The Lion at Sea (38 page)

‘“Form line of battle,” sir,’ Lipscomb sang out, his glasses to his eyes. ‘“Second Battle Cruisers astern of First, Thirteenth and Ninth Destroyer Flotillas.”’

The battle cruisers were increasing speed now, with the Fifth Battle Squadron trailing well astern and fighting to catch up. The course changed to easterly and Talbot smiled.

‘Getting out of the smoke,’ he said. ‘It’s fouling their range.’ He occupied himself with refilling his pipe. ‘They like to have their battles nice and tidy. Four hundred revolutions, please.’

‘Course alteration, sir?’

Talbot lit his pipe and nodded and
Mordant
heeled over so that they all took a staggering step to one side before they recovered their balance.

‘Smoke’s easier. Not in our eyes now.’

Realising he was holding his breath in excitement, Kelly drew in an explosive gulp of air. They were still waiting for the first crash of the guns, their eyes glued to the distant ships. As the two fleets closed each other, Evan-Thomas still trying desperately to catch up, the visibility remained good but the patches of thin mist over the water were increasing and varying in density, and were not being dispersed by the sun.

‘At a disadvantage with the light,’ Kelly pointed out. The British ships stood out sharply against a clear sky while the Germans were vague and dim in the mist.

The wait seemed interminable. They could see the Germans more clearly now as they lifted above the horizon, though their shapes were blurred by the mist. Still the two fleets held their fire.

‘I think we’re going to shake hands first,’ Kelly said.

Then, as the battle cruisers came into line with
Champion
and her destroyers, the Germans opened fire. They were almost entirely merged into a long smoky cloud on the eastern horizon, and from the bridge of
Mordant
they saw a series of sparkling flashes run along their line, that ripple of fire the Germans always favoured.

‘Here it comes!’

‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.’

The roar as the British heavy units opened fire in return seemed to shake
Mordant
to her keel. A great rolling cloud of ginger smoke drifted away from the long rifled barrels, and the heavens seemed to fill with the din. As the smoke lifted higher to mingle with the clouds, the sky seemed to sink.

For a quarter of an hour the interchange was furious but it was all so much like the firing exercises they’d carried out it was hard to believe that a battle was taking place, that men were about to die. The two fleets were on more or less parallel courses now, each ship waiting for the range to close before letting fly, but it all seemed so cold-blooded and mechanical, there seemed no chance of anyone seeing red or going berserk – as if all that were needed were a cool scientific calculation and deliberate gunfire.

But the bloody realities of battle soon appeared and, even as he saw one of the German ships flare into a yellow sheet of flame, Kelly also saw flashes on both
Lion
and
Tiger.

‘They’ve got our range,’ he said.

The battle cruisers were lying to port now, the long barrels over the port beam firing salvoes. Vast columns of water like a forest, higher than the mast, were being thrown up all round
Lion,
to cascade over the bridge and decks in mountainous walls of water. Then a flare of yellow through the forest of gingerish-looking splashes caught Kelly’s eye, different from the red jabs of her guns, and he realised the flagship had been hit again.

‘They’ve got
Lion,
sir.’

‘Q Turret,’ Talbot said, staring through his glasses. ‘Top’s peeled back like an old sardine tin.’

As he spoke, a huge flame shot up from
Lion
and for a moment Kelly thought the flagship had gone with everybody in her. But as the smoke cleared he saw the remaining turrets fire together and the men by the forward gun began to cheer.

‘She’s all right,’ Heap said. ‘They’ve switched to Pakenham’s ships.’

It was still hard to accept the deadliness of what they were seeing, despite the flames they could see pouring out of
Lion
just abaft the second funnel, and the engagement remained an exhilarating affair, etched in a strange beauty in the cold northern light. Ahead, astern and on either side of the destroyers, the sea was a succession of water spouts, and the noise had increased to incredible proportions. Black smoke was still pouring from the flagship, but then they saw that
Princess Royal
was taking punishment, too, and had been hit forward. Now it was
Tiger’s
turn, and finally
Indefatigable
’s
.

‘We seem to be getting rather a pasting,’ Talbot observed.

