Patrol to the Golden Horn Read online

  Patrol to the Golden Horn

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  Patrol to the Golden Horn

  Alexander Fullerton

  Prologue

  Mist curtained the exit from the straits, adding to the dawn a milky thickness that clung to the black water and allowed only sporadic glimpses of the land’s outlines against a lightening sky, and the raiding ships came out through it like ghosts, grey-steel engines of destruction thrusting westward into the Aegean. The four destroyers which had escorted the big ships from Constantinople across the Marmara and through the winding, mine-sown Dardanelles were already invisible in the dark to starboard; Admiral von Rebeur-Paschwitz had detached them a few minutes ago, at five-thirty a.m., when by dead reckoning Goeben’s navigating officer had known that Cape Helles was abeam. The destroyers would sweep to the westward of Cape Helles now, and then if they drew a blank they’d turn and re-enter the straits while the more powerful ships pressed on in search of targets for their guns.

  Goeben, battlecruiser, 23,000 tons and with a main armament of ten eleven-inch, led the four-funnelled cruiser Breslau. Both ships were closed-up at action stations, expecting at any moment to run into the British destroyer patrol which was known to haunt the approaches to the straits; and since any seaman knew that you could see over fog and under it but no distance through it, lookouts were stationed down on Goeben’s foc’sl and in the spotting positions on both mastheads. Seventy men manned each of the battle-cruiser’s five twin-gunned turrets, and the guns were ready loaded.

  Goeben’s wake curved as she swung to port, leading her consort round to a south-westerly course which was designed to take them clear around certain barriers of mines that the British had laid for the precise purpose of interrupting such a raid as this. Before the attack on Mudros which was the main target of the sortie, those British patrol ships had to be found and eliminated.

  ‘Our course is south sixty west, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, captain.’ Von Rebeur-Paschwitz’s intention was to sweep south-west for about ten miles and then, if the patrol hadn’t been encountered either by himself or by his destroyers west of Cape Helles, he’d turn north and search for them off the coast of Imbros, where in any case there’d be other prey for his guns, perhaps inside Cape Kephalo and certainly in Kusu Bay. He walked out to the wing of the battlecruiser’s bridge and gazed astern, watched Breslau tucking herself neatly into the bigger ship’s wake after the swing to port. Light was increasing now but the mist still trailed over them like a blanket: it was a blessing, an unhoped-for bonus to their chances of success by prolonging the element of surprise, but he knew that at any moment it could begin to lift and dissipate. His force was at this moment seven miles west of Kum Kale and five miles due north of Mavro Island; there was a British lookout station on Mavro, and the longer this course was held the closer Goeben would be getting to those British eyes. But the temptation to turn away and cut the corner had to be resisted, because of the risk of finding himself in mined water. The admiral wished, almost desperately, that his intelligence reports of the British minefields could have been more precise.

  Nine minutes past six: he’d gone into shelter from the wind, leaning over the covered chart-table in the forefront of the bridge, to light his first cigar of the day.

  He’d just emerged from under the canvas hood when he heard a shout from the young sailor who was manning the telephone from the foc’sl lookout: ‘Mine, port bow!’

  ‘Hard a-starboard—’

  Goeben shuddered to the explosion. Black water leapt, cascaded across the bridge, a heavy stinking rain. Echoes of the crash still lingered ringingly; the captain was calling for reports from below. The bridge revolution indicators showed the admiral that his flagship hadn’t slackened speed; nor had her course varied by as much as one degree. And reports were coming up from the compartments: damage was so slight that it could be ignored. The impact had been abreast the for’ard turret and thus against the eleven-inch-thick main armoured belt.

  Von Rebeur-Paschwitz realised suddenly that he had a lit cigar between his fingers and that he’d been forgetting to smoke it. There was an inch-long cylinder of grey ash on the end of it. He drew pleasurably on the fragrance of the Havana leaf, enjoying simultaneously this proof of his flagship’s contempt for British mines. Expelling smoke as her captain came to report to him on the inconsequential extent of the damage below decks, he remarked to him that Messrs Blohm and Voss of Hamburg certainly knew how to build ships.

