Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including inconsistent hyphenation. Some changes have been
made. They are listed at the end of the text.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
OE ligatures have been expanded.
STORIES OF THE SHIPS
DEDICATED
TO
CAPT. ELLERTON
STORIES OF THE SHIPS
BY
LIEUT LEWIS R. FREEMAN, R.N.V.R.
OFFICIAL PRESS REPRESENTATIVE WITH THE GRAND FLEET
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1919
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
I. STORIES OF THE SHIPS
PAGE
THE STORY OF THE _CORNWALL_ 3
i. PLYMOUTH TO THE FALKLANDS 3
ii. THE BATTLE OF THE FALKLANDS 28
THE STORY OF THE _SYDNEY_ 53
i. THE SIGNALMAN'S TALE 53
ii. NAVAL HUNNISM 85
II. LIFE IN THE FLEET
A BATTLESHIP AT SEA 107
A NORTH SEA SWEEP 130
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH FLEET 157
THE HEALTH OF THE FLEET 169
ECONOMY IN THE GRAND FLEET 178
CHRISTMAS IN A "HAPPY" SHIP 194
IN A BALLOON SHIP 203
COALING THE GRAND FLEET 216
THE STOKERS 232
III. AMERICA ARRIVES
THE U.S. NAVY 247
"GETTING TOGETHER" 259
i. HOW THE OFFICERS OF THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN
SHIPS THAT ARE WORKING TOGETHER IN EUROPEAN
WATERS ARE MAKING EACH OTHER'S ACQUAINTANCE 259
ii. WHAT THE BRITISH BLUEJACKET THINKS OF THE
AMERICAN 268
iii. WHAT THE AMERICAN BLUEJACKET THINKS OF
BRITAIN AND THE BRITISH 278
I. STORIES OF THE SHIPS
THE STORY OF THE _CORNWALL_
I. PLYMOUTH TO THE FALKLANDS
Of the countless stories of naval action which I have listened to in the
course of the months I have spent with the Grand Fleet, I cannot recall
a single one which was told as the consequence of being asked for with
malice aforethought. I have never yet found a man of action who was
enamoured of the sound of his own voice raised in the recital of his
own exploits, and if there is one thing more than another calculated
to throw an otherwise not untalkative British Naval Officer into a
state of uncommunicativeness, in comparison with which the traditional
silence of the sphinx or the proverbial close-mouthedness of the clam
are alike sheer garrulity, it is to ask him, point blank, to tell you
(for instance) how he took his submarine into the Baltic, or what his
destroyer did at Jutland, or how he fought his cruiser at Dogger Bank,
or something similar.
The quiet-voiced but always interesting and often dramatic recitals
of such things as these which I have heard have invariably been led
up to quite incidentally--at dinner, on the bridge or quarter-deck,
around the wardroom fire, or through something else that has just been
told. Several times I have found in officers' diaries--little records
never meant for other eyes than those of the writers' own friends
or families--which have been turned over to me to verify some point
regarding which I had inquired, laconic references to incidents and
events of great human and even historic interest, and one of the most
amusing and dramatic yarns I have ever listened to was told me in a
"kite" balloon--plunging in the forty-mile wind against which it was
being towed like a hooked salmon--by a man who had assured me before we
went up that nothing really exciting had ever fallen to his experience.
It was in this way--an anecdote now and then as this or that incident
of the day recalled it to his mind--that Captain ---- came to tell me
the story of the _Cornwall_ during those eventful early months of the
war when he commanded that now famous cruiser. He mentioned her first,
I believe, one night in his cabin when, referring to a stormy midwinter
month, most of which had been spent by his Division of the Grand Fleet
on some sort of work at sea, I spoke of the "rather strenuous interval"
we had experienced.
"If you think life in a battleship of the Grand Fleet strenuous,"
laughed the Captain, extending himself comfortably in his armchair
before the glowing grate, "I wonder what you would have thought of the
life we led in the old _Cornwall_. Not very far from a hundred and
twenty thousand miles of steaming was her record for the first two years
of the war, and in that time she ploughed most of the Seven Seas and
coasted in the waters of all but one of the Six Continents. Always on
the lookout for something or other, coaling as we could, provisioning as
we might--let me tell you that coming to the Grand Fleet after that (at
least until a few months had elapsed and the contrast wore off) was like
retiring on a pension in comparison."
He settled himself deeper into the soft upholstery, extended his
feet nearer the fire, lighted a fresh cigar, and, in the hour which
elapsed before the evening mail came aboard, told me of the work of the
_Cornwall_ in those first chaotic weeks of the war which preceded the
battle of the Falklands.
"We were at Plymouth when the war began," said he, "and our first work
was in connexion with protecting and 'shepherding' safely to port
several British ships carrying bullion which were still on the high
seas. It was a baffling sort of a job, especially as there were two or
three German raiders loose in the North Atlantic, the favourite ruse
of each of which was to represent itself as a British cruiser engaged
in the same benevolent work the _Cornwall_ was on. Warned of these
'wolves-in-shepherds'-clothing,' the merchantmen we sought to protect
were afraid to reveal their whereabouts by wireless, the consequence
being that our first forerunning efforts to safeguard the seas resolved
themselves into a sort of marine combination of 'Blind-Man's Buff' and
'Hide-and-Seek,' played pretty well all over the Atlantic. All the ships
with especially valuable cargoes got safely to port ultimately, though
none of them, that I recall, directly under the wing of the _Cornwall_.
