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Title: The Navy eternal : which is The Navy-that-floats, The Navy-that-flies and The Navy-under-the-sea
Author: Bartimeus
Language: English
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Copyright Status: Not copyrighted in the United States. If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook. See comments about copyright issues at end of book.
*** Start of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "The Navy eternal : which is The Navy-that-floats, The Navy-that-flies and The Navy-under-the-sea" ***
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
NAVAL OCCASIONS
A TALL SHIP
THE LONG TRICK
THE NAVY ETERNAL
WHICH IS
THE NAVY-THAT-FLOATS
THE NAVY-THAT-FLIES
AND THE NAVY-UNDER-THE-SEA
BY
“BARTIMEUS”
DRAWINGS BY DOUGLAS SWALE
[Illustration]
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury._
DEDICATED TO
CAPTAIN
GORDON CAMPBELL, V.C., D.S.O.,
ROYAL NAVY.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE 17
CHAPTER I
“USQUE AB OVO” 23
CHAPTER II
IN THE TWILIGHT 48
CHAPTER III
THE NAVY-THAT-FLIES 89
CHAPTER IV
“LEST WE FORGET” 118
CHAPTER V
THE FEET OF THE YOUNG MEN 156
CHAPTER VI
GIPSIES OF THE SEA 164
CHAPTER VII
THE DAY--AND THE MORNING AFTER 180
CHAPTER VIII
THE NAVY-UNDER-THE-SEA 190
CHAPTER IX
THE PORT LOOK-OUT 213
CHAPTER X
THE SURVIVOR 220
CHAPTER XI
THE Nth BATTLE SQUADRON 237
CHAPTER XII
MYSTERY 257
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPIRIT OF THE FLEET 273
CHAPTER XIV
THE EPIC OF ST. GEORGE’S DAY, 1918 289
EPILOGUE 308
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“USQUE AB OVO” 23
HEAVY METAL 48
A STRIKING FORCE 55
THE LEFT FLANK 63
THE HUNT 69
OVERDUE 76
“TUPPENCE APIECE” 83
THE NAVY-THAT-FLIES 89
THE DOVER PATROL 143
THE FEET OF THE YOUNG MEN 163
GIPSIES OF THE SEA 164
THE PORT LOOK-OUT 213
THE SURVIVOR 220
THE Nᵀᴴ BATTLE SQUADRON 237
THE SPIRIT OF THE FLEET--“GATE, THERE!
GATE!” 273
THE EPIC OF ST. GEORGE’S DAY, 1918 289
EPILOGUE 308
FINIS 331
PROLOGUE
Anyone familiar with the River Dart knows the Mill Creek. The hills on
either side slope steeply down to the edge of the water, oak and beech
and elm clustering thick on the one hand, red plough, green shoots, and
golden corn-fields alternating on the other through all the changing
seasons.
The creek is tidal, transformed at half-flood into a fair expanse of
shimmering water; at low tide, however, it dwindles to a score of meagre
channels winding tortuously through whale-backed mudbanks, the haunt of
scurrying crabs and meditative heron.
Here, one afternoon in midsummer some dozen years ago, came a gig (or,
in local parlance, a “blue-boat”) manned by seven flannel-clad cadets
from the Naval College. Six sat on the thwarts pulling lazily against
the last of the ebb. The seventh sat in the stern, with the yoke-lines
over his shoulders, refreshing himself with cherries out of a bag.
As they approached the shelving mudbanks, purple in the afternoon
sunlight, the figure in the bows boated his oar and began to sound
cautiously with his boathook. The remaining five oarsmen glanced back
over their shoulders and continued paddling. The helmsman smiled
tolerantly, as a man might smile at the conceits of childhood, but
refrained from speech. They all knew the weakness of the bowman for
dabbling in mud.
“Half a point to port!” said the slim form wielding the dripping
boathook. “I can see the channel now.... Steady as you go!” A minute
later the boat slid into the main channel and the crew drew in their
oars, punting their narrow craft between the banks of ooze. None of them
spoke, save the bowman, and he only at rare intervals, flinging back a
curt direction to the helmsman over his shoulder.
For half an hour they navigated the channels winding up the valley, and
came at length to a crumbling stone quay beside the ruin of a mill.
Ferns grew in the interstices of the old brickwork, and a great peace
brooded over the silent wood that towered behind. They made the boat
fast there; and because boats and the sea were things as yet
half-unknown and wholly attractive, none of them attempted to land.
Instead, with coats rolled up as pillows and their straw hats tilted
over their eyes, the seven made themselves comfortable as only naval
cadets could in such cramped surroundings, and from under the thwarts
each one drew a paper bag and a bottle of lemonade.
“Dead low water,” said Number 1 (the bow oar) presently. “We shall have
a young flood against us going back; but then there’s no chance of
getting stuck on the mud.” He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and
proceeded to take careful soundings round the boat, using the keys as a
sinker and the lanyard as a lead-line.
“Oh, shut up about your everlasting tides,” said Number 2, “and keep
quiet; I want to sleep.”
“They interest me,” replied Number 1 simply. “I shall be a navigator, I
think.”
“You’d better go in for submarines,” said Number 4, applying himself to
his bottle of fizzing beverage. “Plenty of poking about mudbanks in them
if it interests you. One of the first we ever had stuck in the mud one
day and never came up again.”
“P’raps I shall,” admitted the bow. “In fact I shouldn’t be surprised if
I _did_ go in for submarining.”
Number 3 was lying on his back on the thwart, his head resting on the
gunwale. “They’ll never come to anything,” he said. “The submarine’s a
failure.” His eyes followed the flight of a white-winged gull that
circled with outstretched wings far above their heads. “No. It’s going
to be in the air, when we have a war. I’m all for flying machines....”
He was silent awhile meditating, then turned his head quickly. “Bombs!”
he said. “Fancy being able to drop bombs all over an enemy’s country.”
“You couldn’t do it,” said Number 2. “You’d go killing women and
civilians. They’d never let you.”
“Who?” demanded the prospective aviator, his enthusiasm rather damped.
“Who’d stop me?”
“International Law,” cut in the coxswain quickly. “Conventions and all
that.... Why, there’d be no limit to anything if it weren’t for
international law. An enemy could go off in his beastly submarine and
paralyse the trade routes.”
“Paralyse ’em--how?” inquired the bow man.
“Just torpedoing ’em, of course, you ass.”
“What, merchant ships?”
The jurist nodded.
“But no one could do that. I mean you’d never get a naval officer to do
that, international law or no international law. That ’ud be
piracy--like those fellows at Algiers. ’Member the lecture last week?”
“I don’t mean _we’d_ do it,” conceded the coxswain. “But some nations
might.”
The idealist shook his head. “No naval officer would,” he repeated
stoutly, “whatever his nationality.”
“The surface of the sea’s good enough for me,” chipped in No. 2. “I
don’t want to bomb women or torpedo merchant ships. I’m going to be
captain of a destroyer.” He raised his head. “Thirty knots at night, my
boy!... Upper-deck torpedo tubes and all that....”
“I’d blow you out of the water with a 12-inch gun,” said Number 5,
speaking for the first time, and laying aside a magazine. “Gunnery is
going to save this country if ever we have a war. That’s why gunnery
lieutenants get promoted quickly--my governor told me so.”
“Did he?” said the stroke oar. “He’s wrong. You can only fire big guns
from big ships, and you know what happened to big ships in the
Russo-Japanese war.”
“What?” inquired the visionary coldly.
“Mines. Big ships can’t move when there are mines about.”
“We don’t use mines any longer,” said the coxswain, crumpling up his
empty bag and throwing it over the side. It floated slowly past the boat
towards the head of the valley. “They’re not considered sporting.
’Sides, even if you could, you can always countermine, and sweep ’em up.
My brother went through a course in the Mediterranean once--place called
Platea. I remember him telling me about it.”
The stroke oar sat upright and glanced the length of the boat. “Wouldn’t
it be a rum thing,” he said, “if there was a war some day and we were
all in it.” He ticked off their names on his fingers: “Submarine,
aeroplane, destroyer, minelayer, minesweeper, battleship----” He paused.
“I’d like to be in a cruiser,” he said. “A big cruiser scouting ahead of
the Fleet. You’d get more excitement there than anywhere.” His voice
deepened to a sudden note of triumph. “It ’ud be the forefront of the
battle.”
“Then we’d all meet afterwards,” said Number 2, “and have a blow-out
somewhere ashore and talk about our experiences. Wouldn’t that be
topping?”
The bow oar sat with his eyes on the crumpled paper bag that floated
up-stream, shading them against the glow of the sun turning all the
creeks into molten gold. “Those of us that were left,” he said dreamily.
“Tide’s turned.... We’d better think about getting back.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
“USQUE AB OVO”
Reminiscences of those days “in the distance enchanted” never come in an
orderly procession according to the original sequence of events. Some,
for reasons quite inexplicable, jostle their way to the fore readily
enough. Others, dim and elusive, hover in the background, and only
respond to the lure of firelight and tobacco smoke ascending
incense-wise from the depths of the arm-chair.
Sooner or later, though, they can all be caught and held for the moment
needed to record them. The difficulty is to know where to start....
Harker is foremost among the “thrusters” in the surging crowd of
memories of the old _Britannia_ days. Harker, with his piercing, rather
melancholy eyes, his black beard and tattooed wrists, and his air of
implacable ferocity that for months succeeded in concealing from his
term a heart as tender as a woman’s.
His name was not actually Harker, of course; but he is probably still
alive, and even retired chief petty officers of the Royal Navy have
their susceptibilities. He was a term C.P.O.--mentor, wet-nurse,
“sea-daddy,” the outward and visible embodiment of Naval Discipline to
sixty-odd naval cadets who yesterday were raw schoolboys and to-day wear
the King’s uniform and eke brass buttons--a transition unhinging enough
to more matured souls than those of his charges.
How he succeeded in conveying within the space of the first evening the
exceedingly unfamiliar routine of training-ship life, the art of turning
into a hammock, the necessity for keeping their chests locked, the
majesty of the term lieutenant and the omnipotence of the chief cadet
captains, to sixty bewildered fifteen-year-olds, only he knows.
Yet he harried none; they were conscious of him as a flock of
disconcerted sheep are aware of a wise collie. His voice was never
still: it was to be presumed that he slept at some mysterious time
during the twenty-four hours, and yet his square, compact form seemed to
be always drifting about at all hours of the day and night. Even when a
hapless wight (in the throes of nightmare) tipped bodily out of his
hammock on to the deck the first night, it was Harker who appeared
noiselessly out of the shadows to tuck him in again.
Their names he had pat within twenty-four hours; this tightened his grip
of the term instantly, but it also caused him to be regarded as scarcely
canny. Indeed, it was disconcerting enough to regard yourself one moment
as an insignificant and unknown unit among 250 others, and in this
comfortable reflection to lean in a _dégagé_ attitude against the white
paintwork (one of the seven deadly sins): then to hear admonition and
your name, coupled together like chain-shot, ring out along the crowded
main-deck. Harker had seen you.
There were other C.P.O.’s on board: each term owned one. But they were,
by comparison with Harker, sorry fellows. One was reputed to be given to
beating the big drum at Salvation Army meetings ashore, garbed,
moreover, in a scarlet jersey. Hotly his term denied it, but the story
was stamped with the unimpeachable authority of the boatswain’s mate of
the lower-deck: a godless seaman, conversation with whom, being of a
spicy and anecdotal nature, was forbidden.
Another was admittedly of a good enough heart, but a sentimentalist, and
consequently to be despised. On the occasion of the chastisement of an
evil-doer, his was the arm chosen to administer the strokes with all the
pomp and circumstance of an official execution. He laid the strokes on
well and truly--that much the victim himself admitted. But when he
turned from his duty his eyes were observed to have tears in them. His
term had in consequence to adopt an apologetic manner for a considerable
time afterwards.
It was a similar scene, but one in which Harker played the Lord High
Executioner, that must here be recorded. The setting alone was
sufficient to strike awe and even terror into the spectator’s hearts.
And now, after the lapse of years, recalling the circumstances of that
harrowing quarter of an hour, it is doubtful whether there was not just
some such motive behind the grim circumstance that led up to the
painful consummation.
The scene was the orlop-deck. What light there was came in through the
open gunports, slanting upwards off the water. Not cheering sunlight,
you understand, but a greenish sickly gleam that struggled ineffectually
with the shadows clinging like vampires among the low oak beams
overhead.
The victim’s term were fallen-in in a hollow square about the horse--a
block of wood supported on short legs, with ring-bolts and canvas straps
hanging from each corner. Then there came a pause. Possibly the captain
had not finished his breakfast; or perhaps Harker had for once made a
mistake and got his term there too early. But for the space of several
minutes (or weeks, or years) the term stood in shuddering contemplation
of this engine.
Then one of the spectators, the victim of either an over-rich
imagination or an acutely sensitive conscience, dramatically fainted and
was borne forth. After that things began to happen. The malefactor
appeared, accompanied by Harker. The captain, the term lieutenant, and
(a thrill ran through the on-lookers) the surgeon followed. It was
half-expected that the chaplain would also join the group and administer
ghostly consolation to the culprit, who, it must be reluctantly
admitted, looked rather pleased with himself.
His offence was not one to alienate him from the hearts of his fellows.
If memory serves aright, he had been overheard to refer to his late
crammer in terms that may or may not have been just, but were certainly
not the way a little gentleman should talk. But his term--or most of
them--were still smarting under the recollections of crammers’ methods
and were disposed to regard the delinquent’s lapse rather more as a
pardonable ebullition of feeling than a breach of morality. In short he
was a bit of a hero.
“Chief Petty Officer Harker,” said the stern voice of the term
lieutenant, “do your duty.” The harrowing preliminaries completed, Chief
Petty Officer Harker did it, as was to be expected of him, uncommonly
well.
The victim took it, as was also to be expected of him, uncommonly well.
It was not long before these lines were written that he was called upon
to meet a sterner and his last ordeal. The pity is that no spectator can
bear testimony to the worthier courage with which he must have met it.
Harker it was who smelt out, like a Zulu witch-doctor, the grass snake
and dormouse that lived a life of communistic ease and reflection in the
washing till of someone’s sea-chest. Harker’s the suspicious mind that
led to official “ruxes” of private tills, and the confiscation of
meerschaum pipes, Turkish cigarettes, and other contraband. Yet all this
without any effect of espionage.
The nearest approach to active espionage that Harker permitted himself
was hovering in the vicinity of the gangway when the terms were landed
for daily recreation. The law of the Medes and Persians had it that
during cold weather all cadets not playing games must land wearing a
particularly despicable form of under-garment: a woolly and
tucked-into-the-socks abomination that the soul of every right-minded
cadet revolted from. As the procession passed under the low gangway on
its way to the launches alongside, Harker, lurking in the vicinity,
would suddenly pounce upon a suspect.
“’Ave we got our DRAWERS on, Mr. So-and-so?” came the merciless query.
The progress of the procession was arrested while Mr. So-and-so racked
his brains for some suitable parry to this very leading question. A
damning negative having eventually been extorted, the underclad one was
hauled from the ranks and given three minutes in which to get to his
chest, extract from his wardrobe the garment that found such high favour
in Olympian eyes, put it on, and rejoin the tail of the procession.
Thus a first offender; a second offence resulted in “no landing.” There
was no appeal.
The muddy, tired, ever-hungry throng that returned some three hours
later again passed on board under this lynx-eyed surveillance. This time
illicit “stodge” was the subject of Harker’s unquenchable suspicions.
Smuggling stodge on board (another of the seven deadly sins) required
considerable ingenuity, owing to the ban the authorities thought
necessary to impose on pockets. Regular outfitters pandered to this
Olympian whim, and constructed trousers with an embryonic fob just large
enough to hold a few coins. The unorthodox, who arrived with garments
bearing the stamp of provincialism and pockets, were bidden to surrender
them forthwith, and stout fingers ruthlessly sewed the pockets up.
The jacket had only one, a breast pocket already congested by keys,
handkerchief, letters from home, pet bits of indiarubber, and the like.
Remained therefore the despised garment already alluded to. This, being
tucked--by official decree--into the wearer’s socks, formed an admirable
hold-all for a packet of butterscotch--worked flat--a snack of Turkish
Delight, or a peculiar and highly favoured form of delicacy known as “My
Queen.”
With a not too saintly expression, an unflinching eye, and a
sufficiently baggy pair of trousers, the contrabandist might count on a
reasonable amount of success. But Harker’s X-ray glance rarely failed
him.
That stern, incisive voice would rivet all eyes upon the culprit just
when the muster by the officer of the day had been completed, and the
long ranks awaited the stentorian dismissal of the chief cadet captain.
“Mr. Z! You’ll step along to the sick-bay when we falls out.”
The blanched smuggler clutched at his momentarily abandoned halo of
rectitude.
“Sick-bay!” he echoed indignantly. “Why the sick-bay? There’s nothing
wrong with me--I swear there isn’t. I never felt better in my life.”
“That there nasty swelling on your shin,” was the pitiless reply, “did
ought to be seen to at once.” A draught, that had fluttered the
carefully selected baggy trousers against their wearer’s legs, had been
his undoing. The game was up.
Like all truly great men, Harker could unbend without discipline
suffering an iota. As the months passed and his term of fledgling “News”
acquired the modest dignity of “Threes” (second term cadets), Marker’s
methods changed. He was no longer the detective, inquisitor,
encyclopædia of a thousand unfamiliar phrases, events, and objects. His
term were on their feet now, treading in their turn paths fiercely
illumined by the new first term’s gaping admiration and curiosity. They
were an example.
“’Ow long ’ave we been in the _Britannia_?” he would demand
reproachfully when some breach of the laws called for reproof. “’Ere we
are in our second term, an’ talkin’ about HUP-STAIRS!”
The scorn in his voice was like a whiplash.
“When you young gentlemen goes to sea you won’t find no STAIRS!”
When they went to sea! That was the gradually increasing burden of his
song. For a while it presented a picture too remote almost for serious
contemplation. It was practically a figure of speech, meaningless. But
as time went on, and the successive dignities of “Sixer” and “Niner”
(third and fourth--the last--terms) loomed up and passed into reality,
and at last the Great Wall of the final examination alone stood between
them and the sea-going gunrooms of the Fleet, the words took on their
real significance.
Harker abandoned even sarcasm. He became guide, philosopher, and
friend, a patient mentor always accessible--generally somewhere on the
chest-deck--in leisure hours to thirsters after knowledge. Was one shaky
in that branch of nautical lore known as “Bends and Hitches”? Harker’s
blunt fingers tirelessly manipulated the end of a hammock-lashing until
the pupil could make even a “sheep-shank” with his eyes shut.
Another would bring him, in a welter of grease and ravelled strands, a
tortured mass of hemp-rope.
“It’s meant to be a Long Splice,” was the explanation, “but I don’t seem
to get it right--ever,” and with a despondent sigh it would be thrust
into Harker’s hands.
Harker would examine the interwoven strands, twisting it to and fro with
jerks of his powerful wrists, pulling taut here, tucking something in
there, and lo! the thing took shape.
“This is where you goes wrong, Mr. P., every time!” (Recollect there
were sixty-odd in his term.) “Don’t forget what I’m always telling you.
You splits the middle strands, and then an over-’and knot in the
opposite ’alves....” It always looked so easy when Harker did it.
It was during the last night on board that Harker rose to heights truly
magnanimous. The fourth term regarded it as its right and privilege, on
the last night of the term, to hold high carnival until sleep overtook
them. Cadet captains even cast their responsibilities to the winds that
night and scampered about, slim, pyjama-clad figures, in the dim light
of the lanterns, ruthlessly cutting down the prig who yearned for
slumber, lashing-up a victim in his hammock and leaving him upside-down
to reflect on certain deeds of the past year that earned him this
retribution, floating about on gratings on the surface of the plunge
baths, and generally celebrating in a fitting manner the eve of the day
that was to herald in new responsibilities and cares.
Harker, who for fifteen months had haunted the shadows on the look-out
for just such a “rux,” whose ear caught every illicit sound--even the
crunch of the nocturnal butterscotch--Harker was for once unseeing and
unseen. It needed but this crowning act of grace to endear him for ever
to his departing flock.
Yet he had one more card to play, and played it as he passed in farewell
from carriage to carriage of the departing train. Further, he dealt it
with accentuated emphasis for the benefit of those he thought needed the
reminder most.
“Gosh!” ejaculated such a one when Harker passed to the next carriage:
he flopped back on to his seat. “Did you hear? He said ‘sir!’ to each
one of us when he said good-bye!”
So much for Harker. But he brought with him a number of other memories
entangled somehow about his personality, and on these it may be as well
to enlarge a little ere they slip back into the limbo of the forgotten
past.
It says much for the vividness of Harker’s personality that he outran in
these reminiscences the memory of “Stodge.” Certainly few interests
loomed larger on the horizon of these days than the contents of the two
canteens ashore.
There was one adjacent to the landing-place: a wise forethought of the
authorities, enabling a fellow to stay his stomach during the long climb
from the river to the playing fields, where the principal canteen stood.
“Stodge” was of a surpassing cheapness. That much was essential when the
extent of the weekly pocket-money was limited (if memory is to be
trusted) to one shilling. Further it was of a pleasing variety, certain
peculiar combinations, hallowed by tradition, being alone unchanging.
Of these the most popular was the “Garry Sandwich.” Components: a
half-stick of chocolate cream sandwiched between two “squashed-fly”
biscuits; the whole beaten thin with a cricket-bat, gymnasium shoe, or
other implement handy. The peculiarity of this particular form of dainty
was that it sufficed as an unfailing bribe wherewith to open
negotiations with one Dunn, the septuagenarian keeper of the pleasure
boats. The moral atmosphere of the boat-house, in consequence of its
custodian’s sweetness of tooth, came in time to resemble that of a
Chinese yamen.
Another delicacy about which legend clustered was the “Ship’s Bun,”
split in half, with a liberal cementing of Devonshire cream and
strawberry jam oozing out at the sides. Concerning the bun itself, the
maternal solicitude of the authorities extended one gratis to each cadet
ashore on half-holidays lest the impecunious should hunger unnecessarily
between lunch and tea. The buns were obtainable on application at the
counter, whence the daughter of the proprietor--whom we will call
Maunder--was charged with the duty of issuing them.
How she pretended to remember the two and a half hundred faces that
presented themselves in surging crowds round the counter at 4 p.m. is
more than her present recorder can say. But even as she extended a bun
to the outstretched grubby hand of a suppliant, an expression of
vixen-like indignation and cunning would transform her features.
“You’ve ’ad a bun afore!” she would snap shrilly, withdrawing the bounty
in the nick of time. The hungry petitioner, cheerfully acknowledging
defeat in a game of bluff, would then withdraw, pursued by Miss
Maunder’s invective.
All the same she was not infallible, and on occasions hot protestations
and even mutual recrimination rang to and fro across the counter.
Appeal, ultimately carried to Mr. Maunder, was treated in much the same
way as it is by croupiers at Monte Carlo. A gentleman’s word is his
word. But it is as well not to be the victim of too many mistakes.
Maunder, who was occupied with the stern responsibility of catering for
the whim of the rich, had a way of recapitulating the orders from the
beginning, adding up aloud as the count went on, thus:
_Cadet_: A strawberry ice, please, Maunder.
_Maunder_: One strawberry ice tuppence.
_Cadet_: Oh, and a doughnut, while you’re about it.
_Maunder_: One strawberry ice one doughnut thruppence.
_Cadet_: That’s just to go on with. Then in a bag I want a stick of
cream chocolate----
_Maunder_: One strawberry ice one doughnut one stick cream chocolate
fourpence.
_Cadet_: (breathlessly) And a bottle of barley sugar and a “My Queen”
and four Garry biscuits and half a pound of cherries and a bottle of
lemonade and one of ginger beer and--that’s all, I think.
_Maunder_: (coming in a little behind, chanting, the general effect
being that of a duet in canon). One strawberry ice one doughnut one
stick cream chocolate one bottle barley sugar one “My Queen,” etc.,
etc., etc.... _And_ a bag one an thruppence ’a’-penny.... Thank you,
sir. Next, please.
* * * * *
On occasion demigods walked among the children of men. The visits of the
Channel Fleet to Torbay usually brought over one or two of a lately
departed term, now midshipmen by the grace of God and magnificent beyond
conception.
It was their pleasure, these immaculately clad visitors, to enter the
canteen, greet Maunder with easy familiarity and Miss Maunder with
something approaching gallantry, slap down a sovereign on the counter
and cry free stodge all round. They would even unbend further, dallying
with a strawberry ice in token of their willingness to be as other men,
and finally depart in a cloud of cigarette smoke and hero-worship.
This record is not concerned with the fact that on their return on board
their ship, some hours later, one suffered stripes for having forgotten
to lock his chest before he went ashore, and the other, being the most
junior of all the junior midshipmen, was bidden swiftly to unlace the
sub’s boots and fetch his slippers.
To every dog his day.
* * * * *
Random memories such as these necessarily present individuals and
incidents, not in the sequence of their importance in the cosmos as one
sees it now, but as they appeared to the vision of the Naval Cadet,
whose world was an amiable Chaos.
Thus the Captain flickers through this kaleidoscope an awesome bearded
figure, infinitely remote from the small affairs of that teeming
rabbit-warren of youth. More readily comes to mind the picture of his
lady wife, white-haired, with clear eyes and gentle voice, a memory
somehow entangled with geraniums in red pots about the moulded
stern-gallery and tea on Sunday afternoons in the spacious chintz-draped
after-cabin: with irksome football sprains, and brief puerile illnesses
made more endurable by her visits to the cotside.
The Commander, though less awesome than the Captain, approached the
mortal in that he stooped at times to wrath. His was the cold eye before
which the more hardened malefactors quailed; his the rasping voice that
jerked the four terms to attention at Divisions each morning:
“Young Gentlemen, ’shun!”
The English public schoolboy is conscious of youth, and takes the fact
of being a gentleman for granted. But to hear himself addressed by a
designation that combined both qualities was a never-staling subject for
inward mirth and a weird self-congratulation difficult of analysis. It
conveyed a hint of coming manhood and responsibilities: it was the voice
of the Navy, bending on the leading strings, heard for the first time.
But on a plane far nearer earth stood the Term Lieutenants, each one the
god and hero, the Big Brother of his term. That they, their Boxer or
South African medal ribbons, their tattoo-marks, County or International
caps, biceps, and all the things that were theirs, were the objects of
their respective Terms’ slavish adulation, goes without saying. Bloody
encounters between their self-appointed champions over an adverse
criticism or doubt cast upon a forgotten word were not unknown. Two
entire terms once joined battle and bled each other’s noses the length
and breadth of the echoing “Skipper Woods” to clinch some far-flung
argument as to the merits of their respective “Loots.”
There were but four Term Lieutenants, and they were picked from the
wardrooms of the whole Navy. Small wonder some three hundred grubby
urchins fresh from school found in them admirable qualities.
Their example and teaching were the moulds into which, year by year, the
molten metal of the Navy’s officer-personnel was poured, thence to be
scattered about the seven seas, tempered by winds and stress, and, in
God’s good time, tested to the uttermost.
Ashore, on the playing fields or across the red ploughland at the tails
of the beagles, they laboured in close intimate fellowship with these
atoms of clay thrust by providence beneath their thumbs. But on board it
seemed they faded from ken, being rarely seen save at classes and
musters, or when in pairs the Term percolated through the wardroom for
dessert, plastered as to the hair, patent leather shod, to sip and cough
over a glass of ambrosial port at either elbow of their Lieutenant.
Seeing and unseen, knowing their Terms as only men who spend their
lives among men can know and understand the embryo, they were the
guiding invisible wisdom behind the Cadet Captains, who outwardly ruled
the decks.
The Cadet Captains were chosen from the three senior Terms, set apart
from their fellows by the fact that they wore “standup” collars and a
triangular gold badge on the left cuff.
Minor Authority in other guises was greeted much the same as it is in
all communities of boyhood. The platitudes of notice boards no fellow
with his heart in the right place could be expected to remember over
well. The acknowledged sway of instructors and masters was largely a
matter of knowing to a nicety how far an adventurous spirit could go (in
the realms of Science and Freehand Drawing it was a long way) before the
badgered pedagogue turned and bit. Terms paid strict allegiance to their
own Chief Petty Officers. But, as has already been shown, this was an
affair of the heart and the sentiments. He was theirs, and they were
his: thus it had been from the beginning.
There was, however, one voice that rarely repeated an order, one court
from which appeal, if possible, was undreamed of--that of the Cadet
Captain. Their rule was without vexatious tyranny, but it was an iron
rule. The selection of these Cadet Captains was done carefully, and
mistakes were few. The standard of the whole was no mean one, and for
three months the Lieutenant of the First Term had been studying the raw
material, working with it, playing with it, talking to it--or rather
listening while it talked to him.... Thus Cadet Captains were chosen,
and the queer eager loyalty with which the rest paid them allegiance was
the first stirring of the quickened Naval Spirit, foreshadowing that
strange fellowship to be, brotherhood of discipline and control, of
austerity and a half-mocking affectionate tolerance.
To the Cadet Captains perhaps can be attributed the passage, almost
untarnished through the years, of the _Britannia_ traditions. They were
concerned, these youthful Justices of the Peace, with more than the
written law. It they enforced right enough, but with a tolerance one
might expect of fifteen summers administering the foibles and rules of
fifty. On the other hand, did a “new” unbutton a single button of his
monkey jacket, a “Three” deign to swing his keys, a “Sixer” to turn up
his trousers or tilt his cap on the back of his head (the prerogative of
the “Niner” or Fourth Term), and Nemesis descended upon him ere he slept
that night. Nemesis, by virtue of its unblemished character and the
favour its triangular badge found in the eyes of the gods, was allowed
to turn in half an hour after the remainder. It occupied itself during
this time in guzzling cocoa and biscuits smeared with strawberry jam,
provided for its delectation by the authorities--though the cost was
said to be defrayed by the parents of the common herd relegated to
hammocks and the contemplation of this orgy out of one drowsy though
envious eye.
Biscuits finished, Nemesis would draw from his pocket a knotted “togie”
of hemp, and, having removed traces of jam from his features, proceed to
administer summary justice in the gloom where the hammocks swung.
It was of course grossly illegal and stigmatised by the authorities as
“a pernicious system of private and unauthorised punishments.” But the
alternative was open to any who cared to appeal to Cæsar. Appealing to
Cæsar meant spending subsequent golden afternoons on the parade ground,
swinging a heavy bar bell to the time of “Sweet Dreamland Faces” blared
out on a cornet by a bored bandsman.
So summary justice ruled, and it ruled in this wise:
“Shove your knuckles outside that blanket--you needn’t pretend to be
asleep----”
Chorus of snores deafening in their realism and self-conscious rectitude
from the wrong-doer’s neighbours.
“You were slack attending belly-muster for the third time running----[1]”
“I swear----”
“You’d better not. You’ll get six more for swearing----”
“Ow!”
“_Don’t_ make such a rux....”
“Ow!”
“If you yell you’ll get double.”
“Ow!”
“That’s for being slack. Now the other hand.... That’s for ’nerving’”
(modernised = swanking) “with your thumbs in your beckets----”
“Ow!”
“_Shut_ up! Stick your knuckles out properly.”
“I swear I didn’t--ow!... Good night.”
Memories, ah, memories! Haphazard but happy as only the far-off things
can seem, half revealed through the mists of years. Grim old cradle of
the Eternal Navy, there lies on my desk a blotting-pad hewed from your
salt timbers; it may be that some whimsical ghost strayed out of it to
provoke these random recollections. Does it, I wonder, ever unite with
other ghosts from chiselled garden-seat or carved candle-stick, and
there on the moonlit waters of the Dart refashion, rib by rib, keel and
strake and stempost, a Shadow Ship?
And what of the Longshoremen Billies that plied for hire between the
shore and the after-gangway--Johnnie Farr (whom the Good Lawd durstn’t
love), Hannaford of the wooden leg, and all the rest of that
shell-backed fraternity? Gone to the haven of all good ships and
sailormen: and only the night wind, abroad beneath the stars, whispers
to the quiet hills the tales of sharks and pirates and the Chiny seas
that once were yours and ours.
But what familiar faces throng once more the old decks and cluster round
the empty ports! Is it only to fond memory that you seemed the cheeriest
and noblest, or did some beam of the glory to be yours stray out of the
Hereafter and paint your boyish faces thus, O best-remembered from those
far-off days?
You crowd too quickly now, you whose fair names are legion, so that the
splendour of your sacrifices blur and intermingle. The North Sea knows
you and the hidden Belgian minefields; the Aurora Borealis was the
candle that lit some to bed, and the surf on the beaches of Gallipoli
murmurs to others a never-ending lullaby. Ostend and Zeebrugge will not
forget you, and the countless tales of your passing shall be the sword
hilt on which our children’s children shall cut their teeth.
From out of that Shadow Ship lying at her moorings off the old Mill
Creek comes the faint echoes of your boyish voices floating out across
the placid tide. Could we but listen hard enough we might catch some
message of good hope and encouragement from you who have had your Day:
“_We are the Dead...._
* * * * *
_To you from failing hands we throw_
_The torch; be yours to hold it high:_
_If ye break faith with us who die,_
_We shall not sleep...._”
There shall be no faith broken. God rest you, merry Gentlemen.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
IN THE TWILIGHT
I. HEAVY METAL
It was still dark when the battle cruisers slipped from their
moorings and began to feel their way towards the unseen entrance of
the harbour. From the bridge of each mass of towering indeterminate
shadows the stern light of the next ahead could be discerned dimly
through binoculars, and on those pin-points of light they steered.
What the battle cruiser flagship steered by, in the narrow confines
of the crowded harbour and the inky darkness, only the little knot of
figures on her forebridge knew: the admiral and flag captain, the
navigator and officer-of-the-watch, muffled in duffle coats and moving
mysteriously about the glow-worm arc of light from the binnacle and
charttable.
One by one the long black shapes slid through the outer defences, ebon
shadows in a world of shades. The voices of the leadsmen in the chains
blended their mournful intermittent chant with the rush of water past
the ship’s side; to all but the ears of the watchful figures on the
bridges the sound was swallowed by the dirge of the funnel stays and
halliards in the cold wind heralding the dawn.
The red and green lights on the gate-marking vessels winked and bobbed
in the swell caused by the passage of the grim host. It passed with
incredible swiftness; and before the troubled waters began to quiet, the
escorting destroyers came pelting up astern, heralded by the rush and
rattle of spray-thrashed steel, funnels glowing, and the roar of their
fans pouring out from the engine-room exhausts. Night and the mystery of
the darkness enfolded them. The gates closed upon their churning wakes
and the tumult of their passing. Dawn glimmered pale behind the hills
and broadened slowly into day; it found the harbour empty, save for
small craft. Beyond the headlands, beyond the mist-enshrouded horizon,
the battle cruisers were abroad, unleashed.
Once clear of their protecting minefields, the battle cruisers moved
south at high speed, with their smoke trailing astern in broad zig-zags
across a grey sky. At intervals they altered course simultaneously and
then swung back to their original path, flinging the grey seas asunder
from each gaunt, axe-headed bow as they turned.
They scarcely resembled ships, in their remorseless, purposeful rush
under the lowering sky. The screening T.B.D.’s spread fan-wise on their
flanks were dwarfed to insignificance beside these stupendous destroyers
with the smoke pouring from their huge funnels, and nothing to break
their stark nakedness of outline but the hooded guns. Men lived on board
them, it is true: under each White Ensign a thousand souls laboured out
each one its insignificant destiny. They were entities invisible like
mites in a cheese; but the ships that bore them were instruments,
visible enough, of the triumphant destiny of an empire.
As far as the eye could reach, the battle cruisers were alone on that
grey waste of water. But swift as was their passage, something swifter
overtook them out of the north as the morning wore on. It was the voice
of the battle fleet moving south in support. “Speed so-and-so, on
such-and-such a course,” flickered the curt cipher messages through
sixty miles of space. And south they came in battle array, battleships,
light cruisers, and destroyers, ringed by the misty horizon of the North
Sea, with the calling gulls following the white furrows of their keels
like crows after the plough.
A division of light cruisers, driving through the crested seas at the
speed of a galloping horse, linked the battle fleet with the battle
cruisers. Seen from either force they were but wraiths of smoke on the
horizon: but ever and anon a daylight searchlight winked out of the
mist, spanning the leagues with soundless talk.
It was still early afternoon when a trail of bubbles flickered ahead of
the flagship of the battle fleet’s lee line. It crossed at right angles
to their course, and a thousand yards abeam of the third ship in the
line something silvery broke the surface in a cloud of spray. It was a
torpedo that had run its course and had missed the mark. Simultaneously,
one of the escorting destroyers, a mile abeam, turned like a mongoose on
a snake, and circled questing for a couple of minutes. Then suddenly a
column of water leaped into the air astern of the destroyer, and the
sound of the explosion was engulfed by the great loneliness of sea and
sky. She remained circling while the battle fleet swept on with swift,
bewildering alterations of course, and later another far-off explosion
overtook them.
“Strong smell of oil; air bubbles. No wreckage visible. Consider enemy
submarine sunk. No survivors,” blinked the laconic searchlight, and the
avenger, belching smoke from four raking funnels, came racing up to her
appointed station.
As the afternoon wore on, a neutral passenger ship crossed the path of
the fleet. She was steering a westerly course, and altered to pass
astern of the battle cruisers.
The captain wiped his glasses and handed them to one of the passengers,
an amiable merchant of the same nationality as himself, and a
self-confessed admirer of all things British.
“Ha!” said the captain. “You see? The clenched fist of Britain! It is
being pushed under the nose of Germany--so!” He laughingly extended a
gnarled fist in the other’s face. The merchant was a frequent passenger
of his, and the sort of man (by reason of his aforesaid proclivities) to
appreciate the jest. The merchant stepped back a pace rather hurriedly:
then he laughed loudly. “Exactly!” he said, “very neat, my friend.” And
borrowing his friend’s glasses he studied the far-off tendrils of smoke
in silence awhile.
A quarter of an hour later, a light cruiser altered course from the
fleet in the direction of the neutral steamer. Then it was that the
amiable merchant was struck by a sudden recollection. It was a matter of
considerable urgency and concerned an order for a large number of bolts
of calico and a customer’s credit. So pressing was the business that he
obtained the captain’s permission to send a radio telegram to his firm
while the approaching cruiser was still some miles away.
The message was duly dispatched, and, with surprising rapidity, by
methods with which this narrative is not concerned (of which, indeed,
the narrator is entirely ignorant), reached Wilhelmshaven by nightfall.
Here four German battle cruisers were raising steam preparatory to
carrying out a bombardment at dawn of a populous English watering-place.
