PART I

Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This

file was produced from images generously made available

by The Internet Archive) In memory of Thomas A. Noster,

American Merchant Marine, from June 29, 1942-August 15,

1945.

Merchantmen-at-Arms

[Illustration: _Frontispiece_ MERCHANTMEN AT GUN PRACTICE]

Merchantmen-at-Arms

THE BRITISH MERCHANTS' SERVICE IN THE WAR

BY DAVID W. BONE

DRAWINGS BY MUIRHEAD BONE

[Illustration]

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS

1919

_All rights reserved_

TO

ALGERNON C. F. HENDERSON

AS REPRESENTING A SYMPATHETIC AND UNDERSTANDING

GOVERNANCE IN AN IMPORTANT SECTION

OF THE BRITISH MERCHANTS'

SEA SERVICE

CONTENTS

PART I

PAGE

I THE MERCHANTS' SERVICE

OUR FOUNDATION 3

THE STRUCTURE 14

II OUR RELATIONS WITH THE NAVY

JOINING FORCES 21

AT SEA 26

OUR WAR STAFF 30

III THE LONGSHORE VIEW 44

IV CONNECTION WITH THE STATE

TRINITY HOUSE, OUR ALMA MATER 53

THE BOARD OF TRADE 61

V MANNING 67

PART II

VI THE COASTAL SERVICES

THE HOME TRADE 77

PILOTS 87

LIGHTSHIPS 91

VII 'THE PRICE O' FISH' 97

VIII THE RATE OF EXCHANGE 103

IX INDEPENDENT SAILINGS 110

X BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK 116

XI ON SIGNALS AND WIRELESS 120

XII TRANSPORT SERVICES 125

INTERLUDE 132

'THE MAN-O'-WAR'S 'ER 'USBAND' 134

XIII THE SALVAGE SECTION

THE TIDEMASTERS 141

A DAY ON THE SHOALS 147

THE DRY DOCK 156

XIV ON CAMOUFLAGE--AND SHIPS' NAMES 163

XV FLAGS AND BROTHERHOOD OF THE SEA 169

PART III

XVI THE CONVOY SYSTEM 177

XVII OUTWARD BOUND 184

XVIII RENDEZVOUS 190

XIX CONFERENCE 198

XX THE SAILING

FOG, AND THE TURN OF THE TIDE 205

'IN EXECUTION OF PREVIOUS ORDERS' 212

XXI THE NORTH RIVER 217

XXII HOMEWARDS

THE ARGONAUTS 224

ON OCEAN PASSAGE 230

'ONE LIGHT ON ALL FACES' 236

XXIII 'DELIVERING THE GOODS' 244

XXIV CONCLUSION: 'M N' 252

APPENDIX 255

INDEX 257

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

MERCHANTMEN AT GUN PRACTICE _Frontispiece_

THE CLYDE FROM THE TOWER OF THE CLYDE TRUST

BUILDINGS xi

GRAVESEND: A MERCHANTMAN OUTWARD BOUND 3

THE BRIDGE OF A MERCHANTMAN 7

THE OLD AND THE NEW: THE _MARGARET_ OF DUBLIN

AND R.M.S. _TUSCANIA_ 15

IN A MERCHANTMAN--BOMB-THROWER PRACTICE 21

A BRITISH SUBMARINE DETAILED FOR INSTRUCTION OF

MERCHANT OFFICERS 31

THE D.A.M.S. GUNWHARF AT GLASGOW 33

INSTRUCTIONAL ANTI-SUBMARINE COURSE FOR MERCHANT

OFFICERS AT GLASGOW 39

THE LOSS OF A LINER 44

THE MERSEY FROM THE LIVER BUILDINGS, LIVERPOOL 49

THE MASTER OF THE GULL LIGHTSHIP WRITING THE LOG 53

AT GRAVESEND: PILOTS AWAITING AN INWARD-BOUND

CONVOY 59

TRANSPORTS LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON ON THE NIGHT

PASSAGE TO FRANCE 67

LIVERPOOL: MERCHANTMEN SIGNING ON FOR OVERSEA

VOYAGES 69

THE RULER OF PILOTS AT DEAL 77

A HEAVILY ARMED COASTING BARGE 83

THE LAMPMAN OF THE GULL LIGHTSHIP 93

MINESWEEPERS GOING OUT 97

SOUTHAMPTON WATER 103

'OUT-BOATS' IN A MERCHANTMAN 105

FIREMEN STANDING BY TO RELIEVE THE WATCH 111

QUEEN'S DOCK, GLASGOW 116

THE BRIDGE-BOY REPAIRING FLAGS 121

A TRANSPORT EMBARKING TROOPS FOR FRANCE 125

TRANSPORTS IN SOUTHAMPTON DOCKS 129

THE _LEVIATHAN_ DOCKING AT LIVERPOOL 135

SALVAGE VESSELS OFF YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT 141

IN A SALVAGE VESSEL: OVERHAULING THE INSULATION

OF THE POWER LEADS 145

A TORPEDOED MERCHANTMAN ON THE SHOALS: SALVAGE

OFFICERS MAKING A SURVEY 151

A TORPEDOED SHIP IN DRY DOCK 157

DAZZLE 163

AN APPRENTICE IN THE MERCHANTS' SERVICE 171

A STANDARD SHIP AT SEA 177

BUILDING A STANDARD SHIP 179

THE THAMES ESTUARY IN WAR-TIME 184

DROPPING THE PILOT 187

EXAMINATION SERVICE PATROL BOARDING AN INCOMING

STEAMER 190

DAWN: CONVOY PREPARING TO PUT TO SEA 193

EVENING: PLYMOUTH HOE 198

A CONVOY CONFERENCE 201

THE OLD HARBOUR, PLYMOUTH 205

CONVOY SAILING FROM PLYMOUTH SOUND 207

INWARD BOUND 217

A TRANSPORT LOADING 219

A CONVOY IN THE ATLANTIC 224

THE BOWS OF THE _KASHMIR_ DAMAGED BY COLLISION 227

THE MAYFLOWER QUAY, THE BARBICAN, PLYMOUTH 233

EVENING: THE MERSEY FROM THE LANDING-STAGE 241

THE STEERSMAN 243

THE WORK OF A TORPEDO 244

TRANSPORTS DISCHARGING IN LIVERPOOL DOCKS 245

TROOP TRANSPORTS DISEMBARKING AT THE

LANDING-STAGE, LIVERPOOL 249

'M N' 252

[Illustration: THE CLYDE FROM THE TOWER OF THE CLYDE TRUST BUILDINGS]

INTRODUCTION

WRITTEN largely between the shipping crisis of 1917 and the surrender of

German undersea arms at Harwich on November 20, 1918, this book is an

effort to record a seaman's impressions of the trial through which the

Merchants' Service has come in the war.

It is necessarily halting and incomplete. The extent of the subject is

perhaps beyond the safe traverse of a mariner's dead reckoning. Policies

of governmental control and of the economics of our management do not

come within the scope of the book except as text to the diary of

seafaring. Out at sea it is not easy to keep the right proportions in

forming an opinion of measures devised on a grand scale, and of the

operation of which we see only a small part. Our slender thread of

communication with longshore happenings is often broken, and

understanding is warped by conjecture.

In pride of his ancient trade, the seaman may perceive an importance and

vital instrumentality in the ships and their voyages that may not be so

evident to the landsman. By this is the mariner constantly impressed:

that, without the merchant's enterprise on the sea--the adventure of his

finance, his ships, his gear, his men--the armed and enlisted resources

of the State could not have prevailed in averting disaster and defeat.

The unique experiences of individual seamen--the trials of seafaring

under less favourable circumstances than was the writer's good

fortune--the plaints and grievances of our internal affairs--are but

lightly sketched. Many brother seamen may feel that the harassing and

often despairing case of the average tramp steamer has not adequately

been dealt with; that--in "Outward Bound," as an instance--the writer

presents a tranquil and idyllic picture which cannot be accepted as

typical. The bitter hardship of proceeding on a voyage under war

conditions, with the same small crew that was found inadequate in

peace-time, is hardly suggested; the extent of the work to be overtaken

is perhaps camouflaged in that description of setting out. Reality would

more frequently show a vessel being hurried out of dock on the top of

the tide, putting to sea into heavy weather, with the hatchways open

over hasty stowage, and all the litter of a week's harbour disroutine

standing to be cleared by a raw and semi-mutinous crew.

Criticism on these grounds is just: but it was ever the seaman's custom

to dismiss heavy weather--when it was past and gone--and recall only the

fine days of smooth sailing. If the hard times of our strain and

labouring are not wholly over, at least we have fallen in with a more

favouring wind from the land. Conditions in the Merchants' Service are

vastly improved since Germany challenged our right to pass freely on our

lawful occasions. Relations between the owner and the seamen are less

strained. Remuneration for sea-service is now more adequate. The sullen

atmosphere of harsh treatment on the one hand, and grudging service on

the other, has been cleared away by the hurricane threat to our common

interests.

