The fleet was dispersing. The royal yacht had gone, followed by the German Emperor’s yacht and all the other foreign ships. All the bunfights ashore had finished, all the gatherings marked by splendid uniforms, champagne and caviar; with the heads of state and their ministers, all splashed with ribbons and decorations, all being cautious and diplomatic as they tried to be enthusiastic, while their womenfolk fought to outdo each other for colour and style and poise.
Presumably, the affair had been a success. Receptions had been held for the principal British and foreign officers on board Victoria and Albert then she had left for harbour, followed by the thuddings and bangings and the drifting blue smoke of a farewell salute. The firework display ashore had not reached expectations because of the rain, and even the illumination of the fleet had not come up to scratch because the downpour had caused fuses to blow in lighting circuits. One great ship was able only to illuminate its admiral’s flag, and when Kelly had arrived in Huguenot’s steam pinnace with a message for her captain, he had found the commander, with a face like an old seaboot, storming up and down the foredeck looking for someone to throw overboard.
There had also been a few alarms and excursions. Achilles’ cutter had been swamped after a collision with a picket boat off Clarence Pier, and a steam pinnace from Implacable, taking guests ashore to see the George Hotel, where Nelson had spent his last hours in England before Trafalgar, had been rammed by a pinnace from another ship and dumped a party of naval ladies in the water – fortunately without much damage except to dresses and hair styles. A few officers had attended a daring new farce at the Theatre Royal but only one-fifth of ships’ companies had been granted leave so that, apart from senior officers and a few favoured juniors, nobody had profited greatly from the affair, a fact which had prompted a letter in The Portsmouth Evening News attacking the social conditions in the fleet and suggesting the ultimate horror of a trade union for all naval personnel to improve hours, wages, leave and food.
The weather had grown considerably colder now and the wind rippled the surface of the grey-green sea between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, and sent up little showering cascades of spray as waves broke against the hulls of those ships still gathered in the anchorage. The wild screeching of birds gave the day a feeling of heaviness, and the sky, pearl-coloured with overcast, arched bleakly overhead, its sombreness reflected in the waters of the Solent.
A sprinkle of rain came on the wind as Kelly took his boat away from Huguenot’s side, its polished brass winking, its stanchions decorated with turks’ heads and other tiddly items of cordwork. ‘A ship is judged by her boats,’ he’d been told very early in his career. ‘So tend to your boat’s wants as carefully as you would to your mistress’. And see to it that to your eyes she is just as beautiful, because a mid who cares for his boat and manoeuvres it satisfactorily will invariably behave with equal credit on the bridge of a ship.’ He had remembered it well.
In the distance, he could see the dreadnoughts of the Third Battle Squadron beginning to move away in line ahead, great steel fortresses, powerful and swift but, because of their sheer weight, so ungainly in the turn they were known as the Wobbly Eights. It was said they needed all of a mile to change course and Kelly stared at them from the pinnace, hoping he’d never have to serve in one. The spit and polish were said to be formidable.
Jacky Fisher had built them during his years as First Lord. He had wanted a big ship of over 17,000 tons, capable of 25 knots with twelve inches of armour plate and twelve 12-inch guns, and there they were, right in front of him. In fact, they’d turned out to be somewhat heavier than Fisher had wished, had only eleven inches of armour plate and ten 12-inchers instead of twelve, and could do only 21 knots, but at least no one had wasted time. From the laying down of the keel to the launching of the first one, it had taken only a matter of months.
While most of jingoistic Britain thought them masterpieces, however, the people who served in them were not so sure. They threw too much smoke over the gun control and above all they were wet in rough weather. It was even claimed that they’d been too hurriedly thrown together and that all that had been done was produce a new kind of ship on which all the other powers were now improving. Admiral Beresford argued that Britain had declared herself to be the bully of the seas, while others had noted that to pay for the super-ships Fisher had sent a hundred and fifty lesser vessels to the breakers on the grounds that they were old and outdated and could neither fight nor run away, seeing naval warfare, his critics said, only as a fleet action and forgetting that in places as far away as the Pacific, India and Australia, even old tubs would be useful if there were trouble. Only Verschoyle was eager to be posted to a dreadnought – and preferably to the flagship, spit, polish and all. ‘That’s where a chap will be noticed,’ he said.
