Submarine Warfare of To-day Part 15

Again the ship was turned into the rapidly darkening east, and all through that bitter night the field of death was guarded. Stiffened fingers flashed out the warning signal when black hulls loomed out of the darkness. Numbed limbs clung for dear life when green seas washed the tiny decks, and when dawn broke over the waste of tumbling sea the men on M.L.822 knew that Christmas Day, 1916, would live for ever in their memory.

CHAPTER XVI

THE DERELICT

THERE are few things more heart-breaking than sea patrol, which forms the princ.i.p.al duty of anti-submarine fleets. Hours, days and even months may pa.s.s with nothing to relieve the monotony of grey sea and sky, with occasional glimpses of wave-tossed ships.

There are, of course, intervening periods in harbour, when fierce gales howl overhead, and guard duty on rain-swept quaysides, or sentry-go in blinding snowstorms, comes almost as a relief from the sameness of winter days on northern seas.

It is, however, the unexpected which generally occurs in war, and during those terrible winters from 1914-1918 it was the ever-present hope of action that kept the spirits of many a sailorman from sinking below the Plimsoll line of health.

Sometimes the happenings were grave and at other times gay, but always they were welcomed eagerly, as providing excitement or change, with something to talk about in the unknown number of dreary weeks ahead.

An episode of this kind occurred one snowy January night in 1917 on the quayside of a northern seaport. The commanding officer of one of the patrol boats in the harbour was going ash.o.r.e to stay for the night with some friends. Knowing that his ship was due to proceed to sea early the following morning, he took the precaution to place a small alarm clock in the big pocket of his bridge-coat. Groping his way in the darkness and blinding snow across the gangway leading from the ship to the quay, he succeeded in reaching the dock wall. Almost instantly he was challenged by a military sentry on duty and was about to reply when a loud buzzing noise came from his pocket. He had not thought of ascertaining at what time the alarm clock had been set for and the consequences were distinctly unpleasant.

The sentry, hearing the curious buzzing sound coming from the darkness directly he had given the challenge, and thinking it came from some form of bomb, lunged smartly with his bayonet at the spot from which the sound emanated.

Fortunately the officer was near the edge of the dock wall and did not receive the full effect of the thrust. The bayonet tore his coat and pushed him violently over the edge into the icy water of the harbour.

His l.u.s.ty shouts caused searchlights to be turned on and he was rescued promptly, but the episode, small and unimportant as it was, caused considerable merriment--except to the princ.i.p.al actor--for many days afterwards.

All this may sound much like heresy to those who think that naval war means constant fighting, with all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of old-time battles. There are, it is true, never-to-be-forgotten moments when the blood surges and pulses beat rapidly, when the months of weary waiting are atoned for in as many minutes of swift action. Such were Jutland, Zeebrugge, Heligoland, the Falklands and many an unrecorded fight on England's sea frontier in the years just past. Such times pa.s.s rapidly, however; they are the milestones of war, leaving the weary leagues between, in which there is so much that is sordid and even ghastly, as will be seen from the following.

The sea offers but few sights more melancholy than the wave-washed derelict--the now desolate, helpless and forlorn thing that was once a _ship_, the home of men--seen in the half-light of a winter dawn, rising and falling sluggishly on the dirty grey swell--the aftermath of storm--with white water washing through its broken bulwarks, yards and sails adrift, a thing without life on the sad sea waves.

A wireless message from a ship pa.s.sing the derelict on the previous day had brought an M.L. from the nearest naval base to search the area, and after a night of wandering over shadowy grey slopes of water the dawn had revealed it less than two miles distant.

There could be no doubt as to its nationality, for the white cross of Denmark, on the red ground, was painted on the weather-beaten sides, now showing just above the sea. Deserted and half-waterlogged, it was being kept afloat by a cargo of timber, some of which could be seen in chaos on the deck.

The M.L. approached cautiously, with thick rope fenders over her rubbing-streak to prevent the frail hull from being damaged. This coming alongside other ships in the open sea, except in the very calmest of weather, is a ticklish manoeuvre, and requires considerable skill in the handling of these small and very fragile craft. What would be considered quite a light blow on the stout hull of any ordinary ship would crush in the thin timbers of a patrol launch, for in the construction of these boats speed and shallow draught were the predominant factors considered.

When the M.L. had been made fast on the lee-side of the derelict a boarding party scrambled over the damaged bulwarks on to the sea-washed deck. Here was a scene of chaos--rigging tangled and swinging loosely from masts and yards; sails torn and shreds still clinging to ropes and spars; loose planks of her deck cargo lying all over the place, and a general air of abandon and desolation difficult to describe.

