by
IN LOWESTOFT a boat was laid, Mark well what I do say! And she was built for the herring trade, But she has gone a-rovin, a-rovin, a-rovin, The Lord knows where!
They gave her Government coal to burn,
Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship
Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales,
Her engineer is fifty-eight,
Her leading-stokers seventeen,
Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs Home, |
The main principles of sea-warfare hold good throughout all ages and, so far as the Navy has been allowed to put out her strength, these principles have been applied over all the seas of the world. For matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days.
In the late French wars, a merchant sailing out of a Channel port might in a few hours find himself laid by the heels and under way for a French prison. His Majestys ships of the Lineand even the big frigates, took little part in policing the waters for him, unless he were in convoy. The sloops, cutters, gun-brigs, and local craft of all kinds were supposed to look after that, while the Line was busy elsewhere. So the merchants passed resolutions against the inadequate protection afforded to the trade, and the narrow seas were full of single-ship actions; mail-packets, West Country brigs, and fat East Indiamen fighting for their own hulls and cargo anything that the watchful French ports sent against them; the sloops and cutters bearing a hand if they happened to be within reach.
Since this most Christian war includes laying mines in the fairways of traffic, and since these mines may be laid at any time by German submarines especially built for the work, or by neutral ships, all fairways must be swept continuously day and night. When a nest of mines is reported, traffic must be hung up or deviated till it is cleared out. When traffic comes up Channel it must be examined for contraband and other things; and the examining tugs lie out in a blaze of lights to remind ships of this. Months ago, when the war was young, the tugs did not know what to look for specially. Now they do. All this mine-searching and reporting and sweeping, plus the direction and examination of the traffic, plus the laying of our own ever-shifting mine-fields, is part of the Trawler Fleets work, because the Navy-as-we-knew-it is busy elsewhere. And there is always the enemy submarine with a price on her head, whom the Trawler fleet hunts and traps with zeal and joy. Add to this, that there are boats, fishing for real fish, to be protected in their work at sea or chased off dangerous areas where, because they are strictly forbidden to go, they naturally repair, and you will begin to get some idea of what the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet does.
Lastly, there are German submarines who perish by ways so curious and inexplicable that one could almost credit the whispered idea (it must come from the Scotch skippers) that the ghosts of the women drowned pilot them to destruction. But what form these shadows takewhether of the Lusitania Ladies, or humbler stewardesses and hospital nursesand what lights or sounds the thing fancies it sees or hears before it is blotted out, no man will ever know. The main fact is that the work is being done. Whether it was necessary or politic to re-awaken by violence every sporting instinct of a sea-going people is a question which the enemy may have to consider later on.
Being nearly all fishermen they discuss their work in terms of fish, and put in their leisure fishing overside, when they sometimes pull up ghastly souvenirs. But they all want guns. Those who have three-pounders clamour for sixes; sixes for twelves; and the twelve-pound aristocracy dream of four-inchers on anti-aircraft mountings for the benefit of roving Zeppelins. They will all get them in time, and I fancy it will be long ere they give them up. One West Country mate announced that a gun is a handy thing to have aboardalways. But in peace-time? I said, Wouldnt it be in the way
Wem used to em now, was the smiling answer. Niver go to sea again without a gunI wouldntif I had my way. It keeps all hands pleased-like. They talk about men in the Army who will never willingly go back to civil life. What of the fishermen who have tasted something sharper than salt waterand what of the young third and fourth mates who have held independent commands for nine months past? One of them said to me quite irrelevantly: I used to be the animal that got up the trunks for the women on baggage-days in the old Bodiam Castle, and he mimicked their requests for the large brown box, or the black dress basket, as a freed soul might scoff at his old life in the flesh.
DAWN off the Forelandthe young flood making Jumbled and short and steep Black in the hollows and bright where its breaking Awkward water to sweep. Mines reported in the fairway, Warn all traffic and detain. Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.
Noon off the Forelandthe first ebb making
Dusk off the Forelandthe last light going |
And if you hit a mine? I asked.
