Falling into Battle

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“Stand down from entering harbour. Assume Harbour Duties. Midshipmen Adams, Baker, McDuff and Sturton to Captain’s cabin, six bells, forenoon.”

It was October of 1913, the weather surprisingly clement for Portsmouth in autumn, the sun shining on HMS Victory and the scores of naval vessels clustered about the great harbour.

The voice bellowed from the bridge of St Vincent and the crew responded with the quiet efficiency of a long commission, now coming to its end as the dreadnought tied up in Portsmouth harbour prior to entering the yard for a major overhaul. The bulk of the officers and ratings would be posted away, a very few remaining with the ship while she was in dockyard hands for the better part of a year.

The four senior midshipmen knew they must be called to the cabin at this juncture in their careers. They had been aboard for two years, had crossed the Atlantic twice and sailed to South Africa and back by way of Gibraltar and six months in the Med. In that time they had served in navigation and gunnery departments and discovered much of the reality of naval life – finding some to be as they had hoped during the years in Dartmouth, a little to be surprising, and the bulk of routine rather more tedious than juvenile imaginations had expected. They had completed the minimum of seatime demanded of the trainee and now must discover whether they had made the grade, had passed their final test. The ship was paying off, in the old-fashioned term, and they must be told what was to become of them.

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