“I tend to agree, sir. Do we have anyindication of what is to hand at Zeebrugge, sir?”
“Aeroplanes went over earlier this week,bombing and reconnaissance. Far more the latter, of course – their little bombsare futile against ships or shore batteries. They saw almost nothing. Smalllaunches and a pair of harbour defence craft carrying maybe a single six inchon something little more than a motorised barge.”
“The launches carrying torpedoes, sir?”
“No. A small gun, a two or three poundersort of thing. Useful for chasing down small boats trying to make a clandestinelanding of spies along the shoreline. It’s my opinion that they are relying onthe shore guns for any defence. They are still building more batteries allalong the coast. Some of the guns are massive.”
“Makes it impossible to bring an armyashore along the coast, sir, behind the Trenches.”
“I do not think the Army has evenconsidered that course, Sturton. The generals are not very good at thinkingabout things, you know. Much better at doing, providing somebody else can tellthem what.”
“Getting back to the sea, sir, any attackon the bombarding ships will come down the coast. Destroyers, one presumes, tomake the speed to reach them.”
“Logical, Sturton. Bigger than yourL-Class boats, all of them.”
“Hopefully, not expecting us, sir.”
They shrugged in unison and Simon returnedto Lancelot with the intention of sleeping for a couple of hours before theysailed. He would be busy all night, would need to keep alert.
He sat for a few minutes signing the legaldocuments necessary to break the entail on the Perceval estates, possible onlynow that he had celebrated his twenty-first birthday, an event he had belatedlyrecalled as occurring in recent weeks.
His uncle, the current Viscount Percevalintended to place all of his farmland on the market and had little doubt of itselling even in wartime. There were still those members of the House of Lords whofirmly believed that the Land was the bulwark of the aristocracy and snapped upany acreage close to their home estates. Even more land-hungry, so Simon hadbeen told, were the newly ennobled, distinguished by their money rather thantheir blue blood and anxious to make a show of aristocratic probity.
He wished them good luck. Farmland was aburden to the go-ahead, producing small income and vast costs. Wheat forEnglish bread was better grown on the American and Canadian Prairies; beef wascheaper in South America; sheep meat and wool came from South Africa and theAntipodes. The English farmer could not compete against the foreigners and toofew were willing to turn their acres to those crops that could be grown at lowercost in Britain. The wise man was the one who washed his hands of agriculture.There was a temporary, wartime upsurge in prices, he had been told; the end ofthe war would finish that.
The Perceval money would be sensiblyinvested, he had no doubt, quite possibly guided by the Isaacs interest. Hisuncle intended to retain a few acres in Kent, little more than a parksurrounding the country house he had chosen to create in place of the greatmansion down on the borders of Devon and Dorset. That would provide a pleasantlocation for the family, close, but not too much so, to London. Inevitably,thought of a family led to consideration of his possible, perhaps probable,future wife.
An attractive girl, Alice Parrett, andwell bred to the post of a gentleman’s lady. She was not of the aristocracyherself but could step up as easily as he could, possibly more so. Prettyrather than beautiful, with enormous eyes that a man could drown in… Not asbright as Baker’s Primrose Patterson, few were; more intelligent than theaverage, that was for sure. Add to that, he was increasingly sure he had fallenin love with her, something he had never done before. He was fairly certain sheloved him, too. The end of the war or promotion to commander would be time topropose and then a rapid wedding – no point to delaying longer than he must.
“Packer! These to the post, please.”
The legal documents came with their heavyenvelope, pre-addressed to his trustees, now his lawyers as he was of age,Aitkens, Aitkens and Trim, one of the leading legal lights of the City, he had discovered.
Packer, who had unearthed the documentsand placed them prominent on the desk, said nothing, took them to the ship’spostman to go ashore with his bag before they sailed.
It was too late to sleep, he had taken upone of his two hours on more or less necessary personal business. He stretchedhis legs as far as the bridge, found Canning there, tacking a chart to thesmall table available on the larger destroyer.
“Latest minefields, sir. Getting thickerevery week. Useful to us, of course. Anything bigger than a gunboat has tostick to the channels if they are within five miles of the shore.”
“Don’t know that I would fancy driving agunboat in a straight line across a field, Mr Canning.”
“Some of these new boats are said to drawno more than three feet, sir. Very fast with it. A single torpedo or a sixpounder or its equivalent and a mass of machine guns, how many unclear. Thetorpedo boat could be a menace.”
“Don’t see a lot of point to a littlegunboat. A six pound shell is too small to do harm to a sloop even. I suppose aflotilla together could be a nuisance, not a lot more than that to us. Theywould do nothing to a monitor or predreadnought.”
“Designed to kill invasion barges, I suspect,sir. As we don’t intend to invade anything, not a great deal of point to them.”
“Prevents our making a landing behind the Trenches,or so SNO said.”
“Makes sense, sir… Do you think they mightbe considering the same?”
“I hope so, Number One! Think of the killingwe would make between us, the old battleships and the Harwich and Dover Patrols.It would take a lot of submarines and torpedo boats to hold us off.”
The predreadnoughts could use their massto plough through barges at fifteen knots, perhaps more, ramming some and overturningmore in
