World War: AT SEA: Old Splash Guts

If World War II turns out as the British are positive it will, some day a biography will be written of ginger-haired, dynamitish Admiral Sir John Cronyn Tovey, 55, now Commander in Chief of Britain’s Home Fleet. Footnote material to such a work was orally contributed by one of his former shipmates who arrived last week in Manhattan from Suez (via the Cape of Good Hope) aboard the Empress of Asia with several hundred other British veterans of battles in the Mediterranean and campaigns along its shores. Said Sir John’s former shipmate (insisting naturally that he be not quoted by name):

“The Admiral signs his proper orders with the name ‘Jack’ though his proper Christian name’s ‘John’ ; but below decks everybody calls him ‘Splash Guts.’ I don’t know why this is, except maybe it’s because he’s so full of splash and dash, and he’s got more guts than any man in the whole Royal bloody Navy, or, for that matter, any other bloody (biological participle) navy afloat.

“At one show in the Mediterranean was I was on the bridge of the cruiser he was usin’ for’ a flagship. We had three other cruisers with us. Just like at Jutland, he was goin’ ahead, scoutin’ the enemy. ‘Two Italian battleships, sir,” I says. ‘I can count, you bloody fool.’ he says. Shortly was more Eyeties. ‘Eighteen cruisers, sir.’ I says. ‘Dammit, man, I’m not blind,’ he says. So then I decided I’d better hold my jaw, and shortly when there was more Eyeties I didn’t say a word. ‘How many of their destroyers off there?’ he sways. ‘Twenty-seven, sir,’ I says. So he bloody near blew me off the bridge for not tellin’ him.

” ‘Two of us will attack and two will ram,’ he says to the captain. ‘Will we attack, sir?’ the Captain says, probably thinkin’ that Tovey, bein’ the admiral, might pick the easier of the jobs. ‘No, you bloody fool, we’ll ram!’ old Splash says. Just then the Warspite* behind us signaled and asked him what the bloody hell he was doin’. ‘Am pursuin’ small detachment of Italian destroyers,’ he signals back. But somehow the Warspite and some more of our battleships got in between us and them, and that’s probably why I’m here havin’ this pleasant drop of beer.

“Another time I see him standin’ on the bridge and lookin’ up while we was takin’ a horrible dive bombin’. It wasn’t a matter of lookin’ up at the sky to see the Stukas, it was a matter of lookin’ up at the Stukas to see a patch of sky. ‘There’s a bluenose [1,000-lb. bomb] comin’ down two points off the starboard bow,’ he says to the captain, like he was tellin’ him there was a small school of flying fish ahead.

“Diplomatic type he is, too. They spin a yarn about the time he was goin’ down to Chequers to visit Winnie Churchill. He’d just been made a full admiral and he was standin’ in a railway station wearin’ his brand-new uniform. Bein’ on the smallish side, the gold braid on his sleeve reached near up to his elbows. A soldier come up to him and says: ‘Excuse me, could you tell me what time the train for So-and-so leaves?’ Old Splash Guts drew himself up and looked at him. ‘Excuse me,’ he says, ‘but do you happen to think I’m a bloody station master?’

“Fond of sweets, too, he is. What you call candy over here. Keeps a bottle of sweets on the bridge. Well, we’re fond of sweets ourselves and every now and then we manage to pinch one or two. It’s a matter of keepin’ one eye on the bottle of sweets and one on the Admiral like. There’d been some complaints about it, and I heard the flag officer say: ‘Shall I take your bottle of sweets down to the cabin, sir, and put ’em away?’ And old Splash Guts answers back, very weary: ‘Oh, what does it matter where you put ’em? Them bloody scroungers’ll find ’em anyway.’ ”

*For a further splash made by the Warspite see P. 45.