Throughout the book there are some few extracts--all indicated by

quotation marks--from the works of modern authors. The writer wishes to

acknowledge their use and to mention the following: "Trinity House," by

Walter H. Mayo; "The Sea," by F. Whymper; "The Merchant Seamen in War,"

by L. Cope Cornford; "Fleets behind the Fleet," by W. Macneile Dixon;

"North Sea Fishers and Fighters" and "Fishermen in Wartime," both by

Walter Wood; the pages of the _Nautical Magazine_.

The grateful thanks of writer and artist are tendered to Rear-Admiral

Sir Douglas Brownrigg, Chief Naval Censor, and to Lord Beaverbrook and

Mr. Arnold Bennett, of the Ministry of Information, for facilities and

kindly assistance in preparation of the work. The writer's indebtedness

to his Owners for encouragement and for generous leave of absence

(without which the book could not have been written) is especially

acknowledged.

Mr. Muirhead Bone's drawings reproduced in this book were executed

during the war for the Ministry of Information with the co-operation of

the Admiralty. They are now in the possession of the Imperial War

Museum. With the exception of the illustrations on pages 44, 224, and

252, these drawings were made on the spot.

DAVID W. BONE

PART I

[Illustration: GRAVESEND: A MERCHANTMAN OUTWARD BOUND]

I

THE MERCHANTS' SERVICE

OUR FOUNDATION

ALTHOUGH sea-interest of to-day finds an expression somewhat trite and

familiar, the spell of the ships and the romance of voyaging drew an

instant and wondering recognition from the older chroniclers. With a

sure sense of right emphasis, yet observing an austere simplicity, they

preserved for us an eloquent and adequate impression of the vital power

of the ships. One outstanding fact remains constantly impressed in their

records--that our island gates are set fast on the limits of tide-mark,

leaving no way out but by passage of the misty sea-line; there is no

gangway to a foreign field other than the planking of our vessels.

Grandeur of the fleets, the might of sea-ordnance, the intense dramatic

decision of a landing, stand out in the great pieces the early writers

and painters designed. Brave kingly figures wind in and out against the

predominant background of rude hulls and rigging and weathered sails.

The outline of the ships and the ungainly figures of the mariners are

definitely placed to impel our thoughts to the distant sea-marches.

Happily for us, the passengers of early days included clerks and learned

men on their pilgrimages, else we had known but little of bygone ship

life. With interest narrowed by bounds of the bulwarks, they noted and

recorded a worthy description. In the mystery of unknown seas, as in

detail of the sea-tackle and the forms and usages of the ship, they

penned a perfect register: down to the tunnage of the butts, we know the

ships--to the 'goun of faldying' and the extent of their lodemanage, we

recognize the men.

At later date we come on the seaman and his ships recorded and portrayed

with a loving enthusiasm. Richard Hakluyt--"with great charges and

infinite cares, after many watchings, toiles and travels, and wearying

out" of his weak body--sets out for us a wonderful chronicle of the

shipping to his day. He grew familiarly acquainted with the chiefest

'Captaines,' the greatest merchants, and the best mariners of our

nation, and acquired at first hand somewhat more than common knowledge

of the sea. He saw not only the waving banners of sea-warriors and the

magnificence of their martial encounters, but lauded victory in far

voyages, the opening to commerce of distant lands, the hardihood of the

Merchant Venturers. He realized the value of the seaman to the nation,

not alone to fight battles on the sea, but as skilful navigators to

further trade and intercourse. He was not ignorant "that shippes are to

litle purpose without skillfull Sea-men; and since Sea-men are not bred

up to perfection of skill in much lesse time than in the time of two

prentiships; and since no kinde of men of any profession in the

commonwealth passe their yeres in so great and continuall hazard of

life; and since of so many, so few grow to gray heires; how needful it

is that . . . these ought to have a better education, than hitherto they

have had."

His matchless patience and care and exactitude were only equalled by his

pride in the doings of the seamen and the merchants. With a joyful

humility he exults in the hoisting of our banners in the Caspian

Sea--not as robber marauders, but as peaceful traders under licence and

ambassade--at the station of an English Ligier in the stately porch of

the Grand Signior at Constantinople, at consulates at Tripolis and

Aleppo, in Babylon and Balsara--"and which is more, at English Shippes

coming to anker in the mighty river of Plate." In script and tabulation

he glories in the tale of the ships, and sets out the names and stations

of humble merchant supercargoes with the same meticulous care as the

rank and titles of the Captain-General of the Armada.

Alas! There was none to set a similarly gifted hand to the further

course of his lone furrow. Purchas tried, but there was no great love of

his subject-matter to spread a glamour on the pages. Perhaps the

magnitude of the task, ever growing and gathering, and the minute and

unwearying succession of Hakluyt's "Navigations and Traffiques,"

discouraged and deterred less ardent followers. Of voyages and

expeditions and discoveries there are volumes enough, but few such

intimate records as "the Oathe ministered to the servants of the

Muscovie company," or the instructions given by the Merchant Adventurers

unto Richard Gibbs, William Biggatt, and John Backhouse, masters of

their ships, have been written since Hakluyt turned his last page.

As outposts to our field, roving bands on a frontier that rises and

falls with the tide, the seamen were ever the first to apprehend the

mutterings of war. With but little needed to set spark to the torch,

they came in to foreign seaport or littoral with a fine confidence in

their ships and arms. Truculent perhaps, and overbearing in their pride

of long voyaging over a mysterious and threatening sea, they were hardly

the ambassadors to aid settlement of a dispute by frank goodwill and

prudence. Sailing outwith the confines of ordered government, their

lawless outlook and freebooting found a ready rejoinder in restraint of

trade and arbitrary imprisonment. Long wars had their seed in tavern

brawls, enforcement "to stoope gallant [lower topsail] and vaile their

bonets" for a puissant king or queen, brought a reckoning of strife and

bloodshed.

Although military sea-captains, the glory of their victories, the

worthiness of their ships and appurtenances, figure largely on the pages

of subsequent sea-history, not a great deal has been written of the

sailor captains and their mates and crews. Later chroniclers were

concerned that their subjects should be grand and combatant: there was

little room in their text for trading ventures, or for such humble

recitals as the tale and values of hogshead or caisse or bale. A line of

demarcation was slowly but inevitably ruling a division of our

sea-forces. The service of the ships, devoted indifferently to

sea-warfare or oversea trading--as the nation might be at war or

peace--was in process of adjustment to meet the demands of a new

sea-attack. The vessels were no longer merely floating platforms from

which a military leader could direct a plan of rude assault and engage

the arms of his soldiery, leaving to the masters and seamen the duty of

handling the way of the ship. A new aristocracy had arisen from the

decks who saw, in the pull of their sails, a weapon more powerful than

shock ordnance, and resented the dictation of landsmen on their own

sea-province. Sea-warfare had become a contest, more of seamanship and

manoeuvre, less of stunning impact and a weight of military arms.

In division of the ships and their service, it may quite properly be

claimed that the Merchants' Service remained the parent trunk from

which the new Navy--a gallant growing limb--drew sap and sustenance,

perhaps, in turn, improving the growth of the grand old tree. Certainly

their service was an offshoot, for, since Henry VIII ordered laying of

the first especial war keel, the sea-battles to the present day have

been largely joined by the ships and men and furniture of the merchants,

carrying on in the historic traditional manner of a fight when there was

fighting to be done, a return to trade and enterprise when the great

sea-roads were cleared to commerce. Stout old Sir John Hawkins,

Frobisher, Drake, Davis, Amadas, and Barlow were merchant masters,

shrewd at a venture, in intervals of, and combination with, their deeds

of arms. Only a small proportion of State ships were in issue with the

merchants' men to scourge the great Armada from our shores. Perhaps the

existence of such a vast reserve in ships and men delayed the progress

of purely naval construction. Only with the coming of steam was the line

drawn sharply and definitely--the branch outgrowing the interlock of the

parent stem.

With partial severance and division of the ships, the seamen--who had

been for so long of one breed, laying down sail-needle and caulking-iron

to serve ordnance and hand-cutlass or boarding-pike--had reached a

parting of the ways, and become naval or mercantile as their habits lay.

The State war vessels, built and manned and maintained for strictly

military uses, increased in strength and numbers. Their officers and

crews developed a new seamanship and discipline that had little

counterpart on the commercial vessels. For a time the two services

sailed, if not in company, within sight and hail of one another. On

occasion they joined to effect glorious issues, but, with the last

broadside of war, courses were set that quickly swerved the fleets

apart.

