Ship of Force (27 page)

“And you!” Smith glanced around the deck. The anchor parties were hard at work fore and aft and they looked excited but cheerful enough. The wounded — and the dead — were coming across from
Sparrow
to be gently carried below.

Smith said, “I want a dozen men off your four-inch guns. Now. They come as they are.”

Garrick shouted the order, then asked, “What do you plan to do, sir?”

Smith told him in a few sentences, held out his hand and Garrick shook it. There was no more to say and no time to waste.
Sparrow
, battered and filthy and ancient, sagged against the monitor as if weary to death — but she was ready to go.
Marshall Marmont
wasn’t going anywhere.

He returned to
Sparrow
and found the draft of a dozen men from the monitor being given a rude but warm welcome, the CMB alongside and Curtis waiting for him in the waist. He gave the Sub-Lieutenant his orders and asked, “The boat’s all right? And the firing-gear?”

“Raring to go, sir.”

Smith looked at the tall young man a moment. He hoped Curtis would come through. He said, “Remember to wait your time and then — stop at nothing! Understood?” He saw Curtis over the side into the CMB and heard the engines started with a roar then throttled down to a burble as the slender, low little craft pulled away with Curtis in the cockpit at the wheel.

‘Stop at nothing
!’ Curtis understood all right. Smith watched him go, bitterly sorry and angry, and swore. He snapped, “Cast off…”

As Sparrow
eased away from
Marshall Marmont
he saw Garrick climbing up to his open bridge. Yelled comments were tossed across the widening gap between the ships. The monitor looked fat and ugly where she now lay anchored fore and aft with her stern towards the invisible shore, her guns pointing seaward.
Sparrow
turned away from her as Smith ordered, “Starboard ten!…Meet her. Steer nor-west by west.”

“Nor-west by west, sir.”

“Revolutions for twenty knots.”

She turned away from
Marshall Marmont
and from the tug
Lively Lady
that was puffing north-eastwards towards neutral Dutch waters. The old thirty-knotter headed out to sea with the revolutions of her engines gradually increasing. The brownish vapour at the tops of her three funnels thickened into plumes of smoke she trailed behind her as her stern sank lower in the sea and the turtle-back curve of her bow lifted.

Smith said to Sanders, “Pass the word: I expect we’ll be in action within the hour.” That would only be confirmation. The rumour must have flown long ago.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The clock that Eleanor Hurst had set ticking when she translated ‘spring tide’ had not yet stopped. But soon it would.

For a time the CMB kept company abeam; for her twenty knots was just cruising. Then after ten or fifteen minutes she eased and slowed, stopped. The day was close on them now, the light growing. Smith watched her and lifted a hand as she fell astern of
Sparrow
and saw a hand lifted above her cockpit, waving. He turned away. When he looked again she was well astern and he had to search to find her. Without her bow wave and wash to mark her she was a slender splinter on the surface of the sea.

Sparrow
ran on. Sanders had returned to the bridge and like Smith was using glasses to search the horizon to the south-west but that horizon was still a false one and close, limited by the light. The true horizon lay far beyond.

But still they searched as
Sparrow
ran out to sea and slowly the day came and the visibility lengthened until it was close to sunrise. Now the horizon was real enough but the heat and the storm had left a mist as the world steamed so a haze lay along that horizon. Then the tip of the sun showed and the first rays set the quiet sea to sparkling. And Sanders said, “Smoke on the beam, sir!”

“Seen,” Smith answered. He could just make out the stain of it above the haze and lowered the glasses to rest his eyes, rubbed at them. They were sore. He wished he had ordered Brodie to brew more tea; his mouth was dry. He said, “Port five.”
Sparrow
turned until her bow pointed at the distant smoke. “Meet her…steer that.”

Gow reported, “Steady — two-one-five, sir.”

Smith said quietly, “Just keep her head on that smoke.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

No one was sleeping now. The men stood to the guns. They were quiet, waiting, blinking tired eyes.

