In years to come naval experts will collate all those diagrams, and
furiously argue over them. A lot of the destroyer work was inevitably
as mixed as bombing down a trench, as the scuffle of a polo match, or
as the hot heaving heart of a football scrum. It is difficult to
realise when one considers the size of the sea, that it is that very
size and absence of boundary which helps the confusion. To give an
idea, here is a letter (it has been quoted before, I believe, but it
is good enough to repeat many times), from a nineteen-year-old child
to his friend aged seventeen (and minus one leg), in a hospital:
"I'm so awfully sorry you weren't in it. It was rather terrible, but a
wonderful experience, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but,
by Jove, it isn't a thing one wants to make a habit of.
"I must say it is very different from what I expected. I expected to
be excited, but was not a bit. It's hard to express what we did feel
like, but you know the sort of feeling one has when one goes in to bat
at cricket, and rather a lot depends upon your doing well, and you are
waiting for the first ball. Well, it's very much the same as that. Do
you know what I mean? A sort of tense feeling, not quite knowing what
to expect. One does not feel the slightest bit frightened, and the
idea that there's a chance of you and your ship being scuppered does
not enter one's head. There are too many other things to think
about."
Follows the usual "No ship like our ship" talkee, and a note of where
she was at the time.
"Then they ordered us to attack, so we bustled off full bore. Being
navigator, also having control of all the guns, I was on the bridge
all the time, and remained for twelve hours without leaving it at all.
When we got fairly close I sighted a good-looking Hun destroyer, which
I thought I'd like to strafe. You know, it's awful fun to know that
you can blaze off at a real ship, and do as much damage as you like.
Well, I'd just got their range on the guns, and we'd just fired one
round, when some more of our destroyers coming from the opposite
direction got between us and the enemy and completely blanketed us, so
we had to stop, which was rather rot. Shortly afterwards they recalled
us, so we bustled back again. How any destroyer got out of it is
perfectly wonderful.
"Literally there were hundreds of progs (shells falling) all round us,
from a 15-inch to a 4-inch, and you know what a big splash a 15-inch
bursting in the water does make. We got washed through by the spray.
Just as we were getting back, a whole salvo of big shells fell just in
front of us and short of our big ships. The skipper and I did rapid
calculations as to how long it would take them to reload, fire again,
time of flight, etc., as we had to go right through the spot. We came
to the conclusion that, as they were short a bit, they would probably
go up a bit, and (they?) didn't, but luckily they altered deflection,
and the next fell right astern of us. Anyhow, we managed to come out
of that row without the ship or a man on board being touched.