The message that reached them had, however, nothing to do with calico or
credit, but it bade them draw fires and give the usual leave to officers
and men; orders for the bombardment were cancelled. The German battle
cruisers were not unaccustomed to rapid changes of programme of this
sort, and they asked no questions.
At nine o’clock the following morning, a British taxpayer sat down to
breakfast in a house commanding a fine view of the sea from the popular
watering-place already mentioned. It was a large house, and incidentally
offered an admirable target from the sea. The taxpayer unfolded his
morning paper, and took a sip of his tea. Then he put the cup down
quickly. “You’ve forgotten the sugar,” he said.
“No, dear,” replied his wife, “I haven’t forgotten it, but there isn’t
any.”
“Eh,” said the taxpayer, “why not? why the devil isn’t there any sugar?”
The taxpayer’s wife advanced a number of popular theories to account for
the phenomenon, while the taxpayer gloomily stirred his unsweetened tea.
“Then all I should like to know,” he replied, when she had finished,
“is, what the blazes is our Navy doing?”
“I don’t know, dear,” said the taxpayer’s wife.
II. A STRIKING FORCE
Daybreak, drawing back the dark shroud of night from the face of the
North Sea, disclosed a British minelaying submarine making her way
homeward on the surface. To the two oilskin-clad figures on the conning
tower, chilled and streaming wet in the cheerless dawn, it also betrayed
feathers of smoke above the horizon astern. The submarine promptly dived
to investigate at closer quarters, and was rewarded by the spectacle of
a German cruiser squadron, screened by destroyers, steering a
northwesterly course at high speed.
[Illustration]
The submarine did not attempt to attack with her torpedoes. She retired
instead to where the sand-fog stirs in an endless groundswell, and the
North Sea cod hover about the wrecks of neutral merchantmen. In these
unlit depths she lay for an hour, listening to the chunk of many
propellers pass overhead and die away. She knew nothing of the
mysterious chain of events which sent those cruisers venturing beyond
the protection of the far-reaching German minefields. She was as
ignorant of popular clamour in Germany for spectacular naval activity as
she was of the presence of a large convoy of laden freighters a hundred
miles away to the northward, escorted by destroyers and making for a
British port. These matters were not her “pidgin.” On the other hand,
having once sighted the German cruisers, she became very much concerned
with getting the information through to quarters where it would be
appreciated. Accordingly, when the last of the water-borne sounds
ceased, the submarine rose to the surface, projected a tiny wireless
mast above the wave-tops, and sent out the Call rippling through space.
It was addressed to a certain light cruiser squadron, lying at its buoys
with the needles of the pressure gauges flickering and the shells fused
in the racks beside each gun, waiting day and night in much the tense
preparedness with which the fire brigade waits.
Within two hours the light cruisers were out, ribands of foam and smoke
unreeling astern of them, with their attendant destroyers bucketing and
plunging on either side of them, flinging the spray abroad in the
greeting of a steep easterly swell. The last destroyer swung into
station ere the line of minesweepers, crawling patiently to and fro
about the harbour approaches, were blotted from view in their smoke
astern. Presently the harbour itself faded out of sight; in lodging,
cottage, and villa the women glanced at the clocks as the ships went
out, and then turned to their morning tasks and the counting of the slow
hours....
East into the sunlight went the slim grey cruisers, and then north,
threading their swift way through the half-known menace of the
minefields, altering course from time to time to give a wide berth to
the horned Death that floated awash among the waves. At intervals the
yard-arm of the leading light cruiser would be flecked with colour as a
signal bellied out against the wind, and each time speed was increased.
Faster and faster they rushed through the yellowish seas, fans and
turbines humming their song of speed, and the wind in the shrouds
chiming in on a higher note as if from an æolian harp.
The spray rattled like hail against the sloping gun-shields and
splinter-mats, behind which men stood huddled in little clusters or
leaned peering ahead through glasses; cinders from the smoke of the next
ahead collected in little whorls and eddies or crunched underfoot about
the decks; the guns’ crews jested among themselves in low voices, while
the sight-setters adjusted their head-pieces and the layer of each slim
gun fussed lovingly about the glittering breech mechanism with a handful
of waste....
Then suddenly, above the thunder of the waves and singing of the wind, a
clear hail floated aft from a look-out. Bare feet thudded on the
planking of the signal bridge, bunting whirled amid the funnel smoke,
and the hum of men’s voices along the stripped decks deepened into a
growl.
“Smoke on the port bow!”
A daylight searchlight chattered suspiciously--paused--flashed a
blinding question, and was silent.
Orders droned down the voice-pipes. Somewhere a man laughed--a sudden
savage laugh of exultation, that broke a tension none were aware of till
that moment. Then a fire-gong jarred: the muzzle of the foremost gun
suddenly vomited a spurt of flame, and as the wind whipped the yellow
smoke into tatters, the remaining light cruisers opened fire.
Bang!... bang!... bang!... bang!... bang!
On the misty horizon there were answering flashes, and a moment later
came a succession of sounds as of a child beating a tray. The light
cruisers wheeled to the eastward amid scattered columns of foam from
falling shells, and as they turned to cut off the enemy from his base
the destroyers went past, their bows buried in spray, smoke swallowing
the frayed white ensigns fluttering aft. In a minute they had vanished
in smoke, out of which guns spat viciously, leaving a tangle of little
creaming wakes to mark the path of their headlong onslaught.
Neck and neck raced the retreating raiders and the avenging Nemesis from
the east coast of Britain. Ahead lay the German minefields and German
submarines and the tardy support of the German High Seas Fleet.
Somewhere far astern a huddle of nervous merchantmen were being hustled
westward by their escort, and midway between the two the hostile
destroyer flotillas fought in a desperate death-grapple under the misty
blue sky.
When at length the British light cruisers hauled off and ceased fire on
the fringe of the German minefields, the enemy were hull down over the
horizon, leaving two destroyers sinking amid a swirl of oil and
wreckage, and a cruiser on her beam ends ablaze from bow to stern. The
sea was dotted with specks of forlorn humanity clinging to spars and
rafts. Boats from the British destroyers plied to and fro among them,
bent on the quixotic old-fashioned task of succouring a beaten foe.
Those not actively engaged in this work of mercy circled round at high
speed to fend off submarine attack; the light cruisers stayed by to
discourage the advances of a pair of Zeppelins which arrived from the
eastward in time to drop bombs on the would-be rescuers of their gasping
countrymen.
The bowman of a destroyer’s whaler disengaged his boathook from the
garments of a water-logged Teuton, grasped his late enemy by the collar
and hauled him spluttering into the boat with a single powerful heave of
his right arm.
All about them cutters and whalers rising and falling on the swell were
quickly being laden to the gunwales with scalded, bleeding, half-drowned
prisoners. A midshipman in the stern of a cutter was waving a bedraggled
German ensign and half-tearfully entreating his crew to stop gaping at
the Zeppelins and attend to orders. The barking of the light cruisers’
high-angle guns was punctuated by the whinny of falling bombs and pieces
of shrapnel that whipped the surface of the sea into spurts of foam. In
the background the sinking cruiser blazed sullenly, the shells in her
magazine exploding like gigantic Chinese crackers.
In the bows of the whaler referred to above the able seaman with the
boathook sat regarding the captive of his bow and spear (or rather,
boathook). “’Ere, Tirpitz!” he said, and removing his cap he produced
the stump of a partly smoked cigarette. The captive took it with a
watery smile and pawed his rescuer’s trousers.
“Kamarad!” he said.
“Not ’arf!” said his captor appreciatively. “Not ’arf you ain’t,
you-------- son of a--------!”
The second bow, labouring at his oar, looked back over his shoulder.
“’Ush!” he said reprovingly. “’E can’t understand. Wot’s the use o’
wastin’ that on _’im_?” He spat contemptuously over the gunwale.
* * * * *
The following thoughtful description of the action appeared in the
German wireless _communiqué_ next morning:
“_Our light forces in an enterprise off the English coast put to
flight a vastly superior strength of armed merchant cruisers
escorted by destroyers. English fleet on coming to the rescue was
compelled to withdraw, and our forces returned to harbour without
further molestation._”
Every man to his own trade.
III. THE LEFT FLANK
The north-east wind carried the steady grumble of gunfire across the
sand-dunes and far out to sea.
The foremost gun’s crew of a British destroyer stood huddled in the lee
of the gun-shield with their duffle hoods pulled down over their
foreheads. The sea was calm, and the stars overhead shone with frosty
brilliance. A figure groped its way forward with a bowl of cocoa, and
joined the group round the breech of the gun. They drank in turn,
grunting as the warmth penetrated into their interiors.
The distant gunfire swelled momentarily. Above the horizon far ahead
intermittent gleams marked the activity of searchlight and star-shell.
“Them’s our guns,” said one of the cocoa-drinkers. He wiped his mouth on
the sleeve of his coat, and stared ahead. It never seemed to occur to
any of them that they might equally well be German guns.
[Illustration]
“That’s right,” confirmed the sight-setter. “There’s guns going like
that for ’undreds an’ ’undreds of miles. Right away up from the sea. Me
brother’s there--somewhere....” For a moment they ruminated over a
mental picture of the sight-setter’s brother, a mud-plastered stoical
atom, somewhere along those hundreds of miles of wire and bayonets that
hedged civilisation and posterity from the Unnamable. “Switzerland to
the sea,” said the speaker. He jerked the breech-lever absent-mindedly
towards him, and closed it again with a little click.
“An’ then we takes on,” said a loading number. “Us an’ these ’ere.” He
tapped the smooth side of a lyddite shell lying in the rack beside him.
“An’ this ’ere,” said the man who had brought the cocoa. He thrust
forward the cumbersome hilt of a cutlass at his hip. The starlight
gleamed dully on the steel guard.
“You won’t use that to-night, my son,” said the gunlayer. “We ain’t
goin’ to ’ave no _Broke_ an’ _Swift_ song an’ dance to-night.” He stared
out into the clear darkness. “We couldn’t never git near enough.”
Nevertheless, he put out his hand in the gloom and reassured himself of
the safety of a formidable bar of iron well within reach. Once in the
annals of this war had a British destroyer come to grips at close
quarters with the enemy; thereafter her crew walked the earth as men
apart, and the darlings of the high gods.
The night grew suddenly darker. It was the mysterious hour that precedes
the dawn, when warring men and sleeping animals stir and bethink them of
the morrow. The destroyer slackened speed and turned, the wide circle
of her wake shimmering against the darkness of the water. As they
turned, other dark shapes were visible abeam, moving at measured
distance from each other without a light showing or a sound but the
faint swish of the water past their sides. The flotilla had reached the
limit of its beat, and swung round to resume the unending patrol.
Once from the starry sky came the drone of a seaplane moving up from its
base that lay to the southward. Another followed, another and another,
skirting the coast and flying well out to sea to avoid the searchlights
and anti-aircraft guns of the shore batteries. They passed invisible,
and the drone of their engines died away.
“Our spottin’ machines,” said the sight-setter. “They’re going up to
spot for the monitors at daylight.” He jerked his head astern to the
north, and yawned. “I reckon I’d sooner ’ave this job than screenin’
monitors wot’s bombardin’ Ostend. I don’t fancy them 15-inch German
shell droppin’ round out o’ nuffink, an’ no chance of ’ittin’ back.”
“They knocks seven-bells outer Ostend, them monitors,” said another.
“_We_ ain’t knockin’ ’ell out o’ nobody, steamin’ up an’ down like one
of them women slops in the ’Orseferry Road.” The speaker blinked
towards the east where the stars were paling.
“We’re all doin’ our bit,” said the gunlayer, “an’ one o’ these
nights....” He shook his head darkly. The dawn crept into the sky: the
faces beneath the duffle hoods grew discernible to each other, unshaven,
pink-lidded, pinched with cold. Objects, shining with frozen dew, took
form out of the black void. The outline of the bridge above them, and
the mast behind, stood out against the sky; the head and shoulders of
the captain, with his glasses to his eyes, appeared above the bridge
screen, where he had been all night, watchful and invisible. The smoke
trailing astern blotted out the rest of the flotilla following in each
other’s wake. Aft along the deck, guns’ and torpedo-tubes’ crews began
to move and stamp their feet for warmth.
Away to starboard a circular object nearly awash loomed up and dropped
astern. Another appeared a few minutes later, and was succeeded by a
third. Mile after mile these dark shapes slid past, stretching away to
the horizon. They were the buoys of the Channel barrage, supporting the
mined nets which are but a continuation of four hundred miles of barbed
wire.
The day dawned silvery grey and disclosed a diffused activity upon the
face of the waters. Two great hospital ships, screened by destroyers as
a sinister reminder to the beholder of Germany’s forfeited honour, slid
away swiftly towards the French coast. A ragged line of coastwise
traffic, barges under sail, lighters in tow of tugs, and deepladen
freighters hugging the swept channel along the coast, appeared as if by
magic out of “the bowl of night”; from the direction of the chalk-cliffs
came a division of drifters in line ahead. They passed close to the
destroyers, and the figure on the leading destroyer’s bridge bawled
through a megaphone. They were curt incoherencies to a landsman--vague
references to a number and some compass bearings. A big man on board the
drifter flagship waved his arm to indicate he understood the message;
which was to the effect that one of the barrage buoys appeared to have
dragged a little, and the net looked as if it was worth examining.
The drifters spread out along the line of buoys and commenced their
daily task of overhauling the steel jackstays, testing the circuits of
the mines, repairing damage caused by the ebb and flow of the tide and
winter gales.
Half an hour later the destroyers encountered their reliefs,
transferred the mantle of responsibility for the left flank with a
flutter of bunting and a pair of hand-flags, and returned to their
anchorage, where they were greeted by a peremptory order from the signal
station to complete with oil fuel and report when ready for sea again. A
coastal airship had reported an enemy submarine in the closely guarded
waters of the Channel, and along sixty miles of watchful coast the hunt
was up.
“My brother Alf,” said the sight-setter disgustedly, as he kicked off
his seaboots and prepared for an hour’s sleep, “’e may be famil’r wif
tools wot I don’t know nothin’ about. But there’s one thing about
’em--when ’e lays ’em down, ’e bloody-well lays ’em down.”
IV. THE HUNT
The _Blimp_ rose from her moorings, soaring seaward, and straightway the
roar of her propeller cut off each of the occupants of the car into a
separate world of his own silence. The aerodrome with its orderly row of
hangars dropped away from under them with incredible swiftness. Fields
became patchwork, buildings fell into squares and lozenges without
identity. Figures which a minute or two before had been noisy,
muscular, perspiring fellow-men working on the ropes, were dots without
motion or meaning, and faded to nothingness.
[Illustration]
A flock of seagulls rose from the face of the cliff, whirled beneath
them like autumn leaves, and dropped astern. The parallel lines of white
that were breakers chasing each other to ruin on a rock-bound coast
merged into the level floor of the Atlantic, and presently there was
nothing but sea and blue sky with the rushing wind between, and this
glittering triumph of man’s handiwork held suspended like a bauble
midway.
The pilot turned in his seat and grinned over his shoulder at the
observer. The grin was the only visible portion of his face: the rest
was hidden by flying-helmet and goggles and worsted muffler. The grin
said: “It’s a fine morning and the old bus is running like a witch.
What’s the odds on sighting a Fritz?”
The observer laughed and shouted an inaudible reply against the roar of
the wind. He pulled a slip of chewing gum out of his pocket, bit off a
piece, and passed the rest to the pilot. Then he adjusted the focus of
the high-power glasses and began methodically quartering out the immense
circular expanse of sea beneath them.
Half an hour had passed when the wireless operator in the rear leaned
forward and tapped him on the shoulder. His listeners were to his ears,
and he was scribbling something on a slate. “S.O.S.--S.O.S.”--a bearing
from a distant headland--“fourteen miles--S.O.S.--S.O.S.--come
quickly--I am being shelled--S.O.S.--Subma----” The operator paused with
his pencil above the slate, waited a moment, and handed the slate
forward.
The message, soundless, appealing, that had reached them out of the blue
immensity had ceased abruptly. The pilot glanced from the compass to a
small square of chart clamped before him, and slowly turned the wheel.
Then he looked back over his shoulder and grinned again.
A quarter of an hour later the pilot extended a gauntletted hand and
pointed to the rim of the horizon. A faint smudge of smoke darkened into
a trailing cloud, and presently they saw ahead of it the forepart of a
ship, driving through the water at a speed which clove a white,
irregular furrow across the surface of the sea. She was swerving from
side to side like a hunted buck, and as the dirigible dipped her nose
and the hum of the wind redoubled to a roar in the ears of the crew,
they saw away to the west a tiny cigar-shaped object. At intervals a
spurt of flame shot from it, and a little pale mushroom-shaped cloud
appeared above the steamer as the shrapnel burst.
The _Blimp_ swooped at eighty miles an hour upon that cigar-shaped
object. The observer braced his feet and grasped the bomb release lever,
his jaws still moving about the piece of chewing-gum. The sea, flecked
with little waves, rushed up to greet them. They had a glimpse of the
submarine’s crew tumbling pell-mell for the conning-tower hatchway, of
the wicked gun abandoned forward still trained on the fleeing
merchantman. The next instant the quarry had shot beneath them. A sharp
concussion of the air beat upon the fragile car and body of the airship
as her nose was flung up and round. The dirigible’s bomb had burst right
forward on the pointed bows, and the submarine was diving in a confused
circle of broken water and spray.
The _Blimp_ turned to drop another bomb ahead of the rapidly vanishing
wake, and then marked the spot with a calcium flare, while the wireless
operator jiggled a far-flung “Tally ho!” on the sending-key of his
apparatus.
The tramp disappeared below the horizon, and they caught disjointed
scraps of her breathless tale while they circled in wide spirals above
the watery arena.
Three motor launches were the first upon the scene, each with a slim gun
in the bows, and carrying, like hornets, a sting in their tails. They
were old hands at the game, and they spread out on the hunt with
business-like deliberation under the directions of the _Blimp’s_ Morse
lamp. The captain of the inshore boat (he had been a stockbroker in an
existence several æons gone by) traced a tar-stained finger across the
chart, and glanced again at the compass. “Nets--nets--nets,” he mumbled.
“The swine probably knows about those to the northwest ... He daren’t
go blind much longer. Ha!”
“Feather three points on your port bow,” winked the _Blimp_. Over went
the motor launch’s helm, and the seaward boat suddenly darted ahead in a
white cloud of spray. Bang! a puff of smoke drifted away from the wet
muzzle of her gun; half a mile ahead a ricochet flung up a column of
foam as the shell went sobbing and whimpering into the blue distance.
“Periscope dipped,” waved a pair of hand-flags from the boat that had
fired. And a moment later, “Keep out of my wake! Am going to release a
charge.”
For an hour that relentless blindfold hunt went forward, punctuated by
exploding bombs and depth charges, and the crack of the launches’ guns
as the periscope of the submarine rose for an instant’s glimpse of his
assailants and vanished again. Twice the enemy essayed a torpedo
counter-attack, and each time the trail passed wide. Then, crippled and
desperate, he doubled on his tracks, and for a while succeeded in
shaking off the pursuit. Nets, as he knew, lay ahead, and nets were
death; safety lay to the southward could he but keep submerged; but the
water, spurting through the buckled plating and rivets started by the
bursting depth charges, had mingled with the acid in the batteries and
generated poison gas, which drove him to the surface. Here he turned, a
couple of miles astern of his pursuers, and manned both guns, a hunted
vermin at bay. As his foremost gun opened fire, a heavy shell burst a
few yards abeam of the submarine, and the captain of the nearest motor
launch raised his glasses. It was not a shell fired from a motor launch.
“The destroyers,” he said. “Now why couldn’t they have kept away till
we’d made a job of it?” On the horizon the masts and funnels of a
flotilla of destroyers appeared in line abreast, approaching at full
speed, firing as they came. The next instant a shell from the submarine
burst on the tiny forecastle of the launch, shattering the gun, gun’s
crew, and wheelhouse. The coxswain dropped over the wrecked wheel and
slowly slid to the deck like a marionette suddenly deprived of
animation. The lieutenant R.N.V.R. who had once been a stockbroker stood
upright for an instant with his hands to his throat as if trying to stem
the red torrent spurting through his fingers, and then pitched brokenly
beside the coxswain.
The captain of the submarine counted the approaching destroyers, opened
the seacock to speed the flooding of his doomed craft, gave a swift
glance overhead at the _Blimp_ swooping towards them for the
_coup-de-grâce_, and ordered Cease Fire. Then he waved his hands in
token of surrender.
V. OVERDUE
The thin light of a sickle moon tipped the crest of each swift-running
sea with silver. The rest was a purple blackness, through which the
north wind slashed like a knife, and the sound of surf on a distant
shoal was carried moaning. At intervals a bank of racing clouds trailed
across the face of the moon, and then all was inky dark for a while.
It was during one of these periods of obliteration of all things visible
that a slender, perpendicular object rose above the surface of the sea.
Gradually the dim light waxed again: a wave, cloven in its path, passed
hissing on either side in a trail of spray, and the object slowly
projected until it topped the highest wave. Presently about its base a
convulsive disturbance in the water was followed by the appearance of a
conical shape, a solid blackness against the streaked glimmering
obscurity of the water breaking all about its sides and streaming in
cascades from the flat railed-in top. A hatchway opened, and two figures
crawled out, clinging to the rail of their swaying foothold while the
full force of the wind clawed and battered at their forms. They
maintained a terse conversation by dint of shouting in turn with their
lips to each other’s ears, while the conning-tower of the submarine on
which they stood moved forward in the teeth of the elements.
[Illustration]
For half an hour they went plunging and lurching onwards, clinging with
numbed hands to the rail as a green sea swept about their legs, wiping
the half-frozen spray from their eyes to search the darkness ahead with
night-glasses. Then one pointed away on the bow.
“How’s that?” he bawled. A point on the bow something dark tumbled amid
the waves and flying spindrift. The other stared a moment, shouted an
order to the invisible helmsman through a voice-pipe, and the wind that
had hitherto been in their streaming eyes smote and buffeted them on the
left cheek. A scurry of sleet whirled momentarily about them, blotting
out the half-glimpsed buoy; the taller of the two figures put out an arm
and smote his companion on the back. They had made that buoy at dawn the
previous day, and then, according to the custom of British submarines in
enemy waters, submerged till nightfall. Now, despite the set of the
tides and currents and the darkness, they had found it again, and with
it their bearings for the desperate journey that lay ahead.
For two hours they groped their way onwards through what would have been
unfathomable mysteries to a landsman. Compass, chart, and leadline
played their part: but not even these, coupled with the stoutest heart
that ever beat, avail against unknown minefield and watchful patrols.
Thrice the two alert, oilskin-clothed figures dived through the hatchway
into the interior of the submarine, and the platform on which they had
been standing vanished eerily beneath the surface as a string of long,
dark shapes went by with a throb of unseen propellers. Once when thus
submerged an unknown object grated past the thin shell with a harsh
metallic jar, and passed astern in silence. Then it was that the captain
of the submarine removed his cap, passing his sleeve quickly across his
damp forehead, and the gesture was doubtless accepted where all prayers
of gratitude find their way.
The first gleam of dawn, however, found no submarine on the surface. It
showed a business-like flotilla of destroyers on their beat, and a long
line of net drifters at anchor in the far distance amid sandbanks. An
armed trawler with rust-streaked sides and a gun forward was making her
way through the cold, grey seas in the direction of the drifters; a
hoist of gay-coloured signal flags flew from her stump of a mast, and at
the peak a tattered German ensign. The crew were clustered for warmth in
the lee of the engine-room casing, their collars turned up above their
ears, and their hands deep in their pockets. They were staring ahead
intently at the line of nets guarding the entrance to the harbour they
were about to enter. None noticed a black speck that peeped
intermittently out of their tumbling wake thirty yards astern, and
followed them up the channel. Three or four fathoms beneath that
questioning speck, in an electric-lit glittering steel cylinder, a young
man stood peering into the lens of a high-power periscope, both hands
resting on a lever. He spoke in a dull monotone, with long intervals of
silence; and throughout the length of that cylinder, beside valve and
dial and lever, a score of pairs of eyes watched him steadfastly.
“She’s given her funnel a coat of paint since last month ... port
ten--steady! steady!... There’s the gate vessel moving.... The skipper
is waving to hurry him up.... Wants his breakfast, I suppose.... That
must be the big crane in the dockyard.... There are flags hung about
everywhere.... Starboard a touch.... It’s getting devilish light....
There’s something that looks like a battle-cruiser alongside....”
There was a long silence, then the figure manipulating the periscope
suddenly stood upright.
“We’re through,” he said quietly. “And that’s their new battle-cruiser.”
* * * * *
In the smoking-room of a British submarine depot a group of officers sat
round the fire. Now and again one or other made a trivial observation
from behind his newspaper; occasionally one would glance swiftly at the
clock and back to his paper as if half afraid the glance would be
intercepted. The hands of the clock crept slowly round to noon; the
clock gave a little preliminary whirr and then struck the hour.
“Eight bells,” said the youngest of the group in a tone of detachment,
as if the hour had no special significance. A grave-faced
lieutenant-commander seated nearest the door rose slowly to his feet and
buttoned up his monkey jacket.
“You goin’, Bill?” asked his neighbour in a low voice.
The upright figure nodded. “He’d have done as much for me,” he replied,
and walked quickly out of the room.
No one spoke for some minutes. Then the youngest member lowered the
magazine he was holding in front of him.
“Do they cry?” he asked.
“No,” said two voices simultaneously. “’Least,” added one, “not at the
time.”
The silence settled down again like dust that had been disturbed; then
the first speaker leaned forward and tapped the ashes out of his pipe.
“Well,” he observed, “they didn’t get him cheap, at all events. I’m open
to a bet that he sent a Boche or two ahead of him to pipe the side.”
The group nodded a grim assent.
“Yes,” said one who had not hitherto spoken. “I reckon you’re right. But
we shan’t hear till the war’s over. They know how to keep their own
secrets.” He puffed at his pipe reflectively.
“Anyhow, thank God I’m a bachelor,” he concluded. He lifted a
fox-terrier’s head between his hands and shook it gently to and fro. “No
one need go and tell our wives if _we_ don’t come back--eh, little
Blinks?” The dog yawned, gave the hands that held him a perfunctory
lick, and resumed his interrupted nap sprawling across his master’s
knees.
* * * * *
Among the letters intercepted shortly afterwards on their way to a South
American State from Germany was one that contained the following
significant passage:
“ ... Yesterday all Kiel was beflagged: we were to have had a
half-holiday on the occasion of the trials of the great new battle
cruiser----. Owing to an unforeseen incident, however, the trials
were not completed. Our half-holiday has been postponed
indefinitely....”
VI. “TUPPENCE APIECE”
The herring were in the bay, and the fleet of sailing smacks went
trailing out on the light wind with their eager crews of old men and
boys straining at the halliards to catch the last capful of wind. After
them came the armed guard-boat of the little peaceful fleet, a stout
trawler with a gun in her bows, fussing in the wake of her charges.
The skipper of the guard-boat was at the wheel, a tall, gaunt old man
with a fringe of grey whisker round his jaws and a mouth as tight as a
scar. He it was who located the herring and placed the fleet across
their path, and all that day the smacks lay to their nets till the
porpoises turned inshore and drove the silvery host eastward. After them
went the smacks, with holds half-full, lured on by the promise of two
quarters’ rent as good as paid. Finally, the old Trawler Reserveman
checked the pursuit.
“Fish or no fish,” he cried. “Here ye
[Illustration]
bide the night.” They had reached the limit of the safety zone in those
waters, and he rounded up his flock like a sagacious sheep-dog, counting
the little craft carefully ere he took up his position to seaward of
them for the night. At the first hint of dawn he weighed anchor and
counted again: his grim old face darkened. He turned to seaward where
the sky was lightening fast, and searched the mist through glasses.
Three smacks were discernible some miles outside their allotted area.
The burly mate stood beside his father, and watched the delinquents
hauling in their nets with a speed that hinted at an uneasy conscience.
“They’m drifted in a bit of a tide rip, mebbe?” he ventured.
The old man growled an oath. “Tide rip? Nay! They’m just daft wi’ greed.
There’s no wit nor dacency in their sodden heads. An’ I’ll larn ’em
both. By God I’ll larn ’em to disobey my orders.” ... He watched the
far-off craft hoisting sail, with eyes grey and cold as flints beneath
the bushy brows. “Aye,” he said threateningly, “I’ll larn ye ...” and
clumped forward to the wheel-house.
The sun had not yet risen, and the thin morning mists wreathed the face
of the waters. As the trawler gathered way a sudden flash of light
blinked out of the mist to the northward. The report of a gun was
followed by the explosion of a shell fifty yards on the near side of the
most distant fishing-smack.
The trawler skipper measured the distance from the flash to the fishing
fleet, and thence to the truants bowling towards them on the morning
breeze.
“Man the gun!” he roared. “Action Stations, lads!” He picked up a
megaphone and bellowed through it in the direction of his charges: “Cut
your warps an’ get ter hell outer this!” Then he wrenched the telegraph
to full speed and put the wheel over, heading his little craft towards
the quarter from which the flash had come. The gun’s crew closed up
round the loaded gun, rolling up their sleeves and spitting on their
hands as is the custom of their breed before a fight.
“There’s a submarine yonder in the mist,” shouted the skipper. “Open
fire directly ye sight her and keep her busy while the smacks get away.”
Astern of them the small craft were cutting their nets away and hoisting
sail. Three or four were already making for safety to the westward
before the early morning breeze that hurried in catspaws over the sea.
Bang!
The trawler opened fire as the submarine appeared ahead like a long,
hump-backed shadow against the pearly grey of the horizon. The breech
clanged open and the acrid smoke floated aft as they reloaded.
“Rapid fire!” shouted the skipper. Shells were bursting all about the
fleeing smacks. “Give ’em hell, lads. Her’ve got two guns an’ us but the
one....” He glanced back over his shoulder at the little craft he was
trying to save, and then bent to the voice-pipe. “Every ounce o’ steam,
Luther. Her’ll try to haul off an’ outrange my little small gun.”
Smoke poured from the gaily-painted funnel; the “little small gun”
barked and barked again, and one after the other the empty cylinders
went clattering into the scuppers. A shell struck the trawler somewhere
in the region of the mizzen mast, and sent the splinters flying. A
minute later another exploded off the port bow, flinging the water in
sheets over the gun’s crew. The sight-setter slid into a sitting
position, his back against the pedestal of the gun-mounting, and his
head lolling on his shoulder. They had drawn the enemy’s fire at last,
and every minute gave the smacks a better chance. Shell after shell
struck the little craft as she blundered gallantly on. The stern was
alight: the splintered foremast lay across a funnel riddled like a
pepper-pot. The trawler’s boy--a shock-headed child of fourteen who had
been passing up ammunition to the gun--leaned whimpering against the
engine-room casing, nursing a blood-sodden jacket wrapped about his
forearm.
The mate was at the gun, round which three of the crew lay. One had
raised himself on his elbow and was coughing out his soul. The other
two were on their backs staring at the sky.
In the face of the trawler’s fire, the submarine turned and drew out of
range, firing as she went. One of the British shells had struck the
low-lying hull in the stern, and a thin cloud of grey smoke ascended
from the rent. Figures were visible running aft along the railed-in
deck, gesticulating.
“Ye’ve hit her,” shouted the skipper from the wheel. “Give ’em hell,
lads----”
A sudden burst of flame and smoke enveloped the wheel-house, and the
skipper went hurtling through the doorway and pitched with a thud on the
deck.
The mate ran aft and knelt beside him. “Father,” he cried hoarsely.
The inert blue-clad figure raised himself on his hands, and his head
swayed between his massive shoulders.
“Father,” said the mate again, and shook him, as if trying to awaken
someone from sleep. “Be ye hurted terrible bad?”
The grim old seadog raised his head, and his son saw that he was blind.
“Pitch the codes overboard,” he said. “I’m blind an’ stone deaf, an’ my
guts are all abroad under me, but ye’ll fight the little gun while
there’s a shell left aboard....”
The mate stood up and looked aft along the splintered, bloody deck,
beyond the smoke and steam trailing to leeward.
“The gun’s wrecked,” he said slowly, as if speaking to himself. “The
little smacks are clear o’ danger.... The destroyers are comin’ up....
Ye have fought a good fight, father.” The submarine had ceased fire, and
as he spoke, she submerged and vanished sullenly, like a wild beast
baulked of its prey.
* * * * *
An old woman sat knitting beside the fire in the heart of a Midland town
next day. The door opened and a girl came in quickly, with a shawl over
her head and a basket on her arm.
“There’s a surprise for supper,” she said.
The old woman looked inside the basket. “Herrin’!” she said. “What did
they cost?”
“Tuppence apiece,” replied the girl lightly, as she hung up her shawl.
“They was cheap,” said the old woman as she fell to larding the
frying-pan.
But all things considered, perhaps they were not so very cheap after
all.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III
THE NAVY-THAT-FLIES[A]
The Royal Naval Air Service found itself “over the other side” about the
time that the shells of the British monitors began feeling for the
hidden batteries of the Boche behind the Belgian coast.
“I can’t see where they’re pitching,” said the Navy-that-Floats,
referring to the shells of the monitors bursting twelve miles away.
“What about spotting for us, old son?”
“That will I do,” replied the Navy-that-Flies. “And more also. But I
shall have to wear khaki, because it’s done, out here; by everybody
apparently. Even the newspaper reporters wear khaki. Also I must have
the right machines and lots of ’em.”
“Wear anything you like,” replied the Navy-that-Floats, “as long as you
can help us to hit these shore batteries. Only--because you wear khaki
and see life, don’t forget you’re still the same old Navy as it was in
the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”
The Navy-that-Flies added “Amen,” and said that it wouldn’t forget. It
garbed itself in khaki, but retained the ring and curl on the sleeve,
and the naval cap (with the eagle’s wings in place of the crown and
anchor in the badge), plus a khaki cap-cover. Wherever its squadrons
were based they rigged a flagstaff and flew the White Ensign at the
peak. They erected wooden huts and painted them service grey, labelling
them “Mess-deck,” “Wardroom,” “Gunroom,” etc., as the case might be.
They divided the flights into port and starboard watches, and solemnly
asked leave to “go ashore” for recreation. Those who strayed from the
same stern paths of discipline suffered the same punishments as the
Navy-that-Floats. And at the conclusion of each day’s work the wardroom
dined, and drank to their King, sitting, according to the custom and
tradition of the naval service.
They filled in shell-holes and levelled the ground for aerodromes, they
ran up hangars and excavated dug-outs--whither they retired in a strong,
silent rush (the expression is theirs), when the apprehensive Boche
attempted to curtail their activity with bombs.
And by degrees the right machines came along. The Navy-that-Flies swung
itself into them critically, flung them about in the air three miles
high, testing and measuring their capabilities. Then they fought them,
crashed them, improved on them till they were righter still, and finally
proceeded (to quote another of their expressions) to “put the wind up
Old Man Boche” in a way that helped the Navy-that-Floats enormously.
But apart from spotting duties, which were necessarily intermittent, the
R.N.A.S. undertook a photographic reconnaissance of the entire Belgian
coast from Nieuport to the Dutch frontier. The work in progress at
Ostend and Zeebrugge, the activities of submarines and destroyers inside
the basins; locks, quays, and gun-emplacements, and the results of
bombs dropped thereon the night before, were all faithfully recorded by
these aerial cameras. The negatives were developed and printed, the
resultant bird-pictures enlarged, studied through stereoscopic lenses,
and finally given to the monitors “for information and guidance.” Since
it is not given to everyone to recognise the entrance to a dug-out or a
group of searchlights as they appear from a height of 20,000 feet, the
photographs were embellished with explanatory notes for the benefit of
anyone unaccustomed to such unfamiliar aspects of creation.
The Germans claim to be a modest people. They were as busy as beavers,
and they resented these importunate photographers with all the fervour
that springs from true modesty. Their anti-aircraft guns plastered the
intruders with bursting shrapnel, and from every coast aerodrome Boche
machines rose like a cloud of angry hornets to give battle. Yet day
after day fresh plates find their way to the developing trays, and a
comparison between the official reports of the flight--couched in a
laconic terseness of phrase that is good to read--and the amazing
results obtained gives perhaps the truest measure of the work performed
by these very gallant gentlemen.
Not a spadeful of earth can be turned over, nor a trowel of cement added
to a bastion along the coast, but a note appears a day or two later upon
the long chart which adorns the record office of this particular
squadron. A crumpled escorting machine may have come down out of the
clouds, eddying like a withered leaf, to crash somewhere behind the
German line; there may be somewhere near the shore a broken boy in
goggles and leather lying amid the wreckage of his last flight. Such is
the price paid for a few more dots added in red ink to a couple of feet
of chart. But as long as the photographic machine returns with the
camera intact, the price is paid ungrudgingly.
The work of these photographic recorders, pilot and observer alike,
differs from all other forms of war flying. Their sole duty is to take
photographs, not haphazard, but of a given objective. This necessitates
steering a perfectly steady course regardless of all distractions such
as bursting “Archies” and angry “Albatross” fighters. They leave the
fighting to their escorts, and their fate to Providence. The observer,
peering earthwards through his view-finder, steers the pilot by means of
reins until he sights the line on which the desired series of
photographs are to be taken: once over this, the pilot flies the machine
on an undeviating course, and the observer proceeds to take photographs.
When all the plates have been exposed, they turn round and return home
with what remain of the escort. On occasions the escort have vanished,
either earthwards or in savage pursuit of resentful though faint-hearted
Boches; this is when the homing photographers’ moments are apt to become
crowded with incident.
One such adventure deserves to be recorded. It happened about 12,000
feet above mother-earth: the official reports, typed in triplicate,
covered some dozen lines; the actual events, an equal number of minutes;
but the story is one that should live through eternity.
“While exposing six plates” (says the official report of this youthful
Recording Angel) “observed five H.A.’s cruising.” (“H.A.” stands for
Hostile Aeroplane.) “Not having seen escort since turning inland, pilot
prepared to return. Enemy separated, one taking up position above tail
and one ahead. The other three glided towards us on port side” (observe
the Navy speaking), “firing as they came.
“The two diving machines fired over one hundred rounds, hitting pilot
in shoulder.” As a matter of sober fact, the bullet entered his shoulder
from above and behind, breaking his left collar bone, and emerged just
above his heart, tearing a jagged rent down his breast. Both his feet,
furthermore, pierced by bullets, but the observer was not concerned with
petty detail.
“Observer held fire until H.A. diving on tail was within five yards.”
