The captain watched the first lieutenant's cap vanish below, then
turned to watch the approaching enemy. He was going to cut it rather
fine, and the knowledge of the chances he was taking removed his
impatience and anxiety. Now that he had made up his mind he felt quite
cheerful again. If luck was against him he might get sunk, but the
enemy's chance of damaging him in five minutes was small. As he raised
his glasses he saw the dull red flash he had been expecting break out
from the bows of three of the four cruisers, followed a couple of
seconds later by the flame of the fourth. Each cruiser was hidden a
moment in a brown ball of smoke, which dissipated before she had passed
through it. Through his glasses he saw, high up over their mastheads, a
group of little black dots that rose and grew larger; the dots seemed
to swerve a little to the left in their flight, as a low-sliced
cleek-shot would do, then they slowly descended towards him. When they
were some ten degrees above the horizon he lost sight of them, and at
the instant the water, four hundred yards short of the J boat, leaped
up in fifty-foot spouts to the sound of great cart-whips cracking. A
big lump of broken shell passed over with a rhythmical whine and
stutter--a lump obviously of bad stream-line shape for flying at high
speed. The fourth shell pitched a long way short, failed to burst, and
came over in a high ricochet, making a noise like a goods train
passing. The J boat's helm went over, and she steered for the white
mist that still hung where the first shells fell. As she steadied on
her course the water under her bows--fifty yards off--turned white, and
leaped up in a high solid pillar to the impact of the next salvo. Her
helm went hard over, but too late to avoid her bath; she passed through
the edge of the waterspout and took the full rain of it over her bridge
and conning-tower. The first lieutenant arrived on deck in time to
receive a full douche of spray, and to see, a moment later, the fourth
ship's erratic contribution fall explosively two hundred yards on the
bow and short again. He wiped the water from his face with the sodden
sleeve of his sweater and spoke quickly: "Signal's passing now, sir.
Shall he wait for an acknowledgment?"
"No, make it twice and stand by to dip. We can stand another salvo or
two...."
"Are they only using bow guns?"
"Yes; if they turn and fire all guns it won't be safe. They'll be
astern next salvo...."
The first lieutenant had vanished again--the boat had spun round (on
the principle of steering for the last general splash, and trusting to
the meticulous routine of German gunnery corrections) when, with a
vicious crack, the three shells passed over the bridge and burst on the
water close aboard beyond the hull. The captain ducked--not so much
from surprise, but to avoid what he knew was coming; he looked down the
conning-tower and saw the third officer's mouth frame the words,
"Signal passed"; he jumped down, pressing the diving alarm with one
hand as he reached up with the other to close the lid. Then number four
shell came, falling a few yards short of his saddle tanks, and sending
a shower of water and small splinters across the boat: as usually
happens, the bad shot had come nearest, though splinters are not of
much use against a submarine hull. The lid snapped down and the tail
kicked up a little, and a ragged salvo of shell from the broadsides of
four light cruisers whitened the sea where the target had been. The
ships tinned again and started on a wide sweep round the spot before
edging back to their leader's course. (No ship unattended by destroyers
will risk approaching the place where a submarine has dived.) Up the
ladder to the leader's bridge ten miles ahead a messenger ran, and
stood panting as he held out a signal from the wireless office for the
Rear-Admiral to read. The Admiral nodded and looked astern--"No doubt
of its origin," he said, frowning. "They call that their Submarine
Emergency Reporting Code. We shall alter course----"
The fight between the submarine and its enemies has been waged
throughout the war with great intensity of feeling. The submarine
weapon aroused hatred aboard surface ships just because it made them
feel helpless (I am not referring to acts outside the pale of
International or Human laws). The submarine felt--well, not hatred, but
fear. There is a ruthlessness of action which is apparently born of
cruelty, but which is really due to instincts of self-preservation
alone. When U 18 torpedoed and sank "E 22," she rose, in spite of the
danger of attack by other E boats near, and picked up the survivors;
she could, in view of the fact that her enemies were three miles off,
risk doing this. Our own boats have on practically every occasion
picked up the survivors of the U-boats they have sunk,--this because,
having command of the sea, we could be sure in local waters of nothing
hostile interfering. When Lieutenant D'Oyley-Hughes, however, sank U
153 off Cape St Vincent, and rose to pick up the men in the water, he
saw another U-boat dive at him from close quarters, which forced him to
go under also. In consequence the survivors were drowned--a contingency
which might have been avoided if the two belligerent submarines diving
