George Washington's Ghost

He would never have visited the dockyard had he not been in such a state of high anxiety about his forthcoming, seventy-two hour-long furlough on Long Island. Which was crazy, not like him at all. Leonora had obviously spun some web of bewitchment about him. That said, now that he was down here, he was fascinated, especially looking into that dark chasm in the great ship’s flank.

The new carriers were of all-welded construction; a technique that saved weight – on a ship the size of the Ulysses, up to five or six thousand tons – and, Alex had been assured more than once, made any ship, especially a really big one, a significantly tougher ‘nut to crack’. Apparently, rivetted ships of yore had ‘worked’, much as old-time wooden sailing ships had; and absorbed a little of the motion of the seas. Modern ships were ‘stiff’, unbending and more easily repaired. Farther aft the sparks of several oxy-acetylene torches showered down the side of the carrier.

The torpedo had stove in the longitudinal, strengthened ‘mine bulkhead’ – in future they would call that a ‘torpedo bulkhead’ – seven or eight feet inboard of the outer hull. The impact point had been below the ship’s tapering armoured belt, three-and-a-half inches thick in places, and flooded one of the Ulysses’s three port fire rooms. Despite the ship being at Battle Stations with all watertight doors dogged shut, each of the three port-side fire rooms had flooded to varying degrees although all the initial fatalities – some twenty-three men – had occurred in the compartment directly breached by the hit.

In all, one hundred and forty-seven men had lost their lives and another two hundred and four had required hospital treatment, of whom nearly fifty had suffered disabling burns.

The man who had called out was approaching.

Alex half-turned, still a little distracted.

Suddenly, he straightened, and put his shoulders back.

It turned out he had been ignoring Admiral Lord Collingwood, C-in-C Atlantic Fleet and the second most senior officer on the latest Navy List.

In desperation he threw a belated salute.

The great man, accompanied by a bevy of staffers and civilian dockyard officials, seemed to tower over Alex. He had only met the C-in-C once, last week when he had pinned that damned medal on his chest. He still thought that was a nonsense. If his instruments had been working properly, he would never have had to ditch in the sea, and as for all that tosh about being the ‘Pied Piper’ of the Atlantic Fleet leading all of Ulysses’s returning strike aircraft back to the Perseus, well, that really was gilding the lily!

All he had done was stooge around the Ulysses making sure that the returnees knew which vector to fly to find the Perseus, at the time about eighty miles away and closing the distance with a mighty bone in her teeth.

True, the chill of the sea as he floated around in his little inflatable ‘bath’ waiting to be picked up, or to drown – he had expected there to be sharks and been disappointed – for the best part of two days had not been a lot of fun. Still, it was good to have had a chance to have a nice long think about things and the feeling in his hands and feet was coming back nicely…

“I was informed you were supposed to be taking a few days well-earned leave, Commander Fielding?”

“Yes, sir. I’m just killing time before I fly out…”

“Jolly good!”

Alex realised that Lord Collingwood, a large, ruddy-face man with eyes that missed absolutely nothing, had gently waved away the rest of his entourage.

The two men stood a few feet apart from the others.

“When I joined the Navy,” Collingwood remarked cheerfully, “a hit like that would have sprung every rivet for ten, fifteen feet or more either side of that hole. Ulysses would have been out of action for six months!”

Alex had no idea what he was supposed to say; so, for once in his life he held his piece.

The C-in-C peered into the chasm above them.

“You and I both know that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. We knew the Spaniards, the Triple Alliance were preparing for war and had been for some years,” he confessed, without deprecation, simply stating a fact. “But German re-armament in Europe meant that the priority was home defence, the security of Europe, not that of New England which, when all is said and done, is just one among several imperial imponderables. India is another, obviously, and of course, Africa baffles us all.” He gestured at the great hole in the ship. “We even anticipated that, or something like it. Crying wolf, however, was never an option for reasons which will become clear to you in the days, or at most, the weeks to come.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak, bewildered.