When England took over something like half of her twenty million tons
of merchant shipping for war service, among the transports, colliers,
hospital ships, and the like were a number of small but swift packets
which were armed and employed as auxiliary cruisers or patrols. One of
these was the _Tara_, which, under the name _Hibernia_, had plied in
the Irish service of the London and North-Western Railway. Commanded by
an officer of the Royal Navy, but still worked by her old crew, the
_Tara_ was sent to the bleak Cyrenaican coast of the Mediterranean to
keep a look-out for submarines and prevent the smuggling of arms and
supplies to the small but dangerous Turkish forces which were operating
in Eastern Tripolitana with the object of inciting the Arabs to move
against the then lightly-held western frontier of Egypt.
On November 5th the _Tara_ was torpedoed by a German submarine in
the Gulf of Sollum, and sank with the loss of eleven of her crew of
something over one hundred. The ninety-two survivors were towed by the
submarine to Port Sulieman and handed over to the Turks. The latter, in
turn, passed the party on to the Senussi, who, as shortly transpired,
were getting ready to launch a "holy war" against the Italians and
English. The Arabs, short of food already, started marching their
prisoners about the desert, and after several weeks established them in
a sort of permanent camp at an old Roman well in the interior. Here,
ekeing out with snails and roots such scanty rations as their captors
were able to provide, the unfortunate Britons, racked by disease, and
only half sheltered from the capricious winter weather, existed for
three months and a half. The trickle of food, now from one oasis,
now from another, became thinner and thinner as time went on, and by
the middle of March the failure of supplies had become so complete
that absolute starvation in the course of the next few days appeared
inevitable. But on the seventeenth of that month, as suddenly as though
dropped from the sky, a squadron of armored automobiles appeared on
the horizon, and a few moments later the Arab guards had fallen before
the fire of machine-guns, and the half-delirious prisoners, clutching
hastily-broached jam and condensed milk tins, were being bundled into
Red Cross ambulances for the return journey. A couple of days more, and
they were in the hospitals of Alexandria, and a month later the bulk
of them were back in England reporting for duty.
Through the courtesy of the British Admiralty the writer was granted an
extended interview with Captain Gwatkin-Williams--the only one, indeed,
that that distinguished officer gave before going to his new command
in the North Atlantic. Later I journeyed to Wales and Ireland, to talk
with Lieutenant Tanner, R.N.R., and several of the surviving members of
the _Tara's_ crew. The narrative that follows is the result of these
conversations.
I recognized Captain Gwatkin-Williams the instant his broad shoulders
filled the door of the room. I knew at once that he had all the
characteristics, as he had all the appearance, of the typical British
naval officer, and that among these was a distinct disinclination to
tell of his own experiences. Knowing from past failures the futility
of trying to "draw" a man of his kind by frontal attack, I wasted no
effort in that direction, but asked him pointblank if he had been able
to preserve any souvenirs of his desert sojourn, and it is by piecing
together the things he told me over a brine-blotched naval uniform, a
dented jam tin, a handful of snail-shells and dried roots, three or
four camel-bone needles, and a blood-stained whip of hippo hide, that
I was able to construct the connected story which follows.
* * * * *
It was about ten-thirty in the forenoon of the fifth of last November
that I saw a torpedo heading straight for us at a distance of not over
three hundred feet. It was painted a bright red, and therefore, in the
clear water, even more conspicuous than the wake from its propellers
and air exhaust. It struck the ship fairly amidships on the starboard
side, and my first order was to lower away the boats to port. I was
not even thrown from my feet by the shock, nor was there any sharp
explosion audible. Had I not seen the torpedo, I should for the moment
have been in some doubt as to what had actually happened.
My men were already standing by their gun, and the instant the
submarine put up its "eye" we took its range and opened fire. At least
one shell cracked right over the periscope, causing it to disappear
at once, and we did not see it again until salt water had stopped the
mouth of our little rapid-firer.
The _Tara_, her engines still running, continued for some distance on a
perfectly even keel, the boats meanwhile being safely launched with the
surviving members of the crew. Eleven had been killed by the explosion.
Then, all of a sudden, she began settling aft, and finally went down
like a sounding-lead, throwing her bows high in the air. My gun crew
and I were caught beneath the for'ard awning, and owed our lives to the
fact that we had no lifebelts on, and were therefore able to dive and
clamber clear.
The submarine--the U35--rose to the surface and came nosing into the
wreckage before we had all been picked up by our boats, but the fellows
on the deck of it contented themselves with covering us with their
revolvers--a precautionary measure, doubtless--and not interfering
with the work of rescue. I asked the commander of the submarine if we
might be allowed to proceed to X----, an Egyptian port at which a small
British force was stationed, and which we should have had no trouble
in making in a few hours. He replied, in excellent English, that this
would be impossible, as it was necessary for him to deliver us to the
Turks as prisoners.
The submarine then took our three boats in tow, and headed for Port
Sulieman, where we were landed at about three in the afternoon. I made
a part of the passage on the deck of the U boat, and had some little
chat with its commander. He admitted that we had nearly put his "eye"
out with one of our shells. He said that he had been often to England
before the war, and even confessed to a visit to the Isle of Wight.
He could not, of course, be blamed for wanting to prevent our getting
back to a British port to report the probable existence of a German
submarine base on the Cyrenaican coast; the callousness of his action
only transpired later, when it became evident that neither the Turks
nor the Arabs were able to house or feed us.