It was our first taste of the 'So-near-and-yet-so-far' kind of life
that is the inevitable lot of the cruiser which essays the dual rôle of
'Commerce Protector' and 'Raider Chaser.'
"After a few hours at 'Gib,' we were next sent across to Casa Blanca,
where the appearance of the _Cornwall_ was about the first tangible
evidence that French Africa had of the fact that England was really
coming into the war in earnest. There was a good deal of unrest in
Morocco at the time, for the Germans were even then at work upon their
insidious propaganda among the Moslems of all the colonies of the
Allies. The 'buzz' in the bazaars that the appearance of a British
warship started must have served a very useful purpose at this critical
juncture in carrying to the Arabs of the interior word that France was
not going to have to stand alone against Germany. Our reception by both
the French and native population of Casa Blanca was most enthusiastic,
and during all of our stay a cheering procession followed in the wake of
every party of officers or men who went ashore.
"Leaving Casa Blanca, we were sent back to the Atlantic to search for
commerce destroyers, ultimately working south by the Canaries and Cape
Verde Islands to South American waters, where the _Karlsruhe_ was then
at the zenith of her activities. The chase of this enterprising and
elusive raider, whose career was finally brought to an inglorious end by
her going aground on a West Indian Island, kept the _Cornwall_--along
with a number of other British cruisers--steadily on the move, until
the ominous and painful news of the destruction of Craddock's fleet off
Coronel suddenly brought us face to face with the fact that there was
soon going to be bigger game than a lone pirate to be stalked.
"We never had the luck to sight even so much as the smoke of
the _Karlsruhe_, although--as I only learned too late to take
advantage of the information--the _Cornwall_ was within an hour
or two's steaming of her on one occasion. I _did_ think we had her
once, though--a jolly amusing incident it was, too. I was getting
uncomfortably short of food at the time--a very common experience in the
'here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow' sort of life we were leading;--so that
when the welcome news reached me by wireless one morning that a British
ship--Buenos Aires to New York with frozen beef--was due to pass through
the waters we were then patrolling, I lost no time in heading over to
intercept her on the chance of doing a bit of marketing.
"We picked her up promptly as reckoned, but, while she was still hull
down on the horizon, her skipper began to signal frantically, '_I am
being chased by the "Karlsruhe"!_' Here was luck indeed. I ordered
'Action Stations' to be sounded, and the course of the ship to be
altered toward the point where I figured the smoke of the pursuing
pirate would begin to smudge the sky-line as she came swooping down
upon her prey. Sighting nothing after holding on this course for a
while, I came to the conclusion that the raider must be hidden by the
impenetrable smoke-pall with which the flying beef-ship had masked
a wide arc of the western horizon, and headed up in that direction,
begging the fugitive in the meantime to give me the bearing of her
pursuer as accurately as possible.
"Her only reply to this, however, was to belch out 'smoke-screen'
faster than ever and continue rending the empyrean ether with renewed
'_I am being chased by the "Karlsruhe"!_' In vain I assured her that
we were the H.M.S. _Cornwall_, and would take the greatest delight in
seeing that the chase was put an end to, if she would only tell us from
which direction the _Karlsruhe_ was coming, and cease to throw out a
bituminous blanket for the enemy to hide behind. Blacker and blacker
rolled the smoke, heavier and heavier piled the screen to leeward, and
still more frantically shrilled the appeals for help. At the end of my
patience at actions which it now began to dawn upon me looked more than
a little suspicious, I headed the _Cornwall_ straight after the runaway
and soon reduced the interval separating us sufficiently to reach her
with 'Visual.' She brought up sharp at my 'Stop instantly!' and a
quarter of an hour later my boarding party was clambering over her side.
"'Where's the _Karlsruhe_?' I shouted impatiently to the Boarding
Officer as his boat came back alongside again. I knew something of the
accuracy of German long range naval gunnery, and was far from being easy
in mind regarding the kind of surprise packet that might at any moment
be wafted out of that slowly thinning smoke-blur to leeward.
"'There,' he replied with a comprehensive sweep of the arm in quite the
opposite direction from the one I had been expecting the enemy. 'Right
there, Sir.' That old lunatic of a skipper thought the _Cornwall_ was
the _Karlsruhe_!"
"Did you get your frozen beef?" I asked.
The Captain smiled the pleased smile of one who recalls something that
has given him great satisfaction.
"I think that afternoon marked the beginning of the 'Food Economy'
campaign in the Navy," he replied. "If the Admiralty had been able to
continue buying frozen beef at the rate that crestfallen but highly
relieved skipper--quite of his own free will--charged for the lot we
loaded up after he had found it was not to be his fate to be sunk by
the _Karlsruhe_,--well, the Government could have probably built a new
battleship or two and never missed the money out of the saving."
The recollection of the treat that fresh meat was after a long period on
"bully beef" ration turned the Captain's thoughts to another time of
plenty he had experienced after the _Cornwall_ had helped the wounded
_Carmania_ limp back to Base following her successful engagement with
the _Cap Trafalgar_.
