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GREAT BRITAIN
AT WAR
BY
JEFFERY FARNOL
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918
_Copyright, 1917_,
BY THE RIDGEWAY CO., IN THE UNITED STATES AND
GREAT BRITAIN.
_Copyright, 1917_,
BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY.
_Copyright, 1917_,
THE TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION.
_Copyright, 1918_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published, March, 1918
Norwood Press
Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR
_BY JEFFERY FARNOL_
THE BROAD HIGHWAY
THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN
THE HONOURABLE MR. TAWNISH
BELTANE THE SMITH
THE DEFINITE OBJECT
To
ALL MY
AMERICAN FRIENDS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I FOREWORD 1
II CARTRIDGES 6
III RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 12
IV CLYDEBANK 24
V SHIPS IN MAKING 33
VI THE BATTLE CRUISERS 40
VII A HOSPITAL 58
VIII THE GUNS 69
IX A TRAINING CAMP 88
X ARRAS 103
XI THE BATTLEFIELDS 115
XII FLYING MEN 125
XIII YPRES 144
XIV WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 156
GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR
I
FOREWORD
In publishing these collected articles in book form (the result of my
visits to Flanders, the battlefields of France and divers of the
great munition centres), some of which have already appeared in the
press both in England and America, I do so with a certain amount of
diffidence, because of their so many imperfections and of their
inadequacy of expression. But what man, especially in these days, may
hope to treat a theme so vast, a tragedy so awful, without a sure
knowledge that all he can say must fall so infinitely far below the
daily happenings which are, on the one hand, raising Humanity to a
godlike altitude or depressing it lower than the brutes. But, because
these articles are a simple record of what I have seen and what I
have heard, they may perhaps be of use in bringing out of the
shadow--that awful shadow of "usualness" into which they have
fallen--many incidents that would, before the war, have roused the
world to wonder, to pity and to infinite awe.
Since the greater number of these articles was written, America has
thrown her might into the scale against merciless Barbarism and
Autocracy; at her entry into the drama there was joy in English and
French hearts, but, I venture to think, a much greater joy in the
hearts of all true Americans. I happened to be in Paris on the
memorable day America declared war, and I shall never forget the
deep-souled enthusiasm of the many Americans it was my privilege to
know there. America, the greatest democracy in the world, had at last
taken her stand on the side of Freedom, Justice and Humanity.
As an Englishman, I love and am proud of my country, and, in the
years I spent in America, I saw with pain and deep regret the
misunderstanding that existed between these two great nations. In
America I beheld a people young, ardent, indomitable, full of the
unconquerable spirit of Youth, and I thought of that older country
across the seas, so little understanding and so little understood.
And often I thought if it were only possible to work a miracle, if it
were only possible for the mists of jealousy and ill-feeling, or
rivalry and misconception to be swept away once and for all--if only
these two great nations could be bonded together by a common ideal,
heart to heart and hand to hand, for the good of Humanity, what
earthly power should ever be able to withstand their united strength.
In my soul I knew that the false teaching of history--that great
obstacle to the progress of the world--was one of the underlying
causes of the misunderstanding, but it was an American Ambassador who
put this into words. If, said he, America did not understand the aims
and hopes of Great Britain, _it was due to the textbooks of history
used in American schools_.
To-day, America, through her fighting youth and manhood, will see
Englishmen as they are, and not as they have been represented. Surely
the time has come when we should try and appreciate each other at our
true worth.
These are tragic times, sorrowful times, yet great and noble times,
for these are days of fiery ordeal whereby mean and petty things are
forgotten and the dross of unworthy things burned away. To-day the
two great Anglo-Saxon peoples stand united in a noble comradeship for
the good of the world and for those generations that are yet to be, a
comradeship which I, for one, do most sincerely hope and pray may
develop into a veritable brotherhood. One in blood are we, in speech,
and in ideals, and though sundered by generations of misunderstanding
and false teaching, to-day we stand, brothers-in-arms, fronting the
brute for the freedom of Humanity.
Americans will die as Britons have died for this noble cause;
Americans will bleed as Britons have bled; American women will mourn
as British women have mourned these last terrible years; yet, in
these deaths, in this noble blood, in these tears of agony and
bereavement, surely the souls of these two great nations will draw
near, each to each, and understand at last.
Here in a word is the fulfilment of the dream; that, by the united
effort, by the blood, by the suffering, by the heartbreak endured of
these two great English-speaking races, wars shall be made to cease
in all the world; that peace and happiness, truth and justice shall
be established among us for all generations, and that the united
powers of the Anglo-Saxon races shall be a bulwark behind which
Mankind may henceforth rest secure.
Now, in the name of Humanity, I appeal to American and to Briton to
work for, strive, think and pray for this great and glorious
consummation.
II
CARTRIDGES
At an uncomfortable hour I arrived at a certain bleak railway
platform and in due season, stepping into a train, was whirled away
northwards. And as I journeyed, hearkening to the talk of my
companions, men much travelled and of many nationalities, my mind was
agog for the marvels and wonders I was to see in the workshops of
Great Britain. Marvels and wonders I was prepared for, and yet for
once how far short of fact were all my fancies!
Britain has done great things in the past; she will, I pray, do even
greater in the future; but surely never have mortal eyes looked on an
effort so stupendous and determined as she is sustaining, and will
sustain, until this most bloody of wars is ended.
