The Quick Boat Men, page 22
‘This one was home-made.’
‘How the devil did you deliver it?’
‘In a ‘Typhoo Tea’ van.’
It took a bit of explaining but the admiral seemed satisfied in the end. ‘And then,’ he pointed out, ‘they say you performed some miracle bunkering an empty ship, which you used to tow home a broken-down vessel. Both carrying refugees. How many?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t count them.’
‘The navy did,’ the commander said coldly. ‘There were five hundred and forty-three. Perhaps Mr Bourdillon should have made a list.’
The admiral frowned. ‘Bourdillon?’ he said. ‘Bourdillon? That name’s familiar.’
‘Arina,’ the commander said. ‘An Edward Bourdillon sank the Turkish ammunition ship, Huda.’
The admiral peered at Edward under his eyebrows. ‘That wasn’t you as well?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What exactly are you?’
‘I’m foreign sales executive for Bourdillons, the boat-builders.’
‘You’re in the wrong line of work!’ The admiral turned to the commander. ‘Give him a drink, James. He looks whacked. What’s more, he’s dropping coal dust all over my carpet.’
Edward would have been home earlier if he hadn’t been required to supervise the loading of his boats on a ship bound for Portsmouth. But it was worth the wait. Egg pumped his hand – even Maurice looked pleased – and, behind her anger, Augusta’s eyes glowed with pride and joy. Only Georgina hit the nail on the head.
‘You’re too lucky to be true, Ned,’ she observed quietly.
‘The navy are ready to sign on the dotted line,’ said Egg. ‘They’ve really got the wind up.’
In France, the Germans seemed to have been stopped. The fighting had settled down now to trench warfare, with the troops of both sides squatting in muddy holes in the ground in a system that stretched all the way from neutral Switzerland to the sea, neither side knowing quite how to get round the other.
At sea German raiders, despatched from German ports before the war, were lying across the shipping routes and sinking British vessels. One of them, the Emden, was caught by the Australian cruiser, Sydney, but another, the Königsberg, had sunk a merchant ship, the City of Winchester, on passage to Aden. Then, catching the old cruiser, Pegasus, in harbour at Zanzibar, she had blown her out of the water before disappearing again.
On the whole, however, England had been little affected by the fighting. Things continued very much as before, and the Vicar’s sermons quickly slipped back to the tedious old platitudes. The War Minister, Lord Kitchener, predicted that the war would be a long one, but nobody believed him. It was confidently expected hostilities would end before the coming summer.
However, Egg’s books were suddenly full of orders for picket boats, launches and lifeboats. The boat-yard resounded to the sound of saws, drills and planes, the clang of hammers and the clatter of donkey engines. There was nothing much for Edward to do but see the sub-committee at the Admiralty, who were in charge of buying. Though Egg was still toying with the idea of his hydroplane, Edward could see little hope. On his desk was a letter which stated Admiralty policy quite plainly. ‘There appears to be no necessity for the government to continue experiments in search of this kind of craft,’ it said. ‘The design of small quick boats for war would naturally have priority if it could be shown there was a need for them. But action at sea, as events have shown, indicates that most of the work will be done by the big guns of big ships.’ It seemed a short-sighted attitude, considering how many submarines or fast launches could be built for the price of a battleship.
‘I’m thinking of opening an office in London,’ Egg announced one day. ‘That’s where the business is. If they won’t come and see us, we must go and see them.’
‘We’re moving too fast, father,’ Maurice said. ‘We haven’t got that sort of capital.’
Egg would have none of it. ‘The office in London’ll be only a sort of agency,’ he explained. ‘No big staff or anything like that. I’ve got Lord Northcliffe behind me.’
‘With money?’
‘Well, no. With stories in his newspapers. Publicity.’