round the spot could have trusted each other sufficiently to rise with
a white flag flying. As things were, neither would risk being torpedoed
on the surface. This spirit was induced early in the war (the incidents
which started the feeling need not be quoted), and it is regretted that
there was throughout no International arrangement by which a submarine
could "go out of play" for a while with a white flag hoisted. The fact
that the enemy's War-Book directly permits a breach of rules, if such
breach is of vital necessity, is a great bar to the drawing up of
humane and decent laws on the subject; while, of course, a breach of
the rules by an angry surface vessel (no unlikely thing to occur) would
at once abrogate all the rules in the minds of submarine people. There
is no doubt that a new weapon calls for new laws to control and guide
its use. The enemy boats were used illegally because the enemy
Government ordered such use. In certain cases the U-boat captains
exceeded their instructions and acted yet more illegally. In such cases
it rests with the enemy Government to repudiate or approve their
subordinates' actions. In our submarine service we had no orders to be
"frightful," and therefore we were humane and acted legally; if we had
had such orders as the enemy gave, we would have carried them out, and,
from a technical point of view, carried them out much better. But we
would have had no instances of personal excess in such acts, just
because that sort of thing would not have appealed to our officers. I
should mention that the cases of "excess" among U-boat captains were
confined to a few, in comparison with the numbers employed, and certain
of those few met their deaths before they could return to tell of their
deeds.
If submarines are allowed to navies of the future, they must have a
code of rules to work by. The code should be drawn up by people who
know their subject, and who are also influenced in their ideas by the
laws of chivalry and not by the ideas of the German War-Book. Apart
from questions of right or wrong, unnecessary killing in war does not
pay. Anybody can think of instances of this, but to suggest a case: if
a U-boat had been sunk by our patrol vessels while she was in the act
of picking up survivors from a torpedoed ship, well, the Germans would
have lost a U-boat, but would have gained a splendid piece of
propaganda. The patrol vessels could not be blamed, but the U-boat
Service would have had a good grievance for the rest of the war. It is
not only what you do in war that counts--the way you do it has a lot of
influence also on the ultimate result. It is true that war is the
negation of ethics, and that expediency is the ruling motive in all
war-like acts, but it is a mistake to think, as the enemy did, that
ruthlessness pays--decency may very often pay better. In war, a nation
must take the blame for the acts of its militant servants; it sometimes
pays to disavow such acts, and to sacrifice a subordinate, but in the
main all blame must fall on the Government giving the orders. The
essence of a military or naval force is discipline, and owing to that
discipline all responsibility must in the end be shouldered by the
Governments, except in the cases where individual officers have
exceeded their orders or interpreted them to the dissatisfaction of
their seniors. In our Submarine Service no boat left harbour without
definite written orders, and the exact spirit in which her duty was to
be carried out was fully understood. If any officer at any time had
departed from his orders to the extent of "frightfulness," he would
have found himself at once in a serious position: as nobody ever tried
the experiment, I cannot quote any cases.
I cannot do better, in speaking of the crews of our boats, than to
quote from a despatch of Commodore Keyes (as he was then), written in
1914:--
"When a submarine is submerged, her captain alone is able to see
what is taking place; the success of the enterprise and the safety
of the vessel depend on his skill and nerve, and the prompt,
precise execution of his orders by the officers and men under his
command. Our submarines have been pioneers in waters which might
well have been mined. They have been subjected to skilful and
well-thought-out anti-submarine tactics by a highly-trained and
determined enemy, attacked by gun-fire and torpedo, driven to lie
on the bottom at a great depth to preserve battery-power, hunted
for hours at a time by hostile torpedo craft....
"Sudden alterations of course and depth, the sound of propellers
overhead, and the concussion of bursting shells, give an indication
to the crew of the risks to which they are being exposed; and it
speaks well for the morale of these young officers and men, and
their gallant faith in their captains, that they have invariably
carried out their duties quietly, keenly, and confidently under
conditions which might well have tried the most hardened veteran.
"The Commanding Officers of the submarines are of the opinion that
it is impossible to single out individuals when all performed their
duties so admirably, and in this I concur...."
That description of the submarine sailor held good throughout the war,
as in 1914.