You go upbut you hadnt ought to hit em, if youre careful. The thing is to get hold of the first mine all right, and then you go on to the next, and so on, in a way o speakin.
And you can fish, too, tween times, said a voice from the next boat. A man leaned over and returned a borrowed mug. They talked about fishingnotably that once they caught some red mullet, which the common sweeper and his neighbbur both agreed was not natural in those waters. As for mere sweeping, it bored them profoundly to talk about it. I only learned later as part of the natural history of mines, that if you rake the tri-nitro-toluol by hand out of a German mine you develop eruptions and skin-poisoning. But on the authority of two experts, there is nothing in sweeping. Nothing whatever!
Elizabeths scandal must be fairly high flavoured, for a torpedo-boat of immoral aspect slings herself out of harbour and hastens to share it. If Elizabeth has not spoken the truth, there may be words between the parties. For the present a pencilled suggestion seems to cover the case, together with a demand, as far as one can make out, for more common sweepers. They will be forthcoming very shortly. Those at work have got the run of the mines now, and are busily howking them up. A trawler-skipper wishes to speak to the Office. They have ordered him out, but his boiler, most of it, is on the quay at the present time, and yell remember, its the same wi my foremast an port rigging, sir. The Office does not precisely remember, but if boiler and foremast are on the quay the rest of the ship had better stay alongside. The skipper falls away relieved. (He scraped a tramp a few nights ago in a bit of a sea.) There is a little mutter of gun-fire somewhere across the grey water where a fleet is at work. A monitor as broad as she is long comes back from wherever the trouble is, slips through the harbour-mouth, all wreathed with signals, is received by two motherly lighters, and, to all appearance, goes to sleep between them. The Office does not even look up for that is not in their department. They have found a trawler to replace the boilerless one. Her name is slid into the rack. The immoral torpedo-boat flounces back to her moorings. Evidently what Elizabeth Huggins said was not evidence. The messages and replies begin again as the day closes.
You never said this was going to happen, I said reproachfully to my A.B.
No more I did, said he, Its the night-patrol going out, Fact is, Im so used to the bloomin evolution that it never struck me to mention it as you might say.
Next morning I was at service in a man-of-war, and even as we came to the prayer that the Navy might be a safeguard to such as pass upon the sea on their lawful occasions, I saw the long procession of traffic resuming up and down the Channelsix ships to the hour. It has been hung up for a bit, they said.
FAREWELL and adieu to you, Greenwich ladies, Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore! For weve received orders to work to the eastward Where we hope in a short time to strafe em some more.
Well duck and well dive like little tin turtles,
The first thing we did was to dock in a mine-field,
The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin, |
The commanders is more a one-man job, as the crews is more team work, than any other employment afloat. That is why the relations between submarine officers and men are what they are. They play hourly for each others lives with Death the Umpire always at their elbow on tiptoe to give them Out.
There is a stretch of water, once dear to amateur yachtsmen, now given over to scouts, submarines,destroyers, and, of course, contingents of trawlers. We were waiting the return of some boats which were due to report. A couple surged up the still harbour in the afternoon light and tied up beside their sisters. There climbed out of them three or four high-booted, sunken-eyed pirates clad in sweaters, under jackets that a stoker of the last generation would have disowned. This was their first chance to compare notes at close hand. Together they lamented the loss of a Zeppelina perfect mug of a Zepp, who had come down very low and offered one of them a sitting shot. But what can you do with our guns? I gave him what I had, and then he started bombing.
I know he did, another said. I heard him. Thats what brought me down to you. I thought he had you that last time
No, I was forty foot under when he hove out the big un. What happened to you?
My steering-gear jammed just after I went down, and I had to go round in circles till I got it straightened out. But wasnt he a mug!
Was he the brute with the patch on his port side? a sister-boat demanded.
No! This fellow had just been hatched. He was almost sitting on the water, heaving bombs over.
And my blasted steering-gear went and chose then to go wrong, the other commander mourned.
I thought his last little egg was going to get me!