The deathless glory of our troops, their blood and agony and scorn of
death have been made pegs on which to hang much indifferent writing
and more bad verse--there have been letters also, sheaves of them, in
many of which effusions one may discover a wondering surprise that
our men can actually and really fight, that Britain is still the
Britain of Drake and Frobisher and Grenville, of Nelson and Blake and
Cochrane, and that the same deathless spirit of heroic determination
animates her still.
To-night, as I pen these lines, our armies are locked in desperate
battle, our guns are thundering on many fronts, but like an echo to
their roar, from mile upon mile of workshops and factories and
shipyards is rising the answering roar of machinery, the thunderous
crash of titanic hammers, the hellish rattle of riveters, the
whining, droning, shrieking of a myriad wheels where another vast
army is engaged night and day, as indomitable, as fierce of purpose
as the army beyond the narrow seas.
I have beheld miles of workshops that stand where grass grew two
short years ago, wherein are bright-eyed English girls, Irish
colleens and Scots lassies by the ten thousand, whose dexterous
fingers flash nimbly to and fro, slender fingers, yet fingers
contriving death. I have wandered through a wilderness of whirring
driving-belts and humming wheels where men and women, with the same
feverish activity, bend above machines whose very hum sang to me of
death, while I have watched a cartridge grow from a disc of metal to
the hellish contrivance it is.
And as I watched the busy scene it seemed an unnatural and awful
thing that women's hands should be busied thus, fashioning means for
the maiming and destruction of life--until, in a remote corner, I
paused to watch a woman whose dexterous fingers were fitting finished
cartridges into clips with wonderful celerity. A middle-aged woman,
this, tall and white-haired, who, at my remark, looked up with a
bright smile, but with eyes sombre and weary.
"Yes, sir," she answered above the roar of machinery, "I had two boys
at the front, but--they're a-laying out there somewhere, killed by
the same shell. I've got a photo of their graves--very neat they
look, though bare, and I'll never be able to go and tend 'em,
y'see--nor lay a few flowers on 'em. So I'm doin' this instead--to
help the other lads. Yes, sir, my boys did their bit, and now they're
gone their mother's tryin' to do hers."
Thus I stood and talked with this sad-eyed, white-haired woman who
had cast off selfish grief to aid the Empire, and in her I saluted
the spirit of noble motherhood ere I turned and went my way.
But now I woke to the fact that my companions had vanished utterly;
lost, but nothing abashed, I rambled on between long alleys of
clattering machines, which in their many functions seemed in
themselves almost human, pausing now and then to watch and wonder and
exchange a word with one or other of the many workers, until a kindly
works-manager found me and led me unerringly through that riotous
jungle of machinery.
He brought me by devious ways to a place he called "holy
ground"--long, low outbuildings approached by narrow, wooden
causeways, swept and re-swept by men shod in felt--a place this,
where no dust or grit might be, for here was the magazine, with the
filling sheds beyond. And within these long sheds, each seated behind
a screen, were women who handled and cut deadly cordite into needful
lengths as if it had been so much ribbon, and always and everywhere
the same dexterous speed.
He led me, this soft-voiced, keen-eyed works-manager, through
well-fitted wards and dispensaries, redolent of clean, druggy smells
and the pervading odour of iodoform; he ushered me through dining
halls long and wide and lofty and lighted by many windows, where
countless dinners were served at a trifling cost per head; and so at
last out upon a pleasant green, beyond which rose the great gates
where stood the cars that were to bear my companions and myself upon
our way.
"They seem to work very hard!" said I, turning to glance back whence
we had come, "they seem very much in earnest."
"Yes," said my companion, "every week we are turning out--" here he
named very many millions--"of cartridges."
"To be sure they are earning good money!" said I thoughtfully.
"More than many of them ever dreamed of earning," answered the
works-manager. "And yet--I don't know, but I don't think it is
altogether the money, somehow."
"I'm glad to hear you say that--very glad!" said I, "because it is a
great thing to feel that they are working for the Britain that is,
and is to be."
III
RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS
A drive through a stately street where were shops which might rival
Bond Street, the Rue de la Paix, or Fifth Avenue for the richness and
variety of their contents; a street whose pavements were thronged
with well-dressed pedestrians and whose roadway was filled with motor
cars--vehicles, these, scornful of the petrol tax and such-like
mundane and vulgar restrictions--in fine, the street of a rich and
thriving city.
But suddenly the stately thoroughfare had given place to a meaner
street, its princely shops had degenerated into blank walls or grimy
yards, on either hand rose tall chimney stacks belching smoke;
instead of dashing motor cars, heavy wains and cumbrous wagons
jogged by; in place of the well-dressed throng were figures
rough-clad and grimy that hurried along the narrow sidewalks--but
these rough-clad people walked fast and purposefully. So we hummed
along streets wide or narrow but always grimy, until we were halted
at a tall barrier by divers policemen, who, having inspected our
credentials, permitted us to pass on to the factory, or series of
factories, that stretched themselves before us, building on
building--block on block--a very town.