There is another despatch of 1914, which gives a clear picture of
Heligoland patrol work in the winter months:--
"During the past week these submarines have experienced very heavy
westerly gales ... a short steep sea which made it impossible to
open the conning-tower hatch, vision limited to that obtained
through the periscopes (_i.e._ only a cable or two between the
seas that continually broke over them). The submarines were thus an
easy prey to any surface vessel falling in with them, and it was
therefore necessary to keep submerged; also, to make an offing, as
there were no means of obtaining the position except by sinking to
the bottom and obtaining soundings. There was no rest on the bottom
even at a depth of 22 fathoms, as the submarines were rolling and
bumping there in spite of considerable negative buoyancy, and it
was therefore necessary to keep under way at a depth clear of the
keels of possible ships. At this depth motion was considerable, and
pumping (_i.e._ vertical motion) was 20 to 30 feet. When
battery-power became low, it was necessary to come to the surface,
as lying on the bottom was dangerous. On the surface, it was
necessary to keep a ventilator open to run the engines, in order to
keep head to sea; through this ventilator much water was
shipped.... No good purpose can be served in maintaining the close
blockade of the Bight in such weather. Even if the enemy emerged,
which is unlikely, it would be almost impossible to bring off a
successful attack."
I have in this history only quoted typical despatches and incidents in
the work of our submarines. It would take many books to quote them all.
I feel that I have dealt with a great story in an inadequate way, but
only a great writer could deal with it faithfully. Trying to sum up
impressions of four years of war, I find that two memories stand out
and hide the rest: one is of the face of a hydroplane man as he sat
leaning forward to watch his gauge--his whole attention fixed on the
movement of the needle and on his own job--oblivious of the rushing
sound of turbine-driven propellers as German destroyers passed
overhead; the other is of the salvage of one of our boats three weeks
after she sank, when we found each officer and man at his station as
they had died after every detail of their drill had been carried out,
and of the feeling of respect--even, perhaps, of envy of men who had
passed such a test without a failure--with which one raised and carried
them away. One wanted to be able to tell them so, but I think they did
know, at any rate before they died, that their fellow-craftsmen would
approve, as the men of Major Wilson's patrol must have known at the
Shangani river in '93, that those who came to bury them would recognise
that they had died well.
The Submarine Service was good before the war. The many who have died
in the boats since have given it a tradition that will ensure its
standard being always maintained: such men have given the survivors a
high code to live up to. I will conclude by quoting a message from the
Commodore of Submarines, which was promulgated to all the boats after
the Armistice:--
_12th November 1918._
"Now that a General Armistice is in force, I wish to lose no time
in tendering my personal tribute to the officers and men of the
Submarine Service.
"Having had a good deal to do with this Service in its early
stages, it has been a great honour and a great pleasure to command
it in war, and it must be a source of great pride and satisfaction
to you, as it is to me, that our peace organisation and training
have withstood the supreme test, and that you have so splendidly
carried out the many and varied services demanded of you.
"Submarines were the first at sea on the outbreak of war, they have
been continuously in action while it lasted, they will be the last
to return to harbour.
"You have, in addition to the invaluable outpost, patrol,
mine-laying, fleet duties, and other services, the sinking of 54
enemy warships and 274 other vessels to your credit, and you have
done more to counter the enemy's illegal war upon commerce than any
other single means; at the same time you have been called upon to
man new and intricate types of submarines, demanding the highest
standard of knowledge and efficiency. Your steadiness and grit,
whilst the toll of your gallant fellows was heavy, has been beyond
all praise, and will form glorious pages in naval history when this
comes to be written.
"You have established a magnificent record of strenuous and gallant
service, of clean fighting and devotion to duty that must always be
a source of keen satisfaction to you for the rest of your lives, as
it will be a great tradition to hand down to those who follow you.
"It is inevitable, from the nature of submarines, that your senior
officers cannot lead you into action as they would wish. It has
been my duty to try and get you the best material, to maintain
fairness and equity on the sole ground of personal efficiency, and
to maintain your reputation for efficiency and modesty.
"In this I have been so ably and loyally assisted by all without
distinction, that I can never sufficiently express my gratitude and
admiration for you. The result was certain. We leave the war with a
record as proud as any that war has ever produced.
"S. S. HALL,
"Commodore (S.)."