THE STORM-CENTER MOVES EASTWARD
The loss of their island bases seriously hampered the enemy in their
submarine warfare on the great stream of trans-Atlantic shipping.
Submarines were now based on Lisbon and Gibraltar, and while they were
still able to harass the merchant ships of the Allies, the sinkings
were materially reduced, and the prospect of keeping Northern Europe
supplied with the sinews of war became much brighter. Possession of
these bases also enabled the Allies to conduct anti-submarine
operations with destroyers and submarines in a way that had hitherto
been impossible for want of any base near the focus of activity.
The first time Evans dined with Mortimer after these islands had come
into the possession of the Allies, this important development
naturally led them to talk over the general problem from a new angle.
“Broadly speaking,” said Evans, “it is in a way a problem of morale
and numbers against resources and wits. We have far better morale and
slightly superior numbers. They command the resources of all Southern
Europe, Egypt, and the East, and they still have pretty free access to
those of South America. In this respect, unless we can cut them off
from South America, they have an appreciable advantage over us. As to
wits, I don’t mean that the Nordic peoples as a whole are inferior to
them, but theirs is the advantage of well-laid plans and a marvelous
centralized control. They’ve been planning this thing for fifteen
years, and they’ve done a devilish good job of it. We have wits, but
ours are not yet coördinated.
“Specifically, our problem is, first, to sink enough of their subs to
ensure the flow of munitions from the Western Hemisphere to Northern
Europe; that will enable us to maintain our present status; second, to
engage and destroy their fleet, and thus break their control of the
Mediterranean. That will be the hardest thing to do, for they don’t
want to give us a crack at it; they won’t take a chance of battle
unless they can feel sure of most favorable conditions; but if we can
smash their fleet, the game is won.”
Mortimer listened thoughtfully, nodding his head in acquiescence as
his friend talked; but Evans interrupted himself by saying, “Well,
here I am giving my elders and betters a twopenny talk on the cosmos.”
“Don’t worry about that,” answered Mortimer; “it helps me to see the
broader issues and clear my head of the mass of administrative detail.
Go to it and give me some more.”
“Well,” resumed Evans, “as to the submarine problem—we’re in a
position to go after them now. Obviously one of the first things to do
is to put the very best radio compasses we can on shore stations at
Punta Delgada, Madeira, and the Canaries, fitting them with first-rate
amplifiers so that we can pick up subs as soon as they come out of
Lisbon or Gibraltar. Then we can follow their movements by taking
cross-bearings on them every time they use their radio, just as the
British did with the German subs in the old days.”
“You know, I still have my doubts about this radio-compass business,”
put in Mortimer. “Nothing has been done with it to restore the
confidence of either Commander Rich or myself since the Sheridan
affair. I still consider it on trial, and question the wisdom of
spending much money installing such stuff on the islands.”
“No one has bothered to tell you what has been done,” said Evans, “but
the fact is that the radio compasses all along the coast are
continuing to give accurate bearings to incoming ships whenever the
weather is thick, just as they have for the past twenty years, and the
skippers for the most part continue to trust them. Anyway, this is a
different issue. It doesn’t involve depending on the bearings for
navigation of our ships; it is a matter of information about the
enemy, and we can’t afford not to use it. The Bureau of Operations is
counting on the use of these shore stations, and recognizes also the
importance of working up coördinated hunting groups of destroyers to
pick up the scent of the sub by crossed radio-compass bearings, and
then, having thus located her roughly, to run her down with
hydrophones.
“Now the shore stations have the longest range; they’ll spot a sub
nearly a thousand miles away, but since their work is long-distance
triangulation, they’ll place her only roughly. This will serve very
well to tell the destroyers and chasers where to go to look for her,
but by the time the information is transmitted and the hunting craft
have got there, the sub may be too far away from the designated spot
to find her with hydrophones. It is in this intermediate stage that
the radio compasses on the destroyers themselves will come in. These
have less range than the shore stations, but more than the
hydrophones. Cruising in line, the destroyers may, by quick work, get
cross-bearings on a sub sending signals anywhere within fifty miles,
and thus locate her to within a mile. Then there’s a fair chance of
picking her up with the hydrophones or magnetic detectors after she
has submerged; and once that is done there’s a fair chance of covering
her with a pattern of depth bombs, if the team-work is good.