Here we were introduced to various managers and heads of departments,
among whom was one in the uniform of a Captain of Engineers, under
whose capable wing I had the good fortune to come, for he, it seemed,
had lived among engines and machinery, had thought out and contrived
lethal weapons from his youth up, and therewith retained so kindly
and genial a personality as drew me irresistibly. Wherefore I gave
myself to his guidance, and he, chatting of books and literature and
the like trivialities, led me along corridors and passage-ways to
see the wonder of the guns. And as we went, in the air about us was a
stir, a hum that grew and ever grew, until, passing a massive swing
door, there burst upon us a rumble, a roar, a clashing din.
We stood in a place of gloom lit by many fires, a vast place whose
roof was hid by blue vapour; all about us rose the dim forms of huge
stamps, whose thunderous stroke beat out a deep diapason to the ring
of countless hand-hammers. And, lighted by the sudden glare of
furnace fires were figures, bare-armed, smoke-grimed, wild of aspect,
figures that whirled heavy sledges or worked the levers of the giant
steam-hammers, while here and there bars of iron new-glowing from the
furnace winked and twinkled in the gloom where those wild, half-naked
men-shapes flitted to and fro unheard amid the thunderous din. Awed
and half stunned, I stood viewing that never-to-be-forgotten scene
until I grew aware that the Captain was roaring in my ear.
"Forge ... rifle barrels ... come and see and mind where you tread!"
Treading as seemingly silent as those wild human shapes, that
straightened brawny backs to view me as I passed, that grinned in
the fire-glow and spoke one to another, words lost to my stunned
hearing, ere they bent to their labour again, obediently I followed
the Captain's dim form until I was come where, bare-armed,
leathern-aproned and be-spectacled, stood one who seemed of some
account among these salamanders, who, nodding to certain words
addressed to him by the Captain, seized a pair of tongs, swung open a
furnace door, and plucking thence a glowing brand, whirled it with
practised ease, and setting it upon the dies beneath a huge
steam-hammer, nodded his head. Instantly that mighty engine fell to
work, thumping and banging with mighty strokes, and with each stroke
that glowing steel bar changed and changed, grew round, grew thin,
hunched a shoulder here, showed a flat there, until, lo! before my
eyes was the shape of a rifle minus the stock! Hereupon the
be-spectacled salamander nodded again, the giant hammer became
immediately immobile, the glowing forging was set among hundreds of
others and a voice roared in my ear:
"Two minutes ... this way."
A door opens, closes, and we are in sunshine again, and the Captain
is smilingly reminiscent of books.
"This is greater than books," said I.
"Why, that depends," says he, "there are books and books ... this
way!"
Up a flight of stairs, through a doorway, and I am in a shop where
huge machines grow small in perspective. And here I see the rough
forging pass through the many stages of trimming, milling, turning,
boring, rifling until comes the assembling, and I take up the
finished rifle ready for its final process--testing. So downstairs we
go to the testing sheds, wherefrom as we approach comes the sound of
dire battle, continuous reports, now in volleys, now in single
sniping shots, or in rapid succession.
Inside, I breathe an air charged with burnt powder and behold in a
long row, many rifles mounted upon crutches, their muzzles levelled
at so many targets. Beside each rifle stand two men, one to sight and
correct, and one to fire and watch the effect of the shot by means of
a telescope fixed to hand.
With the nearest of these men I incontinent fell into talk--a chatty
fellow this, who, busied with pliers adjusting the back-sight of a
rifle, talked to me of lines of sight and angles of deflection, his
remarks sharply punctuated by rifle-shots, that came now slowly, now
in twos and threes and now in rapid volleys.
"Yes, sir," said he, busy pliers never still, "guns and rifles is
very like us--you and me, say. Some is just naturally good and some
is worse than bad--load up, George! A new rifle's like a kid--pretty
sure to fire a bit wide at first--not being used to it--we was all
kids once, sir, remember! But a bit of correction here an' there'll
put that right as a rule. On the other hand there's rifles as Old
Nick himself nor nobody else could make shoot straight--ready,
George? And it's just the same with kids! Now, if you'll stick your
eyes to that glass, and watch the target, you'll see how near she'll
come this time--all right, George!" As he speaks the rifle speaks
also, and observing the hit on the target, I sing out:
"Three o'clock!"
Ensues more work with the pliers; George loads and fires and with one
eye still at the telescope I give him:
"Five o'clock!"
Another moment of adjusting, again the rifle cracks and this time I
announce:
"A bull!"
Hereupon my companion squints through the glass and nods: "Right-oh,
George!" says he, then, while George the silent stacks the tested
rifle with many others, he turns to me and nods, "Got 'im that time,
sir--pity it weren't a bloomin' Hun!"
Here the patient Captain suggests we had better go, and unwillingly
I follow him out into the open and the sounds of battle die away
behind us.
And now, as we walked, I learned some particulars of that terrible
device the Lewis gun; how that it could spout bullets at the rate of
six hundred per minute; how, by varying pressures of the trigger, it
could be fired by single rounds or pour forth its entire magazine in
a continuous, shattering volley and how it weighed no more than
twenty-six pounds.
"And here," said the Captain, opening a door and speaking in his
pleasant voice, much as though he were showing me some rare flowers,
"here is where they grow by the hundred, every week."
