“A little effort on my part and a vast deal of good fortune, Captain Hendricks. Many another brave man simply was not noticed in the confusion of war.”
“Possibly so, sir – but I have no doubt of your merits, Captain Baker. What of young Smithers? Was he under your command?”
Richard shook his head gravely.
“He was sent back with a party of walking wounded and might not have reached the rear in safety. I have not heard and Colonel Braithwaite of my battalion, the Third Beds, knew nothing of him. Better that way and enough said.”
“Not himself wounded?”
“Forget it, sir! Best I should have said nothing – provided he is dead.”
“Always thought he was a very withdrawn youngster. Shy, would you say?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Pity! Nothing to be said. You are right to keep it out of the public eye. What do you think of the youngsters here? All of them underage and learning their drill to join up on the day they are eighteen and be a useful soldier immediately.”
“Good to see, sir. They will be needed. Tell me, Captain Hendricks. I am to go to the investiture on Tuesday. May my parents come and watch?”
“They can indeed, Captain Baker. They should go to the Palace and show themselves in morning dress as your family, one hour before the investiture, which will normally take place at eleven o’clock. If the procedure has changed, you will be told on Monday, in time to get a telegram to them.”
Richard made his thanks.
“Is there anything you can suggest for the lads going out to France?”
“No, their battalion will provide their needs, unless they are going out as officers. In that case, a pair of field glasses makes sense, and a pocket watch. I am about to buy both as a replacement, if I can find them in Kettering.”
Captain Hendricks shook his head – Kettering was not the place to discover such items of military apparel.
“No barracks here, Captain Baker. Might be possible in Northampton, but difficult to get there, despite it being the county town. A long railway journey for there being no direct link. I would suggest trying in Bedford or in London. Any pocket watch you purchased here would be more suited for the drawing room than for the field.”
“The disadvantages of dwelling in the sticks, sir. Not to worry!”
Richard found himself able to regard such problems philosophically – he had progressed beyond the little provincial town of his birth. He took the salutes of those present in the drill hall and wandered out into the town to take a quick look into the shops before he made his way home again. He stiffened proudly as a group of women shoppers cheered as he passed, calling out to him to kill more of the Huns for them.
Chapter Fourteen
“Have you heard the buzz, Sub? Telegram from the Admiralty says the Tsingtao Squadron has definitely been seen on the coast of Chile. They’re sending Defence and Canopus down to Port Stanley as a matter of urgency.”
“Canopus is too slow, sir. Even with her engines working after a full refit she can only muster twelve knots and eight is a more normal expectation. Defence will add a lot of guns, but she has very little in the way of armour.”
The Gunnery Commander was blasé, utterly unconcerned.
“Won’t need armour, my boy. Biggest of all our cruisers with four more nine point twos and ten of seven point fives to add to our broadsides – blow the Huns out of the water before they so much as touch us.”
Hector McDuff was partly convinced.
“Where is she, sir?”
“Oh, somewhere Brazil way, but she is making best speed to join us. She can cruise at a good twenty knots, you know. She’ll come through the Magellan Straits together with Canopus and a collier to meet us after we have rounded Cape Horn, again!”
Sublieutenants were not carried aboard ship to argue with commanders.
“All seems well then, sir.”
“It does, my boy. We’d do the job without the pair of them. With them, it’s a matter of course. Add to that, there’s a Japanese squadron on the coast as well, with one of their fast battleships. Can’t underrate the Japs, not after Tsu Shima.”
The Japanese fleet had utterly destroyed the Russians in that famous battle less than ten years before, one which had turned around Western perceptions of their navy.
“Sounds like a race for who gets there first, sir.”
“That will be us. The Navy will be second to none!”
Hector retired to his cabin, taking his misgivings with him. Having a substantial private income, he had his own copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships of the World and looked up the German ships again.
“Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Heavy beasts, for fast cruisers!”
He read the brief details, reminded himself that the German ships were not especially well armoured and were in many ways poorly designed, according to British orthodoxy. They were fast and their gunnery control systems were said to be modern, although there were few details. In the end, it seemed, they would be markedly inferior to Defence, but carried far more heavy guns than Good Hope. Monmouth, a six inch gun cruiser, could not live with them. If Defence and Canopus joined, then the result would be a brief and entirely successful battle; with one of the pair present, the British ships would take damage but should prevail; with neither added to the existing squadron, then the Navy might win in a close range affair.
Hector made his way aft, spent two hours with his gun crew, working them in local control, as would be needed if the Commander and his little gunnery control tower were lost to enemy shellfire.
He returned to the bridge to stand his watch, unhappy with the level of efficiency of the gunners or the turret rangefinders and sighting telescopes. The equipment was old and the gunners complacent, convinced that they would win simply because the Navy always did. He suspected that attitude carried as far as Admiral Craddock’s cabin.
They sailed from Port Stanley, the four ships of the original squadron in line and no certain knowledge of the whereabouts of the reinforcements or of the Japanese.
“They’ll join us off the Chilean coast, Sub. Glasgow will go into Valparaiso to pick up the telegrams from the Admiralty. We’ll be told exactly where they are then.”
The squadron had wireless, but of very limited range; they were reliant on telegrams onshore for any communications in excess of about three hundred miles. Valparaiso was a neutral port and belligerents had the right of entry to speak to their consuls or make repairs or purchase provisions or coal. The consuls ashore were at liberty to contact their own forces with any information they might discover. Sending Glasgow in meant the German consul, who probably had his own wireless equipment, would be free to inform the Tsingtao squadron of her location.
Hector made this point tentatively.
“So much the better, McDuff – if they come after us, it saves us the bother of finding them!”
The captain’s words, delivered in friendly enough fashion, brought the discussion to a close.
Hector lifted his glasses, checked that the three lesser members of the squadron were in place.
Monmouth at two cables distance, in precise line, her six inch guns seeming tiny; Glasgow with two six inch and ten four inch, more modern, faster and with torpedo tubes as her major armament, a very smart seeming ship but far smaller; Otranto, high out of the water, an armed merchantman with four guns and no armour – a liability whose sole virtue was to extend the line in a search. The squadron might seem impressive to a landsman, but it was very thin. So far they had captured one German merchantman on her way home in August and unaware of any war; they had achieved very little besides.