“Now that sounds all very pretty, here by the fireside. But the pirate
will have sense enough to fear these tactics, and will cut his
messages down perhaps to one or two letters at a time, which won’t
give the boys much chance for accurate bearings, no matter how quick
they are. Then, he too has hydrophones, and when he hears us coming,
he’ll slow down till you can’t hear him unless you’re almost on top of
him. Still, with all these difficulties, it’s worth while playing that
game for all there is in it. It may get us a few subs, if we keep it
up on a big enough scale; even if it doesn’t, it will bother the sub
and cramp her style, and it will give our boys the finest kind of
drill.
“Now, there’s another matter which the difficulties of hunting with
destroyers brings to my mind. In the war with Germany the chasers used
to run their drifting patrols and hunts with all their listening gear,
and once in a while, probably even less often than they thought, they
picked up the sound of a sub. Then it was ‘up tubes’ and give chase;
then ‘down tubes’ and listen again; a short burst of speed, then a
dead stop, for they couldn’t listen under way. The chases had to be
short, for Fritz could change course and speed, and then, while they
were rushing to where they thought he was, they’d lose him. It was a
sort of a hare and tortoise race, and you remember who won that. Our
chasers to-day are somewhat faster and have much better hydrophones
than those of 1918, but the problem is still much the same.
“Now, there’s a group of young officers in the Bureau of Engineering
that have studied the history of those chaser maneuvers of 1918, and
have put their heads together and worked out what looks to me like a
real solution of that difficulty. More than one of the chaser captains
of that time have said that, if they could have continued to listen
instead of having to attack, they would have kept track of the sub’s
whereabouts much longer than they could in the intermittent pursuit.
Taking their cue from this fact, these officers have worked out a
scheme which enables the listeners to keep on listening, and then to
delegate other vessels to go to the spot they designate and surround
the sub as a seiner surrounds a school of mackerel—with a string of
nets. Their plan is to develop a fleet of ships like those that laid
the great North Sea mine barrage—ships that will be fast and will have
machinery for laying a net at very high speed. A sub can cut through
an ordinary net and escape, so they have worked out plans for a net
that will give notice if she tries it. It is to be studded with small
telltale bombs just big enough to raise a fountain, but not big enough
to add much to the weight and size of the net. These bombs, each in a
section a hundred yards long, will be exploded by an electrical device
if the sub touches any part of that section. It won’t hurt the sub,
but it will tell you where she is, and you’ll have boats on hand with
depth charges to do the hurting. The point is to establish quickly a
barrier around the sub through which she can’t pass without giving
away her position.
“These young officers have been fearfully keen on this thing and have
worked out practical plans for machinery that will pay out the net at
a speed of six knots, and the electrical gear for setting off the
bombs.
“You can’t anchor the net, for the ocean’s too deep out there; it must
be suspended from buoys. It needn’t reach down more than about three
hundred feet, for no sub could dive under it at that depth without
being crushed by water pressure. The tactical scheme is to have these
boats, eight or ten of them, lie in wait at a central point with
groups of drifting listeners scattered all around them, say, twenty
miles away. When a sub is heard and located, the listeners call the
net-layers by radio, and they go to the spot at a thirty-knot speed.
As they approach they soon drown out the sound of the sub, but their
speed and number enables them to surround the area in which she is
known to be, for she won’t have time to go far from where she was last
heard. Paying out their nets, they hem her in and keep the ring of
nets closed round her till the area is raked with trailing wires and
other electromagnetic detectors which will enable the chasers to
concentrate their depth charges with the certainty of a kill.”
