War, the ship held steadily on her way, observing the stars in their
courses, but not otherwise interested in the universe. Inboard,
however, the alarm rang along the mess-decks and saloons, and men
crawled into hen-coops and deck-houses to man the hidden guns. A few
minutes later the submarine broke surface half a mile astern of the
ship, and fired a shot across her bows. Whereupon the supposed
collier stopped her engines, and lay rolling in the trough of the
seas with steam pouring from her exhausts, while the crew, who had
rehearsed this moment to a perfection never yet realised on the
boards of legitimate drama, rushed to and fro with every semblance of
panic. The Captain danced from one end of the bridge to the other,
waving his arms and shouting; boats were turned out and in again amid
a deliberate confusion that brought blushes to the cheeks of the
ex-merchant seamen called upon to play the part.
In the meantime the submarine had approached at full speed to within
about 700 yards, and, evidently not satisfied with the speed at which
the ship was being abandoned, fired another shot, which pitched 50
yards short of the engine-room. There was apparently nothing further
to be gained by prolonging the performance for this impatient
audience, and the Lieutenant-Commander on the bridge, cap in hand,
and breathless with his pantomimic exertions, blew a shrill blast on
his whistle. Simultaneously the White Ensign fluttered to the
masthead, deck-houses and screens clattered down, and three minutes
later the submarine sank under a rain of shells and Maxim bullets.
As she disappeared beneath the surface the avenger reached the spot,
and dropped a depth-charge over her. A moment after the explosion
the submarine appeared in a perpendicular position alongside the
ship, denting the bilge-keel as she rolled drunkenly among the waves.
The after gun put five more rounds into the shattered hull at
point-blank range, and, as she sank for the last time, two more
depth-charges were dropped to speed her passing.
The Lieutenant-Commander in command had personally been
superintending the administering of the _coup de grâce_ from the
stern, and, as he turned to make his way forward to the bridge, for a
few brief moments the bonds of naval discipline relaxed. His men
surged round him in a wildly cheering throng, struggling to be the
first to wring him by the hand. They then mustered in the saloon,
standing bare-headed while their Captain read the Prayers of
Thanksgiving for Victory, and called for three cheers for his Majesty
the King. They cheered as only men can cheer in the first exultant
flush of victory. But as the vessel gathered way and resumed her
grim quest, each man realised, deep down in his heart, that far
sterner ordeals lay ahead.
2
ORDEAL BY FIRE
Because man is mortal, not infallible, and Fortune at her brightest a
fickle jade, it was inevitable that sooner or later a day must come
when a crippled German submarine would submerge beneath a hail of
shells, miraculously succeed in patching up her damaged hull, and,
under cover of darkness, crawl back to port. Word would then go out
from Wilhelmshaven of a British man-of-war disguised as a lumbering
tramp, with such and such a marking on her funnel, with stumpy masts
and rusty deck-houses, who carried guns concealed in wheel-house and
hen-coops, whose bulwarks collapsed, and whose bridge screens masked
quick-firers and desperate men. German submarines would be warned
that to approach such a vessel was to enter a death-trap, unless
every precaution was first taken to ensure she had been abandoned.
Such a day came in due course; misty, windless, with the aftermath of
a great storm rolling eastward beneath a sullen swell. A vessel with
the outward appearance of a merchantman (the fruits of whose labours
for the past six months had doubtless perplexed that section of the
Wilhelmshaven bureaucracy concerned with the non-return of U-boats),
sighted towards evening the periscope and conning-tower of a
submarine a mile away on her beam.
The figure on the bridge of the tramp, who carried, among other
papers in his charge, his commission as a Commander of the Royal
Navy, laughed as Drake might have laughed when the sails of a Spanish
galleon broke the horizon. A tangle of flags appeared at the
periscope of the submarine, and the tramp stopped obediently, blowing
off steam in great clouds. Her Commander turned over the pages of
the International Signal Code, smiling still. "Hoist: 'Cannot
understand your signal,'" he said to the signalman, "I want to waste
a few minutes," and moved to the engine-room voice-pipe. Obedient to
his directions, the screws furtively jogged ahead under cover of the
escaping steam, edging the steamer towards the watching enemy. The
latter, however, promptly manned her foremost gun, turned, and slowly
steamed towards them; she opened fire at a range of half a mile, the
shell passing over the funnel of the disguised man-of-war.
