Submarine Warfare of To-day Part 14

The armed motor launches described in earlier pages, after being built in Canada to the number of over 500, and engined by the United States, were transported across the Atlantic on the decks of big ocean-going steamships--more than one of which was torpedoed on the voyage. On their arrival in Portsmouth dockyard the guns and depth charges were placed aboard and the vessels thoroughly equipped and fitted out for active service.

Officers and men were drafted from the training establishments of the new navy at Southampton, Portsmouth, Chatham, Greenwich and elsewhere.

Each little vessel was given a number, and within a few weeks of their arrival from the building yards on the St Lawrence they sailed in flotillas out past the fortifications of Spithead, _en route_ for their respective war bases.

Great secrecy had surrounded the construction of these small but powerful craft, and but few naval men, except those directly engaged in the anti-submarine service, had either seen or heard much of them until they commenced arriving at the different rendezvous.

Among the early flotillas to leave Portsmouth dockyard was one of four ships destined for a base on the east coast of Scotland, and as these speedy little craft raced away north the expectations of both officers and men ran high.

It was in the early summer of 1916, and although the air was crisp, the sea sparkled in the bright sunlight and the sky was a cloudless blue.

Only a heavy-beam sea off Flamborough Head had marred the maiden voyage, and they were now on the last hundred miles, with the low-lying Farne Islands fading into the mist astern. By nightfall, if the wind remained light, they would make the Scottish port which was to form their base of operations.

Hitherto these four brand-new little warships, all white wood, grey paint and polished metal, had been plodding over the 600 miles of sea from Portsmouth at what was termed "cruising speed"--a mere 10 knots.

The engines had not been opened out to "full ahead" because these delicate pieces of mechanism needed time to settle down to their work before it was safe to drive them to the utmost limit of speed and power, but now that pistons and bearings had been given time to "run in" it was considered safe for the flotilla to increase speed in order to make harbour by nightfall.

A hoist of new, bright-coloured flags fluttered from the squat mast of the leading ship. The steady throbbing of the engines grew suddenly to a low staccato roar. The white waves astern rose up almost level with the counters and clouds of fine spray blew across the decks. This rapid movement through the sun-lit water, with the breeze of pa.s.sage and the tang of the salt sea in every breath, was exhilarating, and the spirits of those aboard rose with the speed.

Running at nearly half-a-mile a minute, the flotilla forged northwards through clouds of fine, stinging spray, until at a late hour, when the sun was dipping below the horizon and the sea was a sheet of golden light, a smoky line appeared far away to the westward. It was that section of the Scottish coast which in future it would be the duty of these boats to patrol, and as the distance lessened those on board gazed in silence at the gigantic cliffs and black rocks, now tinged with the rays of the dying sun and encircled by the endless ripples which alone broke the peaceful surface of the sea, but one and all were picturing this forbidding coast on the stormy winter nights to come.

Slowly the light faded from the western sky. The cliffs rose up black and sombre, and when the little flotilla turned westwards up the broad waterway leading to the base darkness had closed over land and sea. For some time they picked their way up this sheltered loch. No lights were visible, but more than once a destroyer appeared out of the blackness to make sure of their ident.i.ty, and each time they were inspected very closely before the guard-ships were satisfied. An armed trawler guided them past dangerous obstructions and then faded into the night. Mile after mile of water was then traversed on courses laid down in confidential orders.

Suddenly a searchlight flashed out from close ahead, followed almost instantly by other blinding rays, which swept the sea for a few seconds, and then all the beams concentrated on the little flotilla, showing up with the clearness of daylight the four low-lying submarine-like hulls gliding speedily through the water. There was a moment's silence, during which the Morse signalling lamps of the M.L.'s were being prepared to flash out their message. A searchlight blinked and there followed another brief interval of silence, then, without warning, a tongue of livid flame stabbed the darkness and a sh.e.l.l whistled overhead. It was followed by other flashes and the sharp reports of quick-firing guns.

Columns of water spouted into the air close to the M.L.'s, whose engines had, luckily, ceased to throb. The firing stopped as suddenly as it had commenced. Signals began flashing angrily in many directions. Destroyers tore out of the darkness around into the broad circle of light. Armed trawlers nosed their way in and wicked grey tubes were trained on the now stationary flotilla. Presently the angry flashing of mast head-lights subsided into the regular dot and dash of respectable communication. Several destroyers seemed to be having nasty things said to them, which they answered with a feeble wink, and an armed trawler made futile flashes of explanation.

A little twinkling star, more lofty and dignified than the rest, called up the leading M.L. and was answered with an alacrity that evidently unnerved it, for it flickered and died out. Suddenly it came to life again and winked away at an alarming rate, but all to no purpose, for, true to the old axiom that more haste means less speed, it had to stop and go over the message again, this time sufficiently slow for novices to understand. What it said is a State secret. It is rumoured, however, that several officers were "mentioned in dispatches" for the part they played in this local action, caused by mistaken ident.i.ty, but alas!

their skill and bravery remained unrewarded by an unsympathetic Government.

CHAPTER XV

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 a.s.sistance, and the confidence of men in themselves and in the ships they worked grew apace.

In many of the princ.i.p.al zones of war, such as the North Sea and the Atlantic, the wind grew colder and the seas more fierce as the short summer pa.s.sed. Duffel or Arctic clothing was served out to both officers and men. Sea-boots and oilskins became necessary. Balaclava helmets, m.u.f.flers 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 m.u.f.fler 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 33.--Duffel or Arctic clothing.]

The immense bundle of nondescript clothing at the wheel was "Mac," the c.o.xswain, 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 ma.s.s 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. s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 pa.s.sed; 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 sh.o.r.ewards, 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.