Thirty

 

All naval ships had been ordered to coal and the great vessels began to leave Portsmouth for their stations, squadron after squadron of gigantic floating steel castles moving across a misty sea.

In London, pacifist speakers were mobbed and German traders, of whom there were plenty since Queen Victoria’s marriage to a German prince, put up their shutters. Those wealthy people in the West End, of German descent, who had come to England with the Hanoverian kings, were busy hiding their ancestors’ portraits in the cellars.

But mobilisation notices had not dropped through letter boxes in every street in the country as they had in France. Britain still relied on a volunteer army.

Then, suddenly, things changed overnight. From an obscure little town called Mons in Belgium came news of a terrible defeat. The papers were full of the names of men who had been killed. And the defeated British units, struggling across France, were the remnants of famous regiments people had come to believe were invincible.

Edward decided it was time he told Augusta about the Antwerp trip.

‘But you’ve only just come home,’ she stormed.

‘I’m not going to war,’ Edward insisted. ‘I’m only going to Belgium to bring back our boats. We’ll never get paid for them if they stay where they are.’

‘Aren’t the Germans going through Belgium?’

‘Not that fast. I’m sorry, Gus. But I have to go.’

It required a street map of Antwerp to find out exactly where the boats were.

‘Compagnie van der Essen,’ Egg said, trying to avoid Augusta’s frosty stare. ‘The boats are lying at their wharf. Etiènne is an old associate of mine. He’ll give you all the help you need. But you’d better hurry. Look.’ He passed a newspaper to Edward.

The French were attacking in the Ardennes and Lorraine to win back the provinces lost in 1870. Arrows on the hurriedly drawn maps showed the Germans merely holding them while their right wing swung in a wide circle to the north to cut off Paris as they had in 1870. There was also a report of disaster off the Broad Fourteens. Three old armoured cruisers manned chiefly by overage and over-weight reservists had been sunk in an hour by a single submarine.

‘You don’t want to believe everything you read in the papers.’

Edward looked up to see Sam, grinning from ear to ear.

‘Thought I’d come and see what you were up to,’ Sam shook his old friend warmly by the hand.

‘What about Rosina?’

‘She’s here too. At my Ma’s.’

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, Sam. And you’ve turned up, as always, in the nick of time.’

 

Antwerp seemed to be on the point of collapse. A hastily assembled British naval brigade, mostly reservists or untrained recruits, badly armed and under-equipped, had been landed but had been surrounded. The city was in a panic expecting the Germans to march in at any moment.

The Scheldt was flat and greasy-looking as they swung into it and headed upstream. The great Hoboken oil refineries along the banks had disappeared in a great cloud of black smoke, burning oil running into the water so that there was a flaming current flowed in midstream. There were no steamers at their berths and the wharves were deserted. Beyond the buildings they could hear the thunder of heavy shells bursting along the outskirts.

But the lights of the city were still on, shining through a drifting drizzle on to the black water as they went ashore. Beyond the dark silhouetted buildings they could see rising columns of smoke and the air was full of floating scraps of charred paper and ash.

Almost the first thing they saw was a British van, with ‘Typhoo Tea’ plastered on the side, scarred by shell splinters. It had been used to move some of the equipment of the naval brigade to the front. On the driver’s seat was an abandoned naval lieutenant’s greatcoat, and Edward put it on against the rain.

The warehouses of the Compagnie van der Essen were silent and dark. Outside were four cradles but only three Bourdillons.

‘What in God’s name are we going to do with ’em?’ Sam asked. ‘The Germans will be here any day. And where the hell is the other one?’

Edward gazed at the wrecked houses and uprooted paving where shells had burst. Dead horses still lay in the shafts of smashed service waggons. There was no sign of life. A few of the houses still displayed a Belgian tricolour or even a paper Union Jack which had been put up to welcome the naval brigade.

Nearby was a barricade of felled trees and carts and next to that a church, where Sam and Edward decided to spend the night. Civilians slept in huddled groups round the walls on piles of straw. Old men kept watch, slumped on comfortless chairs, their veined hands folded patiently. A whining child was soothed by its mother, a girl who looked as young as Augusta. The priest informed them that the naval brigade had been cut off but many had got away.

It was impossible to sleep, although both men dozed off from time to time. At first light, they found a café and were able to obtain coffee and rolls. The owner’s face was grey. As they left, a Belgian battery clattered past on the pewter-coloured cobbles. Above them a German monoplane seemed to hover, the sun shining through the varnished fabric of the curved wings.

Refugees appeared, moving northwards through the city, leading horses and carts, pushing wheelbarrows and perambulators packed with their belongings. The carts were full of old people and children, pale-faced and nodding with weariness. Behind them came some Belgian Army stragglers, bedraggled scarecrows, their narrow, hungry faces hollow-cheeked and blank with weariness.

Eventually, Edward spotted signs of life at van der Essen. The three boats they’d seen were still there and now the fourth had appeared in the water alongside a slip.

Etiènne van der Essen was a small bespectacled man who spoke English almost without an accent. But he could not conceal that he was desperately nervous.

‘The Germans will be here within days,’ he said. ‘We can no longer hope to stop them.’

‘Why is one of the boats in the water?’

Van der Essen sighed. ‘I was going to use her. A kilometre away down-river there’s a Dutch freighter, the Mevrouw Koolhaven, lying at the explosives wharf. She’s full of ammunition for the Germans.’

