The Witch of the Warspite

By Dave Stanley

John Hawthorn is a young doctor looking for a quiet life. He moves to a sleepy Cornish village after losing his family, as well as having suffered the traumas of the birth of the NHS in a busy London hospital. When the body of a beautiful young woman is found in a sealed compartment of a wrecked battleship, his life is thrown into turmoil as he is transported across time to eight incarnations of the ship in as many centuries.
Never really sure what he is looking for on this crazy quest, he winds up understanding a great deal about his own past and future, as well as that of the ships and the world on which he lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Stanley
• Release date: Dec 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310138775

Book preview

The Witch of the Warspite

David Stanley

Copyright 2014 David R Stanley

Distributed by Smashwords.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Farewell to Pompey

Chapter 2 - The Road to Marazion

Chapter 3 - The Grand Old Lady

Chapter 4 - Dunkirk

Chapter 5 - Cadiz

Chapter 6 - Tilly

Chapter 7 - A Royal Visit

Chapter 8 - Normandy

Chapter 9 - The Pacific Station

Chapter 10 - Viva la revolución

Chapter 11 - Mother

Chapter 12 - Clash of the Titans

Chapter 13 - Stranger in his own land

Chapter 14 - London Town

Chapter 15 - Farewell to Glasgow

Chapter 16 - Annus Mirabilis Part 1

Chapter 17 - Devon and Solebay

Chapter 18 - Annus Mirabilis Part 2

Chapter 19 - The Jubilee Review

Chapter 20 - A Long Way Down

Chapter 21 - Back to the beginning

Chapter 22 - Beyond the Moon

Chapter 23 - Another Warspite

References

Credits

DEDICATION

In Memory of

Flt. Lt. Thomas M. Greeves

12th Sqdn, 5th Wing,

Royal Naval Air Service

6th Dec 1895 – 23rd Dec 1917

Introduction

This is not a history book. If you are looking for a history of the various ships that have shared the name HMS Warspite, please look to the first two books in the list of references, which tell the amazing true story of Warspite better than I ever could.

The Wikipedia entry is also a good source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warspite

This is a work of fiction that uses the settings of incidents in the history of Warspite to tell the story of two people. One is an ordinary doctor from Ramsgate whose life is thrown upside down by meeting the other, who is a little less ordinary.

Some of the historic characters in the book are referred to by their real names, others, primarily where fictional acts are portrayed, have had their names changed.

This book uses the spelling ‘Warspite’ consistently; the name of first two ships is often spelt ‘Warspight’ in historical documents.

PROLOGUE

When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle's lost and won.

Macbeth. Act 1, Scene 1

It is the 12th of March 1946.

In the Portsmouth Naval Base many people are busily working on the warships of the Royal Navy, some are being prepared for patrols, some undergoing assessment having just arrived, some undergoing major rework repairing damage done during 6 years of braving rough seas and combat around the globe.

But out in the open water of the harbour lie three great brooding shapes, which will not be being repaired. They wait only for negotiations to be completed as to who will take them away to be broken up.

For these are the Old Ladies of the fleet. Those that first saw action in the Great War of 1914-1918, were kept alive and updated through the inter-war period and continued to protect the Empire through the Second War of 1939-1945. But now the war is over and the Empire is contracting. Britain no longer has the need nor the coffers to support the great Navy that it has had since the days of Queen Elizabeth the First. So these old ladies are put out to pasture for now but the end is drawing near.

So which mighty ships are these?

In the centre, appropriately enough given the comment above, is HMS Queen Elizabeth, named after the aforementioned Virgin Queen. When built in 1913 she was the lead ship of what was the most advanced battleship class in the world, wielding eight 15 inch guns, being fuelled by oil rather than coal and achieving a top speed of 23 knots.

Five ships built and all fought in the Great War, all but Elizabeth being at the mighty clash with the German High Seas Fleet at Jutland. They were still competitive in the early part of the Second War and fought with honour but one of their number, Barham, was lost to torpedoes in the Mediterranean in an incident that was filmed by a Gaumont News cameraman but amazingly concealed from the wider world for several months.