"In these times of food economy and restricted rations," he said,
"it fairly makes my mouth water to think of the feasts Captain G----
spread for us during the days we were devising a way to get the
battered _Carmania_ back to England. You see, when the war started
she was just about to sail on one of her transatlantic voyages with
the usual midsummer cargo of American millionaires, and her cuisine
was of a character calculated to satisfy their Epicurean tastes.
When they converted her to an auxiliary cruiser, it was the usual
sledge-hammer, crow-bar, and over-the-side procedure with the mirrors,
the upholsteries, and the mahoganies, but they left the stores, God
bless them, they left the stores. Can you fancy how things such as
truffled quail, and asparagus tips with mayonnaise--_iced_--and _café
parfait_, and Muscat dates, and California oranges--with the big gold
labels on--tasted to men who had been for weeks pretty nearly down to
the classic old wind-jammer ration of 'lobscouse' and 'dog's-body'? And
those plump, black, five-inch-long Havanas in the silver foil (I can
smell the soothing fumes of them yet), and that rarely blended Mocha,
and those bottles of 1835 Cognac--the pungent bouquet of them scents
the memories of the long evenings I sat with G---- in the wreck of his
fire-swept cabin while he yarned to me of the ripping fight he had just
come out of. And how we all envied G---- his luck--getting as sporting
a show as a man could ask for in that half-converted liner while we
cruisers were vainly chasing smoke and rumours over most of the South
Atlantic. Nothing less than the banquets he gave us would have salved
our heart-burnings."
And so it was that the Captain was led on to speak of what he had
heard--from those who took part in it, and only a few hours from the
time it happened--of the first great duel ever fought between modern
armed merchantmen, a conflict, indeed, which is still practically unique
in naval history.
"There was not much to choose between the ships," he said. "The _Cap
Trafalgar_--one of the latest of the Hamburg Sud Amerika liners--had
a good deal the best of it on the score of age, and the _Carmania_
probably something on the score of size. The latter had been hastily
converted at Liverpool immediately after the outbreak of the war, while
the former turned herself from sheep into wolf about the same time by
arming herself with the guns of a small German gun-boat. This craft, by
the way, steamed to the nearest Brazilian port and, with true Hunnish
logic, claimed the right to intern as a peaceful German Merchantman
on the strength of the fact that it was no longer armed! The largest
guns that either ship had were four-inch, the _Carmania_ having slight
advantage on the score of number. The _Carmania_ would have been no
match for the _Karlsruhe_, just as the _Cap Trafalgar_ would have
fallen easy prey to the _Cornwall_ or another of the British cruisers
in those waters. Under the circumstances, it was a happy fatality that
let these two ex-floating palaces fight with each other and in their own
class.
"The first word we had of the engagement was a wireless Captain G----
sent out saying, in effect, that he had sunk the _Trafalgar_, but, as
his bridge was burned up, his steering gear shot away, and all his
navigating instruments destroyed, that he would be glad to have some
one come and tell him where he was and lead him to a place where he
could, so to speak, lie down and lick his wounds for a while. It took a
jolly good bit of searching to find a ship that couldn't tell any more
about itself than that, but we finally sighted her ragged silhouette
and gave her a lead to such a haven as the practically open seas of our
rendezvous afforded.
"Poor G---- had lost a good deal more than his steering gear it soon
transpired, for the fire which had consumed his bridge had also gutted
his cabin, and reduced everything in it to cinders except an old Norfolk
jacket. How _that_ escaped we never could figure out, for of garments
hanging on pegs to the left and right of it no trace was left. As G----
was of about three times the girth of any other British officer in
those waters at the time, the wardrobe we tried to get together for him
was a grotesque combination; indeed, so far as I recall now, the old
Norfolk had to serve him as everything from pyjamas and bath-robe to
dinner-jacket and great-coat during that trying period. It was a weird
figure he cut presiding at those Gargantuan feasts he spread for us on
the bruised and battered old _Carmania_, but there wasn't a one of us
who wouldn't have changed places with him--Norfolk and all--for the
assurance of half his luck. Such is the monotony of this patrol work in
the outer seas, that, after your first enthusiasm wears off, you get
into a state of mind in which you can never conceive that anything is
ever going to happen. That we had the one most decisive naval battle of
the war just ahead of us, no one dreamed at this time.
"The fight between the _Carmania_ and _Cap Trafalgar_," he continued,
"has well been called 'The Battle of the Haystacks,' for never before
(or since, for that matter) have two ships with such towering upper
works stood off and tried to batter each other to pieces with gunfire.
Indeed, I well recall G----'s saying that, up to the very end, he could
not conceive that either ship could sink the other, and of how--even
after the _Carmania_ had been struck three or four-score times and a
raging fire forward had driven him from the bridge--he kept wondering in
the back of his brain what sort of a fight the duel would resolve itself
into when both had exhausted their shells. Luckily, he did not have to
face that problem.
"Both ships, according to G----'s account, began blazing at each other
as soon as they came in range, and, as each was eager to fight it out
to a finish, the distance separating them was, for a while, reduced as
rapidly as possible. At something like three thousand yards, however,
some sort of a rapid-fire gun burst into action on the _Trafalgar_.
