When coaling ended the ship had to be cleaned – coal dust spread everywhere. The bread baked in the ship’s ovens for the next two days showed tiny black speckles, it being impossible to completely seal the flour bins.
There was no shore leave in Port Stanley – mostly because there was nothing to do. The men waited hopefully for the order to return to Cape Town, which catered to the needs of sailors, but they were sent back out to Cape Horn every time.
The buzz went round that the Navy had lost the Tsingtao Squadron – they did not know where the German ships were except that they did not seem to have left the Pacific or Indian Oceans, which amounted to about half of the world’s seas.
Another rumour followed that the British consuls along the Pacific coast of South America had seen German colliers, presumably chartered to supply the Tsingtao Squadron.
Good Hope modified her patrols to take her a few degrees north along the coast of Chile as well as Cape Horn and the Magellan Passage.
General opinion was that the Tsingtao Squadron would make a rendezvous with their colliers in the Galapagos Islands, would coal in the sheltered waters and then head north to beat up the Canadian West Coast before making a raid on Japan and Vladivostok and then heading back into Chinese waters where they would seek asylum in a neutral port, one that was not a Western Concession.
“Won’t come within a thousand miles of us, McDuff. They know we’re here and that there will be support coming up as well. Old Canopus will be here before too long, with her twelve inch guns. That will put a stopper on any ambitions they might have towards Cape Horn.”
“Canopus is only good for eight knots they say, sir, when her engines are working at all.”
“Nothing to worry about, my boy! All we have to do is block the passage. The Huns have got to come to us! Not that they will be coming at all.”
The Gunnery Lieutenant Commander had no fears at all for the future. If the Huns did appear, they would be anxious to traverse Cape Horn and would have no choice other than come to close range.
“They close us and we will have them, my boy – no question of that. Good Hope and Monmouth will deal with their eight inch cruisers and Glasgow and Otranto will put down their lighter ships. The whole business won’t take an hour at a range of five thousand yards.”
“What if they stay outside fifteen thousand, sir?”
“Why would they do that? Close to maximum range for their eight inchers, they would never hit us while we might scatter a few of our nine point two bricks among them. All that would achieve would be to give us their position. We would be on the old wireless to Port Stanley and they would send their telegrams off to the Admiralty and inside the hour there would be a net of big ships closing in from the Pacific and the Atlantic. Take a week at most to catch them once we had them located. They know that. If they come this way, it must be to go to battle – and that means broadsides at close range. Can’t be anything else!”
Sublieutenants did not argue with lieutenant commanders.
“Thank you, sir. I hadn’t thought the implications through.”
“Not your job to, Sub. You just keep your gun up to scratch – we’ll do the hard work! Nothing to worry about – we’ve got Admiral Craddock! Did really well against the Boxers, you know!”
Hector was not entirely sure that Boxers with spears were to be compared to Germans with eight inch guns – but it was not his role to criticise admirals.
“Good old Kit Craddock, sir! He’ll deal with any number of Huns, that’s for sure!”
“So say I! What’s the time? Sun’s over the yardarm. Time for a pinkers, I think.”
Hector had not developed a taste for pink gin, excused himself on the grounds that he was soon on watch.
The weather continued foul and it was impossible to exercise the guns live firing. The maindeck six inch sponsons were unusable, flooded out by the high seas; their crews spent their watches huddled on the messdecks, shivering in their winter coats. The upper deck guns could be manned, but it was impossible to take an aim, rolling and pitching through thirty feet.
There was nothing to worry about, was the general opinion. Good Hope was a fine sea boat and the Germans were half an ocean away.
“Good experience, that’s all – look well on your record of service, young McDuff.”
Lieutenant Christopher Adams was worried – he was close to committing a social faux pas, he feared.
The flagship was by its very nature the epicentre of any anchorage. Scapa Flow had no social life, for the lack of a civilian population, but at intervals Iron Duke sailed south for Queensferry and the services of the yard there. On such occasions the blue-blooded of Edinburgh flocked aboard to be entertained, bringing with them their eligible daughters.
Christopher was too young, too junior, to be regarded as a match for any of the girls he met, as they all knew. That had not stopped the youngest daughter of the Duke of Blair from wishing to know him better. She was only eighteen, barely out, but obviously knew her own mind and had mounted hot pursuit of him.
To an extent it was very flattering, he admitted to himself, but lieutenants could not marry and even lieutenant commanders aboard battleships were regarded at askance if they should do so. Was he to offer marriage he would soon find himself on the flag-captain’s carpet and ousted from the flagship. If he was to be so supremely unwise as to consider extra-marital relations with the daughter of a duke, he could expect a rapid court martial and a dishonourable discharge for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Then he would be morally obliged to join the Army, quite possibly without a commission. He had heard down the grapevine that the idiot youth Baker had been taken on as a brown job – he could not imagine himself reduced to such an expedient.
There had been a dinner the previous evening and the dear girl had attached herself to him most prominently. The officers were to attend a dance on shore that day – not so formal as a ball, but a society event. She would be there, in the company of her doting parents who seemed to favour her pursuit.
Christopher took advice of the Commander, his cousin.
“What am I to do, sir?”
“Well, my boy, I am sure you are not asking me to explain the birds and the bees!”
The Commander seemed to think that was remarkably witty.
“No, sir.”
“Let me see – you cannot offer marriage - and would be most unwise to offer anything else! You cannot avoid her company. There is no way to cold-shoulder the dear girl. Smile sweetly and dance with her tonight. I will speak to the captain and he will buttonhole Jellicoe in person. We will come up with something, my boy!”
A day later Christopher found himself posted, aide to the Rear Admiral of a pair of battlecruisers detached to the Mediterranean Fleet and expected to form the nucleus of a squadron there.
“To Cyprus, in the first instance. The squadron to watch the Suez Canal for any raids by the Austro-Hungarian fleet and to be available in case the Turk chooses to take action against us. The Ottomans are expected to join in soon, probably on the wrong side. The government has been trying to persuade them to join us, but it seems likely to be unsuccessful, mainly because we are allied to Russia, their great enemy, though that silly business with Breslau and Goeben did us no good! Sailing from Portsmouth at the end of the week, so we shall send you by destroyer to Newcastle where you can pick up the railway south. You should manage to be in London tomorrow evening, twenty-four hours at most.”
It was less than ideal for Christopher’s career, but it seemed to offer the possibility of action, which might almost compensate for the lack of proximity to Admiral Jellicoe.