Hoskins, a hoary-headed old sinner of the old school, who could coax
a Diesel engine to run on air or coal-dust if necessary and was,
moreover, in a permanent state of growl. Raymond swore by him, and had,
like the coxswain, taken him from ship to ship in his upward career. He
had joined the Navy as a fitter and turner at the age of twenty-two,
having just completed his apprenticeship in one of the great
shipbuilding yards on the Tyne, and had been entered as a Fourth Class
Artificer. His keenness and wonderful ability with anything mechanical
had urged him to join the Submarine Service, where he was practically
in charge of his own engines. Give him an oil-can and a lump of waste,
varied occasionally by a foot-rule and Macmahon wrench, and he would
be happy for hours.
The second, third, and fourth E.R.A.’s were all much younger men who
had joined under the new scheme as Boy Artificers at the training
college at Devonport, whence they had emerged, having received all
their knowledge from the Service, and in due course been rated
Artificers, 4th Class. They were now slowly working their way up, and
had joined the Submarine Service since the war, when the necessity for
capable men had inspired them with the wish for more authority than
fell to their lots in the engine-rooms of a Battleship.
The Stoker Petty Officer was a bearded and efficient ruffian, and the
oldest man in the boat. Unlike the seamen, the stokers do not join the
Navy as boys, but at about the age of eighteen, and this particular old
sinner had had rather a rough time of it in his early days. However,
he had kept going, and as only men of good character are admitted
to submarines, it speaks well of him that he had not fallen by the
wayside. In a submarine he had seen freedom from dirt and eternal
coal shovelling, raking, and slicing, as well as extra pay and other
privileges, and the added dangers of the life did not seem to worry him
in the least.
His right-hand man was the Leading Stoker, who had seen much the same
side of life as his senior, to whose rating he was now aspiring. He was
a man of good solid worth, a little fond of the bottle; and possessed
of many relations whose sudden deaths necessitated his immediate
presence in the home circle. But he was a good man and knew his work
and the men under him, and the engines never ran so smoothly as when he
was superintending the oiling and other equally necessary operations.
Finally, there were the six First Class Stokers, young men not long in
submarines who were very anxious to get on and very much afraid lest
they should be returned to general service, which is the punishment
dealt out to all those whose conduct in submarines does not justify
their remaining in them. They had all been through the same early
training, and most of them had joined submarines since the war. Like
the rest of the crew they were good, steady workers, for the Submarine
Service can always have its picked men, and those who are tried and
found wanting are summarily ejected to return to the rigours of
‘big-ship’ routine.
Occasionally an additional hand was carried in the shape of a wireless
or W.T. Operator, but, as Raymond dabbled in wireless among other
things, he was not a permanent member of the ship’s company, and spent
most of his time in the depot.
Captain Charteris took one keen glance along the line of motionless
figures, and turned to Raymond and smiled.
‘All very smart, Raymond,’ he said in an undertone.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the other, and Seagrave tingled with delight as the
two disappeared down the engine-room hatch.
Arrived below, the Post Captain made a quick and searching examination
of the boat from end to end. His eagle-eye seemed to be all-embracing.
A question to Raymond, an inquiry of the Chief E.R.A., and a request
that the main-line pump should be started followed one another in the
first two minutes. It seemed that he made a very cursory visit to the
engine-room, but had anything been seriously wrong Raymond felt sure
that Captain Charteris would have spotted it, and thanked Heaven and
the Chief E.R.A. that nothing was amiss. Then for’ard through the
length of the boat, the Captain nodding his head as he listened to
Raymond’s explanations of some alterations he had recently made, and
occasionally asking a question and always putting his finger on the
weak spot as if by instinct.
Presently they reached the tube-doors, and Raymond heaved a sigh of
relief. So far everything had been satisfactory. The spare torpedoes
were examined, and a door was opened exposing the long dark tunnel of
the tube with its “fish” lying snugly within, and then the Captain
turned to the firing-gear.
‘Where’s the cross connection on the firing line?’ he asked.
‘Done away with it, sir. It was all right if both torpedoes were fired
together, but the firing-tank took 40 seconds to re-charge, and if
only one “fish” were fired with the cross connection fitted it was
impossible to fire a second unless we waited for that interval, because
all the air was used on the first one and there was nothing left to
fire the other with.’
The Captain nodded. ‘And now?’ he queried.
‘Each firing-tank fires the torpedo on its own side of the boat, sir.’
‘Do you find it satisfactory?’