Maurice didn’t have much time for newspaper proprietors. ‘He’ll have some other scheme tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Bourdillons is fine,’ Egg insisted. ‘We’re already under contract to other yards and, of course, we’re sub-contracting ourselves for bulkheads and things like that. Don’t worry. We have orders for four boats for different places in America and six for the Admiralty. We’ve also got four with smaller engines to go to South Africa. That chap, Leroux, you met in Switzerland, Edward. Because he runs a whaling fleet, he’s been chosen by the South African government to find boats for harbour duties in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban, and he thought of us. It’s a war order and I want you to take them.’
‘When?’
Egg looked sheepish. ‘Well–’ he said ‘–now.’
‘What’s Gussie going to say?’
Gussie was plunged into gloom. ‘You’ve only just come back. Why can’t Maurice go?’
‘Too fat,’ Edward observed. ‘And too unadventurous.’
As soon as he spoke, Edward knew he had said the wrong thing.
‘That’s the trouble,’ she said sharply. ‘You aren’t. You’re itching to be off again, I know.’
She was dead right, of course. Returning to work, Edward had seen Sam absorbed smoothly into Bourdillons. But he was tired already of sitting in long, dreary sessions of sub-committees at the Admiralty, of technical officers who knew too much and politicians who knew nothing at all.
‘It’s business, Gussie,’ Edward said angrily when she challenged him about it yet again at dinner.
‘You’ve only been home a few weeks.’
‘Gussie, there is a war on. And the country depends on business to pay for it.’
‘Father says it’s up to everyone to carry on normally,’ she insisted. ‘He says wars can’t be won by gadding about. He says we should leave it to the soldiers and sailors.’ She was well into her stride now. ‘Father says–’
‘Bugger your father,’ Maurice interjected.
‘Maurice!’ Aunt Edith cried.
‘Well–’ Maurice was furious ‘–what does he know about it? As Ned says, there’s a war on and that means we don’t go on living the same comfortable lives we did before. Everybody’s working at the yard all hours God sends. Including me, which is something. And there’s the Vicar prattling on and expecting people to take notice. It’s a farce.’
Augusta tossed down her napkin and hurried from the room.
‘Sorry, Ned, old boy,’ Maurice mumbled. ‘Unforgivable. Overtired, I suppose.’
Edward shrugged. ‘It was bound to be said some time.’
He found Augusta sitting on the bed, her eyes full of tears. ‘The trouble is,’ she sobbed, ‘men like you love wars. You can’t wait to be off. But what about me?’
Edward put an arm round her shoulders but she shrugged it off. ‘If anything happened to me and I died, you’d still go on with your work. The first person who came along and said, “There’s a job for you in Timbuktu”, you’d go. But if you knew you’d never go off anywhere again, you’d be devastated. Oh Teddy, how can you do this to me? What if you are killed? What would I be left with? The memory of two months. It’s not much, is it?’
After the sinking of the three old armoured cruisers off the Broad Fourteens, there was a great concern about the threat of submarines, and the ship bound for South Africa went at full speed. It was an uncomfortable trip. The vessel shuddered so much under the vibration of the engines that even meals were difficult since the plates slid around the tables. Volunteer look-outs all saw submarines. Porpoises and whales were regularly reported as enemy undersea craft, and there was an alarm almost every night.
But they reached Cape Town in record time, and Edward was pleased to find Leroux waiting there with his family at the Mount Nelson Hotel.
South Africa was keen to capture South-West Africa, a German colony just to the north of the Union on the west coast. However isolated it was, the Germans were noted fighters. No one expected it to be a walk-over. And before the colony could be captured, the Boer rebellion in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had to be put down.
That wasn’t all. There were too many small German enclaves in Africa, and fighting had broken out in Togoland and the Cameroons. In East Africa a campaign had started which looked set to range over vast territories, great lakes, mountains, jungles and swamps.
Mrs Leroux seemed pleased to see Edward. Krissie kissed him on both cheeks but seemed subdued. Leroux explained later that she had married a soldier who was now in the government forces at Vereeniging heading for Bloemfontein in search of the Boer general, De Wet.
Over at least two bottles of champagne, the two men discussed both the rebellion in the Transvaal and Leroux’s ambitions to break some records in a souped-up Bourdillon. It came as a surprise when the manager of the hotel came over to say that Edward was wanted in Reception. Edward excused himself and was introduced to a couple of naval officers, Captain Covington and Lieutenant-Commander Higgins, who had insisted on a private room for their meeting.
