The British Navy Book Part 1

The British Navy Book.

by Cyril Field.

PROLOGUE

The Command of the Seas

(A.D. 1915)

"It may truly be said that the Command of the Sea is an Abridgement or a Quintessence of an Universal Monarchy."

SIR FRANCIS BACON.

It is a grey morning out on the North Sea, with but little wind. There is no swell, but considerable movement on the surface of the waters, with here and there an occasional tossing of the white manes of the sea-horses. Swimming majestically through the sea comes one of our monster slate-grey battle-cruisers. She is "stripped to a gantline", and in complete and instant readiness for action. The red cross of St.

George flutters bravely at her fore-topmast head, for she is the flagship of the squadron of three or four towering grey ships that are following in her wake. Aft flies the well-known White Ensign, the "meteor flag of England" blazing in the corner. Far away on either bow, but dimly discernible on the wide horizon, are the shadows of other smaller ships, the light cruisers, which are moving ahead and on the flanks of the squadron like cavalry covering the advance of an army. On board is an almost Sabbath-day stillness, save for the wash of the sea, the dull steady whirr of the giant turbines far down below the armour deck, the periodical clang of the ship's bell, marking the flight of time. Now and again comes a whiff of cooking from the galley. As the day advances the light grows stronger; gleams of sunshine send the purple shadows of masts and rigging dancing fitfully over the wide deck, which is practically deserted. There is the marine sentry over the life-buoy aft, look-outs aloft and at various corners of the superstructures, and the figures of the officer of the watch, signalmen and others are seen in movement up in the triangular platform dignified by the name of the "fore-bridge". Who would imagine that there are seven or eight hundred souls on board, seamen, marines, stokers, and many other ratings of whose existence and duties the "man in the street" is profoundly ignorant?

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. Cribb, Southsea_

H.M.S. _DREADNOUGHT_ FIRING A BROADSIDE OF 12-INCH GUNS]

But look inside this ma.s.sive gun-hood, from which protrude forty feet of two sleek grey monster cannon, each of which is capable of hurling 850 pounds of steel and high explosive a distance of a dozen miles. Grouped round their guns in various att.i.tudes are the bluejackets forming their crews. They are tanned and weather-beaten fellows, but there is a strained and tired look about their eyes. Here in the confined s.p.a.ces of their turret they have eaten, slept, and whiled away the watches as best they might for many, many hours. They have not had the discomforts of their khaki-clad brethren in their sodden trenches, nor listened to the constant hiss of hostile bullets and the howl and crash of "Jack Johnsons" at unexpected moments. But if they have been immune from these constant and manifest dangers, they have had none of their excitements.

They have had the temptation to boredom, and the less exciting but always present peril of the dastardly German system of mine-laying in the open sea. Some are writing letters to chums, to sweethearts, and to wives. Others are killing time with the light literature that has been sent to the ship in bundles by the many friends of the fleet on sh.o.r.e. In one corner is a midshipman writing up his "log", and beside him sits the lieutenant in charge of the turret reading for the fourth time a much-folded letter he has taken from an inner pocket.

Look into the next turret and you will see a similar scene, the only difference being that in this case the guns' crews and their officer are marines, wearing red-striped trousers and "Brodrick" caps--the latter not unlike those of the seamen, but with the corps badge in bra.s.s on a semicircular scarlet patch in front, instead of a ribband with the ship's name. In the casemates housing the smaller guns in the superstructures and on the deck below are similar though smaller groups.

All are waiting--waiting.

We wend our way below. The clerks and writers are working in their offices, the cooks are busy at their galleys. Men must eat and accounts must be kept though the ship should be blown out of existence in the next ten minutes. We enter a narrow lift and are shot down to the lower regions, where the sweating stokers handle rake and shovel, the artificers and engine-room staff ply oil-can and spanner, and the engineer officers study gauges and dials of all sorts and kinds. There is more life down here than up above. Work is going on that needs constant watching and attention. On our return journey to "the upper air" we glance in at the wireless room. As we do so comes the loud crackle of the electric spark. The operator is acknowledging a signal. A message has come in from a scouting cruiser. "The enemy are out. Five big cruisers, heading north-west." Another Scarborough Raid perhaps.