Longer terms of peace gave opportunity for development on lines that

were as poles apart. The Naval Service perfected and exercised their

engines of war, and drilled and seasoned their men to automaton-like

subservience to their plans. A broadening to democratic freedom,

quickened by familiar intercourse with other nationals, had effect with

the merchantmen in rousing a reluctance to a resort to arms; they

desired but a free continuance of trading relations. Although differing

in their operations and ideals, both services were striving to enhance

the sea-power of the nation. Thomas Cavendish, Middleton, Monson,

Hudson, and Baffin--merchant masters--explored the unknown and extended

a field for mercantile ventures, but that field could have been but

indifferently maintained if naval power had not been advanced to protect

the merchantmen in their voyaging.

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF A MERCHANTMAN]

As their separation developed, relations grew the more distant between

the seamen. While certainly protecting the traders from any foreign

interference, the new Navy did little to effect a community of

interest with their sea-fellows. Prejudices and distrust grew up. State

jealousies and trade monopolies formed a confusion of interests and made

for strained relations between the merchants and the naval chancelleries

on shore. At sea, the arbitrary exercise of authority by the King's

officers was opposed by revolutionary instincts for a free sea on the

part of the merchants' seamen. Forcible impressment to naval service was

the worst that could befall the traders' men. For want of energy or

ability to carry through the drudgery of early sea-training, the naval

officers took toll of the practised commercial seamen as they came in

from sea. Bitter hardship set wedge to the cleavage. After long and

perilous voyaging, absent from a home port for perhaps two or three

years, the homeward-bound sailor had little chance of being allowed a

term of liberty on shore--a brief landward turn to dissolve the salt

casing of his bones. Within sound of his own church bells, in sight of

the windmills and the fields and the home dwelling he had longed for, he

was haled to hard and rigorous sea-service on vessels of war. The

records of the East India Company have frequent references to this cruel

exercise of naval tyranny.

"On Thursday morning the Directors received the

agreeable news of the safe arrival of the

_Devonshire_, Captain Prince, from Bengal. . . .

Her men have all been impressed by the Men-of-War

in the Downs, and other hands were put on board

to bring her up to her moorings in the River."

". . . On Sunday morning the Purser of the

_William_, Captain Petre, arrived in town, who

brought advice of the said ship in the Downs,

richly laden, on Account of the Turkey Company:

the Ships of War in the Downs impressed all her

men, and put others on board to bring her up."

"Notwithstanding the Report spread about, fourteen

days ago, that no more sailors would be impressed

out of the homeward-bound ships, several ships

that arrived last week had all their men taken

from them in the Downs."

Serving by turns, as his agility to dodge the gangs was rated, on King's

ship for a turn, then hauling bowline on a free vessel; forced and

hunted and impressed, the shipmen had perhaps sorry records to offer the

historian, then busy with the enthralling chronicles of fleet

engagements and veiling with glamour the toll of battles. Perhaps it

was, after all, the better course to preserve a silence on the traders'

doings and leave to romantic conjecture a continuance of Hakluyt's

patient story.

Since the date of naval offgrowth, the chronicles have not often turned

on our commercial path. Lone voyages and encounters with the sea and

storm are minor enterprises to the sack of cities and the clash of arms

at sea. Unlike the Naval Service, we merchants' men hold few recorded

titles to our keystone in the national fabric. The deeds and documents

may exist, but they are lost to us and forgotten in the files of musty

ledgers. The fruits of our efforts stand in the balances of commercial

structure, and are perhaps more enduring than a roll of record. But, if

we are insistent in our search, we may borrow from the naval charters,

and read that not all the glory of our sea-history lies with the thunder

of broadsides and the impact of a close boarding. Engagement with the

elements--a contest with powers more cruel and implacable than keen

steel--efforts to further able navigation, the standard of our

seamanship--drew notable recruits to the humbler sea-life. The small

crews and less lavish gear on the freighters brought the essentials of

the sea-trade to each individual of the ship's company. Idlers and

landsmen learned quickly and bitterly that their only claim to existence

on a merchant's ship lay in a rapid acquisition of a skill in

seamanship. The lessons and the threats and enforcements did not come

wholly from their superiors, to whose tyranny they might expose a sullen

obstinance, and gain, perhaps, a measure of sympathy from their rude

sea-fellows. Then--as later, in the keen sailing days of our clipper

ships--their hardest taskmasters were foremast hands, watchmates, the

men they lived with and ate with and worked with--bitter critics,

unpersuadable, who saw only menace and a threat to their own safety in

the shipping of a man who could not do man's work. On the decks and

about the spars of a merchant vessel, each man of the few seamen carried

two lives--his own and a shipmate's--in his ability to 'hand, reef, and

steer.' There was no place on board for a 'waister,' a 'swabber,'

longshoreman, or sea labourer. Every man had quickly to prove his

ability: the unrelenting sea gave time for few essays.

Fertility of resource, dexterity to serve at all duties, skill at

handling ship and canvas, were the results of sea-ship training. In the

merchantmen great opportunities offered for advancement in all branches

of the seaman's art. Long voyaging was better exercise for a progression

in navigation than the daily pilotage of the war vessels. Blake, in his

early days as a merchant supercargo, learnt his seafaring on rough

trading voyages, and his training could not have been other than sound

to persist, through twenty years shore-dwelling as a merchant at

Bridgwater, until he was called from his counting-house to command our

naval forces. Dampier was a tarry foremast hand in his day: whatever we

may judge of his conduct, we can have nothing but admiration for his

seamanship. Ill-equipped and short-handed, racked by sea-sores and

scurvy, his expeditions were unparalleled as a triumph of merchant

sea-skill. James Cook learned his trade on the grimy hull of an

east-coast collier--to this day we are working on charts of his masterly

surveys.

In later years the merit of the trading vessels as sterling sea-schools

was equally plain. During intervals of combatant service, or as prelude

to a naval career, training on the merchants' ships was eagerly sought

by ardent naval seamen who saw the value of its resource in practical

seamanship, in navigation, and weather knowledge. Great captains did not

disdain the measure of the instruction. They sent their heirs to sea in

trading vessels to draw an essence in practice from their sea-cunning.

Hardy, Foley, and Berry had borne a hand at the sheets and braces, and

had steered a lading of goods abroad, before they came to high command

of the King's ships. Who knows what actions in the victories of

Copenhagen, the Nile, and Trafalgar (hinged on the cast of the winds)

were governed by Nelson's early sea-lessons, under Master John Rathbone,

on the decks of a West India merchantman?

For long after, relations and interchange between the two Services were

not so intimate. Until coming of the Great War, with a mutual

appreciation, we had little in common. Our friend and peacemaker--the

influence of seafaring under square sail--languished a while, then died.

In steam-power, with its growth of development and intricacy of

application, we found no worthy successor to present as good an office.

In the long span of a hundred years of sea-peace we grew apart. The gulf

between the two great Services widened to a breach that only the rigours

of a world-conflict could reconcile.

As though exhausted by the indefinite sea-campaign of 1812, the Royal

Navy lay on their oars and saw their commercial sea-fellows forge ahead

on a course that revolutionized sea-transport and sea-warfare alike. The

Lords of the Admiralty would listen to no deprecation of their gallant

old wooden walls: steam propulsion was laughed at. To the Merchants'

Service they left the risk and the responsibility of venturing afar in

the rude new ships. In this wise, to us fell the honour of leading the

State service to a new order of seafaring. Iron hulls and steam

propulsion came first under our hands. It was not long before our new

command of the sea was noted. Somewhat grudgingly, the conservative

sea-mandarins were brought to a knowledge that their torpor was fatal.

The Navy stirred and lost little time in traversing the leeway. They

progressed on a path of experiment and probation suited to their needs,

striving to construct mightier vessels and to forge new and greater

arms. Exploring every avenue in their quest for aid and material, every

byway for furtherance of their aims, they drew strange road-fellows

within their ranks, new workmen to the sea. The engines of their

adoption called for crafty hands to serve and adjust them. Steam we knew

in our time and could understand, but auxiliary mechanics outgrew the

limits of our comprehension; naval practice became a science outwith the

bounds of our sea-lore, a new trade, whose only likeness to ours lay in

its service on the same wide sea.

Parted from the need to draw arms, secure in the knowledge of adequate

naval protection, the Merchants' Service developed their ships and

tackle in the ways of a free world trade. By shrewd engagement and

industry in the counting-house, diligence and forethought in the

building-yards, keen sailing and efficiency on the sea, the structure of

our maritime supremacy was built up and maintained. Monopolies and

hindering trade reservations and restrictions barred the way, but

yielded to the spirit of our progress. Vested interests in seas and

continents had to be fought and conquered, and there was room and scope

for lingering combative instincts in the keen competition that arose for

the world's carrying trade. Other nations came on the free seas, secure

in the peace our arms had wrought, and entered the lists against us. The

challenge to our seafaring we met by skill and hardihood--keener and

more polished arms than the weapons of our sea-fathers. The coming of

competitors spurred us to sea-deeds in the handling of our ships and

cargoes, dispatch in the ports, and activity in the yards, that brought

acknowledged victory to our flag. Every sense and thought that was in us

was used to further our supremacy. The craft and workmanship of the

builders and enterprise of the merchants provided us with the most

beautiful of man's creations on the sea--the square-rigged sailing ship

of the nineteenth century. With pride we sailed her. We, too, brought

science to our calling; rude, perhaps, and not readily defined save by a

long, hard pupilage. Not less than the calibre of the new naval ordnance

was the measure of our sail spread, not inferior to ironclad hulls the

speed and beauty of our clippers--we paralleled the roads of their

strategy by the masterly handling of a cloud in sail. With a regularity

and precision as noted as our naval sea-brothers' advance in gunfire, we

served the trade and the mails, and spread the flood of emigration to

the rise and glory of the Empire.

