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SEA-HOUNDS
[Illustration: BRITISH BATTLE-SHIPS ON PATROL]
SEA-HOUNDS
BY
LEWIS R. FREEMAN
Lieut. R.N.V.R.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1919
PUBLISHED IN THE U.S.A 1919
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
=To=
Commodore Sir DOUGLAS BROWNRIGG, Bart.
C.B., R.N., Chief Censor, Admiralty
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE MEN WHO CHANGED SHIPS 1
II "FIREBRAND" 35
III "BACK FROM THE JAWS" 59
IV HUNTING 82
V THE CONVOY GAME 112
VI YANK BOAT _VERSUS_ U-BOAT 135
VII ADRIATIC PATROL 157
VIII PATROL 173
IX "Q" 199
X THE _WHACK_ AND THE _SMACK_ 232
XI BOMBED! 250
XII AGAINST ODDS 268
XIII ROUNDING UP FRITZ 287
ILLUSTRATIONS
British Battleships on Patrol _Frontispiece_
PAGE
German Shells Striking the Water at the Battle of Jutland 12
A Broadside at Night at the Battle of Jutland 12
"Kamerading" with Uplifted Paws 90
Helping the Cook to Peel Potatoes 90
Where the Great Liner Plowed Along 128
We Had Collided with the "Brick Wall" 128
Now She Was Back at Base 128
A Limit to the Number of "Cans" a Destroyer Can Carry 152
A Depth Charge 188
Disabled Destroyer in Tow 188
The Lookout on a Destroyer, and Part of His View 242
She Came Bowling Along Under Sail 284
SEA HOUNDS
CHAPTER I
THE MEN WHO CHANGED SHIPS
Between the lighter-load of burning beeves that came bumping down along
their line at noon, a salvo of bombs slapped across them at one o'clock
from a raiding Bulgar air squadron, a violent Levantine squall which all
but broke them loose from their moorings at sundown, and a signal to
raise steam for full speed with all dispatch at midnight, it had been a
rather exciting twelve hours for the destroyers of the First Division of
the ----th Flotilla, and now, when at dawn the expected order to proceed
to sea was received, it began to look as though there might be still
further excitement in pickle down beyond the horizontal blur where the
receding wall of the paling purple night-mist was uncovering the Gulf's
hard, flat floor of polished indigo.
"It's probably the same old thing," said the captain of the _Spark_,
repressing a yawn after he had given the quartermaster his course to
enter the labyrinthine passage where puffing trawlers were towing back
the gates of the buoyed barrages, "a U-boat or two making a bluff at
attacking a convoy. They've been sinking a good deal more than we can
afford to lose; last week they got an oiler and another ship with the
whole summer's supply of mosquito-netting aboard--but that was off the
south peninsula of Greece or up Malta way. Here they haven't more than
'demonstrated' about the mouth of the Gulf for two or three months. They
know jolly well that if they once come inside, no matter if they do sink
a ship or two, that it's a hundred to one--between sea-planes, 'blimps,'
P.B.s, and destroyers--against their ever getting out again. There's
just a chance that they may try it this time, though, for they must know
how terribly short the whole Salonika force is of petrol, and what a
real mess things will be left in if they can pot even one of the two or
three oilers in this convoy. You'll see a merry chase with a kill at the
end of it if they do, I can promise you, for the convoy is beyond the
neck of the bag even now, and if a single Fritz has come in after them,
the string will be pulled and the rest of the game will be played out
here in the 'bull-ring.'"
The captain had just started telling me how the game was played, when
the W.T.[A] room called him on the voice-pipe to say that one of the
ships of the convoy had just been torpedoed and was about to sink, and
shortly afterwards a radio was received from the C.-in-C. ordering the
flotilla to proceed to hunt the submarine responsible for the trouble.
Then the officer commanding the division leader flashed his orders by
"visual" to the several units of the flotilla, and presently these were
spreading fan-wise to sweep southward toward where, sixty to a hundred
miles away, numerous drifters would be dropping mile after mile of light
nets across the straits leading out to the open Mediterranean.
Northeastward, where the rising sun was beginning to prick into vivid
whiteness the tents of the great hospital areas, several sea-planes were
circling upwards; and southeastward, above the dry brown hills of the
Cassandra peninsula, the silver bag of an air-ship floated across the
sky like a soaring tumble bug. The hounds of the sea and air had begun
to stalk their quarry.
[Footnote A: Wireless Telegraph]
"It's a biggish sort of a place to hunt over," said the captain, as the
_Spark_ stood away on a course that formed the outside left rib of the
flotilla's "fan," and took her in to skirt the rocky coast of Cassandra;
"and there's so many in the hunt that the chances are all in favour of
some other fellow getting the brush instead of you. And unless we have
the luck to do some of the flushing ourselves, I won't promise you that
the whole show won't prove no end of a bore; and even if we do scare him
up--well, there are a good many more exciting things than dropping
'ash-cans' on a frightened Fritzie. It won't be a circumstance, for
instance, to that rough house we ran into at the 'White Tower' last
night when that boxful of French 'blue-devils' wouldn't stop singing
'Madelon' when the couchee-couchee dancer's turn began, and her friend,
the Russian colonel in the next box, started to dissolve the Entente
by----"
The captain broke off suddenly and set the alarm bell going as a
lynx-eyed lookout cut in with "Connin' tower o' submreen three points on
port bow," and, with much banging of boots on steel decks and ladders,
the ship had gone to "Action Stations" before a leisurely mounting
recognition rocket revealed the fact that the "enemy" was a friend,
doubtless a "co-huntress."
