The Lion at Sea (7 page)

‘China Station.’ Fanshawe always knew the details. ‘Asked for a posting home. First wife died four years ago. Got a daughter twenty years old who’s a bit of a problem. Got married again before he went out and hasn’t seen his new wife much since. Perhaps he needs to.’

Even now, Home Rule for Ireland seemed of far greater importance than the possibility of war and Kelly stared at the assembled ships, feeling old and cynical and doubtful. The Navy hadn’t had a real war for over a hundred years, and men who had entered as cadets had retired as admirals without ever hearing a shot fired in anger, and he wondered how many senior officers there still were like his father.

With the possibility of war in the offing there had been an unexpected spate of letters from home but none of them had seemed to Kelly to contain much hope for the Navy. Admiral Maguire had always set great store by ceremony and even now he seemed to be considering the ritual of being at war rather than the hard facts of death or defeat. ‘The Navy,’ he had written, ‘will see the thing through if it comes to a conflict. We have always known how to behave and have always been the envy of the rest of the world.’

Remembering what he’d seen of the Germans at Kiel, Kelly had an uneasy feeling that it was that very envy which had brought the present crisis to its climax, and that behaviour – high-nosed, haughty and self-satisfied – which might well bring the sort of result no one was expecting.

Suddenly the world seemed on the verge of a catastrophe just when it appeared to be at its most brilliant. Two mighty European systems, hostile to each other, faced each other in glittering and clanking panoply so that every word, every whisper, counted in the mounting crisis. There was a strange temper in the air that even Kelly was aware of. Every great nation had made its preparations and knew whom its enemy would be, and, rather than have fleet manoeuvres in the North Sea, Churchill had decided instead to have a practice mobilisation, calling out the whole of the Fleet reserve. Twenty thousand men had reported and all the Third Fleet ships had coaled and raised steam for the review. As they left Spithead and dispersed for a two-day series of exercises, it took more than six hours for the enormous armada to pass before the royal yacht; though the exercises, Kelly noticed, bore little resemblance to war and still seemed more concerned with a sort of ceremonial dance arranged for ships. When they vanished to ports around Britain to give summer leave and demobilise the reservists,
Clarendon
went to Portland.

The news that greeted them was grave. The Ice Maiden had been right. Instead of blowing away, the crisis seemed to have gathered strength and there was a rumour that Austria was not satisfied with the Serbian acceptance of the ultimatum she’d presented and was demanding satisfaction for the assassination of the heir to the throne.

‘If it does come to war and the French are in,’ Kelly said, then
we’ll
be in. With the whole of the French Fleet in the Mediterranean, they’ve only a few cruisers left to guard the Atlantic coast and we’d never allow the Germans to come down the Channel and bombard their ports within gunshot of our ships.’

On the Sunday, he went ashore with Fanshawe for a lobster tea and a discussion about their forthcoming leave. They were well aware of the sidelong glances they attracted. Naval men always possessed a mystique which did not emerge from the military. There
was
something about a sailor, and they possessed skills and knowledge that were never wholly understood by landsmen. To them the sea wasn’t the terrifying thing it was to shorebound people, so that they carried out their duties with an air of confidence and superiority that was the stamp of a centuries-old tradition, and the style they acquired in the performing of them was present in every man in the fleet, from the youngest cadet to the oldest and saltiest admiral.

They spent a pleasant afternoon, aware of the admiration they evoked, but as they walked back to the landing stage, they saw two battleships,
Lord Nelson
and
Agamemnon,
steaming into the bay.

‘That’s odd,’ Kelly said. ‘They sailed this morning for Portsmouth to give leave.’

Buying a local paper at the landing stage, they read stories of increasing trouble in the Balkans, and next day the demobilisation of reservists was stopped. The newspaper headlines were larger than the previous day and orders arrived to coal as quickly as possible. A thousand tons of coal were tossed down on to the upper deck by automatic chutes and they were left to get it into the bunkers as well as they could.

The winches rattled away half the night, the whole ship enveloped in a fog of dust which encrusted on perspiring skins, and the next morning, as they received orders to be prepared to sail the following day, officers and men were recalled from shore by patrols and notices thrown on the screens of cinemas. The following morning they weighed anchor with the rest of the fleet.

