From the Captain’s Report
… until I turned back again into the smoke screen…
On the bridge the sudden crash of the guns made Jerningham jump, the way it always did. He told himself that if he had any means of knowing just when that crash was coming he would not jump, but up here on the bridge there was no warning. He felt the hot blast of the explosion, and looked towards the enemy to see if he could spot the fall of the shot; so the crash of the next broadside caught him off his guard again and made him jump and miss it. He hoped none of the ratings on duty up here had seen him jump – that second time he was sure his feet had left the deck. The third crash came at that moment and he jumped again. The din was appalling, and with every broadside he was shaken by the blast of the guns.
He straightened his cap, which had fallen perilously lopsided: and tried to stiffen himself against the next broadside. It was hard to think in these conditions; those explosions jumbled a man’s thoughts like shaking up a jigsaw puzzle. He felt envy, almost hatred, for the Officer of the Watch and the Torpedo Lieutenant and the Navigating Lieutenant standing together like a group of statuary. By the time he pulled himself together half a dozen broadsides had been fired; Artemis had been out of the smoke bank a full minute, Jerningham looked again to starboard in time to see the first Italian salvo fling up the sea before his eyes; then he heard another rumble terrifyingly close over his head. He saw the whole Italian line a-sparkle with gunfire. Every one of those ships was firing at him.
He gulped, and then with one last effort regained his self-control, panic fading out miraculously the way neuralgia sometimes did, and he was left savouring, almost doubtingly, his new-won calm, as, when the neuralgia had gone, he savoured doubtingly his freedom from pain. Remembering the notes he had to take regarding the course of the battle he took out pad and pencil again, referring to his wrist watch and making a hasty average of the time which had elapsed since his last entries and now. When he looked up again he saw the sea boiling with shell-splashes. It seemed incredible that Artemis could go through such a fire without being hit.
But the Captain was turning and giving an order to the Navigating Lieutenant, and then speaking into the voice pipe; the din was so terrific that Jerningham at his distance could hear nothing that he said. Artemis heeled and turned abruptly away from the enemy, and the gunfire ended with equal abruptness. Only a second or two elapsed before they were back again in the comforting smoke and darkness and silence; the smoke bank took the ship into its protection like a mother enfolding her child.
‘God!’ said Jerningham aloud, ‘we’re well out of that.’
He heard, but could not see, another salvo strike the water close alongside; some of the spray which it threw up spattered on to the bridge. He wondered if the Italians were purposefully firing, blind, into the smoke, or if this was a salvo fired off by a shaken and untrained ship unable to check its guns’ crews; as it became apparent that this was the only salvo fired it seemed that the second theory was the correct one.
The smoke was beginning to thin.
‘Hard-a-starboard!’ said the Captain, suddenly and a trifle more loudly than was his wont.
Artemis leaned steeply over, so steeply that the empty ammunition cases went cascading over the decks with a clatter that rang through the ship. The Navigating Lieutenant was saying the name of God as loudly as Jerningham had done, and was grabbing nervously at the compass before him. Jerningham looked forward. Dimly visible on the port bow were the upper works of a light cruiser, and right ahead was another, old Hera, the companion of Artemis in so many Mediterranean sallies. The ships were approaching each other at seventy miles an hour.
‘Jesus!’ said the Navigating Lieutenant, his face contorted with strain.
Jerningham saw Hera swing, felt Artemis swing. The two ships flashed past each other on opposite courses not twenty yards apart; Jerningham could see the officers on Hera’s bridge staring across at them, and the set faces of the ratings posted at Hera’s portside Oerlikon gun.
‘Midships,’ said the Captain. ‘Steady!’
Artemis went back to a level keel, dashing along the windward edge of the smoke bank away from the rest of the squadron. The Navigating Lieutenant put two fingers into his collar and pulled against its constriction.
‘That was a near thing, sir,’ he said to the Captain; the calmness in his voice was artificial.
‘Yes, pretty close,’ replied the Captain simply.
