‘CHICHESTER,’ the signal said, ‘FLYING FLAG OF REAR ADMIRAL DESTROYERS WITH MARLOW METEOR AND MORRIS TO FORM FORCE T TO PROVIDE COVER FOR CONVOYS JW5OC, JW5OD AND RETURN CONVOYS RA5OC AND RA5OD. SHE WILL SAIL FOR LOCH EWE TO ENABLE REAR ADMIRAL DESTROYERS TO ATTEND CONVOY CONFERENCE.’
Latimer laid it in front of Kelly, and gave him time to absorb it.
‘London’s sailing for Hvalfjord with two American cruisers and an American ack-ack ship and her escort of destroyers,’ he said. ‘To be on hand if needed. Home Fleet’s expected shortly at Seidisfjord.’
‘Air support?’ Kelly asked.
‘Home Fleet’s got Victorious. Captain Verschoyle has Parsifal.’
‘And us?’
Latimer smiled. ‘None, sir.’
‘Watchmen and special sea-duty men close up! Secure all scuttles and watertight doors–!’
In the mess decks and passageways, men lashed hammocks. Communications were tested, and men pulled on seaboots, duffel coats and balaclava helmets. Stokers, telegraphists and artificers groped their way to their positions. Underfoot there was a faint trembling as the engines turned.
As they slipped the buoy just before nightfall and headed out through the Hoxa Gate, Kelly, huddled in his duffel coat, looked back at the long wake dropping behind them. He knew what his ships’ companies were thinking because he was thinking it himself. There lay Thurso and the road home. Then the Old Man of Hoy and the other islands fell astern and he turned to face forward. He’d been through it all before – the smell of the salt and its sting on the cheek, the runnels of spray moving along the grey paint, the quiver and throb of the ship as she tossed her head and flung the swell aside.
The merchant ships were waiting at Loch Ewe, the assembly base opposite Stornoway, travel-stained, slab-sided vessels marked with patches of rust and loaded beyond their marks with munitions. Like all convoys, they varied from straight stems and bluff bows to flat sheerlines, and their masters gave their speeds as varying between nine and fourteen knots, though Kelly guessed that their chief engineers, many of them canny Scots, would have a knot or two in hand. Some of them flew the red ensign, some the Stars and Stripes and two the pale blue of Panama, the bunting darkened by soot and rain.
The conference was held in a Nissen hut and the merchant captains filed in, many of them wearing civilian clothes. They all had weathered faces and the faraway eyes of seamen, most of them carried brief cases or small attaché cases, and they all looked slightly bewildered and shy. As they took their seats and filled in the slips of papers to give the number of officers, ratings and DEMS gunners in their ships, they were issued with a copy of convoy orders.
The American cruiser captains, present for the experience, looked strange in their unfamiliar uniforms but they were attentive, intelligent and more than willing to conform. There had been a lot of bad feeling when Convoy PQI7 had been lost and a lot of sneers about ‘What price the Italian Navy?’ but everybody knew the truth now, and though there were still occasional bar-room brawls, for the most part the Americans had accepted that it was a case of interference from above and that there was nothing wrong with the British sailors themselves.
There was still a strange feeling of doubt, however, that was a hangover from the disaster and Kelly tried to be brief and to the point. His cruisers, he said, would provide cover near Bear Island, the danger point nearest to the German bases, and he finished by introducing the convoy commodores and the commanders of the distant escorts, and Verschoyle made clear their chances.
‘Darkness will be our greatest ally,’ he said. ‘And there won’t be much else at this time of the year. Attacks by the Luftwaffe should be unlikely and U-boats should have difficulty finding us. What we have to fear are surface ships, but it’s hoped that bad weather will help.’
It was a little like a lecture in a village hall, and Verschoyle was curiously subdued as they left.
‘It amazes me,’ he said, ‘that the poor buggers trust us as much as they do.’
As he waited for Chichester’s boat, Kelly saw Hugh nearby, holding an armful of woollen clothing. His face was thin and drawn but he managed a grin.
‘Stocking up with warmth,’ he said. ‘I’m with James Verschoyle’s group.’
‘Does Paddy know what you’re up to, Hugh?’ Kelly asked.