The clock was running down now and these last minutes passed with awful slowness. The smoke spread on the horizon. More than one ship. Of course. He swept the glasses around a quarter circle to seek
Marshall Marmont
but did not find her. Over half-an-hour’s steaming seaward had taken
Sparrow
twelve miles to the north-westward of her and she was hull-down over the horizon. Her control-top would be showing above that horizon but he could not see it because of the haze and the distance, it was just too small. The sun hurt his eyes.

They formed the three points of a triangle: the monitor inshore,
Sparrow
twelve miles to seaward and the battlecruiser steaming up to pass between them. She would be about ten or twelve miles from
Sparrow
and further from
Marshall Marmont
but still in range…

Sanders yelled, “
Marshall Marmont’s
just fired, sir!”

Smith answered again, “Seen.” He had also caught the wink of flame, the barest wisp of smoke. They would never bear the report above
Sparrow
’s engines nor see the burst over the horizon. He lowered the glasses. But whether those hells hit or fell short or over they would come as a nasty shock to the battlecruiser. She was under fire from the big guns of a ship she could not see;
Marshall Marmont
was making no smoke except from her guns and Smith and Sanders had seen that only because they were looking for it. And
Marshall Marmont
was still out of range of the battlecruiser’s twelve-inch guns.

Aboard the monitor Garrick would be sending the signal, “Am engaging enemy battlecruiser.” Giving her position, course and speed. Pakenham’s battlecruisers would be leaving the Firth of Forth, the Harwich force putting to sea and the destroyers of the Dover Patrol and the Dunkerque Squadron in hot pursuit of the battlecruiser. They would all be too late.

He ordered, “Full ahead both.” And: “Signalman! Get on the searchlight and start signalling westward as soon as I give the word. Anything you like as long as that battlecruiser can see it when she comes up.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” The signalman swung himself up on to the searchlight platform at the back of the bridge and trained the searchlight around to starboard.

Smith called up to him. “But keep a sharp look-out as well! If you see any ship I want to know!” There was always the chance of a miracle, that a British force was already at sea and closing them.

He told Gow, “Keep her head on that smoke now.”

Gow answered patiently, “Aye, aye, sir.”

Smith shut his mouth. That had been an unnecessary order.

From twenty knots
Sparrow
was steadily working up to her full speed of twenty-six. She trembled and racketed along with the pounding thrust of her engines. The bridge vibrated under their feet and the kettle that had held the tea for the twelve pounder’s crew danced across the gun-platform until the killick grabbed it, swearing, and jammed it in a corner of the screen. Smith looked back at the smoke pouring from the three funnels, then up at the ensigns that streamed spread flat on the wind with now and again a
crack
! like a pistol shot. There were two of them because early in the war the white ensign had been mistaken for the German so ships were ordered to hoist two to avoid a mistake but there could be no mistake today.
Sparrow
flew two because they were all she had. Smith would have flown a dozen if
Sparrow
had them.

He faced forward. Now they were counting the time in flying seconds. The sun was sucking up the haze and the ships came on out of it, for an instant only vague phantoms, but then clear and hard. There were two destroyers a mile apart leading the force then one by one the others came up, still hull-down over the horizon but their upperworks clear enough. Two more destroyers. And two more still just smoke and masts. And in the centre of the group of six destroyers that was her escort, the tripod mast of a battlecruiser…

In his mind he flicked through the pages of the silhouette book, comparing the remembered shapes with the dancing image in the lenses of the glasses until he found a match.

Sanders ventured, “I think, sir, she might be
Siegfried
.”

She might be any one of four German battlecruisers, seen at that distance and coming out of the haze, but — “That’s right.” Smith was certain. Eight twelve-inch guns and twelve 5.9-inch. Twenty-seven or — eight knots and twenty-seven thousand tons with a belt of armour a foot thick and more than a thousand men aboard.

Sanders said with reluctant admiration, “Got to admit it, sir, she’s a beauty.”

She was. Steaming at full speed, big, swift and powerful, yet graceful. Smith let the glasses hang on his chest and peered about him at the battered
Sparrow
. Less than four hundred tons, one twelve-pounder gun and fifty-odd dog-tired men. He lifted the glasses again and so saw the water-spouts rise out of the sea and to seaward of the battlecruiser.