Although we were still far from where there was yet any chance of
encountering the U-boat which had attacked the convoy, there were two or
three alarms in the course of the next hour. The first was when we
altered our course to avoid a torpedo reported as running to strike our
port bow, to discover an instant later that the doughty _Spark_ was
turning away from a gambolling porpoise. The second was when some kind
of a long-necked sea-bird rose from a dive about two hundred yards on
the starboard beam and created an effect so like a finger-periscope with
its following "feather" that it drew a shell from the foremost gun which
all but blew it out of the water. It was my remarking the smartness with
which this gun was served that led the captain, when a floating mine was
reported a few minutes later, to order that sinister menace to be
destroyed by shell-fire rather than, as usual, by shots from a rifle.
All the guns which would bear were given an even start in the race to
hit the wickedly horned hemisphere as we brought it abeam at a range of
six or eight hundred yards; but the lean, keen crew of the pet on the
forecastle--splashing the target with their first shot and detonating it
with their second--won in a walk and left the others nothing but a
hundred-feet-high geyser of smoke-streaked spray tumbling above a heart
of flame to pump their tardier shells into.
The captain gazed down with a smile of affectionate pride to where the
winners, having trained their gun back amidships, were wiping its smoky
nose, sponging out its mouth, polishing its sleek barrel, and patting
its shiny breech, for all the world as though they were grooms and
stable-boys and jockeys performing similar services for the Derby winner
just led back to his stall.
"There's not another such four-inch gun's crew as that one in any ship
in the Mediterranean," he said, "which makes it all the greater pity
that they have never once had a chance to fire a shot at anything of the
enemy's any larger than that Bulgar bombing plane they cocked up and
took a pot at after he had gone over yesterday. I mean that they never
had a chance as a crew. Individually, I believe there are two or three
of them that have been through some of the hottest shows in the war.
That slender chap there in the blue overall was in the _Killarney_ when
she was shot to pieces and sunk by German cruisers at Jutland, and I
believe his Number Two--that one in a singlet, with his sleeves rolled
up and just a bit of a limp--was in the _Seagull_ when she was rammed,
right in the middle of an action with the Huns, by both the _Bow_ and
the _Wreath_. A number of ratings from the _Seagull_ clambered over the
forecastle of the _Bow_ while the two were locked together, evidently
because they thought their own ship was going down, while two or three
men from the _Bow_ were thrown by the force of the collision on to the
_Seagull_. When the two broke loose and drifted apart men from each of
them were left on the other, and by a rather interesting coincidence, we
have right here in the _Spark_ at this moment representatives of both
batches. They, with two or three other Jutland 'veterans' who chance
also to be in the _Spark_, call themselves the 'Black Marias.' Just why,
I'm not quite sure, but I believe it has something to do with their all
being finally picked up by one destroyer and carried back to harbour
like a lot of drunks after a night's spree. And, to hear them talk of it
when they get together, that is the spirit in which they affect to
regard a phase of the Jutland battle which wiped out some scores of
their mates and two or three of the destroyers of their flotilla.
Talking with one of them alone, he will occasionally condescend to speak
of the serious side of the show, but their joint reminiscences, in the
constant by-play of banter, are more suggestive of tumultuous 'nights of
gladness' on the beach at Port Said or Rio than the most murderous spasm
of night fighting in the whose course of naval history. You've got a
long and probably tiresome day ahead of you. Perhaps it might ease the
monotony a bit if you had a yarn with two or three of them. They'll be
bored stiff standing by in this blazing sun with small prospects of
anything turning up, and probably easier to draw out than at most times.
Gains, there by the foremost gun, would be a good one for a starter.
There is no doubt of his having seen some minutes of the real thing in
the _Killarney_. Only don't try a frontal attack on him. Just saunter
along and start talking about anything else on earth than Jutland and
the _Killarney_, and then lead him round by degrees."
* * * * *
We were just passing the riven wreck of a large freighter as I sidled
inconsequently along to the forecastle, and the strange way in which the
stern appeared to be stirring to the barely perceptible swell gave ample
excuse for turning to the crew of the foremost gun for a possible
explanation. It was Leading Seaman Gains, as incisive of speech as he
was quick of movement, who replied, and I recognized him at once as a
youth of force and personality, one of the type to whom the broadened
opportunities for quick promotion offered the Lower Deck through the
war has given a new outlook on life.
"She was a tramp with a cargo of American mules for the Serbs, sir," he
said, "and she was submarined two or three miles off shore. The mouldie
cracked her up amidships, but her back didn't break till she grounded on
that sand spit there. At first her stern sank till her poop was awash at
high tide--there's only a few feet rise and fall here, as you probably
know, sir--but when the bodies of the mules that had been drowned 'tween
decks began to swell they blocked up all the holes and finally generated
so much gas that the increased buoyancy lifted the keel of the stern
half clear of the bottom and left it free to move with the seas. I have
heard they intend to blow out her bottom and sink her proper for fear
that end of her might float off in a storm and turn derelict."
That story was, as I learned later, substantially true, but it had just
enough of the fantastic in it to tempt the twinkling eyed "Number Two"
to a bit of embroidery on his own account. He was the one with the
muscular forearms and the slight limp. The suggestion of "New World"
accent in his speech was traceable, he subsequently told me, to the many
years he had spent on the Esquimault station in British Columbia.
