Before we pick up the further adventures of H.M. Submarine E14 and her
partner E11, here is what you might call a cutting-out affair in the
Sea of Marmara which E12 (Lieutenant-Commander K.M. Bruce) put through
quite on the old lines.
E12's main motors gave trouble from the first, and she seems to have
been a cripple for most of that trip. She sighted two small steamers,
one towing two, and the other three, sailing vessels; making seven
keels in all. She stopped the first steamer, noticed she carried a lot
of stores, and, moreover, that her crew--she had no boats--were all on
deck in life-belts. Not seeing any gun, E12 ran up alongside and told
the first lieutenant to board. The steamer then threw a bomb at E12,
which struck, but luckily did not explode, and opened fire on the
boarding-party with rifles and a concealed 1-in. gun. E12 answered
with her six-pounder, and also with rifles. The two sailing ships in
tow, very properly, tried to foul E12's propellers and "also opened
fire with rifles."
It was as Orientally mixed a fight as a man could wish: The first
lieutenant and the boarding-party engaged on the steamer, E12 foul of
the steamer, and being fouled by the sailing ships; the six-pounder
methodically perforating the steamer from bow to stern; the steamer's
1-in. gun and the rifles from the sailing ships raking everything and
everybody else; E12's coxswain on the conning-tower passing up
ammunition; and E12's one workable motor developing "slight defects"
at, of course, the moment when power to manoeuvre was vital.
The account is almost as difficult to disentangle as the actual mess
must have been. At any rate, the six-pounder caused an explosion in
the steamer's ammunition, whereby the steamer sank in a quarter of an
hour, giving time--and a hot time it must have been--for E12 to get
clear of her and to sink the two sailing ships. She then chased the
second steamer, who slipped her three tows and ran for the shore. E12
knocked her about a good deal with gun-fire as she fled, saw her drive
on the beach well alight, and then, since the beach opened fire with a
gun at 1500 yards, went away to retinker her motors and write up her
log. She approved of her first lieutenant's behaviour "under very
trying circumstances" (this probably refers to the explosion of the
ammunition by the six-pounder which, doubtless, jarred the
boarding-party) and of the cox who acted as ammunition-hoist; and of
the gun's crew, who "all did very well" under rifle and small-gun fire
"at a range of about ten yards." But she never says what she really
said about her motors.