The Navy Eternal

The Navy Eternal by Bartimeus

The Navy Eternal opens not with battle but with reminiscence, as the narrator recalls his cadet days aboard the training ship Britannia under the chief petty officer he calls Harker: a stern, all-seeing figure who drills raw fifteen-year-olds into naval discipline, hunts down contraband and improperly worn "drawers," administers floggings, teaches knots and splices, and ultimately reveals unexpected tenderness on the boys' last night aboard. Around Harker cluster memories of canteen "stodge," the bun-seller Maunder and his sharp-tongued daughter, visiting midshipmen flush with pay, the Captain and his wife, the awesome Commander, the Term Lieutenants who are hero-worshipped by their charges, and the Cadet Captains who enforce a private code of discipline including illicit nighttime punishments. The narrator closes this reminiscence by invoking the Britannia's old boatmen and the generation of cadets who went on to die in the war, quoting "We Are the Dead." The narrative then shifts to the war itself, told as a sequence of loosely linked episodes. Battle cruisers and the battle fleet sortie from harbour in darkness; a neutral steamer's radio message tips off the Germans and averts a planned bombardment. Light cruisers and destroyers clash with German light forces protecting a raid, rescuing German survivors from the wreck amid a German communiqué that inverts the outcome. Destroyer patrols maintain the Channel barrage and left-flank minefields in bitter cold. A Blimp airship and motor launches hunt and force the surrender of a U-boat that had been shelling a merchantman. A submarine slips into a German harbour submerged, observing a new German battle-cruiser, and its captain is later killed on a subsequent patrol, mourned quietly by his fellow officers. Armed trawlers and drifter/smack fleets tangle with U-boats, including the blinded old trawler skipper who orders his son to keep fighting the gun despite his wounds. The account then covers the Royal Naval Air Service: reconnaissance photography of the Belgian coast, dogfights and heroic feats by young pilots co-operating with the Royal Flying Corps, night bombing raids on German bases, seaplane crews' humor under danger, and vivid character sketches such as the French ace "N." and the running joke of the undefined "doo-hickie." A separate section documents specific destroyer actions with named ships and officers: H.M.S. Shark's last stand under Commander Loftus W. Jones, who received the only posthumous honour of either Service; the ramming actions of H.M. destroyers Swift and Broke against a German destroyer raid; the Dover Drifter Patrol's disastrous night against German raiders and the subsequent revenge action by Botha, Morris, and French destroyers; and H.M.S. Mary Rose's doomed single-ship engagement against three German light cruisers while escorting a convoy. Later sections turn to an old retired admiral recalled to command an armed yacht, who rams and sinks a U-boat before yielding his command to a younger officer; the wartime service of amateur yachtsmen and the R.N.V.R., including a father who volunteers in his son's place and two Reserve officers who salvage a derelict steamer under gale conditions. A reminiscence of the Battle of Jutland follows, seen through the eyes of an officer aboard the fleet flagship, including glimpses of the loss of Invincible and other ships. The submarine service receives extended treatment: its early years as the Navy's "joke," dark gallows humor among crews facing mines and bombs, a harrowing solo escape by a trapped stoker petty officer using a submarine's escape hatch, and the tightly bonded, jesting culture of "the Navy-under-the-Sea." A digression follows Able Seaman Pettigrew, a habitual leave-breaker, whose encounter with a London bus conductress who lost her brothers in the war shames him into returning to duty, where he later helps ram and sink a U-boat. Another episode recounts a storm in which two destroyers are wrecked on rocks near Ultima Thule, with a single survivor's harrowing swim, cliff climb, and rescue narrated in close detail. The account then turns to the arrival of the American Nth Battle Squadron to join the Grand Fleet at Ultima Thule, describing the enthusiastic welcome, the significance of the two fleets merging under one command, and the technical and cultural adjustments—signalling systems, wireless procedure—required to fuse the two navies. It concludes with the narrator's interview with the American admiral, who asks what struck him most about a day spent aboard one of the American battleships.

By Bartimeus · Genre: Naval Fiction, Military Fiction, Historical Fiction · 15 chapters · 70,533 words

First lines

Reminiscences of those days "in the distance enchanted" never come in an orderly procession according to the original sequence of events. Some, for reasons quite inexplicable, jostle their way to the fore readily enough. Others, dim and elusive, hover in the background, and only respond to the lure of firelight and tobacco smoke ascending incense-wise from the depths of the arm-chair.

Sooner or later, though, they can all be caught and held for the moment needed to record them. The difficulty is to know where to start....

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Royal Navy · World War I · Naval training · Naval cadets · Naval warfare · Submarine warfare · U-boats · Destroyer squadrons · Battle cruisers · Naval operations · North Sea · Military discipline

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