"They do say, sir," he said solemnly, rubbing hard at an imaginary patch
of inferior refulgency on the shining breech of his gun, "that she's
that light and jumpy with mule-gas, after the sun's been beating on her
poop all day, that she lifts right up in the air and tugs at her
moorings like a kite balloon. And there's one buzz winging round that
they're going to run a pipe-line to her end and use the gas for
inflating----"
Gains, evidently feeling that there were limits to which the credulity
of a landsman should be imposed upon, cut in coldly and crushingly with:
"She's not the only old wreck 'round here that they could draw on for
'mule-gas' if there's ever need of it, my boy; and as for her rising
under her own power--well, if she ever goes as far as you did under
yours the night you jumped from the _Seagull_ to the _Bow_ I'll----"
The gusty guffaw that drowned the rest of Gains' broadside left us
all on good terms, and, by a happy chance, with the "Jutland ice"
already broken. Number Two, joining heartily in the laugh, said that,
"nifty" as was his jump from the _Seagull_ to the _Bow_, it wasn't a
"starter" to the "double back-action-summerset" with which Jock
Campbell was chucked from the _Bow_ to the _Seagull_. "We played a
sort of 'Pussy-Wants-a-Corner' exchange, Jock and me," he said, "for
Jock was Number Four or 'Trainer' of the crew of one of the fo'c'sle
guns of the _Bow_, and I was the same in the _Seagull_. We didn't
quite land in each other's place when the wallop came, but it wasn't
far from it; and we each finished the scrap in the other guy's ship.
You might pike aft and try to get a yarn out of Jock when 'Pack up!'
sounds. He's a close-mouthed tyke, though, and if you can get him to
tell how he played the human proj, you'll be doing more'n anyone else
has been able to pull off down to now. He's half clam and half sphinx,
I think Jock is, and that makes a 'dour lad' when crossed with a
'Glasgie' strain. Which makes it all the sadder to have him qualify
for membership in the 'Black Marias,' and me, because I finished in
the _Bow_, froze out."
I told him that I would gladly have a try at Jock later, provided only
that he would first tell me what happened in his own case, adding that
it wasn't every British sailor who could claim the distinction of
fighting the Hun from two different ships within the hour.
"It would have been a darned sight better for me if I'd confined my
fighting to _one_ ship," he replied with a wry smile, "and it was mighty
little fighting I got out of it anyhow. But sure, I'll tell you what I
saw of the fracas, and then you can take a chance at Jock. It was along
toward midnight, and the _Seagull_ was steaming in 'line ahead' with her
half of the flotilla. The _Killarney_ and _Firebrand_ was leading us,
with the _Wreath_ and one or two others astern. I was at 'action
station' with the crew of the foremost gun, and keeping my eye peeled
all round, for some of the ships astern had just been popping away at
some Hun destroyers they had reported. All of a sudden I saw the
officers on the bridge peering out to starboard, and there, coming up
astern of us and steering a converging course, I saw the first, and
right after, the second and third, of a line of some big lumping
ships--some kind of cruisers. All of the flotilla must have thought they
was our own ships, for no one challenged or fired all the time they came
drawing up past us, making four or five knots more than the seventeen we
were doing.
"When the leader was about abreast the _Killarney_ and inside of half a
mile range, she flashed on some red and green lights, switched on her
searchlights and opened fire. Ship for ship, the Huns were just about
even with our line now, and the _Firebrand_ and _Seagull_ must have
launched mouldies at the second and third cruisers at near the same
moment. Hitting at that range ships running on parallel courses was a
cinch, and both slugs slipped home. It was some sight, those two spouts
of fire and smoke shooting up together, and by the light of 'em I could
see that the _Firebrand's_ bag was a four-funneller, and ours a three.
The first one keeled right over and began to sink at once, but the one
our mouldie hit went staggering on, though down by the stern and with a
heavy list to port.
"We would sure have put the kibosh on this one with the next torpedo if
we hadn't had to turn sharp to port to avoid the _Killarney_ just then,
and so missed our last chance to do something in 'the Great War.' I lost
sight of the _Firebrand_ and took it for granted she had been blown up.
It was not till a week afterwards that we learned she had turned the
other way, engaged one Hun cruiser with gunfire, rammed another, just
missed being rammed by a third, and finally crawled into port under her
own steam.
"The _Seagull_ came under the searchlights of the leading Hun cruiser
for a few seconds as she came up abreast of the burning _Killarney_, and
then the smoke and steam cut off the beam and I was blind as a bat for a
minute. The _Killarney_ had been left astern when I looked for her
again, and seemed all in, with fires all over her and only one gun
yapping away on her quarter-deck. I didn't know it at the time, but it
was my old college friend, Gains, here, who was passing the projes, for
that pert little piece. You'd never think it to look at him, would you?"
Gains, feigning to discover something which needed adjustment in the
training mechanism, ducked his head behind the breech of his gun at this
juncture, and did not bob up again until a resumption of the yarn
deflected the centre of interest back to Number Two.
[Illustration: GERMAN SHELLS STRIKING THE WATER AT THE BATTLE OF
JUTLAND]
[Illustration: A BROADSIDE AT NIGHT AT THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND]
"Turning to port took us over into the line of the other Division, and
the first thing I knew the _Seagull_ had poked in and taken station
astern of the _Bow_, which was leading it. Just then some Hun
ship, I think it was the same one that strafed the _Killarney_, opened
on the _Bow_ from starboard, the bursting shell splashing all over her
from the funnels right for'ard. _Bow_ turned sharp to port to try to
shake off the searchlights, and _Seagull_ altered at same time to keep
from turning in her wake and running into the shells she was
side-stepping. All of a sudden I saw another destroyer steering right
across our bows, and to keep from ramming her the captain altered back
to starboard. That cleared her stern by an eyelash, but the next second
I saw that it was now only a question of whether _Seagull_ would ram
_Bow_, or _Bow_ would ram _Seagull_. How a dished and done-for
quartermaster, falling across his wheel as he died, decided it in favour
of _Bow_ I did not learn till later.
