A flush spread under his “submarine pallor” at that broadside, but he admitted, with an embarrassed grin, that his name was Bailey, and that his decoration was awarded for something or other in
connection with the last fight of the Mary Rose, though for just what he had never quite been able to figure out. In the hour we leaned over the forecastle rail and watched the North Sea fog-bank roll up the estuary with the incoming tide, this is the account he gave me of the things which he himself saw of what is perhaps the most gallantly tragic of all the naval actions of the war.
“They hadn’t got convoying at that time down to the system it is carried on under now,” he began, by way of explanation, “and the only fighting ships with this one were the Mary Rose and Strongbow. The Mary was of the same class as the ‘M ...’ over there, very large and fast and well armed for a destroyer, but never, of course, built for anything like a give-and-take fight with any kind of a cruiser.
“There was also an armed trawler somewhere about, but it had no chance to do anything but pick up survivors. We were an anti-submarine escort, nothing more, and were not intended to stand off surface raiders. Of course provision was made against these, too, but—well, when you consider the size of the North Sea and the length and blackness of the winter nights, the only wonder is that the Huns can’t buck up their nerve to trying for a convoy twice a week instead of twice a year.
“We had escorted the north-bound convoy across to Bergen, and, on the afternoon of the 16th of
October, had picked up the south-bound and headed back for one of the home ports. Escorting even a squadron of warships which know how to keep station is no picnic for destroyers, but with merchantmen it is a dozen times worse. It is bad enough even now, but a year ago, before these little packets had had much experience, it was enough to drive a man crazy. Between the faster ships trying to push on, and the slower ones falling astern, and breakdowns, and the chance of trickery, it was one continual round of worry from the time we left Base to our return.
“This time was no exception to the rule, even before the big smash. One of the Swedes—there were Norwegian and Danish as well as Swedish ships in the convoy, but we called them all ‘Swedes,’ probably because it was shorter and easier to say than Scandinavian—well, one of the Swedes shifted cargo along about dark of the 16th, with the result that the slower ships, and this included most of the convoy, lagged back, while several of the faster ones kept on.
“I don’t know whether this was done by order, or whether it just happened. Anyhow, the Strongbow remained behind with the slower section, while the Mary Rose pushed on as an escort for the faster. It was the first lot—the main convoy—that the raiders attacked first, but just what happened I did not see, for we had drawn a long way ahead of them in the course of the night.
