When, hours later, tense with rage,
The Scharnhorst, plotted to engage
Just merchant ships and escort craft,
Had reappeared to run the raft,
She met instead the concerted blast
Of Norfolk, Sheffield and Belfast.
Once again the salvos thundered.
Scharnhorst knew that she had blundered,
While her gunners cursed and wondered
Shells and fire as before
Through the gloomy twilight tore,
Swiftly, surely, more and more.
The Norfolk’s afterdeck was hit,
A blaze of flame, the air was lit.
The Scharnhorst did not wait to see
What damage or what victory.
She turned once more in fearful dread,
Homeward set her course and fled.
For Scharnhorst was a worthy prize.
Correctly had she made surmise
That other ships, the British fleet,
Would steam to intercept or meet,
And so she fled, a wounded beast,
To seek the dark, protective east.
But all this while, to interplace
Between the Scharnhorst and her base,
To cut the Nazi monster’s course,
To bridle all her vicious force,
To leave a wreck of twisted torque,
There steamed the mighty Duke of York.
Two hundred miles away or more
The Duke and her destroyers bore
When first the battle message came.
Belfast continued to proclaim
The Scharnhorst’s course, and from this plot
The Duke, her speed, position got.
For brave Belfast, and Sheffield, too,
And Norfolk this time did pursue.
The Scharnhorst turned, she headed south,
And flung herself into the mouth
Of Duke, Jamaica, and the horde,
Saumarez, Savage, Scorpion, Stord.
“Illuminate the enemy!”
Belfast’s bright shell broke high and free.
The heavy night with heavy haze
Had been descending, but the blaze
Of light and brilliance caught the steed,
Betrayed her form, her frothing speed.
The Duke’s great turrets boldly spoke,
Belched shell and fire, fume and smoke.
Concussion tore the night around.
The shells went screaming through the sound
And landed close aboard the Hun,
A “straddle” salvo number one.
The Duke corrected plot and range
And there began a fierce exchange
Of shell and suffering. Scharnhorst blazed
Where blasts and flame her structures razed.
She turned to east in panicked fright
And sought the dark, descending night.