"The Hun shells were tearing up the water astern of the _Bow_ for half a
minute as she began to close us; then they stopped, and the smash came
at the end of five or ten seconds of dead quiet. It was pitchy dark,
with the flicker of fires on the deck of the _Bow_ making trembly red
splotches in the smoke and steam. A sight I saw by the light of one of
those fires just before the wallop is my main memory of all the hell I
saw in the next quarter hour. It has lasted just as if it was burned
into my brain with a hot iron, and it figures in one way or other in
every nightmare I've had since."
The humorous twinkle in the corner of the man's eye, which had persisted
during all of his recital up to this point, suddenly died out, and he
was staring into nothingness straight ahead of him, where the picture
his memory conjured up seemed to hang in projection.
"It was just before we struck," he went on, speaking slowly, and in an
awed voice strangely in contrast to the rather bantering tone he had
affected before; "and the bows of the _Bow_ were only ten or fifteen
yards off, driving down on us in the middle of the double wave of
greeny-grey foam they were throwing on both sides. By the light of a
fire burning in the wreck of her bridge I saw a lot of bodies lying
round on her fo'c'sl', and right then one of them picked itself up and
stood on its feet. It was a whole man from the chest up, and from a bit
below the waist down, but--for all that I could see--nothing between. Of
course, there must have been an unbroken backbone to make a frame that
would stand up at all, but all the shot-away part was in shadow, so I
saw nothing from the chest to the hips. It was just as if the head and
shoulders were floating in the air. I remember 'specially that it held
its cap crushed tight in one of its hands. The face had a kind of a calm
look on it at first. Then it turned down and seemed to look at what was
gone, and I could see the mouth open as if to holler. Then the crash
came, and I didn't see it again till they were stitching it up in canvas
with a fire-bar before dropping it overside the next day. I learned then
that an 8-inch shell had done the trick--rather a big order for one man
to try to stop."
He took a deep breath, blinked once or twice as though to shut out the
gruesome vision, and when he resumed the corners of a sheepish grin were
cutting into and erasing the lines of horror that had come to his face
in describing it.
"There's no use of my claiming that I was thrown over to the _Bow_ by
the shock," he continued, the twinkle flickering up in his eye again,
"like Jock was pitched over to the _Seagull_. That _did_ happen to three
or four ratings from the _Seagull_, though, one signalman and a chap
standing look-out being chucked all the way from the fore bridge. But in
the case of most of the twenty-three of us who found ourselves adorning
the _Bow's_ fo'c'sl' when the ships broke away, it was the result of a
'flap' started by some ijits yelling that we were cut in two and going
down. What was more natural, then, with the _Bow_ looming up there big
and solid--she was a good sight larger than the _Gull_--that the 'rats'
should leave the sinking ship for one that looked like she might go on
floating for a while. I'm not trying to make an excuse for what
happened, but only explaining it. The Lord knows we paid a big enough
price for it, anyhow.
"The _Bow_ hit us like a thousand o' bricks just before the bridge, and
cut more than half-way through to the port side. The shock seemed to
knock the deck right out from under my feet, and I was slammed hard
against the starboard wire rail, which must have kept me from being
ditched then and there. A lot of the wreckage from the _Bow's_ shot-up
bridge showered down on the _Seagull's_ fo'c'sl', but my friend, Jock
Campbell, floated down on the side toward the bridge, so I had no chance
to welcome him. From where I was when I pulled up to my feet, it looked
as if the _Bow_ only lacked a few feet from cutting all the way through
us, and as soon as I saw her screws beating up the sea as she tried to
go astern, I had the feeling that the whole fo'c'sl' of the _Gull_ must
break off and sink as soon as the 'plug' was pulled out. I was still
sitting tight, though, when that howl started that we were already
breaking off and going down, and--well, I joined the rush, and it was
just as easy as stepping from a launch to the side of a quay. I'm not
trying to make out a case for anybody, but the little bunch of us who
climbed to the _Bow_ from that half-cut-off fo'c'sl' sure had more
excuse than them that swarmed over from aft and leaving the main solid
lump of the ship. But we none of us had no business clambering off till
we were ordered. In doing that we were only asking for trouble, and we
sure got it.
"The fo'c'sl' of the _Bow_ was all buckled up in waves from the
collision, and there was a slipperiness underfoot that I twigged didn't
come from sea water just as soon as I stumbled over the bodies lying
round the wreck of the port foremost gun where I climbed over. We
couldn't get aft very well on account of the smashed bridge, and so the
bunch of us just huddled up there like a lot of sheep, waiting for some
one to tell us what to do. The captain had already left the bridge and
was conning her from aft--or possibly the engine-room--at this time.
From the way she was shaking and swinging, I knew they were trying to
worry her nose out, putting the engines astern, now one and now the
other. The clanking and the grinding was something fierce, but pretty
soon she began to back clear.
"It was just a minute or two before the _Bow_ tore free from her that
the poor old _Gull_ got the wallop that was finally responsible for
doing her in. This was from a destroyer that came charging up out of the
night and wasn't able to turn in time to clear the _Gull's_ stern, with
the result that she went right through it. Her sharp stem slashed
through the quarterdeck like it was cutting bully beef, slicing five or
ten feet of it clean off, so that it fell clear and sank. The jar of it
ran through the whole length of the _Seagull_, and I felt the quick kick
of it even in the _Bow_. In fact, I think the shock of this second
collision was the thing that finally broke them clear of the first, for
it was just after that I saw the wreck of the _Seagull's_ bridge begin
to slide away along the _Bow's_ starboard bow, as what was left of it
wriggled clear.
