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SOME WAR IMPRESSIONS
* * * * *
Jeffery Farnol's Great Mediæval Romance.
Beltane the Smith
BY
JEFFERY FARNOL.
_Author of "The Broad Highway."_
LIBRARY EDITION only, Crown 8vo, cloth. Handsome wrapper in
colour, with spirited picture by C. E. BROCK. Price 6/-.
_WHAT THE PRESS HAS TO SAY_:--
EVENING STANDARD.--"Better than 'Ivanhoe.' 'Beltane' will
make the oldest feel young again. There is no resisting it."
DAILY MAIL.--"The author exercises such a skilled grip
upon the imagination of the reader that one is simply obliged to
keep up with him."
MORNING POST.--"An enthralling volume."
SUNDAY TIMES.--"Pick up the book if it comes your way;
you will not want to drop it till you have turned the last page."
SPHERE.--"Here is a delightful story, the scene laid in
the golden age. Every page has an adventure."
THE LADY.--"It is certainly enthralling."
Mr. Farnol's Great "High Toby" Romance.
The Honourable Mr. Tawnish
BY
JEFFERY FARNOL.
_Author of "The Amateur Gentleman," etc._
PRESENTATION EDITION, Foolscap 4to. Handsomely bound.
Cloth, extra gilt, gilt top. Charmingly illustrated in colour by
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NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION, cloth. Price 3/6 net.
Illustrated prospectus post free on application.
_WHAT THE PRESS HAS TO SAY_:--
GLOBE.--"There is something delightfully attractive in
this romance."
DAILY CHRONICLE.--"Another charming romance from the pen
of Mr. Jeffery Farnol."
ACADEMY.--"The story is well written; Mr. C. E. Brock's
illustrations are very apt."
EVENING STANDARD.--"It is all very exciting, and some of
it is very tender."
DAILY MAIL.--" ... A gallant flavour of the eighteenth
century about it that is graphically aided and abetted by Mr. C.
E. Brock's masterly pictures in colours."
SUNDAY TIMES.--"Mr. Farnol's writing is so delightful,
his characters are so lovable."
* * * * *
SOME WAR IMPRESSIONS
* * * * *
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
THE BROAD HIGHWAY
THE MONEY MOON
THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN
THE HONOURABLE MR. TAWNISH
THE CHRONICLES OF THE IMP (My Lady Caprice)
BELTANE THE SMITH
THE DEFINITE OBJECT
* * * * *
SOME WAR IMPRESSIONS
by
JEFFERY FARNOL
[Illustration: Logo]
London and Edinburgh
Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd.
TO ALL MY AMERICAN FRIENDS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I.--FOREWORD 1
II.--CARTRIDGES 5
III.--RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 9
IV.--CLYDEBANK 17
V.--SHIPS IN MAKING 23
VI.--THE BATTLE CRUISERS 29
VII.--A HOSPITAL 41
VIII.--THE GUNS 49
IX.--A TRAINING CAMP 63
X.--ARRAS 73
XI.--THE BATTLEFIELDS 81
XII.--FLYING MEN 88
XIII.--YPRES 101
XIV.--WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 110
SOME WAR IMPRESSIONS.
I.
FOREWORD.
In publishing these collected articles in book form (the result of my
visits to Flanders, the battlefields of France and divers of the great
munition centres) some of which have already appeared in the press both
in England and America, I do so with a certain amount of diffidence,
because of their so many imperfections and of their inadequacy of
expression. But what man, especially in these days, may hope to treat
a theme so vast, a tragedy so awful, without a sure knowledge that
all he can say must fall so infinitely far below the daily happenings
which are, on the one hand, raising Humanity to a godlike altitude
or depressing it lower than the brutes. But, because these articles
are a simple record of what I have seen and what I have heard, they
may perhaps be of use in bringing out of the shadow--that awful
shadow of "usualness" into which they have fallen--many incidents that
would, before the war, have roused the world to wonder, to pity and to
infinite awe.
Since the greater number of these articles was written, America has
thrown her might into the scale against merciless Barbarism and
Autocracy; at her entry into the drama there was joy in English
and French hearts, but, I venture to think, a much greater joy in
the hearts of all true Americans. I happened to be in Paris on the
memorable day America declared war, and I shall never forget the
deep-souled enthusiasm of the many Americans it was my privilege to
know there. America, the greatest democracy in the world, had at last
taken her stand on the side of Freedom, Justice and Humanity.
As an Englishman, I love and am proud of my country, and, in the
years I spent in America, I saw with pain and deep regret the
misunderstanding that existed between these two great nations. In
America I beheld a people young, ardent, indomitable, full of the
unconquerable spirit of Youth, and I thought of that older country
across the seas, so little understanding and so little understood.
And often I thought if it were only possible to work a miracle, if
it were only possible for the mists of jealousy and ill-feeling, of
rivalry and misconception to be swept away once and for all--if only
these two great nations could be bonded together by a common ideal,
heart to heart and hand to hand, for the good of Humanity, what
earthly power should ever be able to withstand their united strength.
In my soul I knew that the false teaching of history--that great
obstacle to the progress of the world--was one of the underlying causes
of the misunderstanding, but it was an American Ambassador who put this
into words. If, said he, America did not understand the aims and hopes
of Great Britain, _it was due to the text books of history used in
American schools_.