With the decline of square sail, a new way of seafaring opened to us. In

the first of our steam pioneering, we took our yards and canvas with us,

as good part of our sea-kit; a safe provision, as we thought, against

the inevitable failure we looked for in the new navigation. We were

conservatively jealous of our gallant top hamper, and scorned the

promise of a power that only dimly as yet we understood. But--the

promise held. In a few years we became converts to the new order, in

which we found a greater security, a more definite reliance, than in the

angles of our sail plane. There was no longer a need for our precious

'stand by,' and we unrigged the wind tackle and accepted our new

shipmate, the marine engineer, as a worthy brother seaman. It was not

only the spars and the cordage and the sails we put ashore. With all

the gallant litter we unloaded, condemned to the junk-heap, went a part

of our seamanship as closely woven to the canvas as the seams our hands

had sewn.

In steam practice, new problems required to be studied and resolved;

challenges to our vaunted sea-lore came up that called for radical

revision of older methods and ideas. Changes, as wide and drastic as the

evolutions of a decade in sail, were presented in a swift succession of

as many days. With eyes now turned from aloft to ahead, we retyped our

seamanship to meet the altered conditions of the veer in our outlook.

Unhelped, if unhindered, in our efforts, we adapted our calling to the

sudden and revolutionary innovations in construction and power of the

new ships. We grew sensible of gaps in our knowledge, of voids in

education that our earlier handicraft had not revealed. Severed, by

press of our sea-work, from the facilities for study that now offered

advancement to the landsman, we sought in alert and constant practice a

substitute for technical instruction. By step and stride and canter we

jockeyed each new starter from the shipyards, and studied their paces

and behaviour on the vexed testing courses of the open sea. If our

methods were rude in trial, they settled to efficiency in service. We

paced in step with the rapid developments of the shipwright's art, the

not less active contrivance of the engineers. We kept no man waiting for

a sea-controller to his new and untried machine: there was no whistling

for a pilot on the grounds of our reaches. From oversea dredger and

frail harbour tug to the magnitude of an _Aquitania_, we were ever ready

to board her on the launching ways and steer her to the limits of her

draught.

A Hakluyt of the day would have a full measure for his enthusiasm in the

shear of our keels on every sea, the flutter of our flags to all the

winds. By virtue of worthy vessels and good seamanship, the Red Ensign

was devoted to a world service; by good guardianship and commercial

rectitude the Merchants' Service held charge of the world's wealth in

transport--the burden of the ships. All nations put trust in us for

sea-carriage. The Spanish onion-grower on the slopes of Valencia, the

Java sugar merchants, the breeders of Plata, looked to their harbours

for sight of our hulls to load their products. Greek boatmen took

payment for their cases on a scrap of dingy paper; the tide-labourers of

the world demanded no earnest of their fees ere setting to work--our

flag was their guarantor. The incoming of our ships brought throng to

the quay-sides of far seaports; the outgoing sent the prospering

merchants to the bank counters, to draw value from our skill in

navigation, our integrity, and sea-care.

THE STRUCTURE

THE avalanche of war found us, if unprepared, not unready. The

Merchants' Service was in the most efficient state of all its long

story. Bounteous harvests had set a tide of prosperity to all parts of

the world. Trade had reached the summit of a register in volume and

account. The transport of the world's goods was busied as never before.

With every outward stern wash went a full lading of our manufactures--a

bulk of coal, a mass of wrought steel; foam at the bows--returning,

brought exchange in food and raw materials, grist to the mills of our

toiling artisans--a further provision for continuation of our trading.

There were no idle keels swinging the tides in harbour for want of

profitable employment; no seamen lounging on the dockside streets

awaiting a 'sight' to sign-on for a voyage. Bulk of cargoes exceeded the

tonnage of the ships, and the riverside shipyards resounded to the busy

clamour of new construction. Advanced systems of propulsion had emerged

from tentative stages, were fully tried and proved, and owners were

adding to their fleets the latest and largest vessels that art of

shipwrights and skill of the engineers could supply. We were well built

and well found and well employed in all respects, not unready for any

part that called us to sea.

On such a stage the gage was thrown. Right on the heels of the courier

with challenge accepted, went the ships laden with a new and precious

cargo--our gallant men-at-arms. Before a shot of ours was fired, the

first blow in the conflict was swung by passage of the ships: throughout

the length of it, only by the sea-lanes could the shock be maintained.

Viewing the numbers and tonnage of the ships, the roll and character of

the seamen, we were not uneasy for the sea-front. With the most powerful

war fleet in the world boarding on the coasts of the enemy, we had

little to fear. The transports and war-service vessels could be

adequately safeguarded: the peaceful traders on their lawful occasions

could trust in international law of the civilized seas, on which no

destruction may be effected without cause, prefaced by examination. Of

raiders and detached war units there might be some apprehension, but the

White Ensign was abroad and watchful--it was impossible that the shafts

of the enemy could reach us on the sea. For a time we set out on our

voyages and returned without interference.

[Illustration: THE OLD AND THE NEW

THE _MARGARET_ OF DUBLIN AND R.M.S. _TUSCANIA_]

Anon, an amazing circumstance shocked our blythe assurance. In a new

warfare, by traverse of a route we thought was barred, the impossible

became a stern reality! While able, by power of their ships and skill

and gallantry of the men, to keep the surface naval forces of the

enemy doomed to ignoble harbour watch, the mightiest war fleet the seas

had ever carried was impotent wholly to protect us! Our Achilles heel

was exposed to merciless under-water attack, to a new weapon, deadly in

precision and difficult to counter or evade. Throwing to the winds all

shreds of honour and conscionable restraint, all vestiges of a

sea-respect for non-combatants and neutrals, the pacts and bounds of

international law--the humane sea-usages that spared women and children

and stricken wounded--the decivilized German set up the banners of a

stark piracy, an ocean anarchy, to whose lieutenants the sea-wolves of

an earlier age were but feeble enervated weaklings.

Piracy, gloried in and undisguised, faced us. Well and definite! We had

known piracy in the long years of our sea-history: we had dealt with

their trade to a full settlement at yard-arm or gallows. The course of

our seafaring was not to be arrested by even the deep roots and deadly

poison of this not unknown sea-growth: we had scaled the foul barnacles

and cut the rank weeds before in the course of sea-development. If our

ways had become peaceful in the long years of unchallenged trading, our

habits were never less than combatant throughout a life of struggle with

storm and tide. Not while we had a ship and a man to the helm would we

be driven from the sea; our hard-won heritage was not to be delivered

under threat or operation of even the most surpassing frightfulness.

Jealousy for our seafaring, for our name as sailors, forbade that we

should skulk in harbour or linger behind the nets and booms. Our work,

our livelihood, our proud sea-trade, our honour was on the open sea. Our

pride was this--that, in our action, we would be followed by the

seafarers of the world. It was for no idle vaunt we boasted our

supremacy at sea. If we could take first place of the world's seamen in

time of peace, our station was to lead in war. We put out to sea--the

neutrals followed. Had we held to port, German orders would have halted

the sea-traffic of the world. With no shield but our seamanship, no

weapon but the keenness of our eyes, no power of defence or assault

other than the swing of a ready helm, we met the pirates on the sea,

with little pretension in victory and no whining in defeat.

Challenged to stand and submit, the _Vosges_ answered with a cant of the

helm and hoist of her flag, and stood on her way under a merciless hail

of shot. Unarmed, outsped, there was little prospect of escape--only, in

an obstinate sea-pride, lay acceptance of the challenge. With decks

littered by wreckage and wounded, bridge swept by shrapnel, water making

through her torn hull, there was no thought to lay-to and droop the flag

in surrender. When, at length, the ensign was shot away, there were men

enough to hoist another. In hours their agony was measured, until, in

despair of completing his foul work, the enemy gave up the contest.

Reeking of the combat, the _Vosges_ foundered under her wounds. The sea

took her from her gallant crew, but they had not given up the

ship--their flag still fluttered at the peak as she went down.