“That sounds like the most constructive—or rather artistically
destructive—proposition I’ve heard yet,” said Mortimer with
enthusiasm. “What are they doing about it? Have they submitted it to
the Bureau Chief?”
“They’ve tried to, but they couldn’t get much attention paid to it.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve tried to find out why, but I can’t quite make it out. On the
face of it the trouble seems to be the usual conservatism and inertia
about taking up anything new. Did you ever read the article Sims wrote
on Military Conservatism?”
“No,” said Mortimer.
“Well, in that, he showed how every great advance, such as gunpowder
and steam, met with opposition, and chiefly from the men at the top,
who, being the older men, had quite naturally lost the mental
flexibility of youth. It may be just another case of that. Admiral
Bishop is a conservative old buck. But then I suspect this project has
never come to his attention. I think it’s been stopped lower down, and
I fear there may be jealousy or politics or something else worse than
conservatism involved in this.”
“Give me the names of the men who have developed the scheme,” said
Mortimer, “and I’ll dig it out. I’ll make old Bishop find out about it
and bring it up before the General Staff. I needn’t tell him how I
heard of it; so nobody will get in trouble.”
Mortimer lost no time in bringing this matter before Admiral Bishop.
The old man was averse to bothering his head with any new, wild-cat
schemes, but, yielding reluctantly before Mortimer’s insistence, did
secure from the authors of this one an outline of it for consideration
by the General Staff. At the meeting of this body a number of
objections were raised by the more conservative officers. The expense
would be out of all proportion to the prospect of success; nets could
never be paid out fast enough to surround the elusive sub; the thing
had never been done—was unheard of; these new-fangled schemes never
did work, anyway. With his lawyer’s skill, Mortimer questioned them as
to all the difficulties in the way of the project, till he felt that
some of the more progressive members were in favor of it, and the
others weakening. Then, following this advantage, he showed them how
lacking in the convincing quality all the objections had been, and
virtually demanded and finally obtained their acquiescence in putting
the plan into operation, overriding the final objections of Admiral
Bishop in a way that caused this officer to be visibly incensed.
Engineering talent was set to work on the details of the scheme,
perfecting the net studded with tiny bombs, and the machinery for
paying it out at high speed from the moving ship. This latter being a
purely mechanical problem, there was no lack of inventive skill
available for bringing it to the production stage in record time.
Provision was made for the safe recovering of the nets without
detonating the bombs. Five fast liners, built and building, were taken
over and rearranged for installation of additional boilers and the new
gear. Three new ships were started building, specially designed for
this service. Thus it was estimated that, during the autumn, eight
ships capable of thirty knots would be ready to give this project a
trial.
Mortimer requested Admiral Bishop to institute an investigation to
find out why this important suggestion had been side-tracked. This
quest proved most confusing; the original copy of the communication
could not be found. Several engineer officers recalled having seen it,
and one said he thought he had turned it over to Commander Rich to get
his opinion. Commander Rich, on the other hand, said he was sure he
had never seen it. In the end it was concluded that the paper had been
pigeon-holed and then lost through the carelessness of some yeoman.
Mortimer told Evans the result of this investigation. Evans listened
attentively, frowning as the unsatisfactory conclusion was reached.
For some time he sat in silence; then he spoke:
“Sam, it’s a beastly uncomfortable thing to come to you with a
criticism of my superior officer, but I don’t see how I can
conscientiously dodge it. For some time I’ve been getting uneasy about
Commander Rich, and this thing makes me more so.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mortimer.
“I doubt his loyalty.”
“That’s a pretty serious thing to say. What evidence have you?”
“Not much, I admit,” said Evans. “But do you recall that business
about the British vacuum-tube transmitter? There seemed to be a
peculiar discrepancy between his point of view as represented by the
Admiral, and that which he himself took in the final show-down.”
