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.