Kelly frowned. He didn’t see himself in a dreadnought or a battle cruiser. Destroyers probably. Sleek, swift, black-painted little ships that in bad weather were hell to be in, uncomfortable little ships in which even a mere lop on the ocean made eating and drinking difficult, and bad weather could dump the whole wardroom – officers, chairs, fiddles, crockery, glass, stewards and everything – underneath the table in a swill of soup and sea water. They were cramped little vessels where cabins were like rabbit hutches so filled with pipes it was almost impossible to stand upright, but they were also always the hounds when it came to a chase, always the first into action and last out; and a destroyer captain was noticed not for his manners but for his initiative and skill with a ship, while his very duties placed him as far as possible from interfering senior officers.
The wind was cold, punching into Kelly’s face and sending spray over the canopy to clatter against the funnel. Just ahead of him he could see Verschoyle in the petrol pinnace bumping in the swell. Verschoyle, being Verschoyle, had been carrying personal messages to the admiral all day while Kelly Maguire, being Kelly Maguire, was merely carrying mail.
Thick smoke was pouring from the pinnace’s funnel and the stoker put his head out of the hatch to sniff the wind before dumping a bucketful of ash overboard. The wind caught it, to scatter it over a wide area on the lee side of the boat in a greasy grey patch.
‘Any more of that?’ Kelly demanded.
‘No sir.’ The stoker looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
‘Well, if there is, save it for the return journey. I wouldn’t like any to drift through the admiral’s scuttles.’
A ship in the distance was flashing a signal and Kelly read it carefully for practice, then another slash of cold water came over and he realised his attention had wandered and he was not watching the boat’s head.
Perhaps no one’s thoughts were entirely on the job in hand. The fleet review was still too much in the mind. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Kelly Maguire and he had happily ditched his complaints in a wave of enthusiasm and patriotism. It was uncomplicated, unsophisticated, probably even unintelligent, and with his mother’s rebellious Irish blood coursing through his veins, perhaps even treacherous.
Being the son of Catherine de la Trouve Kelly, it had taken him a long time to feel at ease with the unquestioning royalism of the Navy. And even more so to feel at one with its strange attitude of putting ceremonial before efficiency. He had been brought up to believe that the Navy was a weapon, but it hadn’t taken him long to realise that the chief concern of many of the senior officers was less how to learn how to use that weapon in time of war than to hold to the Victorian ideal of keeping it spotless. ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ seemed to be the motto of most admirals, and he had once heard his father boast how he’d made a habit of tossing practice shells overboard rather than spoil the paintwork by firing the guns.
It was at that moment, in fact, that he realised for the first time why his father had never flown his flag as an admiral. He belonged to that old navy Fisher had tried to change. He was a great believer in the fact that so long as the Navy simply existed, Britain need never tremble, and with the great fleet dispersing in the increasing rain, he suddenly seemed to Kelly as out-of-date as the dodo. He was probably even the reason why Kelly had never had any particular desire to go to sea. At thirteen, when it had all started, in fact, he’d had no particular wish to go anywhere at all, but, because his father had finally managed to scrape home to flag rank and because his elder brother, Gerald, had followed his grandfather into the army, the step had become inevitable. He had spent hours when the move had been announced sulking in a bitter resentment against an institution which had seemed in the past to add little to his life or even to that of his mother, who had always resented his father’s absences and the fact that he was undoubtedly enjoying his life in foreign ports while she had to bear the burden of the debts he ran up. Kelly had long since even suspected there had been other women in his father’s background – though they were never mentioned – and for some reason had always blamed this on the fact that his father was a sailor and took his pleasures where he found them.
