Breakout

illuminated a dark shadow ahead—Scharnhorst.

Now the battleship kept close on Hermann Schoemann's stern as they steamed together towards the channel and the pilot ship which would guide her into Wilhelmshaven. She proceeded at reduced speed, as the special mine-sweeper to clear the way would not be ready until 7 o'clock next morning. They did not want to take any unnecessary risks in this mine-infested area.

Scharnhorst was safe but in a bad way. She reported: '(1) Starboard and middle engines operational for fourteen knots. Port engine temporarily inoperational. (2) Limited oil and water supplies but sufficient for returning to the River Elbe. (3) Greatly restricted supplies of shells including heavy A.A. shells. (4) Flooding causing no vital failures. (5) One man badly wounded.'

But what about the rest of the Squadron? If they had sunk the operation had failed. In fact Prinz Eugen and Gneisenau were also safe.

Just before midnight Gneisenau made contact with Prinz Eugen and was ordered to go with her to the coastal town of Brunsbuttel on the north bank of the Elbe, sixty miles northwest of Hamburg. It was at the western terminus of the Kiel Canal, which connects the Baltic with the North Sea.

As the night wore on, the British admitted the Germans had made it. At 1 a.m. in London, First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound lifted the private telephone which connected him with 10 Downing Street. While embarrassed senior staff officers gazed intently at maps on the War Room walls he made one of the worst reports an English admiral ever had to make to an English Prime Minister.

Pound said, 'I'm afraid, sir I must report that the enemy battle-cruisers should by now have reached the safety of their home waters.' Churchill growled, 'Why?' and slammed the phone down.

XII THE SHIPS CRAWL HOME

While the German ships were steaming slowly through the black night towards the safety of their home ports, in another part of the North Sea HMS Worcester was crawling painfully like a wounded animal towards the east coast of England. With smoke pouring from the after-funnel, steam belching from a great rent in her starboard side and her engines noisily clanking and thumping, she went ahead at six and a half knots — until 7:15 p.m., when steam was lost for several minutes. At 9:30 p.m., after steam had been lost again, she began to move at three and a half knots, working gradually up to seven knots.

As the ship staggered through the night, 'Doc' Jackson still tried to tend the wounded. He performed emergency operations with his hands torn and bleeding, and his instruments blunted. All the time came the call for help.

Eventually all the bad casualties had some sort of first aid. The next task was to place them in some reasonable comfort. The holes in the bulkhead between the cabin flat and the ward-room had been plugged with wooden leak stoppers and someone had managed to make the lights work. So the doctor decided to use this as a temporary sick-bay. But the cabin flat was at the bottom of a vertical steel ladder, which was very difficult to get a wounded man down, and many of them had compound fractures of the legs making it difficult to move them at all. While the doctor tried to cope with them, sick-berth attendant Shelley dealt with the minor casualties who were eventually coming aft for treatment after repeated orders.

Even the unwounded were still dazed and tense. When Gun-layer Douglas Ward went to report to the wheel-house he was told, 'Shut the door, you bloody fool! Someone will see the light.' He replied, 'There is no door, sir.'

Then he went to man the starboard Oerlikon and found the gun position a bloody mess of torn flesh where the crew of two had been killed. At least he thought there were two. He covered the pieces with an oilskin and stood watch.

The cook had been killed, but someone volunteered to go into the galley and open tins to make a stew, throwing everything into a pail. The crew ate it hungrily.

Commander Coats said, 'I think I would have gone stark raving mad if I hadn't had to concentrate on getting my ship home. It was a tragic disappointment. You cannot get any closer in daylight, and at least two of my three torpedoes should have hit the Gneisenau, but they missed and all these lives were wasted.'

It was bitterly cold. The wind was rising and the smoke from the funnel driving into the mist over the dark sea made everyone aboard the ship feel lonely and deserted.

This feeling was increased when Engineer Griffiths told the captain that if the ship stopped for any length of time there was a good chance she would sink. He was not being pessimistic. When the salt water in the boilers stopped the ship every hour or so, she immediately began to loll about in the waves. Every time she seemed to go farther over to starboard and hesitate before righting herself frighteningly slowly. Before she did so everyone thought, 'This is it. We are done. We are finished.'

After seeing all the wounded were fairly comfortable, Jackson climbed painfully up the shattered ladder to the bridge to give Commander Coats his report. After he had told him the number of wounded and dead he broke down. He opened his mouth but no further words came. Coats looked at the doctor and said gently, 'You had better get on with your job, Doc.'

It was a terrible tale. Out of the ship's company of 130, over half were either killed or wounded. The total of dead was seventeen and there were six men missing. According to Admiralty figures, there were eighteen seriously wounded and twenty-seven slightly wounded — though Dr. Jackson claims to have dealt with nearly a hundred dead and wounded. Most of the slightly wounded were able to carry out their duties and help man the ship after being attended by Jackson.

He returned to supervise the more severe cases, whose shipmates had gently carried them to such shelter as they could find. While he was doing this he realized the noise of the engines had ceased once more.

This time they drifted for an hour and a half, in heavy seas off the Dutch coast, alone, disabled and probably sinking. With everything in darkness and wounded men lying groaning everywhere the listing ship seemed doomed as she wallowed in the heavy swell. The seas curled and broke over her decks strewn with jagged wreckage and peppered with splinter holes.

The doctor's chief horror was what would happen to the wounded if the ship sank. He tried not to admit it to himself — but in those icy seas survival even for the unwounded would probably be brief.

But the destroyer did not sink. Just before midnight, Griffiths and his men started the engines again and she began to creep slowly forward. They were also able to pump out some water, making the list less dangerous.

It was a moonless night, but the wind began dispersing the mists to give reasonable visibility. Every attempt was made to preserve naval discipline. Making smoke in wartime was a terrible crime in the Royal Navy and while Worcester was crawling at seven knots across the North Sea with a 20-degree list, a sailor arrived from the bridge with a message for the Chief Engineer, 'Captain's compliments, but he would be obliged if you would reduce the amount of smoke.'

Griffiths sent back a message, 'Owing to the holes in the ship there is a complete air passage through the engine room and I cannot stop the smoke.'

With most of his navigational aids gone, the only way Coats could bring his ship home was to endeavour to steer back along the exact track on which he had come out, based on the magnetic compass course Campbell had given him. This meant he had to cross the minefield once again. This seemed a minor worry now. In their disabled condition, the tides and sandbanks were even more dangerous. As he was unable to signal, no one knew where he was or when he was likely to arrive.

After midnight silence fell on the ship, broken only by the labouring of the engines and the creakings of the battered wreckage as she rolled in the rising wind. Except for those on watch everyone seemed to be asleep. Even the wounded were asleep and fairly comfortable. Four never woke.

The doctor still toured the ship seeing that all the wounded were well covered with blankets, especially those lying on deck. The badly wounded who could not be moved lay in ones and twos in all parts of the ship from the wheel-house to the engine room. The sick-bay was still too damaged to use and the lobby outside it smelt of