In the tense excitement of that moment, when men's nerves and
faculties were stretched like banjo-strings, the report of the
submarine's gun rang loud through the still air. One of the
man-of-war's gun-layers, lying concealed within his collapsible
deckhouse, heard the report, and, thinking that the ship herself had
opened fire without the customary warning gongs, flung down the
screens which masked his weapon. Any further attempt at concealment
was useless. The fire-gongs rang furiously at every gun position,
the White Ensign was triced up to the mast-head in the twinkling of
an eye, and the action started. After the first few hits the
submarine lay motionless, with her bows submerged and her stern in
the air for upwards of five minutes, while shells burst all about
her. The heavy swell made shooting difficult, but eventually she
sank in a great commotion of the water and dense clouds of vapour
that hung over the surface for some minutes. Two depth-charges were
dropped over her, and if ever men had cause for modest
self-congratulation on having ridded the seas of yet another scourge,
it would seem that the officers and crew of The King's Ship might
have laid claim to their share. Yet, by ways unknown and incredible,
it was claimed by the enemy that the submarine contrived to return,
with shot-holes plugged, to tell the tale.
Once the cat was out of the bag, it was obvious that in the future
the enemy would not rise to the surface until his torpedo had found
its mark, and it became part of this grim game of bluff for the
victim to ensure that she was hit. Then, when the "panic party" had
abandoned the ship, the remainder must wait concealed and
unresponsive beside their hidden guns, while the submarine rose to
the surface and either closed within range or shelled them with
sufficient thoroughness to convince him--who judged endurance and
self-control by no mean standards--that the limit of human courage
had been reached; that there could be no one concealed on board, and
that he might with safety approach to loot and burn. Now this, as
Mr. Kipling would put it, "was a damned tough bullet to chew." They
were no demi-gods, nor yet fanatics, these three-score or so
sailor-men. They were just ordinary human beings, with the average
man's partiality for life and a whole skin, and the love of wife and
bairn or sweetheart plucking at the heart-strings of most of them.
But they shared what is not given to all men in this world of human
frailty--a whole-souled confidence in a fellow-man, which would have
carried them at his lightest nod through the gates of hell.
Under his command, then, they sailed with a cargo of timber in each
hold, and in due course, about 9.45 one morning, a torpedo was seen
approaching the starboard beam. Observing his rôle as Master of a
careless tramp, with poor look-outs, the Commander held on his
course. At the last moment, however, the helm was imperceptibly
altered to ensure the ship being struck abaft the engine-room, where
the torpedo might do least damage. Those whom fate has afforded the
opportunity of studying the trail of an approaching torpedo will, if
they recall their sensations, appreciate to some extent the iron
nerve requisite to such a manœuvre. The torpedo burst abreast No.
3 hold, hurling a wall of water and wreckage to the height of the
mast, and blowing a hole in the ship's side 40 feet wide.
Half-stunned and deafened by the concussion, the Commander raised
himself on his hands and knees, where he had been flung, and shouted
to the Navigator: "They've got us this time!" The Navigator, who was
inside the chart-house, thrust his head out for a moment, moistening
a lead pencil with his lips. "I reckon I've got time to finish
working out this sight, sir," he replied with a grin, and withdrew
his head.
The alarm-gongs had already sent the guns' crews to their invisible
guns, and immediately after the explosion "Panic stations" was
ordered, followed in due course by "Abandon ship." The Navigator,
having finished his "sight," and now acting as "Master," abandoned
ship with the "panic party." No sooner had the boats been lowered
and shoved off from the ship's side, however, than the Chief Engineer
rang up from below and reported that the after bulkhead had gone and
that the engine-room was filling fast. Peering, on all fours,
through a slit in the bridge-screen, waiting for the inevitable
periscope to appear, the Commander bade him hold on as long as he
could and keep enough steam to work the pumps; when the water had
extinguished the fires, and then only, the engines were abandoned and
the staff remained concealed. This they did, crawling eventually on
to the cylinders to escape from the rising flood.
