatime fires were glowing in the cottages and bothies along the water’s edge as the battle cruisers, vast castles of steel, slipped their moorings and began to move under the humps of the Forth Bridge towards the sea, each following the stern light of the ship ahead.

  Hatchard was already on the forecastle waiting the order to slip. Aft on the quarter deck, Sub-lieutenant Naylor waited with a pair of red and green flags to indicate whether the propellers were in danger of fouling anything or not. On the bridge, Petty Officer Lipscomb, the yeoman of signals, handed Talbot a megaphone.

  ‘“Proceed” bent on, sir,’ he reported.

  ‘Carry on.’

  Flag hoists fluttered up to the yardarm and an answering flag went aloft from Champion.

  ‘Approved, sir.’

  Talbot turned his head, sending a shower of sparks from his pipe. ‘All ready, Number One?’

  ‘Ready on the forecastle, sir,’ the gunner announced.

  ‘All ready, sir,’ Kelly said.

  ‘Slip.’

  As the tide swept Mordant clear of the buoy, Talbot spoke quietly. ‘H
alf ahead together.’

  The First Destroyer Force led the way down the harbour, followed by the Ninth and Tenth and then the Thirteenth. As they moved forward, Mordant, waiting with engines idling just sufficiently to beat the tide, edged into the stream to take up her position. Watching the destroyers, counting them – thirty of them – Kelly saw the flat-topped shape of a seaplane carrier in the dusk.

  ‘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.’

  Four

  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 por
t 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…”’