Ship of Force (25 page)

“Course one-five-oh, sir.”

The beat of the engines increased, built up slowly, steadily. Ten knots…fifteen…until the frame of the old ship began to tremble. The rain was still with them but slashing now as they drove into it, the air fresh on their faces. Thunder rumbled suddenly close as if the guns at Nieuport had crept up on them in the night. The rain was good. They needed it more than ever now.

Twenty knots and the darkness still shrouded them but now there was a glow at the tops of
Sparrow
’s funnels and a flick of flame against the cloud-hung sky. The engines’ racing set the whole fabric of the ship to shaking and rattled every loose object aboard.

Soon now. The coxswain stood rock-steady, swaying to the motion. Spray from the tearing stem was bursting back over the turtle-back foredeck and over the bridge screen. Sanders stood with one steadying hand on the screen and its splinter mattress and the vibration that shook the ship seemed to be transmitted through him. His face was taut, nerves strung tight.

Smith stooped over the voice pipe. “Gunner!”

“Sir!” The torpedo-gunner’s voice came from his position aft on the torpedo platform.

“We’ll engage to port.”

“Port! Aye, aye, sir!”

The look-outs on the German destroyers would have their eyes screwed against the rain and maybe, just maybe, shirking the job. But still they must see the whiff of flame from each of
Sparrow
’s three funnels. Smith stared briefly out to port and astern. Curtis and his CMB should be out there somewhere keeping station on
Sparrow
and he thought he saw the white flash of a bow-wave but could not be sure. Looking ahead he could see the lights on the shore now and
Sparrow
’s bow pointed at the southern end of them. He knew there were two destroyers anchored there and he believed a line of them stretched north, parallel with the lights and with a cable’s length between ships it could be a line a thousand yards long.

And then the lightning struck down at the sea. It stood a jagged, blue-white blaze for a second and it showed them in that camera-shutter glimpse the destroyers ahead, anchored in a long line across
Sparrow
’s course and stretching away — five,
six
of them! Then the lightning was gone and the night came down as the thunder cracked again and close now.

Six. But he had guessed right: a line of a thousand yards.

Sparrow
charged down on them out of the night, making better than twenty knots and in the stokehold they were still furiously stoking the fires. The flames now licked long tongues from the tops of her funnels. A winking light pricked the darkness and that was a German challenge. For once, right on their own coast and under their own batteries they were uncertain whether another ship was friend or foe. Smith shouted up at the rating on the searchlight platform, “Now!” And at Sanders: “All guns commence!”

“
All guns commence
!” Sanders’s piercing yell came as the searchlight stabbed its beam across the night to dart about the surface of the sea then settle, glaring, on the second destroyer in the line. Smith could see the one ahead of her and the other astern as shadows outside the searchlight’s beam. The twelvepounder right alongside Smith on the bridge kicked, spat flame and roared. The smoke whipped past him and the killick’s yell came, “Load!” as the empty case bounced across the deck. The two six-pounders below the bridge, one on either side, opened up together, snapping quickly away, a sharper note to the slower slamming of the twelve-pounder. Sanders crouched over the torpedo-sight by the voice pipe running aft to the torpedo-gunner and he would be aiming at the third or fourth in the line. As they tore down on the line so the silhouettes of the ships foreshortened in the torpedo-sight but so would the gaps between them. A miss would be nearly impossible.

Sparrow
was on a course to ram the leading destroyer that was racing up at them out of the night, but Smith held on until Sanders shouted, “Fire!” He saw the torpedo leap out from
Sparrow
’s side and plunge into the sea.

Then he ordered, shouting at Gow’s ear, “Port ten!” And: “Slow ahead!” He saw the wheel going over in Gow’s long fingers and the engine-room telegraphs worked but did not hear their clanging. Every gun in the ship except the six-pounder right aft was firing now and
Sparrow
was scoring hits on both the leading destroyer and the second in line that was still in the searchlight’s beam. The enemy destroyers were firing back, a ripple of flashes running down that long line of shadowy ships but they hadn’t had time to get the range and
Sparrow
was a flying figure half-hidden in the dark. Smith did not see a shell fall near them but that would not last. The destroyers would get their chance. He bawled at the rating above him: “Douse that light!” The beam was cut off, the carbons in the lamp glowed briefly and died. The searchlight was a finger that pointed both ways, would point out
Sparrow
to the enemy destroyers.

