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.”