Here it might be mentioned that the machines were hurtling through space
at a speed in the region of one hundred miles an hour. The pilot of the
“H.A.,” having swooped to within speaking distance, pushed up his
goggles and laughed triumphantly as he took his sight for the shot that
was to end the fight. But the observer had his own idea of how the fight
should end.
“Then shot one tray into pilot’s face,” he says, with curt relish, and
watched him stall, sideslip, and go spinning earthward in a trail of
smoke.
He turned his attention to his own pilot. The British machine was barely
under control, but as the observer rose in his seat to investigate, the
foremost gun fired, and the aggressor ahead went out of control and
dived nose-first in helpless spirals. Suspecting that his mate was badly
wounded in spite of this achievement, the observer swung one leg over
the side of the fuselage and climbed on to the wing--figure for a minute
the air pressure on his body during this gymnastic feat--until he was
beside the pilot. Faint and drenched with blood, the latter had
nevertheless got his machine back into complete control.
“Get back, you ass,” he said, through white lips, in response to
inquiries as to how he felt. The ass got back the way he came, and
looked round for the remainder of the “H.A.’s.” These, however, appeared
to have lost stomach for further fighting, and fled. The riddled machine
returned home at one hundred knots, while the observer, having nothing
better to do, continued to take photographs. “The pilot, though wounded,
made a perfect landing.” Thus the report concludes.
The Navy-that-Flies had been in France some time before the Army heard
very much about its doings. This was not so much the fault of the Army
as the outcome of the taciturn silence in which the Navy-that-Flies set
to work. It had been bidden to observe the traditions of the silent
Navy, and it observed them, forbearing even to publish the number of
Boche machines it accounted for day by day.
But there came a time when its light could no longer be hid under a
bushel. “Hullo,” said the generals and others concerned with the affairs
of the entrenched Army, speaking among themselves, “what about it?” They
consulted the Army-that-Flies.
Now the Army-that-Flies had been confronted in the early days of the war
with perhaps the toughest proposition that was ever faced by mortals of
even their imperturbable courage. In numerical inferiority to the enemy
it had been called upon to maintain a ceaseless photographic
reconnaissance far behind the enemy’s trenches; to spot for the guns of
the Army along a suddenly extended front: to “keep the wind up” the
Boche so that for every ten of our machines that crossed the German
lines, barely one of his would dare to cross ours. This is called aerial
supremacy, and they established and maintained it with fewer and worse
machines than they care to talk about to-day.
“Of course we know all about these naval Johnnies,” said the
Army-that-Flies. “They’d steal grey paint from their dying grandmothers,
and they fear nothing in the heavens above, nor the earth beneath, nor
in the waters under the earth. They are complaining that things are
getting a bit dull along the coast.... We might show them a thing or two
if they cared to join up with us for a while.”
“Let’s ask them,” said the Army.
So the Navy-that-Flies was invited “to co-operate with the Royal Flying
Corps on such portions of the line where its experience of escort work
and offensive patrols would prove of the greatest value.” Or words to
that effect.
The Navy-that-Flies accepted the invitation with suppressed exultation,
and detailed certain squadrons of fighters. It admits having selected
picked pilots, because there was the credit of the old Navy to consider.
Each squadron was entrusted to the care of a seasoned veteran of fully
twenty-five summers, and of the flight leaders there was one that had
even turned twenty-one. In short the Navy-that-Flies was sending of its
best; and its worst was very good indeed.
They flew away from the coast and the sea, and their motor transport
rumbled through the empty plains of France, till they closed upon the
fringe of the entrenched army. Here perched above the surrounding
country on some plateau or hill-side, with the ceaseless murmur of the
guns in their ears, each of the squadrons rigged its flagstaff and
hoisted the White Ensign, set up the grey-painted huts and the ship’s
bell that divided the day into ship-watches, slung their hammocks, and
announced that they were ready to “co-operate” with anybody or anything.
The Army-that-Flies laughed at the ship’s bell and the rest of the naval
shibboleth, but it took the visitors to its heart. With hands deep in
the pockets of its “slacks” and pipe in mouth it came over and examined
the fighting machines of the Navy-that-Flies and the “doo-hickies”
thereof, and it said things under its breath.
The Navy-that-Flies did not waste much time looking about it. One
fire-eater setting off to explore the country some thirty miles behind
the German lines came upon a school of “Quirks.” Quirks, it may be
explained for the benefit of bipeds, are young Boche aviators in an
embryonic stage. From the convenient ambush of a cloud he watched their
antics for a while, as they flopped about above their aerodrome; and
then, descending like a thunderbolt, he tumbled three over, scattered
the remainder and returned to make his report. The squadron listened
gravely to the story and concluded that the Golden Age had dawned.
But sterner work lay ahead, and a fair sample of it is contained in the
report of another young gentleman who went scouting singlehanded over
the German lines what time the “gentlemen of England” were, if not abed,
cracking the first of their breakfast eggs.
He was attacked by two single-seated “Albatross” machines and a
Halberstadt fighter. Into the engine of the latter he emptied a tray of
cartridges, with the result that it immediately went spinning down; to
make assurance doubly sure he fired another fifty rounds into the
whirling wreck as it fell.
By this time a veritable hornet’s nest appears to have risen about his
ears; three more “Albatross” machines whirred to the attack, and in his
subsequent report he notes with artistic enjoyment that the head of one
pilot precisely filled the ring of his sight. This eye for detail
enabled him to recall the fact that he actually saw three bullets strike
the pilot’s head, with the not surprising result that the
would-be-avenger heeled over and sped to the ground.
By this time he had been driven down to a height of 200 feet above
German-occupied territory, and, having lost sight of the remainder of
his aggressors, he decided to return home at that height.
As was to be expected, his adventures were by no means terminated by
this decision. An astonished company of German cavalry drew rein and
peppered him with rifle-shots as he whisked over the tops of their
lances. Five minutes later another “Albatross” attacked him.
He rocked the machine in giddy sweeps until within fifty yards of his
opponent, and side-looped over him (this, remember, at 200 feet from the
ground), fired a short burst and drove the Hun off for a moment while he
regained equilibrium. Then once more the enemy swooped upon him.
From this point onwards the reader may be warned against vertigo. The
pilot’s own version, the bald official report of the affair, requires no
embellishment or comment, though the latter is not easy to suppress.
“These operations,” he states, “were repeated several times with a
slight variation in the way I looped over him (flying against a head
wind). When he was about 150 yards behind me, I looped straight over
him, and coming out of the loop dived at him and fired a good long
burst. I saw nearly all the bullets go into the pilot’s back, just on
the edge of the cockpit. He immediately dived straight into the ground.
“I then went over the German trenches filled with soldiers, and was
fired on by machine guns, rifles, and small field guns, in or out” (Ye
Gods and Little Fishes!) “of range. There were many shells bursting in
and about the German trenches.”
The report concluded with estimates of the strength of various bodies of
infantry and cavalry, movements of convoy and artillery noticed during
the intervals between aerial somersaults. The pilot landed at the first
aerodrome he saw--adding, in explanation of such an irregular
proceeding, that his machine was badly shot about.
The squadrons co-operating with the R.F.C. commenced by faithfully
recording all aerial combats in which their machines were engaged. But
after a while such events became too commonplace to chronicle. They
fought from dawn to dusk, generally a day’s journey for a horse behind
the German lines. They fought at altitudes at which in spring a
thermometer registered 50° of frost, returning with petrol tanks frozen,
and hands and feet and ears swollen by frost-nip. One squadron had a
hundred decisive fights in a month (omitting skirmishes), and accounted
for twenty-five Boche machines. Its log (unofficially termed
“Game-book”) contained such entries as the following: “Four machines
went up: managed to bag five Huns before breakfast.”
For the first time in their lives the pilots got all the fighting they
wanted, and revelled in it gluttonously. They grew fine-drawn, with the
accentuated brilliancy of eye common to men in perfect condition living
at the highest tension. They met Winged Death hourly in the blue
loneliness above the clouds; the rustle of his sable wings became a
sound familiar as the drone of their own engines, so that all terror of
the Destroyer passed out of their souls--if indeed it had ever entered
there.
And Death in his turn grew merciful, amazed. At least this is the only
explanation to offer for certain tales that are told along the Front,
where the White Ensign flies.
But hear for yourselves and judge.
A Naval pilot--a Canadian, by the way--attacked a single-seater
“Albatross” scout at 8,000 feet above the German lines. He disposed of
him after a short engagement, and was then attacked by seven others who
drove him down to 3,000 feet and shot his machine to pieces. He plunged
to the ground and crashed amid the wreck of his machine a couple of
hundred yards behind the Canadian lines, breaking a leg and dislocating
a shoulder. A furious bombardment from German heavy artillery was in
progress at the time, and he crawled into a shell-hole, where he
remained from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Fire then having slackened, a party
from the trenches went in search of his body with a view to burying it,
and found him conscious and cheerful, though very thirsty.
The Navy-that-Flies is witness that I lie not.
As far as bombing operations are concerned, the Navy-that-Flies confines
its attentions principally to the German bases along the Belgian coast,
and any lurking submarines or vagrant destroyers observed in the
vicinity. Bombing is carried out by both aeroplanes and seaplanes, and
differs from other forms of war flying in that it is principally
performed at night.
The function of the bombing machine is to reach its given objective in
as short a time as possible, without provoking more “scraps” on the way
than are inevitable, to “deliver the goods,” and, if not brought down by
anti-aircraft fire, to return with all speed. They are not primarily
fighters, and when laden with bombs are not theoretically a match for a
hostile fighting machine with unfettered manœuvring powers.
Engine-trouble or loss of stability over enemy territory means almost
infallible capture or death for the pilot of a bombing aeroplane. Yet in
cases of disablement, rather than come down on the ground and suffer
themselves or their machine to be taken prisoner, it is their gallant
tradition to try to struggle out to sea. Here they stand about as much
chance of life as a pheasant winged above a lake, but the machine sinks
before German hands can touch it.
Now it happened that on one such occasion the descent into the sea of a
bombing machine was observed by two French flying boats which were out
on patrol. The distressed machine was still within range of the shore
batteries, and the Boches, smarting under the effect of the bombs she
had succeeded in dropping, were retaliating in the most approved
Germanic manner by plastering the helpless machine with shrapnel as she
slowly sank.
The two French flying boats sped to the rescue and alighted in the water
beside the wrecked British machine. One embarked the observer, who was
wounded, and, in spite of redoubled fire from the shore, succeeded in
returning safely. The other French flying-boat actually embarked the
remaining occupants of the bombing machine, but was hit as it rose from
the water and fell disabled. The French pilot, seeing a Boche seaplane
approaching, and a bevy of small craft in-shore coming out against them,
scribbled a message to say that his venture had failed; he found time to
add, however, with true Gallic dauntlessness of spirit, “Vive la
France!” This missive he fastened to the leg of his carrier pigeon, and
succeeded in releasing it before rescuers and rescued were taken
prisoners.
From time to time curt official announcements of successful bomb-raids
upon German destroyer and submarine bases appear in the press. It may be
that the Naval honours or casualties lists are swelled thereby. But no
one who has not stood in the wind that blows across the bombers’
aerodrome at night, in those last tense moments before the start, can
form any idea of the conditions under which these grim laurels are
earned.
One by one the leather-clad pilots conclude their final survey and climb
up into their machines. They adjust goggles and gloves: there is a
warning “Stand clear!” and the darkness fills with roaring sound as No.
1 starts his engine. For a moment longer he sits in the utter isolation
of darkness and the deafening noise of his own engine. No further
sounds can reach him; not another order nor the valedictory “Good luck!”
from those whose lot it is to only stand and wait. He settles himself
comfortably and fingers the familiar levers and throttle; then with a
jerk the bomber starts along the uneven ground, gathers way, and rising,
speeds droning into the darkness like a gigantic cockchafer. A moment
later No. 2 follows, then another, and another. The night swallows them,
and the sound of their engines dies away.
A couple of hours later in one of the grey-painted huts that fringe the
aerodrome a telephone bell jangles. The squadron commander picks up the
receiver and holds converse with a tiny metallic voice that sounds very
far away; the conversation ends, he puts on his cap and goes out into
the darkness; a few minutes later a sudden row of lights across the
aerodrome makes bright pin-pricks in the darkness. From far away in the
air comes the hum of an engine growing momentarily louder. It grows
louder and clearer as the homing machine circles overhead and finally
comes to earth with a rushing wind and the scramble of men’s feet
invisible.
The pilot climbs stiffly out of his seat, pushing up his goggles, and
puckers his eyes in the light of the lanterns as he fumbles for his
cigarette case. “Got ’em,” he says laconically. “Seaplane sheds on the
mole. Time for another trip?”
There is time, it appears. He drinks hot coffee while the armourers snap
a fresh supply of bombs into the holders and test the release gear. He
answers questions curtly and his replies are very much to the point.
Their “Archies” are shooting well, and they’ve got a lot more
searchlights at work than they had last time. Rather warm work while it
lasted. He thinks No. 1 was hit and brought down in flames. No. 2 seemed
to have engine trouble this side of our lines on the way back. No. 3
ought to be along soon. And while he gulps his coffee and grunts
monosyllables there is a whirring overhead and No. 3 returns, loudly
demanding a fresh supply of bombs with which to put an artistic finish
to a row of blazing oil-tanks.
They climb into their machines again and lean back resting, while the
finishing touches (which sometimes come between life and death) are put
to the machines and their deadly freight. Then once more they soar up
into the night.
Dawn is breaking when No. 4 returns, tired-eyed, and more monosyllabic
than ever. It came off all right, but No. 3 had seemed to lose control
and slid down the beam of a searchlight with shells and balls of red
fire (some new stunt, he supposed) bursting all about her. However, she
got her bombs off first, and touched up something that sent a flame 200
feet into the air. He himself bombed a group of searchlights that were
annoying him, and some trucks in a railway siding. The speaker has an
ugly shrapnel wound in the thigh and observes with grave humour that his
boots are full of blood--this is a Navy joke, by the way. Also that he
could do with a drink.
But it came off all right.
* * * * *
Now the seaplanes, who undertake much the same sort of job, keep pigs,
and contemplate their stern mission with an extinguishable and
fathomless sense of humour. This may be accounted for by the fact that
in life and death they are more in touch with the native element of the
Navy-that-Floats and share much of its light-heartedness in consequence.
Aerial gymnastics are not in their line. They fight when they must, and
the straightest shot wins. If hit, unless hopelessly out of control,
they take to the water like a wounded duck. If the damage is beyond
temporary repair they sit on the surface and pray for the dawn and a tow
from a friendly destroyer.
No aerial adventure is ever recounted (and the array of medal ribbons
round their mess table is witness to the quality of these blindfold
flights) without its humorous aspect well-nigh obliterating all else.
One who fought a Zeppelin single-handed with a Webley-Scott pistol and
imprecations found himself immortalised only in the pages of a magazine
of Puck-like humour they publish (Fate and funds permitting) monthly.
Another, disabled on the water off an enemy’s port, succeeded in getting
his engine going as the crew of an armed trawler were leaning over the
bows with boat-hooks to secure him. He rose from the water beneath their
outstretched hands, and recalled with breathless merriment nothing but
the astonishment on their Teutonic faces. A third, similarly disabled,
was approached on the surface by a German submarine. He raked her deck
with his Lewis gun and kept her at bay--by the simple expedient of
picking off every head that appeared above her conning-tower--until she
wearied of the sport and withdrew. From a seaplane point of view it was
a pretty jest.
At the conclusion of a day’s aerial fighting on the Somme front a
certain officer of the Navy-that-Flies was asked how he felt about it.
“Wa-al ...” he drawled, and paused, groping in his mind for metaphor.
“It’s jest like stealing candy from a kid.”
Making all allowances for poetic licence, this is a very fair
illustration of the spirit in which the Navy-that-Flies went about the
business. On the other hand there were a few who took a graver view of
their responsibilities.
Among the possessions of one of the naval squadrons co-operating with
the Army-that-Flies along the front is a foolscap manuscript notebook
bearing the superscription _Notes on Aerial Fighting_. The youthful
author of these notes will never handle either pen or “joy-stick” again,
but he has left behind him a document that is, in its way, one of the
epics of war literature. It has since been printed (in expurgated form),
and has doubtless found its way into textbooks and treatises on the
subject. But to be appreciated to the full it should be read in the
original round, rather boyish handwriting, within hearing of the
continuous murmur of the British guns and the drone of a scouting
fighter passing overhead.
It contains ten commandments, which, for a variety of reasons, need not
be recapitulated here. But the introduction epitomises the spirit of
them all:
“The man who gets most Huns in his lifetime is the man who observes
these commandments and fights with his head. The others either get
killed or get nerves in a very short time and the country does not get
the full benefit of having trained them.”
The commandments conclude with the following exhortation: “A very
pleasant (_sic_) help in time of trouble is to put yourself in the
enemy’s place and view the situation from his point of view. If you feel
frightened before an attack, _just think how frightened he must be_!”
The Navy-that-Floats possesses for its “pleasant help” an awesome volume
of some 946 pages (not counting Addenda), entitled _The King’s
Regulations and Admiralty Instructions_. Yet in all its pages there is
not one clause which can compare with this brave sentence: for this is
youth speaking to youth, for the guidance and comfort of his soul.
Now in one of the squadrons of the Navy-that-Flies there are three
flight leaders, and the sum total of their ages is fifty-nine. The
youngest, whatever his birth certificate may testify, looks something
under sixteen. Of him it is related that in his early youth, having
brought down a hostile machine within the British lines and captured the
two occupants (with Iron Crosses complete), he approached a certain
general, demanding transport for his prisoners--covering them the while
with an automatic pistol.
“Transport?” said the general. “Where d’you want to take them?”
“To my squadron headquarters,” was the grave reply. “I’d like to keep
’em for a bit. I’d like the others to see ’em.”
“Damn it,” replied the General, “they ain’t canaries. Certainly not.
Send ’em to the cages with the rest of the prisoners.”
The victor flew sorrowfully homewards, and on arrival gave it as his
opinion that professional jealousy was the ruination of the Junior
Service....
They are not given to talking over-much of their achievements in the
hearing of a stranger within their gates. The second youngest of the
trio admitted, contemplating his cow-hide boots, to have “done-in”
twelve hostile machines in single combat--and lapsed into agonised
silence.
“Of course,” said the third, coming to the rescue of a comrade in
palpable distress, “N., the star Frenchman, is the fellow to talk if you
want to hear some good yarns.” The speaker had the grave, sweet face of
a mediæval knight, and the owner of the cow-hide boots shot him a swift
glance of gratitude.
“_He’s_ done-in fifty Huns,” he confirmed, nodding.
It was on the following day, as it happened, that Fate introduced the
Frenchman to the Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies. The
flying man landed on one of the aerodromes of the Navy-that-Flies, a
florid-faced young man, chubby and blue-eyed. The squadron strolled out
to greet him with ready hospitality and hero-worship.
“_Bon jour_, N.,” said the squadron commander. “How goes it?”
The famous French fighting pilot swung himself out of his machine and
pulled off his gauntlet. He wore, in addition to the regulation flying
helmet, a bright-blue muffler wound with many turns round the lower part
of his face, and a soiled aquascutum with a row of medal-ribbons
reaching half-way across his breast. The wind fluttered its skirts,
disclosing a pair of tight red breeches above top-boots of a light
yellow. As an additional protection against the cold his feet were
encased in fur moccasins. He greeted the Navy-that-Flies in rapid French
and threw their ranks into some disorder.
“Translate, George,” said the squadron commander.
“He says he’s on sick leave,” explained one of the hosts. “He’s just
flying to keep his eye in. He scuppered five Boches last week.”
“_Si_,” said the Frenchman, nodding, and held up his hand with
outstretched fingers, “_Cinq!_”
“Good on you, old sport,” said the squadron commander. They shook hands
again, and the remainder clustered rather curiously round the sinister
machine with the black skull and cross-bones adorning its fusilage.
“Makes one sort of sorry for the Hun, doesn’t it?” said one musingly.
“George,” said another, “ask him what that doo-hickie on the muzzle of
his gun’s for.” He indicated a detail on the mounting.
The Frenchman explained at some length, and the interpreter
interpreted.
“_Bon!_” said the squadron commander.
“_Oui_,” said the Frenchman, “_tres bon!_ You ’ave not
eet--_cette_--_comment dites vous?_--doo-hickie? No?”
“No,” was the reply, “_mais nous_ blooming well _allons_----”
The Frenchman presently climbed back into his machine and took his
departure. The squadron commander summoned his chief armourer, and for a
while deep called to deep.
“He’s a red-hot lad, that Frenchman,” said the squadron commander, when
the chief armourer had gone. “I fancy he only came down to let us see
that doo-hickie of his on his gun. You ought to hear some of his yarns,
though.”
The Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies gazed after the
aerial speck against the blue of heaven, and his soul was glad within
him, because it was all the purest Navy.
“That’s all right,” he said. “But what I should like to know is, what
the deuce is a doo-hickie?”
“A doo-hickie?” replied the squadron commander. “A doo-hickie? H’m’m.
George, how would you describe a doo-hickie?”
The officer appealed to puffed his pipe in silence for a moment.
“Well,” he said at length, “you know more or less what a gadget’s like?”
“Yes.”
“And a gilguy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, a doo-hickie is something like that, only smaller as a rule.”
There was a silence. Then the squadron commander leaned forward and
flicked a speck of fluff off the shoulder of the Stranger within their
Gates.
“There you are!” he exclaimed triumphantly--“_that’s_ a doo-hickie!”
“Have a drink, anyway,” said the officer who answered to the name of
George, soothingly.
The Stranger within the Gates of the Navy-that-Flies had the drink, and
from then onwards forbore to ask any more questions.
But he still sometimes wonders what the functions of a doo-hickie might
be.
CHAPTER IV
“LEST WE FORGET”
I. H.M.S. “SHARK”
H.M.S. _Shark_, under the command of Commander Loftus W. Jones, went
into action about 5.45 p.m. on May 31st, 1916 with a complement of
ninety-one officers and men; of that number only six saw June 1st dawn.
In spite of the soul-shaking experience through which they passed, these
six men have remembered sufficient details of the action to enable the
following record to be pieced together. Many stirring acts of gallantry
and self-sacrifice, and much of interest to the relatives and friends of
those who were lost, must inevitably be lacking from this narrative. But
the evidence shows such supreme human courage and devotion to duty in
the face of death, that, incomplete as it is, the story remains one of
the most glorious in the annals of the Navy.
At two o’clock on the afternoon of May 31st the _Shark_ and three other
destroyers, _Acasta_, _Ophelia_, and _Christopher_, were acting as a
submarine screen to the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron, with the light
cruisers _Chester_ and _Canterbury_ in company. The force was steaming
on a southerly course in advance of the British Battle Fleet, which was
engaged in one of its periodical sweeps of the North Sea.
This advance squadron was under the command of Rear-Admiral the Hon.
Horace A. L. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., flying his flag in
_Invincible_.
The main Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron were
considerably farther to the southward, and at 2.20 p.m. the light
cruisers attached to this force signalled by wireless the first
intimation that the enemy’s fleet was at sea. Subsequent reports
confirmed this, and acting on the information contained in these
intercepted messages, Rear-Admiral Hood ordered the ship’s companies to
“Action Stations,” and shaped course to intercept the advancing enemy.
At 3.48 p.m. the Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron
engaged the German Main Fleet and turned north with the object of
drawing the enemy towards the British Battle Fleet. It must be
remembered that at this point the enemy was presumably in complete
ignorance of the approach of the British Main Fleet. The weather was
hazy, with very little wind and patches of mist that reduced the
visibility to an extent that varied from one to eight miles.
At 4.4 p.m. Rear-Admiral Hood received orders from Admiral Sir John
Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief, to proceed at full speed with his squadron
and reinforce the Battle Cruiser Fleet; the Third Battle Cruiser
Squadron altered course as necessary, and an hour and a half later the
first sounds of firing reached them out of the mists ahead.
The first faint intermittent murmur of sound increased momentarily as
the two forces converged, and at 5.40 p.m. the haze on the starboard bow
was pierced by flashes of gunfire; a few minutes later a force of German
light cruisers and destroyers became visible, heavily engaged with an
unseen opponent to the westward.
Fire was immediately opened and Rear-Admiral Hood turned to starboard,
bringing the enemy on to the port bow of his squadron. Three light
cruisers, a flotilla leader, and ten destroyers were now visible, the
latter apparently turning to launch a torpedo attack upon the Third
Battle Cruiser Squadron. The four destroyers who had hitherto been
disposed in two subdivisions, one on each bow of the _Invincible_, were
thereupon ordered to attack the enemy. Led by Commander Loftus Jones in
the _Shark_, the division swung round, and hurled itself at the German
force, opening fire with every gun that would bear.
In the meanwhile the enemy opened a heavy though ill-directed fire on
the battle cruisers. A large proportion of the salvos were falling
short, and the British destroyers had in consequence to advance through
a barrage of fire which surrounded them on all sides with columns of
water and bursting shell.
In spite of their numerical superiority, the German destroyers turned
away in the face of this determined onslaught, and Commander Loftus
Jones, satisfied that the intended torpedo attack on Rear-Admiral Hood’s
squadron had been frustrated, and having fired two of his three
torpedoes, turned sixteen points to regain his position on the bow of
the _Invincible_. The remaining three destroyers followed in his wake.
Three German battle cruisers had then appeared out of the mist in
support of the enemy light cruisers, and the gallant division, with
_Shark_ at their head, turned under a concentrated deluge of shells from
the entire German force.
A fragment of a projectile struck the _Shark’s_ wheel, shattering it,
and wounding the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, on the right hand.
The captain immediately ordered the after wheel to be manned and
followed the coxswain down the ladder to the shell-torn upper-deck to
con the ship from aft. The yeoman of signals, Petty Officer Banham, who
up to this point had been the third occupant of the bridge, hurried
after the captain.
The enemy were now using shrapnel, and the captain was wounded in the
thigh and face as he reached the bottom of the ladder. He stumbled aft,
endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood with his hands, to find on
reaching the engine-room hatchway that a shell had burst inside the
engine-room, and the main engines and steering gear were completely
disabled. The coxswain had been struck at the same time as the captain,
and dropped insensible from a wound in the head. The foremost gun, under
the command of Sub-Lieutenant Vance, had been blown away, and only one
survivor of its crew lay badly wounded amid the wreckage.
The _Shark_ was then lying with disabled engines helpless under a heavy
fire, and Lieutenant-Commander John O. Barren, who commanded the
_Acasta_, and had been second in the line, gallantly brought his
destroyer between the _Shark_ and the enemy’s fire, and signalled to ask
if he could be of any assistance. The captain of the _Shark_ was then
aft, cheering and encouraging the crews of the midship and after guns.
The yeoman of signals, who remained at his side, read the signal and
reported it to the captain, who replied, “No. Tell him to look after
himself and not get sunk over us.”
The yeoman of signals accordingly semaphored Commander Jones’s last
signal to the division under his orders, and the _Acasta_ followed in
the wake of the other two boats which were rejoining the battle
cruisers.
It is probable that at this juncture Rear-Admiral Hood sighted the
British Battle Cruiser Fleet, which he had been ordered to reinforce,
and proceeded to carry out his orders. The Third Battle Cruiser Squadron
vanished into the mist, and the enemy closed in upon the _Shark_, which
lay rolling helplessly in the swell, blazing defiance from her after and
midship guns.
The after gun was almost immediately put out of action and its crew
killed and wounded. Amid a hail of shrapnel bullets and flying splinters
the spare torpedo was hoisted off the rack, and, under the directions of
the captain, was being launched into the tube, when it was struck by a
shell and burst with a violent explosion, causing heavy casualties.
Only one gun, the midship one, now remained in action. The ship was
settling down by the bows and every moment she shuddered with the impact
of a fresh hit. The riven upper-deck was a shambles, and the dead,
mingled with shattered wreckage, were blown hither and thither by the
blast of exploding shell. Projectiles, pitching short, flung great
columns of water into the air, or passed screaming overhead; the
upper-works were riddled by splinters from bursting salvos.
One by one the wounded crawled brokenly into the lee of the casings and
funnels in pitiful attempts to find shelter; among them knelt the
devoted figure of the surgeon (Surgeon-Probationer Robert Walker,
R.N.V.R.), endeavouring single-handed to cope with his gallant, hopeless
task. When last seen he was bandaging a man who had lost a hand when the
torpedo exploded. He was then himself severely wounded, and was
apparently shortly afterwards killed.
The enemy had then closed in to a range of about 1,500 yards; the
survivors of the engine-room staff had come on deck and the captain
ordered the collision-mats to be placed over the shot-holes, and every
attempt to be made to plug them and keep the ship afloat. This was
accordingly done under the direction of Lieutenant Ernest T. Donnell,
the first lieutenant, who appears to have been still unwounded, and
maintained a cheering spirit of indomitable pluck to the last. The
coxswain, who had recovered consciousness, though half-blinded by blood
from his wound, superintended a party who under the captain’s orders
were turning out the boats and endeavouring to launch the rafts. The
boats were smashed by shell-fire while still at the davits, but three
rafts--two regulation life-saving rafts, and an extemporised affair of
four barrels lashed together--were placed in the water.
In the meanwhile the midship gun, under the command of Midshipman T.
Smith, R.N.R., maintained a steady fire. The stock of percussion tubes
threatened to run short at one time, and the gunner, Mr. W. Gale, though
severely wounded, crawled down below and fetched a fresh supply, shortly
after which he was killed. Leading Signalman Hodgetts, who had been
previously working as one of the ammunition supply party, was blown
overboard by the explosion of a shell; a few minutes later his dripping
figure appeared over the rail, and he coolly resumed his work; by some
curious freak of chance he was again blown overboard by the blast of a
shell, but again he clambered back to his place of duty, and his death.
The crew of the midship gun was ultimately reduced to two men, Able
Seaman Howell, the gunlayer, and Able Seaman Hope. The midshipman
trained the gun while Hope loaded and Howell fired. The captain stood
beside the gun giving them the range, heartening the remnant of the crew
by his example of cool courage. Howell, who had been severely wounded,
eventually dropped from loss of blood, and the captain took his place. A
moment later he was himself struck by a shell, which took off his right
leg above the knee.
He lay on the deck in the rear of the gun while the coxswain and a chief
stoker, named Hammell, between them improvised a tourniquet from a piece
of rope and fragment of wood. While they were endeavouring to stop the
bleeding, Commander Loftus Jones, in the words of an eyewitness who
survived, “gentleman and captain as he was,” continued to direct the
firing of the gun.
In all history the unquenchable spirit of man has rarely triumphed so
completely over shattered nerves and body. As his strength ebbed,
Commander Loftus Jones seems to have been overtaken by fear lest the
ship should fall into the hands of the enemy, and seeing the German
destroyers approaching, he gave orders for the _Shark_ to be sunk. A
moment later, however, the gun fired another round; and apparently
realising that the ship was still capable of further resistance, he
countermanded the order, adding “Fight the ship!”
The gaff on the mainmast at which the Ensign was flown had been broken
by a shot, and the flag hung limp against the mast. The mind of the
captain must have turned at the last to that emblem of all he was dying
for so gallantly, for presently he asked faintly what had happened to
the flag. One of the men tending him replied that it had been shot away,
and in great distress he ordered another to be hoisted immediately.
Able Seaman Hope accordingly left the gun, and climbing up, detached the
ensign and handed it down to Midshipman Smith, who bent it on to a fresh
pair of halyards and hoisted it at the yard-arm. The captain, seeing it
once more flying clear, said, “That’s good,” and appeared content.
The end was now drawing very near. The bows of the _Shark_ had sunk
until the foremost funnel was awash, and the waves were lapping over the
waterlogged hull. Seeing that two German destroyers had approached to
within a few hundred yards with the evident intention of administering
the _coup de grâce_, Commander Loftus Jones gave his last order to the
ship’s company, “Save yourselves!”
He was helped into the water by the coxswain and a number of others who
had tended him devotedly after he received his mortal wound, and floated
clear of the ship with the support of a life-belt. The remainder of the
crew, to the number of about a score, swam towards the rafts and pieces
of floating wreckage.
Two torpedoes struck the _Shark_ amidships almost simultaneously. With a
muffled explosion she lurched violently to starboard, flinging overboard
the dead and wounded who still remained on deck. Her stern rose until it
was almost perpendicular and she sank with colours flying, about an hour
and a half after firing her first shot.
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul and Able Seaman Smith succeeded in placing
the captain on the raft of barrels, where they propped him in a sitting
position with the aid of life-belts and buoys. While this was being done
the captain attempted to smile, and shook his head, saying, “It’s no
good, lads.”
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul remained by the captain, and Able Seaman
Smith swam to one of the other rafts on which the coxswain, Petty
Officer Griffin, Chief Stoker Newcombe, Yeoman of Signals Banham, Stoker
Swan, and Able Seamen Hope and Howell had succeeded in crawling. The
three rafts drifted within sight of each other through the long northern
summer twilight.
Shortly after the _Shark_ sank, the British battle cruisers swept past
in pursuit of the enemy. The captain asked if the pursuing ships were
British. Filleul replied that they were, and the captain said, “That’s
good!”
Not long afterwards his head fell forward and his gallant spirit fled.
The second life-saving raft had been so damaged by shell-fire that only
two men could be accommodated upon it. The two most severely wounded
(one of them had lost a leg) were helped on to it by a number of others
who themselves clung to the edge, among them being the first lieutenant.
Able Seaman Smith, on the other raft, realising that the majority were
badly wounded, and being himself only slightly hurt, swam over to render
what assistance he could. The first lieutenant, who had unfailingly
cheered and comforted the stricken little band, presently asked if any
could still sing, and then, without faltering, himself began:
“Nearer, my God, to Thee.”
Those who had the strength joined in as they clung submerged up to
their shoulders in the icy water, almost unrecognisable from the thick
black oil which floated on the surface; and so, one by one, death
overtook them. Able Seaman Smith alone survived more than a couple of
hours.
While it was still light the British Battle Fleet was sighted through
the mists, and the drenched, haggard figures on the other raft cheered
it as it passed five miles away. With indomitable optimism they all
clung to the hope of a speedy rescue, and Able Seaman Howell semaphored
across the waste of water “We are British,” in the hope that it would be
read by one of the distant ships.
The twilight deepened into dusk, and the raft on which Able Seaman Smith
alone survived was lost to sight. The six occupants of the other sat
with the waves washing over them, nursing their wounds and debating the
prospects of being picked up. The yeoman of signals rambled into
delirium at times, and finally said, “I must have a sleep.... Let me get
my head down.”
Able Seaman Hope attempted to dissuade him, but without avail. “I must
sleep,” he insisted pathetically, and as he stretched himself in the
bottom of the raft the ruling instinct of the Service came back through
the mists of death. “Give us a shake if the captain wants anything,” he
said, and his loyal spirit passed to join that of his captain.
Shortly before midnight the distant lights of a steamer were sighted.
Able Seaman Howell then remembered for the first time that he had
fastened a Holmes light with wire on one of the rafts a few days
previously. Steadying himself with difficulty on the pitching raft, he
fumbled along the edge and presently found the little tin cylinder that
was to prove their salvation. With the last remnants of his failing
strength he wrenched the nipple off, and the carbide, ignited with the
water that washed over them, burnt with a bright flare. They waved it
frantically and tried to shout: but the flare had been seen, and
presently out of the darkness loomed the hull of the Danish s.s.
_Vidar_. Her captain brought the ship alongside the raft, and one of her
boats, which had already picked up Able Seaman Smith off his raft,
presently rejoined them.
All survivors have testified to the high courage of Able Seaman Hope.
Throughout the whole ordeal his plucky personality came constantly to
the fore, and he alone retained strength to climb on board the _Vidar_
unaided; on reaching the upper-deck he refused to go below or receive
any attention until the remainder of his shipmates had been hoisted on
board.
The _Vidar_ cruised in the vicinity for upwards of two hours in the hope
of picking up further survivors, and Stoker Petty Officer Filleul was
seen floating on the water and rescued as he was losing consciousness.
No further traces of the _Shark’s_ crew were found, however, and the
_Vidar_ shaped course for Hull. On the passage Chief Stoker Newcombe,
who had been wounded at the commencement of the action, succumbed to
exhaustion in spite of every endeavour to save his life.
His Majesty the King, in recognition of the valour of the captain,
officers, and men of the _Shark_, granted Commander Loftus W. Jones the
only posthumous honour that can be awarded in either Service, the
Victoria Cross. The six survivors, each of whom had played his part with
the utmost gallantry, were decorated with the Distinguished Service
Medal.
A few weeks after the action the fishermen of the little village of
Fiskebackskie on the coast of Sweden, found washed ashore the body of
Commander Loftus W. Jones, V.C. It was buried in the village churchyard
on June 24th, with every token of sympathy and reverence.
II. H.M. DESTROYERS “SWIFT” AND “BROKE”
1917 found the German public mentally in the position of a man waiting
to be hanged. Any distraction was better than the contemplation of the
future.
The aim of destroyer raids on Calais and Dover was primarily to afford
the German populace this distraction. At the worst it was intended to
provide headlines in the newspapers that bore some semblance of naval
success, and the determination of the German Government to ensure these
headlines, regardless of their relation to facts, can be best seen by a
comparison between the British and German official _communiqués_ of such
actions.
A merely spectacular performance could usually be bought cheaply enough.
The two German destroyer bases within striking distance of the British
coast are Zeebrugge and Ostend. The latter is approximately the same
distance from Dover as Brighton is. Once clear of their minefields on a
chosen night a German force is in the unique position of knowing that
every single object encountered afloat is an enemy. Homing merchant
traffic and patrolling vessels, manned by seamen whose vigilance has
been subjected to the unrelaxed tension of nearly three years’ sea-going
under war conditions, can be fired on at sight.
A swift dash through the darkness, with a finger twitching on the
trigger of every gun; any spot in thirty-five miles of British coastline
decided upon beforehand can be reached in a couple of hours, illumined
in ten seconds by star-shell for the few minutes required for a futile
bombardment of English soil--and the desired result is achieved.
One disadvantage alone is against Germany, and it is one which may be
borne in mind at a time when there is a tendency to regard surface
sea-power as an anachronism. A raider disabled outside the protection of
German minefields is a raider lost. Nothing can venture to her succour
within the areas of the successive Allied commands along the Channel.
Where she is crippled there she must lie, and, eventually, be captured.
A raiding destroyer force, if caught, must therefore endeavour to escape
at all costs.
This is a consideration not without influence in destroyer methods of
attack, and the contrast between British and German tactics and
traditions was never better demonstrated than on the night of April
20-21st, 1917.
