photographs to the window to get a better light. They were
photographs of Angerbad, obtained by our aircraft the previous day,
and I studied them with considerable interest. The weather had been
bad for reconnaissance of late, and the most recent photographs I had
seen previously were taken ten days before. I don't think I heard
the door open, but I did hear Milsom give a funny little gasp behind
me, and I turned to see a girl standing in the doorway. The light
was full in her face, and my heart gave the most unaccountable jump.
I suppose it was astonishment, because the new-comer was the girl who
had travelled with us in the train returning from leave--what now
seemed centuries ago. She didn't appear to see me, but her eyes,
with their curious concentrated gaze, were levelled on Milsom. She
stood quite motionless for a moment, and I realised for the first
time that she was very tall. I am not a short man, and her startled
eyes were level with mine. A little half-smile of recognition passed
over her face. Then, with a slight inclination of her graceful head,
she slipped into a chair, with pencil poised and notebook on her
knee. The Director, deep in papers that strewed his desk, dictated a
note, smoked half a cigarette while it was being typed, and signed
it. As the girl was leaving the room he said: "By the way, Miss
Mayne--Captain Hornby--Colonel Milsom." The girl bowed, but Milsom
stepped forward. "We've met before," he said, and held out his hand.
"Yes," said Miss Mayne. A faint colour came into her pale face. She
gave him one searching, half-puzzled look (just such another glance
as I intercepted in the railway carriage), and quietly left the room.
9
Some day I hope a better man than I will write the story of that grim
preparation with its hours of heartbreaking labour; its
disappointments and anticipations, the close, almost affectionate,
intimacy between officers and men. "Eat, drink, and be merry" was
the motto of the Force, and those who know the sailorman's
lightheartedness and cheerful oblivion to the things of the morrow
will realise, with a morrow as uncertain as ours, how care-free was
to-day. As a psychological study it must have presented strange and
interesting sidelights. We only had one punishment--a threat of
dismissal from the Force; and I vow that the dread of the cat in the
Navy of old never produced such a state of discipline as ruled on
board those ancient crowded ships.
I got a First Lieutenant appointed, a lad called Jervis, who,
immediately on joining, decided that his rôle required of him that he
should grow a beard with all speed; as a facial adornment it was not
a success, but regarded as a terrifying war-mask it left little to be
desired. He was a laughable, lovable soul, a regular soda-water
bottle of fizzing spirits and optimism, and the men worshipped him.
Selby was our Navigator, a dry, thoughtful old stick, with eyes that
always seemed full of memories that clung like sheep's wool along a
bramble hedge. He was one of those men you never get to know
thoroughly, yet who never make you conscious they are keeping you at
arm's length. It's a type the Navy breeds prolifically. Never
knowing privacy from earliest youth onwards has a good deal to do
with it.
In all the preliminary fitting out, however, the men who really
slaved and on whom so much of the final success depended were Shorty
Casseen, our Engineer-Lieutenant-Commander, and the Gunnery
Lieutenant, Teigne. The former found a scrap heap, and converted it
into a set of engines that was not only to be relied upon to take the
ship to Angerbad, but we rather hoped would also bring her back after
an almighty hammering. I've often wondered why he volunteered for
the job: he had a little wife he adored and two bonny kids. But he
came, and he lived through it, bless him.
"Guns" (Teigne) was one of those gunnery enthusiasts who make you
wonder what profession he'd have chosen if no one had discovered
gunpowder. He saw the world through telescopic sights, I believe,
and is reputed, on first seeing the large hotel that was a prominent
landmark near where we were then anchored, to have muttered
longingly: "My aunt! What a target!"
Of course, as the time drew near, and we had rehearsed and drilled to
the last gasp of preparedness, others were added to the complement.
We had a Padre, a bullet-headed athlete, who before the war was the
parson of a roaring miners' camp in the North. Not the wife-beater's
terror of the Sunday periodicals to look at, though--a quiet,
friendly little chap, with a way of blinking when he talked, as
though the sun was in his eyes. But one night in the Mess when we
were having a scrap to keep our spirits up and help our digestions,
he picked me up and threw my twelve stone about like a rag doll.