‘And what were you intending to do?’

‘Blow her up.’

Edward reflected that you couldn’t judge people by their looks.

‘We considered filling the Bourdillon with explosives – I have plenty of stock in the warehouse. But the time setting for a fuse was too difficult. So I went to the library to find out and I read of a spar torpedo. We filled a steel cylinder with dynamite and packed it with mud from the river. All we had left to do was fit the detonators. I thought we might drive the boat at the ship’s side and jump overboard. I think the French did something of the sort in the last century and sank a ship called the Bayonnaise.’

Edward remembered that ship, too.

But he was less concerned with doing damage to the Germans than with getting Egg’s boats back to England. With extra drums of petrol stacked on board, it might have been possible to cover the distance, though from Antwerp the crossing could be treacherous.

Van der Essen promised the petrol, but, without crews and engineers experienced in sophisticated marine engines, Edward couldn’t see how they could even get the boats down-river.

‘Could we use one to tow the rest?’ he asked. ‘Or could we get them aboard a ship, perhaps?’

‘Which?’ van der Essen asked. ‘We have two British vessels here – sister ships, Liverpool Street and King’s Cross.’

Edward raised an eyebrow.

‘The Liverpool Street is seaworthy but her bunkers are empty. The King’s Cross has coal but her engines are out of action.’

‘Great,’ said Sam.

‘Couldn’t we coal the Liverpool Street and put two boats aboard her? Perhaps take the other one on a long tow?’

Van der Essen gave a sad smile. ‘Are you aware of what a job coaling a ship is? She would have to go to the coaling wharf. And there are no tugs. They’ve all bolted for Ostend.’

‘Has the Liverpool Street no steam at all?’

‘Enough to work the winches, perhaps.’

‘So why can’t we work her up alongside the King’s Cross and transfer her coal?’

‘Do you realise how long it takes to coal a ship? We would need men. Many men.’

‘What about all those refugees? Where are they going?’

‘They are hoping to go to England.’

‘Well, maybe they’d like to work their passage.’

 

The two old ships lay under a row of cranes just along the wharf. They stank of decaying hides and rotting potatoes mixed with the faint odour of tar and brine. They were old-fashioned with untidy clusters of derricks round their masts. The hulls had been painted black but the superstructures, which had once been ochre, looked as though they hadn’t seen a paint brush for years. They were the archetypal tramp that plodded round the world carrying every kind of cargo under the sun.

By the grace of God they found a small tug called the Boetje Otto which had not vanished to Ostend and the skipper, a tough-looking Fleming, offered to help.

‘Anyt’ing to stop de goddam Huns,’ he said.

 

The master of the Liverpool Street, a man called Houghton, was sleeping off a colossal drunk in one of the nearby hotels. The master of the King’s Cross had long since departed for England.

They hauled Houghton from his bed and dragged him to the café where they started filling him up with black coffee.

‘We’re commandeering your ship,’ Edward said.

‘You bloody young whippersnapper,’ Houghton snarled. ‘Who are you – navy?’

‘Yes.’ The lie came easily.

‘Where’s your uniform?’

‘I had to ditch it. To pass through the German lines.’

Houghton pulled a face. ‘Well, you’re out of luck. My ship’s out of coal.’

‘We’re going to bunker her. Know the King’s Cross?’

‘’Course I do. Right astern of me. First time we’ve been in port together for twenty years. She’s full of coal but the shaft bearing’s gone and you can bet your last quid there won’t be a spare in Antwerp.’

‘What about your crew?’

‘Bolted. Most of ’em, anyway.’

‘Can you round the rest up?’

‘Why?’

‘We’re taking your ship home. With her captain.’

Houghton was a stubborn man who had long given up hope of advancement. It took an hour of bullying and wheedling to get him to change his mind. But, as his hangover eased, he finally began to see what they were getting at. Seaman enough to know exactly what to do, he began to organise wires from the stern of his ship to pull her out past the bow of the King’s Cross and lie alongside.

Somehow, they managed to round up the bedraggled remnants of his crew. There was an engineer officer and two or three of the black gang among them, and they knew their jobs backwards.

‘You’ll never do it,’ Houghton said gloomily. ‘You can’t shift coal with half a dozen men.’

They ignored him. As the Boetje Otto nudged the King’s Cross alongside her sister ship, receiving nothing more than a dent, a bent rail and a shattered derrick boom, the remnants of the naval brigade began to appear in the neighbouring streets looking for a means of reaching England. They were a mixture of Marines and sailors, unshaven, dirty and some wearing items of Belgian uniform because they had given their own clothing to the wounded.

One of the sergeants saluted and explained what had happened. He assumed, like Houghton, that Edward was a naval officer and instinctively looked for guidance. ‘We landed on the sixth, sir,’ he said. ‘And went straight up the line. We never saw no Germans. Just Zeppelin and bloody Krupp shells lobbing over us into Antwerp. They sounded like the District Line on the London Underground going over. We were told to expect a Uhlan charge, sir. In the end we pulled out but we still didn’t see no Germans. Is the war lost, sir?’

‘Not on your life,’ he said. ‘How would you like to see home?’

‘Not ’alf, sir. What you got?’

‘I’ve got a ship with coal and no engines and a ship with engines but no coal. It needs a bit of elbow grease. Think you and your friends might like to lend a hand?’