‘Scapa Flow for orders,’ Fanshawe said.

The ships turned, squadron by squadron, gigantic steel castles moving across a misty sea, eighteen miles of warships running at high speed, the early morning light picking up the colours of the flag hoists fluttering at the yardarm and catching the curves of the ship’s upperworks and turrets and the great rifled barrels of the guns. Kelly sniffed the air, conscious of the smell of salt on the wind and the subtle quality of the light on the water, an awareness he put down to his perception being heightened by the crisis and the possibility of death not far away in the future.

For the first hour they steamed in a westerly direction then, out of sight of land, altered course sixteen points and stood up-channel towards Dover. Soon afterwards, a signal was received indicating that strained relations existed between Britain and Germany, and all hands prepared the ship for war, fusing lyddite shell and placing warheads on the torpedoes. There was a strange feeling of finality as the work proceeded, and Kelly recognised that he was about to enter a new phase in his life when people like his father and Mrs Upfold weren’t going to matter any more.

During the morning, they painted out the white recognition bands round the funnels and the commander took Kelly round the quarter deck with a knife, with which they solemnly stripped down the canvas pipe-clayed coverings that had been made so immaculate for Kiel. As the crude iron of the berthing rail stanchions appeared, the face of the petty officer who accompanied them grew grave. ‘We never went as far as this before,’ he observed gloomily. ‘Not even over Agadir.’

During the afternoon, a large French battleship dashed past at twenty knots, cleared for action and heading for Brest, and at dusk they went to night defence stations as the fleet ran at high speed and in absolute blackness through the Narrow Seas.

Shortly afterwards,
Clarendon
altered course away from the rest of the fleet, heading towards Dover. A merchant ship loomed up out of the darkness and an angry voice yelled ‘Where’s your bloody glims?’ then, almost immediately, Dover’s searchlights picked them up. The signalling light clattered and, as an answering flash came from the shore, the anchor splashed down.

The night was strangely tense. Everybody in the ship knew what was in the wind but none of them knew what war could mean. Nobody had been in a sea battle and only a few of the older men had seen action ashore during the Boer War. Unable to sleep, Kelly tossed restlessly in his bunk and fell asleep just before dawn, only to be wakened by Fanshawe’s hand on his shoulder.

‘Come and look at this, Maguire! You might not get the opportunity again for a long time at this range.’

Stumbling on deck, Kelly screwed his eyes up against the light. Not far away a three-funnelled cruiser that he identified at once as German was scuttling past for the broad waters of the northern horizon.

‘Caught with his trousers down west of Land’s End,’ Fanshawe said. ‘He’s taking a bit of a chance trying to nip through the Channel with war in the offing.’

The German disappeared at high speed and coaling started again, all ships topping up their bunkers. That evening censorship came into force.

The next days were spent stripping ships of panelling and furniture to reduce the amount of woodwork on board. The seamen slung chairs and tables and even pianos over the side into the lighters with great glee, clearly thoroughly enjoying smashing up the officers’ property. The frenzy finally reached masochistic proportions with the removal of cutters, whalers and skiffs to the shore, but, since Kelly’s position, in the event of abandoning ship, was with fifteen others in a whaler that would take no more than ten in a flat calm, getting rid of the boats didn’t seem to make much difference.

Later in the morning, there was a rush to get private belongings on the quay, and Kelly was ordered off the ship, staggering under a collection of diaries, last wills and testaments, family documents, silver and other valuables, all to be despatched home.

‘My box goes to my house,’ the captain told him. ‘Together with my tin case and the silver cup I got for shooting. Better take a taxi.’

The address was in the best part of the town and the door was opened by a girl in a pink peignoir. Her feet were in bedroom slippers and she looked as though she hadn’t been up long.

‘Those Captain Everley’s things?’ she asked.

‘They are indeed. The very same.’

She gave Kelly a broad grin. ‘Wheel ’em in,’ she said.

She was pretty and forthright, even if too heavily made up, and Kelly decided she was Everley’s daughter – and by the look of her a handful.