‘No, sir.’ Hugh looked stubborn, as though what he was facing was only too clear to him. ‘I haven’t told her. But I expect she’ll find out pretty soon.
Kelly had no doubt. Paddy had a high intelligence and her naval background left little question but that she would know where to ask. As the boy climbed into Parsifal’s boat, Kelly remained staring after him, thinking of Paddy’s anxious eyes. Aboard Chichester, he rang for Rumbelo.
‘I just met Hugh,’ he said. ‘He’s in Parsifal.’
Rumbelo’s face was blank. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I know. I had a letter from Paddy. She knows, too.’
The following day they left Loch Ewe for Seidisfjord, picking up Marlow, Meteor and Morris off Cape Wrath. It was known that the Germans had reinforced their heavy ships and, although darkness would reduce the danger from air reconnaissance, U-boats across the path of the convoys would report their position, while polar ice would force them south of Bear Island so that if the German heavies came out they wouldn’t have a very large area to search.
As they arrived off Iceland, there was a thick fog and it was impossible to find the entrance to Seidisfjord. There was no question of the cruisers going in to top up tanks and Kelly could only order the destroyers to wait until the fog cleared, top up and then join Convoy JW5OC to help the escorts. It had raised a problem. Chichester had to steam almost two thousand miles and, though she carried nearly two thousand tons of fuel, she burned eight tons an hour at seventeen knots and thirty at thirty knots, while the German ships, operating close to their bases, had no such worry. Somewhere just behind him Verschoyle’s convoy, JW5OD, was still assembling, with its escort of three Hunt-class destroyers, four corvettes, two trawlers and a minesweeper, and would pick up Verschoyle’s fleet destroyers as the Hunts turned back at the limit of their range.
To the south of Bear Island they ran into severe gales built up by winds roaring across the Atlantic and funnelled into the gap between Scotland and Iceland. As the seas mounted, they had to reduce to ten knots, climbing the huge waves to crash over the crest into the next trough with tons of water streaming off the foredeck.
Round North Cape, the water swirling across the ship began to freeze until it lay in a thick carapace over the decks and super-structure. Turrets, torpedo tubes and radar aerials were kept constantly moving to prevent them becoming solid and, in the worst weather, the forward turrets were trained to starboard to avoid damage. Tompions, the metal caps which screwed on the mouths of the gun barrels, couldn’t be used in case they froze solid, and the ends of thick cardboard cartridge cases plastered with grease were used instead. Feet and fingers ached with cold and the north-easterly wind brought flurries of sleet and snow that reduced visibility and periodically obscured Sarawak following on their starboard quarter.
Clothing was the special Arctic issue of heavy woollen underwear under two, three or four jerseys, mittens, sheepskin-lined boots and thick woollen stockings – far from enough when it was impossible to eat regularly or obtain hot drinks, and when the wearers had to sleep at night action stations. They weren’t much better off on the open bridge, where the cold insinuated itself beyond scarves, gloves and boots, and Kelly’s exposed face felt frozen. The men had only just cleared the ice on the decks and upperworks when Pardoe had them out again, working with brooms, paint chippers, hammers, salt and sand, working the capstans and deck winches, rotating the guns, raising and lowering them continuously, using steam-hoses to clear boat-hoists, ladders and doors. There was no labour saving way of clearing the ice. It could only be done with aching hands and frozen feet. Below, conditions were equally appalling, with all hatches battened down, and scuttles and deadlights secured. With nowhere for fresh air to enter, the atmosphere was stale and unappetising, and life was reduced simply to keeping watch, eating and sleeping.
With Convoy JW5OC safely beyond the danger area, Force T dropped anchor in Varenga Bay in Kola Inlet, but Murmansk was a dreary place with a scything wind full of ice particles. In addition to a marked surliness and lack of hospitality among the Russians, the place was less than ninety miles from German air bases so that a permanent aircraft watch had to be kept, and on the only occasion when a German aircraft appeared the shooting was more fitting to a fireworks display. Kelly said so in no uncertain language and his gunnery officers made a point of passing it on.
Because of the bitter weather, liberty men were permitted to go ashore in duffel coats and seaboots but, because there was nothing to buy, nobody bothered with Russian currency. They had to stick to recognised thoroughfares and Russian sentries were posted everywhere. There was no fraternisation because nobody felt like fraternising, no booze, no bars and no shops, and they took ashore their own cigarettes, which they were firmly forbidden to offer to the Russians.