‘Very, sir.’
Captain Charteris turned away. ‘That’s all, I think, Raymond,’ he said,
and led the way up the fore-hatch.
‘Ship’s company, ’shun!’ ordered Seagrave, as the two officers passed
down the line on their way aft, the Captain quietly scanning the faces
and pausing now and again to ask a question as to what boats a certain
man had served in, when he had received his medal ribbon, or how long
he had been in submarines.
At the gang-plank, where the coxswain was waiting with his pipe ready,
he issued judgment. ‘Not at all bad, Raymond,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m
coming aboard some day to see dummy shots fired without the cross
connection.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Raymond saluting, and Captain Charteris was
piped over the side.
As he crossed from boat to boat the trilling of the pipes was taken
up by each coxswain in turn as the crews came to attention and the
officers saluted, the boatswain’s mate at the _Parentis’s_ gangway
bringing the performance to a triumphant conclusion.
The quartermaster, the corporal of the watch, messengers, and sideboys
stiffened where they stood as he crossed the deck and went down the
starboard gangway to inspect the remaining five submarines.
Three-quarters of an hour later ‘pipe down,’ sounded by the juvenile
Marine bugler, informed all and sundry that the inspection was over.
The boats’ crews fell out, and such as were not wanted for immediate
duty trooped aboard the depot and down to the crowded mess-decks, while
the officers remained comparing notes and discussing the results of the
ordeal.
‘What made the “owner” so ratty, Johnson?’ asked Raymond, on his way
across to the _Parentis_.
The officer in question, who was captain of the boat lying between
Austin’s and Blake’s, shook his head sadly, and then burst out laughing.
‘It’s all UP with Little Willy, I’m afraid, unless he gets over it,
which I very much doubt. And everything was going so splendidly, too.’
He sighed heavily.
‘What was it, you blighter?’ cried Austin. ‘He came aboard my packet
in a state of fury, and I had to do my dirty damndest to smooth things
over.’
‘It wasn’t my fault, George. I couldn’t foresee it or I should have
taken jolly good care to prevent it. One of my stokers, whom I’m going
to hang to-morrow, by the way, is the proud possessor of a monkey. I
took particular care that the brute should be sent inboard before the
inspection, but you know what those ruddy things are, and somehow or
other it must have sneaked aboard again. It was hanging from a beam
under the torpedo-hatch, with part of an old ensign wrapped round its
head, and when the old man passed underneath on his way for’ard, it
dropped on his shoulders.’
‘Well?’
‘That’s all.’
* * * * *
Monday morning dawned dull and dismal. A steady downpour of thin
drizzling rain that wet through and chilled to the marrow did not
tend to brighten matters or relieve the gloom that had settled on the
coxswain as he surveyed the weather with the eye of a fatalist. The
hour of seven a.m. does not tend to hilarity.
‘This ruddy weather,’ he remarked to the unemotional landscape, ‘near
drives me to drink. Near drives me to drink, that’s wot it does.’
A cluster of sleepy-eyed figures clambering up from the mess-decks
caught his eye and gave him the opportunity he had been waiting for.
‘Come along now. Step lively,’ he growled. ‘Six bells struck five
minutes ago. Fall in ’ere and tow a line.’
The half-dozen seamen and stokers, clad in overalls, put out their
pipes and stumbled into some semblance of a line as the remainder of
‘123’s’ crew appeared from their various lairs and joined the unhappy
company. The E.R.A.’s carried on down to the boat to commence the day’s
labours, carefully picking their way between the demons wielding brooms
and the hose brandishers who were performing the early morning task of
‘scrub decks.’
‘Show a little life now,’ snapped the coxswain to his shivering
subordinates. ‘Form two deep. ’Shun. Right dress. Eyes front.
Stan’-at-ease. Are ye all ’ere?’ he continued, checking off the number
on his fingers. ‘No, we’re one short.’
‘Jevons ain’t ’ere,’ volunteered the second coxswain, inwardly cursing
the able seamen who kept him shivering in the rain.
‘I’m ’ere,’ cried a dishevelled figure hastily taking its place at the
end of the rear rank.
The coxswain surveyed him with a baleful glance.
‘A little more from you, my lad, and you’ll be spoke to. You turn out
late once more an’ I takes you before the first lieutenant. I’ve ’ad me
eye on you for some time.’