"It wasn't much of a look I had at this last destroyer, but I had a
hunch even then that she was the _Wreath_, who had been our next astern.
It wasn't till a long time afterward that I learned for certain that
this was a fact. The _Wreath_ had followed us out of line when we turned
to clear the stopped and burning _Killarney_, and then, when we messed
up with the _Bow_, not having time to go round, she had to take a short
cut through the tail feathers of the poor old _Seagull_. Then she tore
right on hell-for-leather hunting for Huns, for it's each ship for
herself and the devil take the hind-most in the destroyer game more than
in any other.
"I saw the water boiling into the hole in the side of the _Seagull_ as
the _Bow_ backed away, and expected every minute to see the for'rard end
of her break off and sink. But beyond settling down a lot by the head,
she still held together and still floated. Bulkheads fore and aft were
holding, it looked like, and there was still enough 'ship' left to carry
on with. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the blurred wreck of
her begin to gather stern way. But it was a fact. Though her rudder, of
course, was smashed or carried away, and though she couldn't go ahead
without breaking in two, she was still able to move through the water,
and perhaps even to steer a rough sort of course with her screws. As it
turned out, it wouldn't have made no difference whether we was in her or
no; but just the same it was blooming awful, standing there and knowing
that you'd left her while she still had a kick in her. The ragged line
where some of the wrecked stern of her showed against the phosphorescent
glow of the churn of her screws--that was my good-bye peep at all that
was left of the good old _Seagull_. Gains here, or Jock Campbell, can
tell you what her finish was. I don't like to talk about it.
"Some of us tried to get aft as soon as we were clear of the _Seagull_,
but couldn't make the grade over the wreck of the bridge. As all the
officers and men who had been there had either been killed or wounded,
or had gone to the after steering position they were now conning her
from, we were as much cut off from them as though we were on another
craft altogether. All the crews of her fo'c'sl' guns--or such of them as
were still alive--were in the same fix. So we just bunched up there in
the dark and waited. Some of the wounded were in beastly shape, but
there wasn't much to be done for them, even in the way of first aid.
Some shipmates of other times drifted together in the darkness, and I
remember 'specially--it was while I was trying to tie up some guy's
scalp with the sleeve of my shirt--hearing one of them telling another
of a wool mat he had just made, all with ravellings from 'Harry
Freeman.'[B] Funny how it's the little things like that a man
remembers. The gunner whose head I bound up was telling me just how the
_Bow_ happened to be strafed, but it went in one ear and out of the
other.
[Footnote B: The bluejackets' name for knitted woollen gifts from
friends on the beach.]
"But the queerest thing was me hearing some guy lying all messed up on
the deck muttering something about _skookum kluches_, and some more
Chinook _wa-wa_ that I knew he couldn't have picked up anywhere else but
from serving in a 'T.B.D.' working up and down the old Inland Passage
from Vancouver Island. I felt my way to where he was huddled up in the
wreck of a smashed gun, told him that I was another _tilicum_ from the
'Squimalt Base, and asked him what ship he had been there in. I knew
there was a good chance that we'd been mates in the old _Virago_, and
there even seemed a familiar sound to his voice. But I wasn't fated ever
to find out. He just kept on muttering, slipping up on some words as if
something was wrong with his mouth, and I didn't dare light a match, of
course. When I tried to ease him up a bit by lifting so he'd lie
straight--well, all of him didn't seem to come along when I started
dragging by his shoulders. I never did find what was wrong with him, for
right then new troubles of my own set in.
"I was still down on my knees trying to locate what was missing with
this poor guy, when--out of the corner of my eye, for it was near behind
me--I spotted the flash of a ship challenging. _Bow_ challenged
back--from somewhere aft--and then what I piped at once for a Hun
destroyer switched on searchlights and opened fire. She was about two
cables off on our port quarter, heading right for us and blazing away
with one or two guns, probably all that would bear on that course. A
second destroyer, right astern her, didn't seem to be firing. I heard
the bang and saw the flash of two or three shells bursting somewhere
amidships, and then the _Bow's_ port after gun began to reply. The crews
of all the others were knocked out, and so were the searchlights.
"Between the twenty-three from the _Seagull_ and what were left of the
_Bow's_ fo'c'sl' guns' crews, there must have been thirty-five to forty
men bunched together there for'rard of the wreck of the bridge. When the
firing started, the whole kaboodle of us did what you're always under
orders to do when you have nothing to stand up for--laid down. Or,
rather, we just tumbled into a heap like a pile of dead rabbits.
"I went sprawling over the poor devil I was trying to help, and there
were two or three on top of me. Into that squirming hump of human flesh
one of the Hun's projes landed kerplump. It didn't hit me at all, that
one, but I can feel yet the kind of heave the whole bunch gave as it
ploughed through. Then it was like warm water was being thrown on the
pile in buckets, but it wasn't till I had scrambled out and found it
sticky that I twigged it was blood.
"Bad as it was, it might have been a lot worse. There hadn't been enough
resistance to explode the proj, and so it killed only four or five and
wounded, maybe, twice that, where it would have scoured every man jack
of us into the sea and Kingdom Come if it had gone off. The next one
found something in the wreck of the bridge hard enough to crack it off
though, and it was a ragged scrap of its casing that drove in to the
point of my hip and put a kink in my rolling gait that I've never quite
shaken out yet. It wasn't much of a hurt to what it gave some, though,
'specially a lad that caught the main kick of it and got ditched to
starboard, some of him going under the wire rail, and some over.
