The Lion at Sea Read Free Page B

came to a pinch, could even lead them into battle. His very smallness, even his pop eyes and knock knees, seemed to lend him a sort of homeliness.
    There was a crash of cheering all round Kelly and caps were lifted. As he caught sight of the star-studded figure in blue and gold on Victoria and Albert ’s bridge acknowledging the cheers, he decided that if the King’s heart was as full of pride as his own was at that moment, then his throat probably also felt choked and his eyes were probably dim with moisture.
    Some fool was screaming his enthusiasm and to his surprise Kelly realised it was himself. Verschoyle, he decided impulsively, didn’t know what he was missing.

 
     
Two
    The fleet was dispersing. The royal yacht had gone, followed by the German Emperor’s yacht and all the other foreign ships. All the bunfights ashore had finished, all the gatherings marked by splendid uniforms, champagne and caviar; with the heads of state and their ministers, all splashed with ribbons and decorations, all being cautious and diplomatic as they tried to be enthusiastic, while their womenfolk fought to outdo each other for colour and style and poise.
    Presumably, the affair had been a success. Receptions had been held for the principal British and foreign officers on board Victoria and Albert then she had left for harbour, followed by the thuddings and bangings and the drifting blue smoke of a farewell salute. The firework display ashore had not reached expectations because of the rain, and even the illumination of the fleet had not come up to scratch because the downpour had caused fuses to blow in lighting circuits. One great ship was able only to illuminate its admiral’s flag, and when Kelly had arrived in Huguenot ’ssteam pinnace with a message for her captain, he had found the commander, with a face like an old seaboot, storming up and down the foredeck looking for someone to throw overboard.
    There had also been a few alarms and excursions. Achilles ’cutter had been swamped after a collision with a picket boat off Clarence Pier, and a steam pinnace from Implacable , taking guests ashore to see the George Hotel, where Nelson had spent his last hours in England before Trafalgar, had been rammed by a pinnace from another ship and dumped a party of naval ladies in the water – fortunately without much damage except to dresses and hair styles. A few officers had attended a daring new farce at the Theatre Royal but only one-fifth of ships’ companies had been granted leave so that, apart from senior officers and a few favoured juniors, nobody had profited greatly from the affair, a fact which had prompted a letter in The Portsmouth Evening News attacking the social conditions in the fleet and suggesting the ultimate horror of a trade union for all naval personnel to improve hours, wages, leave and food.
    The weather had grown considerably colder now and the wind rippled the surface of the grey-green sea between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, and sent up little showering cascades of spray as waves broke against the hulls of those ships still gathered in the anchorage. The wild screeching of birds gave the day a feeling of heaviness, and the sky, pearl-coloured with overcast, arched bleakly overhead, its sombreness reflected in the waters of the Solent.
    A sprinkle of rain came on the wind as Kelly took his boat away from Huguenot ’sside, its polished brass winking, its stanchions decorated with turks’ heads and other tiddly items of cordwork. ‘A ship is judged by her boats,’ he’d been told very early in his career. ‘So tend to your boat’s wants as carefully as you would to your mistress’. And see to it that to your eyes she is just as beautiful, because a mid who cares for his boat and manoeuvres it satisfactorily will invariably behave with equal credit on the bridge of a ship.’ He had remembered it well.
    In the distance, he could see the dreadnoughts of the Third Battle Squadron beginning to move