The movements of the German raiding force on the night of April 20th may
or may not have been those described in the German _communiqué_. In
neither case have they any bearing upon subsequent events. The British
destroyer leaders _Swift_ and _Broke_, on night patrol in the Channel,
were proceeding on a westerly course, when, at 12.40 a.m. the _Swift_
sighted an enemy flotilla, on the port bow, proceeding in the opposite
direction at high speed. The night, though calm, was intensely dark, and
when first sighted the enemy were within 600 yards range. Simultaneously
the fire-gongs on board the German destroyers were heard to ripple down
the line and in a blaze of flashes they opened fire.
The _Swift_ instantly replied, and the commanding officer, Commander
Ambrose M. Peck, decided without hesitation to ram the leading enemy
destroyer. At his order the wheel was wrenched round, and the _Swift_,
with every occupant of her bridge temporarily blinded by flashes, drove
straight for the enemy.
Now it must be realised that the operation of ramming one of a line of
destroyers, dashing through pitch darkness at between twenty and thirty
knots, is an exceedingly delicate one. An initial miscalculation of a
few degrees of helm, a few revolutions of the propellers more or less,
spell failure. Failure may, and probably does, mean being rammed by the
next boat in the enemy line.
The _Swift_ missed, but shot through the line unscathed. She turned like
a hawk upon a quarry and, in turning, neatly torpedoed another boat in
the line. Again she dashed at the leading boat, which once more eluded
her, and, without firing another shot, made off into the darkness at
full speed with the _Swift_ in pursuit.
On first sighting the enemy, the _Broke_, commanded by Commander Edward
R. G. R. Evans, C.B., was steaming about three hundred yards astern of
_Swift_. Upon the latter altering course to ram the leader, the _Broke_
launched a torpedo at the second boat in the line, which hit her, and
then opened fire with every gun that would bear. The five enemy boats,
stoking furiously for full speed, emitted a dull glow from every funnel
which lit their upper-works and enabled the captain of _Broke_ to decide
upon his tactics. Altering course away from the enemy for a moment to
gain impetus for the blow, he swung round to port and rammed the third
boat at full speed, fair and square abreast the after funnel.
Locked together thus the two boats fought a desperate and literally
hand-to-hand conflict. The _Broke_ swept the enemy’s decks at
point-blank range with every gun from four-inch to pom-pom and maxim.
Lumps of coal and bowls of cocoa are mentioned among the miscellany of
objects that hurtled through the darkness.
In the meanwhile the remaining two destroyers in the German line poured
a devastating fire upon the _Broke_. The foremost guns’ crews were
reduced from eighteen men to six, but Midshipman Donald A. Gyles,
R.N.R., in charge of the forecastle, though wounded in the eye, kept all
foremost guns in action, himself assisting the depleted crews to load.
While he was thus employed, a number of frenzied Germans swarmed up over
the _Broke’s_ forecastle out of the rammed destroyer, and finding
themselves amid the blinding flashes of the forecastle guns, swept aft
in a shouting mob. The midshipman, amid the dead and wounded of his
guns’ crews and half-blinded by blood, met the rush singlehanded with an
automatic revolver; he was grappled by a gigantic German who attempted
to wrest the weapon from him.
Cutlasses and rifles with fixed bayonets being among the equipment of
the foremost guns’ crews in anticipation of just such events as were now
taking place, the German was promptly bayoneted by Able Seaman Ingleson.
The remainder of the invaders, with the exception of two who lay down
and feigned death, were driven over the side. The two exceptions were
subsequently made prisoners and taken below.
Of the original five German destroyers, there were now two remaining in
the line. Two minutes after ramming, the _Broke_ succeeded in wrenching
herself free from her sinking adversary, and turned to ram the last boat
in the line. She failed in this achievement, but as she swung round
succeeded in hitting this boat’s consort on the stem with a torpedo.
Hotly engaged with these two fleeing destroyers, the _Broke_ then
attempted to follow _Swift_ in the direction in which she was last seen;
a shell, however, struck _Broke_ in the boiler-room, disabling her main
engines. The enemy were then lost to sight in the darkness.
Still carrying considerable way, _Broke_ altered course and headed in
the direction of a destroyer heavily on fire, whose crew, on sighting
the _Broke_, sent up loud shouts for mercy. She was burning fiercely,
and, regardless of the danger from her magazines exploding, _Broke_
steered towards her, still moving slowly through the water. The shouts
and cries of ‘Save! Save!’ were redoubled, when she unexpectedly opened
fire.
_Broke_ being then out of control and unable to manœuvre or extricate
herself, silenced the treachery with four rounds and then, to ensure her
own safety, fired a torpedo and hit her amidships.
In the meanwhile the _Swift_ had continued her pursuit of the leading
boat until injuries she had received in the earlier phases of the
action, though in themselves slight, prevented her from maintaining full
speed. She thereupon abandoned the chase and turned in search of a fresh
quarry. The outline of a stationary destroyer was presently sighted in
the darkness ahead, and as she drew near a confused noise of voices
resolved itself into more distinct and evidently organised sounds, as
from a large number of men shouting together in time.
Warily, and somewhat perplexed by the uproar, the _Swift_ approached
with her guns trained on the stranger. This presently resolved itself
into the sinking German destroyer that had been rammed by _Broke_, whose
crew were bellowing in unison:
“WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER!’
With a not unreasonable suspicion of treachery, the _Swift_ awaited
developments. Apparently realising their breath would be wanted for more
energetic measures, the crew of the German destroyer presently stopped
shouting. She heeled slowly over, while her ship’s company hastily took
to the water, and sank stern first.
As no other enemy appeared to be in sight, and the action, which had
lasted approximately five minutes, appeared to be over, the _Swift_
switched on searchlights and lowered boats to rescue the swimmers.
_Swift_ and _Broke_ then proceeded to exchange details of the “bag” by
the medium of a flashing lamp and (_Broke’s_ circuits having been cut)
an electric torch. Their respective ship’s companies having given vent
to some pardonable exhilaration by cheering each other out of the
darkness till they were hoarse, both British destroyers anchored and
patiently awaited the dawn.
The British casualties were comparatively light, and the spirit of the
wounded is epitomised by the conduct of the _Broke’s_ coxswain, Able
Seaman William G. Rowles; this man, though hit four times by shrapnel,
remained at the wheel throughout the action, and finally only betrayed
the fact that he was wounded by reporting to his captain, “I’m going off
now, sir,” and fainting.
A number of wounded presented themselves at the sick-bay for the first
time on the day following the action. Their excuses for this delay were
various, but that of a stoker with a piece of shrapnel still in his head
is perhaps the most ingenuous:
“I was too busy, sir,” he explained to the surgeon. “Along of clearing
up that rubbish on the stoker’s mess-deck.”
III. THE DRIFTER PATROL, DOVER
Another German destroyer raid into the English Channel on the night of
February 14th-15th, 1918, had for its objective the destruction of the
Auxiliary Patrol Forces on outpost duty. This much was evident from the
deliberate and systematic manner in which, once touch was established in
the inky darkness, the attack was carried out. A large force was chosen
for the enterprise, comprising ten at least of Germany’s largest and
fastest destroyers; that these succeeded in sinking seven armed fishing
vessels and returning to their base without being intercepted by the
British patrols proper can only be ascribed to accurate foreknowledge of
the disposition of these forces (information readily supplied by aerial
reconnaissance), and the luck of the Devil who favours his own.
The raiding tactics of German destroyers have already been described in
detail. It will be admitted that they provide the enemy with an initial
advantage of which he might reasonably be expected to make the most.
Indeed the wonder is not so much that they were not intercepted in the
inky darkness of a thousand square miles, but that they did not make
more of their opportunity.
On the night in question one of the Drifter Patrol had sighted a
submarine on the surface, attempting to break through the vigilant
cordon of patrol craft. Off went the drifter in jubilant pursuit,
signalling to her consorts to join the hunt, and the remainder joined
her like a pack of basset-hounds on the trail of an otter. The enemy
destroyers, casting about in the darkness, sighted the “Tally-ho!”
rocket and swept down upon the drifters, intent upon their own business,
from at least four quarters simultaneously. The Germans appear to have
worked in pairs; the leading boat of each couple switched on a blinding
searchlight for the few seconds necessary to get an accurate range, and
then the whole force slowed down to carry out the deliberate work of
destruction. In the words of one of the survivors, “It was awfu’--juist
slaughter.” The speaker made the statement without heat or reproach; he
was a fisherman, as were most of his brethren, wont to accept both
calamity and fortune without emotion. “Girt ole black things ...” he
added, and shook his grizzled head so that the sunlight winked on his
gold earrings.
[Illustration]
The enemy closed in nearly all cases to within fifty yards of their
victims, poured two salvos of high-explosive shell into each, and passed
on. They had no time for fancy shooting and there were few misses. It is
to be hoped they found the gruesome work to their taste.
In one case a German destroyer misjudged her distance and came so close
to her victim that she was unable to depress her guns sufficiently to
bring them to bear on the little target. She fired as she rolled
instead, and the drifter _Cloverbank_ turned on the instant into a
splintered shambles, buried in clouds of steam and rocketing sparks.
Only one man survived the first salvo, Deckhand Plane, R.N.R. (Trawler
Section). He blundered forward to the gun through the flames and fumes
of bursting shell, and finding it loaded, returned the fire at
point-blank range, single-handed, half-blinded, stupefied by smoke and
din.
It was brave work, but all round him in the darkness amid the flames of
guns and blazing ships and all the savagery of that onslaught, the
Drifter Patrol was taking its gruel not a whit less gallantly. The
survivors launched their splintered dinghies, carrying their wounded
with them, and paddled clear of the blazing wrecks that a few minutes
before had been ship and home. The two enginemen of the _Violet May_,
Engineman Ewing and Engineman Noble, succeeded in launching their boat,
and lowered into it the mate, mortally wounded, and a wounded deckhand.
The remainder of the crew lay inextricably entangled in the blazing
wreckage, dead. The survivors paddled clear, waited till the enemy had
passed on, and then closed their little ship again. The fire had hold of
her forward, steam was pouring from her wrecked engine-room, and the
ammunition was exploding broadcast about her decks. “A doot she’s
sinkin’,” said Ewing stoutly. Noble said nothing: he was not given
overmuch to speech, but he made the painter fast and proceeded to climb
inboard again. Ewing followed and between they fought and overcame the
fire. “Dinna leave me, Jamie,” cried the mate piteously; “Dinna leave me
in the little boat.” “Na, na,” was the reply. “We’ll na leave ye,” and
presently they brought their wounded back on board and took them below
again. The mate was laid on his bunk and Ewing fetched his shirts from
his bag and tore them up into bandages. “An’ them his dress shirts,”
murmured Noble. It was his first and last contribution to the narrative.
They took turn and turn about to tend the wounded, plug the shot-holes,
and quench the smouldering embers of the fire, reverently dragging the
wreckage from off their dead, and comforting the dying mate in the soft,
almost tender accents of the Celt.
“’Tis nae guid,” said the mate at last. “Dinna fash about me, lads. A’ll
gang nae mair on patrol,” and so died. But they saved their little ship,
and she lies in a corner of the basin at her base, a mass of twisted
metal and charred woodwork, to testify to the courage of the British
fisherman in war.
The night’s work counted for a _German_ victory, and had it not been for
the pitiful _braggadocio_ of the German official _communiqué_, one would
have been tempted to leave it at that. True that seven little fishing
craft with a gun in each bow would never make port again, _but seven
more took their places before the sun was over the horizon on the morrow
of the affair_. Three score or so of British seamen had finished their
life’s trick and passed to their long watch below. But England and the
Channel Patrol have the story of their passing: the pity is that it must
here be so brief.
It was a rather pathetic gathering that mourned its dead that Sunday
morning in the grey church by the quayside at Dover, with the painted
sunlight streaming down through the stained-glass windows, lighting the
weather-beaten faces of skippers and deckhands, trimmers and enginemen
of the Trawler Reserve. There was, moreover, in their solemn faces a
trace of faint hurt bewilderment, like that on the face of a child that
has bumped its head in the dark.
They were only fishermen, for all their brass buttons and blue uniforms
and plentiful display of D.S.C.’s and D.S.M.’s; simple folk accustomed
to judge life by its tangible results. They were not concerned with
strategy or the might-have-been. They had been accustomed to look to
their big brothers, the destroyers, in the simple faith of children when
there was trouble, and for once it seemed they had looked in vain. They
had had a drubbing, and they took it according to the tradition of
British seamen; but the puzzled, grieving look remained.
The captain of the Drifter Patrol marched them away from the church and
talked to them, standing on a drum of paint in the more familiar
environment of coils of wire, floats, nets, mine-cases, and all the grim
impedimenta of their calling. It was in no sense of the word a speech,
but it was a very moving little address. “Never fear,” he concluded;
“we’ll take tea with the Hun before you’re all much older, or I’ll eat
my hat.” It takes a brave man to prophesy concerning war these days, but
the men of the Drifter Patrol stumped back to their little craft
comforted, and, as events transpired, he was right.
In the dark hour preceding dawn on March 21st (five weeks later) the
British destroyers _Botha_ (Commander Roger L’E. M. Rede, R.N.) and
_Morris_ (Lieutenant-Commander Percy R. P. Percival, R.N.), and the
three French destroyers _Mehl_, _Magon_, and _Bouclier_, were on patrol
in the eastern waters of the Channel, when a sudden outburst of firing
was heard to the northward. Vivid flashes of gunfire out to sea made it
plain that the enemy was engaged upon a futile bombardment of the
crumbling bathing-sheds of deserted French watering-places.
The Allied force promptly made for the flashes at full speed, led by
_Botha_; star shell fired in an endeavour to light up the enemy and
obtain their range however merely had the effect of quelling the
bombardment and scattering the raiders, who were never seen again.
The patrolling force then proceeded to search to the northwestward in
the hope of intercepting any divisions of the enemy who had ventured
more into mid-channel; star shells were fired at intervals, for the
night was misty, and presently one of these bursting ahead revealed the
shadowy outline of a force of enemy destroyers and torpedo boats
sneaking off through the darkness in the direction of their base.
The _Botha_ challenged, and an unfamiliar reply winked at them out of
the night; the next instant British and French were pouring a heavy fire
into the enemy. For a few minutes a grim little fight ensued. The Allies
rapidly overhauled the raiders, and set the darkness ablaze with flashes
of gunfire and blazing wreckage flying broadcast from shell bursting on
impact. A running fight between torpedo craft is like a battle between
scorpions; whichever gets a sting home first rarely has need to strike
again. None of the German torpedoes found their mark, but the _Morris_,
emerging from a smoke screen flung out by the fleeing enemy, cut off a
German destroyer of a large type and torpedoed her at 500 yards range.
She blew up and sank almost immediately, heeling over amid clouds of
steam and vanishing stern first.
In the meanwhile, _Botha’s_ main steampipe had been severed by a stray
shell and she immediately commenced to lose her way through the water.
Her commander, realising that if he was to finish his “cup of tea with
the Hun” he must needs drink it quickly, fired both torpedoes at the
leading boats, and, putting his helm hard over, rammed the fourth boat
in the line cleanly amidships. His speed had dropped considerably, but
it sufficed to drive the knife-edged bows of the _Botha_ clean through,
cutting the enemy completely in half.
_Botha_ then swung round and attempted to repeat the coup on the next
astern; the Hun succeeded in eluding the _Botha’s_ crippled onslaught,
but fell a victim to the French destroyers. She lay disabled and ablaze,
and they closed and pounded the flaming wreck with torpedo and gun fire
as a man grinds a dead snake under his heel.
_Morris_ by this time had relinquished the pursuit, having lost the
quarry in the smoke and mist; she returned to the scene of action, and
took her lame sister in tow while the French destroyers circled round in
the grey dawn picking up prisoners. From statements made by these, it
appears that no less than eighteen torpedo craft had sallied forth for
the raid. They were unhesitatingly attacked and rather badly mauled by
two British and three French destroyers and fled (as one of the British
officers picturesquely described it) like scalded dogs.
The adventures of the remaining fifteen were by no means terminated when
they quitted French waters, leaving three of their number behind. A
squadron of the R.N.A.S. bombing machines proceeding up the coast on
business sighted the homing German flotillas and fell upon them--or
rather, suffered their bombs to do so. They reported having completely
thrown the enemy into disorder and scattered them in all directions. A
squadron of enemy sea-planes that had gone out at dawn to look for the
wanderers then encountered the escort fighters of the bombing machines,
and in a very short time had their numbers reduced by four. Of these,
three were accounted for by one British pilot.
It must have been with feelings of more than ordinary relief that the
German torpedo force sighted the long grey mole of Ostend Harbour
through the morning mist. But even then their nerves had yet another
ordeal to face. Something rushed across the face of the water in a cloud
of spray apparently from nowhere, a sinister unseen thing travelling at
incredible speed. A torpedo struck the stern of one of the German
destroyers, and the cloud of spray tore away through a hail of shell
and bullets, unscathed, and vanished in the mist.
IV. H.M.S. “MARY ROSE”
H.M.S. _Mary Rose_ left a Norwegian port in charge of a west-bound
convoy of merchant ships in the afternoon of October 16th, 1917. At dawn
on the 17th, from her position ten or twelve miles ahead of the convoy,
flashes of gunfire were sighted astern. The captain of the _Mary Rose_,
Lieutenant-Commander Charles Fox, who was on the bridge at the time,
remarked that he supposed it was a submarine shelling the convoy, and
promptly turned his ship to investigate; all hands were called to action
stations. _Mary Rose_ had increased to full speed, and in a short time
three light cruisers were sighted coming towards them at high speed out
of the morning mist; _Mary Rose_ promptly challenged, and receiving no
reply, opened fire with every gun that would bear at a range of about
four miles. The German light cruisers appeared to have been nonplussed
by this determined single-handed onslaught, as they did not return the
fire until the range had closed to three miles. They then opened fire,
and the _Mary Rose_ held gallantly on through a barrage of bursting
shell until only a mile separated her from the enemy. Up to this point
the German marksmanship was poor, but as the British destroyer turned to
bring her torpedo tubes to bear, a salvo struck her, bursting in the
engine-room, and leaving her disabled, a log on the water. All guns,
with the exception of the after one, were out of action, and their crews
killed or wounded, but the after gun continued in action under the
directions of Sub-Lieutenant Marsh, R.N.V.R., as long as the gun would
bear. The captain came down from the wrecked bridge and passed aft,
encouraging and cheering his deafened men. He stopped beside the wrecked
remains of the midship gun and shouted to the survivors of its crew:
“God bless my heart, lads, get her going again, we’re not done yet!”
The enemy were now pouring a concentrated fire into the motionless
vessel. One of the boilers, struck by a shell, exploded, and through the
inferno of escaping steam, smoke, and the vapour of bursting shell, came
that familiar, cheery voice: “We’re not done yet.”
As the German light cruisers sped past, two able seamen (Able Seaman
French and Able Seaman Bailey), who alone survived among the torpedo
tubes’ crews, on their own initiative laid and fired the remaining
torpedo. Able Seaman French was killed immediately, and Able Seaman
Bailey badly wounded. Realising that the enemy had passed ahead, and
that the 4-inch gun could no longer be brought to bear on them, the
captain set about destroying his ciphers. The First Lieutenant
(Lieutenant Bavin), seeing one of the light cruisers returning towards
them, called the gunner and bade him sink the ship. The captain then
gave the order, “Abandon ship.” All the boats had been shattered by
shell fire at their davits, but the survivors launched a Carley raft and
paddled clear of the ship. The German light cruiser detailed to
administer the _coup de grâce_ then approached to within 300 yards and
poured a succession of salvos into the already riddled hull. The _Mary
Rose_ sank at 7.15 a.m. with colours flying. The captain, first
lieutenant, and gunner were lost with the ship, but the handful of
survivors, in charge of Sub-Lieutenant J. R. D. Freeman, on the Carley
raft, fell in some hours later with a lifeboat belonging to one of the
ships of the convoy. Sailing and rowing, they made the Norwegian coast
some forty-eight hours later, and were tended with the utmost kindness
by the Norwegian authorities. All survivors unite in testifying to the
cheerful courage of the senior surviving officer, Sub-Lieutenant
Freeman, throughout the last phase of this ordeal. Able Seaman Bailey,
who, despite severe shrapnel wounds in the leg, persisted in taking his
turn at the oar, is also specially mentioned for an invincible
light-heartedness throughout.
The distinguished naval critics with whose assistance we are wont to
belittle the achievements of our Navy, will have doubtless much to say
about this action. From the point of view of tactics, it lies open to
unquestionable criticism. Unhappily (since he was killed), there is no
record of what was in the mind of the captain of the _Mary Rose_ when he
made that single-handed dash in the face of such preposterous odds. The
convoy which was in his charge lay ahead of him, and, as he apparently
supposed, was being attacked by the gunfire of a hostile submarine.
When, on rushing to the rescue, he realised that it was to meet not a
submarine, but three of Germany’s newest and fastest light cruisers, it
is conceivable that the original intention of rescue was not supplanted
in his mind by considerations of higher strategy. He held on
unflinchingly, and he died, leaving to the annals of his service an
episode not less glorious than that in which Sir Richard Greville
perished.
CHAPTER V
THE FEET OF THE YOUNG MEN
He was nearer seventy than sixty: that is to say, he was an old man as
they reckon age afloat. There was a stoop about his shoulders that
hinted at the burden of his years, but his eyes, blue and direct beneath
ragged white eyebrows, were young enough; and a man’s eyes are the
mirrors of his spirit.
He stood on the quarter-deck of the armed yacht under his command,
pacing slowly to and fro, with those craggy brows almost meeting above
his great beak of a nose. There had been a day when a fleet would have
trembled at the portent, and walked delicately, like Agag. That was when
he was an admiral though, and the flag-lieutenant would have popped his
head into the secretary’s cabin and murmured, “Blowing up for a
storm--stand by!” Now, as he stalked with that unforgettable jerky
stride of his up and down the narrow confine of the yacht’s poop, he was
only a commander of the Royal Naval Reserve--a “dug-out” from the
Retired List--with three curly rings of lace on the cuffs of a
monkey-jacket cut in a style unfamiliar to the present generation.
Aft by the ensign-staff he halted, and pulled a letter out of the
breast-pocket of the quaintly-cut monkey-jacket. It had come by the
morning mail, a typewritten letter, on paper bearing the crest of
Admiralty, and it was worded as tactfully as circumstances and the
nature of the contents would allow. It referred to the strain of war
under modern conditions. It reminded the Admiral that a critical stage
of the world conflict had now been reached; and the two postulates,
taken in conjunction, pointed to the necessity for young men being
employed in all commands afloat. Their Lordships had therefore decided,
with regret ... etc. etc.
That letter did what the strain of modern war had not yet done--it made
the Admiral’s hand tremble: he tore it into small pieces and dropped
them over the side. The stoop of his old shoulders seemed to have become
suddenly accentuated. His firm mouth slackened: he looked what they said
he was, an old man.
“Youth will be served,” said he, and watched the last scrap of paper
float away on the tide. “I daresay they know best.... They think they do
... anyway, that’s something, nowadays.” Then he drew forth an enormous
bandana handkerchief, trumpeted a blast of defiance from his historic
nose, and stumped forward to the bridge to take his last command to sea
for the last time.
* * * * *
It was late the following afternoon, when the yacht was upon the port
bow of a convoy of merchantmen, that the look-out at the crosstrees gave
tongue. The Admiral was in the chart-house, sprawling affectionately
over the chart with notebook and pencil. He enjoyed having the
chart-house to himself these days. The flag-captains and navigators of
bygone flagships had always bored him, fussing at either elbow whenever
he looked at a chart....
“Periscope port bow!” bawled the look-out, and simultaneously the alarm
gongs jarred at every gun position and action station. The Admiral was
beside the quarter-master in two bounds.
“There she goes, sir,” cried the officer of the watch, and indicated
with outstretched finger the wicked streak of bubbles that flickered in
the wake of a torpedo: it passed ahead, but through his glasses the
Admiral was watching the sparkling water for the periscope’s feather.
He sighted it almost on the instant, half a mile abeam, an object no
bigger than a broom-handle above the wave-tops.
Once, thirty years before, in a moment of crisis, he had acted as he did
then. It was a wholly unconstitutional proceeding, but on the former
occasion it had averted a collision between two battleships of the line.
On both occasions it saved a few precious seconds. He grasped the spokes
of the wheel with his own hands and wrenched the helm hard-a-starboard
before the quartermaster realised he was at his elbow.
The officer of the watch had sprung to the telegraph, and down below the
gongs were ringing madly for full speed.
The yacht’s owner had built her for speed. He was a rich man, and could
afford to gratify a whim. In this case he gratified it to the utmost
designer and engineers were capable of; but never till this moment had a
rich man’s craze been so completely justified. Her knive-edge swan bows
clove the dancing waves in twin sickles of spray as she heeled over to
her helm and then steadied on the mark that was already swiftly dipping
before the unexpected onslaught.
The periscope vanished thirty seconds before the yacht passed over the
wash of the unseen scourge: but as it passed the Admiral jerked a lever
twice, and turned, staring aft down the broken wake that had obliterated
all traces of the submarine. By means of the lever he had released a
couple of explosive charges, and as he stood shading his eyes from the
sun, two great columns of foam leaped into the air.
“Hard-a-starboard!” he croaked, and over went the helm again. He stepped
to the gun control voice-pipe: “Stand by the port guns!” and as he gave
the order a greenish-brown cylindrical shape, streaked with rust and
spouting oil from gaping seams, appeared in the centre of the boiling
scum and foam left by the explosion. Slowly it righted itself, and the
hull and conning-tower of a submarine lay on the surface with a heavy
list. As the yacht swung round, the port guns opened fire: a shell burst
on the armoured conning-tower, shattering the periscope and blowing
great fragments of steel high into the air. Another penetrated the hull
and exploded internally, clouds of vapour pouring from the rents in the
shell. The coxswain steadied the wheel, heading the bows straight for
the great whale-like object.
Now the cunning of an old seaman is the cunning of a grey fox. The
Admiral held up his hand, and the officer of the watch jerked the
telegraphs to “stop.” The stern of a vessel driven at high speed is
drawn down by the thrust of the propellers. The moment the engines stop,
the stern rises again and the bows dip. In this case they dipped as they
struck the submarine squarely just abaft the conning-tower, and clove
through the rounded hull like a hatchet through a fungus.
They had a glimpse on either bow of the halves of a submarine, still
kept afloat by the buoyancy of her tanks and closed compartments. It was
only a momentary glimpse--of glistening, shattered machinery and mangled
bodies, of hands raised in prayer or anguish.... Then both broadsides
broke out, pouring a salvo at point-blank range into those smoking
segments that vanished amid the flames of bursting shell and leaping
water.
They rescued one prisoner--as is not infrequently the case, the captain.
Him the Admiral caused to be warmed and dried and restored with hot
drinks while the yacht, assisted by two destroyers, rounded up the
scattered convoy. Then the Admiral interrogated his prisoner. “You are
very young,” he said at the conclusion of the interview.
The Prussian clicked his heels. “It is a young man’s war,” he said.
“So they tell me,” replied the Admiral dryly.
* * * * *
His relief was waiting on the quay beside his baggage when the
yacht--her dainty bows looking like the features of a professional
pugilist--tripped back to harbour. He was a young lieutenant-commander,
fresh from the Grand Fleet--a contemporary, in fact, of the Admiral’s
son. And early the following morning the Admiral went over the side--not
as he might have done ten years earlier, with guard and band, to the
shrill twitter of a pipe. He paused at the gangway, and laid his left
hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“The race is to the swift,” he said, “the battle to the strong. Good
luck to you, my lad. You want a bigger gun forward, if you can get ’em
to give it to you, and remember she turns quicker on port helm.... She’s
a good little ship.”
“Thank you awfully, sir,” said the lieutenant-commander. “She’s a
ripping little ship, and I’m only sorry I’m----”
The Admiral doffed his cap after the manner in which a forgotten naval
generation saluted.
“Be damned to your sorrow, sir,” he said. “It’s a young man’s war,” and
turned to descend the ladder to the dinghy that waited alongside.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI
GIPSIES OF THE SEA
August 4th, 1914, probably found the yachtsmen of Great Britain less
unprepared for war with Germany than any other civilian community in the
Empire.
Men turn to the sea as a profession for a variety of reasons; but the
amateur yachtsman embraced the sea as a mistress with a complete and
very genuine passion. To those who seek her thus, the sea has much to
tell; she will whisper a thousand secrets ’twixt dusk and dawn to the
little ships resting snug in her curlew-haunted creeks, or riding lazy
to a long cable in the lee of desolate sand-banks--things denied to the
busy wayfarer on her wide thoroughfares.
Yachtsmen as a class are meditative folk. A man who spends his week-ends
alone, or in the company of one other in a three-ton yacht, has
opportunities for reflection denied to the devotees of other pursuits.
He learns more than the ways of the tides and Primus stoves.
In the queer, uneasy tranquillity of the decade before the war there
came in gradually increasing numbers to our east and south-east coasts
an unobtrusive visitor. Few people encountered him, because he chose
sequestered places to visit, but the yachtsman met him, talked much with
him, and afterwards sat in the cuddy and smoked many pipes, thinking
about him and his unholy thirst for information.
There were other yachtsmen, of a more restless and inquiring turn of
mind, who went farther afield with lead-line and compass, “observin’ ’ow
the world was made.” Where the short yellow seas stumbled across leagues
of shoals, and windmills and the brown sails of barges broke the
sky-line above low-lying sand-hills, they learned and saw many things.
One even wrote a book about these things,[2] that he who ran might
read. The trouble was that people ashore entrusted with the destinies of
Empire were running about so busily that they hadn’t time to read. They
were catching votes and such-like, as children snatch at falling leaves
in autumn. So the yachtsman carried on yachting and cultivating the
acquaintance of the slow-speaking, slow-moving skippers of the
coast-wise traffic and the crab-gaited community that manned the
east-coast fishing craft. Useful men to know sometimes at the pinch of a
sudden crisis.
Then, with the red dawn of August 4th, 1914, came war at last, and the
yachtsman pulled a deep breath of something like relief, knocked out the
ashes of his pipe, and went ashore, forbearing to say “I told you so” to
the harassed Whitehall officials he went in search of. This was a war of
the sea, and the yachtsman clewed up his business ashore, sent his wife
to stay with her mother, and placed all his knowledge of the coasts of
Northern Europe and the seas between them at the disposal of the Navy.
Now the Navy was very busy. Like the yachtsman, it had not been
altogether blind to signs and portents, because the sea is a wonderful
conductor of electricity--and other things. But it had its own theories
on naval warfare: among others it opined that, properly speaking, this
was an affair of big ships and frequent battles. To fight battles you
require dexterity in the use of weapons--highly scientific and technical
weapons at that. They themselves had been learning to wield these
weapons since they were twelve years old or thereabouts. The yachtsman’s
acquaintance with lethal arms was limited to a 12-bore scatter-gun and a
revolver, with which he enlivened Sunday afternoons becalmed by potting
at empty bottles.
“Just wait till we’ve mopped up these fellows in the North Sea,” said
the Navy--“it won’t take long--and then we’ll talk things over, old
chap.”
So the yachtsman waited, and after a while the Navy found itself
waiting, because the fellows in the North Sea had retired to Kiel,
thumped their chests and said they were waiting too. Thus modern naval
warfare developed from glowing theory into rather wearisome fact.
The yachtsman had not been altogether idle in the meanwhile. He manned
every available motor-boat in the kingdom, and patrolled the coast under
the White Ensign with a rifle and a rather complicated signalling
apparatus. When the supply of motor-boats ran out, the wealthier
yachtsmen built their own, fitted them out at their own expense, and
manned them. They manned them indiscriminately: one was a captain,
another was a deck-hand, and yet another club-mate the engineer. It
mattered not a whit how or where a man served as long as the spray was
in their faces and the dawn came up out of their beloved sea. They
messed together in cheerful communism, save when they found themselves
under the immediate observation of the brass-bound Navy. Then they grew
self-conscious and the captain fed in splendid isolation: the deck-hand,
who was his next-door neighbour in Surbiton and owned a bigger yacht,
touched his cap when he spoke and called him “sir.”
The Navy noted these things and smiled--not derisively, but with
affection, as men smile at dogs and children. But it was also keenly
observant: it was taking the measure of these enthusiastic amateurs,
without undue haste, deliberately, parting reluctantly with ancient
prejudice and shibboleth. This is the Navy’s way.
The motor-boats did their work consistently well and without
ostentation. They conducted an efficient examination service among the
teeming coast-wise traffic of the south-east coast, through which not a
needle could have been smuggled in a bargeload of hay: this was a duty
for which the yachtsman was admirably suited. It required tact, for the
pre-war coaster was a touchy fellow and accustomed to keep himself to
himself: furthermore, it called for intimate co-operation with the
Custom officers of coast and estuary ports; but these the yachtsmen had
known and drunk a pot of beer with any time during the past
five-and-twenty years.
The motor-boats found themselves shepherding wayward fishing fleets out
of forbidden waters suddenly hedged about with incomprehensible
prohibitions; they guarded them on their lawful occasions; and because
they knew them and their fathers before them, knew also when to caution
wrong-doers and when to confiscate nets and sails. This, it may be
remarked in passing, is a wisdom not learned in paths ashore nor yet in
the training colleges of the Navy. They served as tenders to the big
ships and towed targets for the smaller ones. They brought battle
cruisers their love-letters, and acquired both skill and cunning in
sinking floating mines with rifle-fire.
Thus, in due course, was their probation accomplished. The Navy had
observed it all, mostly without comment or eulogy. But when the time was
ripe it produced a standardised type of motor patrol boat, armed and
equipped in all respects as little men-of-war.
“Now,” said the Navy to the yachtsman, “shake hands as one of us, and
then suffer us to train you for a little while--even to putting you wise
about depth-charges and Hotchkiss guns--ere you have your heart’s
desire.”
The yachtsmen leant an ear to the Navy Staff Instructors (wise men from
a torpedo school called the “Vernon”) with eager willingness. “But
where,” asked the Navy, “are the rest of you? There aren’t enough to go
round the boats we’ve ordered.”
The yachtsmen, labouring at applied mechanics and the true inwardness of
high-explosive bombs, said nothing. There had been a time when their
numbers would have more than sufficed for all the country’s needs. But
some were lying under the sandy soil of Gallipoli, or the marshes of
Flanders, and others were whittling model yachts out of bits of wood in
Dutch internment camps: the roll of honour in well-nigh every yacht club
in the kingdom supplied the answer. The matter was not one for either
cavil or regret. A man can die but once, and so long as he dies
gloriously the region of discussion as to his whereabouts is passed.
Then came the oversea gipsies to fill the vacant places of those of
their brethren who had finished their last long trick. From Auckland,
Sydney, and Winnipeg they came; from Vancouver, Wellington, Toronto, and
Montreal. They were strangers to Crouch and Solent, but the yachtsmen of
England welcomed them into the mysterious indissoluble free-masonry of
all sea-lovers, which under the White Ensign is called to-day the
R.N.V.R.
Now, of their achievements in the Motor Boat Patrol worthier pens than
mine have written. They have endured monotony--which is the lot of many
in modern war--and, what is more difficult, have maintained their
efficiency and enthusiasm throughout. They perform duties which are in
no way connected with glory in any shape or form, and have been content
to wait their turn for greater things with willing cheerfulness. And
some have attained that glory, buying it lightly at the price of life.
Thus far we have attempted to record the doings of the small
yachtsman--by your leave the truest of all sea gipsies. But there were
others, owners of ocean-going steam-yachts and Atlantic Cup racers,
whose experience of the sea differed little from that of the rugged
professional. These, on the outbreak of war, proceeded to the nearest
dockyard demanding guns, and men who could shoot them, in the King’s
name. They got the guns and the men, and they reinforced the trawler
patrol and examination service from the Shetlands to the Lizard. When it
is remembered that few of these gallant sportsmen possessed masters’
“tickets”: that 300-ton yachts are not built to keep the seas in winter
off the outer Hebrides, and yet kept them: when the number of losses and
groundings during the period they were commanded by amateurs is compared
with the subsequent tale of their achievements under the professional
seamen who succeeded them--then some true insight into the value of the
deep-sea yachtsmen’s work will be obtained. This is not the time to
recount in detail the performances of the individual or his yacht. The
Navy knows them, but the Navy, according to its wont, is silent. Some
day, however, when the lawns that overlook the Solent are thronged once
more, and the harbours of the Riviera again reflect the graceful
outlines of these slim Amazons of the sea, smoking-room and tea tables
will hear the tales--or some of them. And there will be some for ever
untold, because the men who might have told them have passed into the
Great Silence.
One story, however, will serve to illustrate the spirit in which the
deep-sea yachtsman answered the call.
There was a certain man living overseas who at the outbreak of war was
approached by his son. “I’m going over to enlist,” said the boy. Now the
boy’s mother was an invalid, and this was the only son.
The father smoked in silence for a minute, considering his son’s
announcement.
“No,” he replied at last, “not yet. If you are killed, your mother would
die. I’ll go over first.”
His son laughed indignantly with the scorn of youth. “You’re too old,
dad,” he said; “you’re fifty-five.”
“Fifty-three,” amended the older man. “Fifty-three, and I’ve got a
master’s ticket.” This was a man who raced his own yacht across the
Atlantic in the days of piping peace. “But I’ll act fair by you,” he
continued. “I’ll go over and volunteer, and if they won’t have me I’ll
come back and you can go instead--and God go with you.”
They shook hands on the deal, and the older man went.
Volunteers of fifty-three--even with masters’ tickets--were not being
eagerly sought after in the Navy at the beginning of the war. The
volunteer perhaps realised this, and so it happened that Whitehall
accepted his age at his own estimate--forty-five.
It was older than he looked or felt; and if his clear eyes are any index
to character it was the first and last lie he ever told.
His son awaited the return of the prodigal with some impatience; finally
he received a letter bidding him to keep cheerful and look after his
mother. His parent was at the time of writing in charge of an armed
guard, nursing a leaky Norwegian windjammer through a north-easterly
gale in the region of Iceland. He eventually battled her and a
contraband cargo into Stornoway, and got the first bath and dry clothes
he had had for ten days. He said he was very happy and doing his bit;
and this I hope and believe he still is.
* * * * *
It is this love of the sea and familiarity with it in all its conditions
that have served the R.N.V.R. officer in moments of stress in a manner
which the frequent D.S.C.’s among them testify. But there are other
incidents that have passed without such recognition because they came in
the plain path of duty or were incidental to the sea-gipsy’s love of
adventure. One of these deserves mention, because the two great Reserve
services, the R.N.R. and the R.N.V.R., joined hands in the affair and
saw it through together.
Two divisions of British drifters were lying in a cross-Channel port
awaiting orders to return to their base. It was in the winter, and a
south-easterly gale was blowing. The subsequent meteorological records
testify to its being the worst that year.
