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A sheet of flame ran along the German’s decks, flinging out scarlet tendrils as it went, then a coil of black smoke began to lift and swell, its centre filled with brilliant light. From the smoke, huge dark objects lifted up, whirring outwards to splash into the water, and momentarily Kelly saw the clear shape of a man, arms and legs flailing as he was flung high into the air. A colossal mushroom of brown smoke climbed upwards, spilling flaming debris. Beyond it the German ship had vanished, and beneath the pall the sea seemed to swirl under a shower of burning cordite, splintered lifeboats, wood, mess-stools, hammocks, oil-drums, even a funnel gyrating in the sky, and unidentifiable fragments that could have been clothes or men. The German ship had gone like a burst bubble in a single instant.

There was a stunned silence then the first lieutenant spoke. ‘Ammunition,’ he said.

The German ship had been torn apart and, as the smoke cleared they saw it had split in two, with the two halves, surrounded by swimming men, standing on end and sinking lower in the water as they passed them.

‘Good old Ginger,’ someone said with deep satisfaction just below the bridge. ‘That’s stopped the buggers coughing in church.’

As they swept through the smoke, they almost collided with Freelance, coming round from the other side. A light flickered from the other ship’s bridge, and the yeoman of signals called out.

‘Freelance signalling. “Do you come here often?”’

Kelly’s mouth moved in a taut smile. There wasn’t much wrong with morale when hard-pressed men could make signals like that. Resisting the impulse to reply in the same vein, he gave himself wholeheartedly to the job in hand. Beyond the sinking wreck of the ammunition ship, three German destroyers were just turning and they took them from the quarter. One of them reeled away, her after-deck smothered in flame; then, one behind the other, their guns blazing at point-blank range, Feudal, Freelance and Vandyke burst through the line. As Feudal swung again, however, leaning to the turn, the first lieutenant pointed and, swinging round, Kelly saw three more Germans coming from Bogen Bay on their own quarter, not more than two miles away. They had been lying at anchor behind the large island that filled the western half of the bay, and they were coming down now at full speed. Caught up against the islands of Lilandsgrund, Feudal had been trapped exactly as they had trapped the Germans, and she caught the full force of their vengeful fury.

It was a fierce encounter as they tried to hit back, conducted at lightning speed and with scant regard for science because they were too close. There was only time for the voice of the director-layer to reach the sweating guns’ crews, then shells were bursting on either side of Feudal, the near misses rocking her, the stench of explosives sweeping down on her with the falling spray, the fragments clattering against the hull.

The guns were roaring furiously, their crews, unmoved by the tumult, aiming at the first enemy they saw in the murk of smoke, spray and mist. Another German reeled aside trailing smoke and flames as the guns recoiled, brass cylinders smoking, and the breeches clanged shut again. Two more hits sparked along the enemy hull, followed by a cheer that was drowned by an explosion abaft the bridge that hit home like a hammer and set Feudal staggering from the fight in her turn.

Another shell struck, then another, cutting off all communications systems and wrecking the electrics. A fourth smashed into her boiler room and she lost way at once, shuddering, and came to a stop, her nose bowing to the water, escaping steam roaring from her bowels, a shower of soot from the funnels coming down across the deck.

The ship was a shambles, gaping holes fringed by jagged edges of shining metal that lifted like the petals of a steel flower round her wounds. Among the debris were the scorched bodies of men, their blood draining into the scuppers. A blaze was roaring abaft the bridge, where cordite charges had caught fire, a shrieking white flame lifting up towards the masthead, its glow reflected on the dark water. The damage control party was already running forward with hoses, however, flinging the debris overboard and dragging the bodies aside, and badly wounded men were being placed in a row near the bridge ladder.

The Germans had vanished into the smoke and the guns had fallen silent, the guns’ crews clearing the deck of the shell cases. One of them vomited over the side and, as the smoke cleared, propped up against the bulkhead in the glare of the flames, Kelly saw the remains of one of the torpedo-men minus arms and legs and with his inside spilling out. Straightening up, the nauseated gunner began to yell hysterically but he was immediately grabbed by his friends and quietened. As the magazine parties emerged, grimy and puffy-eyed from the stinking darkness, the engineer lieutenant appeared to report, his face streaked with someone else’s blood.

