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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Warfare, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sea Warfare
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2006 [EBook #17689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA WARFARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA WARFARE
+
+
+
+BY
+
+RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
+1916
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+
+THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET                                   1
+
+TALES OF "THE TRADE"                                      93
+
+DESTROYERS AT JUTLAND                                    145
+
+
+
+
+THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET
+
+(1915)
+
+    In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
+      Mark well what I do say!
+    And she was built for the herring trade,
+      But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',
+      The Lord knows where!
+
+    They gave her Government coal to burn,
+    And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern,
+    And sent her out a-rovin', etc.
+
+    Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship
+    Which always killed one man per trip,
+    So he is used to rovin', etc.
+
+    Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales,
+    And so he fights in topper and tails--
+    Religi-ous tho' rovin', etc.
+
+    Her engineer is fifty-eight,
+    So he's prepared to meet his fate,
+    Which ain't unlikely rovin', etc.
+
+    Her leading-stoker's seventeen,
+    So he don't know what the Judgments mean,
+    Unless he cops 'em rovin', etc.
+
+    Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs' Home,
+      Mark well what I do say!
+    And I'm sorry for Fritz when they all come
+      A-rovin', a-rovin', a-roarin' and a-rovin',
+      Round the North Sea rovin',
+      The Lord knows where!
+
+
+
+
+THE AUXILIARIES
+
+I
+
+
+The Navy is very old and very wise. Much of her wisdom is on record
+and available for reference; but more of it works in the unconscious
+blood of those who serve her. She has a thousand years of experience,
+and can find precedent or parallel for any situation that the force of
+the weather or the malice of the King's enemies may bring about.
+
+The main principles of sea-warfare hold good throughout all ages, and,
+_so far as the Navy has been allowed to put out her strength_, these
+principles have been applied over all the seas of the world. For
+matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply
+returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days.
+
+In the late French wars, a merchant sailing out of a Channel port
+might in a few hours find himself laid by the heels and under way for
+a French prison. His Majesty's ships of the Line, and even the big
+frigates, took little part in policing the waters for him, unless he
+were in convoy. The sloops, cutters, gun-brigs, and local craft of all
+kinds were supposed to look after that, while the Line was busy
+elsewhere. So the merchants passed resolutions against the inadequate
+protection afforded to the trade, and the narrow seas were full of
+single-ship actions; mail-packets, West Country brigs, and fat East
+Indiamen fighting, for their own hulls and cargo, anything that the
+watchful French ports sent against them; the sloops and cutters
+bearing a hand if they happened to be within reach.
+
+
+THE OLDEST NAVY
+
+It was a brutal age, ministered to by hard-fisted men, and we had put
+it a hundred decent years behind us when--it all comes back again!
+To-day there are no prisons for the crews of merchantmen, but they
+can go to the bottom by mine and torpedo even more quickly than their
+ancestors were run into Le Havre. The submarine takes the place of the
+privateer; the Line, as in the old wars, is occupied, bombarding and
+blockading, elsewhere, but the sea-borne traffic must continue, and
+that is being looked after by the lineal descendants of the crews of
+the long extinct cutters and sloops and gun-brigs. The hour struck,
+and they reappeared, to the tune of fifty thousand odd men in more
+than two thousand ships, of which I have seen a few hundred. Words of
+command may have changed a little, the tools are certainly more
+complex, but the spirit of the new crews who come to the old job is
+utterly unchanged. It is the same fierce, hard-living, heavy-handed,
+very cunning service out of which the Navy as we know it to-day was
+born. It is called indifferently the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet. It
+is chiefly composed of fishermen, but it takes in every one who may
+have maritime tastes--from retired admirals to the sons of the
+sea-cook. It exists for the benefit of the traffic and the annoyance
+of the enemy. Its doings are recorded by flags stuck into charts; its
+casualties are buried in obscure corners of the newspapers. The Grand
+Fleet knows it slightly; the restless light cruisers who chaperon it
+from the background are more intimate; the destroyers working off
+unlighted coasts over unmarked shoals come, as you might say, in
+direct contact with it; the submarine alternately praises and--since
+one periscope is very like another--curses its activities; but the
+steady procession of traffic in home waters, liner and tramp, six
+every sixty minutes, blesses it altogether.
+
+Since this most Christian war includes laying mines in the fairways of
+traffic, and since these mines may be laid at any time by German
+submarines especially built for the work, or by neutral ships, all
+fairways must be swept continuously day and night. When a nest of
+mines is reported, traffic must be hung up or deviated till it is
+cleared out. When traffic comes up Channel it must be examined for
+contraband and other things; and the examining tugs lie out in a blaze
+of lights to remind ships of this. Months ago, when the war was young,
+the tugs did not know what to look for specially. Now they do. All
+this mine-searching and reporting and sweeping, _plus_ the direction
+and examination of the traffic, _plus_ the laying of our own
+ever-shifting mine-fields, is part of the Trawler Fleet's work,
+because the Navy-as-we-knew-it is busy elsewhere. And there is always
+the enemy submarine with a price on her head, whom the Trawler Fleet
+hunts and traps with zeal and joy. Add to this, that there are boats,
+fishing for real fish, to be protected in their work at sea or chased
+off dangerous areas whither, because they are strictly forbidden to
+go, they naturally repair, and you will begin to get some idea of what
+the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet does.
+
+
+THE SHIPS AND THE MEN
+
+Now, imagine the acreage of several dock-basins crammed, gunwale to
+gunwale, with brown and umber and ochre and rust-red steam-trawlers,
+tugs, harbour-boats, and yachts once clean and respectable, now dirty
+and happy. Throw in fish-steamers, surprise-packets of unknown lines
+and indescribable junks, sampans, lorchas, catamarans, and General
+Service stink-pontoons filled with indescribable apparatus, manned by
+men no dozen of whom seem to talk the same dialect or wear the same
+clothes. The mustard-coloured jersey who is cleaning a six-pounder on
+a Hull boat clips his words between his teeth and would be happier in
+Gaelic. The whitish singlet and grey trousers held up by what is
+obviously his soldier brother's spare regimental belt is pure
+Lowestoft. The complete blue-serge-and-soot suit passing a wire down a
+hatch is Glasgow as far as you can hear him, which is a fair distance,
+because he wants something done to the other end of the wire, and the
+flat-faced boy who should be attending to it hails from the remoter
+Hebrides, and is looking at a girl on the dock-edge. The bow-legged
+man in the ulster and green-worsted comforter is a warm Grimsby
+skipper, worth several thousands. He and his crew, who are mostly his
+own relations, keep themselves to themselves, and save their money.
+The pirate with the red beard, barking over the rail at a friend with
+gold earrings, comes from Skye. The friend is West Country. The
+noticeably insignificant man with the soft and deprecating eye is
+skipper and part-owner of the big slashing Iceland trawler on which he
+droops like a flower. She is built to almost Western Ocean lines,
+carries a little boat-deck aft with tremendous stanchions, has a nose
+cocked high against ice and sweeping seas, and resembles a hawk-moth
+at rest. The small, sniffing man is reported to be a "holy terror at
+sea."
+
+
+HUNTERS AND FISHERS
+
+The child in the Pullman-car uniform just going ashore is a wireless
+operator, aged nineteen. He is attached to a flagship at least 120
+feet long, under an admiral aged twenty-five, who was, till the other
+day, third mate of a North Atlantic tramp, but who now leads a
+squadron of six trawlers to hunt submarines. The principle is simple
+enough. Its application depends on circumstances and surroundings. One
+class of German submarines meant for murder off the coasts may use a
+winding and rabbit-like track between shoals where the choice of water
+is limited. Their career is rarely long, but, while it lasts,
+moderately exciting. Others, told off for deep-sea assassinations, are
+attended to quite quietly and without any excitement at all. Others,
+again, work the inside of the North Sea, making no distinction between
+neutrals and Allied ships. These carry guns, and since their work
+keeps them a good deal on the surface, the Trawler Fleet, as we know,
+engages them there--the submarine firing, sinking, and rising again in
+unexpected quarters; the trawler firing, dodging, and trying to ram.
+The trawlers are strongly built, and can stand a great deal of
+punishment. Yet again, other German submarines hang about the skirts
+of fishing-fleets and fire into the brown of them. When the war was
+young this gave splendidly "frightful" results, but for some reason or
+other the game is not as popular as it used to be.
+
+Lastly, there are German submarines who perish by ways so curious and
+inexplicable that one could almost credit the whispered idea (it must
+come from the Scotch skippers) that the ghosts of the women they
+drowned pilot them to destruction. But what form these shadows
+take--whether of "The Lusitania Ladies," or humbler stewardesses and
+hospital nurses--and what lights or sounds the thing fancies it sees
+or hears before it is blotted out, no man will ever know. The main
+fact is that the work is being done. Whether it was necessary or
+politic to re-awaken by violence every sporting instinct of a
+sea-going people is a question which the enemy may have to consider
+later on.
+
+    Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making
+      Jumbled and short and steep--
+    Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking--
+      Awkward water to sweep.
+      "Mines reported in the fairway,
+      "Warn all traffic and detain.
+    "'Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."
+
+    Noon off the Foreland--the first ebb making
+      Lumpy and strong in the bight.
+    Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking
+      And the jackdaws wild with fright!
+      "Mines located in the fairway,
+      "Boats now working up the chain,
+    "Sweepers--Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock and Golden Gain."
+
+    Dusk off the Foreland--the last light going
+      And the traffic crowding through,
+    And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing
+      Heading the whole review!
+      "Sweep completed in the fairway.
+      "No more mines remain.
+    "'Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."
+
+
+
+
+THE AUXILIARIES
+
+II
+
+
+The Trawlers seem to look on mines as more or less fairplay. But with
+the torpedo it is otherwise. A Yarmouth man lay on his hatch, his gear
+neatly stowed away below, and told me that another Yarmouth boat had
+"gone up," with all hands except one. "'Twas a submarine. Not a mine,"
+said he. "They never gave our boys no chance. Na! She was a Yarmouth
+boat--we knew 'em all. They never gave the boys no chance." He was a
+submarine hunter, and he illustrated by means of matches placed at
+various angles how the blindfold business is conducted. "And then," he
+ended, "there's always what _he'll_ do. You've got to think that out
+for yourself--while you're working above him--same as if 'twas fish."
+I should not care to be hunted for the life in shallow waters by a man
+who knows every bank and pothole of them, even if I had not killed his
+friends the week before. Being nearly all fishermen they discuss their
+work in terms of fish, and put in their leisure fishing overside, when
+they sometimes pull up ghastly souvenirs. But they all want guns.
+Those who have three-pounders clamour for sixes; sixes for twelves;
+and the twelve-pound aristocracy dream of four-inchers on
+anti-aircraft mountings for the benefit of roving Zeppelins. They will
+all get them in time, and I fancy it will be long ere they give them
+up. One West Country mate announced that "a gun is a handy thing to
+have aboard--always." "But in peacetime?" I said. "Wouldn't it be in
+the way?"
+
+"We'm used to 'em now," was the smiling answer. "Niver go to sea again
+without a gun--_I_ wouldn't--if I had my way. It keeps all hands
+pleased-like."
+
+They talk about men in the Army who will never willingly go back to
+civil life. What of the fishermen who have tasted something sharper
+than salt water--and what of the young third and fourth mates who have
+held independent commands for nine months past? One of them said to me
+quite irrelevantly: "I used to be the animal that got up the trunks
+for the women on baggage-days in the old Bodiam Castle," and he
+mimicked their requests for "the large brown box," or "the black dress
+basket," as a freed soul might scoff at his old life in the flesh.
+
+
+"A COMMON SWEEPER"
+
+My sponsor and chaperon in this Elizabethan world of
+eighteenth-century seamen was an A.B. who had gone down in the
+_Landrail_, assisted at the Heligoland fight, seen the _Blücher_ sink
+and the bombs dropped on our boats when we tried to save the drowning
+("Whereby," as he said, "those Germans died gottstrafin' their own
+country because _we_ didn't wait to be strafed"), and has now found
+more peaceful days in an Office ashore. He led me across many decks
+from craft to craft to study the various appliances that they
+specialise in. Almost our last was what a North Country trawler called
+a "common sweeper," that is to say, a mine-sweeper. She was at tea in
+her shirt-sleeves, and she protested loudly that there was "nothing in
+sweeping." "'See that wire rope?" she said. "Well, it leads through
+that lead to the ship which you're sweepin' _with_. She makes her end
+fast and you make yourn. Then you sweep together at whichever depth
+you've agreed upon between you, by means of that arrangement there
+which regulates the depth. They give you a glass sort o' thing for
+keepin' your distance from the other ship, but _that's_ not wanted if
+you know each other. Well, then, you sweep, as the sayin' is. There's
+nothin' _in_ it. You sweep till this wire rope fouls the bloomin'
+mines. Then you go on till they appear on the surface, so to say, and
+then you explodes them by means of shootin' at 'em with that rifle in
+the galley there. There's nothin' in sweepin' more than that."
+
+"And if you hit a mine?" I asked.
+
+"You go up--but you hadn't ought to hit em', if you're careful. The
+thing is to get hold of the first mine all right, and then you go on
+to the next, and so on, in a way o' speakin'."
+
+"And you can fish, too, 'tween times," said a voice from the next
+boat. A man leaned over and returned a borrowed mug. They talked about
+fishing--notably that once they caught some red mullet, which the
+"common sweeper" and his neighbour both agreed was "not natural in
+those waters." As for mere sweeping, it bored them profoundly to talk
+about it. I only learned later as part of the natural history of
+mines, that if you rake the tri-nitro-toluol by hand out of a German
+mine you develop eruptions and skin-poisoning. But on the authority of
+two experts, there is nothing in sweeping. Nothing whatever!
+
+
+A BLOCK IN THE TRAFFIC
+
+Now imagine, not a pistol-shot from these crowded quays, a little
+Office hung round with charts that are pencilled and noted over
+various shoals and soundings. There is a movable list of the boats at
+work, with quaint and domestic names. Outside the window lies the
+packed harbour--outside that again the line of traffic up and down--a
+stately cinema-show of six ships to the hour. For the moment the film
+sticks. A boat--probably a "common sweeper"--reports an obstruction in
+a traffic lane a few miles away. She has found and exploded one mine.
+The Office heard the dull boom of it before the wireless report came
+in. In all likelihood there is a nest of them there. It is possible
+that a submarine may have got in last night between certain shoals and
+laid them out. The shoals are being shepherded in case she is hidden
+anywhere, but the boundaries of the newly discovered mine-area must be
+fixed and the traffic deviated. There is a tramp outside with tugs in
+attendance. She has hit something and is leaking badly. Where shall
+she go? The Office gives her her destination--the harbour is too full
+for her to settle down here. She swings off between the faithful tugs.
+Down coast some one asks by wireless if they shall hold up their
+traffic. It is exactly like a signaller "offering" a train to the next
+block. "Yes," the Office replies. "Wait a while. If it's what we
+think, there will be a little delay. If it isn't what we think, there
+will be a little longer delay." Meantime, sweepers are nosing round
+the suspected area--"looking for cuckoos' eggs," as a voice suggests;
+and a patrol-boat lathers her way down coast to catch and stop
+anything that may be on the move, for skippers are sometimes rather
+careless. Words begin to drop out of the air into the chart-hung
+Office. "Six and a half cables south, fifteen east" of something or
+other. "Mark it well, and tell them to work up from there," is the
+order. "Another mine exploded!" "Yes, and we heard that too," says
+the Office. "What about the submarine?" "_Elizabeth Huggins_ reports...."