It must have been very shortly after Artemis had turned into the smoke to attack the enemy that the Admiral had led the rest of the squadron back again on an opposite course, so that Artemis turning back through the smoke had only just missed collision with the last two ships in the line. But because of good seamanship and quick thinking no collision had taken place; that was the justification of the risk taken.
The Captain smiled, grimly and secretly, as he reconstructed the encounter in his mind. When ships dash about at thirty knots in a fogbank surprising things are likely to happen. A twenty-yard margin and a combined speed of sixty-two knots meant that he had given the order to starboard the helm with just half a second to spare. As a boy he had been trained, and as a man he had been training himself for twenty years, to make quick decisions in anticipation of moments just like that.
Back in 1918 the Captain had been a midshipman in the Grand Fleet, and he had been sent in his picket-boat with a message to the Fleet Flagship one day when they were lying at Rosyth. He had swung his boat neatly under Queen Elizabeth’s stern, turning at full speed, and then, going astern with his engines, had come to a perfect stop at the foot of Queen Elizabeth’s gangway. He had delivered his message and was about to leave again when a messenger stopped him.
‘The Admiral would like to see you on the quarterdeck, sir.’
He went aft to where Acting-Admiral Sir David Beatty, GCB, commanding the Grand Fleet, was pacing the deck.
‘Are you the wart who brought that picket-boat alongside?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did you see my notice?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’ve flooded my damned cabin with your damned wash. The first time the scuttles have been open for weeks. I go to the trouble of putting out a notice to say “slow” and the first damned little wart in his damned little picket-boat that comes alongside sends half the damned Firth of Forth over my damned furniture. My compliments to your Lieutenant, and you’re to have six of the best. Of the best, remember.’
The midshipman displayed quickness of thought and firmness of decision to save himself from the pain and indignity of a beating. He stood his ground stubbornly.
‘Well?’ snapped the Admiral.
‘That notice isn’t hung so that anyone can see it coming under the ship’s stern, sir. It’s quite invisible from there.’
‘Are you arguing with me?’
‘Yes, sir. If the notice had been visible I should have seen it.’
That was a downright statement of fact, addressed boldly by a sixteen-year-old midshipman to the Commander-in-Chief. Beatty looked the boy up and down keenly, realizing that in this particular case a midshipman was sure of what he was saying. If his statement were to be put to the test it would probably prove to be correct; and to make the test would be a most undignified proceeding for an Admiral.
‘Very good, then. I’ll cancel my order. Instead you will report to your Lieutenant that you have been arguing with the Commander-in-Chief. I’ll leave the verdict to him. Carry on.’
That was Beatty’s quickness of decision. He could not be guilty of an act of injustice, but discipline might suffer if some unfledged midshipman would be able to boast of having bested him in an argument. He could rely on the Lieutenant to see to it that discipline did not suffer, to administer a beating for the purpose of making sure that the midshipman did not get too big for his boots. And in the end, the midshipman had escaped the beating by simply disobeying the Admiral’s order. He had made no report to the Lieutenant, thereby imperilling his whole professional career and running the risk of dire punishment in addition; a big stake. But the odds were so heavy against the Commander-in-Chief inquiring as to whether a midshipman had made an obviously trivial report to his Lieutenant that it was a safe gamble which had succeeded.
In the mind of a boy of sixteen to argue with an Admiral and to disobey an order was as great a risk as it was for a captain to face the fire of the Italian navy and to charge through a smoke screen at thirty knots. There was risk in exposing a light cruiser to the fire of battleships. But, carefully calculated, the odds were not so great. Artemis emerged from the smoke screen ready to open fire. The Italians had to see her first, and then train their guns around, ascertain the range, open fire. Their instruments would not be as carefully looked after, nor as skilfully handled. It would take them much longer to get on to the target. And the more ships which fired upon Artemis the better; the numerous splashes would only serve to confuse the spotters and gunnery officers – a ship that tried to correct its guns’ elevations by observing the fall of another ship’s shells was lost indeed. The greatest risk to be run was that of pure chance, of a fluke salvo hitting the target, and against that risk must be balanced the utter necessity of hitting the Italians. The Captain had calculated the odds to a close approximation.