To-day, America, through her fighting youth and manhood, will see
Englishmen as they are, and not as they have been represented. Surely
the time has come when we should try and appreciate each other at our
true worth.
These are tragic times, sorrowful times, yet great and noble times,
for these are days of fiery ordeal whereby mean and petty things are
forgotten and the dross of unworthy things burned away. To-day the
two great Anglo-Saxon peoples stand united in a noble comradeship for
the good of the world and for those generations that are yet to be,
a comradeship which I, for one, do most sincerely hope and pray may
develop into a veritable brotherhood. One in blood are we, in speech,
and in ideals, and though sundered by generations of misunderstanding
and false teaching, to-day we stand, brothers-in-arms, fronting the
brute for the freedom of Humanity.
Americans will die as Britons have died for this noble cause; Americans
will bleed as Britons have bled; American women will mourn as British
women have mourned these last terrible years; yet, in these deaths,
in this noble blood, in these tears of agony and bereavement, surely
the souls of these two great nations will draw near, each to each, and
understand at last.
Here in a word is the fulfilment of the dream; that, by the united
effort, by the blood, by the suffering, by the heartbreak endured of
these two great English-speaking races, wars shall be made to cease in
all the world; that peace and happiness, truth and justice shall be
established among us for all generations, and that the united powers
of the Anglo-Saxon races shall be a bulwark behind which Mankind may
henceforth rest secure.
Now, in the name of Humanity, I appeal to American and to Briton
to work for, strive, think and pray for this great and glorious
consummation.
II.
CARTRIDGES.
At an uncomfortable hour I arrived at a certain bleak railway platform
and in due season, stepping into a train, was whirled away Northwards.
And as I journeyed, hearkening to the talk of my companions, men much
travelled and of many nationalities, my mind was agog for the marvels
and wonders I was to see in the workshops of Great Britain. Marvels and
wonders I was prepared for, and yet for once how far short of fact were
all my fancies!
Britain has done great things in the past; she will, I pray, do even
greater in the future; but surely never have mortal eyes looked on an
effort so stupendous and determined as she is sustaining, and will
sustain, until this most bloody of wars is ended.
The deathless glory of our troops, their blood and agony and scorn of
death have been made pegs on which to hang much indifferent writing and
more bad verse--there have been letters also, sheaves of them, in many
of which effusions one may discover a wondering surprise that our men
can actually and really fight, that Britain is still the Britain of
Drake and Frobisher and Grenville, of Nelson and Blake and Cochrane,
and that the same deathless spirit of heroic determination animates her
still.
To-night, as I pen these lines, our armies are locked in desperate
battle, our guns are thundering on many fronts, but like an echo
to their roar, from mile upon mile of workshops and factories and
shipyards is rising the answering roar of machinery, the thunderous
crash of titanic hammers, the hellish rattle of riveters, the whining,
droning, shrieking of a myriad wheels where another vast army is
engaged night and day, as indomitable, as fierce of purpose as the army
beyond the narrow seas.
I have beheld miles of workshops that stand where grass grew two short
years ago, wherein are bright-eyed English girls, Irish colleens and
Scots lassies by the ten thousand, whose dexterous fingers flash nimbly
to and fro, slender fingers, yet fingers contriving death. I have
wandered through a wilderness of whirring driving-belts and humming
wheels where men and women, with the same feverish activity, bend above
machines whose very hum sang to me of death while I have watched a
cartridge grow from a disc of metal to the hellish contrivance it is.
And as I watched the busy scene it seemed an unnatural and awful thing
that women's hands should be busied thus, fashioning means for the
maiming and destruction of life--until, in a remote corner, I paused to
watch a woman whose dexterous fingers were fitting finished cartridges
into clips with wonderful celerity. A middle-aged woman, this, tall and
white-haired, who, at my remark, looked up with a bright smile, but
with eyes sombre and weary.
"Yes, sir," she answered above the roar of machinery, "I had two boys
at the front, but--they're a-laying out there somewhere, killed by the
same shell. I've got a photo of their graves--very neat they look,
though bare, and I'll never be able to go and tend 'em, y'see--nor lay
a few flowers on 'em. So I'm doin' this instead--to help the other
lads. Yes, sir, my boys did their bit, and now they're gone their
mother's tryin' to do hers."
Thus I stood and talked with this sad-eyed white-haired woman who had
cast off selfish grief to aid the Empire, and in her I saluted the
spirit of noble motherhood ere I turned and went my way.
But now I woke to the fact that my companions had vanished utterly;
lost, but nothing abashed, I rambled on between long alleys of
clattering machines, which in their many functions seemed in
themselves almost human, pausing now and then to watch and wonder and
exchange a word with one or other of the many workers, until a kindly
works-manager found me and led me unerringly through that riotous
jungle of machinery.
He brought me by devious ways to a place he called "holy ground"--long,
low outbuildings approached by narrow, wooden causeways, swept and
re-swept by men shod in felt--a place this, where no dust or grit
might be, for here was the magazine, with the filling sheds beyond. And
within these long sheds, each seated behind a screen, were women who
handled and cut deadly cordite into needful lengths as if it had been
so much ribbon, and always and everywhere the same dexterous speed.
He led me, this soft-voiced, keen-eyed works-manager, through
well-fitted wards and dispensaries, redolent of clean, druggy smells
and the pervading odour of iodoform; he ushered me through dining halls
long and wide and lofty and lighted by many windows, where countless
dinners were served at a trifling cost per head; and so at last out
upon a pleasant green, beyond which rose the great gates where stood
the cars that were to bear my companions and myself upon our way.