The rain was heavy now and Kelly spat it from his lips as he saw the water round the flagship crowded with boats. With nothing more urgent than the mail, they might have to wait a long time, and he saw one of the seamen in front of him cursing their ill-luck.
Kelly frowned. He was due before long at Greenwich to sit his sub-lieutenant’s examinations. After that he might call himself a fully-fledged officer and a grown man. The fact that London was no place to have handy when you were trying to concentrate on getting good marks was always a little disconcerting. On the other hand, it meant a good feed at the Upfolds’ town house. Charley’s family always moved from Ireland to London for the season with a view to finding Charley’s elder sister, Mabel, a husband; and since Brigadier-General Upfold was not short of money there was always plenty to eat, something that held a considerable appeal to a growing young man kept short of food in his own mess and lacking the wherewithal to buy anything to supplement it.
The boats were queuing up round the stern of the flagship flow, spray leaping up between them from the trapped waves. In front of him a boat from Argonaut was jockeying for position and doing it none too successfully, then he saw Verschoyle alongside him, skilful, languid, handsome as the devil and apparently indifferent to the weather.
‘I’m going to take a chance and try the starboard ladder,’ Verschoyle called out as the two boats bounced alongside each other. ‘This way, we’ll wait until Doomsday.’
Kelly nodded and, considering it might be good idea to do Verschoyle in the eye by getting there first, increased revolutions and pushed in front of him, the funnel spouting smoke and cinders.
A wave slopped on board, heavier and wetter than he’d expected, but at least there was no one ahead of him, and his attention fully occupied, he headed for the flagship’s side. A sailor on the gangway made a warning gesture with his hand but, occupied with outdoing Verschoyle, Kelly took no notice and the Marine corporal with the mailbag moved towards the bows.
Well aft, the flagship’s ladder was a good twenty degrees outside the line of the ship. But Kelly wasn’t worried because he knew from experience that when he ran his engine astern his bows would kick to port. Unfortunately, the battleship was yawing to starboard on her cable and, overconfident of his ability, he put his engine into reverse just too late. The swell lifted the boat and he saw the sailor on the gangway run for his life, then the lower platform of the ladder crumpled as it holed the port bow of the pinnace. With a crash it spread itself outwards with what seemed a horrifying slowness that Kelly felt he might have halted if he’d thought of it in time; then the treads flew apart and came down on him in a shower. One of them hit him on the head and a second went down the funnel with a clatter and a puff of soot, and he heard a heavy voice from below yell in alarm, ‘What the effing Christ was that?’ and he became aware of the Marine corporal hanging like grim death to the ladder falls, the strap of the mailbag between his teeth and his eyes sticking out at the devastation, like prawns on a plate.
‘That’s fucked it,’ someone said.
His face pink with shame, Kelly bowed to the furious signals of the figure on the deck wearing three gold stripes and a heavy frown and moved ahead to the ship’s derrick. The wreckage of the accommodation ladder was lowered none too gently to the roof of the pinnace’s cabin and the commander shouted down in a voice that rasped like a file across the corner of an anvil.
‘That ought to trim you up a bit, young feller-me-lad. Ask your commander to return it to us when it’s repaired. And, while you’re at it, I would suggest also that you report to your sub-lieutenant for six of the best for shoving your nose in where it isn’t wanted.’
His eyes down, and silent with self-disgust, Kelly put the boat astern, the foredeck cluttered with the remains of the gangway. There would be a highly dramatic arrival aboard Huguenot, he knew, with reports of what had happened preceding him at full speed. By this time, he was certain that Verschoyle, who’d been several times to the flagship that morning, had been well aware of the conditions and had encouraged him deliberately. But that wouldn’t let him off six of the best with his leave probably stopped for donkey’s years into the bargain. His mind full of the horrors of the next few weeks, he was barely aware of what was happening and, in his desire to get away from the scene of his disgrace, he forgot to look astern.