+
+_Elizabeth's_ scandal must be fairly high flavoured, for a
+torpedo-boat of immoral aspect slings herself out of harbour and
+hastens to share it. If _Elizabeth_ has not spoken the truth, there
+may be words between the parties. For the present a pencilled
+suggestion seems to cover the case, together with a demand, as far as
+one can make out, for "more common sweepers." They will be forthcoming
+very shortly. Those at work have got the run of the mines now, and are
+busily howking them up. A trawler-skipper wishes to speak to the
+Office. "They" have ordered him out, but his boiler, most of it, is on
+the quay at the present time, and "ye'll remember, it's the same wi'
+my foremast an' port rigging, sir." The Office does not precisely
+remember, but if boiler and foremast are on the quay the rest of the
+ship had better stay alongside. The skipper falls away relieved. (He
+scraped a tramp a few nights ago in a bit of a sea.) There is a little
+mutter of gun-fire somewhere across the grey water where a fleet is
+at work. A monitor as broad as she is long comes back from wherever
+the trouble is, slips through the harbour mouth, all wreathed with
+signals, is received by two motherly lighters, and, to all appearance,
+goes to sleep between them. The Office does not even look up; for that
+is not in their department. They have found a trawler to replace the
+boilerless one. Her name is slid into the rack. The immoral
+torpedo-boat flounces back to her moorings. Evidently what _Elizabeth
+Huggins_ said was not evidence. The messages and replies begin again
+as the day closes.
+
+
+THE NIGHT PATROL
+
+Return now to the inner harbour. At twilight there was a stir among
+the packed craft like the separation of dried tea-leaves in water. The
+swing-bridge across the basin shut against us. A boat shot out of the
+jam, took the narrow exit at a fair seven knots and rounded in the
+outer harbour with all the pomp of a flagship, which was exactly what
+she was. Others followed, breaking away from every quarter in silence.
+Boat after boat fell into line--gear stowed away, spars and buoys in
+order on their clean decks, guns cast loose and ready, wheel-house
+windows darkened, and everything in order for a day or a week or a
+month out. There was no word anywhere. The interrupted foot-traffic
+stared at them as they slid past below. A woman beside me waved her
+hand to a man on one of them, and I saw his face light as he waved
+back. The boat where they had demonstrated for me with matches was the
+last. Her skipper hadn't thought it worth while to tell me that he was
+going that evening. Then the line straightened up and stood out to
+sea.
+
+"You never said this was going to happen," I said reproachfully to my
+A.B.
+
+"No more I did," said he. "It's the night-patrol going out. Fact is,
+I'm so used to the bloomin' evolution that it never struck me to
+mention it as you might say."
+
+Next morning I was at service in a man-of-war, and even as we came to
+the prayer that the Navy might "be a safeguard to such as pass upon
+the sea on their lawful occasions," I saw the long procession of
+traffic resuming up and down the Channel--six ships to the hour. It
+has been hung up for a bit, they said.
+
+    Farewell and adieu to you, Greenwich ladies,
+    Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
+    For we've received orders to work to the eastward
+    Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.
+
+    We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,
+    We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,
+    Until we strike something that doesn't expect us,
+    From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!
+
+    The first thing we did was to dock in a mine-field,
+    Which isn't a place where repairs should be done;
+    And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water
+    With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.
+
+    The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin,
+    With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky.
+    But what in the--Heavens can you do with six-pounders?
+    So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye.
+
+
+
+
+SUBMARINES
+
+I
+
+
+The chief business of the Trawler Fleet is to attend to the traffic.
+The submarine in her sphere attends to the enemy. Like the destroyer,
+the submarine has created its own type of officer and man--with
+language and traditions apart from the rest of the Service, and yet at
+heart unchangingly of the Service. Their business is to run monstrous
+risks from earth, air, and water, in what, to be of any use, must be
+the coldest of cold blood.
+
+The commander's is more a one-man job, as the crew's is more
+team-work, than any other employment afloat. That is why the relations
+between submarine officers and men are what they are. They play
+hourly for each other's lives with Death the Umpire always at their
+elbow on tiptoe to give them "out."
+
+There is a stretch of water, once dear to amateur yachtsmen, now given
+over to scouts, submarines, destroyers, and, of course, contingents of
+trawlers. We were waiting the return of some boats which were due to
+report. A couple surged up the still harbour in the afternoon light
+and tied up beside their sisters. There climbed out of them three or
+four high-booted, sunken-eyed pirates clad in sweaters, under jackets
+that a stoker of the last generation would have disowned. This was
+their first chance to compare notes at close hand. Together they
+lamented the loss of a Zeppelin--"a perfect mug of a Zepp," who had
+come down very low and offered one of them a sitting shot. "But what
+_can_ you do with our guns? I gave him what I had, and then he started
+bombing."
+
+"I know he did," another said. "I heard him. That's what brought me
+down to you. I thought he had you that last time."
+
+"No, I was forty foot under when he hove out the big un. What happened
+to _you_?"
+
+"My steering-gear jammed just after I went down, and I had to go round
+in circles till I got it straightened out. But _wasn't_ he a mug!"
+
+"Was he the brute with the patch on his port side?" a sister-boat
+demanded.
+
+"No! This fellow had just been hatched. He was almost sitting on the
+water, heaving bombs over."
+
+"And my blasted steering-gear went and chose _then_ to go wrong," the
+other commander mourned. "I thought his last little egg was going to
+get me!"
+
+Half an hour later, I was formally introduced to three or four quite
+strange, quite immaculate officers, freshly shaved, and a little tired
+about the eyes, whom I thought I had met before.
+
+
+LABOUR AND REFRESHMENT
+
+Meantime (it was on the hour of evening drinks) one of the boats was
+still unaccounted for. No one talked of her. They rather discussed
+motor-cars and Admiralty constructors, but--it felt like that queer
+twilight watch at the front when the homing aeroplanes drop in.
+Presently a signaller entered. "V 42 outside, sir; wants to know which
+channel she shall use." "Oh, thank you. Tell her to take so-and-so."
+... Mine, remember, was vermouth and bitters, and later on V 42
+himself found a soft chair and joined the committee of instruction.
+Those next for duty, as well as those in training, wished to hear what
+was going on, and who had shifted what to where, and how certain
+arrangements had worked. They were told in language not to be found in
+any printable book. Questions and answers were alike Hebrew to one
+listener, but he gathered that every boat carried a second in
+command--a strong, persevering youth, who seemed responsible for
+everything that went wrong, from a motor cylinder to a torpedo. Then
+somebody touched on the mercantile marine and its habits.
+
+Said one philosopher: "They can't be expected to take any more risks
+than they do. _I_ wouldn't, if I was a skipper. I'd loose off at any
+blessed periscope I saw."
+
+"That's all very fine. You wait till you've had a patriotic tramp
+trying to strafe you at your own back-door," said another.
+
+Some one told a tale of a man with a voice, notable even in a Service
+where men are not trained to whisper. He was coming back,
+empty-handed, dirty, tired, and best left alone. From the peace of the
+German side he had entered our hectic home-waters, where the usual
+tramp shelled, and by miraculous luck, crumpled his periscope. Another
+man might have dived, but Boanerges kept on rising. Majestic and
+wrathful he rose personally through his main hatch, and at 2000 yards
+(have I said it was a still day?) addressed the tramp. Even at that
+distance she gathered it was a Naval officer with a grievance, and by
+the time he ran alongside she was in a state of coma, but managed to
+stammer: "Well, sir, at least you'll admit that our shooting was
+pretty good."
+
+"And that," said my informant, "put the lid on!" Boanerges went down
+lest he should be tempted to murder; and the tramp affirms she heard
+him rumbling beneath her, like an inverted thunder-storm, for fifteen
+minutes.
+
+"All those tramps ought to be disarmed, and _we_ ought to have all
+their guns," said a voice out of a corner.
+
+"What? Still worrying over your 'mug'?" some one replied.
+
+"He _was_ a mug!" went on the man of one idea. "If I'd had a couple of
+twelves even, I could have strafed him proper. I don't know whether I
+shall mutiny, or desert, or write to the First Sea Lord about it."
+
+"Strafe all Admiralty constructors to begin with. _I_ could build a
+better boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine-tin than ----," the
+speaker named her by letter and number.
+
+"That's pure jealousy," her commander explained to the company. "Ever
+since I installed--ahem!--my patent electric washbasin he's been
+intriguin' to get her. Why? We know he doesn't wash. He'd only use
+the basin to keep beer in."
+
+
+UNDERWATER WORKS
+
+However often one meets it, as in this war one meets it at every turn,
+one never gets used to the Holy Spirit of Man at his job. The "common
+sweeper," growling over his mug of tea that there was "nothing in
+sweepin'," and these idly chaffing men, new shaved and attired, from
+the gates of Death which had let them through for the fiftieth time,
+were all of the same fabric--incomprehensible, I should imagine, to
+the enemy. And the stuff held good throughout all the world--from the
+Dardanelles to the Baltic, where only a little while ago another batch
+of submarines had slipped in and begun to be busy. I had spent some of
+the afternoon in looking through reports of submarine work in the Sea
+of Marmora. They read like the diary of energetic weasels in an
+overcrowded chicken-run, and the results for each boat were tabulated
+something like a cricket score. There were no maiden overs. One came
+across jewels of price set in the flat official phraseology. For
+example, one man who was describing some steps he was taking to remedy
+certain defects, interjected casually: "At this point I had to go
+under for a little, as a man in a boat was trying to grab my periscope
+with his hand." No reference before or after to the said man or his
+fate. Again: "Came across a dhow with a Turkish skipper. He seemed so
+miserable that I let him go." And elsewhere in those waters, a
+submarine overhauled a steamer full of Turkish passengers, some of
+whom, arguing on their allies' lines, promptly leaped overboard. Our
+boat fished them out and returned them, for she was not killing
+civilians. In another affair, which included several ships (now at the
+bottom) and one submarine, the commander relaxes enough to note that:
+"The men behaved very well under direct and flanking fire from rifles
+at about fifteen yards." This was _not_, I believe, the submarine that
+fought the Turkish cavalry on the beach. And in addition to matters
+much more marvellous than any I have hinted at, the reports deal with
+repairs and shifts and contrivances carried through in the face of
+dangers that read like the last delirium of romance. One boat went
+down the Straits and found herself rather canted over to one side. A
+mine and chain had jammed under her forward diving-plane. So far as I
+made out, she shook it off by standing on her head and jerking
+backwards; or it may have been, for the thing has occurred more than
+once, she merely rose as much as she could, when she could, and then
+"released it by hand," as the official phrase goes.
+
+
+FOUR NIGHTMARES
+
+And who, a few months ago, could have invented, or having invented,
+would have dared to print such a nightmare as this: There was a boat
+in the North Sea who ran into a net and was caught by the nose. She
+rose, still entangled, meaning to cut the thing away on the surface.
+But a Zeppelin in waiting saw and bombed her, and she had to go down
+again at once--but not too wildly or she would get herself more
+wrapped up than ever. She went down, and by slow working and weaving
+and wriggling, guided only by guesses at the meaning of each scrape
+and grind of the net on her blind forehead, at last she drew clear.
+Then she sat on the bottom and thought. The question was whether she
+should go back at once and warn her confederates against the trap, or
+wait till the destroyers which she knew the Zeppelin would have
+signalled for, should come out to finish her still entangled, as they
+would suppose, in the net? It was a simple calculation of comparative
+speeds and positions, and when it was worked out she decided to try
+for the double event. Within a few minutes of the time she had allowed
+for them, she heard the twitter of four destroyers' screws quartering
+above her; rose; got her shot in; saw one destroyer crumple; hung
+round till another took the wreck in tow; said good-bye to the spare
+brace (she was at the end of her supplies), and reached the
+rendezvous in time to turn her friends.
+
+And since we are dealing in nightmares, here are two more--one
+genuine, the other, mercifully, false. There was a boat not only at,
+but _in_ the mouth of a river--well home in German territory. She was
+spotted, and went under, her commander perfectly aware that there was
+not more than five feet of water over her conning-tower, so that even
+a torpedo-boat, let alone a destroyer, would hit it if she came over.
+But nothing hit anything. The search was conducted on scientific
+principles while they sat on the silt and suffered. Then the commander
+heard the rasp of a wire trawl sweeping over his hull. It was not a
+nice sound, but there happened to be a couple of gramophones aboard,
+and he turned them both on to drown it. And in due time that boat got
+home with everybody's hair of just the same colour as when they had
+started!
+
+The other nightmare arose out of silence and imagination. A boat had
+gone to bed on the bottom in a spot where she might reasonably expect
+to be looked for, but it was a convenient jumping-off, or up, place
+for the work in hand. About the bad hour of 2.30 A.M. the commander
+was waked by one of his men, who whispered to him: "They've got the
+chains on us, sir!" Whether it was pure nightmare, an hallucination of
+long wakefulness, something relaxing and releasing in that packed box
+of machinery, or the disgustful reality, the commander could not tell,
+but it had all the makings of panic in it. So the Lord and long
+training put it into his head to reply! "Have they? Well, we shan't be
+coming up till nine o'clock this morning. Well see about it then. Turn
+out that light, please."
+
+_He_ did not sleep, but the dreamer and the others did, and when
+morning came and he gave the order to rise, and she rose unhampered,
+and he saw the grey, smeared seas from above once again, he said it
+was a very refreshing sight.
+
+Lastly, which is on all fours with the gamble of the chase, a man was
+coming home rather bored after an uneventful trip. It was necessary
+for him to sit on the bottom for awhile, and there he played patience.
+Of a sudden it struck him, as a vow and an omen, that if he worked out
+the next game correctly he would go up and strafe something. The cards
+fell all in order. He went up at once and found himself alongside a
+German, whom, as he had promised and prophesied to himself, he
+destroyed. She was a mine-layer, and needed only a jar to dissipate
+like a cracked electric-light bulb. He was somewhat impressed by the
+contrast between the single-handed game fifty feet below, the ascent,
+the attack, the amazing result, and when he descended again, his cards
+just as he had left them.
+
+    The ships destroy us above
+      And ensnare us beneath.
+    We arise, we lie down, and we move
+      In the belly of Death.
+
+    The ships have a thousand eyes
+      To mark where we come ...
+    And the mirth of a seaport dies
+      When our blow gets home.
+
+
+
+
+SUBMARINES
+
+II
+
+
+I was honoured by a glimpse into this veiled life in a boat which was
+merely practising between trips. Submarines are like cats. They never
+tell "who they were with last night," and they sleep as much as they
+can. If you board a submarine off duty you generally see a perspective
+of fore-shortened fattish men laid all along. The men say that except
+at certain times it is rather an easy life, with relaxed regulations
+about smoking, calculated to make a man put on flesh. One requires
+well-padded nerves. Many of the men do not appear on deck throughout
+the whole trip. After all, why should they if they don't want to? They
+know that they are responsible in their department for their
+comrades' lives as their comrades are responsible for theirs. What's
+the use of flapping about? Better lay in some magazines and
+cigarettes.