"They seem to work very hard!" said I, turning to glance back whence we
had come, "they seem very much in earnest."
"Yes," said my companion, "every week we are turning out--" here he
named very many millions--"of cartridges."
"To be sure they are earning good money!" said I thoughtfully.
"More than many of them ever dreamed of earning," answered the
works-manager. "And yet--I don't know, but I don't think it is
altogether the money, somehow."
"I'm glad to hear you say that--very glad!" said I, "because it is a
great thing to feel that they are working for the Britain that is, and
is to be."
III.
RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS.
A drive through a stately street where were shops which might rival
Bond Street, the Rue de la Paix, or Fifth Avenue for the richness and
variety of their contents; a street whose pavements were thronged
with well-dressed pedestrians and whose roadway was filled with motor
cars--vehicles, these, scornful of the petrol tax and such-like mundane
and vulgar restrictions--in fine, the street of a rich and thriving
city.
But suddenly the stately thoroughfare had given place to a meaner
street, its princely shops had degenerated into blank walls or grimy
yards, on either hand rose tall chimney-stacks belching smoke, instead
of dashing motor cars, heavy wains and cumbrous wagons jogged by, in
place of the well-dressed throng were figures rough-clad and grimy
that hurried along the narrow sidewalks--but these rough-clad people
walked fast and purposefully. So we hummed along streets wide or narrow
but always grimy, until we were halted at a tall barrier by divers
policemen, who, having inspected our credentials, permitted us to pass
on to the factory, or series of factories, that stretched themselves
before us, building on building--block on block--a very town.
Here we were introduced to various managers and heads of departments,
among whom was one in the uniform of a Captain of Engineers, under
whose capable wing I had the good fortune to come, for he, it seemed,
had lived among engines and machinery, had thought out and contrived
lethal weapons from his youth up, and therewith retained so kindly and
genial a personality as drew me irresistibly. Wherefore I gave myself
to his guidance, and he, chatting of books and literature and the like
trivialities, led me along corridors and passage ways to see the wonder
of the guns. And as we went, in the air about us was a stir, a hum that
grew and ever grew, until, passing a massive swing door there burst
upon us a rumble, a roar, a clashing din.
We stood in a place of gloom lit by many fires, a vast place whose
roof was hid by blue vapour; all about us rose the dim forms of huge
stamps, whose thunderous stroke beat out a deep diapason to the
ring of countless hand-hammers. And, lighted by the sudden glare of
furnace-fires were figures, bare-armed, smoke-grimed, wild of aspect,
figures that whirled heavy sledges or worked the levers of the giant
steam-hammers, while here and there bars of iron new-glowing from the
furnace winked and twinkled in the gloom where those wild, half-naked
men-shapes flitted to and fro unheard amid the thunderous din. Awed and
half stunned, I stood viewing that never-to-be-forgotten scene until I
grew aware that the Captain was roaring in my ear.
"Forge ... rifle barrels ... come and see and mind where you tread!"
Treading as seemingly silent as those wild human shapes, that
straightened brawny backs to view me as I passed, that grinned in
the fire-glow and spoke one to another, words lost to my stunned
hearing, ere they bent to their labour again. Obediently I followed the
Captain's dim form until I was come where, bare-armed, leathern-aproned
and be-spectacled, stood one who seemed of some account among these
salamanders, who, nodding to certain words addressed to him by the
Captain, seized a pair of tongs, swung open a furnace door, and
plucking thence a glowing brand, whirled it with practised ease, and
setting it upon the dies beneath a huge steam-hammer, nodded his head.
Instantly that mighty engine fell to work, thumping and banging with
mighty strokes, and with each stroke that glowing steel bar changed and
changed, grew round, grew thin, hunched a shoulder here, showed a flat
there, until, lo! before my eyes was the shape of a rifle minus the
stock! Hereupon the be-spectacled salamander nodded again, the giant
hammer became immediately immobile, the glowing forging was set among
hundreds of others and a voice roared in my ear:
"Two minutes ... this way."
A door opens, closes, and we are in sunshine again, and the Captain is
smilingly reminiscent of books.
"This is greater than books," said I.
"Why, that depends," says he, "there are books and books ... this way!"
Up a flight of stairs, through a doorway and I am in a shop where huge
machines grow small in perspective. And here I see the rough forging
pass through the many stages of trimming, milling, turning, boring,
rifling until comes the assembling, and I take up the finished rifle
ready for its final process--testing. So downstairs we go to the
testing sheds, wherefrom as we approach comes the sound of dire battle,
continuous reports, now in volleys, now in single sniping shots, or in
rapid succession.
Inside, I breathe an air charged with burnt powder and behold in a
long row, many rifles mounted upon crutches, their muzzles levelled
at so many targets. Beside each rifle stand two men, one to sight and
correct, and one to fire and watch the effect of the shot by means of a
telescope fixed to hand.
With the nearest of these men I incontinent fell into talk--a chatty
fellow this, who, busied with pliers adjusting the back-sight of a
rifle, talked to me of lines of sight and angles of deflection, his
remarks sharply punctuated by rifle-shots, that came now slowly, now in
twos and threes and now in rapid volleys.