Jock Macrae was our P.M.O., with two assistants fresh from some
hospital. For a man who was no despiser of whisky he had the most
iron nerve and steadiest hand of any "butcher" I've met. I have
wondered since how many torn and bloody bundles of humanity owe their
lives to his imperturbable pluck and skill. He brought a banjo with
him, and night after night he would sit cross-legged on the deck,
plucking at the catgut with those long surgical fingers of his, and
sing old Jacobean ballads to the moon.
The blockships were moored not far away from us, and we organised
concerts and dinners that will always remain vivid in my memory as
the gayest entertainments of the kind I have ever participated in.
I saw little of Mouldy or Milsom during the training period. The
former was coaching his braves in the gentle art of demolishing
things ashore at the Base, and the latter was at Headquarters
introducing his band of warriors to the inner mysteries of
bomb-throwing, flame projecting, and similar cults. Once or twice I
went over to confer with them separately, and found that, by a
curious succession of accidents, they had never met each other.
"Went over twice to see that Marine bloke," grumbled Mouldy, seated
on a case of explosives and measuring off some fuse, "and blowed if
he wasn't in Town each time, havin' a frolic; an' here are we
sweatin' our guts out..." He launched into a brief description of
the activities of his disciples during the past month.
Milsom had a similar grievance. "What's the bird's name--the
demobilisation expert?" he inquired. "Jakes? Well, I went over to
look him up t'other day; I've never met him, and I thought that, as
we were going over the bags together, we might meet and have a
chin-wag. Of course, the day I chose to toil over to the Base he had
gone afloat to try some experiments somewhere, so I came back none
the wiser."
"You'll meet as soon as they transfer the forces on board us," I said.
I saw Milsom once more before they all took up their quarters on
board. It was in Town, and I had gone up for the last time to set a
few private affairs straight. I don't worry my solicitor much, and I
think he was genuinely concerned at my "clewing up" my affairs so
thoroughly. Anyhow, when the business was over he insisted on taking
me to lunch "somewhere cheerful," as he put it. He thought, I
suppose, that I was getting morbid.
We lunched at a large crowded restaurant full of red-tabbed soldiers
and pretty women smoking cigarettes. I'd rather have gone to the
club, but old Addison was all for this place. "Brighten you up, my
boy," he said, pouring out the champagne. It was at that moment I
saw Milsom. It wasn't so much seeing him there that surprised me as
the glimpse I got of his companion's profile. It was Miss Mayne, and
judging by the angle at which Milsom's head was inclined towards her,
and the grave intentness with which she was listening to what he had
to say, they appeared to know each other pretty well. They had
finished luncheon, and she was aimlessly stirring her untasted coffee
and answering Milsom in rare monosyllables, her eyes on her cup.
Altogether, they didn't appear to be having a particularly gay time,
and in a little while they rose and threaded their way side by side
out of the babbling overheated room and were lost to view.
10
I had completed everything I came up to London to do by 4 P.M., and
found on looking up a timetable at the club that I had just time to
get to the station and catch a train back to the Base. I got to the
terminus with a few minutes to spare, and on going to the bookstall
to buy something to read I saw a familiar figure standing beside the
stall turning the pages of a magazine. It was a Commander of the
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a tough old yachtsman called Armitage.
I did not know him well, but I had heard a good deal about him from
Thorogood. He was well over fifty and was, I believe, a very rich
man. Yet he spent the first three years of the war slamming about in
the North Sea, and he was now stationed at the Base in charge of the
Armed Motor Launches.
He nodded a greeting at me and gathered a bundle of papers. "Going
down by this train?" he said. "Let's find a carriage together. I'd
like to have a yarn with you."
As luck would have it, we got a carriage to ourselves, and after we
had started and Armitage had got a gigantic bulldog pipe in full
blast, he broached the topic that was uppermost in the minds of all
of us those days.
"It's this blockship business that's been worrying me," he said.
"Even with the crews cut down to the bare minimum and disembarking
surplus steaming parties before they get across, there'll be an awful
lot of men on board when they sink themselves."
"Yes," I said; "but they've got boats. They'll just have to pull
across the harbour under cover of your smoke screen"--the motor
launches were detailed to lay the smoke screen inshore--"and the
Destroyers will pick up the boats outside."