Shortly after the torpedo struck the ship the periscope of a
submarine broke the surface a couple of hundred yards distant,
evidently watching proceedings with a deliberate, cautious scrutiny.
Moving slowly through the water, like the fin of a waiting shark, the
sinister object came gradually down the ship's side, within five
yards of the breathless boats, and not ten yards from where the
Commander lay beside the voice-pipes that connected him with the
Assistant-Paymaster, R.N.R., who, concealed in the gun control
position, was awaiting the order to open fire. From the altitude of
the bridge, the submerged whale-back hull was plainly visible to the
figure crouched behind the bridge-screens, and the temptation to
yield to the impulse of the moment, to open fire and end the
suspense, shook even his iron nerves. A lucky shot might pierce the
lead-grey shadow that moved 15 feet beneath the surface; but water
plays strange tricks with projectiles, deflecting them at unexpected
ricochets, at angles no man can foretell; moreover, the submarine was
in diving trim. The odds against a broadside overwhelming her before
she could plunge into the depths and escape were too great. So the
Commander waited, with self-control that was almost superhuman, and,
prone beside their guns, unseeing and unseen, his men waited too.
The ship had then sunk by the stern until it was awash, and the crew
of the gun masked by the wheelhouse were crouched up to their knees
in water. A black cat, the ship's mascot, that had been blown off
the forecastle by the explosion of the torpedo, swam aft and in over
the stern, whose counter rose normally 20 feet above the surface.
Still the periscope continued its unhurried observation; it travelled
past the ship, across the bow, and then slowly moved away, as if
content that the task was done. For the space of nearly a minute
bitter disappointment and mortification rose in the Commander's
heart. His ship had been torpedoed and was sinking. Their quarry
had all but been within their grasp, and was now going to escape
unscathed. Then, when hope was flickering to extinction, the
submarine rose to the surface 300 yards on the port bow, and came
slowly back towards the ship.
Up to this juncture, although the ship was settling deeper every
moment, the Commander had purposely refrained from summoning
assistance by wireless, lest interruption should come before his grim
work was done. Now, however, he saw at one quick glance that the
Lord had indeed "placed the enemy upon his lee bow," and the rest was
only a matter of a few bloody moments. Accordingly he gave orders
for an urgent wireless signal to be sent out forthwith summoning
assistance, and waited until the submarine was on a line when all his
guns would bear. She reached the desired spot at the moment when the
German Commander was complacently emerging from the conning-tower; up
went the White Ensign, and the first shot beheaded him; he dropped
back into the interior of the submarine, and his wholly unexpected
reappearance imparted a shock of surprise to the remainder of the
inmates from which they never recovered. The submarine lay
motionless as a dead whale, while the avenging broadside shattered
the hull, and the grizzled pensioner inside a hen-coop scientifically
raked her deck with a Maxim to prevent her gun from being manned.
She finally sank with her conning-tower open and the crew pouring
shrieking out of the hatchway.
From the swirling vortex of oil and blood and air bubbles in which
the majority vanished, two dazed prisoners were rescued by the
exultant "panic party" in the boats, and brought back to the ship.
Once on board, however, the imperious necessities of the moment
overwhelmed even the elation of victory. Bulkheads were shored in
all compartments still accessible, confidential documents destroyed
in anticipation of the worst, and then all but the Commander and a
handful of men took to the boats and awaited succour. It came at
noon in the guise of a congratulatory and businesslike Destroyer, and
was augmented later by a couple of Sloops. By 5 P.M. the water had
ceased to gain and the ship was in tow, heading for port; there she
arrived, and was safely beached after dark the following day.