Covington wasted no time in coming to the point.
‘We want to take advantage of your advice and experience. Heard of the Königsberg? Light cruiser.’
‘I know what the Königsberg is.’
There was a silence in which Covington shuffled a few papers. ‘She sank the City of Winchester, then caught the cruiser, Pegasus, in harbour and blew her to bits. It set a few alarm bells ringing at the Admiralty, I can tell you. Jacky Fisher’s idea of selling old ships from foreign stations to pay for his new dreadnoughts is coming home to roost.’
Higgins sniffed. ‘Well, now the Königsberg’s been found,’ he said. ‘In the Rufiji delta. Know where it is?’
‘As it happens I do. I’ve been into Mombasa a few times. You’ll have a hell of a job getting her out. It’s like Hampton Court maze in there.’
‘We’ve discovered a few things about her,’ Higgins continued. ‘A German survey ship charted the waterways of the delta. But so have we. There are four channels she could have used to get in there. We know she’s acquired maps, fresh fruit, and coal from German East Africa. She’s also rigged up a coast-watching service with field telephones and telegraph lines. What they haven’t discovered though, is how to get out again without being seen, and we understand they have boiler problems.’
Covington spread out a chart on the table. ‘She’s here. Difficult to see because they’ve fastened trees and branches to the masts and funnels. Damaged machinery’s been sent to Dar-es-Salaam and repaired. They’ve positioned machine-guns and heavy guns along the shore, and they have men in trees and in the mangrove swamps keeping an eye open. She’ll try to escape. However–’ Covington paused ‘–we’ve not been without success ourselves. We obtained the services of a seaplane, and a pilot with Mark I eyeballs. We’re now covering three of the exits from the river, and we’ve sunk a block-ship across the fourth. They’re trapped.’
‘So why don’t you sink her?’
‘That’s where you come in,’ Covington said.
‘I guessed that would be the catch.’
‘It’s difficult to get close. Shallows. Sandbanks. That sort of thing. She’s just beyond reach and she’ll blow anything we send in out of the water. She can’t get out but we can’t keep three valuable naval vessels and supply ships sitting off the mouth of the Rufiji for ever.’
‘Go on.’
Covington sighed. ‘I suppose we could sink more block-ships and leave it to the mosquitoes and the water to do for them. They’ve got malaria and typhoid on board. But we can’t afford the time. We’re expecting Goliath. She’s old and no damn good for anything but she’s carrying a fast launch. All our torpedo experts are in the Channel and the North Sea waiting for the German High Seas Fleet to come out.’
‘I’m not a naval officer.’
Covington smiled. ‘I don’t think that presents us with any problems,’ he said.
Two days later Edward was kitted out in white tropical uniform with two gold bars on his shoulder, and his Italian decorations, plus a medal Edward didn’t recognise.
‘It’s a new one,’ said Higgins. ‘For torpedoing those German trawlers in Antwerp.’
When Edward laughed, Higgins looked indignant.
‘Well, you did, damn it,’ he snapped. ‘And brought home two ships and six hundred refugees.’
‘But I’m not a naval officer.’
‘You are now. And your commission’s been backdated.’ Higgins smiled. ‘I’ve been in the navy twenty years and all I’ve got is a tidgy little thing they gave out for the Diamond Jubilee. You ought to be proud.’
Against his better judgement, Edward discovered that he was.
Thirty-three
‘Dearest Gussie–’ as Edward wrote the sweat dripped off the end of his nose ‘–I appear to be in the navy. I’m not sure how. I think I’m a pressed man, and it seems I won’t be coming home as soon as I expected.’
Even as he looked at what he had written, Edward knew Augusta would never believe he hadn’t engineered it.
By this time there was a small fleet of ships off the mouth of the Rufiji, with attendant colliers, supply ships and a fleet of small boats scuttling about between them like water beetles.