A ma.s.s of broken woodwork in the well of the ship was soon discovered to be the remains of a deck-house, and this gave the first clue to the reason for her sorry plight. Pieces of shrapnel were found sticking in the timbers, and further search revealed sh.e.l.l-holes through the hull and cut rigging. A signal was flying from the mizen halyards, and the name on the counter, although spattered with shot, was still, in part, decipherable--_Rickivik_, Copenhafen.

So the officer in charge of the boarding party commenced his report with the name of the ship and the port from which she hailed, adding thereto the evident fact that she had been heavily sh.e.l.led--just a brief statement which left to the imagination all the incidents and, alas!

tragedies of an unequal fight.

A high-explosive sh.e.l.l had struck the little raised p.o.o.p, demolishing the hatchway leading to the cabins beneath, and some heavy work with axe and saw would have been necessary to obtain an entry had an easier way not been available through the shattered skylight. In the low-roofed cabin all was disorder. Tables and lockers were smashed, and the sh.e.l.l which had burst overhead had filled the place with heavy broken timbers from the deck above.

So low was the cabin roof of this small three-masted barque, and so dark the interior, that it was difficult to see about. A lantern was procured and a careful search commenced. The yellow light fell on drawers pulled out and their contents--when worthless--flung on the floor; gla.s.ses and bottles smashed and a quaint old China figure lying intact on the broken timbers. But of the ship's papers there was no trace, with the single exception of an old Bill of Health, issued six years previously in Baltimore. Then the area of search moved from the cupboards and drawers to the floor--broken by a sh.e.l.l which had evidently penetrated the ship's stern and pa.s.sed longitudinally through the cabin, exploding near the base of the companion-hatch.

Presently a startled exclamation, followed by a call for the light, came from the gloom around the stairway. Two of the boarding party searching among the debris had stumbled across something which, instinctively, sent a cold shiver through them. The light, when moved in that direction, dimly revealed the body of a man lying face downwards on the floor. Only the lower half of the figure was, however, visible, a ma.s.s of shattered timbers having collapsed on the head and shoulders. That life had been extinct for some considerable time was evidenced by the sickly odour which hung heavily in the less ventilated parts of the cabin, and the work of extricating the body was not commenced before the whole ship had been searched for possible survivors.

This work occupied a considerable time, but nothing of importance was discovered until a slight noise, not unlike the feeble, inarticulate cry of a child in pain, came through the timbers from some distant part of the hold. It was repeated several times, and the sailors, without waiting for orders, set hastily to work to find out the cause.

The hatches were carefully removed, but only floating timber could be seen. Then the sound came again. This time it was unmistakable and relieved the tension. A little grim laugh from the searchers was followed by much poking about with a long piece of wood on the surface of the flooded hold under the decking, and some minutes later a large pile of timber floated into the light from the open hatchway, supporting a big tortoisesh.e.l.l cat, looking very wet and emaciated. "Ricky"--for such is her name now--proved to be the only living thing on that ill-fated ship.

The boarding party returned to the cabin and commenced the objectionable task of extricating the dead body from the ma.s.s of wreckage. The work proceeded slowly, for the heavy broken timbers pressed mercilessly on the object beneath, and when at last it lay revealed in the dim lantern light its ghastly appearance caused all to step back in horror. It was a headless corpse!

CHAPTER XVII

MINED-IN

HOW many people realise that, with a single unimportant exception, there was no part of the English or Scottish coast which was not mined-in at least once by German submarines during 1914-1918? Harbour entrances, often less than two miles from the sh.o.r.e, were repeatedly blocked by lines of hostile mines, laid by U-C boats through their stern tubes, in which they seldom carried less than fifteen to twenty of these deadly weapons, without the vessels rising to the surface either when approaching the coast, laying the mines or effecting their escape.

Many important waterways, such as the Straits of Dover, the mouth of the Thames, the approaches to Liverpool, the Firth of Forth, Aberdeen, Lowestoft and Portsmouth, were repeatedly chosen for this form of submarine attack. At one base alone no less than 400 mines were destroyed by the attached anti-submarine flotillas in one year, and round the coasts of the United Kingdom an average of about 3000 of these invisible weapons were located and destroyed annually.

What this meant to the 24,000,000 tons of mercantile shipping pa.s.sing to and fro through the danger zone _every month_ will be better realised when it is stated that less than 400 merchant ships were blown up by mines during the three years of intensive submarine warfare.