The seaman swallowed heavily. It was unwise to argue with the coxswain
in the still hours of the morning. Also his roving eye caught sight of
Seagrave, who was coming forward clad in oilskins and sea-boots and
pulling on a long pair of engine-room gloves.
‘T.’s crew, ’shun!’ cried the coxswain. ‘All present, sir.’
Seagrave gravely returned the salute and began telling off the men for
their various tasks, an extra pressure of work having necessitated an
early ‘turn to.’
‘Stokers carry on with the chief E.R.A.; T.I. and an S.T. on topping up
and wiping down. The water lighter’s alongside now and I’m coming down
to test the water, so don’t begin till I let you know. We’ll charge
afterwards. L.T.O. carry on with the volt-metre board. Remainder clean
ship.’
The coxswain saluted.
‘T.’s crew. Carry on down to the boat. Jevons, you work with the T.I.
Dismiss.’
The weary band broke away and trooped down the ladder and across the
boats to where ‘123’ lay on the outside of the tier. The coxswain
produced a key of large proportions, and, unlocking the padlock on the
conning-tower hatch, disappeared below. Presently the other hatches
were opened from inside the boat, over which canvas shelters were
rigged to prevent the rain from ruining her internal complexion, and
the day’s work commenced.
Overnight a long black lighter, filled with carboys of distilled water,
had been towed alongside and made fast to the submarine, and now the
tarpaulin cover was hauled back and a long, flexible rubber tube passed
up out of the fore-hatch and its end dropped into one of the carboys.
Presently Seagrave appeared armed with a stick of nitrate of silver
with which he tested in turn the contents of each of the water-holders.
Two of them were found wanting, for they clouded under the operation,
and were condemned as unfit for use in the sensitive internals of a
battery, and when he had satisfied himself with the others he gave the
order to ‘carry on.’
With much labour the T.I. and Jevons filled the tube with sterilised
water and passed the free end across to the boat and down the
conning-tower hatch, the S.T. firmly grasping its extremity for fear of
wetting the sacred brasswork. The siphon thus formed was a labour-saver
of a large order and did away with the necessity of passing the water
below in buckets and perhaps rendering it dirty in the process. Down
below a sound of rasping and hammering came from the engine-room where
the E.R.A.s and stokers were effecting repairs, where there had been
‘a bit of a mess up aft, sir,’ and could be seen wielding spanners and
lumps of waste in a masterly manner. The L.T.O. was gravely attending
to the volt-metre board, whose vagaries had given trouble of late,
and the second coxswain was oiling the bearings of the hydroplane
and rudder shafts and generally making himself useful. The remaining
seamen were cleaning brass as if their lives depended on it, a state of
things that was liable to undergo a slight modification on Seagrave’s
departure.
‘’Ere, Sam,’ called the T.I., ‘give us a ’and with this deck-cloth,’
as that worthy paused on his round to wipe an oily brow.
Together they rolled back the canvas carpet, disclosing a solid rubber
covering bolted to the deck with iron battens, which on being raised
exposed a series of hatches beneath which was the for’ard battery. One
of these was then lifted and the operation of ‘topping up’ began.
Every three weeks or so, owing to the constant charging and discharging
and other reasons, the electrolyte in the cells, composed of sulphuric
acid and water, became used up and its level sank in the cells,
exposing the tops of the plates. These were no toy cells either. They
stood over four feet high and were placed in the bottom of the boat,
below the deck level, in two long lines strapped together with steel
plates painted red and blue, indicating positive and negative. The
process of topping up consisted of replenishing the water in the cells
until the level covered the plates, and was usually accompanied by that
of carefully wiping and cleaning the inter-cell connections, taking
the densities, and generally seeing that all was in order. An unhappy
seaman, clad in oilskin, was posted in the lighter to transfer his end
of the rubber tube to a fresh carboy as the first was emptied and the
work went merrily on. The T.I. was the mainspring of the business,
while the S.T. worked under his orders, shifting the tube from cell to
cell as necessary, and generally doing as he was told. He was there
to learn and he knew it. When two or three cells were finished, the
hatch was replaced and another lifted, and so on down one line and up
the other, by which time the battery was completed, several carboys had
been emptied, and eight bells had struck aboard the _Parentis_. ‘123,’
owing to a busy day, was carrying out a special routine, and the crew
trooped inboard to breakfast.