The order to return came to the senior officer of the drifters qualified
by “as soon as the weather has moderated sufficiently.” The senior
officer of one division was an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, and
of the other a sub-lieutenant of the Volunteer Reserve. He of the R.N.R.
looked at the sky and the breakers bursting in sheets of foam against
the breakwater and thence to the barometer, and opined that it wasn’t
good enough.
The R.N.V.R. sub-lieutenant said he was tired of harbour and guessed
he’d have a bump at it. The R.N.R. sub-lieutenant damned his eyes for a
fool, but made the signal for shortening cable in his own division. The
gale abated slightly, and the two divisions wallowed out in line ahead
through the flying scud.
In mid-Channel they encountered a 4,000-ton steamer, derelict and
drifting, down by the head, before the gale. The R.N.V.R. man watched
her sluggish plunge and scend in the steep wind-whipped troughs, and
decided she wasn’t as bad as she pretended to be.
“Take charge of both divisions of drifters,” he signalled to his
_confrère_ in the tiny flagship of the other division, “and take them
into harbour. I am going to board.”
He then bade his skipper put his craft alongside the yawning derelict,
and called for volunteers to accompany him. His men were no cowards, but
they weren’t tired of life, and most of them had wives and families.
“I’ll come,” said the cook, however.
They ran down wind under the sheering bulwarks, and the R.N.V.R.
sub-lieutenant and the cook leaped at a trailing fall, climbed up it
hand over hand, and tumbled on to the deserted upper deck of the
steamer.
In the meanwhile, the R.N.R. sub-lieutenant had proceeded to windward,
commended his command to their respective skippers, launched his
cockleshell of a boat and drifted down in it, half-swamped, until he,
too, was able to catch the fall, and so climbed inboard. He was in time
to see the R.N.V.R. knock off the cable stoppers and let go both
anchors. The drifters were swallowed by the mist and rain and proceeded
to their base, calling on their gods to witness they were no cowards,
but that there were limits to what a man could be expected to do for
sheer love of adventure.
A swift survey of the derelict disclosed the fact that her No. 2 hold
was flooded, either as the result of a mine or torpedo. On the other
hand, all bulkheads were holding, and the engine-room was untouched.
Said the R.N.R. man: “If we could get steam on her, I’d up killick and
take this hooker into the Downs.” But three men cannot raise steam and
navigate a 4,000-ton steamer without assistance, so they made themselves
comfortable and waited.
Late in the afternoon a destroyer arrived, the salt spume crusting her
funnels, and the handflags busy above her bridge screens.
“Prepare to abandon derelict. Will go ahead and veer a grass-line,” said
the destroyer, in much the tone that a parent might adopt to an
offspring who has nearly succeeded in getting itself run over by a
motor-car.
“Well, now,” said the R.N.V.R. to the R.N.R., “that’s a funny thing: I’m
bothered if I can read that signal. But my sight isn’t what it used to
be.”
“I can make semaphore all right,” replied the R.N.R., “but when it comes
to reading it I get all of a dither. ’P’raps the cook can read it.”
The cook replied at once that it was Greek to him, or words to that
effect. The destroyer, accordingly, after waiting some time and growing
more angry, went up to windward and anchored.
“Now,” said the R.N.V.R. to the R.N.R., “you talked a lot about your
semaphore. Just make them a signal to send us a dozen engine-room
ratings and an engineer officer, and we’ll raise steam and proceed to
the Downs. Thank them for coming to see us, by the way. They’re getting
peevish.”
The R.N.R., in terms of diplomatic suasion, signalled accordingly, and
towards dusk a drenched boatload of the Royal Navy, Engine-room
Department, arrived on board. Refreshed with Madeira from the captain’s
saloon, they proceeded to the engine-room, filled the boilers, lit the
furnaces, and had steam raised by daylight. The steamer then slipped
her cables, which had become too foul to weigh, substituted an
Admiralty-pattern kedge for the lost anchors, and proceeded modestly
under her own steam and the destroyer’s escort to the Downs.
A month later the R.N.V.R. met the R.N.R. ashore.
“’Member that derelict we salved together,” said the R.N.V.R. “I’ve been
up to London to see about salvage and all that.”
The R.N.R. brightened considerably.
“She’s worth £120,000, light,” he said.
“She is,” was the reply, in detached tones such as the Chancellor of the
Exchequer might employ to outline his Budget; “but she was on Government
charter. As she was salved by”--he took a long breath--“Naval officers,
there ain’t any salvage.”
CHAPTER VII
THE DAY--AND THE MORNING AFTER
Looking back on a kaleidoscope of great events, one is apt to be struck
by the wealth of insignificant detail with which memory burdens itself.
Of all the thunderous panorama in which a Fleet Action presents itself
to the imagination, very little is recorded in the mind of a participant
at the time. Later on a man may fit the details together into an orderly
comprehensive tableau for the benefit of relations and others, supplying
from hearsay and imagination all that he missed as an insignificant
actor in the great drama.
Groping among the memories of the Battle of Jutland and the part played
therein by the fleet flagship, it is not unnatural, therefore, that a
private of marines should come most readily to mind. He it was who in
enjoyment of his office of servant jerked aside the curtain of a cabin
door about 3.15 p.m. on May 31st, 1916, and announced in laconic tones
that the fleet was going to “Action Stations” in half an hour’s time.
The Onlooker had kept the morning watch, and was engaged on his bunk in
what is colloquially known as a “stretch off the land.”
“Eh?” he said.
“’Arf an hour,” repeated the messenger of Mars. There was in his tone
that note of impassive stoicism usually reserved for the announcement
that the Onlooker’s gold links had gone, in the cuffs of a shirt, to the
wash--or similarly soul-shaking tidings. The latter descended from his
bunk in search of the sinews of war.
“Where the devil’s my gas-mask?” he queried, after a breathless search.
“’Andy,” replied the stoic. He rummaged in an obscure “glory-hole” and
produced in turn his master’s boot-cleaning gear, his own ditty-box,
private stock of tobacco, fiancée’s portrait, and finally his master’s
gas-mask. This, emptied of a further assortment of his personal
possessions, he gravely handed to the Onlooker.
That worthy rapidly collected his remaining impedimenta and struggled
into a “British warm”; as he did so certain obscure warnings of the
distant past (those far-off days when we read handbooks and attended
lectures on war in the abstract) came back to mind. “By the way,” he
said--“underclothing. In the Russo-Japanese war they always put on clean
underclothing before going into action, I remember. Septic wounds, and
all that. When did I have a clean shift last?”
His official valet closed his eyes, as if contemplating a vista of time
greater than the human memory could in justice be expected to span.
Finally he shook his head gloomily. “Couldn’t rightly say, but----”
“Never mind,” interrupted the Onlooker hastily. “I haven’t time now,
anyway,” and made for the door. His servant’s impassive countenance
softened; perhaps he was reflecting that they might never again
forgather in that cabin. “It’s goin’ to be cold up there----” he jerked
his head towards the upper-deck and forebridge, and eyed his master
compassionately. “Better ’ave your woolly muffler--what your wife
knitted for you.”
The Onlooker was touched. “Thank you,” he said. “If I may borrow it for
the afternoon....”
* * * * *
The clatter of cups and saucers in the neighbouring pantry guided his
footsteps to the wardroom in search of tea. That the warning had gone
round was evident from the prevalent wakefulness (unusual at that hour)
of all the occupants of the mess. Everyone was garbed for the fray
according to his prospective rôle or individual taste. Costumes ranged
between cricketing flannels and duffle overalls with Balaclava helmets
and sea-boots.
It might reasonably have been expected that one topic and one only--“Der
Tag”--would have been on everyone’s lips. The German Fleet was out: was
even then being lured north by the battle cruisers, and the Fleet was
rushing to meet it in battle-array. The hour for which the Fleet had
waited twenty-two weary months was about to strike: and no one even
mentioned it.
The affectation was somehow peculiarly British. Drake epitomised it for
all time when he declared there was time to finish the game and beat the
Spaniards too; but it is a question whether the self-conscious
imperturbability of that game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe equalled that of
the Fleet flagship’s wardroom as its members sat in noisy banter round
the tea table, munching bread-and-jam with a furtive eye on the
clock....
It was left to the commander-in-chief’s flag lieutenant to break the
spell. He put down his cup with a clatter, picked up his telescope, and
rose to his feet, fastening the toggles of his duffle coat.
“Well, boys ...?” he said, and walked towards the door as the bugles
began to blare along mess-deck and battery.
* * * * *
Concealment of his emotions is not a marked characteristic of the
British bluejacket or marine, whatever affectations may be cherished by
his officers in that respect. The exultant speculations, prophecies, and
thanksgiving of a thousand men, crowded in those confined spaces, met
the ear with a noise like the sea. Commonplace sounds suddenly acquired
a thrilling significance, and the clang of the securing chains of the
guns as they were released, the tireless drone of the turbines far
below, shrilling pipe and blare of bugle overhead, combined to set the
pulses at a gallop. The Onlooker passed forward through that electrical
tide of emotion and laughing men that surged towards the hatchways, and
_en route_ overtook a leading seaman. He was normally a staid,
unemotional individual, known best (from the standpoint of censor) as an
incorrigible letter-writer. He was capering, literally capering, along
the battery. And as he capered he shouted:
“They’re out, lads! they’re out! Christ! They’re out this time!”
And out they were, for presently, on the wind that sang past the naked
rails of the forebridge and the bellying halliards, came the first
grumble of gunfire out of the haze ahead.
Perhaps it was the utter absence of colour, the dull grey monochrome of
sea and sky, ships and smoke, that heightened the resemblance of what
followed to the shifting scene of a cinema show. It robbed even dire
calamity of all terror at the time. It seemed incredible that the
cruiser on the starboard quarter, ringed all about with yeasty pinnacles
of water, was one of ours, being hammered to extinction by the guns of
an enemy invisible. The eye followed her dispassionately as she ran that
desperate gauntlet of pitching salvos; and when the end came, and she
changed in the flutter of an eyelid into a cloud of black smoke, it was
some time before a subconscious voice said to the Onlooker: “There goes
gallant Sir Robert ... and you’ll never shake Dicky Carter by the hand
again....”
* * * * *
Equally remote and unreal were the effects of our own gunfire, seen and
lost and glimpsed again in that ever-shifting North Sea haze. A
crippled German destroyer, crawling out of range, down by the stern,
like a hare whose hindquarters have been paralysed by a clumsy
sportsman: an enemy light cruiser, dismasted, funnels over the side, one
gun spitting defiance from a shambles of a battery as she sank: a great
battleship listing over, all aswarm with specks of humanity--surely it
was none of our noisy doing?
And then suddenly a salvo of 14-inch shells “straddled” us, and a yeoman
of signals beside the Onlooker put out a hand and pulled him behind the
shelter of a canvas wind-screen.
“Best get behind ’ere, sir,” he said. Then the absurdity of it struck
them simultaneously, and they both laughed.
* * * * *
The insignificant duties of the Onlooker took him at a later phase in
the action to the lower conning-tower. Situated far below the water-line
and behind all the available armour, it is deemed the safest place in
the ship, and is the salubrious resort of various seconds-in-command,
waiting to step into the shoes of defunct superiors as occasion arose.
They were not a cheerful company, since their rôle was _pro tem._
necessarily passive. Further, their knowledge of what was going on was
limited to scraps of information that filtered down a voice-pipe from
the upper conning-tower, through a variety of mediums all busily
employed on other matters. The assistant constructor (sometime darling
of International Rugby crowds), stood with his ear to the voice-pipe and
wailed for news as a Neapolitan beggar beseeches alms. Suddenly he
paused, and his face brightened.
“Disabled Zeppelin floating on the surface ahead,” he announced. There
was a general brightening of the countenances around. Followed a long
pause. Then:
“Wash-out! Not a Zeppelin. Bows of a battle cruiser sticking out of the
water.”
“Good egg,” said someone. “Another Hun done in.”
It didn’t seem to occur to anyone that it might not have been a Hun. As
a matter of fact it was the _Invincible_, or all that was left of her.
* * * * *
Outside the lower conning-tower a little group of messengers, electric
light and fire and wreckage parties stood and discoursed. They were
displaying an unwonted interest in the merits and demerits of swimming
belts.
“Got yours on, Nobby?” inquired one boy-messenger of another.
“Yus,” was the reply in tense grave tones. “An’ if we sinks I’m goin’ to
save Admiral Jellicoe an’ get the Victoria Cross.”
This pious flight of fancy apparently rather took his friend’s breath
away, for there was a moment’s silence.
“You can ’elp,” he added generously. They were “Raggies” apparently....
* * * * *
Reaction came with the following dawn: a weariness of the soul that no
fatigue of the flesh can equal. All one’s energies seemed needed to
combat the overwhelming desire for sleep, and the sensitive plate which
records even absurdities in the mind holds little save one recollection
of that dawn. But whatever has grown dim and been forgotten, the memory
of a journey aft along the mess-deck in search of a cup of tea will
always survive. The grey daylight struggled through the gunports and
mingled with the sickly glare of electric lights along the narrow vista
of the mess-deck. One watch of stokers had been relieved, and they lay
where they had dropped on coming up from the stokehold. On every
available inch of space along the deck sprawled a limp bundle of grimy
rags that was a man asleep. It was like picking a pathway through a
charnel-house of ebon dead. They lay on their backs with outstretched
arms, or face downwards with their arms under their foreheads, in every
imaginable attitude of jointless, abandoned exhaustion. The warm, sour
smell of perspiration mingled with the aftermath of cordite fumes....
The guns’ crews beside their guns were silent. They stood or sat, arms
akimbo, motionless in the apathy of reaction and fatigue, following the
passer-by with their eyes....
Aft in the medical distributing station all was still as death. Men lay
motionless, snoring beside the stretchers and operating tables. But as
the Onlooker passed, something moved inside the arms of a sleeping man.
A stumpy tail wagged, and the ponderous bulk of Jumbo, the mascot
bulldog, rose, shook himself and trotted forward, grinning a greeting
from one survivor of Jutland to another.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NAVY-UNDER-THE-SEA
The year or so before the war found the Submarine Service still in its
infancy, untried, unsung, a jest among the big-ship folk of the
Navy-that-floats, who pointed with inelegant gestures from these
hundred-feet cigar-shaped egg-shells to their own towering steel-shod
rams and the nineteen-thousand-odd tons behind each of them.
The Submarine Service had no leisure for jests at that time, even if
they had seen anything particularly humorous about the comparison. In an
intensely grim and practical way they were dreamers, “greatly dreaming”:
and they knew that the day was not far off when these little wet ships
of theirs would come into their own and hold, in the bow and stern of
each fragile hull, the keys of death and of hell.
The Navy-that-Floats--the Navy of aiguillettes and “boiled shirts,” of
bathrooms and Sunday-morning divisions--dubbed them pirates. Pirates,
because they went about His Majesty’s business in football sweaters and
grey flannel trousers tucked into their huge sea-boots, returning to
harbour with a week’s growth of beard and memories of their last bath
grown dim.
The Submarine Service was more interested in white mice[3] than
pirates in those days, because it was growing up; but the allusion
stuck in the memory of one who, at the outbreak of war, drew first
blood for the submarines. He returned to harbour flying a tiny silk
Skull-and-Crossbones at his masthead, to find himself the object of the
Navy’s vociferous admiration, and later (because such quips exchanged
between branches of the Naval Service are apt to get misconstrued in
less-enlightened circles) of their Lordships’ displeasure.
The time had come, in short, when it was the turn of the Submarine
Service to develop a sense of humour: humour of a sort that was apt to
be a trifle dour, but it was acquired in a dour school. They may be said
to have learned it tickling Death in the ribs: and at that game he who
laughs last laughs decidedly loudest.
The materials for mirth in submarine circles are commonly such as can
be easily come by: bursting bombs, mines, angry trawlers, and the like.
Things not in themselves funny, perhaps, but taken in conjunction----
However....
A sower went forth sowing; she moved circumspectly at night on the
surface and during the day descended to the bottom, where her crew
slept, ate sausages and fried eggs and had concerts; there were fourteen
items on the programme because the days were long, and five instruments
in the orchestra. For two nights she groped her way through shoals and
sand-banks, negotiating nineteen known minefields, and only the little
fishes can tell how many unknown ones. Early in the third night she
fixed her position, completed her grim sowing (thereby adding a
twentieth to the number of known minefields within a few square miles
off the German coast) and proceeded to return home. At dawn she was
sighted by two German seaplanes on patrol; she dived immediately, but
the winged enemy, travelling at a hundred miles an hour, were on top of
her before the swirl of her dive had left the water.
Now it must be explained that a certain electrically controlled
mechanism in the interior of a submarine is so constructed that if any
shock throws it out of adjustment, a bell rings loudly to advertise the
fact. As the submarine dived, two bombs dropped from the clouds burst in
rapid succession dangerously adjacent to the hull.
The boat was still trembling from the concussion when sharp and clear
above the hum of the motors rang out the electric bell referred to.
“Maria,” said a voice out of the shimmering perspective of machinery and
motionless figures awaiting Death, “Give the gentleman a bag of nuts!”
* * * * *
In spite of nearly three years of war, the memory of the days when the
big Navy laughed at its uncouth fledgling has not altogether died away
from the minds of the Submarine Service. Opportunities for repartee come
none too often, but they are rarely missed.
Now the branch of the parent Navy with which the Submarine Service has
remained most in touch is the department concerned with mines and
torpedoes. The headquarters of such craftmanship is properly a shore
establishment: but following the custom of the Navy it retains the name
of the hulk from which it evolved, and is known in Service circles as
H.M.S. _Vernon_.
A certain submarine was returning from what (to borrow a phrase from
German naval _communiqués_) may be described as an enterprise. It was
one which involved a number of hazardous feats, not least of which was
navigating submerged in an area from which the enemy had removed all
buoys and lights, and was patrolling with destroyers and Teutonic
thoroughness.
The submarine was proceeding thus at slow speed with her crew at their
stations. Their countenances wore expressions similar to those on the
faces of the occupants of a railway carriage travelling through a
tunnel. One, a red-pated man, tattooed like a Patagonian chieftain, sat
with his lips pursed up in a soundless whistle, watching a needle
flicker on a dial, while he marked time to an imaginary tune with his
foot.
A sharp metallic concussion jarred the outer shell of the fore
compartment. It was followed a second later by another, farther aft, and
then another. Six times that terrible sound jolted the length of the
boat, and then all was silence. The noise made by a mine striking a
submarine under water is one few have lived to describe, yet every man
there interpreted it on the instant.
They waited in the uncomfortable knowledge that mines are sometimes
fitted with delay-action primers which explode them some seconds after
impact. Then suddenly the tension broke. For the first time the
red-headed man took his eyes from the dial, and his foot stopped its
noiseless tattoo.
“Good old _Vernon_!” he said sourly. “Another blasted ‘dud’!”
Once clear of their own bases and the sight of war signal stations, the
submarine is an outlaw on the high seas, fending for itself in the teeth
of friend or foe. True there is an elaborate system of recognition
signals in force, but the bluff seamen in command of the armed
auxiliaries that guard the seaways round the coast have a way of acting
first and talking afterwards. It is the way of the sea.
A homing submarine on the surface encountered one of these gale-battered
craft, and in spite of vehement signals found herself under a rain of
projectiles from the trawler’s gun. Realising that the customary signals
were of no avail, the commanding officer of the submarine bethought him
of a still more easily interpreted code. The second-in-command dived
down the conning-tower, snatched the tablecloth off the breakfast table,
and together they waved it in token of abject surrender.
The trawler ceased fire and the submarine approached near enough to
establish her identity with hand-flags. The white-bearded skipper of the
trawler was moved to the depths of his Methody soul.
“Thank God!” he signalled back, “thank God I didn’t hit you!”
“Amen!” replied the hand-flags, and then after a pause: “What did _you_
do in the Great War, daddy?”
* * * * *
Those who go down to the bottom of the sea in submarines are wont to say
(in public at all events) that since they gave up groping among the
moorings of the Turkish minefields in the Narrows, very little happens
to them nowadays that is really exciting.
This of course is largely a question of the standard by which you are
accustomed to measure excitement. Half an hour’s perusal of the official
reports made by the captains of these little wet ships on return to
harbour almost leads to the supposition that each writer stifled his
yawns of boredom with one hand while he wrote with the other.
Yet to the initiated Death peeps out half a dozen times in the length of
a page, between the written lines in which he is so studiously ignored.
The culmination of years of training, ten seconds of calculated judgment
and a curt order, which cost the German Navy a battleship, is rendered
thus into prose: “5 a.m. Fired both bow torpedoes at 1,200 yards range
at last ship in line. Hit. Dived.”
But let us begin at the beginning....
At three o’clock one summer morning a British submarine was sitting on
the surface admiring the face of the waters. There was a waning moon,
and by its light she presently observed a line of German light cruisers
stealing across her bow. She waited, because they were steering west,
and it is not the custom of such craft to go west alone; two minutes
later she sighted the smoke of five battle cruisers also going west. She
allowed the leading ship to come within 800 yards and fired a torpedo at
her; missed, and found herself in the middle of a broadside of shell of
varying calibres, all pitching unpleasantly close. She dived like a
coot, and with such good-will that she struck the bottom and stopped
there for a quarter of an hour putting things straight again.
At 4 a.m. the submarine climbed to the surface and found two squadrons
of battleships blackening the sky with smoke, screened by destroyers on
all sides and brooded over by Zeppelins. She fired at two miles range
and missed the flagship, halved the range and fired again--this time at
the last ship in the line--and blew a hole in her side through which you
could drive a motor omnibus. She then dived to a considerable depth and
sat and listened to the “chug” of the destroyers’ propellers circling
overhead and the detonations of their explosive charges. These gradually
grew fainter as the hunt moved away on a false trail.
The submarine then came up and investigated; the remainder of the German
Fleet had vanished, leaving their crippled sister to the ministrations
of the destroyers, who were visible casting about in all directions,
“apparently,” says the report dryly, “searching for me.” The stricken
battleship, with a heavy list, was wallowing in the direction of the
German coast, sagging through a right angle as she went. The menace that
stalked her fetched a wide circle, reloading on the way, and took up a
position ahead favourable for the _coup de grâce_. She administered it
at 1,500 yards range and dived, praising Allah.
Later, having breakfasted to the accompaniment of distant explosions of
varying force, she rose to the surface again. It was a clear sunny
morning with perfect visibility; the battleship had vanished and on the
horizon the smoke of the retreating destroyers made faint spirals
against the blue.
Since British submarines specialise in attacking enemy men-of-war only,
their operations are chiefly confined to waters where such craft are
most likely to be found. Those who read the lesson of Jutland aright
will therefore be able to locate roughly the area of British submarine
activity.
In the teeth of every defensive device known to Kultur, despite moored
mines, explosive nets, and decoys of fiendish ingenuity, this ceaseless
patrol is maintained. Winter and summer, from sunset to dawn and dawn to
sunrise, there the little wet ships watch and wait. Where the long
yellow seas break in clouds of surf across sandbanks and no man dares to
follow, they lie and draw their breath. Their inquisitive periscopes
rise and dip in the churning wake of the German minesweepers themselves.
They rise out of the ambush of depths where the groundswell of a
forgotten gale stirs the sand into a fog; and an unsuspecting Zeppelin,
flying low, lumbers, buzzing angrily, out of range of their high-angle
gun.
Here too come other submarines, returning from a cruise with the murder
of unarmed merchantmen to their unforgettable discredit. They come
warily, even in their own home waters, and more often than not
submerged; but they meet the little wet ships from time to time, and
the record of their doubtful achievements remains thenceforward a song
unsung.
A British submarine on patrol sighted through her periscope the
periscope of another submarine. So close were the two boats that to
discharge a torpedo would have been as dangerous to one as the other,
and the commanding officer of the British boat accordingly rammed his
opponent. Neither boat was travelling fast, and he had fully three
seconds in which to make his decision and act on it.
Locked together thus, they dropped down through the depths; the German
blowing all his tanks in furious efforts to rise; the other flooding
every available inch of space in a determined effort to force his
adversary down and drown him.
Now the hull of a submarine is tested to resist the pressure of the
water up to a certain depth; after that the joints leak, plates buckle,
and finally the whole structure collapses like a crumpled egg-shell.
With one eye on the depth-gauge the British lieutenant forced the German
down to the safety limit and, foot by foot, beyond it. Then gradually
they heard the enemy begin to bump along their bottom; he had broken
away from the death-lock and was rolling helplessly aft beneath their
hull. The sounds ceased and the needle on the dial jerked back and began
to retrace its course. The British submarine rose, to contemplate a
circle of oil slowly widening on the surface in the region of the
encounter.
Few of these grim games of Peep-bo! are without a moral of some sort. A
gentleman adventurer within the mouth of a certain river was aware of a
considerable to-do on board flag-draped tugs and river-craft; he himself
shared in the universal elation on sighting through his periscope a
large submarine, also gaily decked with flags, evidently proceeding on a
trial trip. He waited until she was abreast of him and then torpedoed
her, blowing her sky-high. Remained then the business of getting home.
Dashing blindly down towards the open sea with periscope beneath the
surface, he stuck on a sandbank and there lay, barely submerged. A
Zeppelin at once located him: but in view of his position and the almost
certain prospect of his capture, forbore to drop bombs; instead she
indicated his position to a flotilla of destroyers and stood by to watch
the fun. The commander of the submarine raised his periscope for a final
look round and found a destroyer abreast his stern torpedo tube. He
admits that things looked blackish, but there was the torpedo in the
tube and there was the destroyer.
He fired and hit her; the next instant, released from the embrace of the
mud by the shock of the discharge, the submarine quietly slid into deep
water and returned home.
In big brass letters on an ebonite panel in the interior of the
submarine is her motto--one word: RESURGAM.
* * * * *
There are both heights and depths attainable by the Spirit of Man,
concerning which the adventurer who has been there is for ever silent.
His mother or his wife may eventually wring something out of him, but
not another man. Readers of the following narrative must therefore
content themselves with the bald facts and the consolation that they are
true. What the man thought about during his two hours’ fight for life:
how he felt when Death, acknowledging defeat, opened his bony fingers
and let him go, is his own affair--and possibly one other’s.
Disaster overtook a certain British submarine one day and she filled and
sank. Before the engulfing water could reach the after-compartment,
however, the solitary occupant, a stoker petty officer, succeeded in
closing the watertight door. This compartment was the engine-room of
the boat, and, save for the glimmer of one lamp which continued to burn
dimly through an “earth,” was in darkness.
Now it happened that this solitary living entity, in the unutterable
loneliness of the darkness, imprisoned fathoms deep below the wind and
sunlight of his world, had a plan. It was one he had been wont to
discuss with the remainder of the crew in leisure moments (without, it
may be added, undue encouragement) by which a man might save his life in
just such an emergency as had now arisen. Briefly, it amounted to this:
water admitted into the hull of a submarine will rise until the pressure
of the air inside equalises the pressure of the water outside: this
providing the air cannot escape. A sudden opening in the upper part of
the shell would release the pent-up air in the form of a gigantic
bubble; this, rushing surface-wards, would carry with it an object
lighter than an equal volume of water--such, for instance, as a live
man. It was his idea, then, to admit the water as high as it would rise,
open the iron hatchway through which torpedoes were lowered into the
submarine, and thus escape in the consequent evulsion of imprisoned air.
It was a desperate plan, but granted ideal conditions and unfailing
luck, there was no reason why it should not succeed. In this case the
conditions for putting it into execution were, unfortunately, the
reverse of ideal.
The water spurted through the strained joints in the plating and through
the voice-pipes that connected the flooded forepart with the
engine-room. With it came an additional menace in the form of chlorine
gas, generated by the contact of salt water with the batteries; the
effect of this gas on human beings was fully appreciated by the Germans
when they adopted it in the manufacture of asphyxiating shells....
To ensure a rapid exit the heavy torpedo-hatch had to be disconnected
from its hinges and securing bars, and it could only be reached from the
top of the engines. The water was rising steadily, and the heat given
off by the slowly cooling engines can be better imagined than described.
Grasping a heavy spanner in his hand, the prisoner climbed up into this
inferno and began his fight for life.
His first attempt to remove the securings of the hatch was frustrated by
the weight of the water on the upper surface of the submarine; this
would be ultimately overcome by the air pressure inside, but not till
the water had risen considerably. Every moment’s delay increased the gas
and some faster means of flooding the compartment had to be devised. The
man climbed down and tried various methods, groping about in the choking
darkness, diving below the scummy surface of the slowly rising tide to
feel for half-forgotten valves. In the course of this he came in contact
with the switchboard of the dynamo and narrowly escaped electrocution.
Shaken by the shock, and half suffocated by the gas, he eventually
succeeded in admitting a quicker flow of water; the internal pressure
lifted the hatch off its seating sufficiently to enable him to knock off
the securings. The water still rose, but thinking that he now had
sufficient pressure accumulated, he made his first bid for freedom.
Three times he succeeded in raising the hatch, but not sufficiently to
allow him to pass: each time the air escaped and each time the hatch
fell again before he could get through.
More pressure was needed, which meant that more water would have to be
admitted from the fore-compartment, and with it unfortunately more gas.
First of all, however, the hatch had to be secured again. The man dived
to the bottom of the boat and found the securing clips, swam up with
them and secured the hatch once more. Then he opened the deadlight
between the two compartments a little way, increased the inrush of
water, and climbing back on to the top of the engines knocked the bolts
away.
As he expected the hatch flew open, but the pressure was not now
sufficient to blow him out. He started to climb out, when down came the
hatch again, and fastened on his hand, crushing it beneath its weight.
By dint of wedging his shoulder beneath the hatch he succeeded in
finally releasing his hand and allowed the hatch to drop back into its
place.
Loss of consciousness, nerve, or hope would have sealed his doom any
moment during the past two hours, but even in this bitter extremity his
indomitable courage refused to be beaten. Gassed, electrocuted, maimed,
cornered like a rat in a hole, he rallied all his faculties for a final
desperate effort. Crawling down again, he swam to the deadlight and
knocked off the nuts to admit the full rush of water. The compartment
would now flood completely, but it was his last chance. He climbed back
under the hatch and waited.
The water rose until it reached the coaming of the hatch; with his final
remnant of strength he forced up the hatch for the last time. The air
leaped surface-wards, driven out by the water which impatiently invaded
the last few feet it had striven for so long. With it, back through a
depth of sixty feet, back to God’s sunlight and men’s voices and life,
passed a Man.
* * * * *
The Navy-that-Floats and the Navy-that-Flies usually go about their work
sustained by the companionship of others of their kin. From first to
last their ways are plain for all men to behold. They fight, and if need
be, die, heartened by the reek of cordite-smoke and cheering, or
full-flight between the sun and the gaze of breathless armies. It is
otherwise with the Navy-under-the-Sea.
Submarines may leave harbour in pairs, their conning-towers awash, and
the busy hand-flags exchanging dry witticisms and personalities between
the respective captains. But as the land fades astern, of necessity
their ways part; it is a rule of the game in the Submarine Service that
you do your work alone; oft-times in darkness, and more often still in
the shadow of death.
There is appointed an hour and a day when each boat should return. After
that there is a margin, during which a boat might return; it is
calculated to cover every conceivable contingency; and as the days
pass, and the slow hours drag their way round the wardroom clock on
board the Submarine Depot Ship, the silences round the fireplace grow
longer and there is a tendency in men’s minds to remember little things.
Thus he looked or lit a pipe: scooped the pool at poker: held his dog’s
head between his hands and laughed.... After that a typewritten list of
names is pinned on the wall of the little chapel ashore, and here and
there among the rows of quiet houses on the hill some white-faced woman
folds up empty garments and slowly begins to pack.... That is all. From
first to last, utter silence and the Unknown.
In this way has been begotten a tradition peculiar to the
Navy-under-the-Sea. In the parent Navy it is not meet to talk “shop” out
of working hours; in the Navy-under-the-Sea every aspect of life is a
jest; but neither in seriousness nor in jest does one refer to Death.
A certain lieutenant in command of a British submarine was returning
from patrol in waters frequented by German men-of-war, when he rescued
the crew of a Danish steamer torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine.
It was blowing a gale and his timely intervention saved the lives of the
castaways.
The Depot Wardroom listened to the tale and approved. It even warned the
hero that he might find himself the possessor of a pair of presentation
binoculars if he weren’t careful. The hero expressed his views on that
aspect of the affair (they need not be repeated here) and straightway
forgot the incident.
He was on his way back from his next spell of patrol work a few weeks
later when he again encountered in an open boat the crew of another
torpedoed ship. They were Dutch this time, and they had been pulling for
nineteen hours in a winter gale, so that their hands were flayed to the
bone. These he also rescued and brought back with him to the base;
thence they were sent in comfort to their native land to reflect at
leisure on Germany’s methods of conducting submarine warfare, as
compared with those of Great Britain.
A few days later a deputation of his brother submarine captains summoned
the hero to the wardroom (what time the sun had risen over the
fore-yard), and there, to the accompaniment of cocktails and an
illuminated address, solemnly presented him with a pair of binoculars
subtly fashioned out of beer bottles: in the wording of the gunner’s
supply note that accompanied them “complete in case, tin,
black-japanned.” That all things might be done decently and in order,
the recipient was bidden to sign an official receipt-note for the same.
Now the moral of this may appear a trifle obscure; but it serves to
illustrate the attitude towards life of the Navy-under-the-Sea. The
lives of these defenceless victims of Hunnish brutality had been
saved--therefore the occasion demanded not heroics, but high mirth. The
hero of the affair admits to having partly missed the joke. But this may
be accounted for by the fact that the binoculars were empty, and that
later on, when presented with his monthly mess-bill, he discovered that
the official receipt which bore his signature included the cocktails
ordered by the deputation during the presentation ceremony. So much for
the Jest of Life.
There is a private magazine which appears monthly in a certain
east-coast port; it is edited by a submarine officer, written by
submarine officers, and its circulation is confined chiefly to the
Navy-under-the-Sea: but it affords the truest and clearest insight that
can be obtained of the psychology of the Submarine Service.
The success of a publication of this nature depends upon raw
personalities--indeed there is very little other “copy” obtainable; the
readers demand it voraciously, and the victims chuckle and tear off the
editor’s trousers in the smoking-room. Month by month, as you turn the
witty pages, familiar names reappear, derided, scandalously libelled,
mercilessly chaffed to make the mirth of the Mess. Then abruptly a name
appears no more.
“Art called away to the north.
Old sea-dog? Yet, ere you depart,
Clasp once more this hand held forth....
Good-bye! God bless your dear old heart!”
The above lines are quoted from the magazine in question, with the
editor’s permission, and in reverent memory of a very gallant officer,
to sum up, as no prose could, the attitude towards Death of these
“gentlemen unafraid.”
It happened that another of Britain’s little wet ships went into the
northern mists and returned no more. As was the custom, a brother
officer of the Submarine Service went ashore to tell the tale to the
wife of her commanding officer, returning from the task white and
silent.
A few months later the officers of the flotilla to which the boat had
belonged were asked to elect a sponsor for the little son of their dead
comrade. Now since the life of any one of them was no very certain
pledge, they chose three: of whom one was the best boxer, another the
best footballer, and the third owned the lowest golf handicap in their
community. In due course the boy was destined to become a submarine
officer also, and it behoved the Submarine Service to see that he was
brought up in such a way as to be best fitted for that service, sure of
hand and heart and eye.
Thus in life and death the spirit of the Navy-under-the-Sea endures
triumphant. Prating they leave to others, content to follow their unseen
ways in silence and honour. Whoever goes among them for a while learns
many lessons; but chiefly perhaps they make it clear that the best of
Life is its humour, and of Death the worst is but a brief
forgetting....
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX
THE PORT LOOK-OUT
There is a tendency among some people to regard war as a morally
uplifting pursuit. Because a man fights in the cause of right and
freedom, it is believed by quite a large section of those who don’t
fight that he goes about the business in a completely regenerate
spirit, unhampered by any of the human failings that were apt to beset
him in pre-war days. Be that as it may, Able Seaman Pettigrew, wearer of
no good conduct badges and incorrigible leave-breaker in peace-time,
remained in war merely Able Seaman Pettigrew, leave-breaker, and still
minus good conduct badges.
He stood at the door of a London public-house, contemplating the night
distastefully. The wind howled down the muddy street, and the few lamps
casting smears of yellow light at intervals along the thoroughfare only
served to illuminate the driving rain. His leave expired at 7 a.m. the
following morning, and he had just time to catch the last train to
Portsmouth that night. To do Mr. Pettigrew justice, he had completed the
first stage of his journey--the steps of the public-house--with that
laudable end in view. Here, however, he faltered, and as he faltered he
remembered a certain hospitable lady of his acquaintance who lived south
of the river.
“To ’ell!” said Mr. Pettigrew recklessly, and swung himself into a
passing bus. As he climbed the steps he noted that it passed Waterloo
station, and for an instant the flame of good intent, temporarily
dowsed, flickered into life again. His ship, he remembered, was under
sailing orders. He found himself alone on top of the bus, and walked
forward to the front left-hand seat. For a moment he stood there,
gripping the rail and peering ahead through the stinging rain while the
bus lurched and skidded on its way through deserted streets. Then his
imagination, quickened somewhat by hot whisky and water, obliterated the
impulse of conscience. He saw himself twenty-four hours later, standing
thus as port look-out on board his destroyer, peering ahead through the
drenching spray, gripping the rail with numbed hands....
“Oh--to _’ell_!” said Mr. Pettigrew again, and sitting down gave himself
up sullenly to amorous anticipation....
He was interrupted by a girl’s voice at his elbow.
“Fare, please.”
He turned his head, and saw it was the conductress, a slim, compact
figure swaying easily to the lurch of the vehicle. Her fingers touched
his as she handed him the ticket, and they were bitterly cold.
“Nice night, ain’t it?” said Mr. Pettigrew.
“Not ’arf,” said the girl philosophically. “But there! it ain’t so bad
for us ’s what it is for them boys in the trenches.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Pettigrew archly. “Them boys--_’im_, you means.”
The girl shook her head swiftly. Seen in the gleam of a passing lamp,
her face was pretty, and glistening with rain. “Not me,” she said.
“There was two--my brothers--but they went West. There’s only me left
... carryin’ on.” The bus lurched violently, causing the little
conductress to lose her balance, and her weight rested momentarily
against Mr. Pettigrew’s shoulder. She recovered her equilibrium
instantly without self-consciousness, and stood looking absently ahead
into the darkness.
“That’s what we’ve all got to do, ain’t it?” she said--“do our bit....”
She jingled the coppers in her bag, and turned abruptly.