+
+When we set forth there had been some trouble in the fairway, and a
+mined neutral, whose misfortune all bore with exemplary calm, was
+careened on a near-by shoal.
+
+"Suppose there are more mines knocking about?" I suggested.
+
+"We'll hope there aren't," was the soothing reply. "Mines are all
+Joss. You either hit 'em or you don't. And if you do, they don't
+always go off. They scrape alongside."
+
+"What's the etiquette then?"
+
+"Shut off both propellers and hope."
+
+We were dodging various craft down the harbour when a squadron of
+trawlers came out on our beam, at that extravagant rate of speed which
+unlimited Government coal always leads to. They were led by an ugly,
+upstanding, black-sided buccaneer with twelve-pounders.
+
+"Ah! That's the King of the Trawlers. Isn't he carrying dog, too!
+Give him room!" one said.
+
+We were all in the narrowed harbour mouth together.
+
+"'There's my youngest daughter. Take a look at her!'" some one hummed
+as a punctilious navy cap slid by on a very near bridge.
+
+"We'll fall in behind him. They're going over to the neutral. Then
+they'll sweep. By the bye, did you hear about one of the passengers in
+the neutral yesterday? He was taken off, of course, by a destroyer,
+and the only thing he said was: 'Twenty-five time I 'ave insured, but
+not _this_ time.... 'Ang it!'"
+
+The trawlers lunged ahead toward the forlorn neutral. Our destroyer
+nipped past us with that high-shouldered, terrier-like pouncing action
+of the newer boats, and went ahead. A tramp in ballast, her propeller
+half out of water, threshed along through the sallow haze.
+
+"Lord! What a shot!" somebody said enviously. The men on the little
+deck looked across at the slow-moving silhouette. One of them, a
+cigarette behind his ear, smiled at a companion.
+
+Then we went down--not as they go when they are pressed (the record, I
+believe, is 50 feet in 50 seconds from top to bottom), but genteelly,
+to an orchestra of appropriate sounds, roarings, and blowings, and
+after the orders, which come from the commander alone, utter silence
+and peace.
+
+"There's the bottom. We bumped at fifty--fifty-two," he said.
+
+"I didn't feel it."
+
+"We'll try again. Watch the gauge, and you'll see it flick a little."
+
+
+THE PRACTICE OF THE ART
+
+It may have been so, but I was more interested in the faces, and above
+all the eyes, all down the length of her. It was to them, of course,
+the simplest of manoeuvres. They dropped into gear as no machine
+could; but the training of years and the experience of the year leaped
+up behind those steady eyes under the electrics in the shadow of the
+tall motors, between the pipes and the curved hull, or glued to their
+special gauges. One forgot the bodies altogether--but one will never
+forget the eyes or the ennobled faces. One man I remember in
+particular. On deck his was no more than a grave, rather striking
+countenance, cast in the unmistakable petty officer's mould. Below, as
+I saw him in profile handling a vital control, he looked like the Doge
+of Venice, the Prior of some sternly-ruled monastic order, an old-time
+Pope--anything that signifies trained and stored intellectual power
+utterly and ascetically devoted to some vast impersonal end. And so
+with a much younger man, who changed into such a monk as Frank Dicksee
+used to draw. Only a couple of torpedo-men, not being in gear for the
+moment, read an illustrated paper. Their time did not come till we
+went up and got to business, which meant firing at our destroyer, and,
+I think, keeping out of the light of a friend's torpedoes.
+
+The attack and everything connected with it is solely the commander's
+affair. He is the only one who gets any fun at all--since he is the
+eye, the brain, and the hand of the whole--this single figure at the
+periscope. The second in command heaves sighs, and prays that the
+dummy torpedo (there is less trouble about the live ones) will go off
+all right, or he'll be told about it. The others wait and follow the
+quick run of orders. It is, if not a convention, a fairly established
+custom that the commander shall inferentially give his world some idea
+of what is going on. At least, I only heard of one man who says
+nothing whatever, and doesn't even wriggle his shoulders when he is on
+the sight. The others soliloquise, etc., according to their
+temperament; and the periscope is as revealing as golf.
+
+Submarines nowadays are expected to look out for themselves more than
+at the old practices, when the destroyers walked circumspectly. We
+dived and circulated under water for a while, and then rose for a
+sight--something like this: "Up a little--up! Up still! Where the
+deuce has he got to--Ah! (Half a dozen orders as to helm and depth of
+descent, and a pause broken by a drumming noise somewhere above, which
+increases and passes away.) That's better! Up again! (This refers to
+the periscope.) Yes. Ah! No, we _don't_ think! All right! Keep her
+_down_, damn it! Umm! That ought to be nineteen knots.... Dirty trick!
+He's changing speed. No, he isn't. _He's_ all right. Ready forward
+there! (A valve sputters and drips, the torpedo-men crouch over their
+tubes and nod to themselves. _Their_ faces have changed now.) He
+hasn't spotted us yet. We'll ju-ust--(more helm and depth orders, but
+specially helm)--'Wish we were working a beam-tube. Ne'er mind! Up! (A
+last string of orders.) Six hundred, and he doesn't see us! Fire!"
+
+The dummy left; the second in command cocked one ear and looked
+relieved. Up we rose; the wet air and spray spattered through the
+hatch; the destroyer swung off to retrieve the dummy.
+
+"Careless brutes destroyers are," said one officer. "That fellow
+nearly walked over us just now. Did you notice?"
+
+The commander was playing his game out over again--stroke by stroke.
+"With a beam-tube I'd ha' strafed him amidships," he concluded.
+
+"Why didn't you then?" I asked.
+
+There were loads of shiny reasons, which reminded me that we were at
+war and cleared for action, and that the interlude had been merely
+play. A companion rose alongside and wanted to know whether we had
+seen anything of her dummy.
+
+"No. But we heard it," was the short answer.
+
+I was rather annoyed, because I had seen that particular daughter of
+destruction on the stocks only a short time ago, and here she was
+grown up and talking about her missing children!
+
+In the harbour again, one found more submarines, all patterns and
+makes and sizes, with rumours of yet more and larger to follow.
+Naturally their men say that we are only at the beginning of the
+submarine. We shall have them presently for all purposes.
+
+
+THE MAN AND THE WORK
+
+Now here is a mystery of the Service.
+
+A man gets a boat which for two years becomes his very self--
+
+    His morning hope, his evening dream,
+    His joy throughout the day.
+
+With him is a second in command, an engineer, and some others. They
+prove each other's souls habitually every few days, by the direct test
+of peril, till they act, think, and endure as a unit, in and with the
+boat. That commander is transferred to another boat. He tries to take
+with him if he can, which he can't, as many of his other selves as
+possible. He is pitched into a new type twice the size of the old one,
+with three times as many gadgets, an unexplored temperament and
+unknown leanings. After his first trip he comes back clamouring for
+the head of her constructor, of his own second in command, his
+engineer, his cox, and a few other ratings. They for their part wish
+him dead on the beach, because, last commission with So-and-so,
+nothing ever went wrong anywhere. A fortnight later you can remind the
+commander of what he said, and he will deny every word of it. She's
+not, he says, so very vile--things considered--barring her five-ton
+torpedo-derricks, the abominations of her wireless, and the tropical
+temperature of her beer-lockers. All of which signifies that the new
+boat has found her soul, and her commander would not change her for
+battle-cruisers. Therefore, that he may remember he is the Service and
+not a branch of it, he is after certain seasons shifted to a
+battle-cruiser, where he lives in a blaze of admirals and
+aiguillettes, responsible for vast decks and crypt-like flats, a
+student of extended above-water tactics, thinking in tens of thousands
+of yards instead of his modest but deadly three to twelve hundred.
+
+And the man who takes his place straight-way forgets that he ever
+looked down on great rollers from a sixty-foot bridge under the whole
+breadth of heaven, but crawls and climbs and dives through
+conning-towers with those same waves wet in his neck, and when the
+cruisers pass him, tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he
+is not as they are, and goes to bed beneath their distracted keels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+EXPERT OPINIONS
+
+"But submarine work is cold-blooded business."
+
+(This was at a little session in a green-curtained "wardroom" cum
+owner's cabin.)
+
+"Then there's no truth in the yarn that you can feel when the
+torpedo's going to get home?" I asked.
+
+"Not a word. You sometimes see it get home, or miss, as the case may
+be. Of course, it's never your fault if it misses. It's all your
+second-in-command."
+
+"That's true, too," said the second. "I catch it all round. That's
+what I am here for."
+
+"And what about the third man?" There was one aboard at the time.
+
+"He generally comes from a smaller boat, to pick up real work--if he
+can suppress his intellect and doesn't talk 'last commission.'"
+
+The third hand promptly denied the possession of any intellect, and
+was quite dumb about his last boat.
+
+"And the men?"
+
+"They train on, too. They train each other. Yes, one gets to know 'em
+about as well as they get to know us. Up topside, a man can take you
+in--take himself in--for months; for half a commission, p'rhaps. Down
+below he can't. It's all in cold blood--not like at the front, where
+they have something exciting all the time."
+
+"Then bumping mines isn't exciting?"
+
+"Not one little bit. You can't bump back at 'em. Even with a Zepp----"
+
+"Oh, now and then," one interrupted, and they laughed as they
+explained.
+
+"Yes, that was rather funny. One of our boats came up slap underneath
+a low Zepp. 'Looked for the sky, you know, and couldn't see anything
+except this fat, shining belly almost on top of 'em. Luckily, it
+wasn't the Zepp's stingin' end. So our boat went to windward and kept
+just awash. There was a bit of a sea, and the Zepp had to work against
+the wind. (They don't like that.) Our boat sent a man to the gun. He
+was pretty well drowned, of course, but he hung on, choking and
+spitting, and held his breath, and got in shots where he could. This
+Zepp was strafing bombs about for all she was worth, and--who was
+it?--Macartney, I think, potting at her between dives; and naturally
+all hands wanted to look at the performance, so about half the North
+Sea flopped down below and--oh, they had a Charlie Chaplin time of it!
+Well, somehow, Macartney managed to rip the Zepp a bit, and she went
+to leeward with a list on her. We saw her a fortnight later with a
+patch on her port side. Oh, if Fritz only fought clean, this wouldn't
+be half a bad show. But Fritz can't fight clean."
+
+"And _we_ can't do what he does--even if we were allowed to," one
+said.
+
+"No, we can't. 'Tisn't done. We have to fish Fritz out of the water,
+dry him, and give him cocktails, and send him to Donnington Hall."
+
+"And what does Fritz do?" I asked.
+
+"He sputters and clicks and bows. He has all the correct motions, you
+know; but, of course, when he's your prisoner you can't tell him what
+he really is."
+
+"And do you suppose Fritz understands any of it?" I went on.
+
+"No. Or he wouldn't have lusitaniaed. This war was his first chance of
+making his name, and he chucked it all away for the sake of showin'
+off as a foul Gottstrafer."
+
+And they talked of that hour of the night when submarines come to the
+top like mermaids to get and give information; of boats whose business
+it is to fire as much and to splash about as aggressively as possible;
+and of other boats who avoid any sort of display--dumb boats watching
+and relieving watch, with their periscope just showing like a
+crocodile's eye, at the back of islands and the mouths of channels
+where something may some day move out in procession to its doom.
+
+    Be well assured that on our side
+      Our challenged oceans fight,
+    Though headlong wind and heaping tide
+      Make us their sport to-night.
+    Through force of weather, not of war,
+      In jeopardy we steer.
+    Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy
+      Whereby it shall appear
+        How in all time of our distress
+        As in our triumph too,
+        The game is more than the player of the game,
+        And the ship is more than the crew!
+
+    Be well assured, though wave and wind
+      Have mightier blows in store,
+    That we who keep the watch assigned
+      Must stand to it the more;
+    And as our streaming bows dismiss
+      Each billow's baulked career,
+    Sing, welcome Fate's discourtesy
+      Whereby it is made clear
+        How in all time of our distress
+        As in our triumph too,
+        The game is more than the player of the game,
+        And the ship is more than the crew!
+
+    Be well assured, though in our power
+      Is nothing left to give
+    But time and place to meet the hour
+      And leave to strive to live,
+    Till these dissolve our Order holds,
+      Our Service binds us here.
+    Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy
+      Whereby it is made clear
+        How in all time of our distress
+        And our deliverance too,
+        The game is more than the player of the game,
+        And the ship is more than the crew!
+
+
+
+
+PATROLS
+
+I
+
+
+On the edge of the North Sea sits an Admiral in charge of a stretch of
+coast without lights or marks, along which the traffic moves much as
+usual. In front of him there is nothing but the east wind, the enemy,
+and some few our ships. Behind him there are towns, with M.P.'s
+attached, who a little while ago didn't see the reason for certain
+lighting orders. When a Zeppelin or two came, they saw. Left and right
+of him are enormous docks, with vast crowded sheds, miles of
+stone-faced quay-edges, loaded with all manner of supplies and crowded
+with mixed shipping.
+
+In this exalted world one met Staff-Captains, Staff-Commanders,
+Staff-Lieutenants, and Secretaries, with Paymasters so senior that
+they almost ranked with Admirals. There were Warrant Officers, too,
+who long ago gave up splashing about decks barefoot, and now check and
+issue stores to the ravenous, untruthful fleets. Said one of these,
+guarding a collection of desirable things, to a cross between a
+sick-bay attendant and a junior writer (but he was really an expert
+burglar), "_No!_ An' you can tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compliments,
+that the storekeeper's gone away--right away--with the key of these
+stores in his pocket. Understand me? In his trousers pocket."
+
+He snorted at my next question.
+
+"_Do_ I know any destroyer-lootenants?" said he. "This coast's rank
+with 'em! Destroyer-lootenants are born stealing. It's a mercy they's
+too busy to practise forgery, or I'd be in gaol. Engineer-Commanders?
+Engineer-Lootenants? They're worse!... Look here! If my own mother was
+to come to me beggin' brass screws for her own coffin, I'd--I'd think
+twice before I'd oblige the old lady. War's war, I grant you that;
+but what I've got to contend with is crime."
+
+I referred to him a case of conscience in which every one concerned
+acted exactly as he should, and it nearly ended in murder. During a
+lengthy action, the working of a gun was hampered by some empty
+cartridge-cases which the lieutenant in charge made signs (no man
+could hear his neighbour speak just then) should be hove overboard.
+Upon which the gunner rushed forward and made other signs that they
+were "on charge," and must be tallied and accounted for. He, too, was
+trained in a strict school. Upon which the lieutenant, but that he was
+busy, would have slain the gunner for refusing orders in action.
+Afterwards he wanted him shot by court-martial. But every one was
+voiceless by then, and could only mouth and croak at each other, till
+somebody laughed, and the pedantic gunner was spared.
+
+"Well, that's what you might fairly call a naval crux," said my friend
+among the stores. "The Lootenant was right. 'Mustn't refuse orders in
+action. The Gunner was right. Empty cases _are_ on charge. No one
+ought to chuck 'em away that way, but.... Damn it, they were _all_ of
+'em right! It ought to ha' been a marine. Then they could have killed
+him and preserved discipline at the same time."
