“Harcourt, midshipman, at your approval, sir.”

  Simon had found his hat for a first formal meeting. They exchanged salutes.

  “Bit of a come down for you, Harcourt, a cruiser instead of a battleship.”

  “Yes, sir. My father will be upset. Very much a battleship man, sir. I much prefer a chance of seeing some action, sir. One would see little except polished brass on a King Edward, sir.”

  “That is true, Harcourt. Naval family?”

  “After a fashion, sir. My father is a senior civil servant who has a lot to do with Naval Estimates, sir. Treasury, sir.”

  “A leading family, it would seem.”

  “My great-uncle was a politician, of course, sir. Leader of the Liberal Party in his time, after Gladstone.”

  Dartmouth gave history lessons which, like all other lessons, had to be passed. Simon had heard of Harcourt, though not overwhelmingly interested in him or any other Victorian worthy at that age.

  “Very good. You do not intend to make the Navy your career, I believe?”

  “No, sir. I wish to go up to Oxford after the war. Entry will be no difficulty, sir. I was a year ahead at school and believe there will be provision made for those who chose to serve. To be honest, sir, it will be greatly to my advantage that I chose to go to war rather than wait will I was eighteen, which will not be for another year, sir.”

  “Provided you live, of course, I can see that it will be. I will not put you to specialise, Harcourt. No need for you to train in gunnery or learn navigation beyond ordinary competence. We expect to send landing parties ashore and I shall put you to one of them. Make sure you master the rifle and pistol these next few days.”

  “Cutlass as well, sir?”

  “No. I have no doubt you have heard no end of nonsense about ‘cold steel’. Forget it! Stick to putting a bullet in them – far safer and much more efficient.”

  “Hardly the gentleman’s way, surely, sir!”

  “Are you suggesting that I am not a gentleman, Mr Harcourt?”

  “Good God, no, sir! The last thing one could say, sir. Post captain, carrying the VC and heir to a viscountcy? A ridiculous thing, sir! No, sir, it was to suggest that the gentleman prefers to carry a blade into battle, sir.”

  “Bloody nonsense, boy! A gentleman with more than two brain cells to rub together goes into battle with the intention of winning for his King and Country. That means to use the best weapons to hand, not going in pretending to be a knight in armour. Grow up, boy, and put your Ivanhoe away!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Harcourt left, rather afraid he had made a bad impression on his captain. He retired to the gunroom where he was told he was a bloody fool, the other mids tending to be plainspoken youths.

  “You have the chance to join a landing party, Harcourt! That gives the opportunity to shine! Use it.”

  Sublieutenant Risholme, who had the Gunroom in his charge, was irate that one of his mids should be so foolish. After three full years of war, he had hoped that such stupidities belonged to the past.

  “Have you been reading newspapers, Harcourt?”

  “Only sometimes, Sub.”

  “Don’t! They are bad for you. Keep to Comic Cuts – you know that everything in there is fiction. It is also closer to reality than you will ever get from the Daily Mail or the Times!”

  “Yes, Sub.”

  “What do you intend to read at Oxford, Harcourt?”

  “Political Economy, Sub. I have some interest in government and administration. I might well look to take a seat, in the Commons, in a few years. I might be able to find a place as a secretary to one of the coming men first.”

  “Then you should hope the Lord and Master will forgive your sins, Harcourt. He has a seat promised him for the post-war election, and, of course, will inherit to the House of Lords at some point.”

  “Will he be a Liberal? My family is always Liberal.”

  “Then I think you are out of luck. I don’t know his politics, but I have heard what he has to say about Lloyd George.”

  “I do not think I am to be that sort of Liberal, old chap!”

  “Then you had might as well join the Conservatives, Harcourt. If you are not to follow Lloyd George then you are no different to them anyway. In fact, the Liberals, from all I can see, are being squeezed out. This new Labour Party on one side, the Conservatives on the other – what does that leave for the Liberals? Anyway! Not our business. No politics aboard ship! Settle yourself and find your name on the watch list. See the Gunner today and arrange to practice with rifle and pistol. I will accept your contribution to the mess funds while you are here. Get that done before you go ashore with a landing party – you never know, you might not be in the way of paying up afterwards.”