Armitage nodded and puffed his enormous pipe. "That's all right as
long as the wind holds. But supposing the wind shifts and blows the
harbour clear of smoke?"
I was silent. We all knew there was a possibility of such a thing
happening, but that had been taken into consideration by the gallant
lads who had volunteered for the job.
"I saw the Admiral this morning," continued Armitage, "after talking
it over with some of my boys. I told him six motor launches would
volunteer to go inside the harbour and bring off the blockships'
crews."
I stared at him. "But..." I said, "have you seen the photographs of
the place? There's a machine-gun about every two yards round the
harbour, to say nothing of any destroyers there may be moored
alongside the Mole. You'll get smothered with gunfire at point-blank
range before the blockships are abandoned."
"Oh!" he said, "I'm not making out it's a joy-ride. Thirty years ago
I might have laughed at it. Remember," he said, pointing the stem of
his pipe at me. "I'm not making a proposal that I'm not going to see
through myself. I'm going to lead the boats in. But I feel that it
would be wrong not to have a try at saving some of those gallant
children's lives. Why," he went on, "I might have had a son
there----" He broke off and was silent for a moment, puffing hard as
if he were laying one of his own defensive smoke screens.
"We're the R.N.V.R.," he said. "Remember that. We want to show the
Navy what we're good for. The R.N.V.R.!" he repeated. "Lord! I
could tell you tales of the old days. The _Buzzard_----"
He laughed, a little hard laugh without any mirth in it.
We were silent for a while after that. My brain was busy with this
new development of the affair, and I was beginning to see all manner
of heroic possibilities in the proposal.
"When a man gets to my age," continued Armitage presently, "he sees
things more clearly somehow--the things that matter and things that
don't. You get down to bedrock. Money! I know something about that
commodity, and just how much happiness you can buy with it." He made
a little movement with an empty hand. "Hope makes for two-thirds of
the happiness of life: hoping for something you believe God'll be
good enough to give you--something you think you've lived clean
enough to earn. Maybe you get it, maybe you don't. But you just go
on hoping something, you know." He looked at me with patient,
steadfast eyes. "I want to be of some use to somebody before my
number goes up. And if I bring back to his lover some boy who might
otherwise have been buried by a German funeral party, perhaps I
shan't altogether have lived in vain.
"'A little hope that when we die
We reap our sowing, so--good-bye!"
he quoted, smiling. And I thought his smile was as pathetic as his
words.
11
The storming and demolition parties came on board one lovely sunny
morning--the sort of day that makes you want to forget there's a war.
They were two of the finest bodies of men I've ever set eyes upon,
and as I watched them disencumbering themselves of their arms and
accoutrements along the upper deck, laughing and joking among
themselves, it occurred to me that if blood must be the price of
Admiralty, we were going to pay full measure of our best.
We had a sort of informal Council of War in the Wardroom during the
morning, and the Mess was crowded to the limits of its capacity with
Subalterns and Lieutenants, smoking and talking nineteen to the
dozen. Into that Dutch Parliament presently strolled Mouldy Jakes,
and stood a moment in the doorway. "My word," he ejaculated, "who
wouldn't sell his little farm and go to sea--eh, boys? Anybody got a
drink to give the Officer in Charge of the demolition party?"
Someone handed him a cocktail and his lugubrious face brightened. It
then occurred to me that he and Milsom had not yet met, and I rose
from my seat on the edge of the table to find the latter in the
crowd. I discovered him standing upright by the door staring at
Mouldy with one of his odd, inscrutable smiles, and it struck me, I
remember, that he looked unusually white. I introduced him and left
him yarning over a drink.
We half expected to get our eagerly awaited signal that night. The
factors of weather, wind and sea and visibility on which the whole
business depended were favourable enough at noon. Every soul
committed to the venture was aboard and the motley force was
assembled with steam raised. Somewhere to the northward of us I knew
the supporting forces, big ships, destroyers, motor launches, and
coastal motor boats were fretting at the leash, and then, just when
our hopes were at their highest, the wind veered and a nasty sea got
up. We banked our fires for the night, and for the first time for
many a long day we found we had leisure to think and talk of other
things. I remember walking up and down the bridge that night in the
windy darkness with the sparks flying from my pipe, and wondering
what Beth thought about it all, and whether she was glad.... And
presently a form loomed up out of the darkness and Milsom fell into
step beside me. I had left him playing poker in the Wardroom, and
was rather surprised to see him. We paced up and down in silence for
a while, and I knew and liked him so well that he hardly interrupted
my train of thought.