+
+
+A LITTLE THEORY
+
+The problem of this coast resolves itself into keeping touch with the
+enemy's movements; in preparing matters to trap and hinder him when he
+moves, and in so entertaining him that he shall not have time to draw
+clear before a blow descends on him from another quarter. There are
+then three lines of defence: the outer, the inner, and the home
+waters. The traffic and fishing are always with us.
+
+The blackboard idea of it is always to have stronger forces more
+immediately available everywhere than those the enemy can send. _x_
+German submarines draw _a_ English destroyers. Then _x_ calls _x + y_
+to deal with _a_, who, in turn, calls up _b_, a scout, and possibly
+_a²_, with a fair chance that, if _x + y + z_ (a Zeppelin) carry on,
+they will run into _a² + b² + c_ cruisers. At this point, the equation
+generally stops; if it continued, it would end mathematically in the
+whole of the German Fleet coming out. Then another factor which we may
+call the Grand Fleet would come from another place. To change the
+comparisons: the Grand Fleet is the "strong left" ready to give the
+knock-out blow on the point of the chin when the head is thrown up.
+The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar
+plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the
+"blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn
+as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive
+at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up to date.
+
+The enemy lies behind his mines, and ours, raids our coasts when he
+sees a chance, and kills seagoing civilians at sight or guess, with
+intent to terrify. Most sailor-men are mixed up with a woman or two; a
+fair percentage of them have seen men drown. They can realise what it
+is when women go down choking in horrible tangles and heavings of
+draperies. To say that the enemy has cut himself from the fellowship
+of all who use the seas is rather understating the case. As a man
+observed thoughtfully: "You can't look at any water now without seeing
+'Lusitania' sprawlin' all across it. And just think of those words,
+'North-German Lloyd,' 'Hamburg-Amerika' and such things, in the time
+to come. They simply mustn't be."
+
+He was an elderly trawler, respectable as they make them, who, after
+many years of fishing, had discovered his real vocation. "I never
+thought I'd like killin' men," he reflected. "Never seemed to be any
+o' my dooty. But it is--and I do!"
+
+A great deal of the East Coast work concerns mine-fields--ours and the
+enemy's--both of which shift as occasion requires. We search for and
+root out the enemy's mines; they do the like by us. It is a perpetual
+game of finding, springing, and laying traps on the least as well as
+the most likely runaways that ships use--such sea snaring and wiring
+as the world never dreamt of. We are hampered in this, because our
+Navy respects neutrals; and spends a great deal of its time in making
+their path safe for them. The enemy does not. He blows them up,
+because that cows and impresses them, and so adds to his prestige.
+
+
+DEATH AND THE DESTROYER
+
+The easiest way of finding a mine-field is to steam into it, on the
+edge of night for choice, with a steep sea running, for that brings
+the bows down like a chopper on the detonator-horns. Some boats have
+enjoyed this experience and still live. There was one destroyer (and
+there may have been others since) who came through twenty-four hours
+of highly-compressed life. She had an idea that there was a
+mine-field somewhere about, and left her companions behind while she
+explored. The weather was dead calm, and she walked delicately. She
+saw one Scandinavian steamer blow up a couple of miles away, rescued
+the skipper and some hands; saw another neutral, which she could not
+reach till all was over, skied in another direction; and, between her
+life-saving efforts and her natural curiosity, got herself as
+thoroughly mixed up with the field as a camel among tent-ropes. A
+destroyer's bows are very fine, and her sides are very straight. This
+causes her to cleave the wave with the minimum of disturbance, and
+this boat had no desire to cleave anything else. None the less, from
+time to time, she heard a mine grate, or tinkle, or jar (I could not
+arrive at the precise note it strikes, but they say it is unpleasant)
+on her plates. Sometimes she would be free of them for a long while,
+and began to hope she was clear. At other times they were numerous,
+but when at last she seemed to have worried out of the danger zone
+lieutenant and sub together left the bridge for a cup of tea. ("In
+those days we took mines very seriously, you know.") As they were in
+act to drink, they heard the hateful sound again just outside the
+wardroom. Both put their cups down with extreme care, little fingers
+extended ("We felt as if they might blow up, too"), and tip-toed on
+deck, where they met the foc'sle also on tip-toe. They pulled
+themselves together, and asked severely what the foc'sle thought it
+was doing. "Beg pardon, sir, but there's another of those blighters
+tap-tapping alongside, our end." They all waited and listened to their
+common coffin being nailed by Death himself. But the things bumped
+away. At this point they thought it only decent to invite the rescued
+skipper, warm and blanketed in one of their bunks, to step up and do
+any further perishing in the open.
+
+"No, thank you," said he. "Last time I was blown up in my bunk, too.
+That was all right. So I think, now, too, I stay in my bunk here. It
+is cold upstairs."
+
+Somehow or other they got out of the mess after all. "Yes, we used to
+take mines awfully seriously in those days. One comfort is, Fritz'll
+take them seriously when he comes out. Fritz don't like mines."
+
+"Who does?" I wanted to know.
+
+"If you'd been here a little while ago, you'd seen a Commander comin'
+in with a big 'un slung under his counter. He brought the beastly
+thing in to analyse. The rest of his squadron followed at two-knot
+intervals, and everything in harbour that had steam up scattered."
+
+
+THE ADMIRABLE COMMANDER
+
+Presently I had the honour to meet a Lieutenant-Commander-Admiral who
+had retired from the service, but, like others, had turned out again at
+the first flash of the guns, and now commands--he who had great ships
+erupting at his least signal--a squadron of trawlers for the protection
+of the Dogger Bank Fleet. At present prices--let alone the chance of the
+paying submarine--men would fish in much warmer places. His flagship
+was once a multi-millionaire's private yacht. In her mixture of stark,
+carpetless, curtainless, carbolised present, with voluptuously curved,
+broad-decked, easy-stairwayed past, she might be Queen Guinevere in the
+convent at Amesbury. And her Lieutenant-Commander, most careful to pay
+all due compliments to Admirals who were midshipmen when _he_ was a
+Commander, leads a congregation of very hard men indeed. They do
+precisely what he tells them to, and with him go through strange
+experiences, because they love him and because his language is volcanic
+and wonderful--what you might call Popocatapocalyptic. I saw the Old
+Navy making ready to lead out the New under a grey sky and a falling
+glass--the wisdom and cunning of the old man backed up by the passion
+and power of the younger breed, and the discipline which had been his
+soul for half a century binding them all.
+
+"What'll he do _this_ time?" I asked of one who might know.
+
+"He'll cruise between Two and Three East; but if you'll tell me what
+he _won't_ do, it 'ud be more to the point! He's mine-hunting, I
+expect, just now."
+
+
+WASTED MATERIAL
+
+Here is a digression suggested by the sight of a man I had known in
+other scenes, despatch-riding round a fleet in a petrol-launch. There
+are many of his type, yachtsmen of sorts accustomed to take chances,
+who do not hold masters' certificates and cannot be given sea-going
+commands. Like my friend, they do general utility work--often in their
+own boats. This is a waste of good material. Nobody wants amateur
+navigators--the traffic lanes are none too wide as it is. But these
+gentlemen ought to be distributed among the Trawler Fleet as strictly
+combatant officers. A trawler skipper may be an excellent seaman, but
+slow with a submarine shelling and diving, or in cutting out enemy
+trawlers. The young ones who can master Q.F. gun work in a very short
+time would--though there might be friction, a court-martial or two,
+and probably losses at first--pay for their keep. Even a hundred or so
+of amateurs, more or less controlled by their squadron commanders,
+would make a happy beginning, and I am sure they would all be
+extremely grateful.
+
+    Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning,
+      And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole,
+    I heard a destroyer sing: "What an enjoyable life does one
+              lead on the North Sea Patrol!
+
+    "To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritz's),
+      Which means there are mine-fields wherever you stroll.
+    Unless you've particular wish to die quick, you'll avoid steering
+              close to the North Sea Patrol.
+
+    "We warn from disaster the mercantile master
+      Who takes in high dudgeon our life-saving rôle,
+    For every one's grousing at docking and dowsing
+      The marks and the lights on the North Sea Patrol."
+
+    [Twelve verses omitted.]
+
+    So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving,
+    I watched her head out through the swell off the shoal,
+    And I heard her propellers roar: "Write to poor fellers
+      Who run such a Hell as the North Sea Patrol!"
+
+
+
+
+PATROLS
+
+II
+
+
+The great basins were crammed with craft of kinds never known before
+on any Navy List. Some were as they were born, others had been
+converted, and a multitude have been designed for special cases. The
+Navy prepares against all contingencies by land, sea, and air. It was
+a relief to meet a batch of comprehensible destroyers and to drop
+again into the little mouse-trap ward-rooms, which are as
+large-hearted as all Our oceans. The men one used to know as
+destroyer-lieutenants ("born stealing") are serious Commanders and
+Captains to-day, but their sons, Lieutenants in command and
+Lieutenant-Commanders, do follow them. The sea in peace is a hard
+life; war only sketches an extra line or two round the young mouths.
+The routine of ships always ready for action is so part of the blood
+now that no one notices anything except the absence of formality and
+of the "crimes" of peace. What Warrant Officers used to say at length
+is cut down to a grunt. What the sailor-man did not know and expected
+to have told him, does not exist. He has done it all too often at sea
+and ashore.
+
+I watched a little party working under a leading hand at a job which,
+eighteen months ago, would have required a Gunner in charge. It was
+comic to see his orders trying to overtake the execution of them.
+Ratings coming aboard carried themselves with a (to me) new
+swing--not swank, but consciousness of adequacy. The high, dark
+foc'sles which, thank goodness, are only washed twice a week,
+received them and their bags, and they turned-to on the instant as a
+man picks up his life at home. Like the submarine crew, they come to
+be a breed apart--double-jointed, extra-toed, with brazen bowels and
+no sort of nerves.
+
+It is the same in the engine-room, when the ships come in for their
+regular looking-over. Those who love them, which you would never guess
+from the language, know exactly what they need, and get it without
+fuss. Everything that steams has her individual peculiarity, and the
+great thing is, at overhaul, to keep to it and not develop a new one.
+If, for example, through some trick of her screws not synchronising, a
+destroyer always casts to port when she goes astern, do not let any
+zealous soul try to make her run true, or you will have to learn her
+helm all over again. And it is vital that you should know exactly what
+your ship is going to do three seconds before she does it. Similarly
+with men. If any one, from Lieutenant-Commander to stoker, changes his
+personal trick or habit--even the manner in which he clutches his chin
+or caresses his nose at a crisis--the matter must be carefully
+considered in this world where each is trustee for his neighbour's
+life and, vastly more important, the corporate honour.
+
+"What are the destroyers doing just now?" I asked.
+
+"Oh--running about--much the same as usual."
+
+The Navy hasn't the least objection to telling one everything that it
+is doing. Unfortunately, it speaks its own language, which is
+incomprehensible to the civilian. But you will find it all in "The
+Channel Pilot" and "The Riddle of the Sands."
+
+It is a foul coast, hairy with currents and rips, and mottled with
+shoals and rocks. Practically the same men hold on here in the same
+ships, with much the same crews, for months and months. A most senior
+officer told me that they were "good boys"--on reflection, "quite good
+boys"--but neither he nor the flags on his chart explained how they
+managed their lightless, unmarked navigations through black night,
+blinding rain, and the crazy, rebounding North Sea gales. They
+themselves ascribe it to Joss that they have not piled up their ships
+a hundred times.
+
+"I expect it must be because we're always dodging about over the same
+ground. One gets to smell it. We've bumped pretty hard, of course, but
+we haven't expended much up to date. You never know your luck on
+patrol, though."
+
+
+THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
+
+Personally, though they have been true friends to me, I loathe
+destroyers, and all the raw, racking, ricochetting life that goes with
+them--the smell of the wet "lammies" and damp wardroom cushions; the
+galley-chimney smoking out the bridge; the obstacle-strewn deck; and
+the pervading beastliness of oil, grit, and greasy iron. Even at
+moorings they shiver and sidle like half-backed horses. At sea they
+will neither rise up and fly clear like the hydroplanes, nor dive and
+be done with it like the submarines, but imitate the vices of both. A
+scientist of the lower deck describes them as: "Half switchback, half
+water-chute, and Hell continuous." Their only merit, from a landsman's
+point of view, is that they can crumple themselves up from stem to
+bridge and (I have seen it) still get home. But one does not breathe
+these compliments to their commanders. Other destroyers may be--they
+will point them out to you--poisonous bags of tricks, but their own
+command--never! Is she high-bowed? That is the only type which
+over-rides the seas instead of smothering. Is she low? Low bows glide
+through the water where those collier-nosed brutes smash it open. Is
+she mucked up with submarine-catchers? They rather improve her trim.
+No other ship has them. Have they been denied to her? Thank Heaven,
+_we_ go to sea without a fish-curing plant on deck. Does she roll,
+even for her class? She is drier than Dreadnoughts. Is she permanently
+and infernally wet? Stiff; sir--stiff: the first requisite of a
+gun-platform.
+
+
+"SERVICE AS REQUISITE"
+
+Thus the Cĉsars and their fortunes put out to sea with their subs and
+their sad-eyed engineers, and their long-suffering signallers--I do
+not even know the technical name of the sin which causes a man to be
+born a destroyer-signaller in this life--and the little yellow shells
+stuck all about where they can be easiest reached. The rest of their
+acts is written for the information of the proper authorities. It
+reads like a page of Todhunter. But the masters of merchant-ships
+could tell more of eyeless shapes, barely outlined on the foam of
+their own arrest, who shout orders through the thick gloom alongside.
+The strayed and anxious neutral knows them when their searchlights pin
+him across the deep, or their syrens answer the last yelp of his as
+steam goes out of his torpedoed boilers. They stand by to catch and
+soothe him in his pyjamas at the gangway, collect his scattered
+lifeboats, and see a warm drink into him before they turn to hunt the
+slayer. The drifters, punching and reeling up and down their ten-mile
+line of traps; the outer trawlers, drawing the very teeth of Death
+with water-sodden fingers, are grateful for their low, guarded
+signals; and when the Zeppelin's revealing star-shell cracks darkness
+open above him, the answering crack of the invisible destroyers' guns
+comforts the busy mine-layers. Big cruisers talk to them, too; and,
+what is more, they talk back to the cruisers. Sometimes they draw
+fire--pinkish spurts of light--a long way off, where Fritz is trying
+to coax them over a mine-field he has just laid; or they steal on
+Fritz in the midst of his job, and the horizon rings with barking,
+which the inevitable neutral who saw it all reports as "a heavy fleet
+action in the North Sea." The sea after dark can be as alive as the
+woods of summer nights. Everything is exactly where you don't expect
+it, and the shyest creatures are the farthest away from their holes.
+Things boom overhead like bitterns, or scutter alongside like hares,
+or arise dripping and hissing from below like otters. It is the
+destroyer's business to find out what their business may be through
+all the long night, and to help or hinder accordingly. Dawn sees them
+pitch-poling insanely between head-seas, or hanging on to bridges that
+sweep like scythes from one forlorn horizon to the other. A
+homeward-bound submarine chooses this hour to rise, very
+ostentatiously, and signals by hand to a lieutenant in command. (They
+were the same term at Dartmouth, and same first ship.)