Mr. Pettigrew watched the trim, self-respecting little figure till it
vanished down the steps.
“Oh ’ell!” he groaned, as imperious flesh and immortal spirit awoke to
renew the unending combat.
Five minutes later the conductress reappeared at Mr. Pettigrew’s
shoulder.
“Waterloo,” she said. “That’s where all you boys gets off, ain’t it ...?
You’re for Portsmouth, I s’pose?”
“That’s right,” said Mr. Pettigrew. He jerked to his feet, gripping his
bundle, and made for the steps with averted head. “’Night,” he said
brusquely. The bus slowed and stopped.
“Good luck,” said the girl.
* * * * *
The port look-out gripped the bridge-rail to steady himself, and stared
out through the driving spray and the darkness as the destroyer thrashed
her way down Channel. He was chosen for the trick because of his
eyesight. “I gotter eye like a adjective ’awk,” Mr. Pettigrew was wont
to admit in his more expansive moments, and none gainsaid him the length
and breadth of the destroyer’s mess-deck. None gainsaid him on the
bridge that night when suddenly he wheeled inboard and bawled at the
full strength of his lungs:
“Objec’ on the port bow, sir!”
There was an instant’s pause; a confused shouting of orders, a vision of
the coxswain struggling at the kicking wheel as the helm went over, and
a man’s clear voice saying--“By God! we’ve got her!”
Then came the stunning shock of the impact, the grinding crash of blunt
metal shearing metal, more shouts, faces seen white for an instant
against the dark waters, something scraping past the side of the
forecastle, and finally a dull explosion aft.
“Rammed a submarine and sunk the perisher!” shouted the yeoman in Mr.
Pettigrew’s ear. “Wake up! what the ’ell’s up--are ye dazed?”
Mr. Pettigrew was considerably more dazed when he was sent for the
following day in harbour by his captain. From force of custom on obeying
such summonses, the ship’s black sheep removed his cap.[4]
“Put your damned cap on,” said the lieutenant-commander. Mr. Pettigrew
replaced his cap. “Now shake hands.” Mr. Pettigrew shook hands. “Now go
on leave.” Mr. Pettigrew obeyed.
* * * * *
For forty minutes the policeman on duty outside Waterloo Station had
been keeping under observation a rather dejected-looking bluejacket
carrying a bundle, who stood at the corner scrutinising the buses as
they passed. Finally, with deliberate measured tread he approached the
man of the sea.
“What bus do you want, mate?”
Mr. Pettigrew enlightened him as to the number.
“There’s been four of that number gone past while you was standin’
’ere,” said the policeman, not without suspicion in his tones.
“I’m very partickler about buses,” said Mr. Pettigrew coldly.
“Well,” said the constable, “’ere’s another one.”
The sailor waited till it slowed up abreast of them. His blue eyes were
cocked on the rear end.
“An’ _this_ ’ere’s the right one,” said Mr. Pettigrew.
He stepped briskly into the roadway, ran half a dozen paces, and swung
himself on to the footboard beside the conductress.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X
THE SURVIVOR
“ ... And regrets to report only one survivor.”--
_Admiralty Announcement._
The glass dropped another point, and the captain of the cruiser glanced
for the hundredth time from the lowering sky to the two destroyers
labouring stubbornly in the teeth of the gale on either beam. Then he
gave an order to the yeoman of signals, who barked its repetition to the
shelter-deck where the little group of signalmen stamped their feet and
blew on their numbed fingers in the lee of the flag-lockers. Two of the
group scuffled round the bright-coloured bunting: the clips of the
halliards snapped a hoist together, and vivid against the grey sky the
signal went bellying and fluttering to the masthead.
The figures on the bridges of the destroyers wiped the stinging spray
from their swollen eyelids and read the message of comfort.
“Return to base. Weather conditions threatening.”
They surveyed their battered bridges and forecastles, their stripped,
streaming decks and guns’ crews; they thought of hot food, warm bunks,
dry clothing, and all the sordid creature comforts for which soul and
body yearn so imperiously after three years of North Sea warfare. Their
answering pendants fluttered acknowledgment, and they swung round on the
path for home, praising Allah who had planted in the brain of the
cruiser captain a consideration for the welfare of his destroyer screen.
“If this is what they call ‘threatening,’” observed the senior officer
of the two boats, as his command clove shuddering through the jade-green
belly of a mountainous sea, flinging the white entrails broadcast, “if
this is merely threatening I reckon it’s about time someone said ‘Home,
James!’”
His first lieutenant said nothing. He had spent three winters in these
grey wastes, and he knew the significance of that unearthly clear
visibility and the inky clouds banked ahead to the westward. But
presently he looked up from the chart and nodded towards the menace in
the western sky. “That’s snow,” he said. “It ought to catch us about the
time we shall make Scaw Dhu light.”
“We’ll hear the fog buoy all right,” said the captain.
“If the pipes ain’t frozen,” was the reply. “It’s perishing cold.” He
ran a gauntletted hand along the rail and extended a handful of frozen
spray. “That’s salt--_and_ frozen....”
The snow came as he had predicted, but rather sooner. It started with
great whirling flakes like feathers about a gull’s nesting-place, a
soundless ethereal vanguard of the storm, growing momentarily denser.
The wind, from a temporary lull, reawakened with a roar. The air became
a vast witch’s cauldron of white and brown specks, seething before the
vision in a veritable Bacchanal of Atoms. Sight became a lost sense:
time, space, and feeling were overwhelmed by that shrieking fury of snow
and frozen spray thrashing pitilessly about the homing grey hulls and
the bowed heads of the men who clung to the reeling bridges.
The grey, white-crested seas raced hissing alongside and, as the
engine-room telegraphs rang again and again for reduced speed, overtook
and passed them. Out of the welter of snow and spray the voices of the
leadsmen chanting soundings reached the ears of those inboard as the
voice of a doctor reaches a patient in delirium, fruitlessly
reassuring....
Number Three of the midship gun on board the leading destroyer turned
for the comfort of his soul from the contemplation of the pursuing seas
to the forebridge, but snow-flakes blotted it from view. Providence, as
he was accustomed to visualise it in the guise of a red-cheeked
lieutenant-commander, had vanished from his ken. Number Three drew his
hands from his pockets, and raising them to his mouth leaned towards the
gunlayer. The gunlayer was also staring forward as if his vision had
pierced that whirling grey curtain and was contemplating something
beyond it, infinitely remote.... There was a concentrated intensity in
his expression not unlike that of a dog when he raises his head from his
paws and looks towards a closed door.
“’Ere,” bawled Number Three, seeking comradeship in an oppressive,
indefinable loneliness. “’Ow about it--eh?...” The wind snatched at the
meaningless words and beat them back between his chattering teeth.
The wind backed momentarily, sundering the veil of whirling obscurity.
Through this rent towered a wall of rock, streaked all about with driven
snow, at the foot of which breakers beat themselves into a smoking yeast
of fury. Gulls were wailing overhead. Beneath their feet the engine room
gongs clanged madly.
Then they struck.
The foremost destroyer checked on the shoulder of a great roller as if
incredulous: shuddered: struck again and lurched over. A mountainous sea
engulfed her stern and broke thundering against the after-funnel. Steam
began to pour in dense hissing clouds from the engine-room hatchways and
exhausts. Her consort swept past with screeching syren, helpless in the
grip of the backwash for all her thrashing propellers that strove to
check her headlong way. She too struck and recoiled: sagged in the
trough of two stupendous seas, and plunged forward again.... Number
Three, clinging to the greasy breech-block of his gun, clenched his
teeth at the sound of that pitiless grinding which seemed as if it would
never end....
Of the ensuing horror he missed nothing, yet saw it all with a wondering
detachment. A wave swept him off his feet against a funnel stay, and
receding, left him clinging to it like a twist of waterlogged straw.
Hand over hand he crawled higher, and finally hung dangling six feet
above the highest wave, legs and arms round about the wire stay. He saw
the forecastle break off like a stick of canteen chocolate and vanish
into the smother. The other destroyer had disappeared. Beneath him,
waist deep in boiling eddies, he saw men labouring about a raft, and had
a vision of their upturned faces as they were swept away. The thunder of
the surf on the beaches close at hand drowned the few shouts and cries
that sounded. The wire from which he dangled jarred and twanged like a
banjo-string, as the triumphant seas beat the soul out of the wreck
beneath him.
A funnel-stay parted, and amid clouds of smoke and steam the funnel
slowly began to list over the side. Number Three of the midship gun
clung swaying like a wind-tossed branch above the maelstrom of seething
water till a wave drove over the already-unrecognisable hull of the
destroyer, leaped hungrily at the dangling human figure and tore him
from his hold.
Bitterly cold water and a suffocating darkness engulfed him. Something
clawed at his face and fastened on to his shoulder; he wrenched himself
free from the nerveless clutch without ruth or understanding; his booted
heel struck a yielding object as he struggled surfaceward, kicking
wildly like a swimming frog ... the blackness became streaked with grey
light and pinpoints of fire. Number Three had a conviction that unless
the next few strokes brought him to the surface it would be too late.
Then abruptly the clamour of the wind and sea, and the shriek of the
circling gulls smote his ears again. He was back on the surface once
more, gulping greedy lungfuls of air.
A wave caught him and hurled him forward on its crest, spread-eagled,
feebly continuing the motions of a swimmer. It spent itself, and to
husband his strength the man turned on his back, moving his head from
side to side to take in his surroundings.
He was afloat (he found it surprisingly easy to keep afloat) inside a
narrow bay. On both sides the black cliffs rose, all streaked with snow,
out of a thunderous welter of foam. The tide sobbed and lamented in the
hollows of unseen caverns, or sluiced the length of a ledge to plash in
cascades down the face of the cliff.
The snow had abated, and in the gathering dusk the broken water showed
ghostly white. To seaward the gale drove the smoking rollers in
successive onslaughts against the reef where the battered remains of the
two destroyers lay. All about the distorted plating and tangle of
twisted stanchions the surf broke as if in a fury of rapine and
destruction....
Another wave gripped him and rushed him shoreward again. The thunder of
the surf redoubled. “Hi! hi! hi! hi!” screeched the storm-tossed gulls.
Number Three of the midship gun abandoned his efforts to swim and
covered his face with his soggy sleeve. It was well not to look ahead.
The wave seemed to be carrying him towards the cliffs at the speed of an
express train. He wondered if the rocks would hurt much, beating out his
life.... He tried desperately to remember a prayer, but all he could
recall was a sermon he had once listened to on the quarter-deck, one
drowsy summer morning at Malta.... About coming to Jesus on the face of
the waters.... “And Jesus said ‘come.’ ...” Fair whizzing along, he
was....
Again the wave spent itself, and the man was caught in the backwash,
drawn under, rolled over and over, spun round and round, gathered up in
the watery embrace of another roller and flung up on all fours on a
shelving beach. Furiously he clawed at the retreating pebbles, lurched
to his feet, staggered forward a couple of paces, and fell on hands and
knees on the fringe of a snow-drift. There he lay awhile, panting for
breath.
He was conscious of an immense amazement, and, mingled with it, an
inexplicable pride. He was still alive! It was an astounding
achievement, being the solitary survivor of all those officers and men.
But he had always considered himself a bit out of the ordinary.... Once
he had entered for a race at the annual sports at the Naval Barracks,
Devonport. He had never run a race before in his life, and he won. It
seemed absurdly easy. “Bang!” went the pistol: off they went,
helter-skelter, teeth clenched, fists clenched, hearts pounding,
spectators a blur, roaring encouragement....
He won, and experienced the identical astonished gratification that he
felt now.
“You runs like a adjective ’are, Bill,” his chum had admitted, plying
the hero with beer at the little pub halfway up the cobbled hill by the
dockyard.
Then he remembered other chums, shipmates, and one in particular called
Nobby. He rose into a sitting position, staring seaward. Through the
gloom the tumult of the seas, breaking over the reef on which they had
foundered, glimmered white. The man rose unsteadily to his feet; he was
alone on the beach of a tiny cove with his back to forbidding cliffs.
Save where his own footsteps showed black, the snow was unmarked,
stretching in an unbroken arc from one side of the cove to the other.
The solitary figure limped to the edge of the surf and peered through
the stinging scud. Then, raising his hands to his mouth, he began to
call for his lost mate.
“Nobby!” he shouted, and again and again, “Nobby! Nobby!... Nob-bee-e!”
...
“Nobby,” echoed the cliffs behind, disinterestedly.
“Hi! Hi! Hi!” mocked the gulls.
The survivor waded knee-deep into the froth of an incoming sea.
“Ahoy!” he bawled to the driving snow-flakes and spindrift. His voice
sounded cracked and feeble. He tried to shout again, but the thunder of
the waves beat the sound to nothing.
He retraced his steps and paused to look round at the implacable face of
the cliff, at the burden of snow that seemed to overhang the summit,
then stared again to seaward. A wave broke hissing about his feet: the
tide was coming in.
Up to that moment fear had passed him by. He had been in turn
bewildered, incredulous, cold, sick, bruised, but sustained throughout
by the furious animal energy which the body summons in a fight for life.
Now, however, with the realisation of his loneliness in the gathering
darkness, fear smote him. In fear he was as purely animal as he had been
in his moments of blind courage. He turned from the darkling sea that
had claimed chum and shipmates, and floundered through the snow-drifts
to the base of the cliff. Then, numbed with cold, and well-nigh spent,
he began frantically to scale the shelving surfaces of the rock.
Barnacles tore the flesh from his hands and the nails from his
finger-tips as he clawed desperately at the crevices for a hold. Inch by
inch, foot by foot he fought his way upwards from the threatening clutch
of the hungry tide, leaving a crimson stain at every niche where the
snow had gathered. Thrice he slipped and slithered downwards, bruised
and torn, to renew his frantic efforts afresh. Finally he reached a
broad shelf of rock, halfway up the surface of the cliff, and there
rested awhile, whimpering softly to himself at the pain of his flayed
hands.
Presently he rose again and continued the dizzy ascent. None but a
sailor or an experienced rock-climber would have dreamed of attempting
such a feat single-handed, well-nigh in the dark. Even had he reached
the top he could not have walked three yards in the dense snow-drifts
that had gathered all along the edge of the cliffs. But the climber knew
nothing about that; he was in search of _terra firma_, something that
was not slippery rock or shifting pebbles, somewhere out of reach of the
sea.
He was within six feet of the summit when he lost a foothold, slipped,
grabbed at a projecting knob of rock, slipped again, and so slipping and
bumping and fighting for every inch, he slid heavily down on to his
ledge again.
He lay bruised and breathless where he fell. That tumble came near to
finishing matters; it winded him--knocked the fight out of him. But a
wave, last and highest of the tide, sluiced over the ledge and immersed
his shivering body once more in icy water; the unreasoning terror of the
pursuing tide that had driven him up the face of the cliff whipped him
to his feet again.
He backed against the rock, staring out through the driving spindrift
into the menace of the darkness. There ought to be another wave any
moment: then there would be another: and after that perhaps another. The
next one then would get him. He was too weak to climb again....
The seconds passed and merged into minutes. The wind came at him out of
the darkness like invisible knives thrown to pin him to a wall. The cold
numbed his intelligence, numbed even his fear. He heard the waves
breaking all about him in a wild pandemonium of sound, but it was a long
time before he realised that no more had invaded his ledge, and a couple
of hours before it struck him that the tide had turned....
Towards midnight he crawled down from his ledge and followed the
retreating tide across the slippery shale, pausing every few minutes to
listen to the uproar of sea and wind. An illusion of hearing human
voices calling out of the gale mocked him with strange persistence. Once
or twice he stumbled over a dark mass of weed stranded by the retreating
tide, and each time bent down to finger it apprehensively.
Dawn found him back in the shelter of his cleft, scraping limpets from
their shells for a breakfast. The day came slowly over a grey sea,
streaked and smeared like the face of an old woman after a night of
weeping. Of the two destroyers nothing broke the surface. It was nearly
high water, and whatever remained of their battered hulls was covered by
a tumultuous sea. They were swallowed. The sea had taken them--them and
a hundred-odd officers and men, old shipmates, messmates, townies,
raggies--just swallowed the lot.... He still owed last month’s mess-bill
to the caterer of his mess.... He put his torn hands before his eyes and
strove to shut out the awful grey desolation of that hungry sea.
During the forenoon a flotilla of destroyers passed well out to seaward.
They were searching the coast for signs of the wrecks, and the spray
blotted them intermittently from sight as they wallowed at slow speed
through the grey seas.
The survivor watched them and waved his jumper tied to a piece of
drift-wood; but they were too far off to see him against the dark rocks.
They passed round a headland, and the wan figure, half frozen and
famished, crawled back into his cleft like a stricken animal, dumb with
cold and suffering. It was not until the succeeding low water, when the
twisted ironwork was showing black above the broken water on the reef,
that another destroyer hove in sight. She too was searching for her lost
sisters, and the castaway watched her alter course and nose cautiously
towards the cove. Then she stopped and went astern.
The survivor brandished his extemporised signal of distress and emitted
a dull croaking sound between his cracked lips. A puff of white steam
appeared above the destroyer’s bridge, and a second later the reassuring
hoot of a siren floated in from the offing. They had seen him.
A sudden reaction seized his faculties. Almost apathetically he watched
a sea-boat being lowered, saw it turn and come towards him, rising and
falling on the heavy seas, but always coming nearer ... he didn’t care
much whether they came or not--he was that cold. The very marrow of his
bones seemed to be frozen. They’d have to come and fetch him if they
wanted him. He was too cold to move out of his cleft.
The boat was very near. It was a whaler, and the bowman had boated his
oar, and was crouching in the bows with a heaving-line round his
forearm. The boat was plunging wildly, and spray was flying from under
her. The cliffs threw back the orders of the officer at the tiller as he
peered ahead from under his tarpaulin sou’wester with anxiety written
on every line of his weather-beaten face. He didn’t fancy the job, that
much was plain; and indeed, small blame to him. It was no light
undertaking, nursing a small boat close in to a dead lee shore, with the
aftermath of such a gale still running.
They came still closer, and the heaving line hissed through the air to
fall at the castaway’s feet.
“Tie it round your middle,” shouted the lieutenant. “You’ll have to jump
for it--we’ll pull you inboard all right.”
The survivor obeyed dully, reeled to the edge of his ledge and slid once
more into the bitterly cold water.
Half a dozen hands seemed to grasp him simultaneously, and he was hauled
over the gunwale of the boat almost before he realised he had left his
ledge. A flask was crammed between his chattering teeth; someone wound
fold upon fold of blanket round him.
“Any more of you, mate?” said a voice anxiously; and then, “Strike me
blind if it ain’t old Bill!”
The survivor opened his eyes and saw the face of the bowman
contemplating him above his cork life-belt. It was a vaguely familiar
face. They had been shipmates somewhere once. Barracks, Devonport,
p’raps it was. He blinked the tears out of his eyes and coughed as the
raw spirit ran down his throat.
“Any more of you, Bill, ole lad?”
The survivor shook his head.
“There’s no one,” he said, “’cept me. I’m the only one what’s lef’ outer
two ships’ companies.” Again the lost feeling of bewildered pride crept
back.
“You always was a one, Bill!” said the bowman in the old familiar accent
of hero-worship.
The survivor nodded confirmation. “Not ’arf I ain’t,” he said
appreciatively. “Sole survivor I am!” And held out his hand again for
the flask. “Christ! look at my ’ands!”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI
THE NTH BATTLE SQUADRON
No propaganda poster artist with an eye to lurid backgrounds could have
secured such an effect. Great buttresses of cloud, inky black with their
burden of unshed snow, were banked about the sunset. The snow that had
fallen during the past week rested like a shroud upon peak and headland,
promontory and cliff-top, encircling the sombre waters of Ultima Thule
with a dazzling white girdle. Against this background lay the Grand
Fleet, an agglomeration of tripod masts and superimposed structures, as
familiar a feature of the scene as the surf that broke endlessly about
the cliffs, or the unappeased calling of the gulls. A little to the
westward, however, where the cloud-masonry was split and reft by crimson
shafts of light, an outstretched wing of the vast battle fleet struck an
oddly unfamiliar note. Instead of the tripod masts and hooded
control-tops, slender towers of latticed steel rose in pairs from each
hull. Against the black clouds, every ensign in the fleet was clearly
discernible; but it was not the White Ensign that showed up so vividly
above the strangers. It was the “Stars and Stripes” painted with the
glory of a northern winter sunset.
Only a few weeks had elapsed since they arrived, rust-streaked and
travel-stained, as ships might well be that had battled through one
winter gale after another from Chesapeake Bay to Ultima Thule; and at
the sight of them the grey, war-weary battle fleet of Britain burst into
a roar of welcome such as had never before greeted a stranger within its
gates in either peace or war. For--and herein lies the magic of the
thing--these were not merely allies swinging up on to the flank of a
common battle-line, but kinsmen joining kinsmen as an integral part of
one fleet. The rattle of their cables through the hawse pipes was
drowned by the tumult of cheering, and forthwith the American Admiral
dispatched a telegram to Washington, whose laconic business-like brevity
alone did justice to what may prove the most significant message of
history: “Arrived as per schedule,” it said.
This linking of the two navies may need an explanation. It may be asked
(it will be asked if I know anything of the talkers in this war): Could
not the American Fleet co-operate in the war without merging its
identity in that of the British? The answer is this: Victory in modern
naval warfare demands more than mere co-operation between allied
squadrons. Navies fight otherwise than armies, whose generals can meet
and confer even during the crisis of a battle. Squadrons working in
unity afloat require one controlling intellect, one source of orders and
information; one pair of shoulders, and one only, to take the burden of
final responsibility.
Hence, to the sure shield of civilisation and the allied cause has been
added a formidable buckler. The Grand Fleet has had grafted into its
side a new rib and a stout one.
It must be realised, however, that a common speech between two nations
does not necessarily mean that their respective navies talk in the same
tongue. The system of signalling in the American Fleet, the significance
of flags, the arrangement of codes and ciphers, are peculiarly and
completely theirs. The meanings of the flags had nothing in common with
the British. Their system has been evolved through generations; is, so
to speak, their navy’s mother tongue. The signalmen of the Nth Battle
Squadron, blowing on their numbed fingers amid the snows of Ultima
Thule, had to forget in twenty-four hours what had been laboriously
taught them for years. They had to master a different-coloured alphabet
as it is sighted two miles away tangled up in halliards or half obscured
by funnel and (mayhap) battle smoke. Manœuvres on a scale they had
hitherto regarded as exceptional: Fleet exercises and squadron
competition, intership signalese (whereby the movement of a semaphore
arm through fifteen degrees of the arc meant things undreamed of in
their philosophy), tricks which northern visibility plays with daylight
signalling--these things were their daily and nightly portion.
In the words of one of them, “it was a tough proposition,” and they
tackled it like tigers. In a fortnight they were through with it. In a
month the British signal boatswains rubbed their telescope lenses and
said they were damned.
But the communication problem didn’t end there. Wireless plays an even
more important part than visual signalling in naval warfare. It is
important enough in peace, and the American Fleet had by no means
neglected the subject. But aerial conditions in the region of Manilla
differ considerably from those in the North Sea. Speaking
radiographically, the North Sea is the most crowded thoroughfare in the
world. All through the twenty-four hours ships and submarines and shore
wireless stations are talking, talking, talking. British warnings to
shipping on its lawful occasions, streams of lies from Berlin (branded
at the outset “German Press Message”), cipher cryptograms from three
Admiralties, destroyers bleating in a fog, appeals from a hunted
merchantman--all these interspersed with the gibbering Telefunken of the
German submarine.
Now the American wireless experts have been concerned principally with
covering long distances. The development of “spark” and power in a
comparatively undisturbed ether was the main preoccupation of their
operators. From this serene condition, ships and silent cabinets passed
into the windy parrot-house of the North Sea. Here, power, as they
understood the term, was negligible. The greatest distance required of
their Hertzian waves was a preposterous 400 miles or so. But not only
had they to thread a way unbroken through this aerial Babel, but, what
was even more difficult, the operator was required to detect and read
messages on one tune in a vast discord of diverse and unfamiliar notes.
It is even said that an Englishman’s touch on a sending key differs from
that of an American as radically as the spoken accent differs. Yet,
after a month of assiduous practice, the former are in a fair way to
presenting as few difficulties to communication as the latter.
So much for the technical aspect of the affair. But there is another to
consider: each nation having evolved, perfected, and adopted a system,
considers it, _ipso facto_, the best system in the world. To ask a
segment of that nation to dump the cherished thing overboard and adopt
the theory and practice of another nation “likely not so good” is
demanding much. That the order was obeyed instantly goes without saying.
But let it be noted that it was obeyed in a spirit of uncritical loyalty
and whole-souled enthusiasm by every man concerned from Admiral to
Signal Boy. To this the British Commander-in-Chief has testified.
But after all, these matters are merely externals. In adopting British
methods of communications and staff work for the smooth working of the
whole, the American ships have not lost a jot of their identity. Their
customs remain, with their traditions, American--indeed, they are but
thrown into stronger relief; and the British Fleet around them is
noting, drawing comparisons with intent interest, as two scions of the
same family might meet and study gesture or physiognomy, searching
eagerly for kindred traits. And daily the bonds are tightening.
* * * * *
The Admiral commanding the force of American battleships which
constitutes the Nth Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet stood and thawed
before the burnished radiator in his cabin.
“Now,” he said, “you’ve spent a day on board this ship. What struck you
most? what remains your most vivid impression?”
I had been waiting for the question, and wondering what the deuce I was
going to say. A man who spends ten crowded hours in unfamiliar
surroundings, trying to draw comparisons between them and his accustomed
environment, finds his impressions at the end of it like a jigsaw puzzle
that has been upset.
I looked at him as he stood taking me in, and in the quizzical, humorous
smile hovering about his eyes, in the set of his very imperturbable
mouth, in his wholly comfortable attitude before the radiator, I read my
answer. It was something that had been struggling for expression at the
back of my brain all day.
“Well, sir,” I said (and then wished I could have embarked on my
explanation as our sailors do with “It’s like this ’ere, sir”), “to all
intents and purposes you’ve dropped out of the skies plop into the
middle of the Grand Fleet. It’s a fleet that has been 3½ years at
war. It belongs to the oldest and most conservative--if not the
proudest--navy in the world. It’s got the Armada and the Nile and
Copenhagen and Trafalgar and Jutland to its credit, and, I fancy, it
takes a largish size in hats on the strength of it. It certainly has a
standard by which to judge strangers.”
“Sure,” said the Admiral softly, with his eyes on the far-off snowy
hills.
I took a long breath. I’m not used to making stump speeches to admirals.
“Well, from the moment your ships rounded that headland the British
Fleet has been sizing you up. Every boat that is manned and leaves your
ship, every officer or man who moves about your decks, is being watched
and criticised and studied by several thousand pairs of eyes. You live
in the limelight.”
“Sure,” said the Admiral, so softly that it was hardly more than a
gentle expiration between his teeth. He may have been wondering when I
was coming to the point.
“Well, sir,” I continued, “all that is apt to make a very good
man indeed self-conscious. I came over on the look-out for
self-consciousness, like a lady visitor looks out for wet paint on
board. I’ve been ten hours in your flagship, and I’ve talked to samples
of every rank and rating. I’ve only seen one person self-conscious
under friendly scrutiny.”
“Ah?” said the Admiral. His eyebrows lifted a shade.
“I caught sight of myself in a looking-glass,” I explained....
Not that this absence of self-consciousness is the outcome of
indifference. The American Squadron is keenly alive to the intent
observation it is undergoing. Its method of showing how aware was
perhaps the most graceful imaginable. For a few days it visited one of
the fleet’s more southerly bases, and the ships’ companies were given
leave to visit a great town. Six thousand five hundred men availed
themselves of this permission. They were greeted by the inhabitants with
an enthusiasm that might well have thrown a staider and older set of men
off their balance. The traditional British methods of extending
hospitality were thrust upon these youngsters fresh from a long and
arduous voyage. It might have resulted in a _tamasha_ that would have
made the memory of Mafeking night seem like a temperance revival by
comparison. Yet when those six thousand five hundred mortal men
returned to their ships and the bonds of discipline--nine only were
slightly under the influence of liquor. Nine all told.
Apropos of this visit, it may be added that it occurred at
Christmas-time. Now, the flagship of the American Squadron is, I
believe, known in the United States as the “Christmas-ship.” Americans
are all probably familiar with the origin of this name; but for the
benefit of my own countrymen, I must relate their pretty tradition.
Every Christmas Day this particular ship lies in New York harbour; on
Christmas Eve the crew goes ashore into the slums and Bowery, and every
man invites a child to a dinner on board the following day. The little
guests are carefully chosen. They are the type of child that would not
otherwise eat a Christmas dinner, would not probably eat a dinner at
all. The poorest of the poor, from gutter and dive and archway. And not
only do these pathetic little guests get dinner, but also a suit of
clothes, a toy, and a present of money.
For the first time the Christmas just passed found the
“Christmas-ship’s” moorings in New York harbour empty. She was lying at
the base I have referred to within reach of a great British city. But
the tradition remained the same. They had forty-eight hours in which to
arrange the whole thing, but they did it. They added one stipulation
that has not been laid down in New York. Preference was to be given in
the matter of selection to those waifs whose fathers had laid down their
lives in battle.
Britannia, noting this story, may remember and echo the words of the
greatest of all child lovers:
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these....”
* * * * *
To the naval officer a ship’s personnel is necessarily an absorbing
study. The human element is one in which he works and lives, and
whatever the development of the machine, man and his ways afloat must
ever remain the primary factor in a navy’s efficiency. It goes without
saying that when the personnel belongs to the ship of another nation the
interest is largely charged with curiosity.
I attempted to convey something of this interest to the captain of an
American battleship, who was my host for the day. We were sitting in his
cabin; and the talk had ranged from the Yukon to Brooklyn Yard, and was
what a certain weekly paper would call “Mainly About People.”
I hinted at my interest in the men not without diffidence, because to
ask the captain of a man-of-war if you can go and look at his ship’s
company as a matter of curiosity is tantamount to demanding leave of a
stranger to go and smoke a pipe in his nursery while his children are
being bathed. A mess deck is an intimate place.
“Want to see the men?” he echoed, and thrust on his cap. “I’ll show ’em
to you.” He was a mighty man possessing volcanic energy and a voice
designed to carry orders through a gale. “Come right along.”
We plunged straightway into the seething life of the mess-deck and
living spaces of the great ship, the captain leading; and as we threaded
a path forward, men stepped aside, stood quietly to attention until we
passed, and resumed their tasks or leisure. Workshops, kitchens,
laundry, bakeries, dental surgery, sick bay, mess-rooms, round we went
in a swift, slightly bewildering rush, while the “owner” jerked
explanations over his shoulder. He displayed a familiarity with the
details of it all that was to say the least of it interesting to one of
another navy, whose captains claim to be not indifferent “ships’
husbands.”
Our whirlwind tour carried us into a speckless electric bakery piled
high with fragrant loaves. The captain had flung open and closed the
door of an oven secured by an ingenious but rather complicated latch. As
we emerged I commented on his evident familiarity with the internal
fitting of his ship’s bakery. “Built her,” he explained, and plunged,
doffing his cap, into the sick bay. There were over a thousand men on
board, and about half a dozen of them had found their way here.
“Well, T----,” said the captain, addressing by name an able seaman of a
stature well-nigh equalling his own, “how’s that hand getting on?”
The man stood up and met his captain’s eyes without embarrassment; just,
in fact, as one citizen regards another.
“Nicely, thank you, sir,” he replied.
“Hit your man in a softer place next time,” said the captain, and the
seaman laughed, nursing his bandaged hand.
“I will, surely,” he said. A chuckle ran round the sick bay. I had the
sensation of a stranger left trying to fathom a family joke.
“Want to talk to ’em?” asked the captain a minute later, as we stopped
to watch a veteran superintending the splicing of a five-inch wire by
two ordinary seamen. “Here, B----,” he called one of the youngsters,
again by name. The boy dropped his marling-spike and responded smartly.
“Where were you raised?” asked the captain.
“Kentucky, sir,” came the reply in the soft Southern drawl. The lad
stood before us without a trace of sheepishness or apparently aware of
any distinction in being thus singled out by his captain by name from
amongst a thousand other men. The captain nodded. “Trade?” “Farm-hand,
sir.”
It was my turn, and I asked him the question no sailor has ever been
able to answer. “Why did you come to sea?” He grinned, showing two rows
of perfect teeth. “Him,” he said, and jerked his head over his shoulder
at the other ordinary seaman wincing beneath the whispered exhortations
of his instructor. “Him an’ me ...” adding, “He’s my chum....” Strong
men have tried to write books on all that was contained in these two
sentences; most have died with the task unfinished.
We had concluded lunch--a meal that commenced with iced grape-fruit
(grape-fruit in Ultima Thule, harkee!)--when the captain beckoned me to
accompany him on another tour. It was of a more official nature this
time, and included a routine inspection of the storerooms and magazines,
and I joined the little group of officers who hurried in the wake of
that tall, striding figure with gold lace round the peak of his cap,
who knew his ship as I know the inside of my pocket. We were a band of
strenuous adventurers in search of the unfindable. Never did red-shirted
miners ply pick and shovel in the first days of the Klondyke rush as
that captain laboured through the long afternoon in search of Dust. Up
and down the shafts leading to speckless storerooms, hand over hand by
burnished steel rungs into the uttermost bowels of the ship we went; and
as we passed, the captain’s hand was for ever going out to run along a
transverse frame or search the interior of a cofferdam in the same
fruitless quest. Perspiration ran down our faces, but the break-neck
pace never slackened. “Light!” barked the captain, and the breathless
first lieutenant obediently flashed an electric torch into some
crannyhole.... The hunt checked while the captain craned and peered, and
then moved on. The first lieutenant’s sigh of relief was always audible
above the ring of our footsteps. Once as the procession sped along some
labyrinth among the shell-rooms the captain’s finger shot out accusingly
to indicate a junction-box on the white enamelled bulkhead (an
infinitesimal detail in the vast complexity of a battleship). It was an
affair of brass secured by small screws, but one of the screws was
missing.
“Spoke about that last week,” rapped out the captain, already a dozen
yards ahead. The first lieutenant looked at the junction-box as we
hurried on, and wiped his face.
“Gee!” he said. Then he eyed me with mingled desperation and pride.
“_Some_ captain,” he said.
I dropped out of the running about four o’clock because we were in the
neighbourhood of the gunroom (steerage, they called it) where I had been
invited to tea. I took with me an uneasy recollection of the first
lieutenant’s reproachful eyes as I sheered out of the procession, but it
was speedily obliterated by the interest and charm of the ensuing hour.
The American midshipman is the senior of his British “opposite number”
by perhaps a couple of years--but there the difference begins and ends.
The half-shy warmth of my welcome; the rather oppressive decorum of the
assembly as we took our places round the tea-table, were not otherwise
than it would have been in a British gunroom under similar conditions;
the quick thaw that synchronised with the rapid disappearance of
buttered toast and jam was Youth asserting itself over International
Courtesies.
The meal (they explained that they had picked up the habit of
“seven-bell tea” from us, and the lesson had not been ill-learned) was
nearing its close when a sudden shout of laughter obliterated the hum of
chaff and conversation. Every eye turned on a midshipman at the end of
the table, whose face was slowly turning carmine to the roots of his
curly hair. The President extended his closed fist, thumb pointing
downwards. One after another the remainder followed suit until every
member sat thus with the exception of the blushing victim. He looked the
length of the long table twice, gathered his cup and plate together, and
without further ado vanished beneath the table to the accompaniment of
unbridled mirth.
If nothing else had been needed to emphasise the fact, I realised in
that moment that I was in a gunroom of the Eternal Navy.
There was no question of “showing off” before a stranger--indeed they
had forgotten my existence; it was not even ragging. It was just that I
had accidentally witnessed the workings of some great Law, immutable and
inexplicable as Fate, in full swing about my uncomprehending head.
The meal progressed as if nothing had occurred to break its serenity. I
pleaded for light.
“It’s just our mail, you see,” explained the President. “Something has
happened to our mails. All the rest of the ships get theirs regularly
and ours hasn’t fetched up once since we’ve been here.”
“It’s the fault of the ship’s name,” chipped in another (the ship bore
the name of a great American State); “d’rectly the bags reach Liverpool,
someone looks at the labels an’ says, ‘Here, ain’t that somewhere in
America?’ an’ back they go. They’ve been goin’ backwards an’ forwards
for months.” “With Fritz takin’ pot-shots at them as they come and go,”
added a voice.
Muffled requests for reinforcements of buttered toast drifted up from
underneath the table. “Well?” I queried, still hopelessly in the dark.
“Oh, well, you see, anyone who mentions the word ‘mail’ at meals just
has to quit an’ go underneath the table; we’ve made it a rule.”
A British midshipman who draws a dirk in the gunroom stands a round of
port after dinner. To each navy its own etiquette--and penalties.
It was when we had lit our pipes (the exile had been suffered to return
to our midst) and sprawled in comfort, elbows on table, that the real
inner meaning of this great Alliance dawned fully upon me. Together we
refought Jutland as it has been refought in scores and scores of
gunrooms amid tobacco smoke and the shifting of spoons and matches
across a tablecloth; after that, it was baseball instead of rugger;
Annapolis instead of Dartmouth training college; but it all amounted to
a common ideal, voiced, not by politicians or diplomats, but by a
nation’s youth in common speech with ours.
I visited the compact double cabins--only they called them
staterooms--each with its intimate links with home suggested by the
backs of familiar books on a shelf and photographs pinned to the heads
of bunks. In fancy I made obeisance to the smiling American girlhood
that has good cause to be proud of its knights: and so back to the
gunroom, where one of the gay company had just sat down to the piano.
We perched round on the table and the backs of chairs, and sang. They
were the latest patriotic songs from the United States, tuneful,
emotional jingles whereby every nation going to the wars shamelessly
strives to voice its inner feelings. And when the player’s repertoire
was ended we started afresh; while the more energetic fox-trotted to and
fro across the narrow deck space.
Tune and words have since escaped me; but the refrain of the last song
lingers still by reason of its significance in these sombre days.
“We’re coming over, we’re coming over!” roared the young voices; and I
stole a glance at the lean faces, at the laughing, confident eyes all
about me--“AND WE WON’T COME BACK TILL IT’S OVER, OVER THERE!”
I came nearer to feeling sorry for the Hun than I had since the war
started.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII
MYSTERY
I
Dusk and a fine driving rain were sweeping up harbour from the sea. The
shadows that had gathered in the folds of the hills ashore swiftly
overflowed and settled down over the muddy town and wharves, engulfing
the straggling dockyard. As night fell, lights glimmered here and there
on the hill-side and were obliterated; across the swift-running ebb-tide
the irritable chatter of pneumatic riveters drifted in gusts; and in the
direction from which the sound came a few shaded arc-lights shone upon
the half-discerned ribs of craft on the building slips.