"Yes, sir," said he, busy pliers never still, "guns and rifles is very
like us--you and me, say. Some is just naturally good and some is worse
than bad--load up, George! A new rifle's like a kid--pretty sure to
fire a bit wide at first--not being used to it--we was all kids once,
sir, remember! But a bit of correction here an' there'll put that right
as a rule. On the other hand there's rifles as Old Nick himself nor
nobody else could make shoot straight--ready George? And it's just
the same with kids! Now, if you'll stick your eyes to that glass, and
watch the target, you'll see how near she'll come this time--all right,
George!" As he speaks the rifle speaks also, and observing the hit on
the target, I sing out:
"Three o'clock!"
Ensues more work with the pliers; George loads and fires and with one
eye still at the telescope I give him:
"Five o'clock!"
Another moment of adjusting, again the rifle cracks and this time I
announce:
"A bull!"
Hereupon my companion squints through the glass and nods: "Right-oh,
George!" says he, then, while George the silent stacks the tested
rifle with many others, he turns to me and nods, "Got 'im that time,
sir--pity it weren't a bloomin' Hun!"
Here the patient Captain suggests we had better go, and unwillingly I
follow him out into the open and the sounds of battle die away behind
us.
And now, as we walked, I learned some particulars of that terrible
device the Lewis gun; how that it could spout bullets at the rate
of 600 per minute; how, by varying pressures of the trigger, it
could be fired by single rounds or pour forth its entire magazine
in a continuous, shattering volley and how it weighed no more than
twenty-six pounds.
"And here," said the Captain, opening a door and speaking in his
pleasant voice, much as though he were showing me some rare flowers,
"here is where they grow by the hundred, every week."
And truly in hundreds they were, long rows of them standing very neatly
in racks, their walnut stocks heel by heel, their grim, blue muzzles
in long, serried ranks, very orderly and precise; and something in
their very orderliness endowed them with a certain individuality as
it were, it almost seemed to me that they were waiting, mustered and
ready, for that hour of ferocious roar and tumult when their voice
should be the voice of swift and terrible death. Now as I gazed upon
them, filled with these scarcely definable thoughts, I was startled by
a sudden shattering crash near by, a sound made up of many individual
reports, and swinging about, I espied a man seated upon a stool; a
plump, middle-aged, family sort of man, who sat upon his low stool, his
aproned knees set wide, as plump, middle-aged family men often do. As I
watched, Paterfamilias squinted along the sights of one of these guns
and once again came that shivering crash that is like nothing else I
ever heard. Him I approached and humbly ventured an awed question or
so, whereon he graciously beckoned me nearer, vacated his stool, and
motioning me to sit there, suggested I might try a shot at the target,
a far disc lighted by shaded electric bulbs.
"She's fixed dead on!" he said, "and she's true--you can't miss. A
quick pull for single shots and a steady pressure for a volley."
Hereupon I pressed the trigger, the gun stirred gently in its clamps,
the air throbbed, and a stream of ten bullets (the testing number)
plunged into the bull's-eye and all in the space of a moment.
"There ain't a un'oly 'un of 'em all could say Hoch the Kaiser' with
them in his stomach," said Paterfamilias thoughtfully, laying a hand
upon the respectable stomach beneath his apron, "it's a gun, that is!"
And a gun it most assuredly is.
I would have tarried longer with Paterfamilias, for in his own way,
he was as arresting as this terrible weapon--or nearly so--but the
Captain, gentle-voiced and serene as ever, suggested that my companions
had a train to catch, wherefore I reluctantly turned away. But as I
went, needs must I glance back at Paterfamilias, as comfortable as
ever where he sat, but with pudgy fingers on trigger grimly at work
again, and from him to the long, orderly rows of guns mustered in their
orderly ranks, awaiting their hour.
We walked through shops where belts and pulleys and wheels and cogs
flapped and whirled and ground in ceaseless concert, shops where
files rasped and hammers rang, shops again where all seemed riot and
confusion at the first glance, but at a second showed itself ordered
confusion, as it were. And as we went, my Captain spoke of the hospital
bay, of wards and dispensary (lately enlarged) of sister and nurses
and the grand work they were doing among the employees other than
attending to their bodily ills; and talking thus, he brought me to
the place, a place of exquisite order and tidiness, yet where nurses,
blue-uniformed, in their white caps, cuffs and aprons, seemed to me
the neatest of all. And here I was introduced to Sister, capable,
strong, gentle-eyed, who told me something of her work--how many came
to her with wounds of soul as well as body; of griefs endured and
wrongs suffered by reason of pitiful lack of knowledge; of how she
was teaching them care and cleanliness of minds as well as bodies,
which is surely the most blessed heritage the unborn generations may
inherit. She told me of the patient bravery of the women, the chivalry
of grimy men, whose hurts may wait that others may be treated first.
So she talked and I listened until, perceiving the Captain somewhat
ostentatiously consulting his watch, I presently left that quiet haven
with its soft-treading ministering attendants.
So we had tea and cigarettes, and when I eventually shook hands with my
Captain, I felt that I was parting with a friend.
"And what struck you most particularly this afternoon?" enquired one of
my companions.
"Well," said I, "it was either the Lewis gun or Paterfamilias the grim."
IV.
CLYDEBANK.
Henceforth the word "Clydebank" will be associated in my mind with the
ceaseless ring and din of riveting-hammers, where, day by day, hour by
hour, a new fleet is growing, destroyers and torpedo-boats alongside
monstrous submarines--yonder looms the grim bulk of Super-dreadnought
or battle-cruiser or the slenderer shape of some huge liner.