Half an hour later I was formally introduced to three or four quite strange, quite immaculate officers, freshly shaved, and a little tired about the eyes, whom I thought I had met before.
Said one philosopher: They cant be expected to take any more risks than they do. I wouldnt, if I was a skipper. Id loose off at any blessed periscope I saw.
Thats all very fine. You wait till youve had a patriotic tramp trying to strafe you at your own back-door, said another.
Some one told a tale of a man with a voice, notable even in a Service where men are not trained to whisper. He was coming back, empty-handed, dirty, tired, and best left alone. From the peace of the German side he had entered our hectic home-waters, where the usual tramp shelled, and by miraculous luck, crumpled his periscope. Another man might have dived, but Boanerges kept on rising. Majestic and wrathful he rose personally through his main hatch, and at 2000 yards (have I said it was a still day?) addressed the tramp. Even at that distance she gathered it was a Naval officer with a grievance, and by the time he ran alongside she was in a state of coma, but managed to stammer: Well, sir, at least youll admit that our shooting was pretty good.
And that, said my informant, put the lid on! Boanerges went down lest he should be tempted to murder, and the tramp affirms she heard him rumbling beneath her, like an inverted thunderstorm, for fifteen minutes.
All those tramps ought to be disarmed, and we ought to have all their guns, said a voice out of a corner,
What? Still worrying over your mug? some one replied.
He was a mug! went on the man of one idea. If Id had a couple of twelves even, I could have strafed him proper. I dont know whether I shall mutiny, or desert, or write to the First Sea Lord about it.
Strafe all Admiralty constructors to begin with. I could build a better boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine-tin than , the speaker named her by letter and number.
Thats pure jealousy, her commander explained to the company. Ever since I installedahem!my patent electric wash-basin hes been intriguin to get her. Why? We know he doesnt wash. Hed only use the basin to keep beer in.
And since we are dealing in nightmares, here are two moreone genuine, the other, mercifully, false. There was a boat not only at, but in the mouth of a riverwell home in German territory. She was spotted, and went under, her commander perfectly aware that there was not more than five feet of water over her conning-towerso that even a torpedo-boat, let alone a destroyer, would hit it if she came over. But nothing hit anything. The search was conducted on scientific principles while they sat on the silt and suffered. Then the commander heard the rasp of a wire trawl sweeping over his hull. It was not a nice sound, but there happened to be a couple of gramophones aboard, and he turned them both on to drown it, And in due time that boat got home with everybodys hair of just the same colour as when they had started!
The other nightmare arose out of silence and imagination. A boat had gone to bed on the bottom in a spot where she might reasonably expect to be looked for, but it was a convenient jumping off, or up, place for the work in hand. About the bad hour of 2.30 A.M. the commander was waked by one of his men, who whispered to him: Theyve got the chains on us, sir! Whether it was pure nightmare, an hallucination of long wakefulness, something relaxing and releasing in that packed box of machinery, or the disgustful reality, the commander could not tell, but it had all the makings of panic in it, So the Lord and long training put it into his head to reply! Have they? Well, we shant be coming up till nine oclock this morning. Well see about it then. Turn out that light, please.
He did not sleep, but the dreamer and the others did; and when morning came and he gave the order to rise, and she rose unhampered, and he saw the grey smeared seas from above once again, he said it was a very refreshing sight.
Lastly, which is on all fours with the gamble of the chase, a man was coming home rather bored after an uneventful trip. It was necessary for him to sit on the bottom for awhile, and there he played patience. Of a sudden it struck him, as a vow and an omen, that if he worked out the next game correctly he would go up and strafe something. The cards fell all in order. He went up at once and found himself alongside a German, whom, as he had promised and prophesied to himself, he destroyed, She was a mine-layer, and needed only a jar to dissipate like a cracked electriclight bulb. He was somewhat impressed by the contrast between the single-handed game fifty feet below, the ascent, the attack, the amazing result, and when he descended again, his cards just as he had left them.
THE SHIPS destroy us above And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we move In the belly of Death.