“That was just a misunderstanding,” said Mortimer. “You’re too
suspicious, Jim. Just get that out of your system.”
“Maybe I am. Just the same, I’d keep my eye on him if I were you.”
“That’s perfect rot,” said Mortimer. “Rich is one of the ablest and
most dependable men in the service; the more I see of him the better I
like him. You’d better quit suspecting him, and give him a little
loyal support and coöperation yourself.”
Evans said no more; there seemed nothing more to say. He had a nasty
feeling inside, and a change of subject seemed indicated.
Another project, made possible by the capture of the Azores, also
engaged the attention of the Navy Department at this time. The
completion of the new breakwater and harbor works at Punta Delgada had
now made this an ideal base for destroyers, chasers, and other
submarine-hunting craft; but even this harbor was not nearly big
enough for the entire fleet of battleships and cruisers. If the fleet
had to lie at anchor outside the harbor there must be some protection
against attack by enemy submarines. Now, unless the place could be
made safe for the entire fleet, its value as a base for anti-submarine
operations was seriously impaired, for if a fleet of chasers set out
from Punta Delgada to hunt in the direction of Gibraltar and no
powerful ships were within call, a detachment of enemy cruisers could
come out and destroy them. Destroyers supported by fast scout cruisers
could sally forth in comparative safety, for their speed would enable
them to retreat under the cover of the coast-defense guns if pursued
by a superior force of the enemy. Submarines, too, could operate from
the Azores in comparative safety, for they could hide at will. But the
large flotillas of chasers now being commissioned and manned, good for
only sixteen knots, would be exposed to grave danger if they operated
far enough from their base to do any good.
It was at this point that the services of Heringham in Constantinople
became a source of safety and strength. The combined fleet of the
Allies could lie at Brest, and if at any moment, day or night, a force
of enemy ships weighed anchor at Gibraltar, and started out through
the strait, word of it would at once reach the Admiral at Brest, and
in less than two hours the Allied fleet could be under way in search
of them. This arrangement made it possible for chasers and other
patrol craft, too slow to escape from enemy cruisers, to operate in
waters nearer to Brest than to Gibraltar, but outside this area their
helplessness in the face of attack by cruisers rendered their search
for submarines unwise.
For this reason, as well as because of the strategic position of the
place and the greater ease with which secrecy concerning the
activities of the fleet could be maintained at such an isolated spot,
it was most desirable to develop a base for the whole fleet at the
Azores rather than in French or British waters. A plan was therefore
developed to enclose the entire area between the islands of Saint
Michael’s, Santa Maria, and Formigas, the most easterly group of the
Azores, with a barrier of heavy nets reinforced with mines, and a
system of detecting nets of wires which would at once reveal the
approach of a submarine attempting to break through, and tell the
observer at a central station on shore the very point at which the
approach was made. Thus there would be a sheet of water roughly thirty
miles by sixty, protected from attack by sea, with a fair anchorage
for the entire fleet just south of Saint Michael’s. It was a large
engineering project, but not too large for the end to be gained. This,
it was estimated, would take till the late summer for completion.
In the mean time, Punta Delgada became the storm-center of all the
patrolling and submarine hunting by swarms of destroyers, submarines,
and seaplanes. Weather stations were established here and in all the
other captured islands, manned by officers trained for this duty by
Professor Jeremy, now holding the rank of commander.
As the spring wore on and the men on the patrolling craft learned how
large the ocean was and how seldom any trace of a submarine could be
found in its expanse, enthusiasm for the chase gave way to ennui and
discouragement. A little success was sorely needed to put heart into
both officers and men, worn as they were by the tedium of the long,
dreary watches at sea.
Late in May, Evans and Mortimer motored out into the country some
miles from Washington, and went for a walk together.
“I think I’m rather wasting time here in Washington,” said Evans. “I
believe I’d find more to do now in the Azores.”
“I don’t see how we can spare you here, Jim,” answered Mortimer.
