A MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS
NO calling tempers the human steel in so short a period as that of the
sea. At all times and in every part of the world the sailorman wages a
never-ending fight with Nature in her wildest and most dreaded modes.
When to this is added a conflict of nations and their ships, with all
the ingenious death-traps of modern naval science, it merely increases
the odds against him and serves to steady his hand and brain in order to
overcome them.
In a few short weeks the sea had set its stamp on the men of the new
navy. Faces became bronzed by the sun, wind and spindrift. Muscles grew
hard and eyes and nerves more steady. Each time a vessel went forth on
patrol or other duty new difficulties or dangers were met and overcome
without advice or assistance, and the confidence of men in themselves
and in the ships they worked grew apace.
In many of the principal zones of war, such as the North Sea and the
Atlantic, the wind grew colder and the seas more fierce as the short
summer passed. Duffel or Arctic clothing was served out to both officers
and men. Sea-boots and oilskins became necessary. Balaclava helmets,
mufflers and other woollen gear appeared, and men became almost
unrecognisable bundles of clothing. The ascent at 4 A.M. from the cabin
to the cold, wet deck can be likened only to the first plunge of a cold
bathing season. Casualties became more frequent as the enemy intensified
his submarine and mining campaign. The news and sight of sudden death no
longer blanched the faces of men who knew that it might be their turn at
any moment of every day and night. The stir of suppressed excitement
when danger threatened no longer manifested itself in every movement,
but rather in the cool, deliberate action of self-confidence. In a word,
the raw material was being tempered in the furnace of war.
To those in northern seas came the blinding sleet, the slate-grey
combers and the innumerable hardships and dangers of winter patrol. A
better idea of what these really were will be obtained from the
following account of a Christmas spent on a German mine-field.
* * * * *
A bitter wind swept the grey wastes of the North Sea and a fine haze of
snow, driven by stinging gusts, obscured all except the long hillocks of
water which rose and fell around the tiny M.L.--a lonely thirty tons of
nautical humanity in as many square leagues of sub-Arctic sea.
Nineteen degrees of frost during the long winter night had flattened the
boisterous, foam-capped waves, and now, in the early December dawn, all
within vision was of that colourless grey so familiar to those who kept
the North Sea on the winter patrol.
It was one bell in the first watch and three shapeless figures clad in
duffel coats with big hoods and wearing heavy sea-boots stood silent in
the draughty, canvas-screened wheel-house as M.L.822 wallowed northwards
through the seas which came in endless succession out of the snowy mist.
It was just the ordinary everyday patrol duty, when nothing was expected
but anything might happen, so eyes were strained seawards in a vain
endeavour to penetrate the icy curtain blowing down from the Pole.
Twelve hours more of half-frozen existence stretched in front of these
silent watchers, as they clung with stiffened limbs to ropes stretched
purposely handy to keep them upright when the little ship lurched more
fiercely in a steeper sea.
Of the three figures in the meagre shelter of the wheel-house there was
little to distinguish who or what they were, except, perhaps, a cleaner
and more yellowish duffel coat and a big white muffler in which the
lieutenant-in-command tried, without success, to keep his teeth from
chattering and the icy draught from finding its way into the seemingly
endless openings of his woollen clothing. What he had been before the
Great War and the North Sea claimed him was a mystery to those on board,
but the people of more than one capital knew his name. Near by stood a
younger man--a boy before the war--who, although pale and dark-eyed, did
not appear to feel the intense cold so much, although the dampness of
the long-past summer fogs had chilled him to the bone. He was the
sub-lieutenant, and hailed from the Great North-West, where Canadian
winters had hardened his skin to the stinging dry cold.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Duffel or Arctic clothing.]
The immense bundle of nondescript clothing at the wheel was "Mac," the
coxswain, whose voyages in Arctic seas with the Iceland fishing fleet
numbered more than his years of life, and whose deep-voiced Gaelic roar
could bring the "watch below" on to the cold, wet deck to their action
stations in less time than it would take a new recruit to tumble out of
his hammock.
Although the silence of the sea seems to settle on its watchers in those
northern marches, there was an unduly long absence of comment on the
nature of the weather and the prospects of "something exciting" turning
up out of the icy mist. The reason lay in the subconscious mind of all
on deck, for it was Christmas morning, 1916, and the thoughts of all
were dwelling on past years in the cheery surroundings of English and
Colonial homes--in vivid contrast to the dismal grey of the North Sea.
To break the spell of memory both officers felt would be blasphemy, and
yet a feeble attempt at conversation was made every now and then for the
sake of appearances.
To Mac, from the Orkneys, no such sentiment held sway, for Christmas to
him meant little compared with New Year's Day; but this was a special
Christmas, for a big plum pudding was being boiled on the petrol stove
below, and each roll of the little vessel threatened its useful
existence. Eventually he could keep silent no longer and tentatively
suggested a change of course to ease the violent lurching. The wheel was
spun round with alacrity as the telegraph rang out below and the engines
slowed down to a slow pulsating throb. The sharp bows of the patrol boat
rose dripping from each green-grey mass of sea as it rolled up out of
the white haze ahead and then fell gently back into the trough. The
violent pitching gave place to a more easy see-saw movement, and in
spite of the cold, which seemed to grow keener every minute to the
half-numbed figures on deck, a grunt of satisfaction escaped the
helmsman, and visions of steaming plum duff--a present from the
Admiral's wife--supplanted the more anxious thoughts of war and the
dangers of mine and submarine which lay hidden in the white snow-mists
and grey seas around.