The ships have a thousand eyes |
When we set forth there had been some trouble in the fairway, and a mined neutral, whose misfortune all bore with exemplary calm, was careened on a near by shoal.
Suppose there are more mines knocking about? I suggested.
Well hope there arent, was the soothing reply. Mines are all Joss. You either hit em or you dont. And if you do, they dont always go off. They scrape alongside.
Whats the etiquette then?
Shut off both propellers and hope.
We were dodging various craft down the harbour when a squadron of trawlers came out on our beam, at that extravagant rate of speed which unlimited Government coal always leads to. They were led by an ugly, upstanding, black-sided buccaneer with twelve-pounders.
Ah! Thats the King of the Trawlers, Isnt he carrying dog, too! Give him room! one said.
We were all in the narrowed harbour mouth together.
Theres my youngest daughter. Take a look at her! some one hummed as a punctilious navy cap slid by on a very near bridge.
Well fall in behind him, Theyre going over to the neutral. Then theyll sweep. By the bye, did you hear about one of the passengers in the neutral yesterday. He was taken off, of course, by a destroyer, and the only thing he said was:
Twenty-five time I ave insured, but not this time. . . . Ang it!
The trawlers lunged ahead toward the forlorn neutral. Our destroyer nipped past us with that high-shouldered, terrier-like pouncing action of the newer boats, and went ahead. A tramp in ballast, her propeller half out of water, threshed along through the sallow haze.
Lord! What a shot! somebody said enviously. The men on the little deck looked across at the slow-moving silhouette, One of them, a cigarette behind his ear, smiled at a companion. Then we went downnot as they go when they are pressed (the record, I believe, is 50 feet in 50 seconds from top to bottom), but genteelly, to an orchestra of appropriate sounds, roarings, and blowings, and after the orders, which come from the commander alone, utter silence and peace.
Theres the bottom. We bumped at fiftyfifty-two, he said.
I didnt feel it
Well try again. Watch the gauge, and youll see it flick a little.
The attack and everything connected with it is solely the commanders affair. He is the only one who gets any fun at allsince he is the eye, the brain, and the hand of the wholethis single figure at the periscope. The second in command heaves sighs, and prays that the dummy torpedo (there is less trouble about the live ones) will go off all right, or hell be told about it. The others wait and follow the quick run of orders. It is, if not a convention, a fairly established custom that the commander shall inferentially give his world some idea of what is going on. At least, I only heard of one man who says nothing whatever, and doesnt even wriggle his shoulders when he is on the sight. The others soliloquise, etc., according to their temperament; and the periscope is as revealing as golf.
Submarines nowadays are expected to look out for themselves more than at the old practices, when the destroyers walked circumspectly. We dived and circulated under water for a while, and then rose for a sightsomething like this: Up a littleup! Up still! Where the deuce has he got toAh (Half a dozen orders as to helm and depth of descent, and a pause broken by a drumming noise somewhere above, which increases and passes away.) Thats better! Up again! (This refers to the periscope.) Yes. AhINo, we dont think! All right! Keep her down, damn it! Umm! That ought to be nineteen knots, . . . Dirty trick! Hes changing speed. No, he isnt, Hes all right. Ready forward there! (A valve sputters and drips, the torpedo-men crouch over their tubes and nod to themselves. Their faces have changed now.) He hasnt spotted us yet. Well ju-ust(more helm and depth orders, but specially helm)Wish we were working a beam-tube. Neer mind!, Up! (A last string of orders,) Six hundred, and he doesnt see us! Fire!
The dummy left; the second in command cocked one ear and looked relieved. Up we rose; the wet air and spray spattered through the hatch; the destroyer swung off to retrieve the dummy,
Careless brutes destroyers are, said one officer. That fellow nearly walked over us just now. Did you notice?
The commander was playing his game out over againstroke by stroke, With a beam-tube Id ha strafed him amidships, he concluded.
Why didnt you then? I asked,
There were loads of shiny reasons, which reminded me that we were at war and cleared for action, and that the interlude had been merely play. A companion rose alongside and wanted to know whether we had seen anything of her dummy.
