FRITZ THE FRIGHTFUL.
I.
Pincher soon discovered that life on board a battleship and life in a
destroyer were two totally different existences.
In the _Belligerent_ a cast-iron routine had always been adhered
to, at sea or in harbour, fair weather or foul. Nothing was suffered to
disturb that routine, unless it were occasional excursions to sea in
the small hours of the morning and frequent coalings. Times were laid
down for everything. Day after day bugles blew or pipes twittered at
exactly the same hours; and to the ship's company, the actual workers,
things seemed to run as smoothly as clockwork with a minimum of effort
on the part of every one. They all knew what to do, and when to do it;
and the men themselves never realised the forethought, the energy, and
the capacity for organisation on the part of the commander and other
responsible officers which were necessary to produce such a result.
They took it for granted. Their groove was made for them, so to speak,
and they suffered themselves to slide along its well-oiled length
without troubling their heads as to what supplied the motive-power.
Moreover, men were told off for their jobs collectively, not
individually. Their bodies seemed to be regarded as machines capable of
so many units of work, and there were such numbers of them in the ship,
and the vessel herself was so huge, that the labours of any single
person, provided always he was not a very important person, did not
seem to have any effect on the community as a whole. Indeed, a seaman
could even go on the sick-list, or leave the ship altogether, without
his absence being noticed or felt except by his own messmates and
friends.
But in the _Mariner_ things were very different, for here the labours
of every single individual counted. If a man neglected his work or
idled his time away, his shortcomings had their effect on some one
else. They were soon noticed, and the laggard speedily found himself
chased and goaded into a proper state of activity by Petty Officer
Casey; and Casey, a glutton for work himself, always had a persuasive
way with him, and a horny fist to back up his arguments.
There was a routine, of course, and very nice it looked on paper; but
the life was so full of sudden surprises that as often as not any
preconceived time-table went by the board. It was not surprising, for
the _Mariner_ and the other destroyers of her flotilla had always
to be ready for service at the shortest notice, and her men frequently
found themselves bundled unceremoniously out of their hammocks in the
middle of the night to get the ship to sea. It did not matter whether
it was blowing a gale, raining, or snowing; go to sea they must, and
did.
Sometimes they chivied Fritz; and he--a wise man, but no
gentleman--waited for no one. It was not the fault of the destroyers
that he had usually vanished into space by the time they arrived to
strafe him. Fritz was the ubiquitous Hun submarine, any 'untersee-boot'
which happened to come into their domain, and a merry little dance he
sometimes led them. Occasionally, to vary the monotony, they called him
Hans, Adolf, Karl, or some other Teutonic appellation; but more often
than not he was just Fritz, and Fritz he will remain until the end of
the war. Sometimes, though reported as such, he was not really Fritz at
all.
'The skipper of the trawler _Adam and Eve_ reports having sighted a
periscope flying a large flag in latitude _xy_° _z_´ N., longitude _a_°
_bc_´ E., at six-thirty this morning,' was the sort of thing they were
sometimes told. 'Proceed to the vicinity with all despatch, and
search.'
Proceed they did, hot-foot and full of warlike energy, only to find
that the skipper of the _Adam and Eve_ had been mistaken, and that
his periscope with its large flag was nothing but some other
fisherman's dan buoy broken adrift from its nets. Dan buoys, seen in
the half-light of the early morning or evening, are apt to be
deceptive, particularly when the imagination is stirred at the thought
of the substantial honorarium to be earned for authentic information of
the enemy.
But even battleships and cruisers make mistakes sometimes. The
newspapers have never mentioned one fierce engagement which took place
in a certain northern harbour, in the chill gray light of an early
dawn, when a long black submarine was suddenly seen approaching the
outer cruiser of a line of men-of-war lying peacefully at their
anchors. He came in on the flood-tide, grim and menacing, causing a
great commotion in the water, and with his periscope raising its
flutter of spray. Now and then he disappeared altogether.