Edward had settled down uneasily aboard the Goliath. She was a 17,000-ton ship, with four tall funnels and a colossally wide beam reminiscent of the brass and white paint ships of the previous century. She looked every day of her age, out of date, slow and useless. The ship’s company could have been specially selected. They were overweight reservists, for the most part, none of them happy at being recalled to sea. Her officers, with very few exceptions, were of much the same vintage. Among them Edward was regarded as some strange sort of primeval creature who had actually seen war at close quarters. With the exception of an occasional bombardment, the navy had not been in battle since Nelson’s day. Most of the men didn’t have the first idea about what war entailed and didn’t seem over-eager to find out.
The temperature had passed the 100-degree mark and, with no wind, it was like being in the mouth of an open oven. When a wind did blow, it was as if it came direct from hell. Everybody was suffering from prickly heat, tinea or some other form of skin complaint caused by excessive sweat. Writing letters was difficult even when you could raise the energy, because they were always smudged by the drops of sweat. It was necessary to place a towel or a blotter under the wrist to prevent the paper sticking to the skin. Swimming would have been pleasant but there were crocodiles and a fish like a pike that was liable to take a bite out of your legs.
All day the sun blazed down on them. It was almost impossible to stay in the cabins, and to risk exposure on deck was plain stupid. Awnings had been rigged up but they didn’t reduce the sweltering heat. The air they breathed was sweltering. They could only console themselves that it must be a thousand times worse on the Königsberg, which was lying hard up against the river bank somewhere, its company a prey to mosquitoes and mangrove flies.
The hardships were made more irritating because the German ship had disappeared again. The first attempts to get near her had failed, with river mud choking condensers, pumps and evaporators. Goliath’s trudging launch, with its dropping gear for two 14-inch torpedoes, was, it turned out, Covington’s idea of a fast motor boat. There had been a number of unrealistic suggestions for getting the torpedo to the Königsberg, including doing it with a skiff or even a dug-out canoe, but none that looked like having the remotest chance of success.
The heat remained intense. The crew was so unhappy that the prospect of action was actually welcomed. Goliath moved close inshore, and set her steam launch and four motor boats in the water. They were all full of red-faced men, their clothes saturated with sweat, cursing under the load of weapons and equipment.
Edward studied them from the well of the launch. Nobody had asked his views – in fact, he hadn’t got any – and the lieutenant in command of the launch, an older man called Crump, who had been in the navy for some time, could not hide his resentment about the way Edward had been instantly promoted to a rank it had taken him years to achieve.
They were dazzled by the glittering water as they left the cliff-like sides of Goliath. The object of the mission was to make an attack on the shore defences thrown up by the German commander. No one was very keen because no one fancied setting up camp in the mangroves.
At low tide the land was a maze of creeks and brown mud and the constant threat of malaria, blackwater fever, yellow fever, elephantiasis and other unmentionable diseases. In the searing heat of the day you could hear the silence. At night the delta came to life with the splash of jumping fish, the strange groaning sound from the trees and the sighing cough of crocodiles.
There was no talking as the little flotilla drew closer to the shore. The water was the colour of milk chocolate, and not far away a flock of grey pelicans bobbed up and down on the wavelets.
The sudden burst of firing made Edward jump and the pelicans vanished in a noisy clatter of wings. Edward saw splinters leaping from the gunwale of the steam launch within a few feet of his face. Tucking his head down, he peered across the water under the brim of his pith helmet, wondering exactly where the firing was coming from. Then he saw wisps of smoke among the trees and realised the Germans had lined the whole of the shore on both sides of the creek. A man yelped in pain and fell backwards into the bottom of the boat. There was blood on his face but, judging by the oaths he was using, he wasn’t badly hurt. A line of bullet splashes in the water indicated they were under fire from machine-guns.
The boats began to turn away and several more men were hit. There was a sudden flash on the side of the steam launch and Edward saw the starboard torpedo chocks drop away and the missile they were supporting belly-flop into the water. The line of bubbles veered erratically through the fleet and he saw one boat after another take desperate evasive action.