And truly in hundreds they were, long rows of them standing very
neatly in racks, their walnut stocks heel by heel, their grim, blue
muzzles in long, serried ranks, very orderly and precise; and
something in their very orderliness endowed them with a certain
individuality as it were. It almost seemed to me that they were
waiting, mustered and ready, for that hour of ferocious roar and
tumult when their voice should be the voice of swift and terrible
death. Now as I gazed upon them, filled with these scarcely definable
thoughts, I was startled by a sudden shattering crash near by, a
sound made up of many individual reports, and swinging about, I
espied a man seated upon a stool; a plump, middle-aged, family sort
of man, who sat upon his low stool, his aproned knees set wide, as
plump, middle-aged family men often do. As I watched, Paterfamilias
squinted along the sights of one of these guns and once again came
that shivering crash that is like nothing else I ever heard. Him I
approached and humbly ventured an awed question or so, whereon he
graciously beckoned me nearer, vacated his stool, and motioning me to
sit there, suggested I might try a shot at the target, a far disc
lighted by shaded electric bulbs.
"She's fixed dead on!" he said, "and she's true--you can't miss. A
quick pull for single shots and a steady pressure for a volley."
Hereupon I pressed the trigger, the gun stirred gently in its clamps,
the air throbbed, and a stream of ten bullets (the testing number)
plunged into the bull's-eye and all in the space of a moment.
"There ain't a un'oly 'un of 'em all could say 'Hoch the Kaiser' with
them in his stomach," said Paterfamilias thoughtfully, laying a hand
upon the respectable stomach beneath his apron, "it's a gun, that
is!" And a gun it most assuredly is.
I would have tarried longer with Paterfamilias, for in his own way,
he was as arresting as this terrible weapon--or nearly so--but the
Captain, gentle-voiced and serene as ever, suggested that my
companions had a train to catch, wherefore I reluctantly turned away.
But as I went, needs must I glance back at Paterfamilias, as
comfortable as ever where he sat, but with pudgy fingers on trigger
grimly at work again, and from him to the long, orderly rows of guns
mustered in their orderly ranks, awaiting their hour.
We walked through shops where belts and pulleys and wheels and cogs
flapped and whirled and ground in ceaseless concert, shops where
files rasped and hammers rang, shops again where all seemed riot and
confusion at the first glance, but at a second showed itself ordered
confusion, as it were. And as we went, my Captain spoke of the
hospital bay, of wards and dispensary (lately enlarged), of sister
and nurses and the grand work they were doing among the employees
other than attending to their bodily ills; and talking thus, he
brought me to the place, a place of exquisite order and tidiness, yet
where nurses, blue-uniformed, in their white caps, cuffs and aprons,
seemed to me the neatest of all. And here I was introduced to Sister,
capable, strong, gentle-eyed, who told me something of her work--how
many came to her with wounds of soul as well as body; of griefs
endured and wrongs suffered by reason of pitiful lack of knowledge;
of how she was teaching them care and cleanliness of minds as well
as bodies, which is surely the most blessed heritage the unborn
generations may inherit. She told me of the patient bravery of the
women, the chivalry of grimy men, whose hurts may wait that others
may be treated first. So she talked and I listened until, perceiving
the Captain somewhat ostentatiously consulting his watch, I presently
left that quiet haven with its soft-treading ministering attendants.
So we had tea and cigarettes, and when I eventually shook hands with
my Captain, I felt that I was parting with a friend.
"And what struck you most particularly this afternoon?" enquired one
of my companions.
"Well," said I, "it was either the Lewis gun or Paterfamilias the
grim."
IV
CLYDEBANK
Henceforth the word "Clydebank" will be associated in my mind with
the ceaseless ring and din of riveting-hammers, where, day by day,
hour by hour, a new fleet is growing, destroyers and torpedo boats
alongside monstrous submarines--yonder looms the grim bulk of
Super-dreadnought or battle cruiser or the slender shape of some huge
liner.
And with these vast shapes about me, what wonder that I stood awed
and silent at the stupendous sight. But, to my companion, a shortish,
thick-set man, with a masterful air and a bowler hat very much over
one eye, these marvels were an everyday affair; and now, ducking
under a steel hawser, he led me on, dodging moving trucks, stepping
unconcernedly across the buffers of puffing engines, past titanic
cranes that swung giant arms high in the air; on we went, stepping
over chain cables, wire ropes, pulley-blocks and a thousand and one
other obstructions, on which I stumbled occasionally since my awed
gaze was turned upwards. And as we walked amid these awesome shapes,
he talked, I remember, of such futile things as--books.
I beheld great ships well-nigh ready for launching; I stared up at
huge structures towering aloft, a wild complexity of steel joists and
girders, yet, in whose seeming confusion, the eye could detect
something of the mighty shape of the leviathan that was to be; even
as I looked, six feet or so of steel plating swung through the air,
sank into place, and immediately I was deafened by the hellish racket
of the riveting-hammers.
"... nothing like a good book and a pipe to go with it!" said my
companion between two bursts of hammering.
"This is a huge ship!" said I, staring upward still.
"H'm--fairish!" nodded my companion, scratching his square jaw and
letting his knowledgeful eyes rove to and fro over the vast bulk that
loomed above us.
"Have you built them much bigger, then?" I enquired.
My companion nodded and proceeded to tell me certain amazing facts
which the riotous riveting-hammers promptly censored in the following
remarkable fashion.
