IN THE SHADOW OF A BIG SEA FIGHT
ON the evening of 30th May 1916 six of his Majesty's drifters were lying
alongside the quay of a Scottish naval base having their few hours'
"stand-off" after weary days patrolling lines of submerged nets. Their
officers and crews, with the exception of one sad-faced company on guard
duty, were enjoying either the comparative luxury of a corrugated-iron
wardroom, situated on a windy stone pier, or a few the more complete
relaxation of a brief visit to a theatre in a neighbouring town. There
were also many other ships coaling, resting and being repaired, for the
base was a large and important one.
In the intelligence office an assistant paymaster, weary of decoding
cypher wireless messages from flotillas, patrols and sweepers spread far
out over the leagues of sea lying between this port and the German
coast, sat talking to the executive officer on night duty.
About 8 P.M. a messenger from the wireless cabin entered with the
familiar signal form and the A.P. spread it out carelessly on the desk
in front of him, taking the sturdy little lead-covered decipher book
from the safe at his side. A few scratches of the pen beneath the secret
signal and the deciphering was complete. He looked up quickly and with
a gesture of keen satisfaction handed the signal to the officer
temporarily in command of the base.
The older man read it and paused for a moment before replying. It was
the brief and now historic statement that an action between Sir David
Beatty's battle cruisers and the German High Seas Fleet was imminent. A
crowd of orders to be executed in the event of all kinds of emergencies
were rapidly reviewed in his active brain. For a brief space the scene
of what was occurring out in the blackness of the North Sea occupied his
thoughts, for he had fought in the battle of the Dogger Bank and knew
what those brief words really meant. It was the evening of the battle of
Jutland.
Rising quickly to his feet, the night duty officer seized the telephone,
rang up the Admiral Commanding, who had gone home to dinner, and
hurriedly left the intelligence office to carry out a host of
prearranged orders.
The "old man," as admirals are invariably called, was evidently ready
for the emergency, for his large grey car tore past the sentries at the
approaches to the base, and in a few minutes he was closeted with his
commanders and other officers in the small matchboarded cabin. Charts
were pinned down on the table in front of him, and for the next
half-hour officers and messengers were kept busy with telephones and
other means of rapid concentration.
In the neighbouring large town the police had received the order for a
"general naval recall" and were active in the streets politely informing
officers and men on short leave that their services were required
immediately at the bases. In the theatres and cinema halls the cryptic
message, "All naval officers and men to return at once to their ships,"
was given out from the stage or thrown on the screen, a replica of the
night before Waterloo.
Men wondered and women grew anxious. Did it mean an invasion or an air
raid? Many were the questions asked as silently seats were left and
files of blue and gold streamed out of the places of amusement.
Taxi-cabs full of officers raced each other along the streets. Civilians
had to give place to sailors on the tram-cars, and then, in less than
thirty minutes, all was quiet again, except for groups of people
discussing possibilities in front of the big public buildings. Even
these soon dispersed when reassuring messages were circulated which
hinted at the reason for the recall, and the level-headed Scottish
citizens went home wondering what the great news would be on the
morrow--for the fate of empires might be decided during the night.
As each officer and man entered the base the gates were closed. The
sentries and the officer of the guard knew nothing "officially," but in
the wardroom at the end of the stone quay the news of the action was
being discussed in imaginative detail. At 11 P.M. orders were received
for certain small ships to get under way with sealed orders. An hour
later came the message that six drifters were to be cleared of all their
war appliances and were to be given stretchers, cots, slings and other
appliances for the carriage of wounded. They were to be ready to proceed
to sea at 2 A.M.
All was ordered hurry. Piles of anti-submarine devices were taken from
the holds of these ships. Other vessels came alongside and unloaded
stretchers, cots and slings, which had been obtained from local naval
hospitals and hospital ships. The officers were grouped round a
commander in the wardroom having typed orders, which had evidently been
prepared long beforehand, carefully explained to them. Red Cross flags
were served out, and by 1.30 A.M. all were ready for sea.