Sparrow
’s head was coming around and he ordered, “Meet her! Steady! Steer that!”

Sparrow
raced into the gap between the first and second destroyers though the way was coming off her rapidly now with the screws turning slow ahead. That was what Smith wanted. Speed, what
Sparrow
had of it, had served its turn. Now it was manoeuvrability and steadiness that was needed and as the thirtyknotter shot between the two big boats he ordered, “Port ten!”
Sparrow
’s head came around again. As she swung to point her stem to run down inshore of the destroyers’ line her way took her on, sliding sideways. The first of the tugs was suddenly close and from
Sparrow
’s bridge they were looking down on her deck and seeing the faces in her wheelhouse as the lightning struck down again. “Meet her! Steady on that!”
Sparrow
thrust away from the tug and left her astern. The turtle-back bow was riding steady now and the stem sent no spray flying.
Sparrow
was down below ten knots and her speed still falling.

Sanders stared miserably at Smith. “Torpedo must have missed, sir. Sorry.”

Smith shrugged. “You’ll get another chance.” Maybe. But it was cruel luck to miss that almost unbroken line of ships. Maybe the torpedo veered away or dived too deep or just didn’t damn well work. It happened.

And where was Curtis?

* * *

Curtis had been ordered to attack the centre of the line as
Sparrow
broke through at the head of it. He had held the CMB to port of
Sparrow
and astern of her until the searchlight’s beam stabbed out from her bridge. Then he thrust the throttle wide open and turned to shout at Johnson, “Attacking!” He saw young Midshipman Johnson nod where he crouched over the torpedoes then Curtis turned forward. The CMB had been cruising at twenty knots but now she had her stern tucked down and her bow was lifting. He saw
Sparrow
fire her torpedo and start to turn. Then the CMB slid up level with the old thirty-knotter seen as a shadow at the thin end of a searchlight beam, a shadow sprouting flame from her funnels — and from her guns. She trailed smoke from both. The CMB was abreast of her an instant then racing on. Rain battered against the screen and Curtis squinted against it, head half-turned as the CMB tore in at thirty knots and still accelerating.

He first saw them as shadows like clouds but a split second later they took shape as ships that lifted huge and clear out of the darkness, ships that were firing every gun they had and one or two of them at the CMB because Curtis saw the spouts of water as shells landed in the sea. He wanted one ship. He picked the one and eased the wheel over so that the stem, out of the sea and bouncing now as the CMB ripped across that calm sea, pointed at the bridge of the destroyer fourth in the line.

Steady.

Tracer like bright beads sliding at him out of the night, going over his head…

Steady…Now!

“
Fire
!”

He was ready to turn the wheel as soon as the torpedo took the water, to swing the CMB out of the torpedo’s track. He was ready for the kick of the hydraulic ram and to feel the plunge and lift as the torpedo was fired stern first out of the chute.

Johnson bawled, “Firing gear jammed!”

“Secure!” Curtis turned the wheel and the CMB swung away from the destroyer in a tight, wheeling curve and raced into the night. He eased the throttle back so the boat cruised again at around twenty knots and looked around to see Johnson and the torpedoman crouched over the firing gear. Curtis shouted, “What about it?” And: “You’ve got ten seconds!”

The torpedoman gave a wash-out sign with his hands. “No go, sir!”

“We’ll try the other tube!” Curtis turned his head, turned the boat and opened the throttle. Smith had been relying on him for a diversion. Jammed firing gear.
Bloody
luck!

* * *

Sparrow
hauled away from the tug and Smith used the megaphone to bawl down the deck on the starboard, shoreward side: “Lighters first! Pass the word!” He saw McGraw, layer of the six-pounder in the waist lift a hand in acknowledgment then turn his head to bawl aft. There was no need to give any orders to the guns on the port side. The destroyers loomed close, a bare hundred yards away and asking to be hit.