"The Huns couldn't have known how down and out the _Bow_ really was, for
there was nothing in the world but that one port gun to prevent their
closing and polishing her off. The chances are they recognised her
class, knew she was more than a match for the pair of them if she was
right, and were glad to get off with no more'n an exchange of shots in
passing. That was the end of the fighting for the _Bow_, and about time,
too. Her bows were stove in, all the fore part of her was full of water,
her bridge was smashed and useless, her W.T. and searchlights were
finished, all but one gun was out of action, and--when they came to
count noses next day--forty-two of her crew were dead. Far from looking
for more trouble, it was now only a question of making harbour, and
even that--as it turned out--was touch-and-go for two days.
"It was about one in the morning when that brush with the destroyers
came off, and after that there was nothing to do but hang on till
daylight and they could clear a way to reach us from abaft the wreckage
of the bridge. It was pretty awful, ticking off the minutes there in the
darkness. A good many of the worst knocked about were talking a bit
wild, but I never heard the guy with the Chinook _wa-wa_ again. He must
have died and been pitched over while I was being bandaged up. I _did_
hear the 'wool-mat-maker' yapping again, though, saying how 'target
cloth' was better to work on than canvas, and describing how to pull the
stuff through in a loose loop, and then cut them so that they bunched up
in 'soft, puffy balls.' Seems like I was cussing him when I dropped off
to sleep.
"I must have bled a good deal, for I slept like a log for four or five
hours, and woke up only when some one turned me over and began to finger
my hip. It was broad daylight, but hazy, and the sun just showing
through. Some of the wounded had already been carried aft, and they were
mostly dead ones that were lying around. These were being sewed up in
canvas to get ready to bury. I thought there was something familiar in
the face of one guy I saw them laying out and sort of collecting
together, but it wasn't till later that it suddenly came to me that he
was the one I had seen by firelight when he stood up and looked at
himself where he'd been shot in two.
"The two guys who bundled me up in a 'Neil Robertson' stretcher and
packed me aft, picking their way over and through the wreckage, were
both all bound up with rags, and so was about every one else I saw. They
took me below into the wardroom, and then, because that was full up, on
to some officer's cabin, where they found a place for me on the deck.
After a while, a little dark guy--he was also a good deal bandaged, and
so splashed with blood that I didn't notice at the time he was a sick
bay steward--came in, washed my wound out with some dope that smarted
like the devil, and tied it up. He worked like a streak of greased
lightning, and then went on to some one else. That chap was Pridmore,
and, let me tell you, he was the real 'top-liner' of all the heroes of
the _Bow_. The surgeon had been killed at the first salvo the night
before, leaving no one but him to carry on through all the hell that
followed. And some way--God knows how--he did it; yes, even though he
was wounded three or four times himself, and though he had to go without
sleep for more'n two days to find time to dress and tend the thirty or
forty crocks he had on his hands. He was sure the star turn, that
Pridmore, and I was glad to read the other day that they had given him
the D.S.M. Not that he'd have all he deserved if they hung medals all
over him; but--well, a guy likes to have something to show that what
he's done hasn't been lost in the shuffle entirely."
I made an entry of "Pridmore, sick bay steward, _Bow_," in my notebook
for future reference, and as I was returning it to my pocket a sudden
list to starboard, accompanied by a throbbing grind of the helm,
heralded a sharp alteration of course. Round she went through ten or
twelve points, finally to steady and stand away on a course that seemed
to lead toward the dip in the skyline between the jagged range of
mountains back of Monastir and the point where a lowering bank of
cirro-cumuli hid the ancient abode of the gods on the snow-capped summit
of Olympus. On Number Two assuring me that his yarn was spun, that there
was nothing more to it save an attempt he had made, in spite of his
wound, to get into a fight that started when some of the wounded were
hissed by a gang of dockyard "mateys"--I clambered back to the bridge to
learn the significance of the new move. I still wanted to hear Gains'
story of the _Killarney_, but I had already sized him up sufficiently to
know that he was not the type of man who would unbosom himself before
his mates. With him, I knew, I should have to watch my chances, and
endeavour to have a yarn alone. Number Two's parting injunction was to
"try and have a go at Jock Campbell, 'the human proj.' Jock's the guy at
the after gun that looks like he was rigged out for deep-sea diving," he
said. "Most likely he'll only growl at you at first, but if he won't
warm up any other way, try him with a yarn about a skirt. He's 'verra
fond o' a braw lass,' is Jock Campbell."
Our alteration of course, the captain told me, was the consequence of an
order received by wireless directing him to cross over and hunt down a
strip along the western shore of the gulf which was not being covered by
the present formation of the division. "I've had a signal stating that
they're on the track of one U-boat, and there may be something to make
them think another has slipped further along and is lying in ambush for
the convoy about off Volo. They're evidently keeping the rest of the
division heading in to meet the convoy itself."
* * * * *
The _Spark_ stood on to the north-west until the Vardar marshes showed
as an olive-green rim around the bend of the gulf, before turning
southward again to skirt the steep shingle-strewn beach along the
alluvial "fans" spreading down to the sea from the base of Olympus. The
wild-looking Thessalian shepherds were just driving their motley flocks
down to the open foreshore to freshen up in the rising midday sea
breeze, and it was when I assured Jock Campbell (where I found him
leaning on the breech of the after gun and staring landwards with his
bushy brows puckered in the incredulous scowl of a man who can't credit
the evidence of his own eyes) that it was an actual fact that the fuzzy
black sheep were wading in and drinking--if sparingly--of the salt
water, that a basis of conversation was finally established. Up to that
moment he had given no sign that any of my carelessly thrown out
tentatives had penetrated to his ears through the "telepad" rig-out
which established his connection with the gunnery control. But when,
bringing my lips close to his nearest "ear-muff," I shouted that I had
come up along that coast from Lharissa but a few weeks previously by
motor and pack-train, and that, in lieu of any fresh water for many
miles in either direction, I had actually seen the sheep and goats
drinking in flocks from the sea, the look of hostile suspicion in his
eyes was replaced by one of friendly interest.