"You should have seen the rat-tat-tat. We built her in exactly
nineteen months instead of two years and a half! Biggest battleship
afloat--two hundred feet longer than the rat-tat-tat--launched her
last rat-tat-tat--gone to rat-tat-tat-tat for her guns."
"What size guns?" I shouted above the hammers.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-inch!" he said, smiling grimly.
"How much?" I yelled.
"She has four rat-tat-tat-tat inch and twelve rattle-tattle inch
besides rat-tat-tat-tat!" he answered, nodding.
"Really!" I roared, "if those guns are half as big as I think, the
Germans--"
"The Germans--!" said he, and blew his nose.
"How long did you say she was?" I hastened to ask as the hammers died
down a little.
"Well, over all she measured exactly rat-tat feet. She was so big
that we had to pull down a corner of the building there, as you can
see."
"And what's her name?"
"The rat-tat-tat, and she's the rattle-tattle of her class."
"Are these hammers always quite so noisy, do you suppose?" I
enquired, a little hopelessly.
"Oh, off and on!" he nodded. "Kick up a bit of a racket, don't they,
but you get used to it in time; I could hear a pin drop. Look! since
we've stood here they've got four more plates fixed--there goes the
fifth. This way!"
Past the towering bows of future battleships he led me, over and
under more steel cables, until he paused to point towards an empty
slip near by.
"That's where we built the _Lusitania_!" said he. "We thought she was
pretty big then--but now--!" he settled his hat a little further over
one eye with a knock on the crown.
"Poor old _Lusitania_!" said I, "she'll never be forgotten."
"Not while ships sail!" he answered, squaring his square jaw, "no,
she'll never be forgotten, nor the murderers who ended her!"
"And they've struck a medal in commemoration," said I.
"Medal!" said he, and blew his nose louder than before. "I fancy
they'll wish they could swallow that damn medal, one day. Poor old
_Lusitania_! You lose any one aboard?"
"I had some American friends aboard, but they escaped, thank
God--others weren't so fortunate."
"No," he answered, turning away, "but America got quite angry--wrote
a note, remember? Over there's one of the latest submarines. Germany
can't touch her for speed and size, and better than that, she's got
rat-tat--"
"I beg pardon?" I wailed, for the hammers were riotous again, "what
has she?"
"She's got rat-tat forward and rat-tat aft, surface speed rat-tat-tat
knots, submerged rat-tat-tat, and then best of all she's
rattle-tattle-tattle. Yes, hammers are a bit noisy! This way. A
destroyer yonder--new class--rat-tat feet longer than ordinary. We
expect her to do rat-tat-tat knots and she'll mount rat-tat guns.
There are two of them in the basin yonder having their engines
fitted, turbines to give rat-tat-tat horse power. But come on, we'd
better be going or we shall lose the others of your party."
"I should like to stay here a week," said I, tripping over a steel
hawser.
"Say a month," he added, steadying me deftly. "You might begin to see
all we've been doing in a month. We've built twenty-nine ships of
different classes since the war began in this one yard, and we're
going on building till the war's over--and after that too. And this
place is only one of many. Which reminds me you're to go to another
yard this afternoon--we'd better hurry after the rest of your party
or they'll be waiting for you."
"I'm afraid they generally are!" I sighed, as I turned and followed
my conductor through yawning doorways (built to admit a giant, it
seemed) into vast workshops whose lofty roofs were lost in haze. Here
I saw huge turbines and engines of monstrous shape in course of
construction; I beheld mighty propellers, with boilers and furnaces
big as houses, whose proportions were eloquent of the colossal ships
that were to be. But here indeed, all things were on a gigantic
scale; ponderous lathes were turning, mighty planing machines swung
unceasing back and forth, while other monsters bored and cut through
steel plate as it had been so much cardboard.
"Good machines, these!" said my companion, patting one of these
monsters with familiar hand, "all made in Britain!"
"Like the men!" I suggested.
"The men," said he. "Humph! They haven't been giving much trouble
lately--touch wood!"
"Perhaps they know Britain just now needs every man that is a man," I
suggested, "and some one has said that a man can fight as hard at
home here with a hammer as in France with a rifle."
"Well, there's a lot of fighting going on here," nodded my companion,
"we're fighting night and day and we're fighting damned hard. And now
we'd better hurry; your party will be cursing you in chorus."
"I'm afraid it has before now!" said I.
So we hurried on, past shops whence came the roar of machinery,
past great basins wherein floated destroyers and torpedo boats, past
craft of many kinds and fashions, ships built and building; on I
hastened, tripping over more cables, dodging from the buffers of
snorting engines and deafened again by the fearsome din of the
riveting-hammers, until I found my travelling companions assembled
and ready to depart. Scrambling hastily into the nearest motor car I
shook hands with this shortish, broad-shouldered, square-jawed man
and bared my head, for, so far as these great works were concerned,
he was in very truth a superman. Thus I left him to oversee the
building of these mighty ships, which have been and will ever be the
might of these small islands.
But, even as I went speeding through dark streets, in my ears, rising
high above the hum of our engine was the unceasing din, the
remorseless ring and clash of the riveting-hammers.