_Anglo-Californian_ fought a grim, silent fight for four hours, matching

the intensity of the German gunfire by the dogged quality of her mute

defiance. _Palm Branch_ turned away from galling fire at short range,

double-banked the press in the stokehold, and cut and turned on her

course to confuse the ranges. Her stern was shattered by shell, the

lifeboats blown away; the apprentice at the wheel stood to his job with

blood running in his eyes. Fire broke out and added a new terror to the

situation. There was no flinching. Through it all the engines turned

steadily, driven to their utmost speed by the engineers and firemen. A

one-sided affair--a floating hell for seamen to stand by, helpless, and

take a frightful gruelling! But they stood to it, and came to port.

If, under new and treacherous blows, our hearts beat the faster, there

was little pause, no stoppage, in the steady coursing of our

sea-arteries. We fought the menace with the same spirit our old

sea-fathers knew. Undeterred by the ghastly handicap against us--the

galling fetters of a policy that kept us unarmed, we pitted our brains

and seamanship against the murderous mechanics of the enemy. To the new

under-water attack there were few adequate counter-measures in the

records of our old seafaring. We revised the standard manual, drew text

from old games, shield from the cuttlefish, models for our sweeps from

discarded sea-tackle. Special devices, new plans, stern services were

called for; we devised, we specialized--our readiness was never more

instant. Out of our strength we built up a new Service. Instruction and

equipment came from the Royal Navy, but the men were ours. In the throes

of our exertions the Merchants' Service repeated a tradition. The stout

aged tree shot forth another worthy limb--a second Navy--not less ardent

or resourceful than the first offshoot, now grown to be our guardian.

Our branches twined and interlocked in service of a joint endeavour.

Under the fierce blast of war we swayed and weighed together in shield

of our ancient foundation. Within our ranks we had cunning fishers,

keen, resolute sea-fighters of the banks, to whom the coming of a

strange mechanical devil-fish offered a new zest to the chase, a famous

netting. Enrolled to Special Service, they engaged the enemy at his

doorstep and patrolled the areas of his outset. Undaunted by the odds,

deterred by no risk or threat, they ranged and searched the sea-channels

and cleared the lanes for our safe passage. To detect, to warn, to meet

and counter-charge the submarine in his depths, to safeguard the narrow

seas from hazard of the mines, was all in the day's work of the

_Temporary_ R.N.R.

Throughout all the enrolments, the divisions, the changes, and the

training for new and special duties, there was no easing of the engines:

we effected our adjustments and allotments under a full head of steam.

All that the enemy could do could not prevent the steady reinforcement

of our arms, the passage of our men, the transport of our trade. The

long lines of our sea-communications remained unbroken, despite our

losses and the grim spectre of the raft and the open boat. It could not

be otherwise--and Britain stand. There could be no halt in the

sea-traffic. Only from abroad could we draw supplies to raise the new

leaguer of our island garrison; only by way of the sea could we retain

and renew our strength.

In time the intolerable shackles of inactive resistance were struck from

our hands. Somewhat tardily we were supplied with weapons of defence and

instructed in their use and maintainance. We went to school again, under

tutelage of the Naval Service, and drew a helpful assistance from the

tale of their courses since we had parted company. We were heartened by

the new spirit of co-operation with the fighting service. Ungrudgingly

they lent experts to direct our movement. They turned a stream of their

inventive talent in the ways of gear and apparatus to protect our ships.

They shipped our ordnance, and supplied skilled gunners to leaven our

rude crews. More, they helped to strip the veneer of convention that

hampered us--our devotion to standard practice in rules and lights and

equipment. We learned our lessons. Even though the peaceful years had

lessened our fighting spring, we had lost no aptitude for service of the

guns in defence of our rights, nor for measure to deceive or evade.

Armed and alert, we returned to the sea, confident in the discard of a

weight in our handicap. We could strike back, and with no feeble

blow--as the pirates soon learned.

There were scores to settle. _Palm Branch_, belying her tranquil name,

took a payment in full for her shattered stern and the blood running in

the steersman's eyes. Keen eyes sighted a periscope in time. The helm

was put over and the white track raced across the stern, missing by

feet. Baffled in under-water attack, the enemy hove up from his depths

to open surface fire. He never had opportunity. If look-out was good,

gun action was as quick and ready in _Palm Branch_. Her first shot

struck the conning-tower, the second drove home on the submarine, which

sank. While all eyes were focused on the settling wash and spreading

scum of oil, a new challenge came and was as speedily accepted. A shell,

fired by a second submarine at long range, passed over the steamer.

Slewing round to a new target, the gunners kept up a steady return, shot

for shot. The submarine dropped farther astern, fearing the probe of a

bracket: he angled his course to bring both his guns in action. Two

pieces against the steamer's one! At that, he fared no better. Firing

continuously, eighty rounds in less than an hour, he registered not one

hit.

At length _Palm Branch's_ steady, methodical search for the range had

effect. Her gunners capped the day's fine shooting by a direct hit on

the submarine's after-gun, shattering the piece. At evens again--the

U-boat ceased fire and drew off, possibly under threat of British

patrols approaching at full speed, more probably for the good and

sufficient reason that he had had enough.

Not all our contests were as happily decided. If--shirking the issue of

the guns, with no zest for a square fight--the German went to his

depths, he had still the deadly torpedo to enforce a toll. The toll we

paid and are paying, but there is no stoppage in the round by which the

nation is fed and her arms served. The burden is heavy and our losses

great, but we have not failed. We dare not fail.

[Illustration: IN A MERCHANTMAN--BOMB-THROWER PRACTICE]

II

OUR RELATIONS WITH THE NAVY

JOINING FORCES

AFTER an interval of a hundred years, we are come to work together

again, banded, as in the days of the Armada, to keep the seas against a

ruthless challenger. In view of a new blood-bond between us, it is

difficult to write coldly of the causes that have kept us apart. Only by

preface of an affirmation can it be made possible. Through all our

differences, prejudices, envies--perhaps jealousies--there ran at least

one clear unsullied thread--our admiration for the Navy, our glory in

its strength and power, our belief in its matchless efficiency.

We seamen, naval or mercantile, are a stout unmovable breed. Tenacity to

our convictions is deeply rooted. The narrow trends of shipboard life

give licence to a conservatism that out-Herods Herod in intensity,

unreason--in utter sophistry. We extend this atmosphere to our

relationships, to the associations with the beach, with other

sea-services, with other ships--to the absurd pretensions of the other

watch. "A sailorman afore a landsman, an' a shipmate afore all," may be

a useful creed, but it engenders a contentious outlook, an intolerance

difficult to reconcile. In the fo'c'sle, the upholding of a 'last ship'

may lead to a broken nose; aft, the officers may quarrel, wordily, over

the grades of their service; ashore, the captain may only reserve his

confidences for a peer of his tonnage; over all, the distance between

the Naval and Merchants' Services was immeasurable and complete.

If it was so to this date, it was perhaps more intense in the old days

when common seafaring had not set as broad a distinction, as widely

divergent a sea-practice, as our modern services shew. That such a

contentious atmosphere existed we have ample witness. After experience

as a merchants' man, Nelson wrote of his re-entry. "I returned a

practical seaman with a horror of the Royal Navy. . . . It was many

weeks before I got the least reconciled to a man-o'-war, so deep was the

prejudice rooted!" We have no such noted record of a merchant seaman

re-entering from the Navy. Doubtless the laxity and indiscipline he

might observe would produce a not dissimilar revulsion.

In the years that have elapsed since Nelson wrote, we have had few

opportunities to compose our differences, to get on better terms with

one another. The course of naval development took the great war fleets

hull down on our commercial horizon, beyond casual intercommunication.

On rare and widely separated occasions we fell into an expedition

together, but the unchallenged power of the naval forces only served to

heighten the barriers that stood between us. At the Crimea, in India, on

the Chinese and Egyptian expeditions, during the Boer War, we were

important links in the venture, but no more important than the cargoes

we ferried. There was no call for any service other than our usual

sea-work. The Navy saw to it that our comings and goings were

unmolested. We were sea-civilians, purely and simply; there was nothing

more to be said about it.

If little was said, it was with no good grace we took such a station.

There were those who saw that seafaring could not thus arbitrarily be

divided. Other nations were stirring and striving to a naval strength

and power, drawing aid and personnel from their mercantile services.

Sea-strength and paramountcy might not wholly come to be measured in

terms of thickness of the armour-plating--in calibre of the great guns.

Auxiliary services would be required. The Navy could no more work

without us than the Army without a Service Corps.

The Royal Naval Reserve came as a link to our intercourse. Certain of

our shipmates left us for a period of naval training. They came back

changed in many particulars. They had acquired a social polish, were

perhaps less 'sailor-like' in their habits. As a rule they were

discontented with the way of things in their old ships; the quiet rounds

bored them after the crowded life in a warship. We were frequently

reminded of how well and differently things were done in _the_ Service.

