Peter Scott was just three years old in 1912 when his father, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, R.N. died attempting to conquer the South Pole in 1912. As he lay facing the inevitable end with his surviving men just a few miles from the supply depot, Captain Scott wrote a last letter to his wife Kathleen, a sculptor (Rodin had attended their wedding only four years before Captain Scott embarked on his ‘Grand Adventure’) with advice to their son: ‘make the boy interested in natural history if you can — it is better than games.’ When Peter grew up he became a wildlife artist, studying painting first in Munich (where he stayed with one of the Professors, Angelo Jank, a renowned animal painter). After Germany, he studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London - ‘I won no prizes and I had no very advanced ideas about the future of art .... my most serious limitation was an unbridled propensity for adventure. I wanted things to happen,’ he wrote (p 153-4). He was a talented ice-skater, a sailor (winning an Olympic bronze medal in 1936), and later in life he took up gliding - but his life long passion was wildfowl, particularly geese.

His first one-man exhibition at the wildlife paintings specialist dealers Ackermann in London was in 1933. It was a success, and he held an exhibition there each year thereafter until 1940. These shows, and the publication of a series of prints after his work, made him one of the most popular artists in Britain. Typical of a man in a hurry, Scott’s paintings are not subtle, being broadly and swiftly painted, but they have an economy, energy and attack that can be apt and winning. Thus, his studio portraits are rather wooden, but his paintings of birds in their habitat are wonderfully alive. His technique also suits the confusion, momentary terror and savage beauty of military action.

When World War II was declared, as a member of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and of the right age and discipline to ‘do his bit’, he helped supervise the last evacuation of wounded troops from Dunkirk before serving as First Lieutenant on a destroyer in the North Atlantic. His first command was of Steam Gun Boat Grey Goose, part of a small squadron which popped in and out of harbours the length of the British coast to surprise and harry the enemy. Offensive advantage in this theatre of war was won by speed, surprise and firepower, mostly in night actions hidden from enemy aircraft, for which Steam Gun Boats, Motor Torpedo Boats and Motor Gun Boats were designed. Of the fifty-two SGBs planned, only seven were ever completed, for although they were fast (up to 35 knots), and broke down less often than petrol powered boats, they took time to get up a head of steam and their engines were vulnerable in a fight. In opposition the Germans had the faster, better armed diesel powered E Boats (or S Boats, in German, ‘schnellboote‘), the more evenly-matched R Boats (‘räumboote‘), and the slower M Boats (minesweepers). In general, the British had the great advantage of radar, which had helped win the Battle of Britain. Used for ships in the Channel, the Controlling Officer of radar could use ‘the Plot‘ to transmit to a British Captain at sea a course and speed that would take him directly to the enemy (or run from him).

In the action depicted here, the moon is behind, dangerously silhouetting the Grey Goose to the German R Boats, which outnumbered his ships that night. Deep shadows are thrown by the powerful magnesium light from a starshell (parachute flare), out of which the dark shapes of the enemy boats emerge. It was very hard to distinguish friend from foe in these actions. There was a lot of panicked firing, some of it friendly, and there were many collisions, missed chances and miraculous escapes. Tracer bullets apparently arc across the scene (they seem to arc because of the movement of the observer, probably turning at speed). Every fifth round was coloured to see where you were shooting, but of course that works both ways and using tracer could make the shooter the target. Tiny amounts of an oxide of strontium in the bullet produces red, of barium green, and of magnesium, white. Scott routinely took benzedrine (a powerful amphetamine) during night missions to stay alert, which could give a hallucinatory dimension to perception. Scott described an action, probably the one depicted, in June 1943: 

At least fifteen ships had opened fire simultaneously and the air was thick with the red and green and white streaks. They ripped away from our guns towards the enemy line, they fanned out of the enemy ships and came lobbing towards us almost as though you could reach out and catch them, until they whipped past just over our heads singing as they went; they criss-crossed ahead and astern, they ricocheted off the water and popped as they exploded in the air, and they thumped into us from time to time with a shower of sparks. It would all have been very beautiful as a spectacle if it had not been so dreadfully frightening 

(p 454) 

Seven men of the SGB Squadron died and 30 wounded in this action, which earned Scott a Bar to his DSC. He described another action which took place soon after: 

Suddenly a brilliant light burst overhead, and then another and another. We were bathed in a dazzling white glare while the star-shells floated lazily down on their parachutes. Tracers and the heavy shells followed, streams of green and white shimmering out across the calm sea and great shell splashes spouting up all round. The tracer seemed to be a barrage, for it criss-crossed about in a tangled network of flying sparks. 

(p 466)