‘Oh, Christ!’ the stern sheetsman said and, swinging round, with the hull quivering and shaking as the engine turned at full power in his efforts to back away from his crime, he realised he was heading stern-first right across the blue and white bows of the admiral’s barge which was heading at speed for the starboard ladder. For one ghastly second, he caught a glimpse of the shining brass and paintwork and rigidly-held boathooks covered with tiddly cordwork, and of the tall figure of the admiral just stepping from the cabin to climb aboard his ship as his boat came alongside. The look of fury he received, the startled stare of the sailors, and beyond them Verschoyle’s gleeful grin, would remain, he felt certain, in his mind until his last breath.
A bluejacket leapt to the bow of the barge with a heavy cork and coir fender, while another made a despairing jab with one of the magnificent boathooks, missed and scored a deep groove all the way down the side of the pinnace; then the barge banged hard into the beam of the pinnace with a thump like the crack of doom. The fender had been dropped into place just in time, but the speed of the barge as it headed in at a brisk canter across the waves to the flagship burst it like a bomb. Kelly saw the admiral stagger off-balance and sit down heavily, then he was being showered with ground cork that scattered all over the pinnace, the barge, and the whole surface of the sea like confetti at a wedding.
Both boats had come to a standstill, grinding against each other in the lop of the sea, the spray leaping up between them like fountains gone mad. A livid face lifted above the canopy, eyebrows working, gold-encrusted cap lopsided over one eye, and a furious voice bellowed out.
‘Report to my cabin at once!’
Sick with shame, humiliation and dread, convinced that his naval career had come to an end even before it had properly started, Kelly backed off to allow the admiral’s barge to proceed. The admiral, his beak of a nose in the air, his face dark with anger, sailed past and Kelly saw him stamping up the steps of the newly-replaced starboard ladder to the deck. The twitter of bosun’s pipes sounded like the moaning of banshees.
For a long time not one of the bobbing boats moved. It seemed as if they were all petrified with horror.
‘Made a right cock of that one, sir,’ the bowman observed quietly as Kelly, red-faced and miserable, went ahead again. Verschoyle appeared alongside, grinning.
‘I think you’ve just blighted your career for ever, old boy,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re good at market gardening because after today I suspect that’s what you’ll end up doing.’
There were grins from Verschoyle’s crew and, keeping his eyes ahead, trying hard not to look anyone in the face, Kelly was aware of sailors lining the decks of the flagship to stare down at him, awestruck by what had happened, and the shocked looks of the men on the boom. As they edged into place, a rope was thrown and Kelly stepped aboard.
‘Take it easy, youngster,’ a pink-faced lieutenant advised quietly as he passed. ‘The old boy’s got a kind heart even if he’s also got a very short fuse.’
Trying to pluck up courage, Kelly glanced miserably behind him, quite certain that he’d forgotten to see the picket boat moored properly so that at that moment it was more than likely drifting astern, probably even unmanned. The rain was beginning to come down in sheets now, so that oilskins had begun to appear to add to the general gloom. In a short career full of disaster, nothing like this had ever happened to Kelly Maguire and he found himself looking forward to returning home to a future containing nothing more dramatic than falling regularly off the horses his mother provided for him to ride. What lay ahead seemed as empty as the inside of a drum, and the dreams he’d nurtured of becoming another Nelson disappeared in a puff of sea mist as he saw himself with all his bags and baggage being put firmly ashore at Portsmouth without even a by-your-leave or a word of thanks for past services.
