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 burning and cordite fumes. But the little cabin forward gave shelter to a few men. Others lay in the galley.
While the captain was busy navigating the ship, First Officer Dick Taudevin came to him and said, "We ought to bury our dead at sea. It will help to keep up morale. And all these dead will cause consternation when we arrive."
Coats agreed. Following such an action, not only did it seem to him fitting to bury his sailors at sea, but he thought grimly to himself, "As our return is still by no means certain at least some of us will get a decent funeral!"
The dead were wrapped in weighted hammocks and one after another pushed over the side to splash into the waves, while Taudevin hastily read out the burial service. The ship could not heave-to for a proper funeral service as she might have sunk.
In wartime, lighthouses and lightships were darkened, but the Admiralty ordered the Orfordness light on the Suffolk coast lit up as a guide to Worcester in case she were still afloat. As he had no other means of navigation, Coats had to depend on this light to confirm his position.
At four o'clock in the morning, the weary doctor fell asleep with his head on the captain's table. At the same time the look-out saw a lighthouse beam and Commander Coats realized he had arrived where he ought to be.
Just before dawn, a bleary-eyed Taudevin shook the doctor awake saying, "We are just coming up to the Sunk." This was the Sunk Light Float at the entrance to Harwich Harbour. It was still dark when they climbed on deck together and the doctor went round the wounded again. The sky began to turn to grey. Dawn broke on the port bow and they could see the low misty coast of England.
Although the sea was much calmer, because of their slow speed in the fast running tide, they were nearly swept on to the sandbanks as they approached the harbour entrance. As they cleared them, they saw a convoy steaming out of Harwich and Coats turned to Taudevin and said, "Am I glad to see them!" A Hunt Class destroyer signalled: "Do you need assistance?" A winking lamp aboard Worcester proudly replied, "We have come from Holland and we can manage the rest of the trip alone." The signal added a request for ambulances to be ready to take off her wounded.
Refusing all help, Worcester steamed slowly up to the anchorage. She struggled into the harbour, listing heavily, full of holes with steam trickling from them. Her broken mast was still leaning against the funnel and her torn, smoke-blackened battle ensign was flying from a broomstick over the bridge, as all the ships in the harbour sounded their sirens. Whistles piped as they cleared lower deck and fell in aft to pay tribute to her. They stood cheering as Worcester drew abreast. When they approached nearer to land her crew also saw lines of sailors and Wrens standing cheering outside Shotley Sick Quarters. The Worcester's crew did not reply. There were too many dead.