It was Fritz, they thought, come to pay them an early morning visit,
and with all the joy in the world the officer of the watch in the
cruiser opened fire. It was easy shooting. The guns barked angrily, and
four-inch shell spouted, foamed, and burst round the invader until he
was a submarine no longer. The fleet was flung into a state of
considerable excitement; but the submarine sank gracefully to the
bottom, while the officer of the watch, metaphorically patting himself
on the back, told his agitated pyjama-clad commanding officer of what
had occurred.
'Are you quite certain you got him?' the latter inquired anxiously.
'Absolutely certain, sir,' the lieutenant replied. 'We all saw him hit
several times. He sank by the bows.'
'Have sunk hostile submarine,' was the signal made to the flagship a
few minutes later. 'Request permission to send down divers to
investigate.'
'Approved!' came back the answer. 'Report results.'
'Divers have been down, but report they can find no traces of the
alleged submarine,' another semaphore message went across three hours
afterwards.
The flagship did not deign to answer, but her signalmen tittered; the
'alleged' tickled them.
'I'm absolutely certain he was hit, sir,' the officer who had opened
fire reiterated for the thousandth time. 'I'm positive I saw him
sink--absolutely positive!'
'Well, where the deuce has he got to, then?' the captain wanted to
know, shrugging his shoulders unbelievingly. 'The damned thing surely
can't sink and not leave a trace of anything behind him!' He seemed
rather irritable.
Three days later a light cruiser anchored towards the entrance of the
harbour, and started talking. 'There is a large black object stranded
on the beach abreast the ship,' she said by semaphore. 'Am sending boat
to investigate.'
'Object previously reported is a whale,' came a supplementary message
in less than half-an-hour. 'It has been dead some days, and appears to
have been killed by shell-fire.'
The defunct monster advertised his presence far and wide when the tide
fell. People approached him wearing gas-masks and with ammonia-soaked
handkerchiefs held to their noses. How the authorities got rid of him
history does not relate. One cannot very well bury a thing the size of
a house. Perhaps they sold him for fertiliser.
There were no C.B.'s or D.S.O.'s conferred for that battle, though the
shooting certainly had been good.
But all this has carried us rather far from the _Mariner_ and her men.
They always found Fritz, Hans, Adolf, Karl, or whatever they chose to
call him, as cunning as a hatful of monkeys; but the destroyers and
other craft which sought to compass his destruction admired him for his
efficiency, for efficient he certainly was. He combined boldness with
seaman-like caution, and would suddenly appear in an area crowded with
traffic, sink a merchant ship or two, and then disappear into space.
Occasionally he behaved as a sportsman, and towed the boats containing
the crews of the ships he had just sunk in towards the shore.
Sometimes, when it came to sinking liners and passenger-ships with
women and children on board, his reputation was unsavoury; but even the
righteous wrath and indignation of his pursuers, who always played the
game themselves, were not levelled so much at Fritz himself as at those
who had given him orders to go out and do his dirty work.
The _Mariner_ was once working in an area in which Fritz was very
active indeed, when Hills the telegraphist clambered on to the bridge
in a state of purple excitement, flourishing a sheet of paper.
'Well, what is it?' Wooten demanded. 'What's the matter?'
'There's a steamer down to the south-east'ard makin' the S.O.S. call,
sir!' the man ejaculated agitatedly. 'Says she's bein' overhauled by a
submarine, who's firin' on her. I've got her position, course, and
speed!'
'The devil you have!' said Wooten, putting the telegraphs to 'Full
speed,' and giving the helmsman a new course. 'Let's have her
position.' He took the paper from the telegraphist, and laid the
latitude and longitude off on the chart. 'Lord!' he remarked, rather
perturbed, 'we're a good forty miles off. It'll take us over an hour to
reach her. They'll be strafed by then, poor devils!'
The _Mariner_, meanwhile, with smoke pouring from her funnels and
a great bow-wave creaming aft from her sharp stem, was dashing off at
something over thirty knots.