He was still wondering what he could do with his life and whether he really ought to go in for market gardening or put an end to it quickly with a rifle borrowed from a Marine, when he heard shouts and sounds of alarm. A seaman on the boom had lost his balance and, even in his misery, Kelly became aware of the sudden appearance of disaster. The sailor, a squarely-built youngster with red hair like himself, had made a wild grab at the life line, missed and was falling with whirling arms and legs. His head hit the boom and, as he splashed into the grey sea, the man nearest the lifebelt stood gaping as if he’d been bereft of reason. Below, the boats trying to cast off were only getting in each other’s way as they endeavoured to manoeuvre, and the young seaman, swept astern on the tide, seemed to have been overlooked in the stern business of boat handling difficulties.
Snatching at his jacket and cap, Kelly ran for the side. In his misery, the disaster seemed to be something that had arrived fortuitously to distract all the staring eyes that had been resting on him. He took the rail at a jump and the cold and shock of hitting the water took his breath away. As he came to the surface, spluttering and gasping, he saw a pair of arms flailing wildly nearby in an attempt to keep afloat.
The boats, all adrift at the same time, were lying in a confusion of different angles and the drowning man was being carried past them at speed. Kelly set off after him in a strong, awkward stroke. As he reached him, the sailor was going down for the last time, still frantically beating with his arms at the sea, and, grabbing him by his hair as he disappeared, Kelly hoisted him up, treading water, to be immediately grasped round the neck as the sailor panicked.
‘Let go, you ass!’ The frightened yelp came out like the hiccup of a pup. ‘You’ll drown me as well!’
A flailing fist caught him on the nose, making him see stars and bringing tears to his eyes, then he felt himself being dragged down once more. Spitting out sea water and drawing his arm back, he thumped the sailor at the side of the head and felt his grasp loosen.
‘Now do as I tell you,’ he shouted furiously above the drenching crash of the waves which, now that he was among them, sounded twice as loud as they had from the picket boat. ‘Just lie still.’
Manoeuvring the sailor on to his back, he grabbed him by the shoulders and began to kick his way back to the side of the flagship. But the sailor was bigger than Kelly was, and he wasn’t sure he was going to make it because most of the time his head was under water and he was convinced they were going to drown together.
Swallowing another mouthful of water that made him choke and cough, he had just decided that the picket boats, which a moment before, had seemed to be in the area in dozens, were deliberately letting him sink because of his lack of value to the Navy, when a lifebelt dropped on his head, half-stunning him. With one hand he grabbed at it, still hanging on to the sailor’s oilskin collar with the other. Then he heard the thump of an engine and a great fist covered with tattoos reached down to grab him.
Dragged into a boat, more dead than alive, he sprawled on the bottom boards, and a second later the man he’d saved landed on top of him. A booted foot stood on his fingers and someone said ‘It’s that little bastard who knocked the admiral for six,’ and then he remembered why he was there and pretended to be unconscious so that he wouldn’t have to sit up and face people.
‘I think the little bugger’s dead,’ a gruff voice observed, and an irritable snarl gave a testy reply. ‘Then give him artificial respiration, man, and look slippy.’
Heavy hands landed on Kelly’s ribs so that he felt every bit of breath in his body was being squeezed out.
‘Let go, please,’ he moaned, wriggling away, the only thought in his mind the feeling that the ordeal of meeting the admiral was likely to be infinitely worse if he was going to have to meet him wet through. There were a few curious stares as he struggled to a sitting position, but no one said anything and, as the boat bumped against the gangway, someone hoisted him upright.
He went up the steps with dragging feet and, watching the man he’d saved being carried below, he decided he’d better see if he was still alive.
In the sick bay, he found the sailor sitting on a bench, looking green, a thickset youngster with a face like a potato.
‘Ordinary Seaman Rumbelo, sir,’ he mumbled between heaves of nausea. ‘You saved my life.’
‘It was nothing,’ Kelly said.
‘It wasn’t nothing to me, sir. I can’t swim, so it was a hell of a lot.’
Still soaked and shivering, Kelly became aware of an officer standing alongside him.