  Ten minutes later course was altered to due west, and after another ten minutes – at six thirty-two a.m., by which time it was considered that they’d come right around the perimeter of the mined area – to north, towards Imbros. Mist still shrouded them. It was like – he heard the navigator remark to the torpedo lieutenant – steaming through potato soup. Luck, von Rebeur-Paschwitz appreciated, was certainly on his side, and he decided to make the most of it while it lasted. Aerial reconnaissance twenty-four hours earlier had shown that two British monitors were lying at anchor in Kusu Bay: he ordered Breslau to push on ahead at her best speed in order to block any possibility of their escape.

  Breslau’s best speed was about twenty-two knots; Goeben’s only twenty. Both ships had been capable of better than twenty-seven when they’d entered service in 1912, but four years holed up at Constantinople without dry-dock or dockyard facilities had taken a natural effect.

  At seven a.m. Goeben was five miles from the south coast of Imbros, roughly eight miles south-west of Cape Kephalo, and after a brief consultation over the chart the admiral ordered a four-point turn to starboard in order to skirt the island’s south-east corner on a track that he reckoned would be well to the westward of the mine barriers. This north-east course was held until seven thirty-two, at which point the battlecruiser hauled round to port, to a northerly course that would take her exactly two miles off Cape Kephalo.

  The mist was rising, at last. And the period of secrecy and silence was in any case about to be shattered by the thunder of the German guns. There was a wireless signal station on Kephalo, and it was to be Goeberi s first target for destruction: a warm-up, a chance for the gunners to get their eyes in. As the great ship steamed up towards the point her five turrets swung smoothly under electric power and under directions passed from two armoured control-towers amidships. In the spacious turrets — there were no divisions inside, between the individual guns – men grinned at each other, delighted at this prospect, finally, of action.

  ‘Fire!’

  One gun in each of the five turrets had fired, recoiled. Five other guns were ready for the second salvo. Reload projectiles and charges came up on the hoists between the pairs of guns and were presented to the breeches on rocking trays: the charges were in brass cylinders and in two halves, each half weighing 140 lb. Fumes wreathed acrid from the breeches: projectiles and charges rushed in, impelled by wooden rammers with spring-coil heads. Breeches slamming shut … ‘Fire!’ The second salvo was right for line, but short. Range had to be adjusted: and as Cape Kephalo was almost abeam now it would be opening, increasing, from now on. There was a rate instrument in each turret, and also a rangefinder, all of them connectin
g to one central transmitting station.

  ‘Fire!’

  Over …

  ‘Fire!’

  Flame, black smoke, flying masonry and rock and earth …

  ‘Check, check, check!’

  The gunnery lieutenant reported to the bridge by telephone, ‘Target destroyed, sir.’

  ‘Very well.’

  It had been easy: much too easy for anyone to expect congratulations. Two miles, 4,000 yards, was really point-blank range. And having whetted her appetite Goeben now altered two points to port in order to run up past Kusu Bay.

  Breslau, pushing on northwards to carry out the admiral’s orders, had sighted a British destroyer. This was Lizard, and when the German sighted her she was about six miles to the nor’ard. Breslau gave chase, but Lizard’s better speed enabled her to stay clear of the more heavily gunned ship; she was waiting to be joined by the other patrolling destroyer, Tigress, who had been some miles to the west and was now hurrying back to join her.

  The monitors in Kusu Bay, Lord Raglan and M.28, were shortening-in their cables and trying to raise steam; but their anchors never left the ground. Goeben, appearing out of still poor visibility around Grafton Point, began immediately to deluge them in a rain of highly accurate gunfire from which there was no possibility of escape. By eight a.m, both monitors were sunk. It had been easy, unopposed, like target practice, and everything so far had gone exactly to plan. The only slight worry was that the explosion of that mine had upset Goeben’s compass; if the fault couldn’t be rectified it might be necessary, von Rebeur-Paschwitz thought, to order Breslau to take the lead as guide. Meanwhile he ordered a reversal of course, in order to steam back and around the south of the island and thence westward for Mudros. At Mudros there’d be bigger prizes: bigger opposition too. Not that there’d been any here; and he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d left nothing afloat here that could bar his eventual line of retreat to the Dardanelles. By twenty minutes after eight Goeben was leading Breslau southward past the still smoking ruins of Cape Kephalo.

