THE GREAT SURRENDER
"SUPPOSING the Huns won't sign," remarked Wakefield, somewhat
wistfully.
"They will," said Meredith reassuringly. "We've got them
cold--absolutely."
"And the sooner the better," added Jock McIntosh. "It was a close
thing to say who would be fed up first--Fritz or us. Fritz did win
that, but by a short length."
"You are speaking for yourself, my lad," said Wakefield. "You can
see your release in sight, but I'll bet you'll be wishing yourself
back again before you're out six months."
It was the morning of the memorable 11th day of November. The three
M.L. skippers, just back from patrol, had foregathered in the
ward-room of No. 1497 during the period known as "stand easy."
The M.L.'s were lying in a fairly sheltered creek--one of the
numerous indentations of Scapa Flow. Beyond a neck of rocky ground
could be discerned a forest of tripod masts and lofty funnels,
marking the war-time anchorage of the most powerful fleet that the
world has yet seen.
"You are a bit far-seeing, my festive," remarked Meredith.
"I am," admitted Wakefield. "After four years of it, are we going to
settle down to a humdrum life, rubbing shoulders with those blighters
who stayed at home and made pots of money out of the Empire's days of
supreme trial? Can you imagine yourself, Meredith, on the beach with
all your kit, demobbed and with nothing to do? It'll come to that.
The Government were jolly glad to get hold of us, and when the war is
over it'll be a case of 'Thank you and get out.' There will be
thousands of young fellows, used to command and innured to peril, who
will be literally on their beam ends, because they never had the
chance of completing their peace-time education."
"There's the sea behind us," suggested Meredith.
"Is there?" questioned Wakefield, "I doubt it, unless it's potting
around in private yachts and small sailing-boats. We've learnt to
handle M.L.'s pretty efficiently, but after the war you try for a
post as skipper of a trading steamer. Think you'll get it? You won't.
You'll be up against all the red tape of Board of Trade officialdom
and all that sort of thing. But Fritz hasn't accepted the terms of
the Armistice yet."
"By the by," remarked Kenneth. "Have you heard any more news of
Cumberleigh's pal, Karl von Preussen?"
"Now, how could I?" expostulated Wakefield. "Haven't we been on
patrol for umpteen hours? Just before we left we heard that he was
being sent under escort to London."
"He's a plucky fellow, in any case," observed McIntosh.
"Deucedly daring," corrected Wakefield.
"I don't know," remarked Meredith. "It may be pluck or daring, or
both. Hanged if I should like the job! Yet both sides employ spies.
These fellows go about their work with the utmost certainty of
finding themselves up against a wall and looking down the muzzles of
a dozen rifles if they're caught."
"Seems to me it's a despicable sort of job," said Wakefield, as he
relit his pipe. "Sort of stabbing-your-foeman-in-the-back business.
If, for instance, von Preussen hadn't been at Auldhaig the chances
are that Morpeth wouldn't have lost his arm, and a dozen or so Q
171's men wouldn't have been killed in action."
"And yet, from von Preussen's point of view, his activities resulted
in two Hun submarine-cruisers being prevented from being sent to the
bottom," argued Meredith. "Put the boot on the other foot and imagine
von Preussen working for us, you'd say he was a dashed smart fellow.
Hello! here's Cumberleigh coming alongside."
A dinghy had just brought the R.A.F. captain from the beach, and
Cumberleigh was looking down the ward-room ladder.
"Come down," sung out Meredith, who, since the informal gathering was
held on his M.L., was master of the ceremonies. "We're discussing
your friend, von Preussen. We were debating whether he were plucky or
not."
"He's slippery, at any rate," declared Cumberleigh, as he settled
himself in one comer of the settee and lit a cigarette. "You know I
was warned as a witness at the court-martial. Rotten job giving
evidence against a fellow. To my mind it's like murdering him in cold
blood. I was to have left for London this afternoon, but this morning
I had a wire postponing the most unpleasant duty. Then I learnt from
the adjutant that von Preussen was at liberty again."
"Released?" asked Meredith and Wakefield in one voice.
"After a fashion," replied Cumberleigh.
"Details please?"
"There are none--except that he managed to escape. However, I don't
fancy von Preussen will count after to-day. The Armistice----"
"Has it been signed?" asked McIntosh.
Before Cumberleigh could reply there came a low roar of distant
cheering, accompanied by the hooting of steam whistles and the
long-drawn boom of sirens.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Wakefield.
The four officers started to their feet and scrambled indecorously
for the ladder. Gaining the deck, they found the signalman of the
anchored M.L.'s taking in a message from the swiftly moving arms of a
shore semaphore.
"What is it, Signalman?" inquired Meredith.
"'Report rounds of quick-firing ammunition on board,' sir," was the
unexpected reply.
But on the heels of the first came a second signal----
"ARMISTICE SIGNED."
The M.L. crews cheered lustily. Hostilities had ceased. Gone, for all
time presumably, were those long, tedious vigils on the grey North
Sea, those hazardous patrols through the mine-infested waters, those
anxious nights when, blow high or blow low, the frail little craft
had to put to sea on an apparently trivial errand.
Germany had caved in. Without striking a blow, the powerful fleet
with which the Kaiser had hoped to wrest the trident from Britannia's
grasp was to pass into inglorious internment. The strangle-hold of
the British Navy had triumphed.