Thus her crew, emerging triumphant from the ordeal, added at the last
a feat of seamanship which saved the ship. It required no great
power of imagination to foretell what lay ahead; yet, when the time
came for a fresh venture under the command of the man who had brought
them victorious through the ordeals that were past, they sailed with
light hearts and unafraid. As if for a pledge of that devotion, he
wore thenceforward, on the left breast of his ancient monkey-jacket,
the scrap of ribbon which it is the King's pleasure men shall wear
"For Valour."
3
WON BY WAITING
The disguise adopted by such of his Majesty's ships as were selected
to cope with the U-boat menace, varied according to the changing
fashions. In the early days of the war the rôle of care-free tramp,
steering a steady course, and minus look-outs or gun, was sufficient
to lure the enemy to close quarters on the surface. But as the
peculiar methods of warfare adopted by the German Government harked
back to piracy and rape, so the custom of the seas reverted to the
arming of merchantmen for defensive purposes.
For purpose of offence against the enemy, with which this story of a
King's ship is concerned, a dummy gun sufficed; at all events for
preliminaries. It was mounted prominently aft, attended by a
conspicuously vigilant gunner. To outward appearances the ship was
then an armed British merchant vessel, steering a zigzag course for
home at a good speed, conscious that she was in the danger zone, and,
by virtue of her unmistakable gun and position, liable to be
torpedoed at sight according to the code of customs and chivalry of
the sea--as revised by Germany. Torpedoed at sight she was, at eight
o'clock of a misty summer morning, in a blinding rain storm and heavy
sea. The torpedo was fired at apparently close range, since it
jumped out of the water when one hundred yards from the ship; it
struck the engine-room near the water-line, flooding the boiler-room,
engine-room, and adjacent hold. The Stoker Petty Officer on duty in
the engine-room was killed outright by the explosion, and the Third
Engineer, who held a commission as Engineer Sub-Lieutenant, in the
Naval Reserve, was half-stunned and badly wounded by flying splinters
and fragments of coal. Despite the inrush of water, he contrived to
reach the hatchway, and arrived on deck reeling with shock,
half-flayed, and bleeding, to stagger to his post in the second act
of the grim drama.
One of the lifeboats had been blown to smithereens, fragments of it
being lodged even in the wires of the aerial between the masts, so
great was the force of the explosion. Under the command of the
Navigator, acting the part of Master, the "panic party" abandoned the
ship in the remaining three boats as the ship settled deeper in the
water. The officers and men whose station was on board were already
motionless at their invisible guns; in the majority of cases they
were concealed by screens, but the crew of the foremost gun were
compelled to lie prone on their faces on the exposed forecastle,
unable to stir a muscle until the order came to open fire.
Then for thirty-five leaden minutes, followed the savage ordeal of
waiting for the unknown. For aught these motionless figures knew,
the submarine might torpedo them again at any moment, might break
surface and shell them at extreme range till they sank, or, an even
more nerve-racking possibility, might set off in pursuit of a fresh
victim and escape. Withal was the consciousness that a single
movement on board, so much as a finger raised above screen or
coaming, would betray their true character and bring the game of
bluff to a swift and tragic conclusion. The periscope of the
submarine had broken surface a quarter of an hour after the torpedo
struck, about 400 yards distant on the port beam. It turned after a
while and steered towards the ship, but the Captain and Signalman,
prone at each end of the bridge, with their eyes glued to the
observation slits, alone were aware of their quarry's movements. It
was in the tense stillness of those moments, a stillness only
disturbed by the lapping of the waves round the water-logged hull,
and by the hiss of escaping steam, that from the little group of
prostrate figures round the foremost gun rose a man's whistle,
executing a gay, if somewhat tremulous, ditty of the sea. For a
moment those in the immediate vicinity of the performer listened to
the eerie music without comment. Then a motionless officer, moved by
a sense of what was seemly at such a time and what was not, rebuked
the minstrel. "I dursn't stop, sir," said the boy--he was only
seventeen--"cos if I stops whistlin' I gits scared."