Sanders yelled, “
Marshall Marmont’s
ranging on her!”

The shells had fallen four or five hundred yards over but that would be little consolation to
Siegfried’s
commander. Her guns were trained around to meet the distant threat but they did not fire. She was out of range. He would know the firing came from inshore because the salvo had roared over his head and maybe some eagle-eyed look-out in the control-top had picked up the tell-tale spurt of smoke and flame of the monitor’s firing, but he would be hard put to it, straining his eyes against that low sun. And
Marshall Marmont
was trailing no banner of smoke to lead the eye on.

But now Smith lowered the glasses fractionally, seeking and finding the leading destroyers. They were scouting a good mile or more ahead of
Siegfried
, the one to port turning towards the shore, a signal flying, obviously being sent to investigate the ship that was firing. He saw the one to starboard turning until she was head-on and pointing at
Sparrow
. He could guess her orders. He saw the smoke and flame from the four-inch on her foredeck and ordered, “Port five!”

“Port five, sir.”

“Midships!”

He shouted up at the signalman on the searchlight platform: “Now!” The light on its mounting was only feet from his head but he could barely hear the clacking of its shutter above the engines’ din and the roaring fans. He saw it blinking rapidly, longs and shorts and wondered briefly what obscenities or prayers the signalman was flashing at an unresponsive horizon.

He faced forward to see the shell fall to starboard and ordered, “Starboard five!…Midships!”

He saw the intercepting destroyer charging out at them and beyond her,
Siegfried
. Who must be able to see
Sparrow
signalling frantically to the west, wondering whether she was bluffing or was there really a supporting fleet out there that
Sparrow
could see but was beyond
Siegfried’s
horizon? And the little destroyer was attacking. Would she attack without a supporting fleet?

The bluff seemed to be working.
Siegfried
and the rest of her escort maintained their course, preferring the devil they knew to the devil they did not, arid not trying to haul out to seaward to get away from the big gun threat. That threat was emphasised as another salvo from
Marshall Marmont
plunged into the sea, short of
Siegfried
by three or four hundred yards. Still she did not fire, but soon she would be in range and
Marshall Marmont
and Garrick would feel the weight of those twelve-inch guns. They knew what they had to do. They would carry out his orders and he would answer for it. If he answered for anything.

All of it thought in a second.

That was
Marshall Marmont’s
fight.

This was
Sparrow
’s.

He took one final glance around from the twelve-pounder and its clustering crew, along the dented iron deck where Lorimer was shrieking orders at the crews of the six-pounders, right aft to the six-pounder on the juddering stern that bounced on a cushion of foam spreading into the boiling wake astern. He saw Buckley by that six-pounder, standing easily, patient. And McGraw on the other six-pounder aft on the starboard side. Then he turned to face the first of his enemies.

The German destroyer was a big boat and closing them at a combined speed of sixty knots because she was capable of thirtyfive and making it with a big white bow-wave. She carried fourinch guns with a range of ten thousand yards or more but headon like this she could only use the one in her bow that jetted flame now.

“Port five!”

“Port five, sir!”

“Meet her…steady!”

Sparrow
swerved, deck heeling, all of them holding on, then steadied on the new course with the enemy boat fine on the starboard bow.

“All guns commence!”

The twelve-pounder slammed, shaking the already shuddering bridge and the starboard six-pounder barked right under the bridge. Smoke swirled and the cartridge case bounced on the deck as the breech was opened. A shell came down off the starboard bow and Smith turned
Sparrow
to starboard towards it. So
Sparrow
weaved erratically along the main course that still pointed her at the battlecruiser and the closing destroyer, that fired and fired again as the range closed and she came up bigger and bigger. Her firing was regular and rapid and accurate, only
Sparrow
’s jinking taking her clear as shell after shell plunged into the sea, sometimes close and sometimes near-misses and once a near-miss that burst right by the bridge and swept them with spray on top of the spray that
Sparrow
made as she charged down on the Squadron.
Sparrow
scored a hit on the destroyer’s bow and took one aft on an already mangled torpedo-tube.