No. But we heard it, was the short answer.
I was rather annoyed, because I had seen that particular daughter of destruction on the stocks only a short time ago, and here she was grown up and talking about her missing children.
In the harbour again, one found more submarines, all patterns and makes and sizes, with rumours of yet more and larger to follow. Naturally their men say that we are only at the beginning of the submarine. We shall have them presently for all purposes.
A man gets a boat which for two years becomes his very self
His morning hope, his evening dream, His joy throughout the day. |
With him is a second in command, an engineer, and some others, They prove each others souls habitually every few days, by the direct test of peril, till they act, think, and endure as a unit, in and with the boat. That commander is transferred to another boat. He tries to take with him if he can, which he cant, as many of his other selves as possible. He is pitched into a new type twice the size of the old one, with three times as many gadgets, an unexplored temperament and unknown leanings. After his first trip he comes back clamouring for the head of her constructor, of his own second in command, his engineer, his cox, and a few other ratings. They for their part wish him dead on the beach, because, last commission with So-and-so, nothing ever went wrong anywhere. A fortnight later you can remind the commander of what he said, and he will deny every word of it. Shes not, he says, so very vilethings considered, barring her five-ton torpedo-derricks, the abominations of her wireless, and the tropical temperature of her beer-lockers. All of which signifies that the new boat has found her soul, and her commander would not change her for battle-cruisers. Therefore, that he may remember he is the Service and not a branch of it, he is after certain seasons shifted to a battle-cruiser, where he lives in a blaze of admirals and aiguillettes, responsible for vast decks and crypt-like flats, a student of extended above-water tactics, thinking in tens of thousands of yards instead of his modest but deadly three to twelve hundred.
And the man who takes his place straightway forgets that he ever looked down on great rollers from a sixty-foot bridge under the whole breadth of heaven, but crawls and climbs and dives through conning-towers with those same waves wet in his neck, and when the cruisers pass him, tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he is not as they are, and goes to bed beneath their distracted keels.
(This was at a little session in a green-curtained wardroom cum owners cabin.)
Then theres no truth in the yarn that you can feel when the torpedos going to get home? I asked.
Not a word. You sometimes see it get home, or miss, as the case may be. Of course, its never your fault if it misses. Its all your second-in command.
Thats true, too, said the second. I catch it all round. Thats what I am here for.
And what about the third man? There was one aboard at the time.
He generally comes from a smaller boat, to pick up real workif he can suppress his intellect and doesnt talk last commission,
The third hand promptly denied the possession of any intellect, and was quite dumb about his last boat.
And the men?
They train on, too. They train each other. Yes, one gets to know em about as well as they get to know us. Up topside, a man can take you intake himself infor months; for half a commission, prhaps. Down below he cant. Its all in cold bloodnot like at the front, where they have something exciting all the time.
Then bumping mines isnt exciting?
Not one little bit. You cant bump back at em. Even with a Zepp
Oh, now and then, one interrupted, and they laughed as they explained.
Yes, that was rather funny. One of our boats came up slap underneath a low Zepp. Looked for the sky, you know, and couldnt see anything except this fat, shining belly almost on top of em, Luckily, it wasnt the Zepps stingin end. So our boat went to windward and kept lust awash. There was a bit of a sea, and the Zepp had to work against the wind. (They dont like that.) Our boat sent a man to the gun. He was pretty well drowned, of course, but he hung on, choking and spitting, and held his breath, and got in shots where he could. This Zepp was strafing bombs about for all she was worth, andwho was it? Macartney, I think, potting at her between dives; and naturally all hands wanted to look at the performance, so about half the North Sea flopped down below andoh, they had a Charlie Chaplin time of it! Well, somehow, Macartney managed to rip the Zepp a bit, and she went to leeward with a list on her. We saw her a fortnight later with a patch on her port side. Oh, if Fritz only fought clean, this wouldnt be half a bad show. But Fritz cant fight clean.