The British guns, Kelly noticed, flashed as they fired, while the Germans’ seemed to emit a ball of flame and brown smoke which rolled out comparatively slowly from the barrel. Several ‘overs’ landed nearby and, as they steamed through the collapsing waterspouts, the decks were deluged by water that smelt of cordite.

‘
Indefatigable
’s
been hit again!’ Heap said.

Round the huge ships, the sea was being churned to foam by the shell splashes, and the air seemed to be yellow with the fumes of lyddite. Almost swamped by the German salvoes, their view of the enemy was obscured by their own funnel smoke.

‘
Indefatigable
’s
not following the line, sir!’

Heap’s voice rose in his excitement and, as they turned to watch, they saw that as the flagship turned to port she was being followed round by
Princess Royal, Queen Mary, Tiger
and
New Zealand,
while
Indefatigable
was continuing in a straight line, smoke pouring from her deck. Then another salvo hit her and they seemed to feel the agony even in
Mordant.

The two shells fell on
Indefatigable
’s
upper deck, one on the forecastle and one on the forward turret, and as the smoke increased she began to heel over.

‘Good God!’ Heap’s voice cracked. ‘I think she’s sinking, sir!’

The great ship seemed to be sagging by the stern, moving like a crippled animal dragging its hindquarters, then she was suddenly enveloped in a sheet of flame that rolled along her deck from forward, a dull red ball of fire which flared up the masts in great tongues and spread fore and aft to unite in a black cloud of smoke and sparks.

‘Good God!’ Heap said.

‘Poor bastards!’ The voice came from below the bridge. ‘They ain’t drawn
their
money’s worth.’

A vast pall of dense dark smoke had billowed out of
Indefatigable
,
rolling low along the surface of the water, with great gouts of it shooting skywards in every direction, its centre lit by the red glow of flame. As it mounted in a solemn dignity to the sky, at the very top of it, two hundred feet high, a fifty-foot steam pinnace, apparently intact but upside down, was poised in the air. The cloud of smoke and flame seemed to hang for minutes in the heavens then, through a hole in the dark, rolling pillar, Kelly saw the bows of the ship lying on their side. Then there was another streak of flame and a fresh cloud of smoke, and the bows disappeared.

As they stared, a large, fully-rigged ship with all sails set sailed between them and the Germans like a ghost vessel, something from another age lost in the vast holocaust of Twentieth Century destruction. They stared at it in wonderment, finding it hard to accept this anachronism in the middle of a great battle. Still staring at
Indefatigable,
Talbot hardly noticed it.

‘That’s put the cat among the bloody pigeons,’ he said slowly. ‘See any survivors, Number One?’

‘No, sir. There can’t be many. There wasn’t time. But there’s a destroyer moving across.’

The news spread through the ship like wildfire. Never had the grapevine worked so fast. ‘
Indefatigable
’s
sunk!’ It was possible to hear the shouts from station to station even on the bridge, as the men on the port side passed the word to those on the starboard side who couldn’t see.

Any belief they’d had that the engagement was nothing more than a bloodless exercise had now wholly disappeared and the feeling seemed to have spread through the fleet, because the great ships were hammering away at each other now in what seemed a berserk rage, thick clouds of cordite smoke, brown and bitter-smelling, drifting over the water. The Fifth Battle Squadron was trying to engage the rear German ships at long range, and for a while the German fire seemed to diminish and they saw that the third of the German vessels was blazing.

‘This bloody visibility doesn’t help,’ Talbot snarled.

‘Fifth Battle Squadron’s cut the corner again, sir,’ Heap reported, his glasses to his eyes. ‘I think they’re in range. They seem to be making good practice, too.’

The din was incredible now, the air full of rolling thunder, overlaid with the higher-pitched crash of the sea and the rattle of the ship, and the thin human voices making their reports above the brazen roar of the guns. The fire of the battle cruisers seemed to have done little harm to the Germans but the battleships’ bigger guns at last seemed to be doing damage and they could see hits all along the German line.

‘Flagship’s signalling by searchlight to
Princess Royal
,’
Heap said. ‘Wireless must be out of action and she’s using
Princess Royal
as an intermediary. Battle cruisers turning towards now. They’re shooting damn well, too.
Queen Mary
’s
taking on two at once. But I think she’s having a bad time herself.’