‘What’s it like?’ Kelly asked.

‘Pretty rough, sir. I’ve lost a lot of men. Given half an hour, though, I think I can get her moving.’

Kelly turned to glance towards the smoke. Second Flotilla had vanished seawards, accompanied by Vandyke, which appeared to be on fire aft, and Freelance, chased down the fjord by two of the German ships.

‘I don’t think we’ve got half an hour,’ he said, and as he spoke, one of the Germans re-emerged from the smoke, her guns blazing. The torpedo gunner tried to hit her but, stopped as they were, he had neither swing nor spread and against the fast-moving target it was a vain hope.

The guns’ crews tried to hit back, each gunlayer having to judge his own range and fall of shot, but the German ship had been joined now by two more from further up the fjord and A gun was the first to go. Then a fire broke out under B gun and it was clear Feudal had not much time left to live. The searchlight platform went and a fire started aft, stopping the supply of ammunition. The engineer lieutenant reappeared, sweating and faintly apologetic.

‘I’m afraid it’s no use, sir,’ he reported. ‘The water’s gaining.’

The Germans had moved further up the fjord now to the help of their own shattered ships. It was quite clear Feudal was not going to move and, with a last salvo into her, they vanished into the smoke. As the shells struck, Kelly heard the clatter of metallic objects crashing to the deck, and saw the water stirred alongside as fragments whipped into it. The whole centre section of the ship was ablaze now and the smoke was so thick it was hardly possible to see. From the dark coils, he could hear men yelling, but even now there was no panic and the men emerging from below were all dragging wounded shipmates with them. Alongside, some of the men in the sea had become silent, floating with their heads fallen back, but torpedo-men and engine room ratings were still struggling to lower a Carley raft and one of the leading seamen appeared on the bridge.

‘Depth charges rendered safe, sir.’

Kelly looked at him with admiration, wondering at his calmness. ‘Thank you. I’m glad to hear it.’

The ship’s list was pronounced now. It didn’t seem to be quite real. Rafts were drifting round the hull and more wounded men were being brought from amidships. The ship hadn’t much longer to live and, with the Germans gone, Kelly was frantically searching his mind for something that would enable them all to escape. He’d been a prisoner in the last war and the idea of another spell didn’t appeal. He glanced to the deck below him and saw Rumbelo there. His face was quite calm as he waited with Kelly’s life jacket, and Kelly wondered what he was thinking and whether he were wishing he were back at Thakeham with Biddy.

The men on the deck were shivering as they stripped off their clothes. The water was so cold he knew that a lot of them wouldn’t survive long, and with the shoreline covered with deep snow, even if they made it they’d freeze to death there.

He had almost resigned himself to a German prison when, through the smoke, he saw the shape of another destroyer approaching.

‘Here we go again,’ the navigator said in a flat resigned voice, and they were bracing themselves for the coup de grace when Rumbelo spoke.

‘That’s Wrestler, sir,’ he announced quietly.

As Wrestler emerged, it was possible to recognise her by the four-incher that had been removed to make room for more depth charges. She was coming down the fjord fast and, as she swung to come up astern, Kelly saw Latimer on the bridge giving orders.

He laid Wrestler alongside Feudal as neatly as if she were a ferry at the cross-channel berth at Dover, and men began to jump the gap.

‘Go on, Rumbelo,’ Kelly said. ‘Get cracking.’

Rumbelo looked stubborn. ‘I’ll go when you go,’ he said.

Wrestler had her outer scrambling nets down and on her quarter Feudal’s sole remaining boat was moving alongside. As the survivors clawed their way up her hull, the boat moved away again among the bobbing heads in the water, picking up swimming men. By this time there appeared to be no sign of life near Feudal’s bridge and the upper deck was deserted except for the huddled figures of the dead. The list had increased and she was well down by the bows.

‘I think we won this bit of the war, sir,’ Latimer called across. ‘Vandyke took a hit but she’s making her own way home.’

Suddenly the fjord was very silent except for the splashing and the shouts of men in the water. Somewhere guns were still firing but they sounded muted now.