Other ships stole silently out into the blueness of the night to
strengthen patrols and prevent hostile submarines from getting into
position to attack the main battle fleets on their return to harbour.
Wireless messages indicating a concentration of German submarines on the
lines of communication were received. Every armed ship was in great
demand, but over the dark waters, lashed by a stiff easterly breeze, the
gunners of many batteries gazed steadily as the searchlights played
around, investigating everything that moved on the face of the waters.
Beams flashed heavenwards for hostile aerial fleets.
On the dark quaysides and on the decks of the ships hundreds of sailors
moved noiselessly about getting ready for sea. Columns of smoke from
the short funnels of destroyers, trawlers and drifters showed up black
against the indigo void, and ever and anon hoarse voices shouted orders,
unintelligible from the distance. It was quiet preparation rather than
noisy haste, and although an air of suppressed excitement did prevail
when the men were mustered and extra hands told off to the different
ships by the light of battle lanterns, it was more a feeling of hope
than one of satisfaction.
For nearly two years these men had quietly fought the elusive submarine,
the nerve-shattering mine, and endured uncomplainingly the terrible
hardships, arduous work and monotony of patrol, and now their one
fervent hope was a glimpse at least of the real thing.
In the wardroom on the quay about sixty officers of all ranks were
discussing the possibilities of the fight while waiting impatiently for
the last command before the relief of action--"Carry on as ordered."
Conversation centred on the Grand Fleet, under Sir John Jellicoe,
steaming down from the north. Many had seen those miles of gigantic
warships, whose mere existence had preserved for the Entente the command
of the sea and all that it implied. Others had served in ships whose
names have been familiar to Englishmen since the days of Nelson, and now
opined that when at last the "old ship"--perhaps a brand-new
super-dreadnought--was going into action on the great day it was their
luck to be in command of a "one-horse" boat miles from the field of
glory.
Four bells had struck when the signal came for all ships under orders
to proceed to sea. Oilskins were rapidly slipped on, for a fine rain had
commenced to fall and the damp wind was penetratingly cold at this early
hour. Almost silently the small grey ships slid out of harbour and were
lost in the blueness of the night.
* * * * *
When dawn broke over the choppy tumbling sea the different flotillas
were far apart, each attending to its allotted task. Those engaged in
patrolling the route by which the battle cruisers would return found
themselves acting in conjunction with a division of destroyers, some of
whom had been under refit but a few hours previously, but when the
tocsin of battle rang out had _made themselves_ ready for sea in an
incredibly short time, thereby earning the praise of the
commander-in-chief.
Information had been received, and later in the day was confirmed, that
no less than five hostile submarines were known to be waiting in the
vicinity with the object of attacking any crippled ships from the battle
fleets, and it became the duty of the patrols to clear them away from
the lines of communication. For over twenty hours the seas around were
churned by the keels of a heterogeneous fleet of ships armed with
equally heterogeneous weapons. Guns' crews stayed by their weapons until
their limbs ached and look-outs searched the sea with burning eyes.
Through the short dark hours of a May night in northern latitudes
searchlights swept the near approaches, while in the black void of sea
and sky beyond myriads of mosquito craft moved over the face of the
waters with all lights out and their narrow decks cleared for action.
Alarms were frequent, and the occasional yellow flashes and sharp
reports of cordite, some too far distant to be visible, told their own
tale. In the treacherous light of early dawn the fins of big porpoises
were more than once mistaken for the hunted periscope.
* * * * *
With the Red Cross flotilla waiting behind the screen of patrols and
defences things had moved rapidly. Each little ship had been told off to
attend on one or other of the great warships which were hourly expected
from the battle zone. Stretchers, bedding, cots and slings were piled on
the decks, and extra hands had been lent for the work of removing the
wounded.
Another flotilla was in readiness to replace the casualties with
reinforcements, which had been concentrated by special trains, in order
that the battle fleets and squadrons might be again ready for sea in the
shortest possible time.
At the base trains and big ships were waiting with every known appliance
to alleviate the suffering which was coming in from the sea.