"Weel, weel, y'u dinna say so?" he ejaculated, easing away the edge of
the helmet over one ear; "the puir wee beasties!" Then he volunteered
that he had once kept from freezing to death in a snowstorm on Ben Nevis
by curling up among his sheep, and I told how I had once sheared sheep
(not mentioning it was for only half a day, and that my "clip" was
composed of about equal parts mutton and wool) on a back blocks station
in Queensland. Then he described how he had seen a big merino ram butt a
Ford car off the road up Thurso way, and I--with more finesse than
veracity--capped that with a yarn of how I had seen a flock of
Macedonian sheep blown up by a Bulgarian air-bomb, and how one of them
had landed unhurt upon a passing motor lorry load of forage--and gone
right on grazing! I reckoned that might be calculated to remind Jock of
something of the same character which had befallen him on a certain
memorable occasion, and I was not disappointed.
"'Twas verra like wha' cam ma way on the nicht the _Bow_ rammed the
_Seagull_ at the fecht aff Jutland," he commented instantly, with no
trace of suspicion in his voice. "Wad ye care to hear aboot it? Ye wud?
Weel, then----." As brief, as direct and to the point was the plain
unvarnished tale Jock Campbell told me the while a noon-day storm awoke
reverberant echoes of the Jovian thunders in the snow-caverns of Olympus
and the _Spark_ hunted down through the jade green waters of the
Thessalian coast for a U-boat that was supposed to be lurking in their
lucent depths "somewhere off Volo."
"Ah was at ma action station at the port foremost gun," he began, wiping
his perspiring brow with a wad of greasy waste, which left an undulant
trail of oil from the recoil cylinder in its wake, "when we gaed bang
into a line o' big Hun cru'sers, and we lat blaze at them and them at
us. The range was short, and wi' their serchlichts lichten us up oor
position wasna that Ah wad ca' verra pleasant. Up gaed a Hun cru'ser in
a spoort o' flame and reek, hit, Ah thocht, by a mouldie launched by
oor next astern. Ah was fair jumpin' wi' joy at the sicht, when a hale
salvo o' screechin' projes cam bang inta the fo'c'sl. Ah minded the
licht o' them mair than the soun', which was na great.
"The Huns had switched aff their serchlichts when they opened fire, so
that noo the projes was bursting in inky mirk. I doubtna oor midships
and after guns was firing, but na the foremost, for Ah dinna mind being
blinded by their licht afore the Hun projes gan bursting. My ain gun
wudna bear on the Huns, so Ah was just standing by for the time, ready
to train if we turned.
"Twa salvos cam--maybe frae twa different cru'sers--ane after the ither,
wi' aboot half a meenit atween. Ye ken that the licht o' a shell-burst
is ower afore ye can even think, and a' the furst ane showed me was just
the gun crews, standin', and bracin' themsel's like when a big sea braks
inboard. It was ower like a flash o' lichtnin, and the licht had gone
oot afore Ah saw anybody blown up or knocked oot. But Ah felt a michty
blast o' air and an awfu' shaikin o' the deck, and then the bang o'
lumps o' projes dingin' 'gainst the bridge and smackin' through bodies.
"The flash o' the burst o' the second salvo tellt me what havoc the
first had wrocht, but by noo ma een was licht-blind and Ah cudna see
weel. The sta'bo'd gun was twisht oot o' shape, and a' the crew but ane
were strechit on the deck. To a' appearance that lad had been laid oot
wi' the ithers, but noo he was puin himsel' to his feet and crawlin' up
the wreck o' the gun when a proj frae the second salvo burst richt alow
him. By the flash Ah saw him flyin' inta the air, and--by the licht o'
anither flash a bittie efter--then his corp, wi' twa or three ithers,
gang ower the side. A lump o' that last proj carried awa' the Number Wan
o' ma ain gun, and, onlike some o' the ithers, not a bit o' him was left
ahint. Ah mesel' was knockit flat, but wasna much the worse for a' that.
"That was the hinmost Ah saw o' the Huns for that nicht, and the last I
mind o' the _Bow_ was the dead and deein' wha covert the fo'c'sl', wi'
the licht o' the fires burnin' aft flickerin' ower them. Then cam' a cry
frae the bridge that a 'stroyer was closin' us to port, and then Ah mind
hearin' the captain shoutin' an order ower and ower, like he wasna bein'
answered frae the ither end o' the voice-pipe. 'Hard-a-port!' he roared,
but weel micht he shout for ay, for the qua'termaster, wi' a' on the
signal bridge, was dead by noo, and the helm was left jammed
hard-a-sta'bo'd.
"Then Ah felt her shudder as the engines went full speed astern, and Ah
got to ma feet in time to see she was headin' straicht for the fo'c'sl'
o' a T.B.D. that was steerin' cross her bows. And richt after that she
must ha' struck wi' a michty crash. The next thing Ah mindit--weel, Ah
didna mind much save that I was lyin' on ma back in a sort o' narrow
way atween twa high wa's, wi' a turrible pain in ma back and mony
sea-boots trampin' ower ma face. The bashin' o' the boots didna hurt me,
for Ah was kind o' dazed; but Ah seem to mind turnin' ma face to the
wa', just like ye do whan the flees are botherin' ye in the mornin'.