‘Better come now, sir,’ Rumbelo said as calmly as if he were suggesting that they crossed the road.

Kelly nodded and stepped across the gap between the two ships. Rumbelo waited until he was safe aboard before following himself. Willing hands grasped them. By this time, most of the men in the water had reached the nets and were being dragged aboard.

‘Look slippy,’ Latimer shouted.

As Wrestler went astern, they heard Feudal’s death rattle, a violent convulsion that ran through her slender hull, then a swirl of water spread from her bows and she began to plunge. For a moment, as her stern rose steeply, she seemed to hang, half-alive and half-dead, her bow deep in the water, her propellers silhouetted against the white sky. Then, with what sounded like a tired sigh, she slipped below, going swiftly, the angle of her descent steep. The last they saw of her was her stern still sticking out of the water and the tip of her mainmast with the white ensign still at the gaff.

The war had come to life with a vengeance.

The Navy had been at battle stations from two days before the declaration of hostilities and the areas of sea they had covered were vast. The advantage had always been with the enemy, however, and naval intelligence had often been incomplete, but, at least, unlike the army, the Navy was still virtually a force of regulars, trained to the last degree in the use of its weapons and the handling of its ships. Judging by some of the soldiers Kelly had seen heading for Norway, the army could not boast the same.

Intervention in Scandinavia had proved a disaster. The country was not only unprepared for war but it didn’t even know how to fight it. Troops had been landed without their equipment and requests for information had only brought more questions so that, with everybody asking what in God’s name was going on, orders had invariably proved to be out of date. Nevertheless, the Navy had not let the country down and the German seagoing forces had limped home battered, with the cruisers, Blücher and Karlsruhe, sunk; and the pocket battleship, Lutzow, the heavy cruiser, Hipper, the battle cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the cruisers, Köln and Bremse, all damaged, to say nothing of a whole fleet of destroyers sunk or damaged at Narvik.

Perhaps it was as well, because after eight months of silence in France, with most of the casualties coming from road accidents, and most of the country feeling that the war, like an old soldier, would simply fade away, Hitler had launched across Holland, Belgium and Northern France the blitzkrieg that had devastated Poland the previous year. With the Allies still – despite Poland, despite Norway! – painstakingly building up the traditional forces of 1918, by May 20th they had reached the sea and split the allied armies in two.

At Thakeham, it was hard to believe that men were dying and that the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force were penned with units of the Belgian and French armies, into a tongue of land no more than forty miles deep and the same distance wide. People were still taking long week-ends and half-days off work, still planning their summer holidays, still playing cricket and working out whether they could hunt when the winter came. As the facts became known, they produced only a numbed disbelief and the country still sat back, content that the British Empire could come to no harm. It was not surprising. The newspapers had perpetuated the legend that the Luftwaffe was out of date and even the Prime Minister had said that Hitler had missed the bus, so that wishful thinking and self-deception had continued to hang over the country like a miasma.

The only good thing that had come out of the disasters was that England had at last got a new leader. Churchill, who had conducted the affairs of the Admiralty since the previous year with his usual aggressive élan, had become Prime Minister and was offering only blood, toil, tears, and sweat, a daunting prospect that was at least realistic. In his impulsive way, Kelly thought, Winston would undoubtedly make mistakes as he always had, but at least he had a habit of doing something, while the recent government, fighting the war with committees, had only been able to display the certainty of good committee men trying to avoid positive action.

Seething with fury without a command and, still devoid of a hundred items of kit and uniform, which had disappeared with Feudal, he stamped about the house in a frustrated fury. Though it had been the family home since his mother had moved from Ireland to be near her husband and sons at the beginning of the 1914–18 war, he realised he hardly knew it. He had spent so much of his life abroad, he’d rarely lived there, not even after his mother had let him have it for his home after he’d married. It had been transformed by his wife’s money, modernised and filled with the treasures she’d acquired, but it had still meant little to him because she’d always preferred London and, as Biddy’s children had grown, Kelly, enjoying their noise and their laughter with the pleasure of a childless man, had managed to bring life to the place only by encouraging them to use it for parties.