It was a typical May morning, with a light easterly breeze, when the
first of the great line of ships--H.M.S. _Lion_--came into view. A
hurricane of cheers greeted her from the deck of every ship that passed.
Then the gallant _Warspite_, low by the stern and scarred and torn by
tornadoes of shell; the _New Zealand_, scarcely touched by the fiery
ordeal; the plucky little light cruiser _Southampton_, holed and
battered; followed by cruiser after cruiser with attendant destroyers,
some with great bright steel splinters of shell still sticking tight in
the gouged armour-plate; others with holes plugged with wood and
broadsides stained with the bright yellow of high explosives. Gun
shields caught by the gusts of shell were cut out like fretwork; funnels
were blotched with blackened holes; but of them all not one was out of
action. Few, if any, of the heavy guns and armoured barbettes were
damaged, and all except one--the _Warspite_--came in proudly under their
own steam. This was the return of the battle cruiser and light cruiser
squadrons, which, under Sir David Beatty, had met and defeated
practically the entire German navy. Steaming back into the northern mist
was the Grand Fleet--the largest assembly of warships ever known--which,
had it been given the opportunity so eagerly sought, would undoubtedly
have annihilated the remains of Von Hipper's fleet.
An observer from a distance would have found it difficult to believe
that this was the fleet which had just fought the greatest sea fight in
the history of the world. Yet the decks of the seaplane carrier
_Engadine_ were covered with men in motley clothes, a grim reminder of
the severity of the ordeal, for they were the survivors from the
thousands who had manned the _Princess Royal_ and _Invincible_. On the
high poop a fleet chaplain was surrounded by figures in borrowed duffel
suits giving thanks to the God of Battles for their rescue.
As the engines of each great ship came temporarily to rest a vessel of
the Red Cross flotilla ranged alongside and the more sombre work of war
began. A shell through the sick-bay of H.M.S. _Lion_ had caused Sir
David Beatty to have many of the wounded on that ship placed in his own
cabins. The only casualty on the _New Zealand_ was caused by a gust of
bursting steel over the signal bridge. A big shell had passed
longitudinally through the line of officers' cabins in the battered
little _Southampton_, and many were the curious escapes from death. In
modern naval war a heavy casualty list seems unavoidable, and the deadly
nature of a sea fight will perhaps be better realised when it is stated
that on one of the battle cruisers there were just over three hundred
casualties, of which number very nearly two hundred were killed
outright, and this on a ship which still sailed proudly into port in
fighting condition. Where the shells had burst in the steel flats the
fierce heat generated had burnt off the clothes and skin of many who
were untouched by the flying slivers of steel, and the crews of the
secondary batteries of smaller guns suffered severely.
Cot cases were the first to be lowered from the decks of the warships to
the waiting Red Cross boats. The patience and care with which this
difficult operation was carried out may be gauged from the fact that
there were no casualties or deaths during the work of transportation.
Human forms, swathed from head to foot in yellow picric-acid dressings,
were lowered on to the decks or carried down the gangways. By a curious
ordinance of fate, _picric acid_, one of the most deadly explosives
known, also provides a medical dressing for the alleviation of the pain
which in another form it may have caused. The walking wounded, with arms
in slings or heads covered in lint, were helped down the ship's sides by
smoke-blackened comrades in uniforms torn to shreds by the fierce work
of naval war.
All serious cases of shell shock were conveyed at the utmost speed by
special units to the big and lavishly equipped hospital ships. Those
with minor injuries were taken ashore and placed in ambulance trains for
distribution among the big naval hospitals. So perfect was the
organisation that within three hours all the sick-bays had been cleared
and fresh crews placed on board. The squadrons were again ready to give
battle.
Twenty-four hours later the patrol flotillas returned to their base to
commence once again the dangerous and monotonous but less spectacular
work of minesweeping and patrol. Their work in preventing a
concentration of German submarines on the line of route of the returning
fleets and in the removal of the wounded received high praise from the
commander-in-chief. In the wardroom on the little stone pier a silent
toast was given that night to those who had gone aloft in the greatest
sea fight since Trafalgar.