At the rear of the group is HMS Revenge, a slightly younger but smaller and less capable cousin to the Elizabeths. She too had fought at Jutland and in the early part of the Second War but she was retired in 1943 and her guns used to provide spares for the Elizabeths and others.

Lastly, at the front of the group, HMS Warspite, arguably the most famous ship in the Navy after Nelson’s Victory. Sister to HMS Queen Elizabeth and the latest of a long line of Warspites going back to Sir Walter Raleigh's flagship in the reign of that Queen.

The Warspites hold the most battle honours of any ship and this one fought in most of the great battles of the Second war including Narvik, Matapan, Crete, Salerno and the invasion of Normandy.

There had been a move within the Navy and the greater public at large to have the Warspite saved as a museum ship, as a tribute to all those who fought and the many that lost their lives in the two wars but the pleas have gone unheeded. The official line from the Admiralty is it would be too costly to preserve her, particularly with all the temporary repairs carried out to the over the years. These include a huge concrete plug fitted to her in 1944 to cover a massive hole made by a German 'Fritz' glider bomb. Many in the Navy think the real reason is the Atllee Government’s desire to distance itself from the past.

Whatever the reason she lies here with her sister and cousin awaiting the cutting torch. They look toothless now, the guns having long been removed, in some cases to provide spares for the remaining 15 inch-gunned ships including the new HMS Vanguard.

And now they come for her. The steam powered paddle tug HMS Volatile draws alongside. She is fourteen years the Warspite’s senior, a quarter of her length and looks as if she is from another era but, once the tow line is attached and Warspite’s anchors lifted, she slowly tows the old lady away and out into the open water of Spithead, in sight of the Isle of Wight. There the anchors are dropped once more and she waits again for the tugs that will take her on the long journey to Glasgow where she will be cut apart and her metal melted down. Some will form new ships although there are many fewer being built in Britain than in her heyday. Some will form girders for bridges, some reinforcing bars for new buildings, some machines but there will never be another battleship, that era has gone.

CHAPTER ONE

Farewell to Pompey

Ray Boswell was not a sentimental man. He had seen far too much and lost too many things for that. He’d lost his family home and most of his possessions to the blitz in 1940 although, thankfully, his family were not in it, unlike poor Mrs McCarthy at number 14. He’d lost his first ship, torpedoed out from under him in convoy to Alexandria and he’d lost countless friends and comrades in the war.

No, he considered himself pretty hardened and he felt little remorse towing away old ships to be scrapped on the Clyde. He knew that every one had a story to tell, that many had been the site of death and injury and were of special significance to those that served on them but it no longer affected him.

But today, as he looked up from the deck of his tug at the great grey mass they were coming alongside, he felt a lump in his throat. Even though her gunless turrets stared like empty eye-sockets and her dazzle-pattern camouflage was streaked with rust, she still had a magnificence and the story that she could tell was the story of the Royal Navy in the twentieth century.

He had seen her before, three times.

Once between the wars when she had visited Rosyth and his father had taken him to watch her steaming past the Forth Bridge, her profile rigged with flags and her crew proudly paraded on the deck.

The second time was in Alexandria where he had been taken when a destroyer had rescued him, following the loss of his merchantman, the Craigforth. The fleet that was assembled there was the largest he had seen but it would be greatly reduced in the coming weeks protecting the evacuation of Crete.

And, of course, the fleet was as nothing compared to that which he had been part of off the coast of Normandy. He had seen Warspite, by that time reduced to a mere bombardment platform with only three of her four turrets working but still an awesome sight when she opened fire. Ray’s job that night had been on a tug like this, towing landing craft to near the beaches.

The skeleton watch left on-board the moored vessel greeted Boswell and his men and, after a handover tour and the requisite signing of paperwork, the ownership of the great vessel was passed from the Admiralty to Metal Industries (Salvage) Ltd of Faslane. The scrap price is around the cost of just her guns when she was built.

Well, lads, let’s get this old Lady moving, said Boswell, there’s a strong sou’ westerly forecast for early next week and I want to be round Land’s End before then.

The eight crew members went about their work, checking everything was secure, that the generators that would supply power to keep the few areas of the ship they would use lit and heated as well as storing the provisions that they would eat over the eight day journey.

