OFF HELIGOLAND
The _Gyandotte_ steamed out of Queenstown one October twilight in
company with four destroyers and headed southeast, a departure from
the usual proceeding that excited comment and conjecture from one end
of the ship to the other. The bulletin was eagerly searched, but the
Old Man had nothing to say as yet as regarded destination or duty. It
was not until morning and the _Gyandotte_, still in company with the
destroyers, was seen to be off the southern coast of Cornwall that the
unprecedented was known to have happened. So far the _Gyandotte_ had
never dipped her nose into the waters of the English Channel. Few of
the American patrol boats had, either, for their sphere of activity
was principally to the south and west. Naturally the rumor that they
were to rendezvous with the British Grand Fleet somewhere in the North
Sea for an attack in force on a German naval base became current,
mainly because that was the thing that every man’s heart longed for.
All that day they steamed slowly through treacherous waters, waters
far more populous than those they had been frequenting. Mine layers
and sweepers, sea-planes, torpedo boats, cargo boats, destroyers,
chasers――they saw them all. They passed within sight of Plymouth and
the Isle of Wight, with Portsmouth hiding around the corner of it, and
finally Eastbourne, and by that time the coast of France was clear to
the eastward, and a Channel steamer plowed past them quite as though
war was a thing of the past. The cliffs of Dover loomed up toward
evening, and it was then that Nelson saw mine sweepers actually at
work for the first time. Directed by a saucy little patrol yacht, the
two blunt-nosed trawlers steamed westward on parallel courses, a long
cable connecting them. Although Nelson watched eagerly as long as they
were within sight they apparently found no mines. They were still at it
when distance and twilight hid them from view. Some time that night the
_Gyandotte_ emerged into the North Sea, for the next morning she was
rolling merrily out of sight of land and the quartet of destroyers were
rolling even more merrily ahead and astern, stretched out for nearly
a mile. Nelson thrilled at the thought that somewhere to the east of
them was Heligoland and the entrance to the Kiel Canal and the German
navy lying behind its network of mines in the land-locked harbors.
Heligoland was a word to conjure with, and Nelson peered into a typical
North Sea mist as though he meant to penetrate to the distant rock by
sheer force of will.
“I bet you it makes England sick,” remarked Garey, when Nelson
mentioned the German naval base. “She swapped that rock for something,
I forgot what, and I guess she wishes now she’d kept it, all right.
Gee, it’s a cinch for Germany! They say she spent fifty million dollars
on it, making fortifications and so on. I’ll bet Gibraltar hasn’t a
thing on Heligoland nowadays. Hundreds of eleven-inch guns they’ve got
there, they say. A lot of good it would be for a fleet to try to shell
that! And a fine chance it would have of getting around it. Yah, that
man Salisbury played the goat, all right, when he engineered that deal!
Wouldn’t you think the English would have been afraid to give up an
outpost like that?”
“Yes, but suppose England still owned it,” objected Nelson. “Could she
have held it today? It’s almost within gun range of the shore, isn’t
it?”
“About forty miles, I guess. Sure, she could have held it. All she had
to do was fortify it just as Germany has done――――”
“But maybe Germany would have objected to another power fortifying a
place so close.”
“Suppose she did object? What could she have done about it?”
“Why, I don’t know. Appeal to the Hague――――”
“Hah! You make me laugh,” jeered Garey. “If England had kept that rock
in the sea this war would be over.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because Heligoland commands the mouth of the Kiel Canal and all the
harbors along the coast in that corner where Germany has her ships
hiding: Cuxhaven, Wilhelmshaven and Friedrichskoog, and the mouth
of the Elbe that leads to Hamburg; and the Weser, too. Why, Germany
couldn’t have found a place on the Atlantic coast that the English
couldn’t have shelled her out of! As it is now Heligoland gives her a
fine anchorage for warships, a base for submarines and airships and
Zeppelins and destroyers and a signal outpost. They’ve got searchlights
on Heligoland, they say, that’ll pick up a dory twenty miles away!