“Seems to me we need you in the Bureau to help all these engineering
developments;—not to mention your glittering generalities which I find
rather helpful now and then.”
“I guess you can get along all right without any ‘glittering
generalities’ from me. As for engineering developments, I find that I
can’t get much of anywhere with Rich in charge of the Radio Division.”
“Still at odds with your chief? Forget it; buck up, and play the game
with the organization as you find it.”
“I can’t help it,” said Evans. “There’s no use my trying to work here
in the Bureau with him. He apparently stands for efficiency and
progress; he agrees heartily to every constructive suggestion for
improvement, yet somehow the necessary orders don’t get issued, or, if
issued, don’t go into effect. I keep feeling that my hands are tied.
But in spite of all this we’ve got enough material out to the Azores,
so that if I could get there, I could shape it into what I want,
unhampered by the obstruction that’s hindering me here. I know how it
is from what I saw in 1918. There’s always less red-tape at the scene
of actual warfare than there is in the Bureaus here. I’m sure that if
I can get to Punta Delgada I shall be more nearly on my own, and can
work to better advantage. There are lots of engineering possibilities
there, and I can fix things up to my liking without this officious
interference from above.
“Besides, it’s at Punta Delgada that the communication storm-center
will be from now on. I feel sure I can be more useful tinkering with
the apparatus in the fleet, and seeing that the boys use it right,
than I can imparting spare calories to a swivel chair here in
Washington. In particular, there are the radio-compass shore stations
that we are installing in the various islands; the regular work of
installation is going on all right, but there’s always a possibility
of their not working as they should, and it’s really a physicist’s job
to take care of that sort of thing. Then the apparatus must be
accurately calibrated, and the personnel taught to use it quickly, and
the machinery for transmitting the intelligence rapidly to
headquarters and thence to the ships that can use it, must be
organized, and organized well. For all that sort of work, I think it’s
time to be moving a good many of your men of engineering ability out
to the Azores where things are going on.”
“There’s no doubt,” said Mortimer, “that there’ll be plenty of
engineering work to be done out there, and more and more as time goes
on; and I can see the importance of having you as a physicist look
over those radio compasses. But I should like to be able to keep in
touch with you, and frequent messages from a warrant officer in the
fleet to the Secretary would look kind of funny; you might get
uncomfortably snubbed by some one.”
“I think I can get round that,” said Evans. “I’ll work out a method of
dropping you a hint or a glittering generality now and then without
even ruffling the surface. I learned one or two tricks from those
fellows in London about faking telepathy. We could arrange a flying
trip home if the occasion arose.”
“Well,” said Mortimer, “you’ve got away with lots of things a warrant
officer’s got no business to, and they haven’t had to court-martial
you yet. Go ahead and fix up your secret code and make your plans, and
let me know when you’re ready to start.”
A few days later they met again. Evans reported himself ready to leave
for the destroyer flotilla.
Mortimer said: “I wish you would look over the dramatis personæ in the
fleet and size up who’s who as far as you can, especially when the
main fleet gets out there, which will be some time in August. It’s
hard for me to size them up from my desk in the department. If you are
convinced that there’s anything radically wrong with the men at the
top, give me one of your magic hints and I’ll send for you to come and
tell me about it.”
They conferred at length over many phases of the great problem,
arriving at a close and harmonious understanding on the main points of
the task confronting the navy. It was arranged that Evans should be
temporarily attached to a new destroyer that was about to sail for
Punta Delgada, and on arrival, be attached to the mother-ship of the
destroyer flotilla, a vessel similar to the old _Melville_ that lay at
Queenstown in 1918, equipped with repair shops and other facilities
for the care of the destroyers. Here he was to be technical assistant
to the radio material officer; and in a letter from the Bureau of
Engineering it was explained that he was to visit the shore stations
and see that everything was installed according to the latest
engineering developments.
“What about your method of communicating with me?” asked Mortimer.