The ship wakes up, she is alive. The engine-room gongs clang down in her depths. A few signal flags flutter aloft. The admiral is signalling to his squadron to alter course to head off the enemy, and to increase speed by so many revolutions. The big ship gathers way. Her consorts follow in the curve of her foaming wake, and with every big gun trained forward the lithe grey leviathans tear over the watery plain in search of their quarry.

An hour pa.s.ses. Nothing is seen but the scouting cruisers and a minute speck in the remote s.p.a.ces of the sky, which someone thinks is a sea-plane, but which may well be a grey gull in the middle distance.

Presently, however, a growing darkness along the north-eastern horizon becomes recognizable as smoke--the smoke of many furnaces. Against its growing blackness one of our distant light cruisers shows for a moment as a white ship. Black smoke is pouring from her funnels also, and amidst it all is a sudden violet-white flash.

After an age comes the dull "thud" of her cannon. Now she turns away to port. There are more vivid flashes and the "thudding" of her guns grows continuous. Soon answering flashes sparkle from amidst the smoke-pall on the horizon, and first one then another nebulous outline of a warship disintegrates itself. Flashes break from their sides also, and the noise of the firing swells into a steady roll of sound rising and falling on the wind. We again increase speed. Black smoke billows from our funnels, the bow wave rises higher, and now and again a cloud of spray swishes over our decks. Then "Cra--ash!" The fore-turret has spoken. The ship trembles from stem to stern. We are striking in to the a.s.sistance of our scouting cruiser. Through the gla.s.ses appears what looks like an iceberg towering over the enemy's nearest cruiser. We've missed her.

But the spotting officer is busy in the control-platform aloft, pa.s.sing down corrections for transmission to the various gun-stations, and when a second explosion roars from the starboard turret, the enemy's cruiser, after disappearing for some seconds in a black and inky cloud of smoke, bursts into flames. Her consort and our scouting vessel draw farther and farther away to the northward, fighting fiercely. We continue driving through the tumbling waters, till, with a slight freshening of the wind, the black smoke we are approaching thins off into nothingness, and we see far down on the horizon four or five separate columns of smoke. With a good gla.s.s we can distinguish masts and funnels as if lightly sketched in pencil. They have sighted us at the same time, and seem to melt together into one indistinct ma.s.s. They are altering course, turning their backs to us and heading for the east.

The engine-room gongs clang again, more revolutions are demanded and are forthcoming, and our four big battle-cruisers rush in pursuit with renewed energy. A distant humming sound increases quickly to a loud hissing and roaring--a noise which may be compared to that of a monster engine letting off steam--and an enormous projectile, pa.s.sing well over our heads, plunges into the sea on the starboard beam of our following ship, the splash rising as high as the mastheads. Others follow fast.

The rearmost ship loses her mainmast, and now the enemy's gunners reduce their elevation and slap their big sh.e.l.ls into the sea just ahead of us.

Our own guns are not idle. One after another gives tongue with a volume of noise and a concussion that no words can describe. The pen is powerless to bring before the imagination such a cataclysm of sound. On a sudden, amidst the crashing of the guns and the continuous dull booming of the enemy's in the distance, there is a different and a rending explosion somewhere forward. We have at last been hit. Down on the forecastle all is smoke, blackness, torn iron plates and girders.

From the midst of the chaos comes the shriek of a man calling on his Maker, and piteous groanings. Soon the dull red of fire blushes through the smoke, and a rush of bluejackets and marines with fire-hoses spouting white streams of water engages this dread enemy and succeeds in subduing it.

Stretcher-men appear on the scene and remove the wounded, but there is more than one serge-clad figure that lies heedless of fire or water, friend or foe. These are they who have fought their last fight and have laid down their lives and all that they had for their country.

Inside the turrets the aspect of affairs is very different from what we saw a short time ago. The gun-layers are standing at their sights, the guns' crews are working levers to and fro, the big breech-blocks are swinging on one side, the huge pointed projectiles rising on their hydraulic hoists till they come in line with the bore of the gun.