As the submarine drew nearer to the ship the Commander on the bridge
of the disguised man-of-war cast a swift glance round to see that all
was well, and saw the old and trusted Quartermaster lying face
downwards beside the wheel. "For God's sake," he called, "don't show
yourself, he's nibbling...." "Aye, aye, sir," said the faithful
seaman. And then, so ingrained apparently had become the habit of
disguise on board, he furtively dragged a lifebelt over the most
prominent portion of his anatomy.
When fifty yards off the ship the periscope vanished, to reappear a
few minutes later directly astern. Very deliberately, as a cat plays
with a mouse before dealing the last stroke, the periscope travelled
on to the starboard quarter, turned, and came back round the stem to
the port beam, where the boats were lying. The stage management of
the drama then passed into the hands of the Navigator in charge of
the boats. His task was not lightened by a disposition on the part
of the "panic party" to regard the affair in the light of high
comedy, despite the cold scrutiny of the periscope. In no measured
terms he reminded them that they were presumed by the Teutonic
intelligence beneath the waves to be terrified mariners, not a
boat-load of grinning buffoons; and then, mindful of the shortness of
the visibility and the known weakness of the enemy for light banter
with castaways in boats, he began pulling towards the ship. As he
had foreseen, the submarine promptly rose to the surface and followed
in pursuit, closing to within a few yards of the masked guns on
board. An angry Hun shouted abuse through a megaphone from the top
of the submarine's conning tower, and was reinforced a moment later
by an equally abusive and impatient gentleman of the good old
Prussian school, clasping a Maxim in his hands.
The prospect of being shot by either party at this juncture of the
performance was none too remote. Yet the boat continued pulling as
if manned by deaf mutes until the submarine had been lured into the
desired position. Then suddenly the eagerly awaited White Ensign
shot up to the masthead. Screens clattered down along the length of
the ship's side, and a broadside of yellow flame leaped out over
their heads. The submarine was suddenly plastered by bursting shell
and half hidden by leaping waterspouts, as she slowly listed over to
her side, with oil spouting from the rents in her hull. Her crew
scrambled wildly out of the conning tower and waved their hands above
their heads in token of surrender. Fire instantly ceased on board
the British man-of-war, when unexpectedly the crippled enemy, her
stern submerged, shot ahead and made off at high speed. The would-be
"Kamerads" on her deck were swept into the sea by her last wild rush
through the water, and the British guns broke out again in vengeful
chorus. Fire was continued until she blew up and sank, one wretch
clinging to her bows as she disappeared.
In spite of the heavy sea, the boats succeeded in rescuing two
prisoners from the water before returning to the ship. An American
Destroyer arrived a few hours later, accompanied by two Sloops. With
their assistance the ship was brought safely into port, and of all
who had passed through the soul-stirring events of the day none
exhibited greater satisfaction or surprise at living to see it close
than the late upholders of German freedom of the seas.
By command of his Majesty the King, one officer and one man were
selected by ballot for the honour of the Victoria Cross from among
the ship's company in recognition of the fact that, where all played
so valiant a part, the distinction was earned by the ship rather than
by the individual. Yet their task, the task required of them by the
England which reads these lines at a well-found breakfast table, was
still unfinished. They sailed again in another ship, knowing full
well that they alone could never accomplish it entirely. But the
name of that ship* shall be a household word some day wherever the
English tongue is spoken, because of the ordeal these men endured
behind her shattered bulwarks for England's sake.
* H.M.S. _Dunraven_.
4
THE SPLENDID FAILURE
To travel hopefully, said Robert Louis Stevenson, is better than to
arrive; and therein he summed up the whole attitude of the
Anglo-Saxon race towards human endeavour. It is our custom to honour
the achievement less than the spirit, in the wistful hope, perhaps,
that thus may we, too, be judged in our turn at the last. This is a
record of failure, if the venture is to be judged by its material
result. Yet the lesson it will carry to succeeding generations is
concerned with neither success nor failure, but with those shining
heights of the Spirit (attainable by every mother's son) where no
fear is.