“There are two expert radio aides (civilians) in the Bureau of
Engineering, who are highly intelligent and preeminently discreet,”
answered Evans. “Their names are Tompkins and Rand. Keep those men on
the job in the Bureau, and if I have anything to tell you they’ll pass
it on to you.”
“How will you manage that?”
“I’ll fix it somehow. All you’ll have to do is to keep those two men
there. If anything happens to either of them, notify the Intelligence
Bureau at once, and tell them to lose no time and spare no pains
probing the matter; then watch your step. If one dies, let the
remaining one choose his successor and teach him the technique.”
Four days later Evans reported on board a new destroyer setting out to
join the flotilla at Punta Delgada. During the first part of the
journey she assisted a cruiser serving as ocean escort for a great
convoy of merchant ships loaded with munitions and food for the armies
of Northern Europe; but when in mid-ocean, she was detached from the
convoy, and, speeding up to twenty knots, laid her course for Punta
Delgada.
It was in the middle of a beautiful June afternoon as the destroyer
was gliding over a glassy sea bathed in sunshine, when the lookout
first sighted the cloud-capped mountains of Saint Michael’s. As they
approached and coasted along the southern shore of the island, the
clouds rolled away revealing the soft yet striking outline of the
range clad in semi-tropical verdure. Presently, some miles ahead, they
could discern the town of Punta Delgada shining in the afternoon sun;
then across the breakwater the masts of many ships, destroyers, and
auxiliary craft. The town took shape, scattered over the steep,
sloping hillsides around the old harbor. Nearer they came, and at last
slid smoothly through the opening in the net into the great new
harbor. Before them spread a panorama that might well gladden the eyes
of all on board after nine long days on the barren ocean. Gay-colored
houses in pink, yellow, and white stucco, in brilliant relief of sun
and shadow, breathing an Old-World atmosphere, lined the shore, while
strange and picturesque trees and gardens dotted the slopes receding
to the capricious outline of the green hills beyond. It seemed as if a
magician’s wand had conjured out of the sea a city of a far-off age
and of another world. And in the foreground, tied two by two at
mooring buoys, the long, lean American destroyers spoke of the grim
business of war.
To Evans, drinking in the picture before him, it was hard to believe
he was not in some strange dream. And being more impressionable than
most men, his mood became that of a child witnessing for the first
time a scene of fairyland artfully displayed on the theatrical stage.
To make the incongruity of the whole scene complete, a large American
seaplane, returning from patrol, came whirring down out of the sky and
lit on the harbor in a great splash of white foam, then taxied to her
mooring. Rowboats, manned by natives of the town and loaded with
pineapples and other tempting commodities, swarmed around the
destroyer as she tied up to her designated buoy.
The sunlight on the hills and houses turned golden and then red, and
finally disappeared. A pink sunset faded into twilight, and just
before dark six destroyers cast off from their moorings, slipped out
silently through the opening in the net and headed to sea on a hunting
patrol.
Early next morning Evans went aboard the mother-ship of the flotilla
and presented his orders at the Flag Office. When they had received
the endorsement of the Chief of Staff, he was instructed to report for
duty to Lieutenant Larabee, the radio material officer, a man of
twenty-eight, whose technical assistant he was to be.
“Gunner Evans,” said Larabee. “Yes, we had a letter about you from the
Bureau. I understand you have been assisting in some of the newer
engineering developments there, and that you’ve had previous
experience in a physics laboratory.”
Evans assented.
“There’s one thing you’ll have to learn on this job,” continued
Larabee; “conditions afloat are very different from those in a
laboratory on shore; a lot that goes there won’t go here.”
Evans received the advice with thoughtful deference, and as they
discussed the problems before them, he studied with the closest
scrutiny the mentality of the young officer, nearly twelve years his
junior in age, but three grades his senior in rank. Neither in this
conversation nor for long afterward did Larabee discover that Evans
had served many months as a radio operator on a destroyer in the war
zone during the war with Germany twenty years before, nor did he dream
that his age was such as to render this possible.