'It didn't appear to be doing me much harm,' said G---- in telling of
it, 'but the incessant "pom-pom" of the accursed thing got so much on
my nerves that I drew off far enough to dull the edge of its infernal
yapping.'
"A thing which came near to putting the _Carmania_ out of the running
before she had completed the polishing off of her opponent was the
shell which I have spoken of as violating the sanctity of the Captain's
cabin--the one that burned everything but the Norfolk jacket. This
projectile--a four-inch--though (probably owing to the small resistance
offered by the light upper works) it did not explode, generated enough
heat in its passage to start a fire. Beginning on G----'s personal
effects, this conflagration spread to the bridge, destroying the
navigating instruments and ultimately making it impossible to remain
there--the latter a serious blow in itself. What made this fire
especially troublesome was the difficulty, because of the cutting of the
main, of bringing water to bear upon it. As it was, it was necessary
to head the _Carmania_ 'down the wind' to reduce the draught fanning
the flames. Nothing else would have saved her. Except for one thing,
this expedient would have enabled the now thoroughly worsted (though
G---- didn't know it) _Trafalgar_ to withdraw from the action, and
this was that the latter was herself on fire and had to take the same
course willy-nilly. From that moment on the battle was as irretrievably
joined as one of those old Spanish knife-duels in which the opponents
were locked together in a room to fight to a finish. Often as not, so
they say, the victor in one of these fights only survived the loser by
minutes or hours, and so would it have been in this instance had they
not finally been able to extinguish the fire on the _Carmania_.
"G----'s account of the way he had to carry on after being driven from
the bridge--it was really a splendid bit of seamanship--was funny in
the extreme, but the reality must have been funnier still, that is, if
that term can be applied to anything happening while shells are bursting
and blowing men to bits every few seconds. G---- is one of the biggest
men in the Navy--around the waist, I mean--so it wasn't to be expected
of him to be very shifty on his feet. And yet, by the irony of Fate, it
was he of all men who was suddenly confronted with a task that required
only less 'foot-work' than it did 'head-work.' With the battle going on
all the time, they rigged up some sort of a 'jury' steering gear, or it
may be that they steered her by her screws. At any rate, G---- had to
con her from the most commanding position he could find on one of the
after decks, or rather, as he had no longer voice-pipe communication
with the engine-room, he had to keep dashing back and forth (it must
have been for all the world like a batsman running in cricket) between
two or three commanding positions. 'If I wanted to open the range a
bit,' he said, 'I had to nip for'ard, wait till there was an interval in
both gun-fire and shell-burst, and yell down a hatchway' (or was it a
ventilator?) 'to the engine-room to "Slow port!" or if I suddenly found
it imperative to open the distance, I had to make the same journey and
pass the word down to "Stop starboard!" The very thought of that mad
shuttling back and forth under the equatorial sun used to make poor
G---- mop his forehead and pour himself a fresh drink every time he told
the story.
"Battered and burning fiercely as both ships were, G---- confessed that
even at this juncture he could not rid himself of the feeling that
neither of them had enough shells to sink the other. 'I was racking my
brain for some plan of action to follow when that moment arrived,' he
said, 'when suddenly the _Trafalgar_ began to heel sharply and started
to sink. It was our second or third salvo, which had holed her badly
at the water-line, that did the business. She had kept steaming and
fighting for close to an hour and a quarter afterwards, though.'
"G---- told us one very good story about his Gunnery officer. 'It was
just before the shell which started the fire struck us,' he said, 'that
Y----'s sun helmet was knocked off--I don't remember whether it was by
the wind or the concussion of the firing. Seeing it fall to the deck
below, he ran to the rail of the bridge and began shouting for some
one to bring it back to him. Before long, luckily, a seaman who had
heard the shouting in a lull of the firing, poked his head out to see
what it was about, and presently came puffing up the ladder with the
fugitive head-piece. I say _luckily_, because the gun-control for the
whole ship was suspended while Y---- waited for that infernal helmet.
And the funniest thing about it all was that, when I ventured to suggest
a few days later that it might be well if he made use of the chin-strap
of his helmet the next time he was in action, he claimed to have no
recollection whatever of the incident--thought he had been "sticking to
his guns" all the time. Just shows how a man's brain works in air-tight
compartments when he is really busy.'
"The Surgeon of the _Carmania_ (continued the Captain)--a splendid chap
who had given up a lucrative West-end practice and sworn he was under
forty (although he was really fifty-two) in order to get a chance to do
something for his country--told me many stories to prove the splendid
spirit of the men that passed under his hands during and after the
fight. Though most of the crew were only Royal Naval Reservists, with no
experience of and but little training for fighting, it appears that they
stood what is perhaps the hardest of all trials--that of seeing their
mates wounded and killed beside them--like seasoned veterans.
"'There was one stout-hearted young Cockney,' said the Surgeon, 'whom,
after I had finished removing a number of shell fragments from various
parts of his anatomy, I asked what he thought of the fight. "Rippin',
Sir," he replied, grinning ecstatically through the bandage that held up
the flap of a torn cheek; "rippin', never been in one like it before."
Then, as his eye caught the smile which I could not quite repress at the
lifetime of naval battling suggested by that "nev'r afore," he concluded
with "Not ev'n in Whitechapel."'
