“Don’t forget to sleep sometimes as well, Mr Sturton. Get a couple of hours now – we won’t be doing anything this side of midnight.”
Simon retired, took off shoes and jacket and rolled into his bunk. Undressing for sleep was restricted to harbour.
Two hours sleep was insufficient but would keep him going for another twelve at least; he returned to the darkened bridge a little more alert than he had left. Something out of the ordinary caught his attention, a feeling that something was wrong, and made him look about until he spotted it.
“Robin showing a light, sir.”
The destroyers were blacked out.
“What? Where?”
Captain Smallwood turned and spotted the faint offending glow instantly.
“Wardroom scuttle not fully covered. Yeoman! Make to Robin, ‘Why are you lit up like Piccadilly Circus?’”
A minute while they tried to find the source of the offence and the light disappeared. A signal lamp flickered rapid Morse.
“’Have flogged midshipman’, sir.”
“Make, ‘Hang him next time.’”
“Acknowledged, sir.”
Simon smiled, briefly.
“There’s a young fellow can forget about his next shore leave, sir.”
“Robin’s CO recommended his mid for promotion only last week. He can forget about that as well. Six more months before that one makes sublieutenant.”
“Quite right, too. No place for carelessness in the wardroom, sir.”
An uncovered light could disclose the ship to a waiting enemy; it was intolerable.
Navigating by dead reckoning at night only four miles offshore was a hair-raising pastime. The Belgian coast had been surveyed repeatedly for centuries, was one of the best-known of the world’s sea areas, but currents could vary by a knot or two effectively at random following heavy rain inland and increased flow in the rivers, and sand and mud banks crept continuously and not entirely predictably. Three fathoms of water could become two overnight and running aground was not impossible in broad daylight – but was inexcusable in any naval ship.
A destroyer’s bridge was tiny and had no dedicated chartroom; it was open to the weather so charts could not be held in the hand. The officer of the watch had to work by intelligent guesswork. They could not afford the noise of a leadsman in the bows, shouting depths to them; sound carried far over water in the quiet of the night.
“We are in five fathom water, Number One, and coming up on Ostend. Continue this course at four knots, paralleling the shore. I will get my head down until an hour before dawn. Wake me then if I’m not moving.”
Simon stood and concentrated on the feel of the ship, hoping that he might notice a change in movement if they found shallower water.
The lookouts changed every thirty minutes – staring into darkness was hard on the eyes and worse on the brain. Even the best, most experienced men could start to see things in the night.
“Kye, sir?”
“Please.”
The hot cocoa was welcome in the small hours, thick with condensed milk and sugar and providing energy to burn.
“Shellfire inland, sir.”
The lookout pointed at the sudden burst of fire, well distant.
“Big shells, sir.”
“Night attack on Antwerp, on the fortifications there. Watch your sector, now.”
If Antwerp fell then they could expect to discover retreating soldiers hoping to be picked up from the beaches and fishing villages, but not for a few hours.
“Shoals, sir, white water, at three cables, starboard bow.”
“Mouth of the Scheldt. Call the captain.”
“No need, Number One. I am here.”
The shadowy figure stepped forward and demanded something hot to wake him up.
“Flare up of shellfire towards Antwerp about an hour ago, sir.”
“Night assault on some part of the lines there. Reports are none too hopeful, it would seem.”
“Falling back on the coast, sir, for evacuation?”
“No. Plan is for the Belgians to hold part of the country rather than surrender it all. They will drop back to a coastal sector right down on the French border, or so it is hoped. British forces will fall back as and where feasible. There is a strong possibility they will head for the Dutch border and internment rather than surrender.”
“Bit of a mess, sir.”
“To put it mildly!”
“Thirty minutes to Morning Nautical Twilight, sir.”
“We’ll see if we have any trade then, Number One.”
The port lookout called out.
“Twenty degrees on the port bow, at four cables, sir… looks like ships, black against the sea.”
They stared, uncertain.
Three voices called as one as a ship’s bows raised a tiny white splash.
“Yeoman, shaded hand torch at the stern, signal Robin, ‘Ships at four cables, port bow. Repeat Curlew and Blackbird.’”
The Yeoman of the Signals ran.
“Guns, ready to port.”
Parrett scurried off to the forward four inch. Simon ran to the after gun, warning the twelve pounder as he passed.
The minutes passed and the lookouts called three small ships in line on a northerly course.
“Ready all guns. Bridge lookouts to the Lewises. Yeoman, make the challenge.”
The light flashed, ‘What ship?’
A searchlight flared from the mast of a destroyer, not a Navy ship; none had searchlights in that location.
“Shoot! Lewises, darken that searchlight.”
The four inch guns fired and reloaded, far more slowly than the quick firing twelve pounder with its fixed ammunition. The machine guns rattled, the ratings trying to find the searchlight and smash it. The three other destroyers in the half section joined in, a dozen shells falling on and around the presumed enemy.
Guns responded from the destroyer and then from the ships to its stern.
The after four inch gunlayer yelled on his third round.
“Hit, sir! Bridge area.”
The destroyer fell silent, fires rising amidships.
“Change target to next astern.”
The four inch registered an immediate hit on the next ship, the range having fallen to six hundred yards, three cables, effectively point blank, requiring no aiming off.
Two more rounds and the cease fire was called.
A few minutes and daylight showed the destroyer heeling, sinking, two boats at its side. Behind it was an armed trawler and a small coaster with a single gun to the bows. The trawler was down by the head, certain to sink. The coaster had damage above the waterline but might be salvable.
Simon returned to the bridge.
“Destroyer is German, sir. Ensign showing.”
“That’s a relief. Bloody night actions! Knew it wasn’t one of ours but it could well have been a Frog, although there are supposed to be none in these waters. Robin to close convoy and take the coaster and pick up survivors, Yeoman.”
“The word was no German destroyers on this coast, sir.”
“So we were told, and where there is one, there may well be more. The boats work in flotillas, where possible. They might well have taken another harbour along the coast here, which is a damned nuisance, if so. The fog of war, Sturton! Which translates as our masters don’t know their arses from their elbows, yet again.”
“I wonder what they were doing, sir.”
“Our masters? They won’t know – they never do.”
“I was thinking of the Huns, sir. Too small a convoy for troops, surely.”
“Wouldn’t get half a battalion aboard that one small ship. You’re right, Number One. Yeoman, signal Robin to board the coaster and trawler and investigate their nature.”
Ten minutes of waiting, increasingly impatiently, and Robin signalled.
“Coaster set up for minelaying. Chart recovered from trawler suggests new field off Dunkirk.”