“Thank you, sir. Which admiral?”
“Tompkins. Recently made. Did well on the China station as a commodore of a squadron on the Yangtse.”
Christopher was appalled – a river gunboat man! He could know nobody and nothing.
“You will have to guide him, I do not doubt, Adams. He will not be aware of the subtleties, shall we say, of dealing with the foreign governors and such, not to speak of the Colonial Office chaps on Cyprus, civil servants and considerably more Byzantine than the inhabitants of Constantinople! You will probably be called down to Alexandria on occasion – need to deal with the types there. I don’t know why you are not to be based out of Malta, but no doubt that will become clear. I suspect that your squadron will include a number of pre-dreadnought battleships, possibly to be used to bombard Austrian ports on the Adriatic. Could be good fun, you know!”
Ancient ships; employed in a backwater; an unknown admiral – there were words other than ‘fun’ that came to Christopher’s mind.
“So it could, sir. Uniforms could be a problem, you know, sir!”
“Gieves has a branch in Malta. No difficulties there. Bound to pay respects to C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet – you can expect to be there for several days. All the important things can be dealt with, you know. Should be a jolly good cruise, old chap. Better than spending a winter in Scapa Flow!”
The weather had been bad enough in the summer; the thought of escaping the northern wastes for their six dark months quite reconciled Christopher to the prospect of unfashionable service with an unknown.
He took the train in Newcastle full of hope for a pleasant Mediterranean interlude. He spent twenty-four hours in London – back in civilisation – spending the day with his parents for feeling that he really should make his number in the family home.
The Viscount was based in London for the duration of the war; a sacrifice but necessary, as he explained to his third son.
“The House of Lords is sitting almost unbroken – no long recesses these days. I put my nose inside for a couple of hours two or three times a week. Besides that, I am on a couple of committees set up to organise the country for the purposes of the war. Contracts for munitions, that sort of thing, making sure the right factories are kept busy, you know what I mean.”
Christopher suspected he did – the family income would be taking a turn for the good by the sound of it.
“Jeremy will not be taking a commission, of course; one cannot expect the heir to do so. He has made himself useful, though. The Ministry of Agriculture needs advisers and has set up one or two ‘statutory bodies’, they call them, to organise food production and encourage farmers to turn pastureland to wheat and such. Keeps him busy for a couple of days a week.”
That seemed entirely reasonable – he could not be expected to give all of his time to government.
“There is an honorarium, of course, and he will be able to look after our lands properly. We do have some ancient pastures that should not be wantonly destroyed.”
To be expected – there was a limit to the sacrifices demanded of the leaders of the country.
“Arthur has joined up – as second son, he was obliged to, he felt. He has been sent out to General Sir John French’s staff, has been made a captain, of course. Played some part in the planning for the Battle of the Marne, I understand.”
“Very good, Father.”
“What of you, Christopher? I do not quite understand how you are sent to the Mediterranean. I had thought you were well-placed with Jellicoe.”
Christopher explained.
“Ah! I see. Blair’s daughter – damned nuisance for you, but nothing else for you to do. Leaving aside your age and rank, which make marriage ineligible for you, not a family to become entangled with. The previous Duke was a fool with his money, left the estates much encumbered and the present man has hardly two coppers to rub together. I doubt his daughter would come with a thousand pounds of her own! Definitely a young female to steer well clear of! Who is your admiral?”
“Tompkins, sir. Not a known figure.”
“Never heard of him. I shall have a word about in Town – don’t be surprised if you discover your orders changed just a little, my boy! You may well discover yourself placed in the way of whatever action may be going. Should help your promotion prospects, I think!”
“Might find ourselves going up against the Austro-Hungarian fleet, Father. They have a few capital ships, enough to make a respectable little battle, I suspect.”
“Excellent! What allowance am I making you at the moment, Christopher?”
“Four hundred a year and my tailor’s bills, sir.”
“Right – better make that five hundred from this month. Can you live inside that?”
“Four was sufficient at Scapa, sir. I cannot imagine that it will be too little in the Med.”
“Make it five for convenience’s sake. Never know, you might need a few quid in hand. Better to have too much than too little, I always say!”
“I’ve never really worried about money, you know, sir. One does not in the Navy – although you do get the odd strange type who has money and nothing else. One of the mids on St Vincent was that sort – he was told to send in his papers. I’m told he was seen in Calais in brown, with the Bedfordshires.”
“Good regiment. The word is that they are heavily involved around Ypres. A big casualty list, that I know. If he has lived, then he will probably be wishing he was still at sea!”
Chapter Thirteen
The slagheap was filthy. Wet half-burned coke and ash and sulphur-stinking lumps of waste from the blast furnaces mixed with dust and God alone knew what else to make a gritty, foul-smelling mess. It stank as if a thousand cats had done their business there.
Richard could taste the vile concoction; when he spat to clear his throat he almost gagged again at the sight of the noxious brown-streaked mess he heaved up.
The men were equally distressed by the disgusting, unhealthy foulness, but they showed very willing to pile up lumps of clag in front of themselves and rest their rifles in the gaps between. Filth in the throat was better than rifle bullets in the head.
The company was down to eighteen men, having left behind another six wounded and put five more into shallow graves during the fighting retreat through the town and into the steelworks. They hoped the wounded would receive treatment from their captors, could do nothing for them otherwise. They had seen German stretcher bearers taking men away, thought they might have been theirs. Captain Platt and Sergeant Grace remained, as did Corporals Abbott and Ekins – the benefit of experience and quickness of thought, Richard suspected, as well as no little luck. Their liaison, young Second Lieutenant Sturton, had been shot in the first hours of the retreat through the town; he had never learned to keep his head down, had been excitedly pointing out a party of Germans infiltrating on their left, had stood up to show exactly where they were…
They had been pushed out of the town by the weight of numbers, at least a division having pressed forward relentlessly, backed by light artillery, their casualties replaced by fresh men every morning. The Fusiliers had given ground slowly, fighting for every yard while the thin company of Bedfordshires had repeatedly slipped a furlong to the rear to provide a line for them to fall back on. The German infantry had simply not stopped, pushing left and right to make the new line untenable, and the ones that followed. They had reached the slagheaps behind the blast furnaces and there had stayed for days, cover and height protecting them, enabling them to use their rifles to their best effect, expending their ammunition.