THE CASUALTY
THERE were duties performed by the new navy which bore no relationship
to anti-submarine fighting, or, in fact, to warfare at all, unless it
was to the ceaseless battle waged between all who go down to the sea in
ships and the elements they seek to master.
One such as this occurred at a little northern seaport in the late
winter of 1917, unimportant and scarcely worth relating except as an
illustration of the diverse services rendered by men of this great force
during the years of national peril.
* * * * *
The gale was at the height of its fury when the March day drew to a
close. The whole east coast of Scotland, from John o' Groats to the
mouth of the Tweed, was a study in black and white--the white of foam
and the black of rocks. All the minesweepers and smaller patrol ships
had been confined to their respective bases for several days, and in a
certain small harbour many of the officers and crews of the imprisoned
ships were spending their time ashore, in the warmth and cheery comfort
of hospitable firesides.
The boisterous day became a wild night. The wind howled and whistled
over the barren moors and through the streets of the small fishing
town. Houses trembled and chimneys rocked under the blasts. Although a
watch on the signal tower and elsewhere was religiously maintained, it
was of little value, as all that could be seen in the darkness to
seawards was a hazy mist of flying spray which the wind whisked from the
surface and carried several miles inland.
Standing back from the sea, and some half-mile from the centre of the
little fishing town, stood a substantially built house, more commodious
and better furnished than many of its neighbours, which had
providentially fallen into the temporary grasp of one of the married
officers of the patrol flotilla, who generously kept open house for his
less fortunate brothers-in-arms.
On this wild winter night the interior looked excessively cosy and
inviting. Before a big blazing fire of logs sat three officers, talking
between copious sips of whisky and soda. Their conversation was subdued
and their inhalations of cigar smoke long. By their side were the
faithful women who had followed them from the comforts of home and the
gaieties of the great southern cities to this remote corner of northern
Scotland. They too were talking among themselves and knitting for the
crews of their husbands' ships.
This quiet domestic scene would have gone on uninterruptedly until a
late hour, for it was seldom that such precious moments of rest and
contentment could be snatched amid the ever-recurring duties and the
turmoil of war, had it not been for one of the officers who glanced
ruefully at his wrist watch and then apologetically informed his host
that it was his turn for night duty on the signal tower.
Scarcely had he risen from the fire and moved towards the door of the
room, however, before the dull boom of a gun was borne on the howling
wind. All stood still and listened. The women ceased their knitting and
looked up apprehensively. Then a minute or so later the boom came again,
this time in a lull of the storm, and it sounded nearer.
The three officers hurried into the hall to get on oilskins and
sea-boots, but almost before this could be done there came a report
which echoed sharply through the little town. They knew the sound only
too well, for the coast was a dangerous one. It was the reply of the
life-boat crew to the call of distress, and with one accord they moved
towards the door. Almost instantly it was thrown violently open and the
rush of wind and rain extinguished the hall light. For the next few
minutes they were struggling against the gale, battling their way to the
lofty little signal station, impeded in every movement by driving rain,
flying scud, intense blackness and flapping oilskins.
When they had reached the coast and mounted the rough stone steps
leading to the elevated look-out tower, a clear sweep of the dark,
foam-crested surface was obtained, and the news was shouted above the
roar of the gale that somewhere out in the night, amid the tormented
waters, a ship was in distress, though the flying spray made it
impossible to locate the exact direction.
Below the signal tower, and built on a mass of rock projecting into the
half-sheltered water inside the concrete pier, was the life-boat house.
From this point the white rays of a chemical flare lighted up the
surface of the sea as far as the harbour bar, which, with its flanking
rocks, resembled a seething cauldron. Into this the life-boat plunged
from its inclined slipway, and was almost instantly swallowed up in the
outer ring of darkness and spray. The flare died out suddenly and the
night seemed even blacker than before.
After a brief struggle with the wind, now blowing at a speed of over
seventy miles an hour, the men who had assembled around the signal
station made their way out on to the spray-swept breakwater, and there
waited for the coloured rocket from the life-boat which would signify
that she had found the wreck.
Nearly an hour passed but no sign came from the darkness and boiling
sea. Then a light appeared momentarily on the harbour bar and was lost
in the smother of white. A few minutes later a grinding crash came from
the rocks less than a hundred yards distant from the end of the
breakwater.
The groups of sailors standing under the lee of the wall, chafing at
their apparent helplessness and gazing anxiously out to sea, were
suddenly electrified into action by a few sharp orders from the
oilskinned commander. A minute or two of seemingly inextricable
confusion resulted in the beams of a portable searchlight flashing out
from the spray-swept breakwater and lighting up rocks, foam, and a big
three-masted Norwegian sailing ship, with sails torn, her fore-mast
broken off short and every sea lifting high her stern and driving her
farther on to the half-hidden tongues of stone. Even as the light played
on her she heeled over to starboard at an angle of about forty-five
degrees with an ominous rending of timbers which sounded above the roar
of wind and surf.
Orders were bellowed through a megaphone, and again men moved quickly in
all directions. This time a fiery rocket, bearing a life-line, soared
from its tube with a loud hiss and sped across the hundred yards of
boiling sea. It straddled the wreck. The thin line it carried was soon
exchanged for a stout hawser--hauled from the breakwater--and this was
made fast to the stump of the mainmast, which had followed the other
"sticks" overboard when the vessel heeled over on the rocks. It was now
floating, wrestling and tugging at the mass of confused rigging, and
pounding dangerously at the ship's side.
One by one the unfortunate Norse crew were hauled over the harbour bar
in the breeches-buoy by fifty willing British sailors, and the first to
come was the captain's wife and little daughter.
There was but one casualty, and that among the rescuers. The stretcher
was lifted from the ambulance at the door of the substantially built
house standing back from the little town. A white-faced woman ran out
into the storm. She had spent a year of nights and days half expecting
such as this, and now that it had come the blood seemed to ebb from her
body, and at first she scarcely heard a familiar voice assuring her that
it was only a cut on the head from a broken wire rope.