Smith said, “Take station astern of Marshall Marmont.”
“Full ahead both!” Dunbar rapped it out then jammed the glasses to his eyes again. He said, “Rumplers.”
Smith grunted, took his word for it. They were biplanes, buzzing like hornets as they came in low over the sea, barely a hundred feet above it. Heads showed like footballs above the open cockpits. There was a machine-gun mounted in the after cockpit and bombs in their racks under the wings. Their exhausts stuck straight up from the engines for a foot or more and seemingly right behind the propeller. They streamed oily smoke above the pilot’s head.
Sparrow had run down past monitor and tug to seaward of them and swung around well astern of Marshall Marmont as Dunbar yelled, “All guns commence!”
Sparrow’s guns opened fire, the six-pounders barking and the twelve-pounder slamming away on the bridge, the smoke whipping away on the wind of her passage, the ejected empty cartridge cases flying and clanging across the deck. Marshall Marmont was firing too. Not the huge fifteen-inch that would not bear aft anyway, but the two anti-aircraft guns she carried in the stern. And then as the Rumplers tore in, their speed now suddenly apparent as they closed the ships, the Vickers machine-guns on the ships added their chatter to the din. There were bursts all around the aircraft but they grew in Smith’s eyes until they lifted, snarled overhead and on, higher now, two hundred feet or more. One — two — three. A spread line, one behind the other, a couple of hundred yards apart, leaving Sparrow and heading for the fat target, the monitor dragged along at the end of the tow. They swept over her and Smith saw the bombs fall, the Rumplers shedding their entire load so the bombs seemed to rain down. They fell abeam and astern and ahead of her. The tug’s stern lifted and fell and a tower of water half-bid her. Was the tug all right? The Lively Lady chugged on and Marshall Marmont followed her.
The guns ceased hammering and chattering in response to bellowed orders as the Rumplers shrank and became tiny with distance, climbing far ahead. But they were turning. They wheeled, seemingly slowly, and their formation broke up as they scattered to come back at Smith’s flotilla, one on either side, one from ahead.
Sparrow was making twenty knots now and pouring out smoke from her funnels as she thrust up abreast of the monitor and tug and then passed them to take station ahead. Smith glanced astern and saw them receding, said quietly, “Good enough.”
“Half-ahead both!” Dunbar ordered.
Now Sparrow was again where Smith wanted her, where she could meet the attack first but the Rumplers were split now — “Turn her broadside to ’em Mr. Dunbar!”
“Port ten!”
Sparrow turned, showing her side to the raiders so she could at any rate fire her puny broadside of the twelve-pounder and three of her six-pounders and they opened up as the Rumplers came in, starting to dive and weaving with their biplane wings rocking. They snarled in and passed low over the ships with the trails from their exhausts criss-crossing. The one that ripped over Sparrow seemed to flick past the masthead. Smith saw the scarf trailing back from the pilot’s throat like a pennant, the machinegunner standing up in the rear cockpit to fire down at the thirtyknotter right under him. Then the Rumplers were gone, forming up again beyond the ships and heading for the coast. The guns ceased firing.
Dunbar mused, “Unusual.” And when Smith glanced at him, “They’re usually content just to chase us off, stop us bombarding. They don’t chivvy us like that.”
Smith grunted. It was just another oddity. He had plenty to think about. He wondered about the aircraft endlessly patrolling over De Haan.
The rain came in squalls through the rest of that day and brought dusk early. As night was falling Garrick reported the monitor’s rudder and engines repaired, just as the main force passed them, undamaged, returning from their bombardment of Zeebrugge at an easy ten knots. Trist signalled from his flagshipfor-the-day, the monitor Erebus: ‘Do you require assistance?’
Smith snapped, “Reply: ‘Negative! This flotilla will cope!’” He saw the exchange of grins on the bridge.
They anchored for the night back in Dunkerque Roads, the spread line of monitors rocking together like a row of elephants, and as the whaler carried Smith from Sparrow to Marshall Marmont he reflected that now he knew what he had to deal with, to fight with. He was certain now that Trist had dumped his problem ships on him. He believed Dunbar; Trist was covering himself, and whatever went wrong in these ‘offensive actions’ would be laid at Smith’s door. So he had to make certain nothing went wrong. Easier said than done.
Victoria Baines sat on her bunk, sank her feet tenderly into a basin of hot water and sighed with voluptuous pleasure. A minute before she had seen the whaler pass with the slight, thin-faced Commander sitting erect in the stern. Now she thought, Well, he managed that all right.
There was something about this one.
Chapter Four
Smith was up at dawn to write his reports; one for Trist and this time another for the Director of Naval Intelligence by way of Trist and this was a report on Schwertträger. When he had finished he read them through, flat statements of fact. A plain recounting of orders carried out and an equally plain record of the Kapitänleutnant’s words and Sanders’s translation. He added his commendations of Garrick and Dunbar and Lively Lady. He could not mention Victoria Baines because officially she had not been out with the flotilla.
He ate breakfast alone in his cabin then called for the pinnace and went on deck. Garrick had a party aloft, sending up a new yard and new rigging. Smith asked him, “Oiling and ammunition?”
“The ammunition comes alongside in an hour, sir. The oiler follows her.”
Smith nodded. “I’ll be back by then. Send the picket-boat in for me in an hour’s time.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” And Garrick asked, “Shore leave, sir?”
“For one watch. Two hours when you’re satisfied with the ship.” That meant half of Marshall Marmont’s crew would get two precious hours ashore in Dunkerque. The rest of her crew would have to wait their turn, in a day or a week or longer.
Smith crossed in the pinnace to Sparrow. She was preparing to enter the port to coal and take on ammunition and also to put ashore her survivors. There was weak sunshine but a stiff breeze that had now veered around to the north-east, and a chop that set the pinnace pitching. Aboard Sparrow Smith said, “I see Lord Clive is leaving us.” The twelve-inch gun monitor had already oiled and taken on ammunition and was now weighing anchor.
Smith nodded as Dunbar said, “Special operations.” And added, “She’s not the first. One by one they’re going. Wonder what’s up?”
So did Smith. Garrick’s First Lieutenant had told him of four monitors that had sailed in recent weeks with those same vague orders: ‘Special operations.’ Not a word had come back concerning any of them. Whatever the secret was, it was well-kept. As it should be. Smith said, “None of our business.”
Sparrow weighed and stood in to Dunkerque. They had a berth for her again in the Port d’Echouage opposite the shipyard. Dunbar said, “We’ll get alongside for a few hours but it’s a bit of luck if they have room for us tonight. Usually we lie out in the Roads like last night and in any sort of a sea there’s damn-all sleep for anybody.”