And with these vast shapes about me, what wonder that I stood awed
and silent at the stupendous sight. But, to my companion, a shortish,
thick-set man, with a masterful air and a bowler hat very much over
one eye, these marvels were an every day affair; and now, ducking
under a steel hawser, he led me on, dodging moving trucks, stepping
unconcernedly across the buffers of puffing engines, past titanic
cranes that swung giant arms high in the air; on we went, stepping over
chain cables, wire ropes, pulley-blocks and a thousand and one other
obstructions, on which I stumbled occasionally since my awed gaze was
turned upwards. And as we walked amid these awesome shapes, he talked,
I remember, of such futile things as--books.
I beheld great ships well-nigh ready for launching: I stared up at
huge structures towering aloft, a wild complexity of steel joists
and girders, yet, in whose seeming confusion, the eye could detect
something of the mighty shape of the leviathan that was to be; even as
I looked, six feet or so of steel plating swung through the air, sank
into place, and immediately I was deafened by the hellish racket of the
riveting-hammers.
" ... nothing like a good book and a pipe to go with it!" said my
companion between two bursts of hammering.
"This is a huge ship!" said I, staring upward still.
"H'm--fairish!" nodded my companion, scratching his square jaw and
letting his knowledgeful eyes rove to and fro over the vast bulk that
loomed above us.
"Have you built them much bigger, then?" I enquired.
My companion nodded and proceeded to tell me certain amazing facts
which the riotous riveting-hammers promptly censored in the following
remarkable fashion.
"You should have seen the rat-rat-tat. We built her in exactly
nineteen months instead of two years and a half! Biggest battleship
afloat--two hundred feet longer than the rat-tat-tat--launched her last
rat-tat-tat--gone to rat-tat-tat-tat for her guns."
"What size guns?" I shouted above the hammers.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-inch!" he said, smiling grimly.
"How much?" I yelled.
"She has four rat-tat-tat-tat inch and twelve rattle-tattle inch
besides rat-tat-tat-tat!" he answered, nodding.
"Really!" I roared, "if those guns are half as big as I think, the
Germans--"
"The Germans--!" said he, and blew his nose.
"How long did you say she was?" I hastened to ask as the hammers died
down a little.
"Well, over all she measured exactly rat-tat feet. She was so big that
we had to pull down a corner of the building there, as you can see."
"And what's her name?"
"The rat-tat-tat, and she's the rattle-tattle of her class."
"Are these hammers always quite so noisy, do you suppose?" I enquired,
a little hopelessly.
"Oh, off and on!" he nodded, "Kick up a bit of a racket, don't they,
but you get used to it in time, I could hear a pin drop. Look! since
we've stood here they've got four more plates fixed--there goes the
fifth. This way!"
Past the towering bows of future battleships he led me, over and under
more steel cables, until he paused to point towards an empty slip near
by.
"That's where we built the Lusitania!" said he. "We thought she was
pretty big then--but now--!" he settled his hat a little further over
one eye with a knock on the crown.
"Poor old Lusitania!" said I, "she'll never be forgotten."
"Not while ships sail!" he answered, squaring his square jaw, "no,
she'll never be forgotten, nor the murderers who ended her!"
"And they've struck a medal in commemoration," said I.
"Medal!" said he, and blew his nose louder than before. "I fancy
they'll wish they could swallow that damn medal, one day. Poor old
Lusitania! You lose anyone aboard?"
"I had some American friends aboard, but they escaped, thank
God--others weren't so fortunate."
"No," he answered, turning away, "but America got quite angry--wrote
a note, remember? Over there's one of the latest submarines, Germany
can't touch her for speed and size, and better than that, she's got
rat-tat--"
"I beg pardon?" I wailed, for the hammers were riotous again, "what has
she?"
"She's got rat-tat forward and rat-tat aft, surface speed
rat-tat-tat knots, submerged rat-tat-tat, and then best of all she's
rattle-tattle-tattle. Yes, hammers are a bit noisy! This way. A
destroyer yonder--new class--rat-tat feet longer than ordinary. We
expect her to do rat-tat-tat knots and she'll mount rat-tat guns.
There are two of them in the basin yonder having their engines fitted,
turbines to give rat-tat-tat horse power. But come on, we'd better be
going or we shall lose the others of your party."
"I should like to stay here a week," said I, tripping over a steel
hawser.
"Say a month," he added, steadying me deftly. "You might begin to see
all we've been doing in a month. We've built twenty-nine ships of
different classes since the war began in this one yard, and we're going
on building till the war's over--and after that too. And this place is
only one of many. Which reminds me you're to go to another yard this
afternoon--we'd better hurry after the rest of your party or they'll be
waiting for you."
"I'm afraid they generally are!" I sighed, as I turned and followed my
conductor through yawning doorways (built to admit a giant, it seemed)
into vast workshops whose lofty roofs were lost in haze. Here I saw
huge turbines and engines of monstrous shape in course of construction;
I beheld mighty propellers, with boilers and furnaces big as houses,
whose proportions were eloquent of the colossal ships that were to be.
But here indeed, all things were on a gigantic scale; ponderous lathes
were turning, mighty planing machines swung unceasing back and forth,
while other monsters bored and cut through steel plate as it had been
so much cardboard.
"Good machines, these!" said my companion, patting one of these
monsters with familiar hand, "all made in Britain!"