Something beside the night was coming in from the sea: a ship with a
heavy list, labouring in with a tug on either side of her and another
fretting at the end of the tow. They passed, a mere smear of uncertain
outlines, through the outer defences, and a couple of long black shadows
that were the escorting destroyers wheeled again to seaward and were
blotted from view.
A number of small craft were afloat in the lower reaches of the harbour.
A hospital launch, with the Geneva cross visible through the dusk
against her white upper-works, lay rolling gently by the berth towards
which the tow was heading. Another steam launch circled impatiently
round, and in her stern-sheets a group of armed marines stood watching
the approaching vessels above the upturned collars of their greatcoats.
The steaming-light of the hospital boat glimmered momentarily on the
barrels of their rifles.
“’Ullo?” said a sick-berth attendant in the hospital boat, “guard o’
marines--eh?”
The sternsheets-man nodded towards the approaching tow-lights.
“Prisoners,” he said sententiously, and was silent, watching the shadowy
ship looming towards them out of the murk. The tug on the tow slipped
the hawser with a blast on her syren and turned shoreward; the splash of
an anchor let go and the rattle of cable followed. The coxswain of the
hospital boat, as if awaiting a signal, put out his hand toward the
telegraph and rang slow speed ahead. A light appeared at the gangway of
the shadowy ship.
One of the tugs alongside had cast off and was backing astern into the
darkness: as she cleared the ship’s side a steam-boat, with her bow
lights gleaming through the drizzle like red and green jewels, crossed
the bows, swept round in a graceful circle, and ran alongside. A rope
ladder dropped from the upper deck of the ship, and a figure in
oil-skins, which had been standing in the stern-sheets of the
steam-boat, caught it as it swayed.
“Lay off,” he said curtly to the coxswain, and climbed inboard.
A seaman stood at the gangway holding a lantern above his head, and as
the new-comer stepped inboard another figure came forward into the light
to greet him. He was a loose-limbed, youngish man, wearing the cap and
monkey jacket of a commander. Leather sea-boots reached to his knees,
and he dragged his feet as he walked, as if oppressed with a great
weariness. He peered at the new-comer through the drizzle for an
instant, and then saluted. A grave smile flitted across his face, lit
for a moment by the lantern-light.
“Congratulate you!” said the visitor in quick incisive tones. “Are you
all right--wounded?”
“No, sir, not a scratch. Ship’s badly knocked about, but she’ll float.
Dynamo’s gone, and we’ve only got lanterns, but you can see....” He
nodded forward.
The visitor came a pace or two inboard and stood looking about the
upper-deck in silence. Figures were moving to and fro with lanterns, and
the uncertain light flickered on splintered planking and upper-works
shattered and distorted by shell-fire. The air was pungent with the sour
odour of wet charred woodwork.
“Yes....” said the new-comer, in a low voice, as if speaking to himself.
“Yes....” He stared at the riven funnel overhead and thence to the rents
in the bulwarks. “Where are your dead?”
“Aft, sir.” The Commander led the way past piles of crumpled wreckage,
down a ladder, and across an open space. A sentry leaning on his rifle
at a doorway jerked to attention. “Here are the dead, sir,” said the
Commander. He stepped through the door and indicated in the flickering
lantern-light a row of motionless figures resting beneath a White
Ensign.
The other halted and stood in silent contemplation of the shrouded
forms outlined dimly amongst the shadows. His chin had sunk on his
breast, and for a minute he remained thus, motionless. Then slowly he
turned away.
“The men were absolutely splendid, sir,” said the Commander, as he
led the way forward again. “I--I don’t know how to express what
I feel about them. This was out and away the worst show we’ve
had, and they were”--the speaker broke off and seemed to swallow
something--“magnificent.” The inadequacy of the English language
appeared to embarrass him. He made a little gesture: “Surgeon was
killed, an’ I did what I could, but I’m afraid I hurt some of them
shockingly. They never winced. It’s so hard to find words----”
“There are no words,” said the other, “that meet the case.” He paused to
measure a shell-hole in the engine-room casing; the clang of metal on
metal and the throb of pumps came up from the silent depths of the ship.
“What about your prisoners?’
“The captain’s in my harbour cabin--what’s left of it. Pretty sulky
customer. The rest are forward under guard. They’re more communicative
than the last lot and jolly glad to get out of submarines for the rest
of the war.”
A gust of laughter floated aft from the forecastle and the sound of
men’s voices singing. A door opened somewhere, and the words of the song
came plain through the night:
“_When you come to the end of a perfect day!_”
The Commander smiled as a father smiles on the threshold of his
children’s nursery. “That’s the wounded, sir. First lieutenant’s got the
rest forward, working cables.” A figure came towards them out of the
darkness with bandages glimmering white about his head. He was humming
the refrain of the forecastle song, and broke off abruptly as he
recognised the two figures by the casing.
“The hospital boat is coming alongside now,” said the stranger. “I’d
like to speak to the wounded before they leave the ship.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The other led the way forward, and as they stepped into
the dimly-lighted forecastle the singing wavered and died away to a
sudden silence. The narrow space was partly blocked by hammocks slung
from the beams overhead, and illumined by a few swinging lanterns and
candles guttering on the broken mess tables. Evidences of the ordeal the
ship had undergone were apparent on all sides in blackened paint-work
and ragged shell-holes in the deck and ship’s side. Men sat about
smoking and nursing bandaged limbs, or lay motionless with their eyes
full of suffering turned towards the new-comers; a few rose unsteadily
to their feet, and the stranger motioned them with a gesture to sit down
again.
“If England knew,” he said, in his clear, deliberate tones, “England
could tell you men what she thinks of you. Unfortunately, I am the only
person at present that knows”--he paused and surveyed them in the
uncertain light, which, nevertheless, served to illumine the
consciousness of victory in each drawn face. “And I’m--proud of you.”
They cheered the spare, upright figure as he stood amid the wreckage and
pools of water as only men can cheer who have fought a good fight to a
clean finish; as the last gust died away feet shuffled on the iron
plating behind the speaker, and the stretcher-bearers entered. From
farther aft along the upper deck came a hoarse word of command, and the
clatter of steel as the unseen prisoners’ escort fixed bayonets. The
visitor turned to the Commander and walked slowly aft.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll have your report.”
* * * * *
Half an hour later the visitor departed. At the gangway he paused. “I’ll
send my barge back for you,” he said. “You’ll want to get ashore. I sent
to tell your wife you were coming in.” He smiled his dour smile. “When
did you get your last sleep?”
The younger man thought gravely for a moment. “I don’t remember, sir.
What’s to-day?... Thursday?” He smiled. “Monday, sir, I think it was....
Thanks awfully for the barge, sir. I’ll go ashore when I’ve seen the
ship all right for the night.”
II
The tiny cottage parlour was flooded with sunshine: through the open
window the throaty bubbling song of a thrush poured like a cascade from
among the blossoms of an apple-tree that came near to thrusting
inquisitive lower branches into the room. The Commander sat at the
breakfast-table chipping the top off an egg; opposite him stood a girl,
her brows knitted in the preoccupation of coffee-making. At his left
hand, perched in a high chair, sat a smaller edition of himself with a
bib under his chin, watching the decapitation of the egg with intent
solemnity.
“What did the White Queen say?” asked the Commander.
“Off wiv his ’ead,” came the reply promptly, in rich tones of
anticipation.
“’Head,’ darling,” protested the coffeemaker without raising her eyes
from her task.
“Never mind, John Willie,” said his father. “Let’s cut the cackle and
get to the ’osses.” He extended the top of the brown egg to his son and
heir, who gravely accepted it, and delved into its white and gold with
an unwieldy egg-spoon.
“Well?” said his father.
“Fank you,” said John Willie absent-mindedly. He finished the egg’s head
and passed on to the more serious business of porridge in a
blue-and-white bowl. “Can I go to see daddy’s ship ’smorning?” he
queried presently. A tiny shadow passed across his mother’s eyes and was
gone again. For nearly a week she had been able to forget that ship.
She looked at her first-born across the table and smiled. “What d’you
want to see?” she asked.
“Blug,” said John Willie calmly.
His father raised his eyebrows. “The deuce you do. How d’you know
there’s blood there?”
“Cook told Nannie,” said the child. “She said ve scuppers must have been
full wiv it. What’s scuppers?”
“Eat your porridge,” retorted his father. “Once upon a time there was a
little boy who played with his breakfast----”
“I’ll speak to cook,” said the mother in a low voice.
“An’ cook said----”
“Never mind what cook said. Just you listen to my story. The little
boy’s mummie took him to see the White Queen--know what _she_ said?”
“Off wiv----”
A shadow darkened the sunlight and the head and shoulders of the
post-girl passed the open window.
“Hi! Here you are, Janet!” shouted the Commander. He leaned back in his
chair, thrusting a long arm out of the window, and took the orange-hued
envelope from the girl’s hand. Slowly and deliberately he selected a
knife and slit the envelope; there was silence in the little room, and
the clock on the mantelpiece punctuated it with even, unhurried ticks.
“No answer,” he called over his shoulder, refolded the message and put
it in his pocket; then he held out his cup to be replenished.
His wife filled the cup and looked at him across the flowers and china.
But her husband had slipped into one of his musing silences and sat with
knitted brows, drumming his fingers on the white cloth. She knew only
too well those imperturbable abstractions, and the futility of asking
questions. She was one of those women who have learned to wait as men
rarely learn any lesson.
The meal finished and the Commander rose, filling a pipe. “Lemme strike
your match,” said his son.
“He’ll burn his fingers,” said his mother.
“Yes,” said the man. “That’s the only way he’ll ever learn to respect
matches.” He held out the box: the match was duly struck and the pipe
lit without catastrophe. When the pipe was drawing properly he turned
and watched his wife’s profile as she moved about the homely disorder of
the breakfast-table. His eyes were full of a great tenderness.
“Like to run up to town to-morrow?” he said casually.
She turned swiftly. “London!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Bill! Rather
extravagant, isn’t it?”
“Um.... No. I don’t think so. I’ve got to go--on duty. You’d better come
too. It’s only for the day. We might lunch somewhere where there’s a
band ... buy a hat, p’r’aps....”
“Me too!” said John Willie.
“Once upon a time,” said his father, “I was in a ship where there was a
man who said ‘Me too’ every time any one ordered a drink.”
“Was he a firsty man?”
“Very. There were twenty-three people in the mess, consequently he drank
twenty-three times more than he ought to.”
“_Ven_ what happened?”
“He was attacked by pink rats and blue spiders and piebald snakes.”
“Did vey bite him?”
“Something frightful. He never said ‘Me too’ again.”
The girl turned from contemplation of the sunlit garden, the tip of her
slim forefinger between her teeth as was her habit when deep in thought.
“Bill! Don’t be awful.... Do you think that grey dress looks nice enough
...? We needn’t go anywhere _really_ smart, need we ...?”
The man put his pipe down on the mantelpiece, and crossing the little
room took her face between his hard hands. Three times he kissed her:
once on the forehead, once on the mouth, and once on the tip of her
pretty nose. “Anything’s good enough,” he said, and his voice vibrated
on a note she rarely heard. Then abruptly he released her and turned to
his son.
“Now then, John Willie, come on outside! I’m going to bowl to you, and
if you don’t keep a straight bat you shall never come on board daddy’s
ship again.”
* * * * *
III
The taxi jolted up the cobbled gradient that led out of the gloom of the
great terminus, and slipped into the traffic that flowed east and west
along the sunlit thoroughfare.
“Oh, look at it all,” said the Commander’s wife. “What fun, what fun!
Why does everybody look as if they were having a holiday too? Look at
the rosettes on the horses’ blinkers ... _and_ the flowers--Bill, look
at the flowers....” she sighed luxuriously. “Oh, how nice all these
commonplace things are!” Her hand stole inside her husband’s. “Can they
see us, d’you think ...?”
“They never used to,” replied the man. He watched her animated smiling
face as she glanced delightedly about her at the familiar shops and
women’s frocks and all the gay tide of London setting to and fro. Her
eyes softened.
“It’s like old times, isn’t it?” she said. “The pair of us philandering
in a taxi.... And the tuppences ticking up.... Are we really going to
buy a hat?”
“Not yet.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “No time now, I’ve got an
appointment at twelve.”
She gave his hand a little squeeze. “Tell me where we’re going.”
“I told you. My outfitter.”
“I know: but after that?”
“Then I’ve got to--to pay a call. You’ll have to wait. Then----”
“Who are you going to call on?”
“A man.”
“Any one I know?”
“Well”--her husband threw back his head and chuckled delightedly--“not
to speak to.”
She shook him by the sleeve. “Don’t be silly and mysterious. Is he a
naval officer?”
“Er, yes.”
“At the Admiralty?”
“Down in that direction.” The cab slowed and pulled up. “Wait,” he said,
and jumping out vanished between the swinging glass doors of the
outfitter. A couple of minutes later he returned, carrying a sword and
belt, resplendent in gilt and tassle. He stopped on the kerb, gave a
low-voiced direction to the driver, and resumed his seat beside her.
“You haven’t bought another sword!” she gasped. “You’ve got one
already.”
“Olo-piecee--too shabby. I’ve only borrowed this for the forenoon. You
have to wear a sword to pay certain duty calls.”
Her ignorance of Service matters was profound, and he had always been
content that it should be so. She gave a little sigh, like a child
abandoning a puzzle. The car turned into the Mall, and the Commander
leaned back in his seat adjusting the belt about his lean middle. The
girl glanced over her shoulder.
“Why,” she exclaimed, “he’s going away from the Admiralty! Tell him,
Bill, he’s going wrong----”
“No, he isn’t,” said the man. He glanced again at his watch. “Pam,” he
said, and for the second time in her life she thought she detected a
note of nervousness in his voice--“Pam, you’ll have to sit in the taxi
and wait. I shall only be about twenty minutes----”
“Twenty minutes!” she echoed in dismay, and glanced at the taximeter.
“But can’t I----?” Then the truth suddenly dawned upon her. The broad
façade of Buckingham Palace loomed up before them and the car slowed.
“Oh!” she gasped. “You _might_ have told me.... And one of your cuffs is
frayed.... That policeman is saluting you, Bill! Oh, my dear, my dear,
I think I want to cry....”
“You mustn’t cry here,” said her husband fiercely. They had passed into
the vast courtyard and had a glimpse of scarlet-coated footmen behind
the glass panels of a door. The Commander’s wife gulped. “No,” she said,
“of course not. But I wish I could come with you.” He gave her hand a
quick squeeze and jumped out: as he turned to close the door their eyes
met.
“Wait,” he said and passed from her ken.
Outside the railings, drawn up in an inconspicuous spot by the curb,
oblivious to the inexorable ticking of the tuppences, she waited. Nearly
half an hour had elapsed before she saw him coming towards her, walking
very quickly, holding his head high, rather pale under his sunburn. He
gave the driver directions and jumped in beside her. She took a deep
breath.
“Oh, my dear--_what?_”
Her husband made no reply, but laid a little morocco leather case on her
trembling knees. For a moment she fumbled at if blindly, her head bent
low. Then she turned to him, smiling tremulously through a mist of
tears, the little bronze Symbol lying in the palm of her hand.
“My Man!” she whispered. “My _Man_!”
[Illustration: “GATE, THERE! GATE!”]
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPIRIT OF THE FLEET
“Through all the monotony of its unending vigil, the Spirit of the
Fleet remains unchanged.”--_Daily Paper._
A flotilla of mine-sweeping sloops entered harbour with the last of the
light and secured to their buoys; they were weary sea-battered little
ships, and for a while they remained as silent as a stable-full of
costermongers’ donkeys at the close of a hard day’s work. The ebb tide
strengthened and they swung to their moorings in an invisible “rip” that
swept round a curve of the adjoining island. One by one the cables
tautened and the line straightened.
“That’s better,” said one. “Now we can talk comfortably.”
“Talk!” echoed her neighbour. “Who wants to talk? I want to rest. Did
you see that signal just now from the S.O.M.S.?” (Senior Officer of
Mine-sweepers). “We slip at dawn, my hearties, to go over the ground
again--the same old ground in the dawn--ugh!” Her tone was jerky and
irritable. “I hate the dawn.”
“Hullo, hullo!” observed a Subdivisional Leader. “Nerves a bit--eh?”
“Nerves be sugared! That affair this morning was nothing. No, I don’t
care about the dawn, that’s all. Diving seafowl break the surface just
under my bows and give one a turn in a bad light.”
The sloop that didn’t want to talk had hove a German mine up in her
sweep that morning, and brought it under her counter before anyone
noticed it was there. She lay rolling in the swell with the horns
missing impact by inches; to veer the wire would have probably caused
the detonation, and the lieutenant in command ordered his ship’s company
to abandon ship, crawled over the stern with a queer grim smile on his
face and removed the primer with a spanner. It was an entirely
unpleasant quarter of an hour, and he was at that moment giving a lurid
summary of his sensations at the time to an assembly of three brother
captains in the tiny wardroom of the next ship.
“When I was working on the east coast--” began another sloop.
“Ah!” interrupted the end ship of the line, “that was clearing the
trade routes, I suppose? Of course _we_ clear the fleet routes--the path
of the battle squadrons!” The east coast sweeper was a new arrival.
“Very useful, no doubt. On the other hand, we fed England. If the trade
routes had got foul, England would have starved. They’ve trained
trawlers to do the work now, but when I was on that job----”
“East coast?” chipped in another recent addition to the flotilla. “Is
there a war there too? I come from the Clyde, myself.”
The Tyne-built sloop snorted. “I’ve seen our East Coast Striking Force
go out past us while we were at work and be back again with wounded and
prisoners within half a dozen hours of leaving harbour. War, indeed!
It’s on our doorstep.”
“That’s because you haven’t got a fleet to keep it away from your
doorstep. Our fighting ships have to steam south for a day and a night
to find an enemy, while we sweep and wait and sweep again against their
home-coming.” The speaker glanced at her neighbour through a
rust-streaked hawse-pipe. “’Member Jutland? How they came back that
evening all battle-stained----?”
“And didn’t forget to give us a cheer as they passed!” The sloop
chuckled. “I had an artist fellow on board the other day. He came out
to paint the headlands and the fleet coming back from a sweep south. He
was _very_ sick.”
The moon swam into a windy sky from behind the blue-black hills
encircling them. The vast anchored fleet that had dropped into obscurity
at nightfall became distinct against the shimmer of the water. The wind
was full of the voices of ships talking among themselves, and fragrant
with salt heather smells from hundreds of spray-drenched islands. You
could detect the deep grumbling tones of the battleships in the air, as
the Romans might have heard the talk that floated into the night from
the gladiators’ barracks. It mingled with the gossip of the light
cruisers, whose conversation was largely technical, as they lay floating
at their moorings with steam raised: nervous, high-spirited, mettlesome
things, spoiling for a fight. Their talk concerned each other’s boiler
tubes, turning circles, thrust bearings, and gyro compasses: rather dull
to the layman, but interesting to the destroyers in the flotilla
anchorage, who were their cousins. One of the T.B.D. flotillas was
unmooring, and through a waterway between the islands their lights
winked and flickered as they swore and fumed at each other, manœuvring
in the narrow waters.
The flotilla leader slipped out into the broader expanse of the bay and
slowed down. “Now then,” she called, “who are we hanging on to the slack
for? Z.19--you again?”
“No,” said 19 in tones of tense exasperation, “not this time.... But if
73 tries to cut in under my stern again as she did just now, she’ll get
a kick in the ribs one of these days----” her syren hooted angrily.
“_Gang-way!_ That damned drifter!”
Destroyers are as short-tempered as athletes before a “Sports.” They are
always at short notice, and always trained to a hair, which, as every
schoolboy knows, is a very touchy state. “Don’t forget,” said the
leader, “until sunrise the challenge and reply is ‘St. George!’ and
‘England!’”
She rang down for half speed, and one by one the long, slim forms
slipped out after her and picked up station in the darkness with the
ease and sureness that belied all their abuse of each other.
The patient mine-sweepers rocked in the swell as the line went by. They
were modest, hard-working little ships who did their jobs without
talking about theories and the complications of their interiors.
Sufficient unto each day was the labour and calamity thereof, without
burdening the night with conjecture about the morrow.
“Hope you old plumbers did your job all right this afternoon!” shouted a
destroyer as they passed. “My word, we’re a trusting lot of innocents!”
The sloops nodded and dipped, rather pleased in their humble way at
being taken notice of. “You’re all right!” they chorused back.
The destroyers were slipping into their stride and their tempers were
sweetening like a long-distance runner as he gets his second wind.
“Who’s all right?” hailed the last boat in the line.
“We’re all all right!” roared the flotilla. They were nearing the light
cruiser lines, and the light cruisers, swung to a turn of the tide, all
looked the other way.
“Come on, all you fire-eaters!” called the flotilla leader, “ain’t you
coming on the trail with us to-night? We’re the Y.M.C.A. off for a
jaunt: quite respectable, my dear fellars, sure you.... You know all
about our respectability, don’t you--’smarvellous!”
“Won’t mother let you come?” sniggered a quivering, palpitating black
shadow as it slipped past, and then broke into ribald song:
“Hi! For the crest of a breaking sea!
Ho! For the deep sea roll!
Stanchions down and tubes trained free--
Ain’t you comin’ along wi’ we,
Or d’you know of a better ’ole?”
Irritating doggerel to anyone whose orders are to remain at their
moorings at three hours’ notice. The singer broke off and they all
started halloing:
“Hi! Gate, there! Gate! The sun’ll be scorching our eyes out before
we’re through!’
The roar of their fans died away down wind and the flotilla passed
through the distant gates and was swallowed by the misty moonlight of
the outer sea.
The boom-marking trawlers, the humblest of all units of His Majesty’s
Fleet, reeled and staggered and nodded to each other after they had
passed.
“Yon destroyers,” said one, “they’re gey witless bodies, A’m thinkin’.”
“Aye,” said a companion dourly, “aye, juist that.”
They settled down again to silence and the heart-breaking monotony of
their toil. A quarter of an hour elapsed before the silence of the boom
line was broken again; then the youngest of the trawlers spoke:
“Eh!” he said, and sighed to the bellying floats, “A’d like fine to be a
destroyer.”
Then silence again.
The light cruisers in the meanwhile were fuming among themselves: even
members of the same family do not relish gratuitous insult. “Funny
little fellows!” said one bitterly. “But there! What can you expect
from a destroyer: neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. I
took a couple out last month for a blow through; had to send the poor
little things back because it was too rough for them.”
“_Poor_ little things!” said another acidly. “Their plating _is_ thin,
isn’t it?... Well, as I was saying when all this vulgar interruption
happened, my Chief rigged a Weston’s purchase and lifted off the top of
my L.P. cylinder ...” and they plunged into their private affairs again.
The destroyers remaining in the T.B.D. anchorage felt that somehow the
last word remained with the light cruisers.
“Always talkin’ obstetrics ...” floated across the heave and uneasy
motion of the moonlit harbour from the flotilla trot.
“I know. Disgustin’....”
After which, conversation among the light cruisers perceptibly dwindled.
From out of the wind-swept spaces of the North Sea as the night wore on
came a murmur of voices: it grew nearer and deepened: “Ho, there! Gate,
gate!”
Position lights winked amongst the assembled fleet as a squadron of
battle cruisers loomed up, black as doom, in the entrance of the bay.
One by one in line ahead they passed to their anchorage and picked up
their berths with a thunderous roar of cables.
“Clear hawse!” cried the battle squadrons from their orderly lines. This
is the greeting from ships at anchor to those that enter harbour.
“Clear hawse to you,” said the new-comers. They were on a visit from a
more southerly base and there was a good deal of ceremonious exchange of
compliments between them and the battleships. “Hope you’ll find the
billets to your liking,” said the latter, “plenty of swinging room and
so on. Oilers will be alongside at daybreak, but in the meanwhile if
there is anything you’d like ...?”
The visitors said they wanted nothing, and were most comfortable. As if
to show how at home they were, they all swung in different directions
and sprawled their 25,000-ton bulks abroad on the dark face of the
waters.
“Waal, boys!” drawled a voice from the American battle squadron. “What’s
the noos from down your way?’
“Hullo, old flick!” exclaimed the battle cruiser flagship. “Hope you’re
keeping gay up here?”
The American chuckled and the laugh ran round the lattice-masted ships.
“We surely are,” was the reply. “Say, you missed a joyous stunt last
week----” he lowered his voice, for the fleet flagship has long ears.
“Fleet exercises, an’ we came back in the durndest fog ever. Tumbled
slap on top of a U-boat cruiser; guess he got sucked to the surface in
the wash of our _pro_-pellors; we were churning up most of the cod banks
of the North Sea. Sir, he was the sickest-looking U-boat that ever jined
the flotilla of the dead men when we’d finished with him.”
The battle cruisers expressed courteous credulity and congratulation.
“Couldn’t see the British flagship,” said the ship who had done most of
the business of dispatching the enemy. “But when it was all over, my
cap’n--say, d’you know my cap’n? Some seaman!--waal, he jest flicked a
wireless signal along to the British admiral: ‘Sunk a German U-boat
cruiser, latitood so an’ so, longitood something else--WHERE AM I?’”
Again the laughter rippled round the American squadron. It made you
think of some family chuckling in obscure enjoyment of one of its own
jokes.
The battle cruisers considered it, chewed the cud of it in silence, and
gave it up. “You don’t tumble? Waal, Commander-in-chief didn’t tumble
either. Took a long time to think it over an’ then answered: ‘Your
signal received. Last sentence not understood. Congratulate you.’”
The battle cruiser flagship felt that the time had come to say
something. “Well, that was very nice. What--what would an American
commander-in-chief have said?”
“An Ammurican? An Ammurican admiral, sir, would have answered: ‘Where
are you? TOP OF THE CLASS, MY SON!’ You Britishers are very
im-purturbable....”
“Meaning dull,” said a battleship in the nearest line. “I’ll not deny we
are. You’ll be dull in about three years’ time if we’re still here. But
I must say you’ve brightened things up for us no end.”
“That so? Waal ... you put us wise first. Guess we were children at some
of the monkey-tricks you call tactics.”
The battleships murmured polite indistinctnesses, and one or two
remembered things that happened in the later days of 1914 when war was
still in process of becoming a reality to their serried squadrons.
“Wait a bit,” said the American flagship. “We ain’t blooded yet. _You_
ain’t properly blooded yet. No, boys, Jutland was a game of tag to what
we’ll face together one of these days.”
“How long, how long?” rumbled down the lines of the battle fleet.
“_Quien sabe?_ That’s what they say down Manilla. You don’t know Manilla
though, I guess. But when it comes--it’ll be----”
“Our turn!” interrupted a clear, quiet voice in under the lee of one of
the islands. It proceeded apparently from a row of low-lying shadows on
the surface of the water. “We’ve done some waiting too.” An ocean-going
submarine was talking. “Quiet and deep ... down among the flatfish and
the mine moorings where you never go--er--at least we hope you’ll never
go. Off the Terschellings ... Heligoland Bight ... the mouth of the Ems.
Coming up to breathe at night with a conning-tower awash among the
wave-tops ... letting the little ships go by in the hope of bagging a
big one.... We can teach you how to wait, my masters, we of the Watch
Below.”
It was a long sentence for a submarine, accustomed as they are to
holding their breath rather than to waste it in mere conversation. It is
their pent-up breath that spits the deadly torpedo at its quarry a
couple of miles away.
The battleships were silent. They didn’t altogether like the reference
to flatfish and mine moorings and depths their keels left undisturbed in
their majestic passage.
A seaplane-carrier chuckled out of the darkness, where she lay like a
hen with her brood under her wing. “I don’t know whether you submarines
are trying to make us surface craft feel uncomfortable, but I could tell
you a story or two about what goes on in the air that would make you
feel giddy--very giddy indeed.”
“I don’t want to know what goes on in the air, thanks,” said an armed
merchant cruiser. She had called in for oil that afternoon, and was
distantly related to the seaplane-carrier. “A German submarine missed me
with two torpedoes last week; I came quite near enough to going up into
the air then for _my_ taste, thanks very much.”
“You’re all deplorably self-centred,” observed the theatre ship,
speaking for the first time. She was a condemned cargo boat that had
been gutted, and her interior transformed into a lecture room and
theatre. She was a sort of convivial missionary who ministered to the
fleet irrespective of class or creed or function. “Not to say _cliquey_.
Each one of you seems to think that the fate of the Empire depends on
you individually. It’s not a bad spirit, I admit, but it can be carried
too far. Individually you count for very little without each other’s
help. Where would the destroyers be without the mine-sweepers--where
would you all be without the mine-sweepers? Where would the battleships
and battle cruisers be without the destroyers and light cruisers to
screen and scout? A seaplane-carrier without support would be a sad
sight ten minutes after the Germans heard she was in the neighbourhood.
Submarines--er--submarines ...”
“Well?” asked the submarines quietly. The theatre ship was delivering
her oration on the strength of a lecture some staff officer had recently
given on board her to a number of yawning brother officers. It had been
called “The Co-ordination of Fleet Units,” or some such title, but
unhappily the theatre ship couldn’t remember how it went on when you got
to the part about submarines.
The rest of the fleet said nothing, but contented themselves with
winking to each other mischievously. They loved the theatre ship and
owed her a debt immeasurable, but there were times when she adopted the
“Mission to Seamen” pose and became rather tedious.
“Well?” repeated the submarines moored in rows alongside their parent
ship, and nudged each other in the ribs. As all the fleet knew,
submarines are the Ishmaels of the Navy, who at sea vanish instantly on
the sight of either enemy or friend.
“Who might _we_ be dependent on to help us do our jobs?”
“Er--as I was saying,” continued the theatre ship rather lamely, “where
should we _all_ be without the submarines ...?”
“We!” echoed the submarines’ parent ship, jealous of her charges. “I
like that, you old tub-thumper! Where are your bally innards?” Actually
she said neither “bally” nor “innards.”
Pandemonium ensued, squadrons and flotillas all talking at once: jest
and repartee, personalities and retorts flickering across the harbour
like summer lightning. Above it all, quelling the noisy tumult on the
instant, boomed the voice of the fleet flagship: “_Still!_”
A night bird called in some far-off bay, and the water lapped against
the smooth grey flanks of the ships, but there were no other sounds.
Then--
“_Battle and battle cruiser squadrons and light cruisers raise steam for
full speed with all dispatch. Report by squadrons when ready. Nth Battle
Squadron, destroyers, and submarines proceed instantly and rendezvous in
execution of previous orders._” The echoes broke back from the quiet
hills and died away.
“Gee!” muttered an irrepressible American ship. “Hold tight, Emma! we’re
off!”
“Gate!” yelped the destroyers, “stand by the gates!” and presently they
sped forth to meet the dawn and their destiny. The grinding sound of
cables crawling through the hawsepipes as the squadrons shortened in
filled the harbour. The dark water eddied and swirled as each ship tried
her engines; then one by one from the flagships of squadrons came the
deep-toned “Ready, aye, ready!”
Each time, like the chanted responses to a litany, the hospital ships
echoed “God go with you!” So the last hour of night passed.
Outside, as the dawn was paling in the sky, the night patrols
encountered the van of the battle fleet forming up across the waste of
grey waters beneath its pall of smoke.
“St. George!” rang the challenge. In one great breath came the fleet’s
reply:
“England!”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV
THE EPIC OF ST. GEORGE’S DAY, 1918
“ ... Let a plain statement suffice.”--_Rudyard Kipling._
It may be well to emphasise at the outset that the forces which
participated in the raids on Ostend and Zeebrugge on the night of April
22nd-23rd, did not set out with the mere intention of giving the world
an exhibition of gallantry and dash--a sort of grim Naval and Military
Tournament for the benefit of newspaper readers. The enterprise had
three clearly defined military objectives: the first of which was the
blocking of the Bruges ship canal at its entrance into the sea at
Zeebrugge; the second, the bottling up of Ostend harbour from the sea;
and thirdly, the infliction of the maximum damage possible in the time
upon the enemy in occupation of these two ports. The casualties,
considering the desperate nature of the undertaking, were light and
scarcely to be compared with those along the British front during a
single night of trench raids; and those among that gallant band of
volunteers who did not return, died in the knowledge that they had added
to history a page as fair as any the Navy has yet contributed.
The heavily fortified coastline between these two nests of the enemy
forms the base of a triangle with Bruges at the apex, affording
protection to a number of German torpedo-craft and submarines within
easy striking distance of the British coast and commerce routes. The
scheme adopted for sealing the two exits of this system was roughly as
follows.
It was proposed that obsolete craft filled with concrete and manned by
volunteers should proceed under their own steam and be sunk in the
entrances of the canal opening into Zeebrugge harbour, and of the port
of Ostend. A storming force was to disembark on Zeebrugge mole with
demolition materials, bombs, and machine-guns, and destroy the seaplane
sheds and other establishments. Simultaneously with the disembarkation
of this force the viaduct connecting the curved arm of the mole to the
mainland was to be blown up, thus preventing the enemy from despatching
reinforcements to support the guns’ crews and defenders of the mole.
While these assaults were in progress, a force of monitors and aerial
bombing squadrons were detailed to maintain a furious bombardment by sea
and air of all coastal batteries and works of military importance in the
neighbourhood.
The broad outline of the plan having been decided upon, the necessary
blocking craft were selected from the Knackers’ Yards of the Navy, ships
whose names conjure up forgotten commissions in tropic seas and a Navy
fast passing into legend. _Thetis_, _Intrepid_, and _Iphigenia_ for
Zeebrugge, _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_ for Ostend. To carry the assaulting
parties to the mole, H.M.S. _Vindictive_ was brought from distant
waters, and two Mersey ferry-craft, the _Iris_ and _Daffodil_, were
commissioned to pass down to posterity as her consorts in this desperate
undertaking.
The ships were easier to select than the men. Invitations were sent to
the Grand Fleet, the Home Port Depots, and the “Red” and “Blue” Marines
to supply the requisite volunteers; the Royal Australian and Canadian
Navies claimed their right to participate, and were also invited to send
representatives. The response would have furnished a force sufficient
to block half the ports of Germany had such an enterprise been
contemplated.
Eventually, however, the selections were made, and the flower of the Sea
Service set its hand to the task. Acting Captain A. F. B. Carpenter,
R.N., was appointed in command of the _Vindictive_, Commander Valentine
Gibbs, R.N., to the _Iris_, and Lieutenant H. G. Campbell, R.N., to the
_Daffodil_. In these three ships the storming and demolition parties
were to embark, and the latter was also charged with the duty of pushing
the _Vindictive_ alongside the mole and holding her there if her
specially designed mole-anchors failed to grapple.
The commands of the various blockships were distributed as follows:
_Thetis_, Commander R. S. Sneyd, D.S.O., R.N.; _Intrepid_, Lieutenant S.
S. Bonham Carter, R.N.; _Iphigenia_, Lieutenant E. W. Billyard-Leake,
R.N. The officer originally placed in command of the last-named ship,
and who actually superintended the early preparations of all the
blockships, was Lieutenant I. B. Franks, R.N. After weeks of labour and
indefatigable enthusiasm, this officer was laid low by appendicitis two
days before the actual attack, and he had in consequence to be removed
to a neighbouring hospital.
The two ships destined for Ostend, _Brilliant_ and _Sirius_, were
commanded respectively by Commander A. E. Godsal, R.N., and
Lieutenant-Commander H. N. M. Hardy, D.S.O., R.N. The attempt to block
Ostend proved only partly successful, as it transpired, and on a later
date Commander Godsal made a second effort to close the entrance that
cost him his life. The _Vindictive_, patched and battle-scarred, was
used for the second venture, and lies, at the time of writing, amid the
silt at the entrance of Ostend harbour, a fitting monument to the sturdy
spirit who took and left her there.
The Naval storming and demolition forces, under the command of Captain
H. C. Halahan, D.S.O., R.N., and the Marine storming force under
Lieutenant-Colonel B. N. Elliott, Royal Marines, were distributed
between the _Vindictive_, _Iris_, and _Daffodil_. The Naval storming
party was in charge of Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Harrison, R.N., and
the demolition force under the orders of Lieutenant C. C. Dickinson,
R.N.
Finally the two submarines which, filled with high explosive and manned
by volunteers, were to be launched against the viaduct to blow it up,
were assigned to Lieutenant Aubrey C. Newbold, R.N., and Lieutenant R.
D. Sandford, R.N., and escorted by a picket-boat commanded by the
latter’s brother, Lieutenant-Commander F. H. Sandford, D.S.O., R.N., who
personally organised this most desperate coup.
An attack of this nature, involving the use of very light craft, smoke
screens, air-craft, and a disembarkation alongside a pier in an open
seaway, necessarily depended for success upon a variety of factors. Sea,
tides, wind, and visibility all played their part, a conjunction of
ideal conditions being such that it could only occur at rare intervals,
and then by chance. The ships and men having been selected, and the
entire scheme rehearsed, perfected, and elaborated, ships and men
settled down to the long wait. The men in the front-line trench waiting
to go “over the bags” are not expansive in describing their sensations.
Something of that tense grim anticipation should have found a place on
board those crowded ships. Nevertheless, a spirit of pure picnic appears
to have reigned, coupled with a discipline maintained by the awesome
threat of not being allowed to participate in the “show” when it came
off.
The day came at length, and on May 22nd--St. George’s Eve--the force
proceeded from its place of assembly and, escorted by destroyers and
air-craft, passed up Channel. It was a brave and unusual array that
swept to the north-east as the light faded from the sky. Modern
destroyers steamed on the wings of the columns, one of which flew the
flag of Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.V.O., the old
_Vindictive_ in the van of the centre column with the _Iris_ and
_Daffodil_ in tow, for all the world like veteran hound on the trail
with her two puppies on her flanks; the five valiant blockships
followed, each with specially detailed parties below stoking for all
they were worth, that their old ships’ last voyage should be made at a
seemly speed. A cloud of motor launches filled the waterways between the
columns, and the two obsolete submarines, with their escorting
picket-boat, proceeded in tow of destoyers.
Meanwhile, from far and wide below the misty horizon the storm was
gathering. Monitors, supported by British and French destroyers, moved
quietly towards their allotted stations preparatory to the attack. From
the Grand Fleet’s eyrie in the far north to the base of the East Coast
Striking Force, covering and supporting squadrons were under weigh as
the night wore on. The destroyer flotillas swung into position like cats
round a mouse-hole lest any of the enemy’s torpedo-craft should be
tempted to bolt for the open when the attack began. The night air was
resonant with the drone of aerial craft on the wing.