Wooten scratched his head. 'Hills,' he said at last, as an inspiration
seized him, 'call her up by wireless, and make her in plain
English--not in code, mind--"Hang on. Destroyer will be with you in
twenty minutes." Got that?'
'Yessir,' said the man, writing it down.
'Very well. Don't make our name, but use all the juice you can, so that
they'll think we're very close. Understand?'
'Yessir,' nodded Hills, leaving the bridge rather mystified.
'You see, sub,' the skipper went on, 'we can't possibly get to this
chap in time to save him from being sunk. All we can do is to try to
frighten Fritz and to make him abandon the chase. D'you see?'
Hargreaves nodded vaguely.
'I don't believe you understand in the least what I'm driving at,'
Wooten continued, smiling. 'Fritz has got wireless, and is on the
surface. If he's the wily bird I imagine him to be, he'll have a fellow
in his box-office listening to what's going on. He'll hear my signal,
will take it in, translate it--they all know English--and there's just
a chance it'll scare the life out of him, and make him shove off out of
it. Savvy?'
Hargreaves nodded.
The scheme actually did work successfully, and Fritz was badly had, for
in less than twenty minutes the unknown steamer was talking again.
'Submarine has abandoned chase, and has dived,' she said abruptly. 'Who
are you?'
'Mind your own perishing business!' went back the reply in rather
politer language.
Fritz seemed to work in spasms, for a fortnight would go by without a
sign of him; and then, quite suddenly, there would come another
recrudescence of his activity in another and quite unexpected locality.
But the small craft were always hot on the scent the moment he bobbed
up. They made his life a misery and a burden; and, though it is true he
succeeded in sinking many a merchant ship, many of his species did not
return to Wilhelmshaven. There were various effective ways of dealing
with him, though exactly what those methods were must perforce be left
a secret.
II.
But Fritz was not the only thing they hunted; for once, in the English
Channel, the _Mariner_ was sent to sea to look for Fritz's mother,
a suspicious sailing-vessel supposed to be supplying him with petrol
and other commodities.
It was midnight when the orders came, pitch-dark, snowing hard, and
blowing half a gale of wind, and there was considerable risk in taking
the ship to sea at all. First they had an altercation with the side of
the jetty, the brunt of which was taken by the whaler at her davits,
and caused that boat to open her seams and crack her ribs in resentful
indignation. Then, since there was no room to turn, Wooten had to
perform the rather ticklish manoeuvre, in the midst of a snow-flurry,
of steering stern first through a line of closely anchored ships with
no lights. Any naval officer will agree that handling a destroyer in
such circumstances, with a strong wind broad on the beam, the night so
dark that it is impossible to see more than a hundred yards, and clouds
of black, oil-fuel smoke making it darker still, is apt to be
hair-raising and startling. Wooten found it so at any rate, and
congratulated himself that he succeeded in getting to sea with no
further damage than a badly squeezed whaler.
Shortly before daylight they arrived at the spot where the suspicious
sailing-vessel had been sighted from the shore. They were all in a
state of suppressed excitement, for they fully believed they were in
for something at last; while the guns' crews, fidgeting with
impatience, were standing by their weapons ready to open fire.
Wooten himself was very hopeful. 'If this report is true,' he said to
the first lieutenant, 'I shouldn't at all wonder if we found a
submarine taking in petrol alongside her.'
MacDonald, inclined to be sceptical, shook his head and smiled. 'I have
my doubts, sir,' he said with true Scottish caution. 'It's my opinion
that the whole yarn is pure bunkum.'
When the dawn broke in a blaze of scarlet and orange there was a
sailing-craft in sight, and she was barely a mile away from the place
where the submarine supply-ship had been reported. She seemed rather an
ordinary-looking vessel, ketch rigged, with a sturdy, broad-beamed
hull, and was hove-to under the lee of the land. Her sails were patched
and dingy, and, like Joseph's coat, were of many colours. But really
and truly there was nothing at all remarkable about her, though most of
the officers and fully half the men were firmly convinced that she was
a Hun of most immoral character.