"Like the men!" I suggested.
"The men," said he, "Humph! They haven't been giving much trouble
lately--touch wood!"
"Perhaps they know Britain just now needs every man that is a man," I
suggested, "and someone has said that a man can fight as hard at home
here with a hammer as in France with a rifle."
"Well, there's a lot of fighting going on here," nodded my companion,
"we're fighting night and day and we're fighting damned hard. And now
we'd better hurry, your party will be cursing you in chorus."
"I'm afraid it has before now!" said I.
So we hurried on, past shops whence came the roar of machinery, past
great basins wherein floated destroyers and torpedo-boats, past craft
of many kinds and fashions, ships built and building; on I hastened,
tripping over more cables, dodging from the buffers of snorting engines
and deafened again by the fearsome din of the riveting-hammers, until
I found my travelling companions assembled and ready to depart.
Scrambling hastily into the nearest motor-car I shook hands with this
shortish, broad-shouldered, square-jawed man and bared my head, for,
so far as these great works were concerned, he was in very truth a
superman. Thus I left him to oversee the building of these mighty
ships, which have been and will ever be the might of these small
islands.
But, even as I went speeding through dark streets, in my ears, rising
high above the hum of our engine was the unceasing din, the remorseless
ring and clash of the riveting-hammers.
V.
SHIPS IN MAKING.
Build me straight. O worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
--_Longfellow._
He was an old man with that indefinable courtliness of bearing that is
of a past generation; tall and spare he was, his white head bowed a
little by weight of years, but almost with my first glance I seemed to
recognise him instinctively for that "worthy Master Builder of goodly
vessels staunch and strong!" So the Master Builder I will call him.
He stood beside me at the window with one in the uniform of a naval
captain, and we looked, all three of us, at that which few might behold
unmoved.
"She's a beauty!" said the Captain. "She's all speed and grace from
cutwater to sternpost."
"I've been building ships for sixty-odd years and we never launched a
better!" said the Master Builder.
As for me I was dumb.
She lay within a stone's-throw, a mighty vessel, huge of beam and
length, her superstructure towering proudly aloft, her massive armoured
sides sweeping up in noble curves, a Super-Dreadnought complete from
trucks to keelson. Yacht-like she sat the water all buoyant grace from
lofty prow to tapering counter, and to me there was something sublime
in the grim and latent power, the strength and beauty of her.
"But she's not so very--big, is she?" enquired a voice behind me.
The Captain stared; the Master Builder smiled:
"Fairly!" he nodded. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I usually reckon the size of a ship from the number of her
funnels, and--"
"Ha!" exclaimed the Captain, explosively.
"Humph!" said the Master Builder gently. "After luncheon you shall
measure her if you like, but now I think we will go and eat."
During a most excellent luncheon the talk ranged from ships and books
and guns to submarines and seaplanes, with stories of battle and sudden
death, tales of risk and hardship, of noble courage and heroic deeds,
so that I almost forgot to eat and was sorry when at last we rose from
table.
Once outside I had the good fortune to find myself between the Captain
and the venerable figure of the Master Builder, in whose company I
spent a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. With them I stood alongside
this noble ship which, seen thus near, seemed mightier than ever.
"Will she be fast?" I enquired.
"Very fast--for a Dreadnought!" said the Captain.
"And at top-speed she'll show no bow-wave to speak of," added the
veteran. "See how fine her lines are fore and aft."
"And her gun power will be enormous!" said the Captain.
Hard by I espied a solitary being, who stood, chin in hand, lost in
contemplation of this large vessel.
"Funnels or not, she's bigger than you thought?" I enquired of him.
He glanced at me, shook his head, sighed, and took himself by the chin
again.
"Holy smoke!" said he.
"And you have been building ships for sixty years?" I asked of the
venerable figure beside me.
"And more!" he answered; "and my father built ships hereabouts so long
ago as 1820, and his grandfather before him."
"Back to the times of Nelson and Rodney and Anson," said I, "great
seamen all who fought great ships! What would they think of this one, I
wonder?"
"That she was a worthy successor," replied the Master Builder, letting
his eyes, so old and wise in ships, wander up and over the mighty
fabric before us. "Yes," he nodded decisively, "she's worthy--like the
men who will fight her one of these days."
"But our enemies and some of our friends rather thought we had
degenerated these latter days," I suggested.
"Ah, well!" said he very quietly, "they know better now, don't you
think?"
"Yes," said I, and again, "Yes."
"Slow starters always," continued he, musingly; "but the nation that
can match us in staying power has yet to be born!"
So walking between these two I listened and looked and asked questions,
and of what I heard, and of what I saw I could write much; but for the
censor I might tell of armour-belts of enormous thickness, of guns
of stupendous calibre, of new methods of defence against sneaking
submarine and torpedo attack, and of devices new and strange; but of
these I may neither write nor speak, because of the aforesaid censor.
Suffice it that as the sun sank, we came, all three, to a jetty whereto
a steamboat lay moored, on whose limited deck were numerous figures,
divers of whom beckoned me on.
So with hearty farewells, I stepped aboard the steamboat, whereupon
she snorted and fell suddenly a-quiver as she nosed out into the broad
stream while I stood to wave my hat in farewell.
