He was too old, and too valuable where he was.
Smith followed the stooped and grizzled messenger as that pensioner creaked along the corridors of the Admiralty, but his mind was elsewhere. He had doubted he would get another appointment, thought they would try to bury him alive in some far, forgotten corner. He knew he had professional critics, a wild reputation and few friends. But he had hidden his doubt and now it seemed he was a lucky man and that he had a friend in the Rear-Admiral. And he had a flotilla. A flotilla! He wondered about the ships and the men, elated now. Destroyers! And a ‘ship of force’! Did Trist have a cruiser in the Dunkerque Squadron? Or was one to be borrowed from the Harwich Force? A flotilla!
Then the messenger stopped at a door and tapped with arthritic knuckles. Now for Trist. Smith took a breath and entered the room.
Trist, like Rear-Admiral Braddock, also stood by a window, but this office was no more than a cubby-hole borrowed to interview Smith. The Commodore was tall, immaculate in his uniform with the thick, gold ring of his rank. He stared out of the window as if at distant horizons, jaw out-thrust and arms crossed, frowning as if in deep thought. Smith thought uneasily that it was a pose but then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. He did not know Trist and it would not do to start with any preconceived opinions.
Trist did not share that view. “Commander.” He indicated a chair but before Smith was seated went on: “Let me be clear. I have no use for lady-killers nor glory-hunters. Understood?”
Smith let himself slowly down on to the chair, the elation draining away and anger taking its place. “Perfectly clear, sir. Neither have I.”
“Um.” Trist seemed unconvinced. He sat down behind the desk. An open briefcase lay on it and he tugged out a paper, sat reading it.
Smith waited in the silence, that unease on him again. Trist sat very straight in the chair, face set in that studied frown. A pose? The Commodore commanded the Dunkerque Squadron which in turn formed part of the Dover patrol under Vice Admiral Bacon. The Patrol consisted of four hundred-odd craft, drifters, destroyers, minesweepers, minelayers, tugs and many others but all with one main task: to hold the Straits of Dover, deny them to the enemy and keep safe the traffic between Britain and France. Troopships and supply transports, hospital ships and leave ships, merchant traffic to and from all over the world entertaining or leaving the port of London, all passed through that narrow neck of water. Why should a man with a command like that need to pose?
Smith thrust the thought aside as Trist looked up at him and asked, “You can take up your command tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir.” He had only to pack his bags. There were no farewells to be said, no partings.
Trist grumbled, “The Press and Parliament were all shouting for offensive action against U-boats so the Admiralty demanded it. My orders are to allocate the ships as available and this I have done.” He consulted his notes again. “It seems Lieutenant Commander Garrick and a Leading Seaman Buckley asked to serve with you.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t approve of an officer trailing an entourage but in this case the powers that be decided. Garrick and Buckley joined the Squadron two days ago.”
“I’m glad, sir.” Smith said with stiff politeness. “Thank you.”
Trist sniffed. “Nothing to do with me. I simply obeyed the orders of my superiors as every officer must.” He peered significantly at Smith, who said nothing to that. Trist went on, eyes on his notes again. “Frankly I found Garrick a bit of an oaf; hardly a word to say for himself. But I assume he’s competent and that will be something.”
Smith stiffened in the chair but Trist did not notice. Smith stared at him coldly, thinking, Garrick an oaf? Unimaginative and stolid, maybe. But he was a fine seaman, conscientious, loyal and there was none braver. He snapped, “Garrick is a good officer, sir. You don’t need to worry about him.”
Trist looked up sharply at the tone. “I can do without your reassurances, Commander. And Garrick will be your worry, not mine. You will answer for the flotilla to me. The orders are that it is to take offensive action against U-boats. That is a wide brief but the methods discussed were patrolling, and blockading or blocking the ports where the U-boats have their bases. The last two were considered impracticable so it comes down to patrolling. Any independent action you intend must first be authorised by me and I have work for you and these ships. Is that understood?”
Smith sat stiff-faced but raging at Trist and himself. He had started badly. He had received his appointment only minutes ago but already he was at odds with Trist. He said only, “Understood, sir.”
Trist watched him suspiciously for a moment, then said, “Now. The ships available to you. I intended three destroyers. Two are in the dockyard and will be for some weeks, but Sparrow is fit for sea. And of course there is the monitor, Marshall Marmont, which Garrick commands…”
Smith stared at Trist as he talked on but thought only of the two ships.
Sparrow.
Marshall Marmont.
He knew nothing about them as individuals but he knew the classes of ship they belonged to and that was enough. Neither of them could be described as ‘a ship of force’. He had known this would be bloody.
Part One — From a Find…
Chapter One
She lay at anchor in Dunkerque Roads, the approach to the port that had sweltered throughout the day in windless, brilliant sunshine but now with the evening there was a wind from the sea that brought with it the rain. Smith stood in the well of the forty-foot steam pinnace that butted out from between the breakwaters and headed for the ship. She was H.M.S. Marshall Marmont and she was a monitor. That is to say she was built to bombard shore installations and so she was shallow-draughted and carried two fifteen-inch guns. She was not so much a ship as a floating gun-platform for those two big guns in their turret which towered ridiculously high on its mounting above her foredeck. Certainly she had no place in an anti-submarine flotilla.
Beyond the sheltering breakwaters of the French port there was a sea running that set the pinnace lifting and plunging. This was Marshall Marmont’s pinnace and it was smart enough. The brass on the stubby funnel glittered, and polishing that was a labour of love; the smoke it poured out would leave it foul again within hours. Smith set his feet against the pitching, held on against it and stared at the monitor as he came up on her. She was only one of half-a-dozen monitors anchored in the Roads. Some of the others were twelve-inch gun monitors but there was also Erebus that mounted fifteen-inch guns. They lay there along with a scattering of destroyers and drifters, the little fishing craft called into service by the Navy for various duties, but these patrolled the mine-net barrage laid across the Straits. The long line of nets with its electrical mines was supposed to stop U-boats making a passage through the Channel. It had caught very few U-boats and there was no knowing how many had slipped past it or crossed the submerged nets at night, running on the surface.
She was close now. Marshall Marmont was short and wide and the bulges built along her sides to give her extra protection against torpedoes made her wider. So she sat wide-hipped in the water. Like an upturned soup-plate, he thought, or with that high turret and the higher bridge and control-top behind it, and her square stern — like a flat-iron. She would sail like one, too. What the hell was Commodore Trist thinking of?