"What brocht me roun', I'm thinkin', was the shock that Ah got whan that
wa' 'gan to shak' up and doon, and then slid richt awa', leavin' me
hingin' ower the brink o' a black hole, wi' water souchin' aboot the
bottom o't. 'Twas like wakin' oot o' a bad dream and findin' that the
warst o' it was true.
"Ah was too groggy to ken richt awa' that the _Bow_ had rammed anither
ship and that Ah had been pitched oot o' her into the wan she'd hit.
Quite natteral, Ah thocht masel' still in the _Bow_, seem' that Ah cud
be nae mair use on the fo'c'sl', which was a' smashed and rippit up and
drappin' to bits, Ah thocht that Ah ought to run aft to see if Ah could
gie a haun.
"But when Ah tried to get up, Ah fund the bane o' ma spine was so sair
that Ah cudna stand straicht, and a' Ah cud do was to craw' and stagger
alang. Every mon Ah knockit agin, and every bit of wreck Ah felt ower,
sent me sprawlin'. Whan I fund that there was no so mony funnels as Ah
minded afore, and whan Ah cudna find the W.T. hoose, Ah thocht that
they had been shot awa'. Findin' a crew at stations by a midships gun,
Ah speired if they was short o' hauns. They said they werna, so Ah gaed
alang aft, lookin' for a chance to be useful.
"Ah was thinkin' to masel', 'she's awfu' little shot up' (for ye ken Ah
had expectit her to be a' to bits frae the way Ah'd heard the projes
burstin' ahint the bridge), whan a syren gae a michty shriek a' most at
ma lug, and Ah turned to see anither T.B.D., spootin' fire frae her
funnels and throwin' a double bow wave higher'n her fo'c'sl', headin'
richt inta us. Ah cud see that her helm was hard-a-port by the way her
wake was boilin', but it was nae guid. She turned enough to keep frae
rammin' us midships, but she cudna miss oor stern.
"Ah had just been tellt by ane o' the after gun's crew to get oot o' the
wa' (they not bein' short o' hauns), whan this new craft hove inta
sicht. At first it lookit like she wad cut thro' for'ard o' me, leavin'
me ahint to drown in the wreck o' the stern. Then Ah thocht she was
comin' richt at me, and Ah started crawlin' back to whaur Ah had come
frae. But she keepit turnin' and turnin', so that she hit at last richt
abaft the after gun. Ah fell a' in a heap at the shock, and, tho' Ah was
a guid ten feet frae whaur her stem cut in, the bulge o' her crunched
into the quarterdeck till she passed sae close that suthin' stickin' oot
frae her side--it micht hae been the lip o' a mouldie-tube, Ah'm
thinkin'--gae ma puir back a sair dig, and there Ah was amang the mess
left o' the gun and its crew. Ah was near to bein' dragged owerboard
after that T.B.D., and when she was gone Ah fund masel'--for the second
time in ane night--hangin' ower the raggit edge o' a black hole
listenin' to the swish o' ragin' waters.
"And then, gin that and ma half-broken back werna enough for ony mon, Ah
hear some ane shoutit that they thocht that last rammin' had done in the
auld _Seagull_, and that the time wad soon come to 'bandon ship.
"'_Seagull!_' says Ah; 'dinna ye ken this ship is the _Bow_?' Ah kind o'
went groggy after that, and Ah have a sort o' dim remembrance that some
ane flashit an 'lectric torch in ma face and said that Ah must have been
pitchit ower whan the _Bow_ rammed the _Seagull_, and that Ah prob'ly
hadna shaken doon to ma new surroundin's. Ah tried hard to speir what
kind o' a shakin' doon they meant gin this hadna been ane. But Ah didna
seem to have the power to mak' ma words come straicht, and they said,
'He's gane a bit off his chuck,' and ca'd some ane to carry me below.
"The pains runnin' up and doon ma spine when Ah was lowered doon the
ladder were ower much for me, and Ah passed off for a bit. Whan Ah cam
roun' Ah was bein' shoved along the ward-room table--whaur Ah had been
lyin'--to mak' room for a lad wi' bandages roun' his head and a'
drippin' wi' salt water. His ship had gone doon twa hours syne, and
maist o' the time he had been in the water or roostin' on a Carley
Float. That lad's name was Gains, noo the gun-layer o' the fo'most gun
o' the _Spark_--him Ah saw ye talkin' wi' just noo. He was strong and
cheery himsel', but fower o' his mates were chilled to the bane, and Ah
wacht 'em shiver to death richt afore ma een.
"It was aboot daylicht when we pickit up a' that was left o' the crew o'
the _Killarney_, and aboot an hour efter we fell in wi' the _Sportsman_,
wha passed us a hawser and tried to tow, stern-first, what was left o'
the _Seagull_. Ah didna see what was wrang, but they tellt me that the
wreck o' the stern and the helm bein' jammed hard a-sta'bo'd made sae
much drag that the cable partit. Then there was naithing else to
do--sin' the _Seagull_ cudna steam--but to sink her wi' gun-fire. The
captain askit permission for this by W.T., and when it came they ditched
the books and signals, transferred abody to the _Sportsman_, and then
gae her a roun' or twa at the water-line wi' the _Sportsman's_ guns.
Doon she gaed, and that," he concluded with a grin, "is the true yarn o'
the sinkin' o' the _Seagull_. If only o' ma mates try to mak' ye b'lieve
that she foundert 'count o' bein' hit and holed by a 'human proj' kent
as Jock Campbell, I'm hopin' ye'll no listen to 'em."