V
SHIPS IN MAKING
Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
--_Longfellow._
He was an old man with that indefinable courtliness of bearing that
is of a past generation; tall and spare he was, his white head bowed
a little by weight of years, but almost with my first glance I seemed
to recognise him instinctively for that "worthy Master Builder of
goodly vessels staunch and strong!" So the Master Builder I will call
him.
He stood beside me at the window with one in the uniform of a naval
captain, and we looked, all three of us, at that which few might
behold unmoved.
"She's a beauty!" said the Captain. "She's all speed and grace from
cutwater to sternpost."
"I've been building ships for sixty-odd years and we never launched a
better!" said the Master Builder.
As for me I was dumb.
She lay within a stone's throw, a mighty vessel, huge of beam and
length, her superstructure towering proudly aloft, her massive
armoured sides sweeping up in noble curves, a Super-Dreadnought
complete from trucks to keelson. Yacht-like she sat the water all
buoyant grace from lofty prow to tapering counter, and to me there
was something sublime in the grim and latent power, the strength and
beauty of her.
"But she's not so very--big, is she?" enquired a voice behind me.
The Captain stared; the Master Builder smiled.
"Fairly!" he nodded. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I usually reckon the size of a ship from the number of her
funnels, and--"
"Ha!" exclaimed the Captain explosively.
"Humph!" said the Master Builder gently. "After luncheon you shall
measure her if you like, but now I think we will go and eat."
During a most excellent luncheon the talk ranged from ships and books
and guns to submarines and seaplanes, with stories of battle and
sudden death, tales of risk and hardship, of noble courage and heroic
deeds, so that I almost forgot to eat and was sorry when at last we
rose from table.
Once outside I had the good fortune to find myself between the
Captain and the venerable figure of the Master Builder, in whose
company I spent a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. With them I stood
alongside this noble ship which, seen thus near, seemed mightier than
ever.
"Will she be fast?" I enquired.
"Very fast--for a Dreadnought!" said the Captain.
"And at top speed she'll show no bow wave to speak of," added the
veteran. "See how fine her lines are fore and aft."
"And her gun power will be enormous!" said the Captain.
Hard by I espied a solitary being, who stood, chin in hand, lost in
contemplation of this large vessel.
"Funnels or not, she's bigger than you thought?" I enquired of him.
He glanced at me, shook his head, sighed, and took himself by the
chin again.
"Holy smoke!" said he.
"And you have been building ships for sixty years?" I asked of the
venerable figure beside me.
"And more!" he answered; "and my father built ships hereabouts so
long ago as 1820, and his grandfather before him."
"Back to the times of Nelson and Rodney and Anson," said I, "great
seamen all, who fought great ships! What would they think of this
one, I wonder?"
"That she was a worthy successor," replied the Master Builder,
letting his eyes, so old and wise in ships, wander up and over the
mighty fabric before us. "Yes," he nodded decisively, "she's
worthy--like the men who will fight her one of these days."
"But our enemies and some of our friends rather thought we had
degenerated these latter days," I suggested.
"Ah, well!" said he very quietly, "they know better now, don't you
think?"
"Yes," said I, and again, "Yes."
"Slow starters always," continued he musingly; "but the nation that
can match us in staying power has yet to be born!"
So walking between these two I listened and looked and asked
questions, and of what I heard, and of what I saw I could write much;
but for the censor I might tell of armour-belts of enormous
thickness, of guns of stupendous calibre, of new methods of defence
against sneaking submarine and torpedo attack, and of devices new and
strange; but of these I may neither write nor speak, because of the
aforesaid censor. Suffice it that as the sun sank, we came, all
three, to a jetty whereto a steamboat lay moored, on whose limited
deck were numerous figures, divers of whom beckoned me on.
So with hearty farewells, I stepped aboard the steamboat, whereupon
she snorted and fell suddenly a-quiver as she nosed out into the
broad stream while I stood to wave my hat in farewell.
Side by side they stood, the Captain tall and broad and sailor-like
in his blue and gold--a man of action, bold of eye, hearty of voice,
free of gesture; the other, his silver hair agleam in the setting
sun, a man wise with years, gentle and calm-eyed, my Master Builder.
Thus, as the distance lengthened, I stood watching until presently
they turned, side by side, and so were gone.
Slowly we steamed down the river, a drab, unlovely waterway, but a
wonderful river none the less, whose banks teem with workers where
ships are building--ships by the mile, by the league; ships of all
shapes and of all sizes, ships of all sorts and for many different
purposes. Here are great cargo boats growing hour by hour with
liners great and small; here I saw mile on mile of battleships,
cruisers, destroyers and submarines of strange design with torpedo
boats of uncanny shape; tramp steamers, windjammers, squat colliers
and squatter tugs, these last surely the ugliest craft that ever
wallowed in water. Mine layers were here with mine sweepers and
hospital ships--a heterogeneous collection of well-nigh every kind of
ship that floats.
Some lay finished and ready for launching, others, just begun, were
only a sketch--a hint of what soon would be a ship.
On our right were ships, on our left were ships and more ships, a
long perspective; ships by the million tons--until my eyes grew
a-weary of ships and I went below.
Truly a wonderful river, this, surely in its way the most wonderful
river eyes may see, a sight I shall never forget, a sight I shall
always associate with the stalwart figure of the Captain and the
white hair and venerable form of the Master Builder as they stood
side by side to wave adieu.