+
+"What's he sayin'? Secure that gun, will you? 'Can't hear oneself
+speak," The gun is a bit noisy on its mountings, but that isn't the
+reason for the destroyer-lieutenant's short temper.
+
+"'Says he's goin' down, sir," the signaller replies. What the
+submarine had spelt out, and everybody knows it, was: "Cannot approve
+of this extremely frightful weather. Am going to bye-bye."
+
+"Well!" snaps the lieutenant to his signaller, "what are you grinning
+at?" The submarine has hung on to ask if the destroyer will "kiss her
+and whisper good-night." A breaking sea smacks her tower in the middle
+of the insult. She closes like an oyster, but--just too late. _Habet!_
+There must be a quarter of a ton of water somewhere down below, on its
+way to her ticklish batteries.
+
+"What a wag!" says the signaller, dreamily. "Well, 'e can't say 'e
+didn't get 'is little kiss."
+
+The lieutenant in command smiles. The sea is a beast, but a just
+beast.
+
+
+RACIAL UNTRUTHS
+
+This is trivial enough, but what would you have? If Admirals will not
+strike the proper attitudes, nor Lieutenants emit the appropriate
+sentiments, one is forced back on the truth, which is that the men at
+the heart of the great matters in our Empire are, mostly, of an even
+simplicity. From the advertising point of view they are stupid, but
+the breed has always been stupid in this department. It may be due,
+as our enemies assert, to our racial snobbery, or, as others hold, to
+a certain God-given lack of imagination which saves us from being
+over-concerned at the effects of our appearances on others. Either
+way, it deceives the enemies' people more than any calculated lie.
+When you come to think of it, though the English are the worst
+paper-work and _viva voce_ liars in the world, they have been
+rigorously trained since their early youth to live and act lies for
+the comfort of the society in which they move, and so for their own
+comfort. The result in this war is interesting.
+
+It is no lie that at the present moment we hold all the seas in the
+hollow of our hands. For that reason we shuffle over them shame-faced
+and apologetic, making arrangements here and flagrant compromises
+there, in order to give substance to the lie that we have dropped
+fortuitously into this high seat and are looking round the world for
+some one to resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, had we used the
+Navy's bare fist instead of its gloved hand from the beginning, we
+could in all likelihood have shortened the war. That being so, we
+elected to dab and peck at and half-strangle the enemy, to let him go
+and choke him again. It is no lie that we continue on our inexplicable
+path animated, we will try to believe till other proof is given, by a
+cloudy idea of alleviating or mitigating something for somebody--not
+ourselves. [Here, of course, is where our racial snobbery comes in,
+which makes the German gibber. I cannot understand why he has not
+accused us to our Allies of having secret commercial understandings
+with him.] For that reason, we shall finish the German eagle as the
+merciful lady killed the chicken. It took her the whole afternoon, and
+then, you will remember, the carcase had to be thrown away.
+
+Meantime, there is a large and unlovely water, inhabited by plain men
+in severe boats, who endure cold, exposure, wet, and monotony almost
+as heavy as their responsibilities. Charge them with heroism--but that
+needs heroism, indeed! Accuse them of patriotism, they become ribald.
+Examine into the records of the miraculous work they have done and are
+doing. They will assist you, but with perfect sincerity they will make
+as light of the valour and fore-thought shown as of the ends they have
+gained for mankind. The Service takes all work for granted. It knew
+long ago that certain things would have to be done, and it did its
+best to be ready for them. When it disappeared over the sky-line for
+manoeuvres it was practising--always practising; trying its men and
+stuff and throwing out what could not take the strain. That is why,
+when war came, only a few names had to be changed, and those chiefly
+for the sake of the body, not of the spirit. And the Seniors who hold
+the key to our plans and know what will be done if things happen, and
+what lines wear thin in the many chains, they are of one fibre and
+speech with the Juniors and the lower deck and all the rest who come
+out of the undemonstrative households ashore. "Here is the situation
+as it exists now," say the Seniors. "This is what we do to meet it.
+Look and count and measure and judge for yourself, and then you will
+know."
+
+It is a safe offer. The civilian only sees that the sea is a vast
+place, divided between wisdom and chance. He only knows that the
+uttermost oceans have been swept clear, and the trade-routes purged,
+one by one, even as our armies were being convoyed along them; that
+there was no island nor key left unsearched on any waters that might
+hide an enemy's craft between the Arctic Circle and the Horn. He only
+knows that less than a day's run to the eastward of where he stands,
+the enemy's fleets have been held for a year and four months, in order
+that civilisation may go about its business on all our waters.
+
+
+
+
+TALES OF "THE TRADE"
+
+(1916)
+
+
+
+
+"THE TRADE"
+
+    They bear, in place of classic names,
+      Letters and numbers on their skin.
+    They play their grisly blindfold games
+      In little boxes made of tin.
+      Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,
+    Sometimes they learn where mines are laid
+      Or where the Baltic ice is thin.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+    Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.
+      They seldom tow their targets in.
+    They follow certain secret aims
+      Down under, far from strife or din.
+      When they are ready to begin
+    No flag is flown, no fuss is made
+      More than the shearing of a pin.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+    The Scout's quadruple funnel flames
+      A mark from Sweden to the Swin,
+    The Cruiser's thundrous screw proclaims
+      Her comings out and goings in:
+      But only whiffs of paraffin
+    Or creamy rings that fizz and fade
+      Show where the one-eyed Death has been.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+    Their feats, their fortunes and their fames
+      Are hidden from their nearest kin;
+    No eager public backs or blames,
+      No journal prints the yarns they spin
+      (The Censor would not let it in!)
+    When they return from run or raid.
+      Unheard they work, unseen they win.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+SOME WORK IN THE BALTIC
+
+
+No one knows how the title of "The Trade" came to be applied to the
+Submarine Service. Some say that the cruisers invented it because they
+pretend that submarine officers look like unwashed chauffeurs. Others
+think it sprang forth by itself, which means that it was coined by the
+Lower Deck, where they always have the proper names for things.
+Whatever the truth, the Submarine Service is now "the trade"; and if
+you ask them why, they will answer: "What else could you call it? The
+Trade's 'the trade,' of course."
+
+It is a close corporation; yet it recruits its men and officers from
+every class that uses the sea and engines, as well as from many
+classes that never expected to deal with either. It takes them; they
+disappear for a while and return changed to their very souls, for the
+Trade lives in a world without precedents, of which no generation has
+had any previous experience--a world still being made and enlarged
+daily. It creates and settles its own problems as it goes along, and
+if it cannot help itself no one else can. So the Trade lives in the
+dark and thinks out inconceivable and impossible things which it
+afterwards puts into practice.
+
+It keeps books, too, as honest traders should. They are almost as bald
+as ledgers, and are written up, hour by hour, on a little sliding
+table that pulls out from beneath the commander's bunk. In due time
+they go to my Lords of the Admiralty, who presently circulate a few
+carefully watered extracts for the confidential information of the
+junior officers of the Trade, that these may see what things are done
+and how. The juniors read but laugh. They have heard the stories, with
+all the flaming detail and much of the language, either from a chief
+actor while they perched deferentially on the edge of a mess-room
+fender, or from his subordinate, in which case they were not so
+deferential, or from some returned member of the crew present on the
+occasion, who, between half-shut teeth at the wheel, jerks out what
+really happened. There is very little going on in the Trade that the
+Trade does not know within a reasonable time. But the outside world
+must wait until my Lords of the Admiralty release the records. Some of
+them have been released now.
+
+
+SUBMARINE AND ICE-BREAKER
+
+Let us take, almost at random, an episode in the life of H.M.
+Submarine E9. It is true that she was commanded by Commander Max
+Horton, but the utter impersonality of the tale makes it as though the
+boat herself spoke. (Also, never having met or seen any of the
+gentlemen concerned in the matter, the writer can be impersonal too.)
+Some time ago, E9 was in the Baltic, in the deeps of winter, where
+she used to be taken to her hunting grounds by an ice-breaker.
+Obviously a submarine cannot use her sensitive nose to smash heavy ice
+with, so the broad-beamed pushing chaperone comes along to see her
+clear of the thick harbour and shore ice. In the open sea apparently
+she is left to her own devices. In company of the ice-breaker, then,
+E9 "proceeded" (neither in the Senior nor the Junior Service does any
+one officially "go" anywhere) to a "certain position."
+
+Here--it is not stated in the book, but the Trade knows every aching,
+single detail of what is left out--she spent a certain time in testing
+arrangements and apparatus, which may or may not work properly when
+immersed in a mixture of block-ice and dirty ice-cream in a
+temperature well towards zero. This is a pleasant job, made the more
+delightful by the knowledge that if you slip off the superstructure
+the deadly Baltic chill will stop your heart long before even your
+heavy clothes can drown you. Hence (and this is not in the book
+either) the remark of the highly trained sailor-man in these latitudes
+who, on being told by his superior officer in the execution of his
+duty to go to Hell, did insubordinately and enviously reply: "D'you
+think I'd be here if I could?" Whereby he caused the entire personnel,
+beginning with the Commander, to say "Amen," or words to that effect.
+E9 evidently made things work.
+
+Next day she reports: "As circumstances were favourable decided to
+attempt to bag a destroyer." Her "certain position" must have been
+near a well-used destroyer-run, for shortly afterwards she sees three
+of them, but too far off to attack, and later, as the light is
+failing, a fourth destroyer towards which she manoeuvres.
+"Depth-keeping," she notes, "very difficult owing to heavy swell." An
+observation balloon on a gusty day is almost as stable as a submarine
+"pumping" in a heavy swell, and since the Baltic is shallow, the
+submarine runs the chance of being let down with a whack on the
+bottom. None the less, E9 works her way to within 600 yards of the
+quarry; fires and waits just long enough to be sure that her torpedo
+is running straight, and that the destroyer is holding her course.
+Then she "dips to avoid detection." The rest is deadly simple: "At the
+correct moment after firing, 45 to 50 seconds, heard the unmistakable
+noise of torpedo detonating." Four minutes later she rose and "found
+destroyer had disappeared." Then, for reasons probably connected with
+other destroyers, who, too, may have heard that unmistakable sound,
+she goes to bed below in the chill dark till it is time to turn
+homewards. When she rose she met storm from the north and logged it
+accordingly. "Spray froze as it struck, and bridge became a mass of
+ice. Experienced considerable difficulty in keeping the conning-tower
+hatch free from ice. Found it necessary to keep a man continuously
+employed on this work. Bridge screen immovable, ice six inches thick
+on it. Telegraphs frozen." In this state she forges ahead till
+midnight, and any one who pleases can imagine the thoughts of the
+continuous employee scraping and hammering round the hatch, as well as
+the delight of his friends below when the ice-slush spattered down the
+conning-tower. At last she considered it "advisable to free the boat
+of ice, so went below."
+
+
+"AS REQUISITE"
+
+In the Senior Service the two words "as requisite" cover everything
+that need not be talked about. E9 next day "proceeded as requisite"
+through a series of snowstorms and recurring deposits of ice on the
+bridge till she got in touch with her friend the ice-breaker; and in
+her company ploughed and rooted her way back to the work we know.
+There is nothing to show that it was a near thing for E9, but somehow
+one has the idea that the ice-breaker did not arrive any too soon for
+E9's comfort and progress. (But what happens in the Baltic when the
+ice-breaker does not arrive?)
+
+That was in winter. In summer quite the other way, E9 had to go to bed
+by day very often under the long-lasting northern light when the
+Baltic is as smooth as a carpet, and one cannot get within a mile and
+a half of anything with eyes in its head without being put down. There
+was one time when E9, evidently on information received, took up "a
+certain position" and reported the sea "glassy." She had to suffer in
+silence, while three heavily laden German ships went by; for an attack
+would have given away her position. Her reward came next day, when she
+sighted (the words run like Marryat's) "enemy squadron coming up fast
+from eastward, proceeding inshore of us." They were two heavy
+battleships with an escort of destroyers, and E9 turned to attack. She
+does not say how she crept up in that smooth sea within a quarter of a
+mile of the leading ship, "a three-funnel ship, of either the
+Deutschland or Braunschweig class," but she managed it, and fired both
+bow torpedoes at her.
+
+"No. 1 torpedo was seen and heard to strike her just before foremost
+funnel: smoke and _débris_ appeared to go as high as masthead." That
+much E9 saw before one of the guardian destroyers ran at her. "So,"
+says she, "observing her I took my periscope off the battleship." This
+was excusable, as the destroyer was coming up with intent to kill and
+E9 had to flood her tanks and get down quickly. Even so, the destroyer
+only just missed her, and she struck bottom in 43 feet. "But," says
+E9, who, if she could not see, kept her ears open, "at the correct
+interval (the 45 or 50 seconds mentioned in the previous case) the
+second torpedo was heard to explode, though not actually seen." E9
+came up twenty minutes later to make sure. The destroyer was waiting
+for her a couple of hundred yards away, and again E9 dipped for the
+life, but "just had time to see one large vessel approximately four or
+five miles away."
+
+Putting courage aside, think for a moment of the mere drill of it
+all--that last dive for that attack on the chosen battleship; the eye
+at the periscope watching "No. 1 torpedo" get home; the rush of the
+vengeful destroyer; the instant orders for flooding everything; the
+swift descent which had to be arranged for with full knowledge of the
+shallow sea-floors waiting below, and a guess at the course that might
+be taken by the seeking bows above, for assuming a destroyer to draw
+10 feet and a submarine on the bottom to stand 25 feet to the top of
+her conning-tower, there is not much clearance in 43 feet salt water,
+specially if the boat jumps when she touches bottom. And through all
+these and half a hundred other simultaneous considerations, imagine
+the trained minds below, counting, as only torpedo-men can count, the
+run of the merciless seconds that should tell when that second shot
+arrived. Then "at the correct interval" as laid down in the table of
+distances, the boom and the jar of No. 2 torpedo, the relief, the
+exhaled breath and untightened lips; the impatient waiting for a
+second peep, and when that had been taken and the eye at the periscope
+had reported _one_ little nigger-boy in place of two on the waters,
+perhaps cigarettes, &c., while the destroyer sickled about at a
+venture overhead.
+
+Certainly they give men rewards for doing such things, but what reward
+can there be in any gift of Kings or peoples to match the enduring
+satisfaction of having done them, not alone, but with and through and
+by trusty and proven companions?
+
+
+DEFEATED BY DARKNESS
+
+E1, also a Baltic boat, her Commander F.N. Laurence, had her
+experiences too. She went out one summer day and late--too late--in
+the evening sighted three transports. The first she hit. While she was
+arranging for the second, the third inconsiderately tried to ram her
+before her sights were on. So it was necessary to go down at once and
+waste whole minutes of the precious scanting light. When she rose, the
+stricken ship was sinking and shortly afterwards blew up. The other
+two were patrolling near by. It would have been a fair chance in
+daylight, but the darkness defeated her and she had to give up the
+attack.
+
+It was E1 who during thick weather came across a squadron of
+battle-cruisers and got in on a flanking ship--probably the _Moltke_.
+The destroyers were very much on the alert, and she had to dive at
+once to avoid one who only missed her by a few feet. Then the fog shut
+down and stopped further developments. Thus do time and chance come to
+every man.
