Sanders stared miserably at Smith. “Torpedo must have missed, sir. Sorry.”
Smith shrugged. “You’ll get another chance.” Maybe. But it was cruel luck to miss that almost unbroken line of ships. Maybe the torpedo veered away or dived too deep or just didn’t damn well work. It happened.
And where was Curtis?
Curtis had been ordered to attack the centre of the line as Sparrow broke through at the head of it. He had held the CMB to port of Sparrow and astern of her until the searchlight’s beam stabbed out from her bridge. Then he thrust the throttle wide open and turned to shout at Johnson, “Attacking!” He saw young Midshipman Johnson nod where he crouched over the torpedoes then Curtis turned forward. The CMB had been cruising at twenty knots but now she had her stern tucked down and her bow was lifting. He saw Sparrow fire her torpedo and start to turn. Then the CMB slid up level with the old thirty-knotter seen as a shadow at the thin end of a searchlight beam, a shadow sprouting flame from her funnels — and from her guns. She trailed smoke from both. The CMB was abreast of her an instant then racing on. Rain battered against the screen and Curtis squinted against it, head half-turned as the CMB tore in at thirty knots and still accelerating.
He first saw them as shadows like clouds but a split second later they took shape as ships that lifted huge and clear out of the darkness, ships that were firing every gun they had and one or two of them at the CMB because Curtis saw the spouts of water as shells landed in the sea. He wanted one ship. He picked the one and eased the wheel over so that the stem, out of the sea and bouncing now as the CMB ripped across that calm sea, pointed at the bridge of the destroyer fourth in the line.
Steady.
Tracer like bright beads sliding at him out of the night, going over his head…
Steady…Now!
“Fire!”
He was ready to turn the wheel as soon as the torpedo took the water, to swing the CMB out of the torpedo’s track. He was ready for the kick of the hydraulic ram and to feel the plunge and lift as the torpedo was fired stern first out of the chute.
Johnson bawled, “Firing gear jammed!”
“Secure!” Curtis turned the wheel and the CMB swung away from the destroyer in a tight, wheeling curve and raced into the night. He eased the throttle back so the boat cruised again at around twenty knots and looked around to see Johnson and the torpedoman crouched over the firing gear. Curtis shouted, “What about it?” And: “You’ve got ten seconds!”
The torpedoman gave a wash-out sign with his hands. “No go, sir!”
“We’ll try the other tube!” Curtis turned his head, turned the boat and opened the throttle. Smith had been relying on him for a diversion. Jammed firing gear. Bloody luck!
Sparrow hauled away from the tug and Smith used the megaphone to bawl down the deck on the starboard, shoreward side: “Lighters first! Pass the word!” He saw McGraw, layer of the six-pounder in the waist lift a hand in acknowledgment then turn his head to bawl aft. There was no need to give any orders to the guns on the port side. The destroyers loomed close, a bare hundred yards away and asking to be hit.
As Sparrow hauled away from that first tug the shore opened up and Smith shouted up at the searchlight platform: “Expose!” He pointed. The searchlight crackled into life as the carbons struck arc and the beam leapt out to sweep the shore. A second later it was joined by the searchlight aft and the two white fingers lit up the box-like lighters in the surf, showing the gun barrels protruding, the heads of the men already aboard, the troops still filing down the beach. The range was about eight hundred yards. Sparrow was only moving at seven or eight knots and she rode rock-steady now in that flat calm. She pushed down between the two lines, of anchored destroyers to seaward and anchored tugs inshore with the lighters eight hundred yards beyond the tugs. The lines were a couple of hundred yards apart and she ran down between them firing every gun including the Vickers machineguns. And the destroyers, because their own tugs were so close, held their fire.
McGraw shouted, “It’s like shooting clay-pipes in a bluidy fairground!”
The six-pounder was firing as fast as his loader could ram the projectile and close the breech. Sparrow fired at point-blank range into the helpless destroyers with the flash of discharge and then of burst seeming to come as one. The storm was right over them now. Over the hammering of the guns was the continual crack! and rumble of thunder, lightning stabbed again and again at the sea that hissed under the rain. Smith could see wreckage leaping skywards, holes suddenly punched in hulls, smoke swirling on the wind and flame that spurted, subsided, but grew again to breed more smoke. Sparrow scored hits on the destroyers but she utterly destroyed the lighters as she steamed down between the lines. The destroyers were built to fight, to take punishment, but the lighters were timber and built for one short sea passage in quiet waters. Even the little shells from the six-pounders smashed holes in them, tore through from bow to stern and set the timber smouldering. In seconds one of the petrol engines ignited and that lighter burned and they lay within arms-reach of one another. As Sparrow moved down the line, raking the lighters, Smith saw the troops in those ahead scrambling over the side and running up the beach. An officer with drawn sword stood on the beach trying to hold them but they ran clear of the line of fire that was reducing the fleet of lighters to matchwood. And like matchwood it was burning.
McGraw said, “Jesus! Did ye iver see the like o’ that?”
He laid the gun, blinked as a tug showed between Sparrow and the shore. The loader shouted, “Skipper said the boats!”
McGraw muttered, “Take her and the boats,” jerked the lanyard and bawled, “Load!” The shell tore through the tug’s funnel.
“Ready!”
McGraw’s eye went to the sight as the shore and the lighters showed again under the sweeping beams of the searchlights. The six-pounder jerked and recoiled.
Sparrow steamed down to the end of the line and as she reached it they saw the last tug trying to weigh anchor with the capstan hammering. The twelve-pounder fired into her on the water-line and below the funnel and she blew off steam. “Port ten! Douse the lights!” The searchlights’ beams snapped off. Smith’s voice was hoarse. “Mr. Sanders! I’m going back down the line! You’ll get a chance with the other tube! Engage to starboard!”
“Starboard! Aye, aye, sir.” Sanders bent to the voice pipe to tell the torpedo-gunner. “We’ll engage to starboard!”
Smith ordered, “Midships!..Starboard ten!” Sparrow had swung around past the stern of the last destroyer in the line and he saw that she had slipped and was moving, going astern to get clear of the line but her head swinging seawards. He shouted at Sanders and pointed and Sanders waved. The starboard helm brought Sparrow’s head turning towards the shore again so she was describing a tight circle. Sanders crouched over the torpedo sight. The destroyer that had way on her was over Sparrow’s starboard quarter…now coming abeam as Sparrow came around…