‘Admiral says you’re to report to him at once,’ he was told. ‘And I think he means “at once.”’ The officer grinned. ‘But, take it easy, he’s got a soft spot for the young. Greatgrandfather was Archbishop of Canterbury or something and he believes in suffer little children.’
Stumbling below, aware of his shoes squelching a long trail of dark drips along the corridor to ruin the carpet with salt water, Kelly heard a harsh, resonant voice shout.
‘No further, boy! You’re dribbling all over my furnishings!’
Miserably, his face peaked with anxiety and blue with cold, Kelly stiffened to attention.
‘Name?’
‘Maguire, sir.’
‘There can’t be so many people with such a bloody silly name!’ The admiral was stooping to peer at him under thick eyebrows. ‘You Teddy Maguire’s boy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’re obviously as stupid as he was. Do you realise you smashed up my barge and sent me on my backside, boy? And what was all that damned flotsam you were carrying round on your bows?’
Kelly gulped. ‘It was the starboard ladder, sir.’
‘Whose starboard ladder?’
‘Yours, sir.’
The admiral stared. ‘Was it, by God? How did it come to be there?’
‘I’m afraid I smashed it, sir. I was taking it back to Huguenot to be repaired. That’s why I wasn’t looking where I was going. I was a bit upset.’
As he stiffened for the monumental ticking off he guessed was coming, Kelly became aware of the admiral straightening up. He was a very tall, broad-shouldered man, his face hidden by a heavy beard, and he seemed to be smothered in gold braid and medal ribbons. The deep voice boomed again at Kelly.
‘They tell me you’ve just been in the water. Saved a man’s life while everybody else was flapping around like wet hens wondering what to do.’
‘It was nothing, sir.’
The admiral’s voice rose. ‘Of course it wasn’t “nothing,” you little prig! If you do something brave, admit it like a man. All this bloody nonsense about modesty! Lot of rubbish! Stiff upper lip, straight back, clear eye, honour to the flag! Tripe! And onions! Did a bit of life saving meself once.’ The tone changed abruptly. ‘Where the devil were you? They were looking all over the ship for you.’
Kelly drew a deep breath, ‘I was in the sick bay, sir. I went to see if the man I fished out was all right.’
The admiral peered at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Well, that’s no bad thing, he admitted. ‘Shows the right attitude. After all if we didn’t have sailors we shouldn’t have officers, should we, and if we didn’t have officers we shouldn’t have admirals – and then where would I be? You’re Irish, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Got a bit of Irish blood meself, I’ve heard. The Irish usually manage to bring a breath of fresh air into stuffy corners.’
There was a long silence while Kelly waited, still dripping water in a pool at his feet. The admiral stared at it petulantly then he turned, his hands behind his back, and spoke over his shoulder. ‘If you do something like this, Mr Maguire, every time you’re up for a reprimand by a senior officer, you should have no difficulty whatsoever in ending up as an admiral.’
Suddenly aware of a change of tone and atmosphere, Kelly’s eyes lifted and he was conscious that the rock-hard sternness of the admiral’s face had softened a little.
‘You, Mr Maguire,’ he was saying, ‘are wet through, and I have a bruised behind because you cut across my bows – something you should never do with a feller’s bows, especially if he’s an admiral and you’re only a snotty. For knocking your admiral on his backside and reducing his flagship to matchwood, I’m inclined to think you must be a bloody fool. But it’s also quite clear that you’re a quick-thinking bloody fool and also even a brave bloody fool. I shall therefore recommend you for the Royal Humane Society’s medal for saying life at sea. But–’ the heavy voice deepened – ‘so that you shall not completely undermine the discipline of the fleet, you will return to your ship and request the sub-lieutenant in charge of the gunroom to give you six of the best with a dirk scabbard for breaking my flagship and discommoding me. And now, steward, you’d better give him a sherry to warm him up. He looks frozen. And then, for God’s sake get rid of him before he completely ruins my carpet.’