"The Surgeon came across one man who insisted that the blood flowing
from a ragged tear in his arm was really spattered there when one of his
mates--whose mangled body he bestrode--had been decapitated by a shell
a few minutes before; and there was one lot of youngsters who went on
cheerily 'Yo-heave-ho-ing' in hoisting some badly needed shells which
were so slippery with blood that they had to be sanded before they could
be handled. Grimly pathetic was the story he told me of a gunner whose
torn hand he had just finished amputating and bandaging when some one
shouted into the door of the dressing station that the _Trafalgar_ was
going down.
"'He crowded to a port I had had opened,' said the Surgeon, 'just in
time to see one of the last salvoes from the _Carmania_ go crashing
into the side of the heeling enemy. "Huroor, boys," he shouted; "give
'em beans," and as he cheered he started (what had evidently been a
favourite gesture of approval and excitement with him) to smite mightily
with his right fist into the palm of his left hand. But the blow fell
upon air; there was no answering thwack. The gnarled, weather-beaten
fist shot past a bandaged stump. He drew back with surprise for a
moment, and then, grinning a bit sheepishly, like a boy surprised in
some foolish action, edged back beside me at the port. "Quite forgot
there was su'thin' missin'," he said half apologetically, trying to
wriggle the elbow of the maimed arm back into the sling from which it
had slipped. "S'pose I'll be havin' to get used to it, won't I?" As the
_Trafalgar_ took a new list and began rapidly to settle he burst into
renewed "Huroors." "By Gawd, Sir," he cried, when she had finally gone,
"if I 'ad as many 'ands as an oktypuss, I'd 'a giv'n 'em all fer the joy
o' puttin' that blinkin' pyrit down to Davy Jones."'"
The Captain gazed long at the coals of the grate, on his face the
pleased smile of one who recalls treasured memories. "I can't tell you
how sorry we were to see the _Carmania_ go," he said finally. "My word,
how we _did_ enjoy those feasts good old G---- spread for us!" With a
laugh he roused himself from the pleasant reverie and took up again the
narrative of the _Cornwall_.
"The first intimation we had" (he resumed) "of the sinking of Admiral
Craddock's fleet came in the form of a wireless from the _Defence_
asking if I had heard of the disaster at Coronel. Details which came in
the course of the next day or two brought home to us the astonishing
change in the whole situation which the appearance of Von Spee in South
American waters had wrought. The blow fell like a bolt from the blue.
"As rapidly as possible the various British warships in the South
Atlantic rendezvoused off Montevideo to discuss a plan of action. What
the next move of the victorious Von Spee would be we could only surmise.
German prisoners picked up after the Falklands battle said his ultimate
plan--after seizing Port Stanley for a base, and undergoing such a
refit there as was practicable with the means at his disposal--was to
scatter his ships as commerce raiders all over the Atlantic, cutting, if
possible, the main sea arteries of England to North America. The Germans
figured, according to these prisoners, that the suspension of the North
Atlantic traffic for even a month (no impossible thing for five speedy
cruisers in the light of the delays to sailings caused by the _Emden_
and _Karlsruhe_ working alone) would practically paralyse England's war
efforts and reduce her military effort in France to almost negligible
proportions. I am much more inclined to believe that this--rather than
escorting a fleet of German merchantmen, bearing German reservists from
Argentina, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil, to South-West Africa from
Buenos Aires and Montevideo--was the real plan of Von Spee.
However, it was the immediate rather than the ultimate plans of the
Germans that was our chief--in fact, our only--concern. Whether Von
Spee intended heading for the North Atlantic later or South Africa,
or up the Thames--the only way he could clear the road to any of these
objectives was by first destroying such British warships as still
remained in South American waters. It was these ships which had hurried
to get together off Montevideo, in order to make the path of the enemy
as thorny and full of pitfalls as possible.
"They had no illusions respecting what the immediate future held for
them, that little group of cruiser captains that gathered in the
Admiral's cabin of the _Defence_ to formulate a plan of action. We knew
nothing at that time of what had been decided upon at the Admiralty;
indeed, we were quite in agreement that it would be deemed inexpedient
to send any battle cruisers away from the North Sea, where they might
be imperatively needed any day, on a voyage to the South Atlantic that
might easily resolve itself into a months'-long wild-goose chase. Our
plans, therefore, were laid entirely on the assumption that we should
have to do the best we could with the ships already available.
"There was not a man of us who was not keen on the chance of a fight
at even the prohibitive odds under which it appeared inevitable that
the one ahead of us must be fought, but the prospects of success were
anything but alluring. Every day that passed had brought reports
revealing the completeness of the enemy's victory at Coronel, and all of
these were more than confirmed when the _Glasgow_--whose captain had had
the good sense to retire from a battle in which there was no longer a
chance for him to be of any use--came in and joined us.