+
+The Trade has many stories, too, of watching patrols when a boat must
+see chance after chance go by under her nose and write--merely
+write--what she has seen. Naturally they do not appear in any
+accessible records. Nor, which is a pity, do the authorities release
+the records of glorious failures, when everything goes wrong; when
+torpedoes break surface and squatter like ducks; or arrive full square
+with a clang and burst of white water and--fail to explode; when the
+devil is in charge of all the motors, and clutches develop play that
+would scare a shore-going mechanic bald; when batteries begin to give
+off death instead of power, and atop of all, ice or wreckage of the
+strewn seas racks and wrenches the hull till the whole leaking bag of
+tricks limps home on six missing cylinders and one ditto propeller,
+_plus_ the indomitable will of the red-eyed husky scarecrows in
+charge.
+
+There might be worse things in this world for decent people to read
+than such records.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BUSINESS IN THE SEA OF MARMARA
+
+
+This war is like an iceberg. We, the public, only see an eighth of it
+above water. The rest is out of sight and, as with the berg, one
+guesses its extent by great blocks that break off and shoot up to the
+surface from some underlying out-running spur a quarter of a mile
+away. So with this war sudden tales come to light which reveal
+unsuspected activities in unexpected quarters. One takes it for
+granted such things are always going on somewhere, but the actual
+emergence of the record is always astonishing.
+
+Once upon a time, there were certain E type boats who worked the Sea
+of Marmara with thoroughness and humanity; for the two, in English
+hands, are compatible. The road to their hunting-grounds was strewn
+with peril, the waters they inhabited were full of eyes that gave them
+no rest, and what they lost or expended in wear and tear of the chase
+could not be made good till they had run the gauntlet to their base
+again. The full tale of their improvisations and "makee-does" will
+probably never come to light, though fragments can be picked up at
+intervals in the proper places as the men concerned come and go. The
+Admiralty gives only the bones, but those are not so dry, of the
+boat's official story.
+
+When E14, Commander E. Courtney-Boyle, went to her work in the Sea of
+Marmara, she, like her sister, "proceeded" on her gas-engine up the
+Dardanelles; and a gas-engine by night between steep cliffs has been
+described by the Lower-deck as a "full brass band in a railway
+cutting." So a fort picked her up with a searchlight and missed her
+with artillery. She dived under the minefield that guarded the
+Straits, and when she rose at dawn in the narrowest part of the
+channel, which is about one mile and a half across, all the forts
+fired at her. The water, too, was thick with steamboat patrols, out of
+which E14 selected a Turkish gunboat and gave her a torpedo. She had
+just time to see the great column of water shoot as high as the
+gunboat's mast when she had to dip again as "the men in a small
+steamboat were leaning over trying to catch hold of the top of my
+periscope."
+
+
+"SIX HOURS OF BLIND DEATH"
+
+This sentence, which might have come out of a French exercise book, is
+all Lieutenant-Commander Courtney-Boyle sees fit to tell, and that
+officer will never understand why one taxpayer at least demands his
+arrest after the war till he shall have given the full tale. Did he
+sight the shadowy underline of the small steamboat green through the
+deadlights? Or did she suddenly swim into his vision from behind, and
+obscure, without warning, his periscope with a single brown clutching
+hand? Was she alone, or one of a mob of splashing, shouting small
+craft? He may well have been too busy to note, for there were patrols
+all around him, a minefield of curious design and undefined area
+somewhere in front, and steam trawlers vigorously sweeping for him
+astern and ahead. And when E14 had burrowed and bumped and scraped
+through six hours of blind death, she found the Sea of Marmara
+crawling with craft, and was kept down almost continuously and grew
+hot and stuffy in consequence. Nor could she charge her batteries in
+peace, so at the end of another hectic, hunted day of starting them up
+and breaking off and diving--which is bad for the temper--she decided
+to quit those infested waters near the coast and charge up somewhere
+off the traffic routes.
+
+This accomplished, after a long, hot run, which did the motors no
+good, she went back to her beat, where she picked up three destroyers
+convoying a couple of troopships. But it was a glassy calm and the
+destroyers "came for me." She got off a long-range torpedo at one
+transport, and ducked before she could judge results. She apologises
+for this on the grounds that one of her periscopes had been
+damaged--not, as one would expect, by the gentleman leaning out of the
+little steamboat, but by some casual shot--calibre not specified--the
+day before. "And so," says E14, "I could not risk my remaining one
+being bent." However, she heard a thud, and the depth-gauges--those
+great clock-hands on the white-faced circles--"flicked," which is
+another sign of dreadful certainty down under. When she rose again she
+saw a destroyer convoying one burning transport to the nearest beach.
+That afternoon she met a sister-boat (now gone to Valhalla), who told
+her that she was almost out of torpedoes, and they arranged a
+rendezvous for next day, but "before we could communicate we had to
+dive, and I did not see her again." There must be many such meetings
+in the Trade, under all skies--boat rising beside boat at the point
+agreed upon for interchange of news and materials; the talk shouted
+aloud with the speakers' eyes always on the horizon and all hands
+standing by to dive, even in the middle of a sentence.
+
+
+ANNOYING PATROL SHIPS
+
+E14 kept to her job, on the edge of the procession of traffic. Patrol
+vessels annoyed her to such an extent that "as I had not seen any
+transports lately I decided to sink a patrol-ship as they were always
+firing on me." So she torpedoed a thing that looked like a mine-layer,
+and must have been something of that kidney, for it sank in less than
+a minute. A tramp-steamer lumbering across the dead flat sea was
+thoughtfully headed back to Constantinople by firing rifles ahead of
+her. "Under fire the whole day," E14 observes philosophically. The
+nature of her work made this inevitable. She was all among the
+patrols, which kept her down a good deal and made her draw on her
+batteries, and when she rose to charge, watchers ashore burned
+oil-flares on the beach or made smokes among the hills according to
+the light. In either case there would be a general rush of patrolling
+craft of all kinds, from steam launches to gunboats. Nobody loves the
+Trade, though E14 did several things which made her popular. She let
+off a string of very surprised dhows (they were empty) in charge of a
+tug which promptly fled back to Constantinople; stopped a couple of
+steamers full of refugees, also bound for Constantinople, who were
+"very pleased at being allowed to proceed" instead of being
+lusitaniaed as they had expected. Another refugee-boat, fleeing from
+goodness knows what horror, she chased into Rodosto Harbour, where,
+though she could not see any troops, "they opened a heavy rifle fire
+on us, hitting the boat several times. So I went away and chased two
+more small tramps who returned towards Constantinople."
+
+Transports, of course, were fair game, and in spite of the necessity
+she was under of not risking her remaining eye, E14 got a big one in
+a night of wind and made another hurriedly beach itself, which then
+opened fire on her, assisted by the local population. "Returned fire
+and proceeded," says E14. The diversion of returning fire is one much
+appreciated by the lower-deck as furnishing a pleasant break in what
+otherwise might be a monotonous and odoriferous task. There is no
+drill laid down for this evolution, but etiquette and custom prescribe
+that on going up the hatch you shall not too energetically prod the
+next man ahead with the muzzle of your rifle. Likewise, when
+descending in quick time before the hatch closes, you are requested
+not to jump directly on the head of the next below. Otherwise you act
+"as requisite" on your own initiative.
+
+When she had used up all her torpedoes E14 prepared to go home by the
+way she had come--there was no other--and was chased towards Gallipoli
+by a mixed pack composed of a gunboat, a torpedo-boat, and a tug.
+"They shepherded me to Gallipoli, one each side of me and one astern,
+evidently expecting me to be caught by the nets there." She walked
+very delicately for the next eight hours or so, all down the Straits,
+underrunning the strong tides, ducking down when the fire from the
+forts got too hot, verifying her position and the position of the
+minefield, but always taking notes of every ship in sight, till
+towards teatime she saw our Navy off the entrance and "rose to the
+surface abeam of a French battleship who gave us a rousing cheer." She
+had been away, as nearly as possible, three weeks, and a kind
+destroyer escorted her to the base, where we will leave her for the
+moment while we consider the performance of E11 (Lieutenant-Commander
+M.E. Nasmith) in the same waters at about the same season.
+
+E11 "proceeded" in the usual way, to the usual accompaniments of
+hostile destroyers, up the Straits, and meets the usual difficulties
+about charging-up when she gets through. Her wireless naturally takes
+this opportunity to give trouble, and E11 is left, deaf and dumb,
+somewhere in the middle of the Sea of Marmara, diving to avoid hostile
+destroyers in the intervals of trying to come at the fault in her
+aerial. (Yet it is noteworthy that the language of the Trade, though
+technical, is no more emphatic or incandescent than that of top-side
+ships.)
+
+Then she goes towards Constantinople, finds a Turkish torpedo-gunboat
+off the port, sinks her, has her periscope smashed by a six-pounder,
+retires, fits a new top on the periscope, and at 10.30 A.M.--they must
+have needed it--pipes "All hands to bathe." Much refreshed, she gets
+her wireless linked up at last, and is able to tell the authorities
+where she is and what she is after.
+
+
+MR. SILAS Q. SWING
+
+At this point--it was off Rodosto--enter a small steamer which does
+not halt when requested, and so is fired at with "several rounds" from
+a rifle. The crew, on being told to abandon her, tumble into their
+boats with such haste that they capsize two out of three.
+"Fortunately," says E11, "they are able to pick up everybody." You can
+imagine to yourself the confusion alongside, the raffle of odds and
+ends floating out of the boats, and the general parti-coloured
+hurrah's-nest all over the bright broken water. What you cannot
+imagine is this: "An American gentleman then appeared on the upper
+deck who informed us that his name was Silas Q. Swing, of the _Chicago
+Sun_, and that he was pleased to make our acquaintance. He then
+informed us that the steamer was proceeding to Chanak and he wasn't
+sure if there were any stores aboard." If anything could astonish the
+Trade at this late date, one would almost fancy that the apparition of
+Silas Q. Swing ("very happy to meet you, gentlemen") might have
+started a rivet or two on E11's placid skin. But she never even
+quivered. She kept a lieutenant of the name of D'Oyley Hughes, an
+expert in demolition parties; and he went aboard the tramp and
+reported any quantity of stores--a six-inch gun, for instance, lashed
+across the top of the forehatch (Silas Q. Swing must have been an
+unobservant journalist), a six-inch gun-mounting in the forehold,
+pedestals for twelve-pounders thrown in as dunnage, the afterhold full
+of six-inch projectiles, and a scattering of other commodities. They
+put the demolition charge well in among the six-inch stuff, and she
+took it all to the bottom in a few minutes, after being touched off.
+
+"Simultaneously with the sinking of the vessel," the E11 goes on,
+"smoke was observed to the eastward." It was a steamer who had seen
+the explosion and was running for Rodosto. E11 chased her till she
+tied up to Rodosto pier, and then torpedoed her where she lay--a
+heavily laden store-ship piled high with packing-cases. The water was
+shallow here, and though E11 bumped along the bottom, which does not
+make for steadiness of aim, she was forced to show a good deal of her
+only periscope, and had it dented, but not damaged by rifle-fire from
+the beach. As she moved out of Rodosto Bay she saw a paddle-boat
+loaded with barbed wire, which stopped on the hail, but "as we ranged
+alongside her, attempted to ram us, but failed owing to our superior
+speed." Then she ran for the beach "very skilfully," keeping her stern
+to E11 till she drove ashore beneath some cliffs. The demolition-squad
+were just getting to work when "a party of horsemen appeared on the
+cliffs above and opened a hot fire on the conning tower." E11 got out,
+but owing to the shoal water it was some time before she could get
+under enough to fire a torpedo. The stern of a stranded paddle-boat is
+no great target and the thing exploded on the beach. Then she
+"recharged batteries and proceeded slowly on the surface towards
+Constantinople." All this between the ordinary office hours of 10
+A.M. and 4 P.M.
+
+Her next day's work opens, as no pallid writer of fiction dare begin,
+thus: "Having dived unobserved into Constantinople, observed, etc."
+Her observations were rather hampered by cross-tides, mud, and
+currents, as well as the vagaries of one of her own torpedoes which
+turned upside down and ran about promiscuously. It hit something at
+last, and so did another shot that she fired, but the waters by
+Constantinople Arsenal are not healthy to linger in after one has
+scared up the whole sea-front, so "turned to go out." Matters were a
+little better below, and E11 in her perilous passage might have been a
+lady of the harem tied up in a sack and thrown into the Bosporus. She
+grounded heavily; she bounced up 30 feet, was headed down again by a
+manoeuvre easier to shudder over than to describe, and when she came
+to rest on the bottom found herself being swivelled right round the
+compass. They watched the compass with much interest. "It was
+concluded, therefore, that the vessel (E11 is one of the few who
+speaks of herself as a 'vessel' as well as a 'boat') was resting on
+the shoal under the Leander Tower, and was being turned round by the
+current." So they corrected her, started the motors, and "bumped
+gently down into 85 feet of water" with no more knowledge than the
+lady in the sack where the next bump would land them.
+
+
+THE PREENING PERCH
+
+And the following day was spent "resting in the centre of the Sea of
+Marmara." That was their favourite preening perch between operations,
+because it gave them a chance to tidy the boat and bathe, and they
+were a cleanly people both in their methods and their persons. When
+they boarded a craft and found nothing of consequence they "parted
+with many expressions of good will," and E11 "had a good wash." She
+gives her reasons at length; for going in and out of Constantinople
+and the Straits is all in the day's work, but going dirty, you
+understand, is serious. She had "of late noticed the atmosphere in the
+boat becoming very oppressive, the reason doubtless being that there
+was a quantity of dirty linen aboard, and also the scarcity of fresh
+water necessitated a limit being placed on the frequency of personal
+washing." Hence the centre of the Sea of Marmara; all hands playing
+overside and as much laundry work as time and the Service allowed. One
+of the reasons, by the way, why we shall be good friends with the Turk
+again is that he has many of our ideas about decency.
+
+In due time E11 went back to her base. She had discovered a way of
+using unspent torpedoes twice over, which surprised the enemy, and she
+had as nearly as possible been cut down by a ship which she thought
+was running away from her. Instead of which (she made the discovery at
+three thousand yards, both craft all out) the stranger steamed
+straight at her. "The enemy then witnessed a somewhat spectacular dive
+at full speed from the surface to 20 feet in as many seconds. He then
+really did turn tail and was seen no more." Going through the Straits
+she observed an empty troopship at anchor, but reserved her torpedoes
+in the hope of picking up some battleships lower down. Not finding
+these in the Narrows, she nosed her way back and sank the trooper,
+"afterwards continuing journey down the Straits." Off Kilid Bahr
+something happened; she got out of trim and had to be fully flooded
+before she could be brought to her required depth. It might have been
+whirlpools under water, or--other things. (They tell a story of a boat
+which once went mad in these very waters, and for no reason
+ascertainable from within plunged to depths that contractors do not
+allow for; rocketed up again like a swordfish, and would doubtless
+have so continued till she died, had not something she had fouled
+dropped off and let her recover her composure.)
+
+An hour later: "Heard a noise similar to grounding. Knowing this to be
+impossible in the water in which the boat then was, I came up to 20
+feet to investigate, and observed a large mine preceding the periscope
+at a distance of about 20 feet, which was apparently hung up by its
+moorings to the port hydroplane." Hydroplanes are the fins at bow and
+stern which regulate a submarine's diving. A mine weighs anything from
+hundredweights to half-tons. Sometimes it explodes if you merely think
+about it; at others you can batter it like an empty sardine-tin and
+it submits meekly; but at no time is it meant to wear on a hydroplane.