The first convoy, JW5OC, arrived the following day, with its load of tanks, lorries, guns and aircraft. Probably in celebration, the Russians provided an unexpected concert with a naval male voice choir, who sang until they were exhausted. Since it had been laid on by the Soviet naval commander-in-chief, Kelly had to attend, but he bolted as soon as it was over to his operations room.
The chart wasn’t very helpful. About that time Convoy JW5OD would be passing the vicinity of Jan Mayen Island where the Hunt-class destroyers would have turned for home at the limit of their range and the escort duties would devolve on Verschoyle’s bigger ships. Meanwhile, in the Kola Inlet, the British SNO was assembling the vessels of Convoy RA5OC due to leave for home.
Kelly stared at the outline of the land and the bleak north coast of Russia. Somewhere to the west, thirty-odd merchant ships, carrying enough armaments to equip a division, were plodding slowly towards them. They had a long way to go and he was not deluded that the Germans weren’t aware of them.
As Chichester and Sarawak left the following day, it was well below freezing and the land lay under a thick layer of snow and ice. Turning about at a point sixty miles south-west of where Verschoyle’s convoy would be, they swept across the danger zone where the German ships, if they came, would appear. There was no sun and they could see very little horizon; with a continuous blanket of low cloud, periods of snow and even elusive and inexplicable patches of mist. The navigator was working on pure dead reckoning, keeping the plot up-to-date with unknown rates of drift and the unsteady compasses of the high latitudes as the ship battled against the heavy seas that made steering difficult.
Deciding that the convoy would probably have been blown off its course by the gale, Kelly made up his mind to head southwards.
‘We don’t want to be spotted by some Hun pilot out for a blow after lunch,’ he said. ‘Ask the destroyers what fuel they have left.’
The destroyers reported they were very low and he had just ordered them back to Varenga to oil when Latimer appeared. ‘Admiralty signal, sir. “Suspect convoy JW5OD detected by U-boat while passing Bear Island.”’
Kelly read the signal and handed it back. He was in position. There was nothing he could do but wait.
Sleet and rain were driving in sheets across the bridge structure and the funnel smoke was whipped away to nothing even as it emerged. The wind numbed bare flesh, explored every aperture in clothing and made bloodshot the eyes of the men who had to stare into it.
Gazing over the bridge screen, his gloved hands round a mug of scalding cocoa, thick as liquid mud, Kelly tried to balance the odds. A signal had been picked up from Lotus, one of Verschoyle’s ships, to Langdale, his flotilla leader, indicating that she’d depth-charged a submarine contact, and following this, there had been intense enemy radio activity. In his heart he knew it was the Germans preparing to leave harbour. They must have picked up the convoy on their radar and would know its approximate route.
He was not an emotional man and had never suffered from self-doubt, but he knew that a naval commander, like his counterparts on land and in the air, could make or break himself in a second by a wrong decision. Success would be applauded but failure was never allowed. The men in London who had so conspicuously failed to provide the services with the weapons they needed would not hesitate to demand the removal of anyone who failed to use the little they had to the best advantage. Responsibility was a fine thing to have, he decided, with the rank and power that went with it, but when it included the lives of hundreds of men it could also be a heavy load.
‘What’s the met situation?’ he asked.
‘Untidy, sir.’
‘Where’s London?’
‘Turned back, sir. They were south of the convoy until two days ago.’
Kelly nodded. He had a feeling that this would be the day when things would happen if they were going to happen at all. He was heading now towards where he thought the convoy was and he intended to cover it by steaming ten miles north of its planned route and fifty miles astern of it. Orders clearly stated that cruisers were not to approach nearer unless the enemy were spotted.
‘Oh-four-five, please. Revolutions for seventeen knots.’
He intended to steam across the convoy’s wake before turning astern of it so that he would have the advantage of light during the short hours of visibility, and might even avoid air reconnaissance; while, if the German heavies were coming out, he ought to be able to intercept them either from ahead or astern. He just hoped his guess at the convoy’s position and the navigator’s workings were correct.