The rain had ceased but the prospect was still anything but cheery,
and even the funny man could not brighten the settled gloom that had
overcome the crew when work was restarted an hour later. The T.I. and
his satellites resumed their labours by tackling the after-battery, and
casting much criticism on the health of the cells and nature of the
battery in general. The gun-layer, assisted by the cook, overhauled his
gun, and the remainder continued their early morning tasks with more or
less signs of energy. It was not a cheerful morning.
By-and-by Seagrave came down, having polished off an excellent
breakfast and feeling at peace with the world, to examine the work in
hand and listen to the T.I.’s comments on his beloved batteries.
Another hour saw the topping up completed, and a waiting tug pounced on
the water-lighter and bore it away in triumph to its distant lair.
Boyd appeared just as the job was finished and began to overhaul the
gyro compass. While he cleaned contractors and filed transmitters he
burst into ragtime, which brought Seagrave aft with a pained and
virtuous expression on his face.
‘My God! Pilot,’ he said, ‘what a shine you’re kicking up. If you’d
been up since seven, like I have, you wouldn’t feel so cheery. Who
wouldn’t be a navigator?’
‘Work with a will and sing while you work,’ said Boyd. ‘Work never
killed the cat and I’m going to put in quite half an hour at it to-day.
Our hard-worked submarine officers at their daily toil.’
The Chief E.R.A., who was hovering in the offing, chose his opportunity
and plunged in.
‘Are you going to charge now, sir?’ he asked Seagrave. ‘We’re all ready
in the engine-room.’
‘Yes, yes,’ replied the ‘Sub.’ ‘We’ll have to do a gas-engine charge,
though. “147” has got the berth at the charging pier. We’ll start with
500 in the series until the densities rise to twelve twenty-five and
then give her two-fifty in parallel. Starboard Engine!’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ and Hoskins disappeared into his engine-room.
The L.T.O. made the grouper switch and then started the starboard
motor, and with the engine-clutch in the Diesel was heaved over until
she fired and the engine got away by herself. The process was much the
same as cranking up a motor-car, and as the revolutions increased the
needle on the ammeter, which had shown discharging at first, worked
slowly back, past zero and on to charging, and, after a deal of
flickering, finally steadied at five hundred amperes.
The L.T.O. was to look after the charge under Seagrave’s orders, and
the T.I. and his minion decamped to attend to the internals of a
torpedo that some one had been rude to.
Every hour Furness made the sounds of the pilot-cells with a squeeze
bulb--an instrument rather like a fountain-pen filler--with which he
sucked up a small portion of the electrolyte and was able to read the
densities. Slowly they rose until by noon, with the temperatures at
about 50 deg. fahrenheit, the batteries stood at twelve twenty-five
and the charge was broken. The sound of the engines died away and the
L.T.O. stopped the motor. Then over came the grouper-switch to put
the batteries in parallel, the motor was re-started, and in less than
a minute the charge was under weigh again. The whole operation was
identical with that of starting the engines at sea, the only difference
being that the tail clutches were out, so that the propeller was
disconnected from the shaft; also when the engines are propelling the
ship the motor-switches are broken when once the Diesel is under weigh.
About three in the afternoon, when the entries on the charging sheet
began to look formidable, and the charge was nearing completion,
Raymond came down to have a look-see, and satisfy himself that all was
in order. He and Seagrave conferred for a few minutes on the ‘care and
maintenance’ of secondary batteries, and then the skipper turned to
the voltmeter.
‘Voltage 2.5. Yes, that’s all right. Densities 1248 and 1250.
Temperatures 80 deg. and 82 deg. Um, yes. I think we’ll break the
charge.’
‘Break the charge, Hoskins,’ said Seagrave, waving towards the
engine-room.
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ came the answer.
The engine stopped and the L.T.O. snipped the switches over. In the
engine-room the stokers were bending over the silent Diesel, and
Hoskins began to square up the tools of his trade. For’ard the T.I.
and the redoubtable Jevons were replacing their long-suffering torpedo
in its tube, and the coxswain, with puckered brow and the stump of a
pencil, was breathing heavily while he wrote up the log. The brass
rags were being packed up and stowed away, the oil-cans replaced, and
the hatches closed. One by one the men foraged for their caps and
went up on deck. The T.I. began turning the lights out. Work was over
for the day. The two officers were the last to go on deck, and then
the coxswain locked up the boat and followed in the wake of his men.
There were kippers for tea in the Petty Officer’s mess, and he was
late already. It had been a trying and depressing day, and he walked
majestically abroad, feeling like the captain who has made port at last
when land had been forgotten.
Raymond paused by the gun on his way to the gang-plank.