And we cant do what he doeseven if we were allowed to, one said.
No, we cant. Tisnt done. We have to fish Fritz out of the water, dry him, and give him cocktails, and send him to Donnington Hall.
And what does Fritz do? I asked.
He sputters and clicks and bows. He has all the correct motions, you know; but, of course, when hes your prisoner you cant tell him what he really is.
And do you suppose Fritz understands any of it? I went on.
No. Or he wouldnt have lusitaniaed. This war was his first chance of making his name, and he chucked it all away for the sake of showin off as a foul Gottstrafer.
And they talked of that hour of the night when submarines come to the top like mermaids to get and give information; of boats whose business it is to fire as much and to splash about as aggressively as possible; and of other boats who avoid any sort of displaydumb boats watching and relieving watch, with their periscope just showing like a crocodiles eye, at the back of islands and the mouths of channels where something may some day move out in procession to its doom.
BE WELL assured that on our side Our challenged oceans fight, Though headlong wind and leaping tide Make us their sport to-night Through force of weather, not of war, In jeopardy we steer. Then welcome Fates discourtesy Whereby it shall appear How in all time of our distress As in our triumph too, The game is more than the player of the game, And the ship is more than the crew!
Be well assured, though wave and wind
Be well assured that on our side |
ON THE edge of the North Sea sits an Admiral in charge of a stretch of coast without lights or marks, along which the traffic moves much as usual. In front of him there is nothing but the east wind, the enemy and some few our ships. Behind him there are towns, with M.P.s attached, who a little while ago didnt see the reason for certain lighting orders. When a Zeppelin or two came they saw. Left and right of him are enormous docks, with vast crowded sheds, miles of stone-faced quay-edges, loaded with all manner of supplies and crowded with mixed shipping.
In this exalted world one met Staff-Captains, Staff-Commanders, Staff-Lieutenants, and Secretaries, with Paymasters so senior that they almost ranked with Admirals. There were Warrant Officers, too, who long ago gave up splashing about decks barefoot, and now check and issue stores to the ravenous, untruthful fleets. Said one of these, guarding a collection of desirable things, to a cross between a sick-bay attendant and a junior writer (but he was really an expert burglar), No! And you can tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compliments, that the storekeepers gone awayright awaywith the key of these stores in his pocket. Understand me? In his trousers pocket.
He snorted at my next question.
Do I know any destroyer-lootenants? said he. This coasts rank with em! Destroyer-lootenants are born stealing. Its a mercy theys too busy to practice forgery, or Id be in gaol. Engineer-Commanders? Engineer-Lootenants? Theyre worse! . . . Look here! If my own mother was to come to me beggin brass screws for her own coffin, IdId think twice before Id oblige the old lady. Wars war, I grant you that; but what Ive got to contend with is crime.
I referred to him a case of conscience in which every one concerned acted exactly as he should, and it nearly ended in murder. During a lengthy action, the working of a gun was hampered by some empty cartridge-cases which the lieutenant in charge made signs (no man could hear his neighbour speak just then) should be hove overboard. Upon which the gunner rushed forward and made other signs that they were on charge, and must be tallied and accounted for. He too, was trained in a strict school. Upon which the lieutenant, but that he was busy, would have slain the gunner for refusing orders in action. Afterwards he wanted him shot by court-martial. But every one was voiceless by then, and could only mouth and croak at each other, till somebody laughed, and the pedantic gunner was spared.
Well, thats what you might fairly call a naval crux, said my friend among the stores. The Lootenant was right. Mustnt refuse orders in action. The Gunner was right. Empty cases are on charge. No one ought to chuck em away that way, but . . . Damn it, they were all of em right. It ought to ha been a marine. Then they could have killed him and preserved discipline at the same time.