Then they dropped messenger lines down to the two waiting tugs and then used her capstans to pull back up the huge wire hawsers that would be used to tow the massive vessel.

The two tugs were a far cry from the ancient paddle steamer used to take Warspite out from Portsmouth. They were full ocean-going ex-Admiralty rescue tugs. The smaller Metinda III having over 1000hp and the larger but older Bustler having more than three times that. Metal Industries had bought them for a song in the great disposal the Ministry of War Transport had after the war and they should have no problem handling Warspite.

Once the lines were secured to Warspite, the tugs manoeuvred to take slack out of the hawsers and Boswell gave the order to haul the anchors for one last time. There was the familiar whirring as the winches started up and soon the ‘clunk, clunk, clunk’ of chain links being hauled on-board and then the huge anchors themselves, each weighing seven and a half tons.

And then, after a final exchange with the Portsmouth Harbour Master, the order was given to start the tow, the two tugs taking the strain together and their engine notes climbing as they struggled to move the enormous mass.

Then she moved, slowly, gracefully and, as the momentum built, a gentle bow wave started to move the crowds of curious small pleasure boats that had come to see her leave Pompey for the last time. She was never going to see the twenty-three knots she used to make under her own steam but they soon had a reasonable pace in the relatively calm seas.

She went out past the Isle of Wight and into the English Channel proper where, on a clearer day they would have seen the French coast near Cherbourg but today it was hidden by a sea fog. To the starboard side they could see the English coast with the New Forest stretching off behind it.

Right, lads, Boswell spoke into his walkie-talkie, second watch go get your heads down. Jamie, get a brew on and Mick, come relieve me on the bridge in an hour.

So he stood there, on the bridge of the once mighty warship where so many famous Captains had stood - Phillpotts, Crutchley, Wake and Somervile, Vice Admirals like La Touche-Bisset and, most famously, Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham, or ABC as he was known, who made the ship his Flag for much of the Mediterranean campaign.

John Jamieson arrived with a huge mug of hot tea and a brick-thick sandwich.

Ta, Jamie, Boswell nodded his thanks to the younger man and they ate and drank in silence for a while.

Eventually Jamie spoke, You know, I’ve never been on a ship that felt so … well, haunted, as this one. It’s like her spirit is still lurking somewhere down inside.

Boswell smiled, I think you are confusing ghosts with memories. A lot of men served on her and a lot of men died. Its natural we should feel a little strange about it.

