2001, June 5th 1915, Above Cromarty Firth
Captain Lord Robert Herrick trudged up the long walk to his door. A gift from the present king, the house sat on the cliffs overlooking Cromarty itself. As he walked, the house rose above him. Good Scottish stone and slate, proof against the worst the North Sea could throw at her. In a few windows lights burned brightly. Herrick knew those rooms by heart. The drawing room where his wife wrote letters. The nursery where his youngest son delighted in toys from around the world. The study where all his children rummaged through his desk and sat in his chair, pretending they were the captain on a great ship of war. Only one light was missing. The light for his eldest son. The room where he would be reading. The halls where he would play with his brothers and sister. For his son was far away, soon to tangle with the Germans in the mist and on the dark sea again.
Home. A place that I get to spend so little time at, and may not see again. A place so many good men, whatever their uniform, will never see. Where my wife and children patiently wait for me to return. What about this profession draws good men away from warm homes and loving families? What within us lets us be away? What causes us to spend our lives for something as ethereal as Victory?
He turned the last bend in the road and soon reached the door. Herrick passed the flagpoles at the head of the drive. He was used to them; he barely gave it a second thought. A beam of light poked through the clouds and met his eye. A flash of surprise crossed his face. A strange flag flew from the nearest pole. A flag he had seen many times, and one that he hoped to fly for his own. The flag of a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy.
In the door stood a tall woman with flowing, chin-length red hair. Her face bore her characteristic smile; one of mystery and desire. Her eyes bore the joy at his return and the repressed worry that he never might. With her stood another, an impish face that Herrick knew all to well. A shock of his mother’s red hair graced his head; the rest of his face was his father’s. The boy’s green eyes, so like Herrick’s own, and so different from his mother’s, spoke delight at his father’s homecoming. On the steps in front of them sat a young girl, dirty blond hair floating on the gentle breeze. She had her mother’s eyes and face. As Herrick drew closer, her smile grew bigger until her face could no longer contain her happiness.
“DADDY!”
Suddenly, there was a rustle in his wife’s skirts, and a blond blur rushed towards him, running down the road to meet him. Herrick opened his arms, and the cloud jumped in them. He settled the child in his arms, and his youngest son threw his own small arms around his father’s neck. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy’s home!”
So much like the picture on my desk. Only one thing is missing. His mind penciled in the missing details. Two boys, nearly twins, should be standing side by side. One his flesh and blood, the other not; both close as brothers. They bore the brown hair that refused to stay combed and the blue eyes that held infinite mischief and infinite promise. Both faces carried a smile that was irrepressible. The smiles that charmed cookies from Catherine and kisses from girls. The smiles that made it so hard to discipline them. She doesn’t know yet. I can see it in Cathy’s eyes. She hides her fear for them, but her eyes give it away. It is the same fear that I carry every day.
“Where’s Dav’n’Dan?” The high pitched voice curled around his face queried. His youngest had been talking for years, yet still used some babyish words. Tommy’s name for his brother and his brother’s best friend was one of them. Quite apt, too, since we always had a devil of a time separating them.
“Dan’s visiting his parents next door. Davin wasn’t able to come home.”
Herrick caught his wife’s sudden gasp in the corner of his eye. Is he all right?
“Why?”
“Well Tommy, you know why I can’t be home all the time, right?”
The boy’s head bobbed up and down enthusiastically. “Yes.” He was old enough to take pride in his knowledge without being resentful of his father’s absence.
“Well, Davin has orders too. He wasn’t able to come home. He misses you very much, and really wanted to come home.” Herrick’s eyes sent a similar message. Don’t worry. He’s all right.
Both reassurances worked. Cathy’s smile returned and Tommy hugged his father even tighter.
“Piggy back ride!”
“Oh, all right. Hold on.”
Herrick transferred his son to his back. It was difficult to balance the boy and the suitcase he held in his right hand, but Herrick somehow succeeded. He carried Tommy up the rest of the driveway. “My, your getting heavy! How old are you now?”