With the ship iced up, steam hoses were playing on the foredeck to get rid of the ice when Latimer appeared alongside him once more. ‘Signal, sir. From SBNO, North Russia: “German destroyer detected off North Cape. U-boats ahead and south of JW5OD.”’
‘It seems to be brewing up, William,’ Kelly said.
They continued on their course under darkening skies. It was freezing cold and the heavy cloud and lack of daylight made a depressing scene. Already the ice was beginning to form again on the ship. Soon afterwards, Latimer produced another signal.
‘PHOTOGRAPHS OF TRONDHEIM AT 1400/3 SHOW THAT CRUISERS ZIETHEN AND MÜFFLING AND FOUR DESTROYERS HAVE LEFT.’
Kelly studied the signal for a moment. Both Zeithen and Müffling were bigger than his own ships.
‘Well, that’s that, Henry,’ he said to Pardoe. ‘I think I’ll go and get something to eat. It might be a good idea to let the watches get something hot inside them, too. We don’t know when we might meet these gentry.’
Rumbelo was waiting below to take his layers of bridge clothing.
‘I hear the Germans are out, sir,’ he said.
His mind busy, Kelly grunted an affirmative and Rumbelo was silent for a while before he spoke again, slowly and soberly. ‘This is no place to be flying, sir,’ he said.
Kelly had no sooner returned to the bridge when another signal arrived. ‘Admiralty to C.-in-C., Home Fleet, sir,’ Latimer said. ‘“Further A2 report states warships are expected to attack FW5OD between fifteen degrees and –” It ends with corrupt groups due to interference.’
Kelly found himself wondering. East or west? He was still debating it when a signal arrived from the Admiralty to the Home Fleet and the escorts of JW5OD. ‘ENEMY UNITS APPROACHING CONVOY. SUBMARINE REPORTS LOSING THEM IN FOG. EXACT POSITION UNKNOWN. ADVISE AIR RECONNAISSANCE.’
Kelly stood in silence, his face taut and grim against the lash of spray as he thought of Paddy’s small anxious face. This is it, he felt, and soon afterwards, Chichester’s operators intercepted a signal from Langdale to Parsifal – ‘FLY OFF. SEARCH SOUTH.’
He wondered what it had cost Verschoyle.
He noticed Latimer looking at him and he hitched his heavy scarf closer about his neck. They both knew what it meant. CAM-ship aircraft were never catapulted off until things were desperate and, when they were, it usually meant the end for the pilot.
‘You might pass the word to the WIT room to keep it to themselves, William,’ Kelly said.
As Latimer turned away the bridge voice pipe went. ‘Radar to bridge. Echo seven and a half miles to the north-west.’
‘Pass it to Sarawak,’ Pardoe said. ‘And sound action stations.’
As the alarm rattles went and the greased cardboard discs covering the guns were removed, below in magazine and shell rooms the supply parties loaded the cordite hoists with flashless charges and the shell hoists with shell.
‘Instruct Sarawak to fire night tracer to distinguish her fall of shot from ours,’ Kelly said. ‘Order her to conform to our movements and follow five cables astern.’
‘More radar reports, sir! Two echoes steering eastwards. They aren’t U-boats.’
‘Probably stragglers from the convoy.’
‘Or enemy surface ships, sir.’
‘Echoes steering oh-eight-nine! Making twenty-three knots.’
‘They’re not stragglers,’ Pardoe said. ‘They’re too fast.’
‘Appears to have possibilities,’ Kelly agreed. ‘We’ll close, to track and establish touch.’
As the ships turned south-east, another report came.
‘Blurred object bearing oh-eight-nine.’
As the guns and directors swung to the new sighting, however, the information came that the contact was doing only ten knots.
‘Must be a different contact,’ Kelly said. ‘Follow the first one.’
For half an hour, the strange ships continued steaming eastwards without any alteration of course or speed and without any clue to their identity. Then, unexpectedly, Rumbelo sang out from the back of the bridge.
‘Gun flashes to the south!’
As they swung round to stare over their wake, beyond and above Sarawak’s swinging masthead they could see a flickering white glow against the clouds.
‘Probably ack-ack fired at Russian aircraft,’ Kelly decided. ‘We’ll stick with the contacts.’