Talk about your soft snaps! Germany’s got the softest ever. She ought
to include Lord Salisbury in her prayers every night: ‘God bless Lord
Salisbury for letting us have Heligoland!’”
“I’d love to see it,” mused Nelson.
“Well, you aren’t likely to, I guess. If the _Gyandotte_ started in
toward that old rock I’d hand in my papers and fall overboard! None of
those eleven-inch shells brushing my cap off, thank you! Nothing doing!
Nothing at all!”
“Where do you suppose we’re going?” asked Nelson.
“Norway, probably, but don’t ask me what for. Won’t anything happen,
anyway. Nothing ever does on this old skate. All we do is act the nice
old gentleman with the umbrella helping the young ladies off the street
car and escorting them to the sidewalk. We don’t even get splashed with
mud.”
“But,” laughed Nelson, “if you want action why are you against having a
peek at Heligoland?”
“Sure, I want action, but I’m not asking for sudden death, believe me,
Troy! What I’d like would be a crack at a couple of light cruisers of
about our own size. Or three, for good measure. But butting your head
against a hundred eleven-inch guns isn’t giving yourself a fair show.
It’s plain suicide.”
“Didn’t the British ship _Arethusa_ do it?”
“When was that?”
“The first year of the war, I think.”
“Oh, that! Take it from me, Troy, the _Arethusa_ didn’t go near enough
that little rock to be seen. That was off the North Frisians, if I
remember, and the British ships were careful to pick out a fine misty
day. The _Arethusa_ did well, though. I’m not saying she wasn’t a
plucky one. As I figure that little ruction, this fellow Beatty――wasn’t
he the chap that time?――had his big ships waiting outside in case the
Germans showed fight. The _Arethusa_ went in close to draw ’em out.
She did it, too, for a couple of German cruisers met her and smeared
her considerable. Then she backed out and had tea and fixed things up
and went back to it. And they say――and I guess it’s right――that she
‘strafed’ the two Fritzes before she called it a day. Sank one and
set the other afire. There were other ships mixed up in that row: the
_Lion_, the _Queen Mary_, the _Invincible_, I think it was, and some
more. And I dare say there were destroyers barking around, too. And
German subs, maybe. I guess it was a pretty scrap, all right, only it
was so foggy and dark no one could see who they were fighting. The
British did for three German cruisers and some destroyers, and she took
hundreds of prisoners; old Admiral von Turpentine’s son among them.
But I never heard how many ships the British lost, except from Berlin,
and you can’t believe what Berlin says. But I’m betting the Johnnie
Bulls didn’t get very close to old Mr. Heligoland!”
“One did,” remarked Nelson. “The _Liberty_.”
“Did, eh? _Liberty?_ Sounds like one of ours. I don’t remember her.”
“Well, she was only a little destroyer, Garey. But she waltzed straight
in under those guns and tried to torpedo the big ships lying in the
harbor. And she kept on until she had only one round of ammunition left
and one torpedo in her tubes. Then she turned tail and beat it back.
She lost her commander and three of her crew, but she lived to tell the
story in spite of all the eleven-inch shells they plumped down on her;
enough, I guess, to sink her twice over if they’d hit her!”
“What do you know about that?” asked Garey. “Say, she was some little
kid, what? Well, you’ve got to hand it to the British for pluck. I
always say that. And, say, that _Liberty_ ship was well named, wasn’t
she? I wouldn’t wonder if she was an American destroyer they’d borrowed
from us, or something. Anyway, I’ll bet more than half the ‘gobs’ were
Irish!”
There’s always a nasty, choppy sea running in that stretch of water
hemmed in by the British Isles and the coasts of Germany and Denmark.
Shallow and treacherous and generally vile, it is abhorred by sailors
the world over, and those on the _Gyandotte_ could find nothing good
to say of it. All that day the mist held and hid everything a mile or
so distant, and the lookouts never kept their eyes peeled any more
thoroughly than they did while the line of ships steamed on toward
the north. It was an area well infested with German submarines, while
it was no unusual thing for a pack of destroyers to dart out from one
of the protected bases on the chance of picking off a lone prey. But,
save that the sharp, short waves kept the decks wet and made everyone
uncomfortable――life on the destroyers must have been miserable indeed,
Nelson thought――no incident pleasant or unpleasant broke the monotony.