Another lever is pulled, and the rammer-head, hitherto somewhat in the background of the turret, advances towards the gun, impelled by what looks not unlike a monster bicycle chain crawling up from below, and stiffening itself as it advances along a horizontal trough of steel. The rammer-head meets the base of the big sh.e.l.l and drives it resistlessly and with no apparent effort into the gun. It retires; the charges of explosive, divided into sections and carried in cylinders which come in turn in line with the breech, are then one after the other pushed into place by the indefatigable rammer-head, the breech-block is swung to, turned and locked, and the gun is ready to fire again.

We are now in full view of the enemy's squadron, which consists of five large armoured cruisers. Two of these are in a bad way. One on our starboard bow has lost two out of her three funnels as well as a mast.

She is barely moving through the water, and has a strong list to port, which is so p.r.o.nounced as to prevent her elevating her guns, whose projectiles all strike the water short of us, though we are at comparatively close range. Only two or three of her larger pieces are able to fire at all, and these but at intervals. Her foremost turret is nothing but a chaos of broken metal from the midst of which a pair of mutilated cannon point forlornly skyward.

The midships turret nearest to us is in hardly better case. Her superstructures look like the ruins of a town after an earthquake, and several large holes gape in her sides. A dense black smoke sweeps upwards from the midst of the wreckage. About half a mile ahead of her a consort is also stationary and on fire, the flames driving away in sheets to leeward. The ship that followed us as second in the line is very badly damaged also, and is just discernible on the horizon astern under a pall of smoke. These casualties leave us evenly matched--three to three--with plenty of fight left in us, but with the volume and efficiency of our fire considerably reduced. Our own funnels are still standing, but riddled like collanders, the fore-bridge has been swept away, and with it our dear old skipper; but his place has been ably filled by the commander, who is fighting the ship from the conning-tower, which still stands. Both squadrons--the German in line ahead, ours in bow and quarter line--are heading due east, but, just as we are abreast the badly damaged cruiser to which I have referred, the enemy begins edging away to the north-east. We fail to see the significance of this manoeuvre at first, and the admiral, who, though rather badly hurt by the fall of the fore-bridge, is still in the conning-tower with the commander, may have visions of "crossing their T"

astern, when there is a sudden shout from aloft. A man is leaning over and gesticulating wildly from the control-platform and pointing towards our starboard bow. There, not far from the burning enemy ship, the gla.s.s shows three pairs of what look like black cricket-stumps. Simultaneously there is a gleam in the sea alongside, like the white of a shark's belly when he turns to seize his prey. The deadly torpedo had missed us by a couple of feet.

We instantly turn sharply to port, signalling our consorts to do the same, and all head northwards at our best speed. This brings the enemy's line, which had been turning more and more to port, on a parallel course, and all three ships at once concentrate on us--the nearest ship.

We get a worse hammering in the five minutes that follow than we have sustained during the action. The after turret is jammed, one of the guns in the starboard turret loses its muzzle, and fire breaks out in two places amidships, and can only be got under with the most strenuous efforts and great loss of life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEARNING TO FIGHT ZEPPELINS

Gunnery practice on a British war-ship against an aerial target. It is a difficult matter to get "war conditions", as the ordinary target, such as a towed kite, is easier to hit than an aeroplane.]

Things are looking ugly. The submarines still follow astern, but are not near enough to risk a shot. We cannot steam any faster, and we are baulking the fire of our friends. We slow down, risking the submarines, to allow our consorts to get ahead of us and enable us to meet the three enemy ships on equal terms. There are many anxious looks astern while this manoeuvre is in execution. The periscopes of our submarine foes are still discernible, but beyond them is a fast-growing smoke-cloud from which presently emerge the lithe black hulls of our "X" destroyer flotilla. Apparently the submarines do not observe their approach; their periscopes are steadily fixed on our ship, reckoning every yard they gain on us. But the destroyers see _them_, and presently we see also a warning signal from the enemy flagship. But it is too late. Before the _Unterseeische Bote_ can dive out of harm's way three or four destroyers sweep over them and ram them at the speed of an express train. Slowing down, they circle right and left and open fire. What at we cannot see.