"It would be easy to suggest conditions under which one naval force,
faced by another as much stronger than itself as the Germans were than
the British at this time, would be justified in avoiding an action. The
present was not such an occasion, however; in fact, I don't think it
ever occurred to any of us to bring up a discussion of that phase of
the question at all. This, briefly, was the way the matter presented
itself to us: The measure of the power of the Germans to inflict harm
to the Allies was their supply of shells. These gone--always provided
no new supply reached them--the menace, even though the ships were yet
unsunk, was practically at an end. We knew that they had already used
up a considerable quantity of their munition in a foolish bombardment
of the little tropical port of Papeete, in the French Societies, and
we knew that a very large amount had been expended at Coronel. They
still probably had enough, we figured, to see them through many months
of commerce raiding if only they could avoid another general action
against warships, and such an action, even if it was a losing one from
our standpoint, it was our manifest rôle to provoke, and at the earliest
possible moment.
"This point decided, about all that remained to be considered was how
to make the most effective disposition of such ships as we had at our
disposal when once the enemy was in sight. We knew just what ships we
would have to meet. We also knew, practically to a gun, how they were
armed. Moreover, with Coronel as an object lesson, we knew how well
those ships were handled, and with what deadly effectiveness those guns
were served. Now that it is all ancient history, I think there is no
reason why I should not tell you how we arranged that our ships should
'take partners' for the little 'sea-dance' they were expecting to shake
their heels at.
"The _Defence_--an armoured cruiser of the _Minotaur_ type, subsequently
sunk at Jutland--was to tackle the _Scharnhorst_, Von Spee's flagship.
The former was the only ship we had that was anywhere nearly a match for
either of the larger German cruisers. She exceeded them in displacement
by several thousand tons, and her four nine-point-twos and ten
seven-point-fives had a comfortable margin of metal over that fired from
the _Scharnhorst's_ eight eight-point-twos and six five-point-nines. In
a fair duel with either of the larger Germans, I think there is little
doubt she would have had the best of it. In the battle we expected to go
into, however, there could be no certainty that she was going to be able
to give her undivided attention to the _vis-à-vis_ we had picked for her
during a sufficient interval to finish up the job.
"The _Carnarvon_ and the _Cornwall_ were to be given the formidable
task of keeping the _Gneisenau_ so busy that she could not help her
sister fight the _Defence_. Our combined displacement was about equal
to that of our prospective opponent, but the four seven-point-fives
and twenty six-inch (all we had between us) could hardly have prevented
her pounding us to pieces with her eight-point-twos, in the event that
she elected to use her speed to keep beyond the effective range of our
lighter guns. By dashing into close range we might have had a chance
with her, or, again there was the possibility we might lead her a dance
that would take her out of the way long enough to give the _Defence_
time to finish polishing off the _Scharnhorst_, in which event the
former might have been able to intervene in our favour.
"Small as would have been our chance of carrying through our part of the
programme successfully, the _Gneisenau_ was the one opponent I desired
above all the others, on account of the way I knew it would buck up the
ship's company to feel that they were having a whack at the ship that
sunk the _Monmouth_. There were a good many men in the _Monmouth_ who
had gone to her from the _Cornwall_, and our men never tired cursing the
Hun for letting their mates drown at Coronel without making any effort
to save them. They had something to say on that score when their turn
came at the Falklands.
"The _Glasgow_ we were going to give a chance to wipe out her Coronel
score by sending her in against the _Nürnberg_. With her superior speed,
and her two six-inch and ten four-inch guns against the latter's ten
four-point ones, she would probably have had the best of what could not
but have been a very pretty fight if no one had interfered with it.
Here again, unluckily, the chances were against a duel to the finish.
Against the _Dresden_--a very worthy sister of the _Emden_--the very
best we could muster was the armed merchantman, _Orama_. This (unless
another armed merchantman--the _Otranto_, which had escaped with the
_Glasgow_ from Coronel--became available) left us nothing to oppose
to the _Leipzig_, which, in that event, would have been a sort of a
'rover,' free to bestow her attention and shells wherever they appeared
likely to do the most harm. And (from the way she was fought at the
Falklands, where she was my 'opposite number') let me tell you that a
jolly troublesome 'rover' she would have been.
"That, in a few words, was our little plan for making Von Spee use up
the remainder of his ammunition. That was our principal object, and
there can be no doubt that we would have come pretty near complete
success in attaining it. For the rest, you can judge for yourself what
our chances would have been. As the Fates would have it, however, that
battle was never to be fought, save on paper in the Admiral's cabin of
the old _Defence_. Before ever we had completed preparations for our
'magazine-emptying' sally against Von Spee, word was winged to us that
the Admiralty had a plan of its own in process of incubation, and that
we were to standby to co-operate.
"Sturdee and his battle cruisers were well on their way to the South
Atlantic, however, before even an inkling of what was afoot was
vouchsafed us, and even then my orders were simply to rendezvous with
him at the 'Base' I have spoken of before--the one where we foregathered
and feasted with the _Carmania_. I breathed no word of where and why
we were going until the muddy waters of the Plate estuary were left
behind and the last least possibility of a 'leak' to the shore was out
of the question. Then I simply passed it on to the men by posting some
word of it on the notice-board. There was no cheering, either then or
even a few days later, when the _Inflexible_ and the _Invincible_, the
latter flying Admiral Sturdee's flag, came nosing in from the Atlantic
and dropped anchor at the 'Base'; but the promise of action in the
immediate future was like wine to the men. They were simply tumbling
over themselves to carry out the most ordinary routine duties, and so
it continued right up to the moment that Von Spee's foretops, gliding
along above the low promontory of Port William, brought them to 'Action
Stations' with real work to do at last.