The blackboard idea of it is always to have stronger forces more immediately available everywhere than those the enemy can send. x German submarines draw a English destroyers. Then x calls x+y to deal with a, who, in turn, calls up b, a scout, and possibly a2, with a fair chance that if x+y+z (a Zeppelin) carry on they will run into a2+b2+c cruisers. At this point, the equation generally stops; if it continued, it would end mathematically in the whole of the German Fleet coming out. Then another factor which we may call the Grand Fleet would come from another place. To change the comparisons: the Grand fleet is the strong left ready to give the knockout blow on the point of the chin when the head is thrown up. The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemys solar plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand fleet lies the blockading cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up to date.
The enemy lies behind his mines, and ours, raids our coasts when he sees a chance, and kills seagoing civilians at sight or guess, with intent to terrify. Most sailor-men are mixed up with a woman or two; a fair percentage of them have seen men drown. They can realise what it is when women go down choking in horrible tangles and heavings of draperies. To say that the enemy has cut himself from the fellowship of all who use the seas is rather understating the case. As a man observed thoughtfully: You cant look at any water now without seeing Lusitania sprawlin all across it. And just think of those words, North-German Lloyd, Hamburg-Amerika and such things, in the time to come, They simply mustnt be.
He was an elderly trawler, respectable as they make them, who, after many years of fishing, had discovered his real vocation. I never thought Id like killin men, he reflected. Never seemed to be any o my dooty. But it isand I do!
A great deal of the East Coast work concerns minefieldsours and the enemysboth of which shift as occasion requires. We search for and root out the enemys mines; they do the like by us. It is a perpetual game of finding, springing, and laying traps on the least as well as the most likely runaways that ships use, such sea snaring and wiring as the world never dreamt of. We are hampered in this, because our Navy respects neutrals; and spends a great deal of its time in making their path safe for them. The enemy does not. He blows them up, because that cows and impresses them, and so adds to his prestige.
No, thank you, said he. Last time I was blown up in my bunk, too. That was all right. So I think, now, too, I stay in my bunk here. It is cold upstairs.
Somehow or other they got out of the mess after all. Yes, we used to take mines awfully seriously in those days. One comfort is, Fritzll take them seriously when he comes out. Fritz dont like mines.
Who does? I wanted to know.
If youd been here a little while ago, youd seen a Commander come in with a big un slung under his counter. He brought the beastly thing in to analyse. The rest of his squadron followed at two-knot intervals, and everything in harbour that had steam up scattered.
Whatll he do this time? I asked of one who might know.
Hell cruise between Two and Three East; but if youll tell me what he wont do, it ud be more to the point! Hes mine-hunting, I expect, just now.
Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning, And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole, I heard a destroyer sing: What an enjoya- ble life does one lead on the North Sea Patrol!
To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritzs),
We warn from disaster the mercantile master
So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving, |
I watched a little party working under a leading hand at a job which, eighteen months ago, would have required a Gunner in charge. It was comic to see his orders trying to overtake the execution of them. Ratings coming aboard carried themselves with a (to me) new swingnot swank, but consciousness of adequacy. The high, dark focsles which, thank goodness, are only washed twice a week, received them and their bags, and they turned-to on the instant as a man picks up his life at home. Like the submarine crew, they come to be a breed apartdouble-jointed, extra-toed, with brazen bowels and no sort of nerves.
It is the same in the engine-room, when the ships come in for their regular looking-over. Those who love them, which you would never guess from the language, know exactly what they need, and get it without fuss. Everything that steams has her individual peculiarity, and the great thing is, at overhaul, to keep to it and not develop a new one. If, for example, through some trick of her screws not synchronising, a destroyer always casts to port when she goes astern, do not let any zealous soul try to make her run true, or you will have to learn her helm all over again. And it is vital that you should know exactly what your ship is going to do three seconds before she does it. Similarly with men. If any one, from Lieutenant-Commander to stoker, changes his personal trick or habiteven the manner in which he clutches his chin or caresses his nose at a crisisthe matter must be carefully considered in this world where each is trustee for his neighbours life and, vastly more important, the corporate honour.
What are the destroyers doing just now? I asked.
Ohrunning aboutmuch the same as usual.