Once the motley little fleet stopped, while the surplus steaming parties
were disembarked, with many a fierce hand-grip and the muttered “Good
luck, mate!” that is the fighting man’s _Ave atque vale_! At the
prearranged parting of the ways the force divided, steering separate
courses for Ostend and Zeebrugge, where, under the respective commands
of Commander Ion Hamilton Benn, M.P., R.N.V.R., and Captain Ralph
Collins, R.N., the motor launches were already close inshore, trailing
their smoke screens across the eyes of an uneasy and apprehensive enemy.
A cloud of Coastal Motor Boats, under the command of Lieutenant Welman,
R.N., had preceded them and were busily laying smoke floats and aids to
navigation.
Half an hour before the Zeebrugge force arrived at its destination,
star-shell began to curve skyward from the menaced harbour, fruitlessly
searching the darkness and artificial mist that enveloped the mole and
batteries. A little later, however, the wind (on which the smoke screen
depended for its success) wavered, died down, and awoke lightly again
from a contrary direction. Groping through the white billows of fog
rolling back upon her, the _Vindictive_ came out into a clear space lit
by star-shell, and saw, a cable ahead, her destination. A single gun on
the mole opened fired with a bark like a challenge, and the next instant
loosed a hellish uproar of guns from ship and shore. Through a tornado
of shrapnel and machine-gun fire, Captain Carpenter brought his veteran
command alongside the mole, and before St. George’s Day was a minute old
the _Vindictive_, blazing defiance from battery and top, was grating
against her fenders in the swell that surged across the outer wall.
According to the carefully thought-out scheme, Lieutenant Campbell in
the _Daffodil_ thrust the bows of his ship against the _Vindictive’s_
quarter and held her bodily alongside, enabling the already splintered
and shattered “brows,” or gangways, to reach the mole.
By this time the point-blank fire had taken heavy toll amid the closely
packed ranks awaiting disembarkation. Colonel Elliot and Major Cordner,
the two senior officers of the Royal Marine storming parties, and
Captain Halahan, Royal Navy, were already dead. Commander Valentine
Gibbs brought the _Iris_ alongside in the wake of the _Vindictive_ and
endeavoured to grapple; Lieutenant Hawkins, R.N., reached the mole,
secured the grappling anchor, and died. He was instantly followed by
Lieutenant-Commander Bradford, R.N., who was swung from a derrick with a
second anchor, and succeeded in securing it before he, too, was killed,
his riddled body falling into the water. A number of his men laboured
with fruitless devotion to recover his corpse, one, Petty Officer
Hallihan, giving his life in the attempt.
No sooner had the two foremost brows been launched from the _Vindictive_
than the storming parties, led by Lieutenant Commanders A. L. Harrison
and B. F. Adams, and Major B. G. Waller, Royal Marines, hurled
themselves across. The men were burdened with Lewis guns, bombs, and
demolition impedimenta; the scend of the swell caused the _Vindicitve_
to plunge heavily, and the brows rocked above a dizzy 30 feet drop,
rising and falling as the ship rolled. Yet the landing was accomplished
in the face of a gusty machine-gun fire that swept the face of the mole
like the breath of Death.
The first stormers of the mole found themselves on a pathway about nine
feet wide inside, and about four feet below the parapet of the mole. Two
German destroyers were alongside the mole on the harbour side, but
showed no activity, and the handful of the enemy found on the mole who
subsequently attempted to regain these vessels were killed, the
destroyers being liberally bombed. One of these craft was torpedoed
alongside by a Coastal Motor Boat.
Followed by his men, Lieutenant-Commander Adams captured the look-out
station on the mole, and was joined here by Wing-Commander F. A. Brock,
R.N.A.S., who had come in search of certain information, risking the
hazard of that bullet-swept mole to gain it. This gallant and
public-spirited officer was missed shortly after, and not seen again.
In the meanwhile Lieutenant-Commander Harrison led a desperate rush to
the westward against a machine-gun that was causing heavy casualties. He
was killed at the head of his men, and all old Rugby Internationals will
mourn that gallant forward who led his last rush to the muzzle of a
German gun. Lieutenant-Commander Adams subsequently returned and
searched for his body without avail amid the dead and litter of the
shrapnel-spattered causeway.
Details of that wild brave hour’s work on Zeebrugge mole will doubtless
come to us, as such details do, piecemeal in the years ahead; and many,
all too many, will for ever go unrecorded. In all the dashing gallantry
of that deathless assault none played a finer part than the Royal
Marines, the Corps that wears a laurel wreath in its proud crest. And
when the work was done and the syren eventually hooted the Recall
through the din and crashing uproar of bursting shell, it was the
Marines, shoulder to shoulder, who covered the retreat.
Of the retirement itself mere imagination tells enough to stir the blood
and quicken a man’s heart. The enemy had concentrated the fire of every
gun that would bear upon the mole and brows leading to the _Vindictive_:
back through this savage barrage came the remnants of those gallant
companies, reeling along with their wounded on their backs, to be struck
down and to rise again and stagger on with their burdens, turning every
now and then to shake bloody fists at the flaming docks and town beneath
its pall of smoke....
The blockships in the meanwhile had made the entrance, and led by
_Thetis_ crashed through the obstruction at the mouth of the harbour.
_Thetis_, finding that her propellers were foul of wires and nets,
and that she was rapidly losing way, signalled to her two consorts to
pass to starboard of her by firing a green rocket. She then grounded,
and riddled by gunfire from shore batteries and enemy craft in the
harbour, firing on her at almost point-blank range, took a heavy list.
Plastered with high explosives and gas, helpless and immovable, she
nevertheless engaged the nearest shore battery with her forecastle
gun until her own smoke made it impossible to continue firing.
Engineer-Lieutenant-Commander Boddie fearlessly stuck to his post in
the engine-room and succeeded in restarting one engine. This swung her
head into the dredged channel of the canal, up which the _Intrepid_ and
_Iphigenia_ had already passed cheering wildly and blazing fury from
every gun. Here the _Thetis_ quietly sank. A motor launch under command
of Lieutenant H. A. Littleton, R.N.V.R., who had followed devotedly at
her heels, embarked the surviving members of the ship’s company and,
turning, ran the gauntlet of the harbour mouth and regained the outer
sea.
The _Intrepid_, on passing the _Thetis_, made for the canal mouth, which
was clearly visible in the pale unearthly light of the star-shell. The
enemy fire at this moment being concentrated on the upper works of the
_Vindictive_ alongside the mole and the already disabled _Thetis_,
_Intrepid_ was enabled to reach the mouth of the canal, where Lieutenant
Bonham Carter calmly manœuvred her into position and fired the charges
which sank her.
It will be remembered that the additional steaming parties carried by
the blockships had disembarked before the ships neared the zone of
operations. A number of _Intrepid’s_ party, however, determined to
participate in the coming fight, had contrived to remain on board. These
surplus ratings, with the whole of the _Intrepid’s_ crew, then coolly
abandoned the ship in two cutters and a skiff. In these boats they rowed
down the canal and were picked up in the harbour by a British destroyer
and a motor launch in command of Lieutenant P. T. Dean, R.N.V.R.
Lieutenant Bonham Carter, together with his First Lieutenant and
Sub-Lieutenant, and four petty officers, remained behind to ensure that
the ship was sunk properly. The seven then launched the Carley float,
and in this unwieldy craft, lit by searchlights and with machine-gun
fire spurting all round them, paddled calmly down the canal and across
the harbour. They were also picked up by Lieutenant Dean, whose handling
of the crowded motor launch under a withering fire, and blinded by
searchlights, was described by Lieutenant Bonham Carter (whose standard
of gallantry may be presumed to be no mean one) as “simply magnificent.”
This motor launch subsequently picked up the survivors of the
_Iphigenia_, and succeeded in conveying her freight of over one hundred
survivors in addition to her crew outside the harbour and alongside the
destroyer flying Admiral Keyes’ flag. Of all the officers and men who
formed _Intrepid’s_ ship’s company (and never surely was a ship’s name
more happily chosen), only one man, Stoker Petty Officer H. L. Palliser,
was killed.
H.M.S. _Iphigenia_, the third of the blockships to enter the harbour
under heavy shrapnel fire, followed in the wake of the _Intrepid_. The
steam-pipe of her syren was severed, enveloping the bridge in steam and
rendered navigation no easy matter. She rammed a dredger with a barge in
tow, crashed clear, and drove the barge ahead of her into the canal.
Lieutenant Billyard-Leake caught sight of the _Intrepid_ aground with a
gap between herself and the eastern bank, and manœuvred his ship into
the vacant space. He then cleared the engine-room of its heroic
complement, fired the sinking charges, and abandoned ship in the only
remaining cutter. The motor launch that had already picked up
_Intrepid’s_ crew dashed in to the rescue, finally backing out stern
first (her bows being badly holed) and losing half her little complement
of deck hands from machine-gun fire ere she reached comparative safety.
As has already been said, the _Brilliant_ and _Sirius_ failed to block
Ostend completely, but were sunk where they grounded. The rescues of
officers and men were effected by motor launches with the same fearless
dash as was shown by the officers commanding these little craft at
Zeebrugge. Lieutenant K. R. Hoare, D.S.O., R.N.V.R., embarked
practically all the men from the _Sirius_ and sixteen from the
_Brilliant’s_ whaler, sunk by gunfire. The remainder of the
_Brilliant’s_ crew were taken off by Lieutenant R. Bourke, R.N.V.R.
After leaving the _Sirius_ an officer and a number of men were found to
be missing; a Coastal Motor Boat, commanded by Sub-Lieutenant P. B.
Clarke, R.N.R., with Lieutenant-Commander Hardy, R.N., and Lieutenant E.
L. Berthon, D.S.C., R.N., on board, thereupon returned, boarded the ship
under a heavy and accurate fire, and searched for their missing
comrades. They found no signs of life in either ship, but the missing
officer and men were subsequently picked up by a British cruiser
thirteen miles out to sea, still pulling gamely.
The part played by the submarine which destroyed the viaduct, and by her
attendant picket-boat, must not be overshadowed by the deathless tale
unfolding in the bullet-whipped waters of the adjoining harbour, and
along the bloodstained parapet of the mole. It is deserving of a Saga
all its own, but until that is written, the tale is best told simply,
halting though the prose. Owing to a breakdown, only one submarine
reached Zeebrugge, under the command of Lieutenant Sandford, R.N. The
mole was sighted silhouetted against the blaze of guns and searchlights:
and under a heavy fire of 4-inch shell the craft, with her cargo of high
explosives, was launched at full speed at the rows of piers supporting
the viaduct. She struck at right angles, riding up on to the horizontal
girders and penetrating up to the conning-tower. The crew then launched
the skiff, ignited the fuses, and pulled clear, while a company of
riflemen on the viaduct above opened fire upon them with machine-guns,
rifles, and pompoms. They continued pulling against a strong tide, and
although nearly all were wounded (Lieutenant Sandford twice) and the
boat only kept afloat by use of a specially designed pump, succeeded in
getting about 300 yards clear before the explosion took place. As was
anticipated, a gap of 150 feet was blown in the viaduct: concrete,
girders, men, guns, and searchlights being hurled to the skies in a
column of flame. The attendant picket-boat then swooped down and
rescued the occupants of the skiff, transferring them later to one of
the destroyers in the offing. The rescue was carried out under most
hazardous conditions, and the little steamboat, manned by a crew of
volunteers, with her fore compartment full of water, returned to England
under her own steam, and thus completed a journey of 170 miles.
One British destroyer which lost herself in the smoke, found herself,
when a gust of wind blew the smoke clear, well inside Zeebrugge harbour;
she had time, however, to discharge all her torpedoes at the vessels
alongside the mole before she was disabled by shell fire. She struggled
a couple of hundred yards outside the entrance to the harbour and lay
there a helpless log, sinking fast. A sister destroyer, under command of
Lieutenant-Commander H. E. Gore-Langton, R.N., swooped down upon her and
circled round until she was enveloped in smoke, under cover of which the
crew were disembarked. Attempts were made to take her in tow, but the
hawser was twice shot away. Her Captain, Lieutenant-Commander K. C.
Helyar, R.N., remained on his shattered bridge to the last, and only
abandoned her when she was sinking under him.
Back across the Channel as the day was breaking came the _Vindictive_,
_Iris_, and _Daffodil_, their task accomplished, and their names
flashing proudly to the uttermost outposts of the Empire.
Commander Valentine Gibbs, R.N., who had been struck by a shell while
the _Daffodil_ was getting clear, died during the passage, but recovered
consciousness before the end to ask faintly if all went well. They eased
the passing soul with the assurance that all had gone very well; and in
that comfortable knowledge his brave spirit fled.
The dawn broadened into day and lit the smouldering docks and
debris-strewn mole and the motionless outstretched figures still lying
where they fell. It lit the shell-torn upper works of five of His
Majesty’s ships which had finished their last commissions: _Thetis_,
_Sirius_, _Brilliant_, _Intrepid_ and _Iphigenia_, lying at the gates of
the enemy that none might pass out.
To these, at a later date, was added the _Vindictive_, and though in
time the enemy may dredge and blast the passages clear, though weed and
rust will creep over the battered hulls, something will long remain for
a testimony of the achievement; something--because of the blood which
once stained the splintered decks--
“That is for ever England.”
[Illustration]
EPILOGUE
The shadows were lengthening across the smooth lawns and terrace, and
the rooks in the elms behind the stable buildings had begun their
evening wrangle for roosting-places when the Ford car came rocking and
hooting up the avenue.
“Just as well we didn’t go to meet ’em,” murmured Aughtlone on the
threshold of the entrance hall, smiling above his half-rolled cigarette.
“I don’t see much of the place these days, but I’m expected to hold to
speed limits and consider my tenants’ nerves on the King’s highway when
I _am_ here. Lorton, of course, is an outlaw by instinct”--Lorton was
the chauffeur. “He’s been enjoying himself. To-morrow I shall be
requested to restock the poultry yards of four villages and subscribe
largely to the cottage hospital, after his devastating passage.”
Brakespear, sitting on the top step with his arms about an aged setter,
chuckled softly. “You always had a veneration for the law, Tony,” he
said, “even in the far-off days when we were cadets and discussed the
theory of war----” He raised one finger. “Hark! That’s Jerome. I
recognise his dulcet tones.” He stood up shading his eyes. “They’re all
there--Mayhew, Longridge, Foster; where’s Jerome? I can hear him.... Oh,
there he is! At least, there are his feet sticking up out of the
stern-sheets. We’re going to have our dinner-party after all, Tony.”
The car swung round the last curve with a splutter of gravel, and slowed
down as it approached the door. The occupants of the back seats
appeared to be engaged with a struggling object in the bottom of the
car, but gradually the turmoil subsided, and four flushed, grinning
faces appeared over the side. The car stopped and the passengers
emerged, disentangling suit-cases, fishing-rods, and golf-clubs from the
rugs. The chauffeur sat like a graven image with the expression of a man
who has done his best to instruct and entertain an audience without hope
of either recompense or acknowledgment on this side of the grave.
“_Nous sommes arrivés_,” crowed the stout Jerome, still panting from his
exertions; together they passed through into the lofty panelled hall in
a babble of chaff and laughter. “The stars in their courses fought for
us. We are reunited, my children, after--how many years is it? Very
clever of you to arrange it.” “Tony,” said another, “that chauffeur of
yours flicked your old bus along to some tune. He’s a star-turn.”
Aughtlone nodded resignedly. “He’s supposed to be suffering from
shell-shock and a piece of shrapnel in the apex of the heart. You
wouldn’t somehow suspect it, would you? Bag anything?”
“Only a hen,” said Foster, surrendering his suit-case to the butler and
exploring amid decanters and a siphon on a side table. “D.D.[5] She
lost her nerve and tried to nip across the road. Say when, Jerry....”
The stout one accepted the long tumbler. “Thanks.... Heigh-ho! Very nice
too.... Yes, that was all the damage.” He contemplated their host over
the rim of his glass. “You appear to own half the county, Tony---- don’t
grudge us a hen.”
“I grudge you nothing,” replied Aughtlone. He surveyed his guests
affectionately. “It’s so jolly good getting you all together like
this--at least, all of us that are----”
“Quite ...” said Foster, with a sudden note of seriousness in his tone.
“You look hot,” said Brakespear, changing the conversation, himself
immaculate in white flannels, with sleekly brushed head.
“All very fine for you to talk,” said the fat man with the eagle of the
Navy-that-Flies on the sleeve of his monkey-jacket. “Only crossed over
from Dunkirk this morning by the destroyer. Fell in with these--Thugs at
Waterloo, and spent the best part of the journey under the seat.”
“We had to strafe him,” explained Longridge. “Twice in the train and
once in the car. He would try and kiss his hand to all the loveliest of
God’s creatures we saw.”
Their host groaned. “What was she like--the last one, I mean?”
“In a governess cart,” said Mayhew, “with two kids and a pink hat.”
The Flying Man put down his glass. “The pink hat may have been hers,” he
said, “but I’m blowed if----”
“No,” said Aughtlone quickly. “No, they’re her nieces. That’s the
vicar’s daughter. ‘Mr. Jerome, you’ll get me ’ung,’ as Harker used to
say.”
“Not ’tall,” said the graceless one. “She was much too busy looking
after the fat pony to notice _us_. ’Sides----”
Mayhew glanced at his watch. “What time’s dinner, Tony? Because what I’d
like to do is ‘strip right down an’ ’ave a barf. I can’t really talk
till I’ve had a tub.”
“Me too,” chimed in Longridge. “Chops and I have come straight down from
the Northern Base, travelling all night.”
The host pressed the bell. “Loads of time. Dinner’s not for another
three-quarters of an hour. Have a cigarette and tell us about the Great
Silent Navy. Remember, I’m only a dug-out East-coast Minesweeper--a
humble country squire masquerading as a naval officer--and I want to
hear about things. There wasn’t a Grand Fleet when I retired.”
“How long leave have you got, Tony?” asked Foster.
“A fortnight,” replied Aughtlone, and turned as the butler reappeared.
“Hughes, take Mr. Mayhew and Mr. Longridge along presently and
sand-and-canvas them. They can share one bathroom, and that’ll leave
room for us. A fortnight,” he resumed, and extending his cigarette
watched the steady smoke ascending. “Blown up last Tuesday, and thought
it was a fair excuse to put in for some leave and fix up this dinner....
Nerves, you know, and all that.” He smiled.
“Of course,” said the fat man. “Very tryin’ work. We dropped six tons of
explosives on Zeebrugge Monday night, and lost two machines. I got my
leave all right though, thanks to a twitching eyelid.” He surveyed the
company with an unmoved countenance. “Nerves are the devil unless you
take ’em in time; and I’m getting old....” He chuckled fatly.
Hughes appeared on the threshold with the announcement that the baths
were ready. He had known and suffered gladly most of that laughing
assembly off and on for the past decade. “Put a nice cake of dog-soap
in each one, Hughes,” said Brakespear, “and have their clothes baked....
They’re trying to come the ‘Back to-Blighty-from-the-Trenches’ on us,
these heroic figures from the Battle Fleet and Battle Cruiser Fleet. Ask
’em to tell you about the Battle of Jutland, Hughes.”
* * * * *
Dinner, with the mellow candlelight half revealing the portraits of
bygone Aughtlones on the walls, had reached the duck-and-green-peas
stage when Retrospection laid a cold finger on the mind of the Battle
Fleet’s representative. “Very nearly thought our leave was going to be
kyboshed,” he observed to Longridge.
“Last Monday? Yes, so did I. Directly we got the steaming signal I
thought all was over. We didn’t know the battleships were out till we
got to sea: heard you chatting to the Admiralty on the H.P. wireless
wave, and then we thought there was something on.” The Battle Cruiser
Wireless Expert chuckled. “After a bit the Hun woke up and started
bleating, and we got scraps of Telefunken from the south, mixed up with
pats on the back to our destroyers from the Admiralty.”
The youngest modern destroyer commander in the service moved
uncomfortably in his chair.
“And in the morning ‘Peace, perfect peace’ from the flagship and ‘Back
to harbour,’” said the gunnery lieutenant from the Battle Fleet. “The
usual weary stunt. You bagged a Zepp, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Inquisitive blighter. You’d have enjoyed that.”
“Twelve-inch?”
“Shrapnel.”
“Ah,” said Jerome complacently, “that was our little show. Glad you all
enjoyed yourselves.”
“Yes,” cut in Brakespear quickly, “you flushed ’em very nicely down
south that night. We Destroyers had a very pretty little dust-up.”
“What did you do, Jerry?” asked Aughtlone. “We all seem to have been
more or less mixed up in the affair--Foster, were you embroiled?”
The Minelayer chuckled. “Indirectly,” he said, “but nothing very
spectacular. We’ve usually got home and tucked each other up in by-bye
when the fireworks start, in _our_ line of business!”
“Come on, Jerry,” said Mayhew; “what did you do in the Great War,
daddy?”
“Well,” said the stout one, suffering Hughes to replenish his glass,
“well, personally, I didn’t do a hell of a lot that night. But the--what
d’ye call it?--cumulative effect wasn’t too bad. That was the night they
sprang a new stunt on us. Things that looked like balls of fire--red-hot
liquid stuff. I got a lump on my fuselage and it ran down the plane and
dripped off--like phosphorus streaming off the blade of an oar in the
dark.... I had a 530-lb. bomb tucked under my seat and I was nervous....
I’m getting old, anyway. Dam’ nearly thirty.”
“Start at the beginning,” said Aughtlone hungrily.
“No, no,” interrupted Longridge in a low voice. “Let him tell it in his
own comic way. Jerry always begins somewhere near the end.”
The stout one assumed an injured expression. “What’s wrong? I _am_
starting at the beginning.... We went up along the coast. I took a
squadron of ’planes: Flight Leaders: two Canucks, a New Zealander, and
an Oxford undergraduate who’d lost his young woman in the _Lusitania_
and didn’t care if it snowed ink: a Yank who’d been in Belgium when the
Huns started what he called ‘getting gay’--newspaper reporter or
something--and a Yorkshire dog-fancier--a quirk,[6] but full-out. They
were all full-out, as a matter of fact: good lads, especially the Yank.”
The narrator paused. “He’d seen a baby in a butcher’s shop--in Liège, I
think it was. The Huns had cut its hands off and hung it on a hook....
He was not so much a scientific bomber, really, as zealous. Very
zealous.... I lost the quirk, and one of my Canucks, but the other got
back all right.”
“Alpha and Omega,” cut in Foster. “The beginning and the end. Now,
Jerry, let’s have the story.”
“Hang it, I’ve told you the story. You know the rest, anyhow. I dropped
my contribution to the gaiety of nations, and the lock-gates went. There
were half a dozen destroyers in harbour, and they got the wind up them
and bolted for the open sea----”
“That’s when _we_ nabbed ’em,” said Brakespear. “They were trying to nip
for Ostend, and they put up a very pretty little scrap, thanks, Jerry.
We Destroyers were waiting outside.”
“Not ’t all!” said the Flying Man modestly; “we’d had all the fun we
wanted. There was a squadron of Handley Pages there, and some French
machines, and they made the oil-tanks look like Cities of the Plain
before they went home.” He turned to Longridge. “’Member the review at
Spithead before the war--when they had that searchlight display, all the
beams whirling round in the sky? You dined with me that night.”
Longridge nodded. “I remember. We went on deck to watch the
performance.... It made me sick,” he concluded naïvely.
“Well,” said Jerome, “I looked back over my shoulder on the return
journey, and thought of that night at Spithead. The sky looked like a
huge Catherine wheel. We made a photographic reconnaissance next
day....” he clucked softly with his tongue against his teeth. “Tony,” he
said, “that place looked like your face would if you got small-pox after
fighting ten rounds with Jack Johnson without gloves.”
“Thank you,” said his host. “Simile seems to be your strong point
to-night.”
“It’s the drink,” said Longridge. “He develops a graphic style if you
leave the decanter near him and don’t interrupt.”
“Where did you catch ’em, Brakes, you and your precious T.B.D.’s?” asked
Foster. “We were going home when the fun started. Laid our eggs early
and decided that the quiet life was the thing that really appealed to
us.”
“Close in,” was the reply. “One Division cut ’em off and the other
waited for ’em. It was a well-organised little show.” He laughed. “Ever
since that show of the _Broke’s_ every mother’s son in the Destroyer
Force walks about with a fire-bar down the leg of his trousers--so as to
have it handy, don’t you know.... My foremost guns’ crews spend their
dog-watches sharpening their cutlasses on their razor-strops and making
knuckle-dusters: ... the sailor is nothing if he isn’t thorough.
“Well, that night we picked out our opposite number by the name of his
funnels, and I put my old hooker at him, an’ rammed him, full bore.
Caught him rather far forward--farther than I meant to, but good enough
for the purpose. It was like cutting cheese with a hot knife.... Then of
course the matelots went berserk. I saw the gunner’s mate go over the
side on to her forecastle, lugging a maxim with him and howling like a
dervish at the head of a crowd that looked as if they’d rushed out of a
pirate junk instead of a respectable British destroyer. My yeoman of
signals borrowed my automatic pistol, and sprayed it about till I
wrenched it away from him for fear he’d hit one of our men. The sub was
clawing at her ensign with a party of die-hards round him laying about
them with cutlasses like characters in a Shakespearian play, and to add
to the excitement the watch below in the engine-room, who had just been
relieved, were slinging scalding cocoa over the rails into the Huns’
faces.” The speaker wiped his mouth, after an interval for refreshment.
“I’m still hoarse with laughing and bawling at the gunner’s mate not to
start easing off the maxim into the crowd. And if you could have seen
’em lugging prisoners over the rail, and the Huns trying to pull them
back by their feet--like a lot of demented people pulling crackers
across a table! Lord! I shall never forget it if I live to be a million.
“Then she sank--just fell in half and went down. I had half my ship’s
company in the water, as well as the Huns. They were just like a lot of
fighting dogs after a hose had been played on them. Lucky the Hun hadn’t
got a submarine about, because I had to stop and pick ’em all up.
Another Hun destroyer had been torpedoed not far off, and was burning
like a hayrick. She enlivened matters by taking ‘sitters’ at us with her
after-gun while she sank, so I had to silence her first, and by the time
I got the last of my Death-or-Glory boys out of the water they were
pretty far gone. I asked one fellow how he’d enjoyed himself, and he
said, ‘Law, sir, fine! We was flickin’ off their ’eads wiv the cutlass,
same’s it might ha’ bin dandelions!’”
“Take many prisoners?” asked Aughtlone, laughing.
“Fifty-one, _and_ their flag. The sub told me he wanted to present it to
the ‘Goat’ or Westminster Abbey, wasn’t sure which. Some of the Huns
were pretty nearly done, and my surgeon probationer had a busy time
getting life back into one or two. He carried them down to the stokehold
and worked at ’em in the warmth. While he was down there, the sub came
up to me and said there was another in the forecastle lockers, pegging
out, he thought; so when things got quiet, I went along to see if I
could do anything. He was just about all-in, but he had strength enough
to put out his tongue at me----”
“Saucy puss!” from Jerome.
“He was clay cold, and no amount of rubbing would warm him, so I told a
couple of braves to carry him down to the doctor in the stokehold. The
Hun just knew enough English to catch the word ‘stokehold,’ and he
thought I’d ordered him to be shoved into the furnace for putting out
his tongue at me. Imagine the sort of minds they must have.”
“Their officers tell ’em those penny-dreadful stories to discourage a
tendency to surrender,” said Foster.
“Well, it saved his life, anyway, that spasm. He yelled and fought and
bit and kicked. It took five men to get him along the upper-deck, and
all the way he was shouting: ‘Ach, no! No!--No!--No!--No!’ at the top of
his voice. By the time we got him to the stokehold hatchway he’d
recovered all the animation he’d ever had, and there wasn’t any need for
the doctor!”
“What was the total bag?” asked Mayhew.
“Four--one rammed, two torpedoed, and one sunk by gunfire by the light
cruisers. There were six all-told.”
“But,” interrupted Longridge, “doesn’t it rather tickle you to think of
our being able to wipe the floor with their destroyers and not a blessed
capital ship dares come out of Wilhelmshaven to save ’em! There we were
in the Battle Cruisers, trailing the tail of our coat all round the
Heligoland Bight, and--nothing doing, if you please. Ain’t that what’s
called Sea Power?”
“Hum’m,” said Foster, and chuckled. “I don’t know about Sea Power: I’m
only a humble Minelayer. But this may throw some light on the
situation.” He drew a pocket-book from his pocket. “I saw a translation
of a paragraph from a Dutch paper in the press this morning. I cut it
out to send my skipper in case he hadn’t seen it.” He handed the slip to
Aughtlone. “I thought it would cheer him up.”
“The crew of the---- Lightship report that at 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning
a number of very heavy explosions occurred in a southerly direction. In
several cases a sheet of flame was seen to ascend to an altitude of at
least 150 metres. One of the men who had passed through the North Sea on
the night of the Battle of Jutland stated that he recognised the flashes
as from big ships blowing up.”
Aughtlone read the cutting aloud, and handed it back. “That was your
dirty work, was it?”
The minelayer laughed. “Act o’ God, we like to call it,” he said. “Or in
the words of that beautiful poem:
“The boy, oh, where was he?”
Aughtlone joined in the laughter. “That’s all very fine,” he said, “but
didn’t any of your lighthouse friends further north observe my little
contretemps later on in the morning? But perhaps they wouldn’t notice a
mere minesweeper blowing up.” He removed the stoppers from the decanters
and pushed them to Mayhew on his left. “That Zepp you were talking about
evidently gave the tip that you were out to a mine-laying submarine,
because we located a minefield on what would have been the Battle
Fleet’s course if you’d come south. I lost a paddler clearing it, and
got a swim before breakfast.”
“How did you know the minefield was there?” asked Longridge.
“Dutch ship blew up. ‘Matter of fact, she blew up on a stray one. I went
to the position she’d given us, and before we started sweeping we were
on top of Fritz’s eggs which he’d intended for you. Ah, well, we raked
’em up and I got my leave, so we won’t bear Fritz any malice this time.”
He paused, glass in hand.
“The King,” he said quietly.
“The King,” murmured the others. “Yes, I got my leave out of that
night’s work, too,” said the destroyer captain. “Rather damaged our
classic profile, and had to dock for a few days to straighten the
stem....”
Beyond the open bay windows the blue dusk was closing down on the yews
and scented borders. The long, deep drone of a cockchafer went past and
died to nothing.
The host sent the decanters on their second round and leaned forward a
little in his chair.
“It’s been jolly nice to see you dear old things again,” he said, “and
talk over the War, as we swore we would some day when we were kids.” He
paused. “And now there’s a toast I vote we drink. He--he’d have been
here if this dinner had been a month earlier. As it is----” he raised
his glass--“we can only drink to his memory.”
No name was mentioned. They nodded; drank gravely, in silence and
perfect comprehension.
Brakespear, facing his host, broke the silence. “I saw him a couple of
days ago,” he said quietly.
“Eh?” ejaculated Jerome sharply.
“But,” said Foster, “his boat was lost--oh, more than three weeks ago.”
Brakespear nodded. “I know. But they salved her and brought her in, near
where my ship was lying. Dacre--the submarine one, not his brother--went
on board to make an examination and--and take the bodies out. So I went
too, because he and I--I was very fond of him....” Brakespear reached
for the cigar lighter.
“What happened?” asked Mayhew. “We never hear any details of these
things up north.”
“Well, they got holed and sank stern first apparently. Stuck in the
bottom. However, they managed to stop the hole up with clothing and
tallow and stopped the inrush of water: but they couldn’t move the boat.
Blew everything and shifted weights, but she wouldn’t budge. Then the
first lieutenant volunteered to go out through the bow torpedo tube.
They tied a message to his wrist and he crawled into the tube: they
fired it with compressed air, as if he’d been a torpedo. They waited for
a couple of hours, and then someone opened the tube door, just to make
sure.... But he was still there--jambed....”
The butler entered with the coffee, and the narrator was silent till he
had gone.
“You know the foremost hatch in those boats, for lowering torpedoes?” he
resumed. “Apparently they decided to try getting a big air pressure in
the boat, then open this hatch and chance being blown through to the
surface in the bubble.” The speaker puffed a cloud of smoke and watched
it eddy about the flowers in the centre of the table. “So they stripped
and put on swimming collars and life-belts, and mustered two-deep under
the hatchway.”
Longridge was tracing a pattern in the ash from his cigarette on the
side of his dessert-plate. “All of ’em?” he interrupted. “Shouldn’t have
thought there was room.”
“No there wasn’t. There wasn’t room for _him_ or his coxswain. We found
those two fully dressed, without life-belts or anything, right the other
end of the compartment away from any hope of escape. But he wrote his
report, giving clear and explicit directions for salving, amongst other
things, and tied it to the second coxswain’s wrist.... Then when they
were all ready he gave the word--from the other end of the
compartment--and the men all heaved the hatch up together.”
Behind the speaker’s shoulders the blue oblongs of the windows had
darkened into blackness. A nightingale far off among the laurels was
pouring out her liquid song into the night, and for a while Brakespear
seemed to be listening to it, twirling the stem of his wine-glass
absently between finger and thumb. No one spoke.
“It was one of those stupid little accidents,” he went on presently,
still in the same low, grave tones, “a thing so utterly insignificant,
that stood between Life and Death for them. Yet it happened. The hatch
opened about six inches and jambed. They could neither raise nor lower
it. The water just poured in.”
“Drowned ’em,” said Longridge tensely. The superfluity of the remark
seemed to strike him. “Of course,” he added, as if talking to himself.
“Yes.”
“And they were still two-deep when you found them?” asked Foster.
“Yes. There must have been perfect discipline from first to last. And
his letter----”
The speaker’s voice caught abruptly, as a trailing garment catches in a
nail. The ensuing silence remained unbroken till Aughtlone slowly pushed
back his chair.
“I vote we go and have a game of pool,” he said quietly.
* * * * *
The hall clock chimed one on a thin scandalised note as the candle-lit
procession wended its way bedwards up the wide stair-way. It was one of
the Aughtlone traditions that the old house should remain lit by lamps
and candles.
Aughtlone led the way, and, as he reached the gallery overlooking the
hall, he turned, smiling, and raised his candle above his head as if to
light the way better for his guests. They came towards him by ones and
twos, Jerome encircling Foster’s neck with his arm and crooning softly
to himself, a picture of Falstaffian contentment: Mayhew, with one hand
on the balustrade, looking back over his shoulder to address some
laughing remark to Longridge at his heels; Brakespear bringing up the
rear, grave and thoughtful as was his wont, his thin, handsome face
white as ivory against the dark panelling.
“Hi, Podgie!” called Mayhew, “ain’t they goin’ to make you a
Major-General in the Air Force, or something? What’s all this talk about
amalgamating the R.N.A.S. and R.F.C.?”
The Flying Man reached the landing and disentangled his arm from his
companion. “I shall be a Lieutenant-Colonel,” he said. “A
Lieutenant-Colonel--me, what’s been in the Navy, man and boy, these
fifteen years.” He frowned severely at an armour-clad effigy against the
wall. “Amalgamate----”
“Never mind,” said Foster. “Never mind, Podgie, _we_ don’t care. We
shall know you couldn’t help being a Lieutenant-Colonel, and that you
belonged to the Navy once.”
“He’ll always belong to it,” said Mayhew. “He’s only camouflaged, and
one of these days he’ll come back to us. The Navy ain’t like any other
profession: you can’t suddenly become something else by dressing up in a
different rig”--he pointed to the effigy in armour--“any more than I’d
cease to be a Gunnery Lieutenant if I shoved on that fellow’s superfine
tin suitings.”
“This,” said Longridge, “is developing into a ‘Branch-kagg.’[7] I’m
going to turn in.”
“Breakfast at ten!” shouted the host as Longridge detached himself from
the group and disappeared up a corridor.
“And, anyhow,” said Brakespear, “even if our Podgie fades away, to
become a Lieutenant-Colonel in a gorgeous uniform----”
“Sky-blue, ain’t it, Podgie?” interposed Aughtlone. Brakespear
disregarded the interruption.
“Even if, I say, Podgie departs from our midst, the Navy remains. And if
I--even I--go up in the next ‘Jutland,’ or Foster trips over one of his
infernal machines accidentally in the dark----”
“Or I get wafted skywards clearing a mine-field next week,” said
Aughtlone.
“Exactly.... Others would take our places. The individual doesn’t
count.--Podgie, you’re dripping candle-grease on Tony’s ormulu
carpet....”
“I’m going to bed,” said the stout one. “You’re all getting a trifle
maudlin....”
Foster yawned. “I’m going too. But Brakes is right. What’s it matter
what happens to us as long as we shove the wheel round a spoke or two in
our short trick?” He wagged his head solemnly. “Life’s dev’lish short,
anyway.... Come on, Podgie. ‘And so to bed.’ ... ’Night all!”
Aughtlone watched the twin glimmers fade away down the long corridor and
turned to his last remaining guest.
“We’re a tongue-tied breed,” he said. “We’ve been trying to voice some
tremendous sentiment that’s been struggling for expression all the
evening, and----”
“It’s had us beat,” said Brakespear. He made a circle in the air with
the wavering candle-flame. “It’s too big. We’ve all seen so much in this
bloody war, collectively.... We feel that we are the Navy and the Navy
is us; yet, somehow, we don’t count much as individuals.”
“It’s because we’re finite,” said Aughtlone. He leaned against the
carved balustrade that swept round and up into the darkness of the great
house, and stared absently at the mailed figure standing in the
shadows: the light of the candles flickered on hauberk and vizor through
which the breath of some forgotten ancestor had once come and gone. “The
individual passes----”
“Yes,” said Brakespear. He took a step along the thick carpet and
halted. “But the Navy’s eternal.”
[Illustration]
FINIS
_Printed in Great Britain by Hasell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and
Aylesbury._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Belly-muster,” as its name gracefully implies, was a parade
of lightly clad suspects in procession past the sick bay while the
lynx-eyed surgeon scanned each brisket for traces of incipient
chicken-pox rash.
[A] The chapter bearing this title was written before the passing of
the Air Force Act. It is included in this book “without prejudice,” as
the lawyers say.
[2] _The Riddle of the Sands._
[3] White mice were carried in the early types of submarines to give
warning, by their antics, of an escape of gas.
[4] By the ancient custom of the Navy a defaulter removes his cap when
his case is investigated by the captain.
[5] Discharged Dead. The official notation of death in H.M. Navy.
[6] A novice.
[7] An argument as to the comparative merits and demerits of the
respective branches of H.M. Naval Service.
*** End of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "The Navy eternal : which is The Navy-that-floats, The Navy-that-flies and The Navy-under-the-sea" ***