Perhaps, in return, we took the wrong line. We made no effort to sift

their experiences, to find out how we might improve our ways. Often our

comrade's own particular shrewdness was cited as a reason for the better

ways of naval practice. We were rather irritated by the note of

superiority assumed, perhaps somewhat jealous. Had commissions been

granted on a competitive basis, we might have accepted such a tone, but

we had our own way of assessing sea-values, and saw no reason why we

should stand for these new airs. What was in it, what had wrought the

change, we were never at pains to investigate. It was enough for us to

note that, though his watch-keeping was certainly improved, our

re-entered shipmate did not seem to be as efficient as a navigator or

cargo supervisor as once we had thought him. All his talk of drills and

guns and station-keeping considered, he seemed to have quite forgotten

that groundnuts are thirteen hundredweights to the space ton and ought

not to be stowed near fine goods!

On the other hand, he might reasonably be expected to see his old

shipmates in a new light. Rude, perhaps. Of limited ideas. Tied to the

old round of petty bickerings and small intrigues. He would note the

want of trusty brotherhood. His sojourn among better-educated men may

have roused his ideas to an appreciation of values that deep-sea life

had obscured. The lack of the discipline to which he had become

accustomed would appal and disquiet him. In time he would be worn to the

rut again, but who can say the same rut? Unconsciously, we were

influenced by his quieter manners. In self-study we saw faults that had

been unnoticed before his return. Reviewing our hard sea-life, we

recalled our exclusion from benefits of instruction that went a-begging

on the beach. We stirred. There might yet be time to make up the leeway.

The influence of naval training was never very pronounced among the

seamen and firemen of the Merchants' Service who were attached to the

R.N.R. Their periods of training were too short for them to be

permanently influenced by the discipline of the Navy (or our

indiscipline on their return to us may have blighted a promising

growth!) On short-term training they were rarely allotted to important

work. The governing attitude was rather that they should be used as

auxiliaries, mercantile handymen, in a ship. If there was a stowage of

stores, cleaning up of bilges, chipping and scaling of iron rust--well,

here was mercantile Jack, who was used to that kind of work; who better

for the job? Generally, he returned to his old ways rather tired of Navy

'fashion' and discipline, and one saw but little influence of his

temporary service on a cruiser. Usually, he was a good hand, to begin

with: he sought a post on good ships: with his papers in order we were

very glad to have him back.

In few other ways did we come in touch with the Navy. At times the

misfortune of the sea brought us into a naval port for assistance in our

distress. Certainly, assistance was readily forthcoming, a full measure,

but in a somewhat cold and formal way that left a rankling impression

that we were not--well, we were not perhaps desirable acquaintances. The

naval manner was not unlike that of a courteous prescribing chemist over

his counter. "Have you had the pain--long?" "Is there any--coughing?" We

had always the feeling that they were bored by our custom, were anxious

to get back to the mixing of new pills, to their experiments. We were

not very sorry when our repairs were completed and we could sail for

warmer climates.

With the outbreak of war the R.N.R. was instantly mobilized. Their

outgoing left a sensible gap in our ranks, a more considerable rift than

we had looked for. Example drew others on their trodden path, our

mercantile seamen were keen for fighting service; the unheralded torpedo

had not yet struck home on their own ships. Commissions to a new entry

of officers were still limited and capricious--the _Hochsee Flotte_ had

not definitely retired behind the booms at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, to

weave a web of murder and assassination. For a short term we sailed on

our voyages, on a steady round, differing but little from our normal

peace-time trade.

A short term. The enemy did not leave us long secure in our faith in

civilized sea-usage. Our trust in International Law received a rude and

shattering shock from deadly floating mine and racing torpedo. Paralysed

and impotent to venture a fleet action, the German Navy was to be

matched not only against the commercial fleets of Britain and her

Allies, but against every merchant ship, belligerent or neutral. There

was to be no gigantic clash of sea-arms; action was to be taken on the

lines of Thuggery. The German chose his opponents as he chose his

weapons. Assassins' weapons! The knife in the dark--no warning, no

quarter, sink or swim! The 'sea-civilians' were to be driven from the

sea by exercise of the most appalling frightfulness and savagery that

the seas had ever known.

Under such a threat our sea-services were brought together on a rapid

sheer, a close boarding, in which there was a measure of confusion. It

could not have been otherwise. The only provision for co-operation, the

R.N.R. organization, was directed to augment the forces of the Navy:

there was no anticipation of a circumstance that would sound a recall.

Our machinery was built and constructed to revolve in one direction; it

could not instantly be reversed. Into an ordered service, ruled by the

most minute shades of seniority, the finest influences of precedence and

tradition, there came a need to fit the mixed alloy of the Merchants'

Service. Ready, eager, and willing, as both Services were, to devote

their energies to a joint endeavour, it took time and no small patience

to resolve the maze and puzzle of the jig-saw. Naval officers detailed

for our liaison were of varied moulds. Not many of the Active List could

be spared; our new administrators were mostly recalled from fishing and

farming to take up special duties for which they had few qualifications

other than the gold lace on their sleeves. Some were tactful and clever

in appreciation of other values than a mere readiness to salute, and

those drew our affection and a ready measure of confidence. Others set

up plumed Gessler bonnets, to which we were in no mood to bow. Only our

devotion to the emergency exacted a jerk of our heads. To them we were

doubtless difficult and trying. Our free ways did not fit into their

schemes of proper routine. Accustomed to the lines of their own formal

service, to issuing orders only to their juniors, they had no guide to a

commercial practice whereby there can be a concerted service without the

usages of the guard-room. They made things difficult for us without

easing their own arduous task. They objected to our manners, our

appearance, to the clothes we wore. Our diffidence was deemed

truculence: our reluctance to accept a high doctrine of subservience was

measured as insubordination.

The flames of war made short work of our moods and jealousies,

prejudices, and dislikes. A new Service grew up, the _Temporary_ R.N.R.,

in which we were admitted to a share in our own governance and no small

part in combatant operations at sea. The sea-going section found outlet

for their energy and free scope for a traditional privateering in their

individual ventures against the enemy. Patrolling and hunting gave high

promise for their capacity to work on lines of individual control.

Minesweeping offered a fair field for the peculiar gifts of seamanship

that mercantile practice engenders. Commissioned to lone and perilous

service, they kept the seas in fair weather or foul. Although stationed

largely in the narrow seas, there were set no limits to the latitude and

longitude of their employment. The ice of the Arctic knew them--riding

out the bitter northern gales in their small seaworthy drifters,

thrashing and pitching in the seaway, to hold a post in the chain of our

sea-communications. In the Adriatic warmer tides lapped on their scarred

hulls, but brought no relaxing variance to their keen look-out. For want

of a match of their own size, they had the undying temerity to call

three cheers and engage cruiser ordnance with their pipe-stems! A

service indeed! If but _temporary_ in title, there is permanence in

their record!

Coincident with our actions on the sea--not alone those of our fighting

cubs, but also those of our trading seamen--a better feeling came to

cement our alliance. First in generous enthusiasm for our struggle

against heavy odds, as they came to understand our difficulties, naval

officers themselves set about to create a happier atmosphere. We were

admitted to a voice in the league of our defence. Administration was

adjusted to meet many of our grievances. Our capacity for controlling

much of the machinery of our new movements was no longer denied. The

shreds of old conservatism, the patches of contention and envy were

scattered by a strong free breeze of reasoned service and joint effort.

We meet the naval man on every turn of the shore-end of our seafaring.

We have grown to admire him, to like him, to look forward to his coming

and association in almost the same way that we are pleased at the

boarding of our favoured pilots. He fits into our new scheme of things

as readily as the Port Authorities and the Ship's Husband. The plumed

bonnets are no longer set up to attract our awed regard: by a better way

than caprice and petulant discourtesy, the naval officer has won a high

place in our esteem. We have borrowed from his stock to improve our

store; better methods to control our manning, a more dispassionate

bearing, a ready subordinance to ensure service. His talk, too. We use

his phrases. We 'carry on'; we ask the 'drill' for this or that; we

speak of our sailing orders as 'pictures,' our port-holes are become

'scuttles.' The enemy is a 'Fritz,' a depth-charge a 'pill,' torpedoes

are 'mouldies.' In speaking of our ships we now omit the definite

article. We are getting on famously together.

AT SEA

ALTHOUGH our experience of their assured protection is clear and

definite, our personal acquaintance with the larger vessels of the Navy

is not intimate. Saving the colliers and the oilers and storeships that

serve the Fleet, few of us have seen a 'first-rate' on open sea since

the day the Grand Fleet steered north to battle stations. The strength

and influence of the distant ships was plain to us in the first days of

the war even if we had actually no sight of their grey hulls. While we

were able to proceed on our lawful occasions with not even a warning of

possible interference, the mercantile ships of the enemy--being

abroad--had no course but to seek the protection of a neutral port, not

again to put out to sea under their own colours.