VI
THE BATTLE CRUISERS
Beneath the shadow of a mighty bridge I stepped into a very smart
launch manned by sailors in overalls somewhat grimy, and, rising and
falling to the surge of the broad river, we held away for a destroyer
that lay grey and phantom-like, low, rakish, and with speed in every
line of her. As we drew near, her narrow deck looked to my untutored
eye a confused litter of guns, torpedo tubes, guy ropes, cables and
windlasses. Howbeit, I clambered aboard, and ducking under a guy rope
and avoiding sundry other obstructions, shook hands with her
commander, young, clear-eyed and cheery of mien, who presently led me
past a stumpy smokestack and up a perpendicular ladder to the bridge
where, beneath a somewhat flimsy-looking structure, was the wheel,
brass-bound and highly be-polished like all else about this crowded
craft as, notably, the binnacle and certain brass-bound dials, on the
faces whereof one might read such words as: Ahead, Astern, Fast,
Slow, etc. Forward of this was a platform, none too roomy, where was
a gun most carefully wrapped and swaddled in divers cloths,
tarpaulins, etc.--wrapped up with as much tender care as if it had
been a baby, and delicate at that. But, as the commander casually
informed me, they had been out patrolling all night and "it had blown
a little"--wherefore I surmised the cloths and tarpaulins aforesaid.
"I should think," I ventured, observing her sharp lines and slender
build, "I should think she would roll rather frightfully when it does
blow a little?"
"Well, she does a bit," he admitted, "but not so much--Starboard!"
said he, over his shoulder, to the bearded mariner at the wheel.
"Take us round by the _Tiger_."
"Aye, aye, sir!" retorted the bearded one as we began to slide
through the water.
"Yes, she's apt to roll a bit, perhaps, but she's not so bad," he
continued; "besides, you get used to it."
Here he fell to scanning the haze ahead through a pair of binoculars,
a haze through which, as we gathered speed, ghostly shapes began to
loom, portentous shapes that grew and grew upon the sight, turret,
superstructure and embattled mast; here a mighty battle cruiser,
yonder a super-destroyer, one after another, quiet-seeming on this
autumn morning, and yet whose grim hulks held latent potentialities
of destruction and death, as many of them have proved but lately.
As we passed those silent, monstrous shapes, the Commander named them
in turn, names which had been flashed round the earth not so long
ago, names which shall yet figure in the histories to come with
Grenville's _Revenge_, Drake's _Golden Hind_, Blake's _Triumph_,
Anson's _Centurion_, Nelson's _Victory_ and a score of other
deathless names--glorious names that make one proud to be of the
race that manned and fought them.
Peacefully they rode at their moorings, the water lapping gently at
their steel sides, but, as we steamed past, on more than one of them,
and especially the grim _Tiger_, I saw the marks of the Jutland
battle in dinted plate, scarred funnel and superstructure, taken when
for hours on end the dauntless six withstood the might of the German
fleet.
So, as we advanced past these battle-scarred ships, I felt a sense of
awe, that indefinable uplift of soul one is conscious of when
treading with soft and reverent foot the dim aisles of some cathedral
hallowed by time and the dust of our noble dead.
"This afternoon," said the Commander, offering me his cigarette case,
"they're going to show you over the _Warspite_--the German Navy have
sunk her so repeatedly, you know. There," he continued, nodding
towards a fleet of squat-looking vessels with stumpy masts, "those
are the auxiliaries--coal and oil and that sort of thing--ugly
beggars, but useful. How about a whisky and soda?"
Following him down the perpendicular ladder, he brought me aft to a
hole in the deck, a small hole, a round hole into which he proceeded
to insert himself, first his long legs, then his broad shoulders,
evidently by an artifice learned of much practice. Finally his
jauntily be-capped head vanished, and thereafter from the deeps below
his cheery voice reached me.
"I have whisky, sherry and rum--mind your head and take your choice!"
I descended into a narrow chamber divided by a longish table and
flanked by berths with a chest of drawers beneath each. At the
further end of this somewhat small and dim apartment and
northeasterly of the table was a small be-polished stove wherein a
fire burned; in a rack against a bulkhead were some half-dozen
rifles, above our head was a rack for cutlasses, and upon the table
was a decanter of whisky he had unearthed from some mysterious
recess, and he was very full of apologies because the soda had run
out.
So we sat awhile and quaffed and talked, during which he showed me a
favourite rifle, small of bore but of high power and exquisite
balance, at sight of which I straightway broke the tenth commandment.
He also showed me a portrait of his wife (which I likewise admired),
a picture taken by himself and by him developed in some dark nook
aboard.
After this, our whisky being duly despatched, we crawled into the air
again, to find we were approaching a certain jetty. And now, in the
delicate manoeuvre of bringing to and making fast, my companions,
myself and all else were utterly forgotten, as with voice and hand he
issued order on order until, gently as a nesting bird, the destroyer
came to her berth and was made fast. Hereupon, having shaken hands
all round, he handed us over to other naval men as cheery as he, who
in due season brought us to the depot ship, where luncheon awaited
us.
