CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THOSE DAMNED “R” WORDS
Up to this time we had been patrolling the Straits singly and independently, but it became a distinctly losing game. So someone had a brainstorm and instituted the “R” words. Every two hours day and night, two words commencing with R were sent out on our wave length. There were also two executive words commencing with R and changed every twenty-four hours, and known only to the Captain. Just imagine how automatically one’s reply became to the signalman’s, “Rodosto Renoun, sir.” “Repulse Retreat, sir,” Revenge Remand, sir,” and so on, day in, day out and night after night. As often as not the words would be reported just when one’s mind was more than fully occupied with something else.
If and when the executive words did come, all Destroyers rendezvoused at given places in the Straits and formed up into Divisions ready to tackle the wily Hun with something approaching his own weight in metal. The rendezvous of my particular Division was at a position called Y buoy over on the French side, a place I am not likely to forget in a hurry, for I left the best part of two perfectly good propellers there, but of that later.
The night I got into trouble with the “R” words, as luck would have it, Brother Bosche, of the ever fertile mind, had chosen for one of his star turns.
In the first place he was going to carry out one of his well advertised raids on the Straits, and when he had drawn us off after that herring, he proposed landing — or demonstrating a landing — on the sand dunes behind the left flank of our Army. Not only did “Intelligence” know of the raid, but they also knew that it was a bluff — but we poor skippers of Destroyers knew not.
The Hun, without a doubt knew his bluff had been called, when our submarine patrol, on the line of mined nets was cancelled for the night, and in the fading twilight there trickled out of Dunkirk Harbour one 15-inch monitor, two 13-inchers, a couple of 9-inchers, sweepers and destroyers. This lot soon formed up, with sweepers out ahead and the accompanying screen of destroyers hovering around endeavouring to keep station, zigzag and yet not lose sight of the big ship they were attached to. The Wolfe was our misfortune, and the skipper of her was a pretty bleak sort of being. Of course, it was my own fault; I should have been on the top line with those infernal words, but it had been no small job to avoid some sort of snotty signal from the Wolfe about something done or left undone.
Heaven knows, there were opportunities enough to give cause for those sort of signals, and this blighter never seemed to miss one. I can only suppose that it was during one of those cheering interludes, that the signalman must have come with his Remumbo Rejumbo, or whatever the executive words were that night, and I had or hadn’t said, “All right, signalman.” Anyhow, the next thing was, we got the shaded “M.K.” from our friend of the torpid liver.
“M.K.”, translated, means “Proceed in execution of previous orders,” in other words “Shove off.” Well, we shoved off, hard aport, full speed, whilst I tried to collect my scattered senses. It was pitch dark, and no sign of another destroyer who might have given me the tip. “Number one, what do you suppose the M.K.was made for? Number one hadn’t the remotest idea, nor had anyone else, for by this time I had taught them all to use their own individual thinkboxes.
There was nothing for it but to ignominiously return and “Request further instructions,” in other words, to ask for it. And we got it! “Take station astern,” was the signal. Dirty dog! He wouldn’t even give me a hint. With our tail tucked neatly between our legs, we crawled along astern. Suddenly, with a blast of intelligence, “Signalman,” I yelled as loudly as I dared, “What were the last of those damned ‘R’ words you gave me,” and sure enough they were the Executive words by all that was holy and I had slipped up on them. “Signalman, make the interrogative M.K.,” meaning, “Request permission to proceed in execution of previous orders.” Back came the reply, “Approved,” and no rider, for a wonder. “Hard aport,” once again, and “Every ounce of steam you can give her down below, there.” Sandbanks on one side, and mine nets on the other. (Eight knots was a safe speed, we were making twenty-five.) No matter, we must make Y buoy in time. At all costs we must not let our Division down.
What added a certain amount of zest to our midnight blind was the fact that only a few days before the Gypsy, another of the Flotilla had been making a similar dash in daytime, and had made a collection of some of those nets with her prop. She was towed in, later on, and put in Graving dock. Shores had been placed, and the water was just leaving her when it was discovered, by the then scattering crowd of dockies, that she had a nice little bunch of grapes hanging, all entangled, from her props. The grapes, in this instance, being mines, still attached to bits of net.
We had no ambition to collect either nets or mines, and in point of fact didn’t, but in due course, “made our numbers” to the Senior Officer of our Division.
Off we went hunting the hoary Hun; a job every man jack preferred to dancing attendance on the snotty old Wolfe.
He was out that night, all right, but we couldn’t make contact with him. Blindman’s buff is not an odds on game, with the coast of England and France for boundaries. Maybe he sensed we were after his hide, or perhaps he had been told to play a bluff. Anyhow he returned to his lair with an empty bag that good night.
Later on, the usual signal came through, “Resume normal conditions,” which again translated means “get on with your various jobs.” Ours was to get back to Dunkirk, and coil down, preparatory to the next jaunt up the coast.
Dunkirk itself was no health resort in these times. At night the Germans sent their bombers over, and by daylight, with all the impudence in the world, their tame photographers to take record of the wreckage.
Often and often, after a night of strafing, when bombs had been dropping everywhere, and great gouts of flame going up, accompanied by crash after crash, one would think, “Well there will be no Dunkirk when the day breaks after this little lot.” But no such thing. A couple of lamp-posts down, and a few windows broken would be the sum total of damage. The inhabitants, in fact, made a well-earned boast that during the whole time, the tram service was never once held up on account of raids. Brother Hun tried very hard to get the Commodore’s office, in return for his little efforts with the C.M.B.’s, but though time and again he had to have the windows replaced, then never managed to get a direct hit. Certainly they compelled him to give up using glass and resort to wood in the window frames, that did not stop the good work going on.
Sometimes to vary the nightly programme, the Air Force would place landing lights on the beach, and encourage the wily Hun to bomb them. He did, and then would take bearings from the landing lights and turn his attention to the town — as he thought; but owing to the misplaced lights, he put his bombs into the inner harbour where we lay, which was not so good. He caught the destroyer ahead of us one night with a bomb under his stern, which, though it sank him by the stern — by a stroke of luck — did not set off his depth charges. If they had gone off, we should all have gone up. Another target he tried hard for, was the ammunition ship tied to the inner dock. She was loaded with 15, 13 and 12-inch shells, and was a continued source of annoyance to the inhabitants of Dunkirk, for if they had hit the ship, the whole town would have shifted.