Side by side they stood, the Captain tall and broad and sailor-like in
his blue and gold--a man of action, bold of eye, hearty of voice, free
of gesture; the other, his silver hair agleam in the setting sun, a man
wise with years, gentle and calm-eyed, my Master Builder. Thus, as the
distance lengthened, I stood watching until presently they turned, side
by side, and so were gone.
Slowly we steamed down the river, a drab, unlovely waterway, but a
wonderful river none the less, whose banks teem with workers where
ships are building--ships by the mile, by the league; ships of all
shapes and of all sizes, ships of all sorts and for many different
purposes. Here are great cargo-boats growing hour by hour with liners
great and small; here I saw mile on mile of battleships, cruisers,
destroyers and submarines of strange design with torpedo boats of
uncanny shape; tramp steamers, wind-jammers, squat colliers and
squatter tugs, these last surely the ugliest craft that ever wallowed
in water. Minelayers were here with minesweepers and hospital ships--a
heterogeneous collection of well-nigh every kind of ship that floats.
Some lay finished and ready for launching, others, just begun, were
only a sketch--a hint of what soon would be a ship.
On our right were ships, on our left were ships and more ships, a long
perspective; ships by the million tons--until my eyes grew a-weary of
ships and I went below.
Truly a wonderful river, this, surely in its way the most wonderful
river eyes may see, a sight I shall never forget, a sight I shall
always associate with the stalwart figure of the Captain and the white
hair and venerable form of the Master Builder as they stood side by
side to wave adieu.
VI.
THE BATTLE CRUISERS.
Beneath the shadow of a mighty bridge I stepped into a very smart
launch manned by sailors in overalls somewhat grimy, and, rising
and falling to the surge of the broad river, we held away for a
destroyer that lay grey and phantom-like, low, rakish, and with speed
in every line of her. As we drew near, her narrow deck looked to my
untutored eye a confused litter of guns, torpedo tubes, guy-ropes,
cables and windlasses. Howbeit, I clambered aboard, and ducking under
a guy-rope and avoiding sundry other obstructions, shook hands with
her commander, young, clear-eyed and cheery of mien, who presently
led me past a stumpy smoke-stack and up a perpendicular ladder to the
bridge where, beneath a somewhat flimsy-looking structure, was the
wheel, brass-bound and highly be-polished like all else about this
crowded craft as, notably, the binnacle and certain brass-bound dials,
on the faces whereof one might read such words as: Ahead, Astern,
Fast, Slow, etc. Forward of this was a platform, none too roomy,
where was a gun most carefully wrapped and swaddled in divers cloths,
tarpaulins, etc.--wrapped up with as much tender care as if it had
been a baby, and delicate at that. But, as the commander casually
informed me, they had been out patrolling all night and "it had blown a
little"--wherefore I surmised the cloths and tarpaulins aforesaid.
"I should think," I ventured, observing her sharp lines and slender
build, "I should think she would roll rather frightfully when it does
blow a little?"
"Well, she does a bit," he admitted, "but not so much--Starboard!" said
he, over his shoulder, to the bearded mariner at the wheel. "Take us
round by the _Tiger_."
"Aye, aye, sir!" retorted the bearded one as we began to slide through
the water.
"Yes, she's apt to roll a bit, perhaps, but she's not so bad," he
continued; "besides, you get used to it."
Here he fell to scanning the haze ahead through a pair of binoculars,
a haze through which, as we gathered speed, ghostly shapes began to
loom, portentous shapes that grew and grew upon the sight, turret,
superstructure and embattled mast; here a mighty battle cruiser,
yonder a super-destroyer, one after another, quiet-seeming on this
autumn morning, and yet whose grim hulks held latent potentialities of
destruction and death, as many of them have proved but lately.
As we passed those silent, monstrous shapes, the Commander named them
in turn, names which had been flashed round the earth not so long
ago, names which shall yet figure in the histories to come with
Grenville's _Revenge_, Drake's _Golden Hind_, Blake's _Triumph_,
Anson's _Centurion_, Nelson's _Victory_, and a score of other deathless
names--glorious names that make one proud to be of the race that manned
and fought them.
Peacefully they rode at their moorings, the water lapping gently at
their steel sides, but, as we steamed past, on more than one of them,
and especially the grim _Tiger_, I saw the marks of the Jutland battle
in dinted plate, scarred funnel and superstructure, taken when for
hours on end the dauntless six withstood the might of the German fleet.
So, as we advanced past these battle-scarred ships, I felt a sense of
awe, that indefinable uplift of soul one is conscious of when treading
with soft and reverent foot the dim aisles of some cathedral hallowed
by time and the dust of our noble dead.
"This afternoon," said the Commander, offering me his cigarette case,
"they're going to show you over the _Warspite_--the German Navy have
sunk her so repeatedly, you know. There," he continued, nodding towards
a fleet of squat-looking vessels with stumpy masts, "those are the
auxiliaries--coal and oil and that sort of thing--ugly beggars, but
useful. How about a whisky and soda?"
Following him down the perpendicular ladder, he brought me aft to a
hole in the deck, a small hole, a round hole into which he proceeded
to insert himself, first his long legs, then his broad shoulders,
evidently by an artifice learned of much practice. Finally his jauntily
be-capped head vanished, and thereafter from the deeps below his
cheery voice reached me.
"I have whisky, sherry and rum--mind your head and take your choice!"