Later, when Mick Taggart had taken over the watch, he went down into the main deck cabins and spent some time with the ‘ghosts’ that were there. Most of the movable fittings had been taken either for use elsewhere or by souvenir hunters in the Portsmouth yard but the fixtures were largely intact, even the once plush leather and the teak wallboards in the Admirals suite. He thought for a moment that he might sleep there but decided against it. Whether it was damp mustiness that put him off or whether it was the ‘ghosts’ was something he didn't contemplate too closely.

~~~~

The tow went uneventfully for the first two days day and nights, the weather was grey but the sea was relatively benign and they made good time. They passed along the Dorset and Devon coasts past Plymouth and the place of Warspite’s birth at Devonport dockyard. Here again, small boats came out to see the famous ship go by.

On Monday the 21st they were just approaching Land’s End and planning to make the wide sweeping turn that would take them into the Irish Sea when the promised south-westerly winds came in followed by heavy seas and lashing rain. The wind built rapidly and by late in the day the tugs were struggling to make any headway.

Early on the 22nd the ship gave a mighty heave and a call came across the radio from Bustler, The hawser has gone! The hawser has gone!

Damn it to hell! Boswell cursed, The Metinda won’t hold her on her own.

He radioed the Metinda’s master, Jack, just hold her head into the wind, we’ll try and get a line back on to Bustler.

The crew tried in vain to throw down another line but the waves were moving her too much and the tug could not get close enough.

With nightfall they gave up their attempts and Metinda just carried on keeping the big vessel into the wind but by 5:00 she was drifting backwards at an alarming rate. With the dawn Boswell estimated they had drifted some 25 to 30 miles and were approaching the Cornish coast in Mounts Bay. They later received radio contact from an aircraft out of the Naval airfield at Culdrose confirming this.

At noon the Metinda’s master radioed to say his ship was being wrenched around by the hawser so much he felt it was in danger so Boswell reluctantly told him to drop the tow.

He gathered his men together to formulate a plan.

She’s drifting too fast for us to have any chance of getting lines back on so our only hope is to wait until we can get to anchoring depth and try and stop her there, He pointed at the chart he had laid out on the table. We will be just off Prussia Cove in an hour at this rate; we’ll drop anchors there and ride this out. The tugs can standby to get lines on when the weather drops enough.

And so they waited until Boswell gauged the time was right and, at his word, they dropped first the port then the starboard anchor.

Everybody held their breath as they heard the anchors run out and then the huge groans as they bit and strain came on the wires. The stern of the ship swung round and, at first, it seemed that they were not holding but, come time, it appeared that the ship had stopped moving; it was holding station against the might of the sea.

Boswell breathed a sigh of relief and yelled for someone to get a brew on, he felt they needed it.

The whole team huddled down on the bridge and had just taken their first sips when they heard the ominous groan again and the ship gave a shudder.

Damn and blast it! shouted Boswell, she’s slipping.

They ran to the bridge wings and, sure enough, the cliffs at Prussia Cove were getting closer and closer. They could see the waves smashing off the rocks below the cliffs and knew that even such a mighty ship as this was no match for the strength of sea and rock.

Drop the sheet… but even as he said it he knew he was too late to drop the third, emergency anchor.

All hope of getting a line back on ended when the ship was rocked by a massive impact and the crew were thrown across the decks. There was a graunching and a tearing of plates. Loose items in the ship’s cabins and compartments could be heard to shift and smash.

The radio crackled into life and Mick grabbed it. He spoke into it for a few seconds and then turned to Boswell. It’s the lifeboat out of Penlee, she’s coming in off the port bow to render assistance.

Boswell moved over to the wing to look and, sure enough, the tiny shape of a lifeboat could be seen between the Warspite and the rocks. It was pitching up and down like a cork.

He scanned the situation. The ship was aground but seemed stable. Nobody was in any immediate danger.

Mick, please advise Penlee lifeboat we will wait for high tide and attempt to re-float and drag her off. Thank her for her offer of assistance but we will remain here for now.

So they settled down to wait. The tugs stood off to ease the task of them staying on station. The crews on all three vessels drank cups of warming tea and watched the waves lashing on the rocks.

Who’d ‘ve thought she would end up like this? said Joe Carrick, a lean, fair haired man from Norfolk whose skin had the colour and texture of old leather, All the scrapes we got into, all the damage we took but we made it right through the war and she ends up on the rocks here.

Boswell looked towards Carrick, who was sitting on the floor, knees up with his hands on them, one supporting a huge tin mug and the holding a stub of rolled cigarette.

I’d forgotten you’d served on her, Joe, he said, Must be strange for you, this journey.

Aye, joined her in Alex in 1938, left her in ’44 in Malta, after spending three days trapped in number four boiler room. That was the worst time but, even then, I was sure she’d pull through. I never thought I’d be on her again.

S’truth, mate, chimed in Chris Higgins, I was on the Oriana, one of the tugs that was towing you. That was a nail-biter of a journey. Many’s the time we though she was going to roll over and go under but she just kept on going. Five tugs there were at one point, lines kept breaking but, as soon as one went, another took over. You must’ve been damn scared in there?

Confused at first. I don’t really remember what happened, I must have got knocked out when the bomb hit and I woke up in darkness. Felt my way up to a bulkhead and started banging on it. Eventually someone tapped back and we communicated in Morse. Told me to sit tight until they could get me out. Eventually two other lads found their way to me and we managed to get some emergency lighting on so we sat and played cards. Eventually we got to Malta and they pumped her out enough for us to get to a hole they’d cut. Spent the next week getting drunk in every bar in Valletta!

Must have been just after that I was on her. This came from Mick Taggert who was propped in a doorway, chewing on a cold chicken leg.

"They brought her