More than that. The Freedom of the Seas was established more firmly
than before. In the subsequent words of Sir David Beatty, "The
surrender of the German Fleet has secured the Freedom of the Seas for
such as pass thereon upon their lawful occasions, and is a testimony
to the value of sea power which the people of the British Empire will
forget at their peril."
A week later the vast anchorage of Scapa Flow was practically empty.
The Grand Fleet had left for the Firth of Forth to arrange the actual
surrender of the pick of Germany's battleships, cruisers and
destroyers. Of the U-boats the first batch of a total of 120 was due
to arrive at Harwich on the 20th, but "Beatty's Day" was fixed for
the 21st.
"Here's luck, Meredith," exclaimed Wakefield. "Five of us are to
represent the M.L. flotillas, and have a joy-trip to meet Fritz. The
S.N.O.'s just drawn the names. You're one, and so am I, so pack up
and get ready. We're to be temporarily accommodated on board the
_Lion_."
The Day dawned grey and misty as the mighty steel-clad battleships
steamed eastward to meet their surrendering foes. Grey predominated
everywhere, from the leaden-coloured skies to the leaden-hued water
churned by the propellers of a hundred grey-hulled warships. The
fluttering White Ensign and the Admirals' flags flying from the
leading ships of each division provided a fitting contrast to the
otherwise sombre yet soul-inspiring pageant of "Might and Right."
"We're taking no risks," thought Meredith, as a bugle rang for
"Action Stations." "It only shows how low a Hun's honour is rated."
Silently yet rapidly the battle-cruiser's ship's company fell in at
their appointed stations. The securing chains of the huge turrets
were cast off and the monster guns trained and elevated to test the
intricate mechanism. The quick-firers were manned and trained abeam,
ammunition was sent up from the magazines, torpedoes launched home
into the under-water tubes, fire hoses were coupled up and watertight
doors closed. Officers and men, with gas-masks ready to hand, were
keenly on the alert, those whose stations prevented them from seeing
what was going on without plying their more fortunate comrades with
eager questions.
Kenneth and Wakefield were standing just under the fore-bridge. Above
them every tier of "Monkey Island" bore its quota of sightseers, all
looking steadily ahead into the grey mirk in a kind of competition as
to who should first discern the masts of the expected Hun ships.
"Think they'll show up? If so, will they fight?" asked Wakefield.
A naval officer standing by answered him.
"They'll show up all right. As to fighting, it's a toss up. Judging
from our standpoint, I shouldn't be surprised if they did; but, by
Jove! they will be smashed in twenty rounds."
The whirr of an aerial propeller sounded overhead, and a large
seaplane, literally skimming over the fore-topmast truck, raced
noisily eastward, and was lost to sight in the grey dawn. Another,
passing well to windward, followed, and then a huge airship, her
yellow gas-bag glinting in the pale light, sailed serenely overhead
at a great height. The scouts of the modern navy were at work.
"They're coming, sir!" announced a messenger, as he flung himself at
the bridge ladder. "Airship's just wirelessed through."
"Then that's done it--one way or the other," murmured the naval
officer. "I look like getting Christmas leave after all."
Approaching rapidly, came the line of pale-grey Hun battle-cruisers,
led by the British light cruiser _Cardiff_. As far as could be seen,
they flew no ensigns. Either in fear or in shame they hesitated to
hoist the dishonoured Black Cross--the battle-cruisers had figured
prominently in the raid on Scarboro' and Hartlepool, and the Huns
were far from comfortable at the thought of their reception.
The German vessels had rigorously carried out the conditions of
surrender. Their guns were trained fore and aft. The slightest
deviation from that position would invite a veritable tornado of
shells into the vitals of any ship that disregarded that command.
Their own supply of ammunition had been left ashore, together with
the war-heads of their torpedoes. The huge warships were like pythons
with their poisonous fangs removed--formidable in appearance yet
powerless to do harm.
From the British flagship a string of bunting streamed in the wind.
With mathematical precision the two parallel columns turned sixteen
degrees in succession, so that the head of each line was parallel to
and on the same course as the leading German vessel.
Simultaneously the Huns hoisted their colours. Surrounded by a galaxy
of White Ensigns, the Black Cross fleet was being shepherded into
captivity, while the British battle-cruisers, led by the _Lion_,
formed a supplementary column betwixt the Hun vessels and the British
battleships following the mighty _Queen Elizabeth_.
The "Cat Squadron" had been within sight and within range of the
German battle-cruisers on more than one previous occasion, but for
the first time since the outbreak of war the former were almost
within hailing distance of the hitherto elusive but much-sought-after
_Seidlitz, Derfflinger, Moltke_, and _Von der Tann_.
And so into the Firth of Forth passed the Hun Armada on the first
stage of the final journey to Scapa Flow. One signal did the gallant
Beatty make. It was brief, peremptory, and left in its exactitude no
possibility for doubt. It was sent to Admiral von Reuter, the
Commander-in-Chief of the surrendered fleet:
"The German Flag is to be hauled down at 15.57 to-day, Thursday, and
is not to be hoisted again without permission."
Precisely at sunset, the time mentioned in the signal, the Black
Cross Ensign fluttered down on every Hun ship--but von Reuter had his
tongue in his cheek.
It was a fitting climax to the Bloodless Trafalgar of November 21,
1918.