+They dared not come up to unhitch it, "owing to the batteries ashore,"
+so they pushed the dim shape ahead of them till they got outside Kum
+Kale. They then went full astern, and emptied the after-tanks, which
+brought the bows down, and in this posture rose to the surface, when
+"the rush of water from the screws together with the sternway gathered
+allowed the mine to fall clear of the vessel."
+
+Now a fool, said Dr. Johnson, would have tried to describe that.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+RAVAGES AND REPAIRS
+
+
+Before we pick up the further adventures of H.M. Submarine E14 and her
+partner E11, here is what you might call a cutting-out affair in the
+Sea of Marmara which E12 (Lieutenant-Commander K.M. Bruce) put through
+quite on the old lines.
+
+E12's main motors gave trouble from the first, and she seems to have
+been a cripple for most of that trip. She sighted two small steamers,
+one towing two, and the other three, sailing vessels; making seven
+keels in all. She stopped the first steamer, noticed she carried a lot
+of stores, and, moreover, that her crew--she had no boats--were all on
+deck in life-belts. Not seeing any gun, E12 ran up alongside and told
+the first lieutenant to board. The steamer then threw a bomb at E12,
+which struck, but luckily did not explode, and opened fire on the
+boarding-party with rifles and a concealed 1-in. gun. E12 answered
+with her six-pounder, and also with rifles. The two sailing ships in
+tow, very properly, tried to foul E12's propellers and "also opened
+fire with rifles."
+
+It was as Orientally mixed a fight as a man could wish: The first
+lieutenant and the boarding-party engaged on the steamer, E12 foul of
+the steamer, and being fouled by the sailing ships; the six-pounder
+methodically perforating the steamer from bow to stern; the steamer's
+1-in. gun and the rifles from the sailing ships raking everything and
+everybody else; E12's coxswain on the conning-tower passing up
+ammunition; and E12's one workable motor developing "slight defects"
+at, of course, the moment when power to manoeuvre was vital.
+
+The account is almost as difficult to disentangle as the actual mess
+must have been. At any rate, the six-pounder caused an explosion in
+the steamer's ammunition, whereby the steamer sank in a quarter of an
+hour, giving time--and a hot time it must have been--for E12 to get
+clear of her and to sink the two sailing ships. She then chased the
+second steamer, who slipped her three tows and ran for the shore. E12
+knocked her about a good deal with gun-fire as she fled, saw her drive
+on the beach well alight, and then, since the beach opened fire with a
+gun at 1500 yards, went away to retinker her motors and write up her
+log. She approved of her first lieutenant's behaviour "under very
+trying circumstances" (this probably refers to the explosion of the
+ammunition by the six-pounder which, doubtless, jarred the
+boarding-party) and of the cox who acted as ammunition-hoist; and of
+the gun's crew, who "all did very well" under rifle and small-gun fire
+"at a range of about ten yards." But she never says what she really
+said about her motors.
+
+
+A BRAWL AT A PIER
+
+Now we will take E14 on various work, either alone or as flagship of a
+squadron composed of herself and Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith's boat,
+E11. Hers was a busy midsummer, and she came to be intimate with all
+sort of craft--such as the two-funnelled gunboat off Sar Kioi, who
+"fired at us, and missed as usual"; hospital ships going back and
+forth unmolested to Constantinople; "the gunboat which fired at me on
+Sunday," and other old friends, afloat and ashore.
+
+When the crew of the Turkish brigantine full of stores got into their
+boats by request, and then "all stood up and cursed us," E14 did not
+lose her temper, even though it was too rough to lie alongside the
+abandoned ship. She told Acting Lieutenant R.W. Lawrence, of the Royal
+Naval Reserve, to swim off to her, which he did, and after a "cursory
+search"--Who can be expected to Sherlock Holmes for hours with nothing
+on?--set fire to her "with the aid of her own matches and paraffin
+oil."
+
+Then E14 had a brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and
+black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the
+game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 manoeuvred about the
+roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion
+which strained her very badly. "I think," she muses, "I must have
+caught the moorings of a mine with my tail as I was turning, and
+exploded it. It is possible that it might have been a big shell
+bursting over us, but I think this unlikely, as we were 30 feet at the
+time." She is always a philosophical boat, anxious to arrive at the
+reason of facts, and when the game is against her she admits it
+freely.
+
+There was nondescript craft of a few hundred tons, who "at a distance
+did not look very warlike," but when chased suddenly played a couple
+of six-pounders and "got off two dozen rounds at us before we were
+under. Some of them were only about 20 yards off." And when a wily
+steamer, after sidling along the shore, lay up in front of a town she
+became "indistinguishable from the houses," and so was safe because we
+do not löwestrafe open towns.
+
+Sailing dhows full of grain had to be destroyed. At one rendezvous,
+while waiting for E11, E14 dealt with three such cases and then "towed
+the crews inshore and gave them biscuits, beef, and rum and water, as
+they were rather wet." Passenger steamers were allowed to proceed,
+because they were "full of people of both sexes," which is an
+unkultured way of doing business.
+
+Here is another instance of our insular type of mind. An empty dhow is
+passed which E14 was going to leave alone, but it occurs to her that
+the boat looks "rather deserted," and she fancies she sees two heads
+in the water. So she goes back half a mile, picks up a couple of badly
+exhausted men, frightened out of their wits, gives them food and
+drink, and puts them aboard their property. Crews that jump overboard
+have to be picked up, even if, as happened in one case, there are
+twenty of them and one of them is a German bank manager taking a
+quantity of money to the Chanak Bank. Hospital ships are carefully
+looked over as they come and go, and are left to their own devices;
+but they are rather a nuisance because they force E14 and others to
+dive for them when engaged in stalking warrantable game. There were a
+good many hospital ships, and as far as we can make out they all
+played fair. E11 boarded one and "reported everything satisfactory."
+
+
+STRANGE MESSMATES
+
+A layman cannot tell from the reports which of the duties demanded the
+most work--whether the continuous clearing out of transports, dhows,
+and sailing ships, generally found close to the well-gunned and
+attentive beach, or the equally continuous attacks on armed vessels of
+every kind. Whatever else might be going on, there was always the
+problem how to arrange for the crews of sunk ships. If a dhow has no
+small boats, and you cannot find one handy, you have to take the crew
+aboard, where they are horribly in the way, and add to the
+oppressiveness of the atmosphere--like "the nine people, including two
+very old men," whom E14 made honorary members of her mess for several
+hours till she could put them ashore after dark. Oddly enough she
+"could not get anything out of them." Imagine nine bewildered Moslems
+suddenly decanted into the reeking clamorous bowels of a fabric
+obviously built by Shaitan himself, and surrounded by--but our people
+are people of the Book and not dog-eating Kaffirs, and I will wager a
+great deal that that little company went ashore in better heart and
+stomach than when they were passed down the conning-tower hatch.
+
+Then there were queer amphibious battles with troops who had to be
+shelled as they marched towards Gallipoli along the coast roads. E14
+went out with E11 on this job, early one morning, each boat taking her
+chosen section of landscape. Thrice E14 rose to fire, thinking she
+saw the dust of feet, but "each time it turned out to be bullocks."
+When the shelling was ended "I think the troops marching along that
+road must have been delayed and a good many killed." The Turks got up
+a field-gun in the course of the afternoon--your true believer never
+hurries--which out-ranged both boats, and they left accordingly.
+
+The next day she changed billets with E11, who had the luck to pick up
+and put down a battleship close to Gallipoli. It turned out to be the
+_Barbarossa_. Meantime E14 got a 5000-ton supply ship, and later had
+to burn a sailing ship loaded with 200 bales of leaf and cut
+tobacco--Turkish tobacco! Small wonder that E11 "came alongside that
+afternoon and remained for an hour"--probably making cigarettes.
+
+
+REFITTING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
+
+Then E14 went back to her base. She had a hellish time among the
+Dardanelles nets; was, of course, fired at by the forts, just missed a
+torpedo from the beach, scraped a mine, and when she had time to take
+stock found electric mine-wires twisted round her propellers and all
+her hull scraped and scored with wire marks. But that, again, was only
+in the day's work. The point she insisted upon was that she had been
+for seventy days in the Sea of Marmara with no securer base for refit
+than the centre of the same, and during all that while she had not had
+"any engine-room defect which has not been put right by the
+engine-room staff of the boat." The commander and the third officer
+went sick for a while; the first lieutenant got gastro-enteritis and
+was in bed (if you could see that bed!) "for the remainder of our stay
+in the Sea of Marmara," but "this boat has never been out of running
+order." The credit is ascribed to "the excellence of my chief
+engine-room artificer, James Hollier Hague, O.N. 227715," whose name
+is duly submitted to the authorities "for your consideration for
+advancement to the rank of warrant officer."
+
+Seventy days of every conceivable sort of risk, within and without, in
+a boat which is all engine-room, except where she is sick-bay; twelve
+thousand miles covered since last overhaul and "never out of running
+order"--thanks to Mr. Hague. Such artists as he are the kind of
+engine-room artificers that commanders intrigue to get hold of--each
+for his own boat--and when the tales are told in the Trade, their
+names, like Abou Ben Adhem's, lead all the rest.
+
+I do not know the exact line of demarcation between engine-room and
+gunnery repairs, but I imagine it is faint and fluid. E11, for
+example, while she was helping E14 to shell a beached steamer, smashed
+half her gun-mounting, "the gun-layer being thrown overboard, and the
+gun nearly following him." However, the mischief was repaired in the
+next twenty-four hours, which, considering the very limited deck space
+of a submarine, means that all hands must have been moderately busy.
+One hopes that they had not to dive often during the job.
+
+But worse is to come. E2 (Commander D. Stocks) carried an externally
+mounted gun which, while she was diving up the Dardanelles on
+business, got hung up in the wires and stays of a net. She saw them
+through the conning-tower scuttles at a depth of 80 ft--one wire
+hawser round the gun, another round the conning-tower, and so on.
+There was a continuous crackling of small explosions overhead which
+she thought were charges aimed at her by the guard-boats who watch the
+nets. She considered her position for a while, backed, got up steam,
+barged ahead, and shore through the whole affair in one wild surge.
+Imagine the roof of a navigable cottage after it has snapped telegraph
+lines with its chimney, and you will get a small idea of what happens
+to the hull of a submarine when she uses her gun to break wire hawsers
+with.
+
+
+TROUBLE WITH A GUN
+
+E2 was a wet, strained, and uncomfortable boat for the rest of her
+cruise. She sank steamers, burned dhows; was worried by torpedo-boats
+and hunted by Hun planes; hit bottom freely and frequently; silenced
+forts that fired at her from lonely beaches; warned villages who might
+have joined in the game that they had better keep to farming; shelled
+railway lines and stations; would have shelled a pier, but found there
+was a hospital built at one end of it, "so could not bombard"; came
+upon dhows crowded with "female refugees" which she "allowed to
+proceed," and was presented with fowls in return; but through it all
+her chief preoccupation was that racked and strained gun and mounting.
+When there was nothing else doing she reports sourly that she "worked
+on gun." As a philosopher of the lower deck put it: "'Tisn't what you
+blanky _do_ that matters, it's what you blanky _have_ to do." In other
+words, worry, not work, kills.
+
+E2's gun did its best to knock the heart out of them all. She had to
+shift the wretched thing twice; once because the bolts that held it
+down were smashed (the wire hawser must have pretty well pulled it off
+its seat), and again because the hull beneath it leaked on pressure.
+She went down to make sure of it. But she drilled and tapped and
+adjusted, till in a short time the gun worked again and killed
+steamers as it should. Meanwhile, the whole boat leaked. All the
+plates under the old gun-position forward leaked; she leaked aft
+through damaged hydroplane guards, and on her way home they had to
+keep the water down by hand pumps while she was diving through the
+nets. Where she did not leak outside she leaked internally, tank
+leaking into tank, so that the petrol got into the main fresh-water
+supply and the men had to be put on allowance. The last pint was
+served out when she was in the narrowest part of the Narrows, a place
+where one's mouth may well go dry of a sudden.
+
+Here for the moment the records end. I have been at some pains not to
+pick and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any
+of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have
+made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied
+actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a
+finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They
+were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to
+boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of
+business to the safe, unexploding beach. Sometimes they part from
+their chaperones "with many expressions of good will," at others they
+seem greatly relieved and rather surprised at not being knocked on the
+head after the custom of their Allies. But the boats with a hundred
+things on their minds no more take credit for their humanity than
+their commanders explain the feats for which they won their respective
+decorations.
+
+
+
+
+DESTROYERS AT JUTLAND
+
+(1916)
+
+    "Have you news of my boy Jack?"
+      _Not this tide._
+    "When d'you think that he'll come back?"
+      _Not with this wind blowing, and this tide._
+
+    "Has any one else had word of him?"
+      _Not this tide.
+    For what is sunk will hardly swim,
+      Not with this wind blowing and this tide._
+
+    "Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
+      _None this tide,
+      Nor any tide,
+    Except he didn't shame his kind
+      Not even with that wind blowing and that tide._
+
+    _Then hold your head up all the more,
+      This tide,
+      And every tide,
+    Because he was the son you bore,
+      And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+STORIES OF THE BATTLE
+
+CRIPPLE AND PARALYTIC
+
+
+There was much destroyer-work in the Battle of Jutland. The actual
+battle field may not have been more than twenty thousand square miles,
+but the incidental patrols, from first to last, must have covered many
+times that area. Doubtless the next generation will comb out every
+detail of it. All we need remember is there were many squadrons of
+battleships and cruisers engaged over the face of the North Sea, and
+that they were accompanied in their dread comings and goings by
+multitudes of destroyers, who attacked the enemy both by day and by
+night from the afternoon of May 31 to the morning of June 1, 1916. We
+are too close to the gigantic canvas to take in the meaning of the
+picture; our children stepping backward through the years may get the
+true perspective and proportions.
+
+To recapitulate what every one knows.
+
+The German fleet came out of its North Sea ports, scouting ships
+ahead; then destroyers, cruisers, battle-cruisers, and, last, the main
+battle fleet in the rear. It moved north, parallel with the coast of
+stolen Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland. Our fleets were already out;
+the main battle fleet (Admiral Jellicoe) sweeping down from the north,
+and our battle-cruiser fleet (Admiral Beatty) feeling for the enemy.
+Our scouts came in contact with the enemy on the afternoon of May 31
+about 100 miles off the Jutland coast, steering north-west. They
+satisfied themselves he was in strength, and reported accordingly to
+our battle-cruiser fleet, which engaged the enemy's battle-cruisers at
+about half-past three o'clock. The enemy steered south-east to rejoin
+their own fleet, which was coming up from that quarter. We fought him
+on a parallel course as he ran for more than an hour.
