Twas the night before Midsummer and all through the ship, not a creature was stirring, not even the chefs in the galley with their ghettoblaster…

With apologies to Clement Clarke Moore, but the quietest people in the RN this past month have been the men and women of the good ship Lancaster.

Why? Because they’ve been on a four-day hunt for a submarine in the waters around Faslane.

Exercise Cable Car (which has nothing to do with aerial railways, rather it’s a codename picked at random) challenges an anti-submarine frigate – which is exactly what the Red Rose ship is – to hunt down a boat without it finding the warship.

And that means silence throughout the ship. Not merely turning off the chefs’, sorry logisticians(catering services)(preparation), stereo but preventing any noise escaping Lancaster’s hull and travelling through the waves, so only essential kit was left running while the ops room team searched for that underwater prey.

“Instead of our normal ‘steaming bats’, slippers are worn – leading to an impressive array of footwear being displayed by the ship’s company,” said officer of the watch Lt Laura Peacock.

“The silence does have its plus-side. If you’re not on watch you must go to bed so as not to make any unnecessary noise.”

The silence paid off as Lancaster found and tracked her prey – which we can’t name for operational reasons.