"Bill," he said presently, "this is going to be a hell of a scrap. I
thought the Lancashire Landing was warm work, but I guess this'll
knock it silly."
I grunted assent, and for a while he went on to talk about the show;
how he and Mouldy were going to lead two rushes simultaneously, and
his dispositions for his machine-gun sections and bombing parties,
and while he talked his cigar glowed red in the darkness. As I've
said, I was rather a long way off in my thoughts and wasn't listening
to him properly.
"... And we'll light such a candle, Master Ridley, as by God's
Grace----" he broke off, soberly. Down in the forecastle a
gramophone was humming the refrain of a popular song, and the sound
floated up to us on the wind. It was somehow familiar to me, and I
connected it with laughter and women's voices.... Somewhere aft a
soda-water bottle popped as the cork was drawn. I remembered then.
The orchestra had been playing it the day I lunched with Addison at
that restaurant and I'd seen Milsom.... The incident had gone clean
out of my mind.
"By the way," I said, "I forgot till this minute, but something's
reminded me; that girl we travelled up with in the train that
day--Miss Mayne?"
"Yes," said Milsom; "what about her?"
"I didn't know you knew her."
Milsom had got out of step; he shuffled his feet and picked it up
again before replying.
"Didn't you?" he said, and glanced sideways at me. "Yes," he went
on, after a pause, "we got to know each other rather well. But how
did you----"
I told him about the luncheon at that restaurant, and how I had seen
them. "Soj," I said, "did you ever ask her who that--that fellow
was?"
Milsom was silent for a moment. "No," he replied presently. "I
never asked her what his name was." We walked the length of the
bridge before he spoke again. "She told me the story, though; rather
a pitiful little tale. She was a governess, it seems. No people:
orphan. Very little money, and what there was she gave to an only
brother to keep him in the Guards. Father's old regiment, don't you
know. Brother was killed and she eventually learned shorthand and
took on that job at the Admiralty. Thought she ought to do war work.
But it was while she was a governess she met this--er--naval officer,
somewhere in the country."
"Naval officer, was he?" I interrupted.
"Yes, and she--I think she got fond of him.... and she thought he
cared for her ... but they had a row.... It sounds as if he was that
sort of fellow who would make a mess of it. Anyhow, he mucked up the
whole business and went back to sea and never wrote again ... or
anything." Milsom pitched the glowing stump of his cigar overboard.
"And he'll never have her now." There was a hard note in my
companion's voice I'd never heard there before.
I reflected. "But," I said, "couldn't you find out his name? If it
was only a silly misunderstanding between two kids, we might have
helped."
"He wasn't a kid." Milsom halted at the head of the ladder. "And as
to helping him, ... I don't know that I wanted to--particularly," and
with that he descended the ladder, leaving me staring after him in
the darkness.
12
Hopes ran high with the rising of the sun next morning. The wind was
light and steady, and the sea, as the morning wore on, grew calm as a
mill pond.
About noon the signal came through, and by five o'clock we were
aweigh.
It is difficult now, after all the momentous happenings of the
ensuing twelve hours, to recapture precisely one's sensations as we
sighted the escorting Destroyers and Motor Launches sweeping down to
meet us, and forming up on either wing as our little column,
_Intolerant_, _Daring_, _Dauntless_, and _Determination_, fell into
line ahead. A squadron of 'planes hummed overhead, searching the sky
for signs of inquisitive aircraft, and louder than that resonant
sound was the deep drone of men's voices on the decks below, talking
amongst themselves. We were committed at last to the bravest
adventure that ever caused a man to tighten his girths and roll up
the sleeve of his sword arm, and as I looked up from the binnacle,
across the broad expanse of water, and saw that doughty array spread
out beneath the afternoon sunlight, I thought that a man might choose
worse company than this in which to fight his last fight. Shorty
Casseen came up presently and stood beside me whistling a little tune
between his teeth.
