The Dangerous Years Read Free Page A

messages in English.
    The day was fair now, with a clear blue sky above the thin whitish mist that shrouded the outlines of masts and hulls and the restless sea swell. As the destroyers hurried by, the ocean was filled with their movement. There seemed no end to them, the air vibrating to their washes and the shudder and hum of machinery. Reaching the end of the German column, with a flutter of flags they wheeled and brought up short abreast the accompanying German destroyers. Three light cruisers, Cardiff, Phaeton and Castor , moved to a position ahead of the Germans. Over Cardiff a kite balloon jerked irregularly at its cable, the man in the basket staring through binoculars down at the German ships.
    ‘They look like minnows leading in a lot of whales.’ The bearded gunner with the DSM standing below the bridge spoke slowly, wonderingly.
    Orrmont smiled. ‘They remind me,’ he said to Kelly, ‘for all the world of a herd of bullocks being brought in by a bunch of farm kids.’
    The Germans were in single line ahead, nine battleships, five battle cruisers, seven light cruisers and forty-nine destroyers, and the curves of their turrets picked up the sunshine through the mist. Then from Mordant’ s stern came an unexpected jeering cry and the triumphant sound of one of the cooks beating a wooden spoon on a metal baking tin in a wild tattoo.
    ‘Shut that bloody fool up!’ Kelly barked, and the clatter stopped at once.
    The solitary celebrant was a man who had recently joined the ship. There was little sign of joy among the other men, especially those who’d survived the hammering they’d received at Jutland, and there was a deep underlying emotion running through the ship so that they were too full for words at the drama of defeat.
    ‘It can’t be true. It’s against human nature.’ The words came this time from Leading Seaman Rumbelo, standing near the forward gun, and as he stared at the phantom ships Kelly saw there was an odd look in his eyes of contempt, pity and mourning.
    The German ships were a gloomy sight that Kelly found distasteful – as if he were a part of a crowd assembled for the funeral of some sordid individual who’d been murdered – and he found it incredible, too, that the second naval power in the world could surrender so tamely without attempting to strike a single blow in defence of its honour.
    ‘Anticlimax in large letters,’ Orrmont said. ‘I never really thought they’d submit. I never dreamed they’d accept disgrace in silence. It’s damned hard to find the right words.’
    ‘I expect the Hurrah Departments of the national press will find them for you, sir,’ Kelly said dryly.
    The main fleet appeared through the mist, looking like huge shadows, silent, stretching for three miles on either hand. With their French and American accompanying units, there were fifty-six dreadnoughts, fifty-six vast ships, the water between their columns stirred to choppy foam as their wakes crossed and recrossed. As they reached the end of the German line, coloured squares and pennants fluttered aloft paused, then swept down. The leading ships began to turn outwards sixteen points, moving with elephantine slowness as Beatty reversed course. The manoeuvre was executed with exquisite precision, every ship and every man eager to show what they could do, to prove that the German claim of victory at Jutland had been nonsense from the beginning. The turn had placed Beatty’s ship abeam of Friedrich der Grosse , and for a while the sea seemed to be full of enormous ships, as the Grand Fleet countermarched to move with the Germans towards the Firth of Forth.
    In every vessel, as in Mordant , men had been allowed from their action stations to stare at the grey shapes which had been mysterious for so long, grimy stokers shivering as the cold air struck their sweaty bodies. According to the terms of surrender, the Germans had been stripped of powder and shell, of breech mechanisms, sighting instruments