The four hands in the forecastle, who formed the watch below, were lying
on their bunks, for sitting meant holding on, and were discussing orgies
on past Christmas days and planning future ones with a nonchalance bred
of daily rubbing shoulders with danger and death. Snatches of popular
music hall songs penetrated the closed hatchways, but were drowned by
the splash of the sea against the ship's side.
This silent battle with monotony, bitter cold and drenching showers of
spray, with several numbing hours on deck, followed by an equal time
lying on the bunks below--still cold and wet, for fires and dry clothes
were almost unknown in the patrol boats during the long winter months in
the cruel northern seas--might have lasted all day, until darkness and
increasing cold added their quota to the sum of misery, and the day
patrol crept silently into harbour, to be relieved by their brethren of
the night guard.
But such was not to be, for it was a Christmas Day that will live for
ever in the memory of the men on Patrol Launch No. 822, to be recalled
in the peaceful years ahead to eager listeners at many a fireside.
Two bells in the afternoon watch had barely struck when from out of the
haze ahead came a low reverberating boom! The three figures on the
bridge stiffened to alertness and the chilled blood went coursing more
warmly through their veins. A few seconds of strained listening,
rewarded only by the noise of the sea, then the telegraph was moved
forward, a sharp jangle of bells came from the engine-room and
forecastle and the slow pulsating of the motors grew to a loud roar. The
watch below came tumbling on to the wet deck, to be lashed with clouds
of blinding, stinging spray, which now flew high over the little ship as
the 400-horse-power engines drove her at 18 knots through the grey,
misty seas.
Experience had made that dull roar familiar to all on board, and it
needed no order from the now hard-faced C.O. to cause every man to don
his "capuc" life-belt in readiness for the hidden dangers which they
knew to be strewn in the pathways of the sea ahead.
Mines are moored at a given depth below the surface, usually from six to
ten feet. The rise and fall of the tide, therefore, either increases or
decreases the stratum of free water above them. This causes these
invisible submarine weapons to be more dangerous to shallow-draught
vessels, such as motor patrol launches, at low tide, when there is
little water between the tops of their horns and the surface, than at
high tide. More will, however, be said in a later chapter about mines
and the difficulties of laying them.
It so happened that on this occasion the tide was low and the mines
consequently extremely dangerous to even the shallowest draught type of
warship. The speed of the M.L. was increased until the twin engines
were revolving at the rate of 490 a minute.
The snow haze seemed suddenly to grow thicker and all around the
flurries of white blotted out the distant view. The minutes of pounding
through the slate-grey seas seemed interminably long, and the flying
clouds of icy spray stung every exposed part of the human frame.
When about three sea miles had been traversed the engines were stopped
and all on board listened for a cry from the sea ahead. The C.O. pulled
the peak of his drenched cap farther over his eyes and gazed out into
the opaque greyness ahead.
Minutes passed; but little ships cannot rest quietly on the open sea.
The lash of the water and the slapping of the meagre rigging drowned any
faint sound there might have been, and once more the engines throbbed to
the order "Slow ahead!"
Barely had the ship gathered way before a dark object appeared
momentarily in the trough of the sea about two degrees on the starboard
bow and the next instant seemed swallowed up.
A warning cry from the look-out on the tiny sea-washed fo'c'sle head, a
sharp order from the bridge, and, within its own length, the patrol boat
swung rapidly to port. At the same moment a dan-buoy splashed overboard
to mark the position of the floating mine. A few yards more to the
eastward and No. 822 would have appeared in the list of the missing.
Minutes of tense nerve strain followed, for all knew that the ship was
in the midst of a mine-field, and the deadly horns which had been
momentarily visible on the surface were but a single example of the many
which lurked around. Eyes were strained into the grey-green depths, and
yet all knew the impossibility of seeing. Again the look-out's warning
cry and the engines were reversed, but this time it was not a mine, but
the victim of one, holding on to a piece of wreckage.
Willing hands hauled the half-frozen form on board and stanched the
blood that still oozed from cuts on the face and neck. Blankets and
hot-water bottles were soon forthcoming, and the battered remnant--for
both a leg and thigh bone were broken--was placed as carefully as the
lurching of the ship would allow in the aft-cabin bunk. Before this
could be accomplished, however, a cry again rang out from the watch on
the fo'c'sle head and yet another body was hauled aboard, but the shock
or the cold had here taken its toll.
The sea around was searched in vain for further survivors. A few planks,
a signal locker, a broken life-raft and a meat-safe were all that was
left of the trawler _Mayflower_, homeward bound from Iceland to Grimsby.
A silence seemed to brood over the patrol boat as she slowly picked her
way out of the mine-field. The crew went about their tasks without the
usual jests and snatches of song, and the pudding, which but a few short
hours before had seemed the most important event of the day, lay
unheeded on the floor of the galley, where it had been thrown by the
cook in the haste for hot water.
In the failing light of the December afternoon the bow of the patrol
boat was turned shorewards, and, with a rising sea curling up astern,
she raced through the slate-grey water with her burden of living and
dead. It was one of those moments which call for a rapid decision on a
difficult point, when the order had to be given for the course to be
laid for harbour, and the C.O., cold and miserably wet after seven hours
on the bridge, wore an anxious look. He knew not which had the greater
claim, the desperately wounded man in the cabin or other ships which
might bear down on the mine-field during the long bitter night. It was a
point on which the rules of war and the dictates of humanity clashed.
Again the ship was turned into the rapidly darkening east, and all
through that bitter night the field of death was guarded. Stiffened
fingers flashed out the warning signal when black hulls loomed out of
the darkness. Numbed limbs clung for dear life when green seas washed
the tiny decks, and when dawn broke over the waste of tumbling sea the
men on M.L.822 knew that Christmas Day, 1916, would live for ever in
their memory.