"How are the bulgines heaving round, old lad?" I asked.
"Fine," he replied. "She's going as well as she did when I was an
Engineer-Sub and tinkered that scrap-heap through a Commission in the
Pacific. But don't you worry, sir," he said, with one of his
bird-like sidelong glances, "we'll get the old hooker alongside that
Mole if the bottom drops out of her."
In so saying, I think he somehow voiced the feeling that was
predominant in all our hearts.
The Padre held a sort of informal service later, on the upper deck,
which was attended by all who could be spared from their duties. The
light was fading from the sky, and the violet shadows of evening were
closing in on us. The men's faces, as they stood bareheaded and
intent upon his words, were whitely visible from the bridge.
The attack was timed for midnight but it was half an hour before that
when we saw the first gleam of star-shell that betrayed an
apprehensive spirit amongst the Boches. Our Coastal Motor Boats and
Motor Launches had been at work some time, and were weaving their
curtains of artificial fog to and fro across the harbour mouth. We
heard the occasional distant boom of a gun, but nothing that
betokened a bombardment or that the enemy had any real inkling of
what was afoot. One by one we picked up the mark buoys that had been
laid since dark by the dauntless C.M.B.'s.
The moments passed, and the tension grew with every muffled throb of
the engines. The batteries were crowded with silent men, and the
starlight gleamed on their steel helmets and here and there a naked
bayonet. Somewhere in front of those densely packed ranks were
Milsom and his six Subalterns and Mouldy Jakes, his impassive
features hidden by a gas mask. He had donned it some time
previously, and persisted in wearing it "as a type of English
beauty," he said, and shook hands in silence before he went to his
post. Milsom and I had a few words outside the flame-thrower's hut a
little while after that.
"I knew of this show before you did, Hornby," he said laughingly, as
he broke open a packet of revolver ammunition. "D'you remember that
night in the Dockyard when we said good night?"
"Yes," I said. "'Stonework and searchlights.'"
"That's it. It puzzled me at the time, but I'll know all about it in
a little while. And the rest----"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell? It's written somewhere, I
suppose?
"'Nor all thy piety and wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.'
"Well, I'll send a Boche or two ahead of me to pipe the side before I
step over it. And if I come back"--he gave one of his reckless
devil-may-care laughs (the laugh I once heard him give when he flung
his last louis on the table at Monte Carlo)--"faith, Bill, you shall
foot it at my wedding...." He turned abruptly on his heel, and as he
strode away I heard him humming:
"Wid me bundle on me shoulder,
Sure there's no man could be bolder...."
At the prearranged point we shifted from the bridge; the Navigator
and Quartermaster moved into the conning tower, and I took up my
position in the port flame-thrower's hut from where I conned the
ship. I had previously been round the gun and howitzer positions,
and exchanged a few words with the waiting officers and men, and as I
passed from one motionless group to the other my heart swelled with
pride and love for them. There wasn't an anxious face or a wavering
eye. Broad grins and whispered jests, like children waiting for the
curtain to go up at a pantomime; and among the Marines grouped in the
rear of each brow some whispered catchword of Milsom's was rife.
"'Urry up there, please! Step smartly, plenty of room in the
front...."
Gallant, gallant lads! And astern of us in the quiet darkness lay
England--England lighting its candles and going to bed; England
bending over cradles; and here and there, beside some open window
that looked out to the sea, perhaps some English girl kneeling and
praying as she never prayed before.
A guttering smoke buoy went down our port side, and the next moment
we were enveloped in the artificial fog of our own making. We had
parted company from the Destroyers some minutes before, and the
blockships had swerved aside to make the entrance. Then, as I stood
with my hand on the key of the fire gongs, peering ahead into the
swirling murk, I felt a breath of damp air blow strong in my face.
The wind had changed and was rolling back our fog on top of us. Like
magic I saw a space of water clear ahead, and the next instant the
Mole stood out black and distinct a couple of cables away, limned
against the glare of searchlights and star shell.
There was a blinding yellow flash--it seemed on top of us; and that
instant, as the old ship answered to her helm, hell was unloosed.