In pursuance of the suggestion Evans had made to Mortimer, several men
who had played important parts in the engineering developments at home
were soon transferred to Punta Delgada—not without remonstrance on the
part of those who had come to rely on their efficiency—and were now
absorbed in the increasing organization at this point. In this way
preparation was made to bring the engineering skill of the service
into play at what would soon be the center of all operations. Among
others a chief radio electrician of exceptional skill and
understanding, a man Evans had picked before leaving Washington, to be
his assistant, arrived and reported as he had done, for duty under the
radio material officer.
On board the mother-ship there was a small radio laboratory or test
shop where experiments with new apparatus could be conducted. Evans
saw its present limitations and future possibilities (provided more
space was available), possibilities of work of the first importance in
the perfection of the technique of communication in all its complex
phases. Larabee, eager to make the radio material service of the
flotilla as good as possible, welcomed the assistance of a handy and
competent radio gunner, and began to put up a strenuous fight for the
needed space. The ordnance officers wanted the space and objected, and
the executive officer backed them up. But at last, spurred on by his
increasing sense of the importance of what he sought, Larabee
succeeded in showing the ordnance officers how they could manage
without the coveted space, and in convincing the executive officer of
his need of it. Then Evans had a free hand to equip the laboratory to
his heart’s content. Cabled requests went out to Washington for new
supplies and apparatus, but during the necessary weeks of waiting
Evans was never at a loss for methods of utilizing such crude
materials as he could pick up in the machine shop or on the
scrap-heap.
Nor was his time all spent in this laboratory: his duties took him
aboard nearly every ship in the flotilla, where he scrutinized the
condition of the apparatus, questioned the operators, stimulated their
interest, and set them thinking as they had never thought before. Most
of the destroyer skippers noticed an increase in efficiency in the
handling of communications by the men under them, and some patted
themselves lustily on the back for it. It was not long after his
arrival that he had made the round of the radio-compass stations on
shore, not only in the Azores, but also at Madeira and the Canaries.
On these excursions he tested and calibrated each station with a
destroyer circling at a distance of two or three miles, sending
signals; and he spared no pains to satisfy himself that the operators
had a thorough understanding of their duties, and knew full well that
on their vigilance rested large issues.
But after his first general survey of the flotilla as regards its
efficiency in communications, Evans found time for further research
which this survey had suggested to him; and he was never so happy as
when thus engaged. Sometimes, as a result of an idea either in the
realm of electrical theory or of tactical expediency, the need of
intensive development of new or modified apparatus would appear; then
an engineering research, which in peace-time would require months, was
completed in five or six days. Evans in his dungarees would work day
and night with his skilled assistants, often risking death among wires
charged with a thousand volts or more. No time was spent writing
detailed protocols of experiments. Results were carried in his head
with only occasional notes scribbled on scraps of paper or on the
walls of the test shop. The radio chief who assisted him became fired
with his enthusiasm and worked ungrudgingly for long hours which would
ordinarily make most petty officers grumble loud and long.
In the warrant officers’ mess Evans was more often the listener than
the speaker. When occasion offered, he would draw out the older men on
the specialties in which they were expert, and often would guide the
conversation into a discussion of coördination, in which each man was
stumped to show how his particular duty fitted into the organization
of the navy as a whole, and thereby was led to see his own function in
a new light, thus acquiring an increased sense of his responsibility.
There was one old boatswain named Jenks nearly sixty years of age, a
veteran of both the Spanish and the German wars, a relic of the old
type of seaman that is all too scarce. Evans delighted in leading him
to open his rich storehouse of experience, and in drawing from him his
old-time navy lore. Jenks in his turn found Evans sympathetic, and
talked with him as he did with few other men, revealing a shrewdness
and wisdom which had often stood him and the navy in good stead.