I have dined in many places and have eaten with many different folk,
but never have I enjoyed a meal more than this, perhaps because of
the padre who presided at my end of the table. A manly cleric this,
bright-eyed, resolute of jaw but humorous of mouth, whose white
choker did but seem to offset the virility of him. A man, I judged,
who preached little and did much--a sailor's padre in very truth.
He told me how, but for an accident, he would have sailed with
Admiral Cradock on his last, ill-fated cruise, where so many died
that Right and Justice might endure.
"Poor chaps!" said I.
"Yes," said he, gently, "and yet it is surely a noble thing to--die
greatly!"
And surely, surely for all those who in cause so just have met Death
unflinching and unafraid, who have taken hold upon that which we call
Life and carried it through and beyond the portals of Death into a
sphere of nobler and greater living--surely to such as these strong
souls the Empire they served so nobly and loved so truly will one
day enshrine them, their memory and deeds, on the brightest, most
glorious page of her history, which shall be a monument more enduring
than brass or stone, a monument that shall never pass away.
So we talked of ships and the sea and of men until, aware that the
company had risen, we rose also, and donning hats and coats, set
forth, talking still. Together we paced beside docks and along piers
that stretched away by the mile, massive structures of granite and
concrete, which had only come into being, so he told me, since the
war.
Side by side we ascended the broad gangway, and side by side we set
foot upon that battle-scarred deck whose timbers, here and there,
showed the whiter patches of newer wood. Here he turned to give me
his hand, after first writing down name and address, and, with mutual
wishes of meeting again, went to his duties and left me to the
wonders of this great ship.
Crossing the broad deck, more spacious it seemed than an ocean liner,
I came where my travelling companions were grouped about a grim
memorial of the Jutland battle, a huge projectile that had struck one
of the after turrets, in the doing of which it had transformed itself
into a great, convoluted disc, and was now mounted as a memento of
that tremendous day.
And here it was I became acquainted with my Midshipmite, who looked
like an angel of sixteen, bore himself like a veteran, and spoke
(when his shyness had worn off a little) like a British fighting man.
To him I preferred the request that he would pilot me over this great
vessel, which he (blushing a little) very readily agreed to do.
Thereafter, in his wake, I ascended stairways, climbed ladders,
wriggled through narrow spaces, writhed round awkward corners, up and
ever up.
"It's rather awkward, I'm afraid, sir," said he in his gentle voice,
hanging from an iron ladder with one hand and a foot, the better to
address me. "You see, we never bring visitors this way as a rule--"
"Good!" said I, crushing my hat on firmer. "The unbeaten track for
me--lead on!"
Onward and upward he led until all at once we reached a narrow
platform, railed round and hung about with plaited rope screens which
he called splinter-mats, over which I had a view of land and water,
of ships and basins, of miles of causeways and piers, none of which
had been in existence before the war. And immediately below me, far,
far down, was the broad white sweep of deck, with the forward turrets
where were housed the great guns whose grim muzzles stared patiently
upwards, nuzzling the air almost as though scenting another battle.
And standing in this coign of vantage, in my mind's eye I saw this
mighty vessel as she had been, the heave of the fathomless sea below,
the whirling battle-smoke about her, the air full of the crashing
thunder of her guns as she quivered 'neath their discharge. I heard
the humming drone of shells coming from afar, a hum that grew to a
wail--a shriek--and the sickening crash as they smote her or threw up
great waterspouts high as her lofty fighting-tops; I seemed to hear
through it all the ring of electric bells from the various
fire-controls, and voices calm and all unshaken by the hellish din
uttering commands down the many speaking-tubes.
"And you," said I, turning to the youthful figure beside me, "you
were in the battle?"
He blushingly admitted that he was.
"And how did you feel?"
He wrinkled his smooth brow and laughed a little shyly.
"Really I--I hardly know, sir."
I asked him if at such times one was not inclined to feel a trifle
shaken, a little nervous, or, might one say, afraid?
"Yes, sir," he agreed politely, "I suppose so--only, you see, we were
all too jolly busy to think about it!"
"Oh!" said I, taking out a cigarette, "too busy! Of course! I see!
And where is the Captain during action, as a rule?"
"As a matter of fact he stood--just where you are, sir. Stood there
the whole six hours it was hottest."
"Here!" I exclaimed. "But it is quite exposed."
My Midshipmite, being a hardy veteran in world-shaking naval battles,
permitted himself to smile.
"But, you see, sir," he gently explained, "it's really far safer out
here than being shut up in a gun-turret or--or down below, on account
of er--er--you understand, sir?"
"Oh, quite!" said I, and thereafter thought awhile, and, receiving
his ready permission, lighted my cigarette. "I think," said I, as we
prepared to descend from our lofty perch, "I'm sure it's
just--er--that kind of thing that brought one Francis Drake out of so
very many tight corners. By the way--do you smoke?"
My Midshipmite blushingly confessed he did, and helped himself from
my case with self-conscious fingers.
Reaching the main deck in due season, I found I had contrived to miss
the Chief Gunner's lecture on the great guns, whereupon who so
agitated and bitterly apologetic as my Midshipmite, who there and
then ushered me hastily down more awkward stairs and through narrow
openings into a place of glistening, gleaming polish and furbishment
where, beside the shining breech of a monster gun, muscular arm
negligently leaning thereon, stood a round-headed, broad-shouldered
man, he the presiding genius of this (as I afterwards found) most
sacred place.