“He wasn’t one to look after his own skin, sir. Not when there was duty to be done.”
“Agreed.”
“I think I should write to his father, sir. The family was kind to me when I stayed with them.”
“And have written letters to you since, I believe?”
Reddening, Simon admitted that to be so.
They were sent to Dover, as expected, and fell into a routine of sailing back and forth across the narrow straits, scanning the sea for periscopes and seeing nothing. On most nights they patrolled the coast, hunting for marauding small ships that did not appear.
A couple of weeks of dull grind and they were called back to Harwich, all in a great hurry. Captain Smallwood was sent to a quick briefing with Tyrwhitt and came back at the run ordering Sheldrake and the half flotilla to sea immediately.
“Course for Ostend, full speed, Number One. The Naval Brigade has become a reality and is piling into the harbour there and onto the railway to Antwerp to bolster the garrison and prevent a Belgian collapse. In fact, the realistic hope is that they will delay the Germans by a few more days, weeks, if they are lucky, and reduce the pressure on the troops down towards Ypres where they are trying to create a stable front line. There is a ‘salient’ of some sort there, in the industrial areas and a chance of holding the Germans, provided they are not reinforced by the troops currently besieging Antwerp.”
“Yes, sir. What are we to do?”
“Hold the harbour; prevent any attack from the sea; cover hospital ships evacuating the wounded – they may not be marked up properly in the hurry to get them to sea. Unspoken, we are to provide a last way out for the Naval Brigade when it is forced to run.”
“Why send them in if they can’t be successful, sir?”
“It is a gesture of support to Belgium. A Quixotic gesture, one might say, on the part of the First Lord.”
“Churchill in person?”
“Just so. He possibly believes in the old nonsense that one Englishman is worth a dozen foreigners. He is ending a force mainly of Marines, armed with rifles and nothing else – no artillery at all to back them. There is no certainty of how many there are of them – or, at least, if there is, the figure has not been released for general consumption. I don’t know and Tyrwhitt don’t. Bloody pointless, if you ask me.”
Simon shrugged – after two months of war, he would believe any idiocy of their political masters.
“Shout hurrah and forget about thinking, sir. What are we to do specifically?”
“Enter Ostend harbour and see what is there, today. Contact the Port Captain, if there is one. If we receive orders from due authority, carry them out. The probability is that we shall be on our own, which means we must invent something to do. Work the coast at night and see if it comes out profitable again. There are thought to be Germans in the fishing harbours around Knokkeheist, close to the Dutch border where we were before. If there are, then we should try a bombardment in the hope of interfering with whatever they are doing.”
“We have done that already, sir. There must be a good chance they will be ready for another attack from the sea.”
“We have to do something, Number One.”
Simon nodded – there was nothing sensible to say.
“What else – oh, yes, of vital importance to us all, the Conspicuous Service Cross has been renamed and is now the Distinguished Service Cross. I am sure you will be much heartened to hear that, Number One.”
“Why, sir?”
“Well, as a decoration available to naval officers of lieutenant and below, you are eligible for it. The theory is that all young officers will be moved to acts of heroism on the strength of it.”
“They’re bloody daft, sir!”
“A discovery that we all make at an early stage in our careers, Mr Sturton. Carry on.”
Captain Smallwood disappeared to his cabin; Simon heard him chuckle as he left. He glanced around, stepped out to the bridge wing to check that Robin, Curlew and Blackbird were properly in line astern at two cables, returned to the position next to the engineroom voicepipe that he preferred when on watch. He started to work out exactly how he would organise the ship to take soldiers and marines aboard in case of an evacuation. He thought they might be able to take a hundred men and still be able to work the guns; if they were simply to run at night, he could double that figure, sat cross-legged along the decks. He must have a quiet word with the Coxswain – he would be able to allocate precise numbers to every compartment, might be able to work out how to cram a few more aboard.
He glanced at the heading, checked that the lookouts were alert, watching their proper quadrants, brought his glasses up to his eyes to scan the horizon, all of the automatic actions ingrained into him by years of training. All was well and he considered what else he must do to ready the ship for carrying the extra men. Cocoa powder, condensed milk, sugar – they would need extra supplies aboard. The soldiers could go without a meal for twelve hours or so but they would benefit from a couple of mugs of kye. How could it be fiddled?
By the end of his watch he had decided that if they made port at Dunkirk, he could try the stores there – they were less strictly controlled than the old-established quartermasters at Harwich and Dover. A few sovereigns shelled out to buy good brandy and he might be able to run an exchange with one of the storemen. He had spent very little in the past months, could afford to invest ten pounds for the benefit of the soldiery; besides that, the word would get out that Sheldrake had looked after the men. Never hurt to have a good name. He handed over to Parrett and went below with the intention of getting three hours of sleep; the next few nights promised to be busy.
Two hours later and the wardroom steward was shouting in his ear.
“All hands, sir!”
He rolled out of his cot and into his shoes, ran the few paces to the bridge while shrugging into his sea coat, the wind off the North Sea cold in October.
“Sir?”
“Merchantman of some sort, Number One. No power. Damaged to the stern. Mine, perhaps. Go across to her, make a decision.”
The starboard cutter was already lowered, the oarsmen fending off. He ran, scrambled over the low side and into the boat, saw there was a petty officer calling the stroke; Carter, reliable but no great initiative, needed orders but carried them out well.
He knelt in the stern, trying to see some details of the task facing him.
A big ship for the North Sea… not a coaster. Five thousand tonner, about. Holed at the stern. If it was a mine then there must be major underwater damage as well, but she did not look low enough. The area was too busy for her to be a floating derelict from a previous action. Recent shellfire from the shore?
A cable distant now, and still silent. Possibly she did not want to be rescued by the Royal Navy, was hoping they would think her to be abandoned and leave her to her fate? Surely not.
“Have we got rifles aboard, PO?”
“Yes, sir. Four, sir.”
“Pass me one and take one yourself. Two men to arm themselves if needed.”
The arrangements were made on the instant. Simon checked he was loaded, tucked the heavy rifle into the crook of his arm.
They were close now.
“The ship ahoy!”
No answer.
“Grapple her, PO.”
She was a three island freighter, bridge amidships with a raised stern and forecastle, the deck rails about seven feet off the sea just forward of the bridge.
The petty officer swung the hook and heaved hard, the rope taut.
Simon looked over his shoulder, saw the four destroyers all within a quarter of a mile of the ship, Sheldrake much closer and with a man on the bridge Lewis Gun.