“Old coal burners, as we suspected, MrStrachan. Might be merchant shipping, working the Dutch coast, possibly aprotected convoy to Denmark or Sweden… There is an amount of neutral trade intothe Baltic. Twelve knots is high for merchantmen, so unlikely.”
“Dutch navy, sir? Responding to news ofbattle by heading north to protect their waters against incursions by eitherside?”
That was likely; it would be a rationalaction to take.
“Yeoman, ‘flotilla to close on Lisle’.”
The ship heeled and led the way to formline a mile outside Dutch territorial waters.
Naiad was higher than Lisle, the gunneryofficer could see farther with his telescope.
“Thick haze inshore, sir. Seven vessels,line astern. Two small to the fore. Four of large three- and four-funnel ships,one very large. Single small ship bringing up the rear, sir. Three escorts,perhaps.”
It was possible that a neutral convoywould be escorted by the Dutch navy, taken up to Danish waters and handed overthere…
“Reduce speed to fourteen knots.”
The flotilla would reach international watersoff the Friesian Islands ahead of the convoy, if that was what it was, butstill well in sight.
There was a whistle from the wirelesscabin voicepipe. Simon bent to hear what was said.
“Indefatigable and Queen Mary lost, sir.”
“Jesus!”
Presumably Beatty had met up with thewhole High Seas Fleet and had been unable to disengage. As Simon remembered,Beatty had six battlecruisers while Hipper in a similar scouting role had onlyfive. Add to that, Beatty had recently been backed up by the squadron ofsuperdreadnoughts, fast and with fifteen inch guns. He could not have beendefeated by Hipper’s battlecruisers, must have met up with something muchgreater.
He passed the word to the bridge, noddedto the Yeoman to officially inform the flotilla. The word would have beenpassed by hands semaphoring from the stern, it could not be kept quiet.
“Aeroplane, sir. Southeast, approaching.”
“Do not fire on the aeroplane.”
They watched, saw a seaplane with Dutch colourscoming towards them. It circled, the observer waved and the plane pottered offtowards the unknown ships, flew around them for a few minutes before returningand dipping low over Naiad.
“Message canister, sir!”
A running hand grabbed at the trailingribbons, plucked the fist-sized canister out of the air, brought it to thebridge.
“Well done, Hardy. We would have lost thatif you had not been so quick.”
Hardy ran back to his gun, pleased that thecaptain had recognised him, knew his name.
The Yeoman opened the container, as wasonly proper as it must contain a message, and passed a sheet of paper to Simon.He read the message aloud.
“Seven German warships, in breach of Dutchwaters. Three patrol boats. One predreadnought, Braunschweig class. Three oldcruisers. Good luck.”
The Dutch were neutral – that did not meaneven-handed. German incursions into their waters had been creating increasingill-feeling and cooperation with Britain on the sly.
“Blood for supper, gentlemen, providedthey leave territorial waters. I wonder where they came from?”
Simon spent a few minutes composing acareful message to Harwich. He must keep Tyrwhitt informed, did not wantprescriptive orders restricting his initiative. He leant to the voicepipe.
“Wireless cabin! Commodore, Harwich.Shadowing German squadron in Dutch waters – position whatever – course forHeligoland. At current speed, interception in night hours.”
Strachan ran down with a note of precise latitudeand longitude, waited while the message was sent.
“Operator reports poor transmission quality,sir. There seems to be jamming of our frequencies, whatever they are. He cannotguarantee that Harwich will receive our message or that he will pick up anyreply.”
“Log that, please, Mr Strachan.”
He had done his duty. It was almost asgood as Nelson’s blind eye.
The attack on the four big ships must beby torpedo. The patrol craft were too small, must be taken by the guns, Naiad’ssix inch being the most sensible.
Simon briefly discussed his plan and thesignal he would send with Strachan. His second in command must know what was goingon in case of a shell hitting the bridge.
“Captain Faulds and half-flotilla to beready for torpedo attack on big ships. Naiad with Loring to pair of patrolboats ahead. Laker and Launceston to sink patrol boat astern and close with torpedoesat their discretion.”
Strachan agreed, suggested he should addthe words ‘close-range’ to Captain Fauld’s orders.
“Oh! Do you feel that to be necessary? Ihad not noticed.”
It was difficult to ask in public whetherStrachan thought the captain was shy.
“Inclined to be a thinking man, sir. Onewho might calculate the odds rather than go in hell for leather.”
“That will never do! Not in the boats, MrStrachan.”
“Exactly, sir.”
“I really think we must grant him theopportunity to be a hero, you know. Instead of ‘close-range’ put ‘at nightrange of no more than three cables’.”
“That should do the job, sir. His wholebridge will read that signal.”
They picked up occasional messages throughthe late afternoon and evening. There was a battle, a hundred and more miles totheir north. It was confused, visibility was poor, the High Seas Fleet hadoutmanoeuvred Jellicoe, turning away when he had looked to cross their T. Allthey could gather was of a long range action in which German gunnery was showingfar better. There was a massive and confused destroyer action ongoing,torpedoes everywhere, almost none of them hitting. The submarine trap that hadbeen feared had not eventuated. A third battlecruiser had been sunk, and two atleast of armoured cruisers. There was remarkably little reported by way ofGerman losses.
“As battles go, it’s all very tentative,it seems to me, sir.”
Strachan was trying to make sense of the clash.
“If the dreadnoughts of both sides had cometogether in a determined fashion, we would have heard of a dozen battleshipssunk, at least. On both sides. Probably more German losses than British simplybecause we have the larger guns. The German ships have eleven and twelveinchers; we have twelve, thirteen point five, fourteen and fifteen inchers. Addto that, we outnumber them. The feeling I get, sir, is that Jellicoe is moreconcerned not to lose than he is to win.”
“He was never a destroyerman, Number One.”
That said it all.
They shadowed the German squadron whilethey came closer to international waters, observed them to be slowing.
“Making course for the Canal, sir.Intending to make the run by night. Waiting for dark.”
“I wonder what they were doing in thefirst instance?”
“Making