‘Better have a drink while you’re at it,’ she suggested. ‘Can’t send the Navy away without a reward, can we? What’ll it be? Whisky?’

Despite his protests, she poured enormous drinks for them both and sat alongside him on the settee, smoking a cigarette.

‘Which one are you?’ she asked.

‘Which one what?’

‘Which officer?’

‘I’m Maguire. Kelly Maguire.’

She smiled, ‘You’ve got a bit of a reputation, I hear.’

‘Have I? What sort?’

‘With the ladies.’ She leaned closer. ‘Why did you decide to go to sea? It’s not much of a life for a man when he gets married, is it?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Come to that, it’s not much of a life for a woman. I used to like to touch a sailor’s collar for luck, but I’ve come to the conclusion that luck’s what a woman needs a lot of when she fancies a sailor.’

For a naval captain’s daughter, she seemed a very odd number indeed, and Kelly began to wonder if instead she were just the housekeeper or a maid, or perhaps some poor relation who looked after the place when the family were abroad.

‘No need to move away,’ she said.

‘I’m not doing.’

She smiled. ‘I’m glad. I’ve always found the Navy lives up to its reputation.’

‘What reputation’s that?’

‘For being quick on the uptake.’ She was pressing against him now and seemed to be inviting him to put down his glass and grab her. Carefully he placed it on the table beside him. After all, he decided, captain’s daughters – or relations, or whatever they happened to be – were only human. So, for that matter, were naval lieutenants who couldn’t get home.

The girl was eyeing him speculatively. ‘You married?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Girl friend?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice.’ Kelly mentally begged Charley’s forgiveness. Temptation was sometimes too much for a man.

‘Have another drink?’

‘I’ve had two.’

‘You know what they say: “There’s cider down the eiderdown.” You can kiss me if you like.’

Kelly eyed her cautiously. ‘Do you always kiss naval officers when they arrive with the captain’s goods and chattels?’ he asked.

She chuckled. ‘I try,’ she said. ‘It’s surprising how well they respond.’

With the peignoir open at the front and a couple of whiskies inside him, Kelly could see why.

‘How about the captain? What does he have to say?’

She smiled archly. ‘He doesn’t know.’ She settled against him and lifted her face. ‘No need to hurry off,’ she said.

A small voice sounded a warning. ‘What about Mrs Captain?’ Kelly asked cautiously.

She smiled and grabbed for him. ‘No need to worry about her,’ she said.
‘I’m
Mrs Captain.’

Outside on the pavement two minutes later, Kelly drew a deep relieved breath. Captain’s daughters were fair game but captain’s wives were dynamite, and Captain Everley seemed to have one of the most explosive kind. No wonder he looked as he did. The poor bugger was one of Fanshawe’s frustrated three-badge men and elderly officers who’d been caught by a tart.

The harbour was full of ships’ boats by the time he returned, and more were being added. The evening paper seemed to be more full of cricket than war, because Hobbs had made the highest score of his career, but the last Germans were still heading for the quays, trying to get back home across the Channel before it was too late, their womenfolk sniffling, the children crying as though they sensed disaster, and the last reservists were beginning to come into the depots. They arrived on bicycles and on foot, some of them men who’d clearly prospered, others only too eager to be back where they could get three square meals a day.

Occasionally, a taut-faced woman with a child appeared, and occasionally a Territorial, in ill-fitting khaki and none too sober, going off to join his unit, his friends urging him to give the Germans hell or keep his head well down, or both. Standing on the jetty, Kelly was aware that the air was thick with rumours. Spies were said to have been shot already, and butchers behind the town to have killed off so many animals for rations they’d sunk down exhausted in the sea of blood they had themselves created.

A sub-lieutenant in a sporting check suit and a brown bowler hat appeared.

‘On my way to join
Lion
,’ he announced. ‘I’ve come straight from Goodwood and I haven’t the faintest idea where my uniform is.’

Kelly returned on board, certain by now that war was just over the horizon. Fanshawe met him. ‘The Germans have demanded free passage for their troops through Belgium,’ he said. ‘And the Belgians have refused, and appealed to us to uphold their neutrality. I gather we’ve presented an ultimatum to the Kaiser. That means we’re in, because they won’t draw back now.’