“Four!” The boy answered with pride.
“Wow. Four. Then, you’re old enough to walk the rest of the way!”
“No!”
“Down!” Herrick growled in mock-seriousness. He crouched down and lowered his son onto the flagstone steps by the door. Tommy quickly got up and rushed back into the house, shouting “Daddy’s home!” at the top of his lungs.
Grant knew what his father had in mind. He was of the age where he too was interested in women. The gangly fifteen-year-old took his sister into the house and gave his parents some privacy. Herrick took his wife into his arms and brushed the strands of red out of her face. Her face shone as light from the setting sun fell on it and her lips glowed red.
“Welcome home, sailor.”
2016, Study, Above Cromarty Firth
Herrick stepped through the door and into the study. Strangely, the room was well lit. He slowly walked toward his desk. The room bore the signs that a naval officer lived there. Four glass-cased models graced the wall. HMS Irresistible, HMS Fearless, HMS Minotaur and HMS Benbow. Above them were paintings of famous Royal Navy actions from previous wars. In the center hung HMS Victory at Nelson’s moment of triumph. With her were the Nile, Cape St. Vincent and Copenhagen.
The opposite wall held only three frames. To the right was a portrait of the family, painted shortly after the birth of his youngest. How he had found the time to sit for the portrait amazed him. To the left was a framed photo. It was the day his eldest graduated from Dartmouth. Davin stood with his best friend, both looking like schoolboys dressed up in their father’s uniforms. Even at Dartmouth they were together. I know they wanted to serve together, but it is a good thing the Navy split them up. Requests from very senior captains with earls for fathers were seldom ignored.
In the middle, a reminder of much better times was suspended above Herrick’s desk. Here HMS Minotaur graced an enormous piece of canvas. The painting was a gift from his wife the day he took command, back in November of 1912. His days in command of her were among the happiest of his life. He poured his heart and soul into that ship. She and her crew responded. By the time the war broke out, she was the best on the China Station. She was ready to go toe-to-toe with a battlecruiser. And Minotaur did, once, without him on her bridge. Another shattered dream. Jerram, my Admiral from those days, wounded in Scapa Hospital. My ship a shattered wreck on the ocean floor. Of all my ships, only Benbow still sails this world’s seas.
His mind could see the final action. Minotaur much in like his treasured painting, leading her squadron into the fight. The lean, hungry shape of a German battlecruiser swimming out of the dark gray mist. The first few splashes of gunfire, and the last painful flash as Minotaur’s magazines exploded. The flash he drew from memory. Herrick saw his old ship’s funeral pyre from the bridge of his newest one.
Herrick poured himself a stiff drink from the decanter near his desk, turned out the lights, and left the room, running from the painful memories.
2018, Library, Above Cromarty Firth
Herrick entered the library, his drink in his hand. A strange sight greeted him. The library was dimly lit. The gas lamps were turned down to just a glow, and the candles that graced the room were dark. Yet it was not the conspiratorial air that startled him. Instead, he saw many unexpected faces around the main table.
Along the long edges of the table were four chairs. In one sat an elderly man of eighty or more years. He wore the scarlet of a Royal Army officer and carried himself with the grace of Britain’s highest men. Of which he was one. Baron Sir Lawrence Leohnardt, Major-General, Retired, now a Director of Vickers. To his right sat a man seven years younger than Herrick himself. He too wore a uniform, the white of the Essex Regiment contrasting with his red tunic and copper hair. On his collar, shoulders and cuffs he bore the symbols of his majority. His right arm hung in a sling, a cast on his elbow; both legacies of France. A quick glance of recognition and sympathy flashed between the brothers. This was Andrew, his grandfather’s temporary military aide while he recovered.
The opposite side of the table also held surprises. Across from the Baron sat his wife Martha. Probably the smartest person in the room, her hair and face bore the marks of her age. Yet her mind was as ruthlessly cunning and competent as ever. While denied the opportunity to act on the world stage openly, the baroness’s council was always listened to.