‘It’s reports I want,’ Talbot said coldly. ‘Not a running commentary.’

Turning to deliver the rebuke, he stopped dead as Heap’s jaw fell.

‘Oh, my God!’ Heap said.

Swinging round, Talbot snatched for his glasses. The Germans were shooting superbly and
Queen Mary
was being engaged by two ships at once. Several salvoes struck her together and, as they watched, there was a tremendous explosion forward. A vivid red flame shot up and a huge pillar of smoke climbed to a thousand feet in height, swaying slightly at the base, the top expanding like a mushroom and rolling downward. Flames rose and fell in the stalk of the monstrous growth and, as the battleship staggered and took on a heavy list, there was another explosion amidships. A huge piece of debris soared upwards and they saw the masts collapse, and the stern sticking high in the air, the propellers still revolving and men crawling out of the top of the after turret. As they passed, it rolled over and blew up, throwing great masses of steel in the air in black wobbling arcs out of the cloud of smoke. The centre of the smoke seemed to be a glaring blood-red triangle emitting thick fumes like a vast blow lamp and pulsating like a setting sun, then a new, long, pale tongue of flame shot out of the smoke and they saw shells flung into the air and exploding. A turret turned over lazily and then a mast.

‘The damn thing’s blowing up like a Chinese cracker,’ Talbot gasped. ‘What the hell’s wrong with our bloody ships?’

The air was full of fragments and flying pieces of metal as the great ship fell apart like a collapsing house, then they saw bows and a mast sliding out of the smoke that lay across the surface of the sea.

Talbot stared, puzzled. ‘She’s all right,’ he said. ‘She’s still there.’

‘No, sir,’ Kelly pointed out bleakly. ‘That’s the next astern. It’s
Tiger.
She’s going right over the spot where
Queen Mary
was. She’ll tear her bottom out on her.’

But
Tiger
continued without pausing and Talbot looked round. ‘That was quick,’ he said. ‘There was nothing there. She went up like a powder cask.’

‘So much for the theory that big guns and speed are preferable to armour plating,’ Kelly commented. ‘That’s two to one to the Germans. Another hour of this and we shall have nothing left.’

Lipscomb’s voice interrupted them, stolid, as though nothing had happened, as though a thousand men hadn’t just died in a matter of seconds before his eyes. ‘From flagship to destroyers, sir,’ he said, blank and unperturbed with years of reporting signals, devoid of emotion or feeling and apparently indifferent to disaster. ‘“Opportunity appears favourable for attacking.”’

Talbot looked at Kelly. His face was bleak and he seemed to have aged suddenly, as though the loss of two ships were the end of that confident dream they’d all dreamed for two years, of pulverising the German fleet when at last it ventured out. For a moment he looked shocked and unbelieving, then he hitched at his bridge coat and thrust his shoulders back.

‘Here we go, Number One,’ he said. ‘Take your partners for the waltz.’

All eyes had turned towards
Champion.
Lipscomb’s voice came automatically, dry as dust.

‘Signal from flotilla leader, sir. “Thirteenth Flotilla to attack the German line with torpedoes. Three-oh knots.”’

Leaning against the front of the bridge, his pipe between his teeth, Talbot called for the extra revolutions, and
Mordant
’s
bow rose as her stern went down in a froth of foam to the drag of her racing propellers. As the line swung, the deck heeled abruptly as the revolutions increased, and
Mordant
began to shake like an excited horse, the eager rumble of her engine room blowers giving her a living animal sound over the drenching hiss of the sea. The bow wave rose higher and the white foam at her stern spread wider as the engine room staff forced every ounce of power out of her, the din drowned the noise of gunfire, so that all they could hear was the crash of steel, water and wind, and the scream of the turbines and the roar of the boiler room fans.

‘Starboard twenty!’

The speed increased further as they rushed forward in a long curve to the attack. German destroyers flying red pendants were already moving out at high speed from the enemy line to foil the attempt.

‘
Nestor
,
Nomad
and
Nicator
are within range, sir,’ Heap reported. ‘They should open fire soon.’