Presently up pops a grey lump some way astern. The light guns on the superstructure give tongue so quickly that one has hardly time to recognize it as the conning-tower of a submarine before it is literally blown to pieces.

For the first time during the fight a cheer rings out fore and aft.

Almost at once the little guns begin banging away again. This time their long muzzles are nosing about in the air. What are they firing at?

"There they are!" cries someone, pointing to the south-east, where two big amorphous monsters have appeared high up in the clouds. Zeppelins, right enough; and the bang, bang, bang of the lighter artillery rises in crescendo from every ship and destroyer till the air echoes like Vulcan's forge. Up come the pair of enormous sausages at a high rate of speed, and as they pa.s.s over our destroyer flotilla they begin dropping their bombs. Dull concussions thud apparently on the ship's bottom; fountains of white water spout all round the small craft.

But none are hit. The leading "gas-bag" is heading straight for us. She has probably spotted our damaged condition, and reckons us an easy prey.

But our gunners are getting closer to her every shot, and presently she turns slowly to starboard, dropping a futile bomb as she goes. She now presents a fine broadside target as big as a Dreadnought, another shot gets home somewhere, and she makes off in the direction she came with her nose down, tail in air, and a p.r.o.nounced list to port. Her consort turns too, and scuttles off at top speed. She hopes to "live to fight another day" over some peaceful English village where there are no nasty, disagreeable quick-firing guns, shrapnel-sh.e.l.l, and other unkind greetings from those she would destroy.

The day is drawing to a close. We are heading homewards in tow of a consort. Low down under the tawny sunset that dim purple line is the coast of "Old England"--the motherland we are engaged in defending from the a.s.sault of the most unscrupulous enemy she has ever encountered. The wind has fallen, the waves are hardly more than ripples, and evening is closing down with a soothing hush over land and sea. We have cleared up after the smashing and racket of the battle as far as possible, but we can hardly crawl along, and are bound to go into dockyard hands for some weeks at any rate.

"Are we downhearted?" "No!" For we have given much better than the best efforts of the Huns could give. Two of their ships are at the bottom, with most of their crews; though, thanks to the exertions and humanity of our gallant seamen, a considerable number of them have been saved from a watery grave. To this bag may be added three if not four submarines and a badly damaged Zeppelin, so we are not ill-satisfied with the day's work. We have just pa.s.sed several "tall ships" on their way out to relieve us on patrol, and as we begin to get under the land there is a whirring up aloft in the gathering dusk, and a dozen sea-planes, like a flight of wild-ducks, come swooping seaward and make towards the Channel.

Where are they off to? Are they patrolling, or are they bent on a raid on the enemy's magazines, hangars, and gun positions? We do not know, but our ignorance does not worry us. We know the kind of man that is flying down there towards the southern horizon, and are quite satisfied that he will "make a good job" of whatever he has in hand. Just as the sun dips, out comes a destroyer from the shadow of the land to pilot us through the mine-field, and so we are brought "into the harbour where we would be". We have plenty of hard work before us--some of it very sad work. There are our poor wounded shipmates down below in the sick-bay who have to be taken ash.o.r.e to hospital, and there are the last honours to be paid to those other gallant comrades and shipmates who have "fought the good fight" and are now making their last voyage _en route_ for that promised land where "there shall be no more sea".

And now let us consider how this guardian fleet and the men who man it came into being. In the following pages my object will be not so much to describe well-known sea-fights as to give a series of pictures of the sailor and of the navy at different stages of "our island story".

CHAPTER I

A Lesson from Caesar

"Storm and sea were Britain's bulwarks, Long ere Britons won their name; Mightier far than pikes and halberds Wind and wave upheld her fame; Storm and sea are Britain's brothers, Keep, with her, their sleepless guard; Britain's sons, before all others, Share with them their watch and ward.

_Chorus_--

"'Forward! On!' the sea-king's war-word Ages back--to do or die.[1]

'Ne'er a track but points us forward!'[2]

Ages on--our lines reply."