The _Mariner_ approached her warily, with guns trained, and the
men's fingers itching on their triggers. They longed to fire. The
_Jessie and Eva_, however, evinced no particular interest in the
proceedings; and when the destroyer steamed up close alongside, and
went astern to check her way, only a small, sleepy-eyed boy was visible
on deck.
'Where d'you come from?' Wooten bellowed through a megaphone.
'Brixham, surr!' answered the youth with a broad west-country burr, as
a tousled head appeared up the after-companion and stared at the
destroyer in amazement.
'Where's your skipper?' the lieutenant-commander asked.
'Here Oi be, surr!' said the owner of the head, scrambling out of his
cubby-hole, and appearing on deck in jersey and sea-boots. 'What'll you
be waantin', surr?'
'Where d'you come from?'
'Brixham, surr.'
'How long have you been out?'
'Nigh on three-fourr days, surr.'
'What's your name?'
'Jarge, surr--Jarge Willyum Cobley,' answered the man, in unmistakable
Devonshire accents.
Wooten turned to the first lieutenant. 'Lower the dinghy, and go on
board and have a look at her,' he said rather disappointedly. 'Seems to
me she's as innocent as a new-born babe; but ask 'em if they've seen
any men-of-war or submarines about, and find out how long they've been
here. Get back as soon as you can.'
'Ay, ay, sir.'
The boat was lowered, and the _Jessie and Eva_, for the first time
in her career, found herself boarded by an officer and two men armed to
the teeth.
'Whaat du th' li'l man-o'-warr waant, surr?' queried the skipper,
eyeing MacDonald's holstered weapon with some apprehension. 'Us is from
Brixham, surr.'
'Yes, that's all right. I merely want to have a look round.'
He examined the smack fore and aft; but there was not the least vestige
of anything incriminating about her. Her papers were in order, her two
men and the boy were obvious west-countrymen, and she herself was full
of fish. She had been in her present position or thereabouts for the
last three days, the skipper said, and he intended returning to Brixham
with her catch that afternoon.
'Well, there's nothing the matter with you,' said the first lieutenant
with a laugh, as he prepared to get back to his boat. 'Care for a bit
of navy plug?' He knew well enough how to get the right side of
fishermen, and never dreamt of boarding a trawler without a couple of
inches of strong navy plug tobacco in his pocket.
Old Cobley beamed. 'Ay, surr,' he said, accepting the gift. 'Us doan't
of'en get navy 'bacca. Would 'e care fur some fish, surr? 'Tis fine
fresh caught.'
'Thanks very much,' answered the lieutenant, who had taken the
precaution of bringing two buckets across in the boat with him; 'I
should.'
'Peterr!' the old fisherman bellowed to the boy, 'put some fish inter
th' orficer's boat, an' luk lively naow.'
Peter obeyed his orders, and the dinghy eventually returned to the ship
with the buckets full and her bottom covered with a slippery, sliding
mass of newly caught herrings, a turbot or two, and dozens of other
varieties which nobody could put a name to. They had sufficient to
provide the ship's company of the _Mariner_ with two excellent
meals, and the total value of the haul, if brought ashore, could not
have been far short of thirty shillings. Tobacco to the approximate
value of four-pence sometimes does work wonders, and well MacDonald
knew it. He was a Scotsman.
But Wooten was anxious to find out how the report had originated. His
orders to search for a suspicious vessel had mentioned 'a black-hulled,
ketch-rigged craft, with several white patches in her mainsail,' and
this description suited old Jarge Cobley's smack to a T. Moreover, she
had been found close to the position mentioned in the report.
'Any silly juggins could have seen that she was innocent!' the
lieutenant-commander declared wrathfully. He forgot that it was easy to
be wise after the event, and that, barely half-an-hour before, he and
most of his men had been quite firm in their conviction that the
_Jessie and Eva_ was a Hun in disguise.