  Then over that smoke-haze appeared a flight of British aircraft: bombers, from the Imbros airfield. Goeben’s 24-pounder AA guns swung their barrels skyward: and Breslau, to clear the flagship’s range, swung out wide to port. Too wide: at eight thirty-one, by which time the first flight of bombers had dropped their loads into the sea and turned back for more, Breslau struck a mine.

  She was under helm at the time, and the explosion was right aft: her steering was smashed, and so was the starboard turbine. With no operative rudder and with only one screw she was unmanoeuvrable. Von Rebeur-Paschwitz had no option but to order Goeben’s captain to take the damaged ship in tow. Breslau had in fact steamed into the western edge of the mine barriers: and Goeben, closing in to take up a towing position ahead of her, was now running into exactly the same hazard. While the cruiser’s sailors worked frantically to range her cable on the foc’sl and prepare for the tow, and just as a second flight of bombers came racketing overhead – Breslau, lying stopped, took a direct hit in this attack — Goeben also hit a mine.

  Suddenly the picture had changed entirely. There was a steady succession of attacks from aircraft: both ships were in clear Mediterranean water in which the dark shapes of mines could be seen all around them: and Tigress and Lizard, were racing southward in the hope of a chance to use torpedoes. All the lighter guns in the German ships were blazing away at the persistent, mosquito-like bombers. Goeben was trying to pick her way between the mines: Breslau, unable to control her steering, hit another four in the five minutes after nine a.m. She was already listing to port: after the fourth eruption, the death-blow, she swung upright, lifted her bows high in the air and slipped swiftly stern-first to the bottom.

  Admiral von Rebeur-Paschwitz abandoned all thoughts of an attack on Mudros. He had to accept now that he’d be doing well to get his ship back into the Dardanelles. He ordered a south-westerly course, then south, and finally north-east, in order to skirt around the mines; and Goeben was on that final north-east leg, very close to where she’d been when she’d hit the first one, when the third exploded against her quarter.

  There was some extensive internal flooding, and she’d taken up a fifteen-degree list to port. Aircraft were still chasing and attacking, and the bombing continued even after she’d entered the Straits. Behind her the Aegean Sea was a furiously-buzzing hornet’s nest: and there was a lively awareness that the Germans wouldn’t lose a minute in making good the damage to their battlecruiser and that what had been attempted once might very well be tried again. However safe Goeben might feel herself to be in her heavily defended Turkish hideout, she would now – somehow – have to be eliminated.

  Chapter 1

  ‘Steady as you go!’

  ‘Steady, sir … South twenty-six east, sir!’

  CPO Perry had flung the wheel back the other way; its brass-capped spokes flashed sunlight as they thudded through his palms and Terrapin steadied on her course across Kusu Bay, cleaving blue water under a cloudless sky. The bay mirrored a whitish crescent of beach framed in crumbly-looking rock; higher up on the island, patchy green slopes broken by rock outcrops rose to support the canopy of Mediterranean sky. There were more strikingly beautiful islands in the Aegean than Imbros — Nick had had his first sight of some of them during the fast passage from Malta – but even this, to his home-waters’ eye, was fairly stunning.

  Truman, the destroyer’s captain, glanced again at his coxswain. ‘Steer two degrees to starboard. Stop both engines.’

  One island they’d passed within sight of had been Skyros; and on Skyros Sub-Lieutenant Rupert Brooke of Hood Battalion in the Royal Naval Division lay buried, his grave heaped with the island’s pink-veined marble. Brooke’s close friends had piled it over him – so Sarah had said, and Sarah knew everything about Rupert Brooke. Nick hoped that some opportunity might arise for him to visit Skyros.