  Harcourt was not sure he liked that thought, or the cheerful way in which it was offered.

  “Empty sea, sir. Might be that Itie was right in what he said about the Influenza, sir.”

  “Seen nothing. Heard nothing. The Austrians are staying home, Number One. As it should be! Beautiful summer weather, calm seas, ideal sailing conditions, and not a thing in sight. Not so much as a fishing caique. Inshore boats only, and not as many of them as I might have expected. Don’t they dive for sponges in these waters?”

  “More in the Aegean, I believe, sir. In any case, none of them out either.”

  “It must have been like this in the days of the Black Death, you know, Number One. The land and sea empty of everything. Did seagulls take the Plague, do you know?”

  Tremlett-Browne did not. He was no expert in the diseases of birds.

  “Sloop signalling, sir. Kingfisher. ‘Aircraft to starboard bow, distant. Closing.’”

  Simon lifted his glasses, glancing at the position of the sloop.

  “The plane will be moving fast. No chance of giving any exact bearing… Can’t pick it up.”

  They searched for a few seconds.

  “Kingfisher to open fire when in range. All ships. Enemy aircraft. Engage at will.”

  “Be interesting to see how well they do, sir. The destroyers with the three inchers should be able to open at a mile. Not a chance of hitting at that range, of course.”

  “Agreed, Number One. If they have any sense they will sit on their hands until the plane is inside two cables, unless it is a torpedo carrier, of course.”

  A voicepipe whistled.

  “Guns?”

  “Three seaplanes in sight, sir. Starboard bow, two points, track changing as they close. Biplanes. Carrying something externally, sir. Cannot see what the load is.”

  “Open fire at your discretion, Guns.”

  A little searching and they picked up the three aircraft.

  “What would you say their height was, Number One?”

  Tremlett-Browne had no experience in estimating the height and distance of aeroplanes.

  “I cannot tell, sir.”

  Simon leant forward to the voicepipe.

  “Height and range, Guns?”

  “Three thousand feet and descending slowly, sir. Range about ten thousand yards. Armament appears to be bombs. Not torpedoes.”

  “Victor and Vauxhall opening fire, sir.”

  “Too early, Number One?”

  “Shells bursting below and well short, sir.”

  “Useful for learning.”

  They watched as the seaplanes lumbered towards them.

  “Three minutes at this speed, sir. Presumably they will target us, as the largest ship… Unless they decide that Athena is most valuable, all of us running escort on one cargo ship.”

  “Signal Weldon, ‘half-section to close escort, Athena’.”

  The four destroyers used their speed to form a line between Athena and the planes.

  “Eight pompoms between them, together with the additional Vickers, should do some good if they target her.”

  “Coming for us, sir.”

  Nick called for full speed.

  The pair of three inch guns opened up in rapid fire, missing the aircraft but scaring them a little offline. The pompoms followed a few seconds later, followed by the Vickers. The Lewises, shorter ranged, held fire.

  Simon inspected the three diving aircraft. Big biplanes with a broad wingspan and double tails. Big box floats beneath the wings, single engine with tall exhaust stacks, a pilot in the front cockpit and a gunner behind, abaft the wings. Painted in a drab brown, not the blue he would have expected. One large bomb and four small under the fuselage, fairly much centrally placed.

  “As big as a torpedo warhead, would you say, that bomb?”

  “A little smaller, sir. Damned noisy, ain’t it?”

  The twin-Lewises opened up, firing one in five tracer rounds.

  “They are hitting the leader. Her nose is dropping, look, sir!”

  “Got the pilot. You can see him falling forward over his wheel, or whatever it is he flies with.”

  A huge splash off their port bow followed by cheering.

  “Damaged number two – he’s crabbing offline, sir.”