As
Sparrow
hauled away from that first tug the shore opened up and Smith shouted up at the searchlight platform: “Expose!” He pointed. The searchlight crackled into life as the carbons struck arc and the beam leapt out to sweep the shore. A second later it was joined by the searchlight aft and the two white fingers lit up the box-like lighters in the surf, showing the gun barrels protruding, the heads of the men already aboard, the troops still filing down the beach. The range was about eight hundred yards.
Sparrow
was only moving at seven or eight knots and she rode rock-steady now in that flat calm. She pushed down between the two lines, of anchored destroyers to seaward and anchored tugs inshore with the lighters eight hundred yards beyond the tugs. The lines were a couple of hundred yards apart and she ran down between them firing every gun including the Vickers machineguns. And the destroyers, because their own tugs were so close, held their fire.

McGraw shouted, “It’s like shooting clay-pipes in a bluidy fairground!”

The six-pounder was firing as fast as his loader could ram the projectile and close the breech.
Sparrow
fired at point-blank range into the helpless destroyers with the flash of discharge and then of burst seeming to come as one. The storm was right over them now. Over the hammering of the guns was the continual
crack
! and rumble of thunder, lightning stabbed again and again at the sea that hissed under the rain. Smith could see wreckage leaping skywards, holes suddenly punched in hulls, smoke swirling on the wind and flame that spurted, subsided, but grew again to breed more smoke.
Sparrow
scored hits on the destroyers but she utterly destroyed the lighters as she steamed down between the lines. The destroyers were built to fight, to take punishment, but the lighters were timber and built for one short sea passage in quiet waters. Even the little shells from the six-pounders smashed holes in them, tore through from bow to stern and set the timber smouldering. In seconds one of the petrol engines ignited and that lighter burned and they lay within arms-reach of one another. As
Sparrow
moved down the line, raking the lighters, Smith saw the troops in those ahead scrambling over the side and running up the beach. An officer with drawn sword stood on the beach trying to hold them but they ran clear of the line of fire that was reducing the fleet of lighters to matchwood. And like matchwood it was burning.

McGraw said, “Jesus! Did ye iver see the like o’ that?”

He laid the gun, blinked as a tug showed between
Sparrow
and the shore. The loader shouted, “Skipper said the boats!”

McGraw muttered, “Take her
and
the boats,” jerked the lanyard and bawled, “Load!” The shell tore through the tug’s funnel.

“Ready!”

McGraw’s eye went to the sight as the shore and the lighters showed again under the sweeping beams of the searchlights. The six-pounder jerked and recoiled.

Sparrow
steamed down to the end of the line and as she reached it they saw the last tug trying to weigh anchor with the capstan hammering. The twelve-pounder fired into her on the water-line and below the funnel and she blew off steam. “Port ten! Douse the lights!” The searchlights’ beams snapped off. Smith’s voice was hoarse. “Mr. Sanders! I’m going back down the line! You’ll get a chance with the other tube! Engage to starboard!”

“Starboard! Aye, aye, sir.” Sanders bent to the voice pipe to tell the torpedo-gunner. “We’ll engage to starboard!”

Smith ordered, “Midships!…Starboard ten!”
Sparrow
had swung around past the stern of the last destroyer in the line and he saw that she had slipped and was moving, going astern to get clear of the line but her head swinging seawards. He shouted at Sanders and pointed and Sanders waved. The starboard helm brought
Sparrow
’s head turning towards the shore again so she was describing a tight circle. Sanders crouched over the torpedo sight. The destroyer that had way on her was over
Sparro
w’s starboard quarter…now coming abeam as
Sparrow
came around…

Sanders croaked, “Fire!” He sounded as hoarse as Smith felt.

The torpedo,
Sparrow
’s second and last plunged over the side into the sea and its track ran away into the night. The German boat was boxing the compass as she tried to turn on her heel and haul out of the line. Smith saw her steady then and ease forward, heading seaward and he thought: We’ll miss her! And: She won’t miss us. The destroyer was firing and there was a crash aft and they felt the jar of it through the deck and the blast that pushed at them. Splinters clanged off the funnel and whirred across the bridge.

Sanders reported, “Think it was the tubes, sir.” And a moment later: “Gunner doesn’t answer.” Another crash aft and Smith winced. That destroyer was firing her four-inch guns and
Sparrow
could not stand much of that. He saw Buckley still at the back of the bridge below the searchlight platform and beckoned him. As
Sparrow
’s stem pointed again at the gap between the lines of anchored destroyers and tugs he ordered, “Meet her…”