  Why? Because Sarah was so emotional on that subject? And he, Nick Everard, even more so over Sarah?

  It was a shocking thing. Of course it was. Objectively, one knew that – and at the same time thrilled, thinking of her. You could lose yourself in a dreamworld filled with pictures, echoes of her voice. And worry, too – the puzzle – her actions since, and that she’d said nothing … As a passenger — he’d been sent out to assume command of Leveret, a five-year-old destroyer employed mainly as a despatch vessel between Mudros and Salonika – on passage, with nothing to do except sit and stand around, there’d been too much time for that kind of self-indulgence. He knew he’d surrendered to the temptation far too much, and he pulled himself back into the present and the sunlight now – to Cruickshank, the navigating lieutenant, at the binnacle and watching the transverse bearing as Terrapin slid up, with very little way on her now, towards her anchor berth; and to Truman, keenly aware – you could see it in his self-conscious manner – of the light cruiser two cables’ lengths on his port beam, and the fact that Terrapin would be under close surveillance from that crowded quarterdeck. Truman was a stuffy, humourless lieutenant-commander. All the way from Plymouth he hadn’t opened a single conversation, so far as Nick could recall, that hadn’t borne directly on some Service matter.

  A submarine lay alongside the cruiser, and a haze of smoke over her stern showed that she was charging her batteries. That would be E.57, presumably, the boat Jake Cameron was to join – in a hurry, which was the reason for Terrapin having been diverted here instead of going straight to Mudros, her original destination. Cameron was a passenger too, but he’d only joined in Malta. He was an immensely burly young RNR lieutenant – about Nick’s age, but twice his weight. He was at the back of the bridge now, his wide frame squeezed into the corner between rail and flag-locker.

  Cruickshank – bony, intent, crouched mantis-like at the binnacle – murmured, ‘Five degrees to go, sir.’

  ‘Stand by!’ Truman had a rather plummy voice. Harriman, his first lieutenant, was at the bridge’s front rail; he’d raised one stubby arm
above his head, and Granger, down on the foc’sl with the cable party, waved acknowledgement. A languid wave: ‘lounge-lizard Larry’ was what the other officers called Terrapin’s dark-eyed sub-lieutenant. They were a good crowd; better, Nick thought, than Truman deserved. Cruickshank called, ‘Bearing on now!’

  ‘Let go!’

  Harriman dropped that arm. On the foc’sl a hammer swung to knock the Blake slip off the starboard cable and send its anchor splashing, plunging into clear-blue sea. As the cable roared away and then slowed its initial rush until you could hear the separate clank as each link banged out through the hawse, Nick did some elementary mental arithmetic: eight fathoms of water, and three eights were twenty-four, so—

  Truman had made the same calculation. He told Harriman, ‘Veer to two shackles, and secure.’

  Two shackles added up to twenty-five fathoms, and three times the depth of water was minimal for safe mooring. In this flat calm the minimum was as safe as houses.

  Terrapin floated like a model ship in a bed of blue-tinted glass; the air was motionless, smelling faintly of the nearby island. Such picture-book stillness: it seemed incongruous to come to such a place for any warlike purpose. But Nick reminded himself, as he pulled the strap of borrowed binoculars over his head and slung them on the binnacle, that climate and scenery had nothing at all to do with it. Three years ago, when he – and the rest of Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet – had been dying of boredom in the frozen wilderness of Scapa Flow, on sun-kissed beaches only ten miles east of this island a million men had died.

  Near enough a million – counting Turks as well.

  Cruickshank told Truman, ‘Signalling from Harwich, sir.’

  Harwich was the light cruiser, now on their quarter. Four-funnelled, Bristol class, with two six-inch and ten four-inch guns. Where would she have been, Nick wondered, a couple of months ago, when Goeben had come crashing out of the Dardanelles and caught everyone with their trousers down? He was looking over towards the cruiser and seeing that there were two submarines alongside, not just the one he’d seen before. Harwich was lying bow-on and you could see them both, one each side of her; the rumble of diesels from that battery-charging was a deep mutter across the quiet bay.