The operation of a threat to shipping--at three thousand miles

distance--was dramatic in intensity under the light of acute contrast.

Entering New York a few days after war had been declared, we berthed

alongside a crack German liner. Her voyage had been abandoned: she lay

at the pier awaiting events. At the first, we stared at one another

curiously. Her silent winches and closed hatchways, deserted decks and

passages, were markedly in contrast to the stir and animation with which

we set about unloading and preparing for the return voyage. The few

sullen seamen about her forecastle leant over the bulwarks and noted the

familiar routine that was no longer theirs. Officers on the bridge-deck

eyed our movements with interest, despite their apparent unconcern. We

were respectfully hostile: submarine atrocities had not yet begun. The

same newsboy served special editions to both ships. The German officers

grouped together, reading of the fall of Liege. Doubtless they confided

to one another that they would soon be at sea again. Five days we lay.

At eight o'clock 'flags,' our bugle-call accompanied the raising of the

ensign: the red, white, and black was hoisted defiantly at the same

time. We unloaded, re-loaded, and embarked passengers, and backed out

into the North River on our way to sea again. The _Fuerst_ ranged to the

wash of our sternway as we cleared the piers; her hawsers strained and

creaked, then held her to the bollards of the quay.

Time and again we returned on our regular schedule, to find the German

berthed across the dock, lying as we had left her, with derricks down

and her hatchways closed. . . . We noted the signs of neglect growing on

her; guessed at the indiscipline aboard that inaction would produce. For

a while her men were set to chipping and painting in the way of a good

sea-custom, but the days passed with no release and they relaxed

handwork. Her topsides grew rusty, her once trim and clean paintwork

took on a grimy tint. Our doings were plain to her officers and crew: we

were so near that they could read the tallies on the mailbags we

handled: there were no mails from Germany. Loading operations, that

included the embarkation of war material, went on by night and day: we

were busied as never before. The narrow water space between her hull and

ours was crowded by barges taking and delivering our cargo; the shriek

of steam-tugs and clangour of their engine-bells advertised our stir and

activity. On occasion, the regulations of the port obliged the _Fuerst_

to haul astern, to allow working space for the Merritt-Chapman crane to

swing a huge piece of ordnance to our decks. There were rumours of a

concealed activity on the German. "She was coaling silently at night, in

preparation for a dash to sea.". . . "German spies had their headquarters

in her." The evening papers had a new story of her secret doings

whenever copy ran short. All the while she lay quietly at the pier; we

rated her by her draught marks that varied only with the galley coal she

burnt.

At regular periods her hopeless outlook was emphasized by our sailings.

Officers and crew could not ignore the stir that attended our departure.

They saw the 'blue peter' come fluttering from the masthead, and heard

our syren roar a warning to the river craft as we backed out. We were

laden to our marks and the decks were thronged with young Britons

returning to serve their country. The Fatherland could have no such

help: the _Fuerst_ could handle no such cargo. For her there could be no

movement, no canting on the tide and heading under steam for the open

sea: the distant ships of the Grand Fleet held her in fetters at the

pier.

While the Battle Fleet opened the oceans to us, we were not wholly safe

from enemy interference on the high seas in the early stages of the war.

German commerce raiders were abroad; there was need for a more tangible

protection to the merchants' ships on the oversea trade routes. The

older cruisers were sent out on distant patrols. They were our first

associates of the huge fleet subsequently detailed for our defence and

assistance. We were somewhat in awe of the naval men at sea on our early

introduction. The White Ensign was unfamiliar. Armed to the teeth, an

officer from the cruiser would board us: the bluejackets of his boat's

crew had each a rifle at hand. "Where were we from . . . where to . . .

our cargo . . . our passengers?" The lieutenant was sternly courteous; he

was engaged on important duties: there was no mood of relaxation. He

returned to his boat and shoved off with not one reassuring grin for the

passengers lining the rails interested in every row-stroke of his

whaler. In time we both grew more cordial: we improved upon

acquaintance. The drudgery and monotony of a lone patrol off a neutral

coast soon brought about a less punctilious boarding. Our

_proces-verbal_ had unofficial intervals. "How were things at home? . . .

Are we getting the men trained quickly? . . . What about the Russians?"

The boarding lieutenants discovered the key to our affections--the

secret sign that overloaded their sea-boat with newspapers and fresh

mess. "A fine ship you've got here, Captain!" We parted company at ease

and with goodwill. The boat would cast off to the cheers of our

passengers. The great cruiser, cleared for action with her guns trained

outboard, would cant in to close her whaler. Often her band assembled on

the upper deck: the favourite selections were 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Will

ye no' come back again'--as she swung off on her weary patrol.

Submarine activities put an end to these meetings on the sea. Except

while under ocean escort of a cruiser--when our relations by flag signal

are studied and impersonal--we have now little acquaintance with

vessels of that class. Counter-measures of the new warfare demand the

service of smaller vessels. Destroyers and sloops are now our protectors

and co-workers. With them, we are drawn to a familiar intimacy; we are,

perhaps, more at ease in their company, dreading no formal routine.

Admirals are, to us, awesome beings who seclude themselves behind

gold-corded secretaries: commodores (except those who control our

convoys) are rarely sea-going, and we come to regard them as

schoolmasters, tutors who may not be argued with; post-captains in

command of the larger escorts have the brusque assumption of a

super-seamanship that takes no note of a limit in manning. The

commanders and lieutenants of the destroyers and sloops that work with

us are different; they are more to our mind--we look upon them as

brother seamen. Like ourselves, they are 'single-ship' men. They are

neither concerned with serious plans of naval strategy nor overbalanced

by the forms and usages of great ship routine. While 'the bridge' of a

cruiser may be mildly scornful upon receipt of an objection to her

signalled noon position, the destroyer captain is less assured: he is

more likely to request our estimate of the course and speed. His

seamanship is comparable to our own. The relatively small crew he

musters has taught him to be tolerant of an apparent delay in carrying

out certain operations. In harbour he is frequently berthed among the

merchantmen, and has opportunity to visit the ships and acquire more

than a casual knowledge of our gear and appliances. He is ever a welcome

visitor, frank and manly and candid. Even if there is a dispute as to

why we turned north instead of south-east 'when that Fritz came up,' and

we blanked the destroyer's range, there is not the air of superior

reproof that rankles.

In all our relations with the Navy at sea there was ever little, if any,

friction. We saw no empty plumed bonnet in the White Ensign. We were

proud of the companionship and protection of the King's ships. Our ready

service was never grudged or stinted to the men behind the grey guns;

succour in our distress was their return. Incidents of our co-operation

varied, but an unchanging sea-brotherhood was the constant light that

shone out in small occurrences and deathly events.

Dawn in the Channel, a high south gale and a bitter confused sea. Even

with us, in a powerful deep-sea transport, the measure of the weather

was menacing; green seas shattered on board and wrecked our fittings,

half of the weather boats were gone, others were stove and useless. A

bitter gale! Under our lee the destroyer of our escort staggered through

the hurtling masses that burst and curled and swept her fore and aft.

Her mast and one funnel were gone, the bridge wrecked; a few dangling

planks at her davits were all that was left of her service boats. She

lurched and faltered pitifully, as though she had loose water below,

making through the baulks and canvas that formed a makeshift shield over

her smashed skylights. In the grey of the murky dawn there was yet

darkness to flash a message: "_In view of weather probably worse as wind

has backed, suggest you run for Waterford while chance, leaving us to

carry on at full speed._" An answer was ready and immediate: "_Reply.

Thanks. I am instructed escort you to port._"

The Mediterranean. A bright sea and sky disfigured by a ring of curling

black smoke--a death-screen for the last agonies of a torpedoed

troopship. Amid her littering entrails she settles swiftly, the stern

high upreared, the bows deepening in a wash of wreckage. Boats, charged

to inches of freeboard, lie off, the rowers and their freight still and

open-mouthed awaiting her final plunge. On rafts and spars, the upturned

strakes of a lifeboat, remnants of her manning and company grip

safeguard, but turn eyes on the wreck of their parent hull. Into the

ring, recking nothing of entangling gear or risk of suction, taking the

chances of a standing shot from the lurking submarine, a destroyer

thunders up alongside, brings up, and backs at speed on the sinking

transport. Already her decks are jammed to a limit, by press of a

khaki-clad cargo she was never built to carry. This is final, the last

turn of her engagement. The foundering vessel slips quickly and deeper.

"Come along, Skipper! You've got 'em all off! You can do no more!