The _Mariner_ first signalled to a coastguard station ashore, but
the coastguardmen declined all responsibility, and merely stated that
they had heard a rumour that, the previous afternoon, some agitation
had been caused amongst the military authorities in the neighbouring
coast town of Baymouth by a report that a strange vessel had been seen
hovering in a most suspicious manner off the coast. The coastguardmen,
having satisfied themselves that there was no such craft in the
neighbourhood, had taken no further interest in the matter. That was
all they professed to know about it.
Wooten himself did not know until afterwards that the garrison of
Baymouth consisted of a small detachment of the 8th (Service) battalion
of the Midshire Rangers. It was commanded by a major who, having
contracted a chill, was absent on sick-leave. Next came a captain, and
he, the day being Sunday, had gone off on his motor-bicycle to see his
wife, leaving Second Lieutenant Tarry-Diddle, a newly caught subaltern,
in charge of the gallant troops. Tarry-Diddle, a most promising and
zealous youth, was the 'military authority' referred to.
The _Mariner_ steamed three miles along the coast to Baymouth, and
here the first lieutenant was landed in the dinghy to make inquiries.
There was some surf on the beach, and he was very wet before he got
ashore; but, escorted by a local constable and a tribe of urchins, who
were firmly convinced that he was a prisoner from a German submarine
just sunk in the bay by the destroyer, he was eventually ushered into
the presence of the senior military officer in the town. This time it
was Captain Bumble-Dyke, and he was having his breakfast.
An hour later MacDonald returned to the ship and described the scene to
Wooten. 'I got ashore,' he said, 'and asked for the boss military man
in the place. He was having his breakfast when I arrived, and was quite
affable; asked me if I'd care for some of his bacon and eggs, in fact.
I was wet through and beastly cold, so said I'd have a cup of coffee.
Then I asked him about the suspicious sailing-vessel of his. He
evidently thought at first that I'd come to pay an official call,
though why he should imagine I'd come at that hour in the morning, wet
through, and wearing a dirty muffler and sea-boots, I'm sure I don't
know. He seemed rather surprised, and stared at me for a bit, and then
asked what suspicious sailing-vessel I meant. He said he hadn't heard
of one, and went off into a yarn about his having been away all the day
before, his motor-bike having punctured, and his only having got back
at two o'clock that morning.' No. 1 smiled at the recollection.
'Go on with the yarn,' said Wooten, beginning to laugh.
'Well, sir, I told him that the military people at Baymouth had
reported a suspicious craft off the coast yesterday evening. "It's the
first I've heard of it," he said. "Well, your people reported her,
anyhow," I told him. "It must have been Tarry-Diddle!" he answered. "He
was in charge here all yesterday. He's not said anything to me about
it, though it's true I haven't seen him since I returned." "Who's
Tarry-Diddle?" I asked. "He's my subaltern," he said. "We'd better send
along for him." We did, and he fetched up in about ten minutes. Seemed
a decent little chap, but a bit nervous. "What's this about a
suspicious vessel off the coast?" asked the captain. "Yes, sir. We
sighted one yesterday, and reported it," says Tarry-Diddle, looking at
me rather anxiously. "Most suspicious-looking craft. Ketch rigged,
black hull, and several white patches in her mainsail. She's been
hovering round the bay for three days, sir." I laughed; couldn't very
well help it, for he'd described the _Jessie and Eva_ exactly. "What's
the matter?" the captain asked me. "Matter!" I said. "Why, your
suspicious craft is nothing but an ordinary Brixham trawler. We've just
examined her." "The deuce she is!--Whom did you report her to,
Tarry-Diddle?" "I sent a wire straight to the Admiralty, sir," the poor
little chap said. The captain got rather purple in the face. "Good
God!" he shouted, jumping up, "d'you mean to say that you wired to the
Admiralty to tell 'em that---- Oh Lord! you'll get me hanged! What the
deuce d'you mean by it?" "I'm awfully sorry, sir," said Tarry-Diddle,
rather frightened and very white about the gills. "I thought I'd done
the right thing." "Done the right thing, you blithering young jackass!"
roared the captain. "Why the devil didn't you get the naval people to
have a look at her? How on earth can you tell whether a ship's
suspicious or whether she isn't? I go away for twelve hours, and leave
you in charge, and this sort of thing happens! I tell you,
Tarry-Diddle, it won't do. It won't do at all! I shall have to report
the matter to the colonel!" He started stamping up and down the room in
a fearful state of excitement. I couldn't help laughing.'