But as he leafed through the deciphered signals, he was growing worried. He was still uncertain of the position of the convoy. It ought to be to the east and experience indicated that after the gales there might well be stragglers, while the gunfire might well be from the detached escorts rounding them up.
‘More gunfire, sir!’ Rumbelo reported. ‘Looks heavy, too.’
‘Sir!’ It was the signals officer. ‘Signal from Lotus to Langdale: “Three destroyers bearing three-oh-nine. My position 72 degrees 35 minutes north, 28.00 east.”’
‘They can’t be British destroyers,’ Kelly growled. ‘Navigator, prepare a course.’
The ship continued to butt into the seas, Sarawak keeping station astern. Aware of a tightening of the throat, Kelly knew that somewhere ahead in the murk there were German ships.
‘Signal, sir, from Langdale on fleet wave: “‘Unknown ship bearing three-two-four, range seven miles, course one-three-nine. Position–”’
A second signal followed, ‘THREE UNKNOWN BEARING THREE-TWO-FOUR.’ and almost immediately another, ‘ONE CRUISER BEARING THREE-THREE-NINE.’
Holding course some minutes longer, Kelly studied the chart. Judging by the flashes they’d seen, somewhere in the murk of the northern afternoon, one or all of Verschoyle’s ships were in trouble and it was clearly his duty, as it had been since Nelson’s time, to steer towards the sound of the guns. But he had no sure knowledge that the firing came from the convoy because the flashes came from the south and they’d estimated that the convoy was to the east. His first concern was the convoy, yet, judging by the flashes, they still had forty-odd miles to go to reach it, a good hour and a half’s steaming in which time enemy heavies – if the firing came from German heavies – could blast it from the sea. It was a disturbing thought.
He decided to act on a hunch. What radar had picked up were stragglers and the convoy was to the south.
‘What’s the course to the gun flashes, Pilot?’
‘One-six-nine, sir.’
He turned to Pardoe. ‘We’ll turn on to that, please, Henry. And make to Langdale “Am approaching you on course one-six-nine.” Then let’s pipe hands to supper. They have twenty minutes.’
The ship was silent as she drove south with her consort; two thousand men hurtling into the unknown, eyes fixed on instruments and counters, hands busy with levers and wheels, bodies moving to the shift of the sea. Many of them had spent all night at action stations, heads pillowed on lifebelts, while inside the ship away from the smell of salt spray and the tang of wet decks the long lines of lights turned night into day with the winking indicators and the steady murmur of machinery. The doctors were laying out their instruments and communications were being checked and rechecked, blank-faced men testing systems and gun mountings, training them from side to side to ensure there was no interference from the ice; while in every corner of the ship, often frighteningly alone, other men watched dials and instruments as they waited.
Pardoe had spoken to the ship’s company, telling them the situation as it appeared from the bridge. Provided they knew what was going on, they would accept any level of discomfort and danger, but when they didn’t understand morale was affected. They didn’t mind the captain blowing his top, or even appearing without his trousers, if that were normal, but so long as he ran true to form life was ordered and they could accept what he asked of them. Nobody liked being shot at or did his job as well when he was being shot at, but it was a help to know why it was happening, and made facing the grim music just a bit easier.
‘Intercepted signal from Langdale, sir!’ The report broke into Kelly’s thoughts. ‘“Have been hit forward.”’
So Verschoyle had found the enemy, or to be more exact, the enemy had found Verschoyle.
‘Hoist battle ensign!’
The great white jack jerked up to the yardarm, almost obscured in the murk. Kelly’s eyes lifted to it and, staring upwards, he suddenly recalled Verschoyle’s signal to Parsifal. Where was Hugh now? Somewhere out in the stir of low cloud, bad light and lifting seas? By this time he must be out of petrol, and unless he’d ditched right alongside his ship he’d never be found. He drew a deep breath that was painful in his chest and tried to thrust the thought from his mind. He could see other men about him and wondered what was going on in their minds. Were they, too, worried about sons or brothers? They all knew since Pardoe’s broadcast that they were about to meet a superior enemy force, and he knew they, too, were afraid – not of death because you didn’t wonder ‘Shall I be killed today?’ – but of everything that there was to attend to, and of letting down everybody else about them who was dependent on them. What was happening to Verschoyle? What had happened to Hugh? How could he best bring his ships to the enemy so that they could bring the biggest number of guns to bear?
