A NIGHT ATTACK
TWO drifters, about a mile apart, with no lights to indicate their
presence, were drifting idly with the ebb tide. It was an oppressively
hot night in mid-August. Scarcely a ripple disturbed the surface of the
sea, but the intense darkness and the absence of stars told of the heavy
clouds above. The barometer had been falling rapidly for some hours and
all the conditions seemed to indicate a coming storm.
The duty of these two vessels was to watch lines of cunningly laid
submerged nets (described in an earlier chapter) and to guide the few
merchant ships which passed that way through the labyrinth of these
defences, laid temporarily as a trap for the wily "Fritz" if he should
chance to be cruising in the vicinity.
The drifters were adequately armed with guns and depth charges to attack
any such monster of the deep which betrayed its presence by becoming
entangled in the fine wire mesh and so attaching to itself a flaming
tail, which would then be dragged along the surface, marking it as a
target for all the pleasant surprises lying ready on the decks of the
patrols.
_Fishing for Fritz_ was a popular sport in the anti-submarine service
until the "fish" became shy and its devotees _blase_; then the primitive
net was changed for the more scientific devices already described. It
required infinite patience and meant very hard work, with a _soupcon_ of
danger thrown in. For when the tons of steel wire-netting, with its
heavy sinkers and floats, had been laid, days were spent in watching and
repairing, then endless resource employed to induce a submarine to enter
the trap. Occasionally the voyage ended in an exciting chase, with the
flaming buoy as the guiding light.
It was in the early period of the war, when Paris was still threatened
by the Teutonic armies and the Allies waited confidently for the clash
of the great battle fleets. Every dark night on the northern sea eyes
and ears were silently watching and listening for the comings and goings
which would herald the storm. The strain was great though the work was
not spectacular, for all knew that the safety of England, or at least
its freedom from invasion, might, for one brief historical instant,
depend on the vigilance and nerve of that heterogeneous, irregular
horse, the sea patrols.
The great cruiser squadrons were scouring the North Sea. Battle seemed
imminent, and that vague wave of human electricity which passes along
the firing line before the attack at dawn, and even extends to the lines
of communication, was in the air on this dark night in 1915.
Six bells had just struck when a faint, cool breeze swept across the
surface, and a few minutes later the first vivid flash of lightning
forked the eastern sky. There was a scramble for oilskins on Drifter 42
as the rain came hissing down like a flood released. The storm was
severe while it lasted. The thunder rolled over the placid surface.
Lightning darted athwart the sky, illuminating the black void beneath.
For about thirty minutes the sky blazed and roared, then the hiss of the
rain ceased and the storm moved slowly northwards, but one of the final
flashes revealed something low down on the surface moving stealthily
forward. So brief was the glimpse obtained, however, that it seemed
merely a phantom--by no means uncommon occurrences when men have been
watching for years. When the next flash came the surface of the sea
around was clear.
As was usual in such cases, half the watch on deck could swear they had
seen it, while those who were not looking ridiculed the idea, so the
C.O. said nothing and took precautions. The watch below was called and
the powerful little gun on the fore-deck manned. Then all waited in
silence, listening intently for the curious, creaking noise of a
submarine under way.
In those early days of hostilities there were no elaborate hydrophones
for detecting the approach of submarines under the water, and the only
hope of a warning came from the possibility of the under-water vessel
breaking surface momentarily. The uselessness of the periscope for
navigation during darkness, which at present forms the principal
limitation of submarines, made it distinctly likely that she would
cruise on the surface at night, and if forced to dive would be more or
less compelled to quickly rise again in order to ascertain the position
of her enemy before it would be possible to fire a torpedo with any
chance of success.
For these reasons all eyes and ears on the drifter were strained to
catch the first glimpse or sound, and dead silence was maintained. It is
in times like this that one discovers how acute the senses become when
danger lurks in the darkness around. Things undetectable under normal
conditions can be seen or heard distinctly when life depends on the
intelligence so gained.
Long minutes of silence slipped by and nothing occurred; then came the
distant and familiar creaking noise, almost inaudible at first. The
gun's crew braced themselves for the stern work ahead. On the rapidity
and accuracy of their fire not only their own lives, but also those of
their comrades, would probably depend. The gun-layer bent his back and
glanced along the grey tube to the tiny blue glow of the electric night
sight. The shell was placed in the open breech. Then came those
interminable seconds before an action begins.
The tension would have been almost unsupportable had nearly all of the
crew not grown accustomed to life hanging in the balance on the wastes
of sea.
A flicker of light, at first almost spectral, appeared from out of the
darkness some 500 yards to starboard. It grew almost instantly into a
bright white flare, illuminating the surface of the black water as it
moved along. The pungent smell of burning calcium floated over the sea
and the drifter's engines began to throb heavily.
The tension relaxed, a subdued cheer broke from the crew of the drifter
as she gathered speed, and the Morse lamp winked its order for concerted
action to the other drifter somewhere in the darkness around. An
answering dot-dash-dot of light appeared from away to starboard and the
chase commenced in earnest.
A few minutes later the glare from the calcium buoy, now being towed
through the water at several knots, shone on the faces of the crew as
they trained their gun ahead, but the submarine was under the surface
and, although probably quite unaware of the flaming tail which was
betraying her movements, appeared to know that she was being hunted by
surface craft. After running straight ahead for a few minutes she turned
eight points to the eastward in an attempt to baffle pursuit.
The chase was a fairly long one, as the speed of the drifters was not
sufficient to enable them to gain rapidly on their quarry, but the
flexibility of the steam-engine gradually gave the surface ships the
advantage and they crept up level with the light. Then, with their
boilers almost bursting and flames spouting from the funnels, they drew
ahead until over the submarine itself. Depth charges were dropped from
the stern of the drifters. The water boiled with the force of the
explosions and the light on the buoy went out. Still the drifters held
their course in the now pall-like blackness, and other bombs splashed
into the water astern, to explode with a dull vibration a few seconds
after they had sunk from the surface.
The engines of the two small surface ships were shut off and every ear
became alert, but no sound broke the stillness of the summer night,
except the rumble of distant thunder and the gentle lap of the sea
against the sides. Morse signals winked from one ship to the other and
back again. When due precautions had been taken against a further
surprise attack, the chivalry of the sea called for a search to be made
for possible survivors. This was done with the aid of flares, but only
oil and some small debris were found. Dan-buoys were dropped to mark the
spot and soundings taken. Twenty-four fathoms deep was added to the
report of the action, and a few days later a diver reported having found
the wreck of the U-C 00.