The woman to her right was able to act more openly. While she was married to and dearly loved one of the more influential Conservative peers and was the daughter of another, Countess Carol Herrick’s home was the Liberal Party. The very liberal Liberal party. She was extensively involved in the suffragette movement. Yet, unlike so many others, she had the power to back her political opinions. She was one of the few women in the realm able to vote; her power stemmed from the King’s frustration with the House of Lords in 1911. The ennoblement of the very Liberal daughter and wife of two Tory peers got the King’s point across quite nicely.
At the head of the table sat the justification for the flag outside. William, 13th Earl Herrick, Vice-Admiral, RN, Retired. A score of other letters followed his name. They were unimportant; his presence was. Usually, the family gathered only at Christmas and other special occasions. The last was to see Davin off from Dartmouth. The presence of three peers now was not a comforting one. There was only one reason that they would congregate at his house in the dead of night. So I’m to go with Jellicoe and so many others. Things must be very bad if they are sacking flag captains. They’re here to try and save my career. I guess it will be a very poor one compared to the family standards.
Herrick’s own lady and future Countess stood in the doorway behind him. She closed the door behind her and made the short trip to his side. The gesture of support was welcome and necessary. If my career ends tonight, I will need all her help. Cathy guided Herrick to the last chair at the library table, the one reserved for him. Then she took her place at his side, his hand in hers, ready to take on the world.
Herrick’s father spoke first. “What happened?”
“Sir?”
“At sea. What happened? Why did we lose?” Those words could have carried much venom. He had seen similar words do just that in the House of Lords. Yet these words bore no malice, merely curiosity. Guess nobody wants my head. Yet.
“We lost because we were not able to control the scouting battle. We lost because our ships can not stand up to the crushing embrace of the line of battle.” Herrick’s thoughts flashed back to the dreadful flares rising from the sea. Plumes caused by the release of an entire magazine’s worth of shells and cordite.
The Baron spoke from his corner of the table. “What do you mean, our ships are unfit for battle?” His firm had built many of those ships. They had built many more of those guns.
"Papa, I saw Ajax, and Orion explode as soon as the Germans hit them. Conqueror blew up out of nowhere. She never even took a hit. I saw other ships battered into wrecks. I saw ten British dreadnoughts slip beneath the waves. Yet I saw German ships take beating after beating. I saw German ships with turrets sundered and gaping holes in their superstructures just shrug off the hits.” The image of Köing returning to the battle after a battering that would have sunk any British ship of the line came to his mind. “Sturdee never did return at all. My own ship suffered nearly one hundred casualties and had the starboard casemates burnt out from a single hit.” The rows and rows of young men covered by sheets returned to his eyes. “I nearly lost my own son.” Now Dan Connor lay in the sick bay berth, his small body bruised and badly burned, drugged out of his mind.
Gasps flew from every mouth in the room. Nobody had heard losses were that bad. Opponents in many political battles, family for even longer, everyone shuddered at the losses. Only his grandmother was able to summon a word. Her brain raced for the cause. She ran through her knowledge and came up without one. “Why?”
“Commander Campbell, my engineer, showed me the cause of so many losses. It is the flash-tight doors. They aren’t. The cordite is also dangerously unstable. It is as simple as that.”
A second shock rippled through his family. It was not that the Germans were smarter or better than we were. We did this to ourselves. Not enough armor, not enough steel on those doors. Now we have all too many men who will never return home to their families.
“It is as simple as that?” His grandfather was noticeably pale.
“Yes Papa. I am afraid it is.”
“Thank you, Robert. It is good to see you are well.” His mother, normally not a reserved person, spoke for the first time that evening. “Please, take care of yourself.” While they would never say it, his family worried about his safety. So far, the family led a charmed life. With Andrew fighting in France, Robert at sea, and now my grandsons going to war, we have been very lucky. How long will our immunity last? “Now go spend time with your children.”
“Yes Mother.” As long as I can. I may never get another
chance. Three of my ships and many friends are now lying in the grave.
How long before it is my turn?
###
By Rob Herrick