The Navy hasnt the least objection to telling one everything that it is doing. Unfortunately, it speaks its own language, which is incomprehensible to the civilian. But you will find it all in The Channel Pilot and The Riddle of the Sands
It is a foul coast, hairy with currents and rips, and mottled with shoals and rocks. Practically the same men hold on here in the same ships, with much the same crews, for months and months. A most senior officer told me that they were good boyson reflection, quite good boys,but neither he nor the flags on his chart explained how they managed their lightless, unmarked navigations through black night, blinding rain, and the crazy, rebounding North Sea gales. They themselves ascribe it to Joss that they have not piled up their ships a hundred times.
I expect it must be because were always dodging about over the same ground. One gets to smell it. Weve bumped pretty hard, of course, but we havent expended much up to date. You never know your luck on patrol, though.
Whats he sayin? Secure that gun, will you? Cant hear oneself speak. The gun is a bit noisy on its cone, but that isnt the reason for the destroyer-lieutenants short temper.
Says hes goin down, sir, the signaller replies. What the submarine had spelt out, and everybody knows it, was: Cannot approve of this extremely frightful weather. Am going to bye-bye.
Well!, snaps the lieutenant to his signaller, what are you grinning at? The submarine has hung on to ask if the destroyer will kiss her and whisper good-night. A breaking sea smacks her tower in the middle of the insult. She closes like an oyster, butjust too late, Habet! There must be a quarter of a ton of water somewhere down below, on its way to her ticklish batteries.
What a wag!, says the signaller, dreamily. Well, e cant say e didnt get is little kiss.
The lieutenant in command smiles. The sea is a beast, but a just beast.
It is no lie that at the present moment we hold all the seas in the hollow of our hands. For that reason we shuffle over them shame-faced and apologetic, making arrangements here and flagrant compromises there, in order to give substance to the lie that we have dropped fortuitously into this high seat and are looking round the world for some one to resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, had we used the Navys bare fist instead of its gloved hand from the beginning, we could in all likelihood have shortened the war. That being so, we elected to dab and peck at and half-strangle the enemy, to let him go and choke him again. It is no lie that we continue on our inexplicable path animated, we will try to believe till other proof is given, by a cloudy idea of alleviating or mitigating something for somebody, not ourselves. [Here, of course, is where our racial snobbery comes in, which makes the German gibber. I cannot understand why he has not accused us to our Allies of having secret commercial understandings with him.] For that reason, we shall finish the German eagle as the merciful lady killed the chicken. It took her the whole afternoon, and then, you will remember, the carcase had to be thrown away.
Meantime, there is a large and unlovely water, inhabited by plain men in severe boats, who endure cold, exposure, wet, and monotony almost as heavy as their responsibilities. Charge them with heroism, but that needs heroism, indeed! Accuse them of patriotism, they become ribald. Examine into the records of the miraculous work they have done and are doing. They will assist you, but with perfect sincerity they will make as light of the valour and forethought shown as of the ends they have gained for mankind. The Service takes all work for granted. It knew long ago that certain things would have to be done, and it did its best to be ready for them. When it disappeared over the sky-line for manuvres it was practisingalways practising; trying its men and stuff and throwing out what could not take the strain. That is why, when war came, only a few names had to be changed, and those chiefly for the sake of the body, not of the spirit. And the Seniors who hold the key to our plans and know what will be done if things happen, and what links wear thin in the many chains, they are of one fibre and speech with the Juniors and the lower deck and all the rest who come out of the undemonstrative households ashore. Here is the situation as it exists now, say the Seniors. This is what we do to meet it. Look and count and measure and judge for yourself, and then you will know.
It is a safe offer. The civilian only sees that the sea is a vast place, divided between wisdom and chance. He only knows that the uttermost oceans have been swept clear, and the trade-routes purged, one by one, even as our armies were being convoyed along them; that there was no island nor key left unsearched on any waters that might hide an enemys craft between the Arctic Circle and the Horn. He only knows that less than a days run to the eastward of where he stands, the enemys fleets have been held for a year and four months, in order that civilisation may go about its business on all our waters.
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