His thoughts were interrupted by Latimer. ‘Signal from Langdale, sir. “Am retiring on convoy under smoke screen. Forward magazine flooded. Fire in boiler room.” They’re also picking up Lindsay now, sir. She’s been holed forward and reduced to fifteen knots.’
Kelly nodded, wishing Chichester were faster. She was crashing along now at full speed but it seemed terribly slow under the circumstances. With two ships badly hit, Verschoyle was desperately in need of help.
‘We’re picking up Langdale to Lotus, sir,’ the signals officer reported. ‘It’s garbled but the message’s clear. Captain D’s been wounded and he’s instructing Lotus to take over for the time being.’
So they’d got Verschoyle, too! How bad was it, Kelly wondered, and how would Maisie take it? Well, he imagined, because she wasn’t the type to panic.
He was trying to concentrate when another garbled signal from Langdale was received.
‘CONVOY COURSE 178. CRUISER CLOSE TO CONVOY… CAPITAL SHIPS… CLOSING CONVOY.’
What was missing? It seemed that more than one German heavy was doing the attacking and, against odds like that, Verschoyle could be wiped out with all his ships. He’d already lost two of the escort and, if they were retiring, was it because they’d managed to drive off the Germans or because they were being overwhelmed? The only thing he knew with certainty was that somewhere ahead were superior enemy forces. The Germans didn’t risk much these days with anything else but superior forces because they didn’t appear to like gunfire. He felt a little like someone trying to pluck up courage to plunge into an ice-cold bath, and in the pit of his stomach was the sensation he’d often felt as a boy before starting a race at school. He wasn’t afraid but he was terrified of making a mistake that might lose the lives of everybody around him.
He glanced at Pardoe. He seemed calm and didn’t look oddly at Kelly, so he could only imagine that he must look calm, too. There would be no failure. The ship had done good service in more than one action and her company had been together a long time now. Just astern he could see Sarawak on the port quarter, her bow wave just visible in the gloom.
‘Home Fleet’s preparing for sea, sir!’ Latimer appeared alongside him, laconic as he kept him informed of the shape of events.
‘They’ll be a bit pushed to get here in time to help,’ Kelly growled. ‘What ships?’
‘KG Five, sir, with Howe, Kent, Berwick, Bermuda and destroyers. They’re heading towards the homeward-bound convoy.’
The minutes seemed to drag. Occasionally they saw the gun flashes ahead, getting nearer all the time, and he was so tense he forgot the cold. The flickering glare in the clouds came again and he hoped his message had been received. It was no help but it might encourage and it would identify his ships as he burst out of the murk, because in the twilight it would be difficult to tell who it was appearing. Still firm in his mind was the need to see the convoy safe to Murmansk and allow the homeward-bound convoy to slip away undetected.
The ship was crashing into the sea at its full thirty-two knots now and, with fuel oil being burned at a fantastic rate, he knew that whatever the outcome, he would have to go back to Kola Inlet when it was over. The boiler room fans were thundering and the noise was such that it was impossible to speak, and suddenly he became aware of the cold as the icy wind drove in his face. Fine spray was lifting and blowing over the deck to add to the ice already there. Above his head the radar aerials moved like the antennae of some great steel animal.
By this time it was possible to pick up the individual gun flashes and see smoke along the horizon, and he guessed that behind it somewhere Verschoyle was probably fighting with everything he’d got for the convoy. Everything depended on Kelly but he couldn’t blunder into the fight without identifying the enemy or he might well find Verschoyle’s ships between them. And while there was light he had to keep it behind the Germans because the only way he could hope to make up for the weakness of his own force was by keeping to the darkness.
‘Radar reports large ship ahead! Range nine miles.’ Almost immediately, another big ship was picked up fourteen miles away on the port bow. The first ship appeared to be steering east across Chichester’s bows while the second was steering a course that was bringing her nearer to them with every second.
‘Any destroyers?’
‘Nothing else shown, sir.’
On their present courses, the two unidentified ships would disappear to the eastward away from the lighter sky to the south, and over there a confused battle was going on with gun flashes flickering against the cloud formations.
‘Turn to port on a course parallel with the first target.’