Wooten was laughing himself. 'What happened then?' he spluttered.
'Tarry-Diddle got in a bit of a funk, sir. "It happened like this,
sir," he explained. "The sergeant-major was walking along the front
yesterday afternoon"---- "To hell with the sergeant-major!" shouted
Bumble-Dyke; "where the deuce does he come in?" "That's just what I'm
trying to explain, sir," said Tarry-Diddle; and I do believe the young
devil was laughing. "Oh, go on, and let's hear what you have to say!"
spluttered the captain. "Well, sir, the sergeant-major was walking
along the front yesterday afternoon behind two retired naval
officers--at least, he said they were retired naval officers. They were
talking, and one of them drew the attention of the other to the
sailing-craft, and said he thought she looked rather suspicious. The
other chap agreed, and said the Admiralty ought to be asked to send a
ship to have a look at her." "I've never met any retired naval officers
here," grumbled Bumble-Dyke. "I've seen most of the residents in the
club, too." "I'm only telling you what the sergeant-major said, sir,"
Tarry-Diddle went on. "He came back to me at once, and told me what
he'd heard, so I sent the wire off to the Admiralty on one of those
yellow forms." "That accounts for our little excursion, then," I
chipped in.'
'Oh Lord!' gasped Wooten, 'this is the limit. Go on. What happened
then?'
'Well, sir,' MacDonald continued, laughing, 'the captain called the
poor little chap all the names he could think of; told him he ought to
be court-martialled, and shot at dawn, and all the rest of it. They
were still at it hammer and tongs when I came away.'
Wooten smiled. 'I feel rather sorry for Tarry-Diddle,' he said. 'But
I'm not certain he didn't deserve it, draggin' us out of harbour in the
middle of the night all for a ruddy craft which any darned son of a gun
could have seen was only a Brixham trawler.' It did not occur to him
that he had been badly taken in himself. 'By the way,' he added, 'who
were the two retired naval officers?'
'They were invented by the sergeant-major,' MacDonald chuckled. 'One of
them was the steward at the yacht club, who goes about in a
yachting-cap and a gold badge, and t' other was the man who's in charge
of the bathing-machines in the summer. That's what I was told, at any
rate.'
'Lord!' said the skipper, laughing, 'it reminds me of that parson, at
the other place, who said he had seen the periscope of a submarine at
seventeen miles. Seventeen perishin' miles, mark you! He sent a wire to
the Admiralty, too, and they called out every destroyer within a
hundred miles. But it wasn't Fritz at all, merely the mast of a ship
hull down on the horizon. It was rather a clearer day than usual,
that's all!'
No. 1 laughed. 'They're all so jolly keen on reporting things, sir; but
I must say this sort of thing is the limit.'
'I agree,' said Wooten, chuckling. 'However, we mustn't let Tarry
What's-his-name get into trouble. I'll send in a report sayin' we
couldn't find any rakish-lookin' craft in the neighbourhood, and that I
expect the military people were mistaken. You know,' he added, 'these
fellows who've joined the new army are devilish good chaps and devilish
keen, and one doesn't want to have 'em strafed unless one can't help
it--what?'
'I quite agree, sir.'
'And when we get in I'll write a letter to Bumble-Dyke, asking him not
to be too hard on him.'
He was as good as his word, and never regretted it, for less than a
year later the name of Temporary Lieutenant Richard Tarry-Diddle, as he
was then, appeared in the Honours List. He had won his Victoria Cross
at Ypres.