To the mess as a whole Evans remained something of an enigma. They saw
him in his room manipulating a slide-rule and jotting down figures on
a scrap of paper, softly humming a tune to himself the while. Few of
them had ever seen a slide-rule, and from his frequent use of it they
inferred that he had had more schooling than most of them; but in
general they found him rather uncommunicative as to his past history.
For exercise and relaxation Evans frequently went ashore and took a
walk among the hills. On his first shore liberty the sense of foreign
picturesqueness came over him more than ever as he approached the
antique landing in the center of the town, where at the water’s edge
was an array of architecture so different from anything in the
Anglo-Saxon world. On shore he found himself in a strange world
indeed. Strange sights, sounds, and smells greeted him everywhere;
barefooted men were leading donkeys laden with goods about the narrow,
dirty streets. And after flooding his senses with a riot of
impressions of an alien world, it was with a distinct sense of
homecoming that he returned to his quarters aboard the mother-ship of
the flotilla.
He had not been at Punta Delgada long before he discovered a spot easy
of access, walled off from the town, in which, among the most restful
and soothing surroundings, he could give himself over to relaxation or
thought. This was the ancient Borge garden, created by one of the
Portuguese nobles who flourished on these islands in the far-off days
of their feudal prosperity. Now neglected, overgrown with weeds, this
antiquated paradise reflects its former glory with a stronger appeal
than if it were kept up with a lavish hand, much as the ivy-covered
ruins of England tell their story all the better for their ruined
state.
In the Borge garden there are trees of the strangest, most fantastic
character—trees with pudgy leaves, trees with shapes one would never
believe could really exist. Here and there are deep grottoes with
giant tree-ferns growing from their depths; zigzag stony paths lead
down into them or through tunnels or over bridges artfully contrived
to conceal as far as possible their artificial nature. Fascinating
glimpses into the depths of tropical greenery are thus given emphasis
by their skillful setting. Surmounting the rest of the garden high up
on the slope is an ancient watch-tower commanding a view of the sea.
Crumbling steps overgrown with weeds lead up the side to its summit.
Beside it stands a majestic and venerable tree, a conifer of the cedar
or cypress group, which must have stood there for centuries casting
its deep shade on the old watch-tower. Framed under its great
lichen-covered branches, the wide expanse of the blue ocean makes the
fairest of pictures—one on which the eye can rest and never tire.
Evans made friends with the old barefoot gardener who opened the great
gate in the garden wall, and by signs and gestures allayed his
suspicions till the old man admitted him cheerfully whenever he
knocked.
Here, when his brain was taxed and overwrought, he would seek the
quiet of the garden and give himself over to rest or meditation.
Sometimes he would wander through the depths of the great fern
grottoes, but oftener he would climb to the top of the watch-tower and
sit gazing off over the blue expanse of sea, as perhaps the lookout
had done in other wars of a bygone age. Many a problem in the
borderland of science and strategy which harassed him in the turmoil
of life aboard ship yielded a solution to his mind unfettered and free
as it was when he sat on the watch-tower.
The Borge garden was inhabited by numerous small birds that sang
melodiously among the trees and shrubs, and so doing enhanced
immeasurably the charm of the place. Evans was no ornithologist, but
he was a lover of all wild life, and especially of birds. He took with
him to the garden liberal stores of crumbs which he scattered on the
ground about him. Little by little the more venturesome of his
feathered friends grew accustomed to his presence, and would light on
the ground beside him, till finally one or two actually came and ate
from his hand. He would talk and whistle to them, and in course of
time, whenever they heard his voice, they would fly to the old tree by
the watch-tower and there await the social feast which he never failed
to bring. He in turn found a deal of cheer in the companionship of his
bird friends. And so it was that when disheartened or exasperated with
inertia and officiousness, the snarls of red-tape in which supply
clerks entangled much-needed gear, or the stupidity and indifference
of radio operators whom he tried to instruct, he found in the little
birds of the garden a solace that made life more livable, and more
than once helped him over the hard places.