Even as he spoke, Rumbelo yelled. ‘Large ship dead ahead! The words were like an electric shock and heads jerked up as they strained their eyes for this new opponent. Already the forward turrets were swinging, the muzzles lifting. Except for the sound of the sea, the crackle of orders and reports over telephones, an enormous silence seemed to enfold the ship.
‘Two smaller ships in company! Presumably destroyers.’ The big ship they could now just see appeared to be firing to the east and they clearly saw the tracer shells arcing away.
‘Firing fast, sir. About seven salvoes a minute.’
‘Alter course to the target!’
The unknown ship could now be seen as a dark blur against a rolling bank of smoke which presumably had been put down by Verschoyle’s ships. She was still stern-on but as she turned to starboard her silhouette changed.
‘It’s Müffling,’ Latimer snapped.
She had presented them with a perfect target. ‘Come round to starboard,’ Kelly said. ‘Make to Admiralty “Am engaging the enemy.”’
As Chichester thundered round, with Sarawak in her wake, Pardoe, his eyes flickering between the enemy ship and the range dial, looked up. ‘Permission to open fire?’
Kelly nodded and Pardoe bent over the voice pipe. ‘Open fire!’
The crash of the guns shuddered the ship as the twelve huge shells sped from all four turrets. As the guns recoiled, the smoke was whipped away by the wind with the acrid bitter smell of burnt cordite, and the shells described their endless arcs towards Müffling. After weeks of seeing nothing at sea, as always it was an unreal feeling to be firing at the enemy.
‘Over!’
The second salvo was short but as the guns roared for the third time, they saw a dull red glow between the enemy ship’s funnel and mainmast.
‘We’ve hit her!’
Both ships were firing at tremendous speed now. They had obtained complete surprise. Müffling’s guns had still been firing to port and both Chichester and Sarawak had got off four salvos before they’d been brought round to starboard.
‘She’s turning towards us!’
They could see destroyers moving ahead of the big ship now, their funnels streaming smoke as they tried to lay a screen to hide her.
‘Starboard. We’ll keep in step.’
‘Range four miles.’
It was hard for Kelly to tell what the German ship was doing now but by conforming to her movements he could keep all his guns bearing and hold her against the light.
They waited tensely for the German ship to come on to a steady course, but she continued her turn towards them and then, in the murk, ran into the growing smoke screen and vanished into the darkness.
‘Cease firing!’
Staring ahead, Kelly tried to decide what the German ship was doing. Was she continuing to circle so that she would come out a mile further east, or was she endeavouring to escape to the south? He decided it was safer to assume she was going round in a complete circle and Chichester continued to turn herself, with Sarawak close behind.
‘Ship red one-oh!’
‘Looks like a destroyer!’
The oncoming ship might well be one of Verschoyle’s ships, but she was in a perfect position to fire torpedoes and it was best to take no chances.
‘Steer towards.’
As they turned towards the enemy ship to comb torpedoes, the range-taker calling out the range, Chichester was doing over thirty knots. As they steadied on the other ship, Pardoe was straining his eyes ahead.
‘I don’t think she’s one of ours!’
‘Funnels are too far apart, sir,’ Rumbelo called out.
‘Ready to fire!’ the gunnery officer reported.
‘Make the challenge!’
As the lights were switched on, two white lights came on from the other ship.
‘Wrong answer,’ Pardoe snapped. ‘Open fire!’
The six guns of the forward turrets crashed out at point blank range.
‘You could almost ram the bugger, Henry,’ Kelly said.
Chichester was still swinging as the shells smashed into the destroyer. Fires broke out at once and several more explosions showed as the second and third salvoes struck.
‘I don’t think you’ll need to ram after all,’ Kelly observed flatly.
By the seventh salvo, the enemy ship was smothered in smoke and flame and was falling to pieces before their eyes. She was so close now that the four-inch AA guns opened up and as they heard the rhythmic pounding of the multiple pom-poms, the men running along the destroyer’s deck were swept away. She was down by the bows already and a mass of flames but as they swept past, the after-turrets continued to fire, every gun hitting her so that she was completely overwhelmed, unable to use either her guns or her torpedo tubes. As Sarawak thundered past, yellow, red and green rockets soared from the nest of flames and they saw the ship sinking lower and lower in the water.