"Sturdee had his plans all laid, and we repaired to the _Invincible_
shortly after her arrival to familiarise ourselves with them. All in
all, it wasn't so very different a gathering as that one which took
place on the _Defence_, off Montevideo, to plan another battle--the one
which was never to take place. I don't mind admitting though, that there
was a bit more 'buoyancy' to the atmosphere of this second conference,
the natural consequence of our 'improved prospects.' There is no use
denying that it gives a man a more comfortable feeling to know that he
is in a ship that has reasonable expectation of sending its 'opposite'
to the bottom of the sea, than to be faced with the prospect of going
out as a sort of animated lure to wheedle the enemy out of his shells.
"With the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ Sturdee had sufficient force
to be able to dispense with the _Defence_, which was, I believe, sent
to African water to join a force that was gathering there on the
off-chance that the Germans slipped through the net that was being
flung off South America. For scouting purposes, the _Bristol_ and the
_Kent_--both of which had foregathered with us at the 'Base'--were
added to our 'punitive expedition,' which finally got under weigh for
the Falklands on November 28. Steaming in a formation best calculated
to sweep a wide range of seas, we held our southerly course for nine
days, sighting, so far as I recall, no ship of any description except
those of our own force. On the eighth day we weathered a heavy blizzard,
but it was out of a clear dawn that the low, rounded hills of the
Falklands--so suggestive in many respects of the Orkneys and the north
of Scotland--took shape the following morning. We dropped anchor in the
double harbour of Port William and Port Stanley at nine o'clock of the
forenoon of December 7. Before another twenty-four hours had passed Von
Spee--hurrying as though to a rendezvous--had made his appearance, and
we were raising steam to go out and even up Craddock's account with
him."
II. THE BATTLE OF THE FALKLANDS
The Captain had come for a breath of fresh air on the quarter-deck at
the end of a grey winter's day, and it was the memories called up by
the resemblance of the low, rounded, treeless hills which ringed the
Northern Base to some other hills which he had good reason to carry a
vivid mental picture of that set him talking of the Falklands.
"They're very much like these," he said, "those wind-swept hills around
Port Stanley; indeed, I know of few other parts of the world so far
apart geographically that have so much in common topographically and
climatically. Their people, too, are a good deal like the northern Scots
and Orcadians, with a dry sense of humour that usually manifests itself
at your first meeting with them, when they tell you that the Falklands
have two seasons, the cold and the snowy. The latter, they tell
you,--because the snow stops up the chinks and keeps out the wind--is
rather the warmer of the two. They are a sturdy, resolute lot, too, and
we found that, quite expecting the coming of the German fleet and with
no sure knowledge that British naval help would arrive in time, they had
made all preparations to fight the enemy to the limit of their very
primitive resources.
"And a jolly good fight they would have put up, too. The old _Canopus_
(the battleship which did not come up in time to help Craddock at
Coronel) had been grounded in the inner harbour and turned into a 'land
fort.' Her heavy turret guns had been left aboard her, while those
of her secondary batteries had been mounted at the most favourable
positions on the hills. The 'standing army'--of something like
thirty-five, I believe--had been recruited up to several times that
figure, and all over the island firearms, ancient and modern, had been
taken down and made ready for use. Von Spee's sailors and marines would
have had many a ridge-to-ridge skirmish on their hands before they
completed the conquest of the Falklands.
"The coming of Sturdee put an entirely different face on things,"
continued the Captain, smartly side-stepping the flying "grummet"
which had been flicked across his path from out of a howling pack of
flannelled "snotties" deep in the throes of hockey on the opposite
side of the quarter-deck. "'When are the Huns coming?' was still the
question on every tongue; but it was now put anticipatively rather than
apprehensively. They had not long to wait.
"I shall never forget that morning they appeared. It was scarcely twenty
hours from the time we had dropped anchor, and most of the ships of the
squadron were rushing those odd and ends of cleaning up, overhauling,
revictualling, and the like that always follow arrival in port. The
_Cornwall_, with some repairs on one of her engines to be effected,
was at six hours' notice, and the _Bristol_, for similar reasons, at
somewhat longer. Only the _Kent_ was ready to put to sea at once.
"I was in my bath when a signal reading 'Raise steam for full speed with
all despatch' was handed me, and it did not need another signal, which
arrived a few minutes later, to tell me that, by some amazing stroke of
'joss,' the enemy was near at hand. How near I did not dream until the
guns of the old _Canopus_ began to boom. Luckily, I was already shaved"
(I liked that little touch), "but, even so, my finishing dressing and
breakfasting within twelve minutes was a very creditable performance of
its kind. I can't say much for the toilet I made, but the breakfast was
a good hearty one, with porridge, eggs, and marmalade. With an action in
the offing, and no knowing when you are going to have time to eat again,
it is only common sense to fortify against an indefinite fast.
"By the time I reached the bridge the topmasts of an armoured and a
light cruiser were visible, slipping along above the headland which cut
off the harbour from the open sea. The events of the next few hours were
to etch the profile of the latter ship indelibly upon my memory, for it
was the _Leipzig_, coming up with the _Gneisenau_ to destroy the Port
Stanley Wireless Station. From the foretop of the _Canopus_ they were
able to see the Huns clearing for action; and the _Glasgow_ and the
_Bristol_, both of which were in the inner harbour, also had a clear
view across the depressed neck of the peninsula. The other ships of
the squadron saw no more than topmasts until they had raised steam and
reached the open sea.