I descended into a narrow chamber divided by a longish table and
flanked by berths with a chest of drawers beneath each. At the further
end of this somewhat small and dim apartment and northeasterly of the
table was a small be-polished stove wherein a fire burned; in a rack
against a bulkhead were some half-dozen rifles, above our head was a
rack for cutlasses, and upon the table was a decanter of whisky he
had unearthed from some mysterious recess, and he was very full of
apologies because the soda had run out.
So we sat awhile and quaffed and talked, during which he showed me a
favourite rifle, small of bore but of high power and exquisite balance,
at sight of which I straightway broke the tenth commandment. He also
showed me a portrait of his wife (which I likewise admired) a picture
taken by himself and by him developed in some dark nook aboard.
After this, our whisky being duly despatched, we crawled into the air
again, to find we were approaching a certain jetty. And now, in the
delicate manoeuvre of bringing to and making fast, my companions,
myself and all else were utterly forgotten, as with voice and hand he
issued order on order until, gently as a nesting bird the destroyer
came to her berth and was made fast. Hereupon, having shaken hands all
round, he handed us over to other naval men as cheery as he, who in
due season brought us to the depôt ship, where luncheon awaited us.
I have dined in many places and have eaten with many different folk,
but never have I enjoyed a meal more than this, perhaps because of
the padre who presided at my end of the table. A manly cleric this,
bright-eyed, resolute of jaw but humorous of mouth, whose white choker
did but seem to offset the virility of him. A man, I judged, who
preached little and did much--a sailor's padre in very truth.
He told me how, but for an accident, he would have sailed with Admiral
Cradock on his last, ill-fated cruise, where so many died that Right
and Justice might endure.
"Poor chaps!" said I.
"Yes," said he, gently, "and yet it is surely a noble thing to--die
greatly!"
And surely, surely for all those who in cause so just have met Death
unflinching and unafraid, who have taken hold upon that which we call
Life and carried it through and beyond the portals of Death into a
sphere of nobler and greater living--surely to such as these strong
souls the Empire they served so nobly and loved so truly will one day
enshrine them, their memory and deeds, on the brightest, most glorious
page of her history, which shall be a monument more enduring than brass
or stone, a monument that shall never pass away.
So we talked of ships and the sea and of men until, aware that the
company had risen, we rose also, and donning hats and coats, set
forth, talking still. Together we paced beside docks and along piers
that stretched away by the mile, massive structures of granite and
concrete, which had only come into being, so he told me, since the war.
Side by side we ascended the broad gangway, and side by side we set
foot upon that battle-scarred deck whose timbers, here and there,
showed the whiter patches of newer wood. Here he turned to give me
his hand, after first writing down name and address, and, with mutual
wishes of meeting again, went to his duties and left me to the wonders
of this great ship.
Crossing the broad deck, more spacious it seemed than an ocean liner, I
came where my travelling companions were grouped about a grim memorial
of the Jutland battle, a huge projectile that had struck one of the
after turrets, in the doing of which it had transformed itself into
a great, convoluted disc, and was now mounted as a memento of that
tremendous day.
And here it was I became acquainted with my Midshipmite, who looked
like an angel of sixteen, bore himself like a veteran, and spoke (when
his shyness had worn off a little) like a British fighting man.
To him I preferred the request that he would pilot me over this
great vessel, which he (blushing a little) very readily agreed to
do. Thereafter, in his wake, I ascended stairways, climbed ladders,
wriggled through narrow spaces, writhed round awkward corners, up and
ever up.
"It's rather awkward, I'm afraid, sir," said he in his gentle voice,
hanging from an iron ladder with one hand and a foot, the better to
address me. "You see, we never bring visitors this way as a rule--"
"Good!" said I, crushing my hat on firmer. "The unbeaten track for
me--lead on!"
Onward and upward he led until all at once we reached a narrow
platform, railed round and hung about with plaited rope screens which
he called splinter-mats, over which I had a view of land and water, of
ships and basins, of miles of causeways and piers, none of which had
been in existence before the war. And immediately below me, far, far
down, was the broad white sweep of deck, with the forward turrets where
were housed the great guns whose grim muzzles stared patiently upwards,
nuzzling the air almost as though scenting another battle.
And standing in this coign of vantage, in my mind's eye I saw this
mighty vessel as she had been, the heave of the fathomless sea below,
the whirling battle-smoke about her, the air full of the crashing
thunder of her guns as she quivered 'neath their discharge. I heard the
humming drone of shells coming from afar, a hum that grew to a wail--a
shriek--and the sickening crash as they smote her or threw up great
water-spouts high as her lofty fighting-tops; I seemed to hear through
it all the ring of electric bells from the various fire-controls, and
voices calm and all unshaken by the hellish din uttering commands down
the many speaking-tubes.
"And you," said I, turning to the youthful figure beside me, "you were
in the battle?"
He blushingly admitted that he was.
"And how did you feel?"
He wrinkled his smooth brow and laughed a little shyly.
"Really I--I hardly know, sir."
I asked him if at such times one was not inclined to feel a trifle
shaken, a little nervous, or, might one say, afraid?
"Yes, sir," he agreed politely, "I suppose so--only, you see, we were
all too jolly busy to think about it!"
"Oh!" said I, taking out a cigarette, "too busy! Of course! I see! And
where is the Captain during action, as a rule?"
"As a matter of fact he stood--just where you are, sir. Stood there the
whole six hours it was hottest."
"Here!" I exclaimed. "But it is quite exposed."
My Midshipmite, being a hardy veteran in world-shaking naval battles,
permitted himself to smile.