  The third was holding precisely straight, not more than two cables distant.

  “Treat them like torpedoes, or what? Turn in, to comb the tracks, or try to turn away? Open the beam, I think, all guns to bear… Ten of port wheel!”

  Cromwell heeled hard over as she pulled into the turn.

  “Midships the wheel.”

  “Wheel amidships, sir.”

  All of the guns concentrated on the one plane, the forty mm, two pound shells of the starboard pompom exploding on wings and fuselage for a few seconds.

  “Burning, sir! Falling away. Bombs released!”

  The big plane rolled slowly onto one wing and fell almost vertically into the sea, nose down, disappearing below the surface, gone before her bombs landed. Cromwell shook under the explosions, the nearest forty yards clear.

  “Where is that second plane?”

  A voice yelled from the bridge wing.

  “Coming down, sir. Landing on the sea… Is that the right word? Can you ‘land’ on water?”

  “We might discuss that later, Mr Harcourt. Give me a bearing.”

  “Sorry, sir, port beam… Ah, Red Eighty, sir?”

  “Correct. Well done!”

  “Vauxhall sending a boat, sir.”

  “Very good. I wonder if we might be able to get a cable on that plane? Salvage her and take her back for the boffins to look at?”

  “Plane is sinking, sir. Floats taking in water.”

  “Ah well, we would have had nowhere to put it.”

  “Mr Paulet has his camera, sir. He has taken some photographs of it.”

  “A good second-best. What conclusions can we come to, Number One?”

  “Twelve pounders are not a lot of use against aircraft, sir. I wonder if the six inch would have been? Give them high angle mountings, dual, in fact, and they might have done some damage at five thousand yards. Put up a barrage, maybe. We need some sort of height measurement to each gun. The pompoms were most effective. The Lewises less so. Half inch calibre machineguns might be worth having, sir.”

  “Well thought. Try to put your ideas together, if you would be so good. Present a paper to C-in-C Med and he can send it to Their Lordships. Sea planes are slower than landplanes, but we still had difficulties with them. If they had been those big German Gotha things, with damned near a ton of bombs, we might have had more than difficulties. I must put some standing orders together for the escort ships. We all need to know exactly what to do next time.”

  In the end, the planes made something to talk about, gave them a topic for discussion, always welcome at sea.

  “We need our own little aircraft carriers, sir. Send up a pair of those, what d’you call ‘em, Camels, and they could deal with them as soon as they come in sight, well distant from the merchantmen we are escorting.”

  “That is a practical idea, Harcourt! Expensive and probably could only be done for big convoys, but it would drive seaplanes off for sure. They could patrol for submarines as well. We are building at least two of big carriers now, I know.”

  Tremlett-Browne suggested the policy was unpopular, had been forced on the Admiralty by the government.

  “Two big battlecruisers, sir, their hulls converted on the slips to turn them into aircraft carriers. The big gun men are most displeased!”

  “After Jutland, I am amazed they have anything at all to say, Number One.”

  “Hadn’t you heard, sir? Jutland was a great victory and justified the battleship in totality. The Hun ran away, twice, refusing to try their smaller guns in action, realising they must be utterly destroyed if they did.”

  “How many of the German big ships were sunk, Number One?”

  “Fewer than of ours, sir, but they ran back to harbour and gave the command of the North Sea to us.”

  “And Beatty made a complete cock of his part of the battle and we would have won without him there. Too many ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’, Number One. Had the victory been complete, we would not be arguing it now.”

  “No, that is indisputable, sir. The very fact that there can be doubts speaks for itself. What are we to do off Trieste, sir?”

  “Parade up and down the coast, at least forty miles clear of the harbour but within reason close inshore. Hopefully, boats will come out to us.”

  “If they don’t sir?”

  “Damned good question, Number One. I have at this moment, no idea.”

  “We can assume we are known about, sir. Those seaplanes were big and most likely carried wirelesses. Trieste should be aware of our presence, a large squadron escorting a merchantman.”