"Just how the Huns came to make the disconcerting discovery that there
were modern battle cruisers concealed by the higher seaward end of the
peninsula I learned from an officer who had been saved from the sinking
_Gneisenau_, who told me the story in his guttural broken English. They
had expected to find the _Canopus_ at Port Stanley, he said, and perhaps
the _Cornwall_ and _Carnarvon_ and other light cruisers; but anything of
the class of the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_--'Mein Gott, Nein! Wen
der Gunnery Ludenant sent word from der foredop down' (he sputtered)
'dot he zwei ships mit dreipodt madsts gesehen had, mein Kapdtin he
say, "Nein, nein, es ist eempossibl. Ich will ein man mit der gut eyes
up senden." Wen this man say, ya, he see zwei dreipodt madsts, mein
Kapdtin, he say, "Der Teufel, now Ich must go quickt. Ein hour, zwei
hour, we run, sehr schnell. Den komen aus der Inglish ships, und preddy
soon Ich see dem komen mehr schell von uns." Den Ich say: "Mein Kapdtin,
you must der mehr schnell gehen, or you must der fight machen." He say,
"Ya, ya," und he mehr schnell try zu gehen. Nicht gut. No good. Den we
up mit der _Scharnhorst_ gekommen, und der Admiral, he say, "Nun will we
der fight gemachen. Den we machen der fight. Nichts, no good. Kaput!
Feenish!"'"
The Captain stopped at the windward end of the deck and let the breeze
fan a brow that had grown red during his effort at literal rendition. A
grin of pleased reminiscence sat on his face. "My word, but it must have
given the Hun a jolly good jolt, that first sight of those 'dreipodt
madsts!'" he explained finally, as he put on his cap and fell into step
beside me again.
"If Von Spee ever had any time for _arrière pensée_ before the sea
closed over him," he resumed, "he must have reproached himself bitterly
for not pushing on in force and attacking us in the harbour before we
had steam up. If his whole squadron had come up as the _Gneisenau_ and
_Leipzig_ did, they could undoubtedly have given us a very unpleasant
hour or two while we were raising steam. We would have polished them off
in the end, of course, but they would have done us a deal more harm than
by the tactics they did follow. Again, there is a chance that, if the
two armoured cruisers had pressed the attack alone--as they eventually
were forced to do--they might have inflicted enough damage to our light
cruisers to have made the escape of all three (instead of only one) of
theirs a possibility. However, Von Spee's star of good fortune, which
had been at its zenith at Coronel, was now sinking to near the horizon,
and it was ordained that at the Falklands he should meet an enemy who
was both faster and heavier armed than he, under conditions of sea and
light which favoured him no whit.
"The battle of the Falklands was really won in the harbour of Port
Stanley. It was all a question of how soon we could get out. If we could
reach the enemy in anything like full force there was little doubt
of the result. A delay of an hour or two, however, might have easily
resulted in their scattering so effectually that the running down of the
last of them would have been a matter of months, and months, too, marked
with great losses of, and greater delays to, the merchant shipping of
two hemispheres. Nothing short of the truly splendid efforts of the
engine-room and stokehold personnel of Sturdee's ships would have given
their gunners their chance to win the battle of the Falklands.
"Of the _Cornwall's_ achievement in this respect I am especially proud.
With one of the engines partially dismantled, we would have been doing
all that was expected of us if we had been under full steam in six
hours. Indeed, that was the very notice we had gone under, in order to
do the overhauling desired. And now let me tell you what happened. It
was ten minutes after eight when the signal to raise steam for full
speed was received, and before half-past ten she was steaming out of
the harbour. We could have got under weigh some minutes earlier than
we did but for having to let the _Invincible_ and the _Inflexible_,
which had been lying inshore of us, pass out ahead. And before the day
was over the old _Cornwall_, with the heartiest lot of lads that ever
swung a scoop throwing coal under her boilers, covered a wide stretch
of the South Atlantic at a speed a good knot or two better than she had
averaged on her trial trip, or at any other time since then.
"There was one trivial but amusing little incident in connexion with
the departure of the battle cruisers which stands out particularly
clearly among my otherwise rather jumbled memories of those two hours of
rush and hurry. We had been leading our usual hand-to-mouth existence
in the matter of food for some weeks previous to this, and one of the
things we had most looked forward to our call at Port Stanley for was
revictualling. We were losing no time in getting provisions aboard,
and at the moment the signal to raise steam was received a lighter
containing, among other things, a large cask of beer and a lot of salt
pork had just moored alongside. We were really in great need of the salt
pork, and--well, there seemed to be a considerable desire for the beer
also. However, when the Devil drives, or a reckoning is to be settled
with the Hun, one can't wait for such incidentals as food and drink.
Knowing that we had enough aboard to keep going on until the game was
played out, I ordered the lighter to cast off and turned my attention to
more pertinent matters. I recalled later that I heard the winch grinding
once or twice after I gave the order, but, seeing the lighter floating
away with the tide presently, thought no more about it for the moment.