The losses among the minesweeping and patrol flotillas, which were mainly responsible for the crushing defeat of this piratical campaign, were, however, very heavy. They amounted to over 200 ships and several thousand men. Few will therefore deny to those who lived and to those who died a share in the glory of the great victory.

Statistics make but uninteresting reading, and from the following account of what happened off a big Scottish seaport while the inhabitants ash.o.r.e slept in peace and safety a better idea will be obtained of the arduous nature of the work of minesweeping and patrol in time of war than could possibly be imparted by pages of figures.

The early dusk of a winter evening was settling over a white land and a leaden sea. A mist of sliding snow increased the gloom and blotted out the vessels ahead and astern as the line of patrol boats left the comparative warmth and security of one of the largest northern harbours for twelve hours in the bitter frost on night patrol.

The cold was intense and of that penetrating nature which causes men to shiver even in the thickest of clothing. Although some eighteen degrees of frost had flattened the sea, a freezing spray still blew in showers over the narrow deck and, for just a few minutes, the lead-grey sky gleamed dully red as the sun dipped below the snow-covered land.

The crew of the M.L. moved about the cramped deck stiffly, for they were clad in duffel suits, oilskins and sea-boots, and little but their eyes and hands were visible. The officer on the small canvas-screened bridge was likewise an almost unrecognisable bundle of yellow and white wool and black leather. As a contrast, however, to the whitening deck and snow-clad men, the reflection of a warm yellow light came up through the wardroom hatchway, and more than one longing glance was cast down into the snug interior.

These men were not all hardened by long and severe sea training; many of them formed part of the new navy, gaining experience amid the bitter cold and dangers of the grey North Sea. A call for the signalman came from the bridge, and a boy, who had been swinging his arms to warm his numbed fingers, responded smartly. The lieutenant-in-command wiped the snow from his eyes as he peered round the canvas side-screen and asked tersely what the next ship ahead was trying to signal.

The boy seized his semaph.o.r.e flags and went out on to the spray-swept fore-deck, steadying himself against the fo'c'sle hatch cover. He flinched at first when the spray stung the exposed parts of his body, and then, with straining eyes and dripping oilskins, he managed, after the words had been repeated several times, to read the signal which was being sent down the line from the leading ship somewhere in the white haze ahead.

"Proceed independently to allotted stations for night patrol" was the order then conveyed to the bridge and afterwards pa.s.sed on by flag to the next astern. When the last ship had received the signal each unit of the flotilla swung out of line and disappeared in the sliding snow.

As the darkness increased the cold strengthened and a little bitter wind began to moan through the scanty rigging. Men stamped their feet and swung their arms to increase the circulation in numbed limbs, and every now and then during the next three hours one member of the watch on deck would disappear for a few minutes down the galley hatchway to drink a cup of hot cocoa, which, so far, the cook had succeeded in keeping warm on the ill-natured petrol stove.

At 9 P.M. the first watch was over and half-frozen men climbed stiffly down the iron ladder into the tiny fo'c'sle, where the heat and fugg of oil stoves caused their thawing limbs to throb painfully. The starboard watch, fresh from the heat of the tiny cabin, whose four hours on deck now commenced, were shivering in the icy wind and showers of spray.

Glancing at the dimly lit chart on the small table cunningly fitted into the front of the wheel-house, the commander noted the approximate position of the ship in the 140,000 square miles of sea and snow around, and then turning to the c.o.xswain, whose "trick" it was at the wheel, he gave the necessary orders for the course and speed. The duty of this vessel was to patrol certain approaches to the great harbour on which the flotilla was based until relieved at daybreak by another unit, and, as merchant ships had many times been attacked in these waters, a sharp look-out was necessary. To carry this out effectively in the darkness and driving snow was a task calling for all the qualities of dogged endurance inherent in the British sailor.

For over two hours nothing was seen or heard except the moaning of the wind and the lash of the sea, but shortly after midnight one of the look-outs reported the sound of engines away to the starboard.

The M.L.'s propellers were stopped and the watch on deck listened intently. The splash of the sea and the many noises of a rolling ship drowned any other sound there might have been, and the patrol was then continued. Less than half-an-hour later, however, the clank! clank!

clank! of engines again became suddenly audible, and the vessel was turned in the direction of the sound.

The engines were put to full speed ahead, and as each comber struck the bows the little ship trembled from stem to stern, and clouds of icy spray swept high over the mast. The big steel hull of some man-o'-war or merchantman might suddenly loom up out of the darkness so close ahead that no skill could avoid a collision, and the eyes of all aboard were gazing alertly into the blackness of the night.