Forty-six hours after passing Dover the American ships reached the
Skager Rack and dropped anchors off Christiansand, where, during a
long, black night, they rolled and tumbled miserably. Nelson always
recalled that night as one of the most unpleasant of his life, for
they had suddenly penetrated into Winter weather and few of the men
had as yet received their heavy clothing. Even below deck it was cold,
and in the hammocks sleep was a chill nightmare. Pitch and toss and
freeze was the program that night, and not a man aboard but longed for
daylight. Ferris, for once supplied with something to be thoroughly
pessimistic about, fairly outdid himself!
The next morning, which dawned bright and frostily clear, the ships
sought calmer quarters and in the afternoon liberty was granted and the
little city was over-run with Jackies. The attitude of the inhabitants
puzzled Nelson. They appeared friendly, or, certainly, not unfriendly,
but kept oddly aloof and were uncommunicative to a degree. The men on
all ships had been specially and strictly cautioned as to behavior,
and as a result the Christiansand folks had nothing to complain of on
that score. Ferris remarked gloomily that they were “a frosty lot,” and
reckoned they never got quite thawed out after the long Winters.
Towards five o’clock word went around that warships were coming up
from southward, and there was much activity along the harbor front.
A Norwegian gunboat of a very ancient vintage rolled out to sea,
apparently, as one of the _Gyandotte’s_ crew said, “to give ’em the
once over.” Evidently the gunboat was satisfied. Or else she thought
discretion the better part of valor. In either case, she was soon
hiking back to the protection of the fort, looking immensely relieved.
It was nearly six o’clock before the newcomers revealed themselves
beyond question as British destroyers. They slap-banged cheerfully
through the channel and came about and slid to anchorage amidst the
American ships with a dash that brought cheers of admiration as well
as welcome from the latter. The British “gobs” cheered back and for
several minutes the staid old harbor was extremely noisy and ribald.
Signal flags fluttered, boatswain’s pipes _peep-peeped_, bugles called,
and winches rattled and hummed. And along the shore the mild-eyed and
annoyingly self-contained citizens looked on curiously. Perhaps they
suspected an Allied attack. If they did their demeanor was a model of
coolness.
On the _Gyandotte_ the side boys lined up, the boatswain trilled
merrily and the Old Man and the luff went over the side into a gig and
were pulled away to the British flagship, a three-stacked destroyer
with great high bows and a veritable bulwark of depth charges lined
amidship. Nelson wondered hard what it all meant, and his heart thumped
like a hammer several times when he realized the possibilities. The
combined forces included a light cruiser and ten destroyers, enough
thought Nelson hopefully to provide some lively times if the enemy
was sighted. He climbed into his hammock at midnight, however, with
curiosity still unappeased, and the next day was quite uneventful. One
might have thought that the American and British ships had made an
appointment at Christiansand merely to enjoy an uninterrupted palaver.
The northern sunlight made gay with fluttering bunting, small boats
crossed from ship to ship and the harbor had a most holiday appearance.
On shore, Limie “gobs” and American tars fraternized and swapped
yarns and rode on the tram cars or in carriages and saw the sights
very happily. Not until late in the day was the disappointing truth
made known. Then from eastward, probably out of Christiania, lumbered
fourteen Norwegian cargo boats, each well down in the water and each
fairly shrieking its nationality in great white letters along its hull.
And this was what the _Gyandotte_ and all the destroyers had come
hundreds of miles for! To escort a lot of freighters across the North
Sea! It was fairly disgusting!
The cargo boats, which ranged from big to little, passed on down the
Rack, exchanging signals with the flagship, and went out of sight in
the early darkness, and for awhile Nelson hoped against hope. But
presently the bugle called, winches clattered all over the harbor and
the fleet followed. Nelson could have wept. The fine adventure had come
to nothing in the end but the old, old story: convoying! Ferris summed
it up in one bitter word: “_Stung!_”