  “They might take Athena to be a troop-carrier and us on our way to raid a harbour. She could carry a battalion, tight pressed together. Too small to attack Trieste itself, obviously, but well capable of making an impression on one of the lesser harbours. Pola, perhaps, or Split?”

  “Possibly to take one of the islands, sir and make our own base there. Vis or Korcula, perhaps. They would enable us to control the whole of the Adriatic with a squadron of this size. Until they sent a battle squadron down, that is.”

  “With eight destroyers, we could possibly send four battleships to the rightabout.”

  “Possibly, sir. We are, however, in the business of trying to contact partisans in the hills around Trieste.”

  “So we are. Pity!”

  They stared at the charts, seeking inspiration.

  “What if we were to drop down on Pola late in the day, sir, an hour or so before dusk. A quick bombardment of the harbour with the six inch and disappear into the night. It would announce our presence.”

  “Shore batteries?”

  “Unknown, sir.”

  “Guardships?”

  “Equally unknown.”

  “It would make sense for them to have a predreadnought or two anchored up in harbour.”

  “Small ships, the Austrians favoured. Typically carrying three of ten or eleven inch guns.”

  “Not a lot, but likely to outrange our six inch. Old guns, though, and not necessarily well trained gunners… Worth a try. We do need to be known, and nothing like a few minutes of heavy gunfire for a curtain opener. A precise thirty minutes before evening nautical twilight, the day after tomorrow. Guns!”

  Walker appeared and listened to the orders, showing a degree of enthusiasm.

  “Let us say we can get off ten aimed broadsides in that time, sir. Fifty rounds of six inch bricks should do some good to their harbour. One hundred pound shells. HE would be most appropriate. Range of say eight thousand closing to four thousand yards – an excellent exercise, I think, sir. Are we more interested in ships or shore facilities, sir?”

  “Ships, or moored seaplanes if there should be any such. Failing their presence, any naval dockyards will do the job. By this stage of the war, we may assume any yard to be carrying out naval business. Any warehouses flying the flag are also fair game.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Neither mentioned that the chances of seeing a flag at eight thousand yards were slight.

  The squadron remained twenty thousand yards offshore, in submarine chasing order in the vague hope of perhaps intercepting boats on their way south from Trieste. They did not know of a certainty where the submarine base or bases were. Intelligence was uncertain of such purely military matters, having preferred to concentrate on the political breakdown of the Habsburg Empire, which was no doubt important, although not to sailors.

  “They do call themselves Naval Intelligence, do they not, Number One?”

  “They do, sir, but they seem to believe they have a wider remit, sir. They are, in fact, far more interested in doing the other intelligence departments in the eye than in serving the needs of the Navy. Very strange people. They invited me to come aboard a couple of years ago but I preferred to remain at sea. Cleaner, you know, sir.”

  “I can imagine it might be. I have met Calvine twice now, found him a very pleasant chap. Don’t trust him an inch! Far too likely to decide that the ‘greater good’ means to sacrifice me and the ship. I have other priorities, such as staying alive.”

  “Always was a dodgy place, the Balkans, sir. Destroyed more than one career.”

  “Luckily, I have no career to worry about, Tremlett-Browne. The Navy sees me no more just as soon as the church bells ring out the victory peal.”

  “Probably myself as well, sir. I think I have had enough for my lifetime.”

  Walker called down from the gunnery tower that Pola was in sight, visibility good over the town. The Admiralty Pilot had suggested that it was not uncommon for storms to roll down from the mountains inland, creating its own weather system distinct from that even a few miles out to sea.

  “Very good, Guns. Increasing speed now to twenty-five knots to close to eight thousand yards. At that point, turning and reducing to steerage way while closing the shore. All as set out in the order. Shoot at your discretion.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The orders were passed and the five six inch guns swung out to port, following the orders of the Director.

  Simon could hear the orders from the bridge.

  “With common shell, load, load, load!”

 

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