_Jump!_"

OUR WAR STAFF

SOME years before the war we were lying at an East Indian port, employed

in our regular trade. The military students of the Quetta Staff College

were in the district, engaged in practical exercise of their staff

lessons. On a Sunday (our loading being suspended) they boarded us to

work out in detail a question of troop transport. It was assumed that

our ship was requisitioned in an emergency, and their problem was to

estimate the number of men we could carry and to plan arrangement of the

troop decks. Their inspection was to be minute; down to the sufficiency

of our pots and pans they were required to investigate and figure out

the resources of our vessel. The officer students were thirty-four in

number; at least we counted thirty-four who came to us for clue to the

mysteries of gross and register and dead-weight tonnage. In parties they

explored our holds and accommodation, measured in paces for a rough

survey, and prepared their plans. Their Commandant (a very famous

soldier to-day) permitted us to be present when the officers were

assembled and their papers read out and discussed. In general it was

estimated that the work of alteration and fitting the ship for troops

would occupy from eight to ten working days. Our quota--of all

ranks--averaged about eleven hundred men.

[Illustration: A BRITISH SUBMARINE DETAILED FOR INSTRUCTION OF MERCHANT

OFFICERS]

The work was sound and no small ingenuity was advanced in planning

adaptations, but the spirit of emergency did not show an evidence in

their careful papers. The proposed voyage was distinctly stated to be

from Newhaven to Dieppe, and it seemed to us that the elaborate

accommodation for a prison, a guard-room, a hospital, were somewhat

ambitious for a six-hour sea-passage. In conversation with the

Commandant, we were of opinion that, to a degree, their work and pains

were rather needless. Carrying passengers (troops and others) was our

business; a trade in which we had been occupied for some few years. He

agreed. He regarded their particular exercise in the same light as the

'herring-and-a-half' problem of the schoolroom: it was good for the

young braves to learn something of their only gangway to a foreign

field. "Of course," he said, "if war comes it will be duty for the Navy

to supervise our sea-transport." We understood that their duty would be

to safeguard our passage, but we had not thought of supervision in

outfit. The Commandant was incredulous when we remarked that we had

never met a naval transport officer, that we knew of no plans to meet

such an emergency as that submitted to his officers. It was evident that

his trained soldierly intendance could not contemplate a situation in

which the seamen of the country had no foreknowledge of a war service;

it was amazing to him that we were not already drilled for duties that

might, at any moment, be thrust upon us. Pointing across the dock to

where two vessels of the Bremen Hansa Line were working in haste to

catch the tide, he affirmed that they would be better prepared: _their_

place in mobilization would be detailed, their duties and services made

clear.

We knew of no plans for our employment in war service; we had no

position allotted to us in measures for emergency. We were sufficiently

proud of our seafaring to understand a certain merit in this apparent

lack of prevision: we took it as in compliment to the efficiency and

resource with which our sea-trade was credited. Was it not on our

records that the Isle of Man steamers transported 58,000 people in the

daylight hours of an August Bank Holiday. A seventy-mile passage.

Trippers. Less amenable to ordered direction than disciplined troops. A

day's work, indeed. Unequalled, unbeaten by any record to date in the

amazing statistics of the war. There was no need for supervision and

direction: we knew our business, we could pick up the tune as we

marched.

We did. On the outbreak of war we fell into our places in transport of

troops and military material with little more ado than in handling our

peace-time cargoes. The ship on which the Staff students worked their

problems set out on almost the very route they had planned for her, but

with no prison or guard-room or hospital, and sixteen hundred troops

instead of eleven: the time taken to fit her (including discharge of a

cargo) occupied exactly four days. We saw but little of the naval

authority.

[Illustration: THE D.A.M.S. GUNWHARF AT GLASGOW]

Later, in our war work, we made the acquaintance of the naval transport

officer. Generally, he was not intimate with the working of merchant

ships. His duties were largely those of interpretation. Through him

Admiralty passed their orders: it devolved on the mercantile shore staff

of the shipping companies to carry these orders into execution. If, in

transport services, our marine superintendents and ships' husbands did

not share in the honours, it was not for want of merit. They could not

complain of lack of work in the early days of the war when the transport

officer was serving his apprenticeship to the trade. The absence of a

keen knowledge and interest in commercial ship-practice at the transport

office made for complex situations; hesitancies and conflicting

orders added to the arduous business. Under feverish pressure a ship

would be unloaded on to quay space already congested, ballast be

contracted for--and delivered; a swarm of carpenters, working day and

night, would fit her for carriage of troops. At the eleventh hour some

one idly fingering a tide-table would discover that the vessel drew too

much water to cross the bar of her intended port of discharge. (The

marine superintendent was frequently kept in ignorance of the vessel's

intended destination.) Telegraph and telephone are handy--"Requisition

cancelled" is easily passed over the wires! _As you were_ is a simple

order in official control, but it creates an atmosphere of misdirection

almost as deadly as German gas. Only our tremendous resources, the sound

ability of our mercantile superintendents, the industry of the

contractors and quay staffs, brought order out of chaos and placed the

vessels in condition for service at disposal of the Admiralty.

Despite all blunders and vacillations our expedition was not unworthy of

the emergency. How much better we could have done had there been a

considered scheme of competent control must ever remain a conjecture.

Four years of war practice have improved on the hasty measures with

which we met the first immediate call. Sea-transport of troops and

munitions of war has become a highly specialized business for naval

directorate and mercantile executant alike. Ripe experience in the

thundering years has sweetened our relations. The naval transport

officer has learnt his trade. He is better served. He has now an

adequate executant staff, recruited largely from the Merchants' Service.

With liberal assistance he relies less on telegraph and telephone to

advance his work: our atmosphere is no longer polluted by the miasma of

indecision, and by the chill airs of the barracks.

Of our Naval War Staff, the transport officer was the first on the

field, but his duties were only concerned with ships requisitioned for

semi-naval service. For long we had no national assistance in our purely

commercial seafaring. Our sea-rulers (if they existed) were unconcerned

with the judicious employment of mercantile tonnage: some of our finest

liners were swinging the tides in harbour, rusting at their

cables--serving as prison hulks for interned enemies. Our service on the

sea was as lightly held. We made our voyages as in peace-time. We had no

means of communication with the naval ships at sea other than the

universally understood International Code of Signals. Any measures we

took to keep out of the way of enemy war vessels, then abroad, were our

own. We had no Intelligence Service to advise us in our choice of

sea-routes, and act as distributors of confidential information. We were

far too 'jack-easy' in our seafaring: we estimated the enemy's sea-power

over-lightly.

In time we learned our lesson. Tentative measures were advanced.

Admiralty, through the Trade Division, took an interest in our

employment. Orders and advices took long to reach us. These were first

communicated to the War Risks Associations, who sent them to our owners.

We received them as part of our sailing orders, rather late to allow of

considered efforts on our part to conform with their tenor. There was no

channel of direct communication. When on point of sailing, we projected

our own routes, recorded them in a sealed memorandum which we left with

our owners. If we fell overdue Admiralty could only learn of our route

by application to the holders of the memorandum. A short trial proved

the need for a better system. Shipping Intelligence Officers were

appointed at the principal seaports. At this date some small echo of our

demand for a part in our governance had reached the Admiralty. In

selecting officers for these posts an effort was made to give us men

with some understanding of mercantile practice; a number of those

appointed to our new staff were senior officers of the R.N.R. who were

conversant with our way of business. (If they did, on occasion, project

a route for us clean through the Atlantic ice-field in May, they were

open to accept a criticism and reconsider the voyage.) With them were

officers of the Royal Navy who had specialized in navigation, a branch

of our trade that does not differ greatly from naval practice. They

joined with us in discussion of the common link that held few

opportunities for strained association. Certainly we took kindly to our

new directors from the first; we worked in an atmosphere of confidence.

The earliest officer appointed to the West Coast would blush to know the

high esteem in which he is held, a regard that (perhaps by virtue of his

tact and courtesy) was in course extended to his colleagues of a later

date.

The work of the S.I.O. is varied and extensive. His principal duty is to

plan and set out our oversea route, having regard to his accurate

information of enemy activities. All Admiralty instructions as to our

sea-conduct pass through his hands. He issues our confidential papers

and is, in general, the channel of our communication with the Naval

Service. He may be likened to our signal and interlocking expert. On

receipt of certain advices he orders the arm of the semaphore to be

thrown up against us. The port is closed to the outward-bound. His

offices are quickly crowded by masters seeking information for their

sailings: with post and telephone barred to us in this connection, we

must make an appearance in person to receive our orders. A tide or two

may come and go while we wait for passage. We have opportunity, in the

waiting-room, to meet and become intimate with our fellow-seafarers. It

is good for the captain of a liner to learn how the captain of a North

Wales schooner makes his bread, the difficulties of getting decent yeast

at the salt-ports; how the schooner's boy won't learn ("indeed to

goodness") the proper way his captain shows him to mix the dough!

On telegraphic advice the arm of the semaphore rattles down. The port is

open to traffic again. The waiting-room is emptied and we are off to the

sea, perhaps fortified by the S.I.O.'s confidence that the cause of the

stoppage has been violently removed from the sea-lines.