‘Rotten little thing this,’ he said, pulling down a lever and opening
the breach. ‘Why the devil they can’t give us something decent, I’d
like to know.’
‘We ought to have a twelve-pounder on an anti-aircraft mounting,’
responded the ambitious Seagrave. ‘A measley six-pound pea-shooter like
that isn’t any earthly use. It’s ages since we’ve fired the thing, and
it’ll probably jump the mounting if we do. I can’t understand what
they’re thinking about, dumping that ruddy thing on us.’
Raymond smiled. The gun, quite handy and useful in its own way, was
Seagrave’s sore point and afforded a never-failing bite.
‘We shall have to write and tell ’em so, but I’m afraid they won’t take
any notice of us. Six-pounders you shall have, and six-pounders we get,
and they stick to us.
‘What I should really like would be a four-inch and a few eggs,[13] and
mine-dropping gear. Then we could do something. It’s sickening messing
about like this, looking for Fritz, who never comes out, or runs as
soon as he sees us. I’d like to see one of their Battle Cruisers come
across our patrol one day. We’d show ’em.’
Raymond smiled again.
And so to tea.
* * * * *
The Officer of the Watch, one Meeks, Lieutenant R.N.R., slowly paced
the _Parentis’s_ quarter-deck, wrapped in the rig of the day, to
wit, a heavy gloom. The rain had ceased, but the sky was lowering and
overcast, and the wind had dropped some hours ago. The moon, struggling
gamely through the clouds, was the only saving clause to the situation.
An unpleasant day had given place to a damp and chilly night, and at
2.0 a.m. man is not at his brightest.
Turning over in his mind the events of the day, he recalled a long
vista of disappointing circumstances. At the outbreak of war, when the
Reserves had been called up, he had joined the colours flushed with the
thrill of patriotism that many know so well. He had seen himself doing
great things, at least doing well, and perhaps ultimately being turned
over into the Active Service and fulfilling a long cherished wish.
However, after concluding a gunnery course at Whale Island, and making
a good show in the examination, he had been sent here as watch-keeper
to a depot ship, a parent ship to submarines. At first he had liked the
life, but the novelty of his surroundings soon wore off, and he had
longed to be at sea again, where there was a chance of doing something.
He realised that watch-keepers in harbour ships were necessary, but
somehow had always imagined that it wouldn’t fall to his lot to fill
one of the billets. Two years of war had found him in the same ship,
and to-day he had applied for a transfer into one of the submarines
as navigator. The results had not been encouraging. The Captain had
told him quite kindly that he felt hardly justified in shifting him at
present. He knew what that meant. He hadn’t made a success of his work,
and was thought unfit for a boat. It was a bit hard, he considered. He
knew he didn’t take much interest in his job, but found it difficult to
do so when he saw so many others of his kind going to sea in boats and
apparently doing well. If only he could get a chance he felt sure he
would do well. But now....
He sighed heavily, and leant over the rail.
A side boy approached with a mug of steaming cocoa, his bare feet
making scarcely any sound on the wooden deck.
‘Will you ’ave this now, sir?’ he queried.
‘Yes, please, put it on the table.’
He moved across the quarter-deck to the table where lay the log and
signal pads, and gazed heavily at the dark blurs of the anchored Fleet.
The Corporal and Quartermaster of the Watch were talking in undertones
by the gangway. Then five bells struck, and the sound was echoed from
the neighbouring ships and died away in the distance.
The ship swung to the turn of the tide, and he went up to the bridge
and checked the position by shore-bearings, keeping a good eye on the
other vessels to see that they would swing clear. Up here a sleepy-eyed
signalman and two signal-boys were passing the time by restoring flags
to the lockers, and the night seemed very still and quiet.
Then a visit forward to the anchor watch and back to the quarter-deck
again, to continue the slow pacing up and down to keep the cold out.
He glanced at his watch and yawned. Nearly three o’clock. Only another
hour of it. Up and down the quarter-deck, up and down ... with the
knowledge that at any rate aboard each of the darkened and silent
vessels around him a comrade in distress was performing the same
penance....
A pattering of bare feet from the direction of the bridge, and a
signal-boy appeared, breathless.
‘Red light showing from the Flagship, sir,’ he reported.
Instantly the Lieutenant’s manner changed. The regrets of yesterday had
vanished. No need for quiet now.
‘Quartermaster!’ he shouted. ‘Hands to aircraft stations! Stand by
funk-holes!’