+
+Then his battle-fleet came in sight, and Beatty's fleet went about and
+steered north-west in order to retire on our battle-fleet, which was
+hurrying down from the north. We returned fighting very much over the
+same waters as we had used in our slant south. The enemy up till now
+had lain to the eastward of us, whereby he had the advantage in that
+thick weather of seeing our hulls clear against the afternoon light,
+while he himself worked in the mists. We then steered a little to the
+north-west bearing him off towards the east till at six o'clock Beatty
+had headed the enemy's leading ships and our main battle-fleet came in
+sight from the north. The enemy broke back in a loop, first eastward,
+then south, then south-west as our fleet edged him off from the land,
+and our main battle-fleet, coming up behind them, followed in their
+wake. Thus for a while we had the enemy to westward of us, where he
+made a better mark; but the day was closing and the weather
+thickened, and the enemy wanted to get away. At a quarter past eight
+the enemy, still heading south-west, was covered by his destroyers in
+a great screen of grey smoke, and he got away.
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING
+
+As darkness fell, our fleets lay between the enemy and his home ports.
+During the night our heavy ships, keeping well clear of possible
+mine-fields, swept down south to south and west of the Horns Reef, so
+that they might pick him up in the morning. When morning came our main
+fleet could find no trace of the enemy to the southward, but our
+destroyer-flotillas further north had been very busy with enemy ships,
+apparently running for the Horns Reef Channel. It looks, then, as if
+when we lost sight of the enemy in the smoke screen and the darkness
+he had changed course and broken for home astern our main fleets. And
+whether that was a sound manoeuvre or otherwise, he and the still
+flows of the North Sea alone can tell.
+
+But how is a layman to give any coherent account of an affair where a
+whole country's coast-line was background to battle covering
+geographical degrees? The records give an impression of illimitable
+grey waters, nicked on their uncertain horizons with the smudge and
+blur of ships sparkling with fury against ships hidden under the curve
+of the world. One sees these distances maddeningly obscured by walking
+mists and weak fogs, or wiped out by layers of funnel and gun smoke,
+and realises how, at the pace the ships were going, anything might be
+stumbled upon in the haze or charge out of it when it lifted. One
+comprehends, too, how the far-off glare of a great vessel afire might
+be reported as a local fire on a near-by enemy, or _vice versa_; how a
+silhouette caught, for an instant, in a shaft of pale light let down
+from the low sky might be fatally difficult to identify till too late.
+But add to all these inevitable confusions and misreckonings of time,
+shape, and distance, charges at every angle of squadrons through and
+across other squadrons; sudden shifts of the centres of the fights,
+and even swifter restorations; wheelings, sweepings, and regroupments
+such as accompany the passage across space of colliding universes.
+Then blanket the whole inferno with the darkness of night at full
+speed, and--see what you can make of it.
+
+
+THREE DESTROYERS
+
+A little time after the action began to heat up between our
+battle-cruisers and the enemy's, eight or ten of our destroyers opened
+the ball for their branch of the service by breaking up the attack of
+an enemy light cruiser and fifteen destroyers. Of these they accounted
+for at least two destroyers--some think more--and drove the others
+back on their battle-cruisers. This scattered that fight a good deal
+over the sea. Three of our destroyers held on for the enemy's
+battle-fleet, who came down on them at ranges which eventually grew
+less than 3000 yards. Our people ought to have been lifted off the
+seas bodily, but they managed to fire a couple of torpedoes apiece
+while the range was diminishing. They had no illusions. Says one of
+the three, speaking of her second shot, which she loosed at fairly
+close range, "This torpedo was fired because it was considered very
+unlikely that the ship would escape disablement before another
+opportunity offered." But still they lived--three destroyers against
+all a battle-cruiser fleet's quick-firers, as well as the fire of a
+batch of enemy destroyers at 600 yards. And they were thankful for
+small mercies. "The position being favourable," a third torpedo was
+fired from each while they yet floated.
+
+At 2500 yards, one destroyer was hit somewhere in the vitals and
+swerved badly across her next astern, who "was obliged to alter course
+to avoid a collision, thereby failing to fire a fourth torpedo." Then
+that next astern "observed signal for destroyers' recall," and went
+back to report to her flotilla captain--alone. Of her two companions,
+one was "badly hit and remained stopped between the lines." The other
+"remained stopped, but was afloat when last seen." Ships that "remain
+stopped" are liable to be rammed or sunk by methodical gun-fire. That
+was, perhaps, fifty minutes' work put in before there was any really
+vicious "edge" to the action, and it did not steady the nerves of the
+enemy battle-cruisers any more than another attack made by another
+detachment of ours.
+
+"What does one do when one passes a ship that 'remains stopped'?" I
+asked of a youth who had had experience.
+
+"Nothing special. They cheer, and you cheer back. One doesn't think
+about it till afterwards. You see, it may be your luck in another
+minute."
+
+
+LUCK
+
+There were many other torpedo attacks in all parts of the battle that
+misty afternoon, including a quaint episode of an enemy light cruiser
+who "looked as if she were trying" to torpedo one of our
+battle-cruisers while the latter was particularly engaged. A destroyer
+of ours, returning from a special job which required delicacy, was
+picking her way back at 30 knots through batches of enemy
+battle-cruisers and light cruisers with the idea of attaching herself
+to the nearest destroyer-flotilla and making herself useful. It
+occurred to her that as she "was in a most advantageous position for
+repelling enemy's destroyers endeavouring to attack, she could not do
+better than to remain on the 'engaged bow' of our battle-cruiser." So
+she remained and considered things.
+
+There was an enemy battle-cruiser squadron in the offing; with several
+enemy light cruisers ahead of that squadron, and the weather was
+thickish and deceptive. She sighted the enemy light cruiser, "class
+uncertain," only a few thousand yards away, and "decided to attack her
+in order to frustrate her firing torpedoes at our Battle Fleet." (This
+in case the authorities should think that light cruiser wished to buy
+rubber.) So she fell upon the light cruiser with every gun she had, at
+between two and four thousand yards, and secured a number of hits,
+just the same as at target practice. While thus occupied she sighted
+out of the mist a squadron of enemy battle-cruisers that had worried
+her earlier in the afternoon. Leaving the light cruiser, she closed to
+what she considered a reasonable distance of the newcomers, and let
+them have, as she thought, both her torpedoes. She possessed an active
+Acting Sub-Lieutenant, who, though officers of that rank think
+otherwise, is not very far removed from an ordinary midshipman of the
+type one sees in tow of relatives at the Army and Navy Stores. He sat
+astride one of the tubes to make quite sure things were in order, and
+fired when the sights came on.
+
+_But_, at that very moment, a big shell hit the destroyer on the side
+and there was a tremendous escape of steam. Believing--since she had
+seen one torpedo leave the tube before the smash came--believing that
+both her tubes had been fired, the destroyer turned away "at greatly
+reduced speed" (the shell reduced it), and passed, quite reasonably
+close, the light cruiser whom she had been hammering so faithfully
+till the larger game appeared. Meantime, the Sub-Lieutenant was
+exploring what damage had been done by the big shell. He discovered
+that only _one_ of the two torpedoes had left the tubes, and
+"observing enemy light cruiser beam on and apparently temporarily
+stopped," he fired the providential remainder at her, and it hit her
+below the conning-tower and well and truly exploded, as was witnessed
+by the Sub-Lieutenant himself, the Commander, a leading signalman, and
+several other ratings. Luck continued to hold! The Acting
+Sub-Lieutenant further reported that "we still had three torpedoes
+left and at the same time drew my attention to enemy's line of
+battleships." They rather looked as if they were coming down with
+intent to assault. So the Sub-Lieutenant fired the rest of the
+torpedoes, which at least started off correctly from the shell-shaken
+tubes, and must have crossed the enemy's line. When torpedoes turn up
+among a squadron, they upset the steering and distract the attention
+of all concerned. Then the destroyer judged it time to take stock of
+her injuries. Among other minor defects she could neither steam,
+steer, nor signal.
+
+
+TOWING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
+
+Mark how virtue is rewarded! Another of our destroyers an hour or so
+previously had been knocked clean out of action, before she had done
+anything, by a big shell which gutted a boiler-room and started an oil
+fire. (That is the drawback to oil.) She crawled out between the
+battleships till she "reached an area of comparative calm" and
+repaired damage. She says: "The fire having been dealt with it was
+found a mat kept the stokehold dry. My only trouble now being lack of
+speed, I looked round for useful employment, and saw a destroyer in
+great difficulties, so closed her." That destroyer was our paralytic
+friend of the intermittent torpedo-tubes, and a grateful ship she was
+when her crippled sister (but still good for a few knots) offered her
+a tow, "under very trying conditions with large enemy ships
+approaching." So the two set off together, Cripple and Paralytic, with
+heavy shells falling round them, as sociable as a couple of lame
+hounds. Cripple worked up to 12 knots, and the weather grew vile, and
+the tow parted. Paralytic, by this time, had raised steam in a boiler
+or two, and made shift to get along slowly on her own, Cripple
+hirpling beside her, till Paralytic could not make any more headway in
+that rising sea, and Cripple had to tow her once more. Once more the
+tow parted. So they tied Paralytic up rudely and effectively with a
+cable round her after bollards and gun (presumably because of strained
+forward bulkheads) and hauled her stern-first, through heavy seas, at
+continually reduced speeds, doubtful of their position, unable to
+sound because of the seas, and much pestered by a wind which backed
+without warning, till, at last, they made land, and turned into the
+hospital appointed for brave wounded ships. Everybody speaks well of
+Cripple. Her name crops up in several reports, with such compliments
+as the men of the sea use when they see good work. She herself speaks
+well of her Lieutenant, who, as executive officer, "took charge of the
+fire and towing arrangements in a very creditable manner," and also of
+Tom Battye and Thomas Kerr, engine-room artificer and stoker petty
+officer, who "were in the stokehold at the time of the shell striking,
+and performed cool and prompt decisive action, although both suffering
+from shock and slight injuries."
+
+
+USEFUL EMPLOYMENT
+
+Have you ever noticed that men who do Homeric deeds often describe
+them in Homeric language? The sentence "I looked round for useful
+employment" is worthy of Ulysses when "there was an evil sound at the
+ships of men who perished and of the ships themselves broken at the
+same time."
+
+Roughly, very roughly, speaking, our destroyers enjoyed three phases
+of "prompt decisive action"--the first, a period of daylight attacks
+(from 4 to 6 P.M.) such as the one I have just described, while the
+battle was young and the light fairly good on the afternoon of May 31;
+the second, towards dark, when the light had lessened and the enemy
+were more uneasy, and, I think, in more scattered formation; the
+third, when darkness had fallen, and the destroyers had been strung
+out astern with orders to help the enemy home, which they did all
+night as opportunity offered. One cannot say whether the day or the
+night work was the more desperate. From private advices, the young
+gentlemen concerned seem to have functioned with efficiency either
+way. As one of them said: "After a bit, you see, we were all pretty
+much on our own, and you could really find out what your ship could
+do."
+
+I will tell you later of a piece of night work not without merit.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE NIGHT HUNT
+
+RAMMING AN ENEMY CRUISER
+
+
+As I said, we will confine ourselves to something quite sane and
+simple which does not involve more than half-a-dozen different
+reports.
+
+When the German fleet ran for home, on the night of May 31, it seems
+to have scattered--"starred," I believe, is the word for the
+evolution--in a general _sauve qui peut_, while the Devil, livelily
+represented by our destroyers, took the hindmost. Our flotillas were
+strung out far and wide on this job. One man compared it to hounds
+hunting half a hundred separate foxes.
+
+I take the adventures of several couples of destroyers who, on the
+night of May 31, were nosing along somewhere towards the
+Schleswig-Holstein coast, ready to chop any Hun-stuff coming back to
+earth by that particular road. The leader of one line was Gehenna, and
+the next two ships astern of her were Eblis and Shaitan, in the order
+given. There were others, of course, but with the exception of one
+Goblin they don't come violently into this tale. There had been a good
+deal of promiscuous firing that evening, and actions were going on all
+round. Towards midnight our destroyers were overtaken by several
+three-and four-funnel German ships (cruisers they thought) hurrying
+home. At this stage of the game anybody might have been
+anybody--pursuer or pursued. The Germans took no chances, but switched
+on their searchlights and opened fire on Gehenna. Her acting
+sub-lieutenant reports: "A salvo hit us forward. I opened fire with
+the after-guns. A shell then struck us in a steam-pipe, and I could
+see nothing but steam. But both starboard torpedo-tubes were fired."
+
+Eblis, Gehenna's next astern, at once fired a torpedo at the second
+ship in the German line, a four-funnelled cruiser, and hit her between
+the second funnel and the mainmast, when "she appeared to catch fire
+fore and aft simultaneously, heeled right over to starboard, and
+undoubtedly sank." Eblis loosed off a second torpedo and turned aside
+to reload, firing at the same time to distract the enemy's attention
+from Gehenna, who was now ablaze fore and aft. Gehenna's acting
+sub-lieutenant (the only executive officer who survived) says that by
+the time the steam from the broken pipe cleared he found Gehenna
+stopped, nearly everybody amidships killed or wounded, the
+cartridge-boxes round the guns exploding one after the other as the
+fires took hold, and the enemy not to be seen. Three minutes or less
+did all that damage. Eblis had nearly finished reloading when a shot
+struck the davit that was swinging her last torpedo into the tube and
+wounded all hands concerned. Thereupon she dropped torpedo work, fired
+at an enemy searchlight which winked and went out, and was closing in
+to help Gehenna when she found herself under the noses of a couple of
+enemy cruisers. "The nearer one," he says, "altered course to ram me
+apparently." The Senior Service writes in curiously lawyer-like
+fashion, but there is no denying that they act quite directly. "I
+therefore put my helm hard aport and the two ships met and rammed each
+other, port bow to port bow." There could have been no time to think
+and, for Eblis's commander on the bridge, none to gather information.
+But he had observant subordinates, and he writes--and I would humbly
+suggest that the words be made the ship's motto for evermore--he
+writes, "Those aft noted" that the enemy cruiser had certain marks on
+her funnel and certain arrangements of derricks on each side which,
+quite apart from the evidence she left behind her, betrayed her class.
+Eblis and she met. Says Eblis: "I consider I must have considerably
+damaged this cruiser, as 20 feet of her side plating was left in my
+foc'sle." Twenty feet of ragged rivet-slinging steel, razoring and
+reaping about in the dark on a foc'sle that had collapsed like a
+concertina! It was very fair plating too. There were side-scuttle
+holes in it--what we passengers would call portholes. But it might
+have been better, for Eblis reports sorrowfully, "by the thickness of
+the coats of paint (duly given in 32nds of the inch) she would not
+appear to have been a very new ship."
+
+
+A FUGITIVE ON FIRE
+
+New or old, the enemy had done her best. She had completely demolished
+Eblis's bridge and searchlight platform, brought down the mast and the
+fore-funnel, ruined the whaler and the dinghy, split the foc'sle open
+above water from the stem to the galley which is abaft the bridge, and
+below water had opened it up from the stem to the second bulkhead. She
+had further ripped off Eblis's skin-plating for an amazing number of
+yards on one side of her, and had fired a couple of large-calibre
+shells into Eblis at point-blank range, narrowly missing her vitals.
+Even so, Eblis is as impartial as a prize-court. She reports that the
+second shot, a trifle of eight inches, "may have been fired at a
+different time or just after colliding." But the night was yet young,
+and "just after getting clear of this cruiser an enemy battle-cruiser
+grazed past our stern at high speed" and again the judgmatic mind--"I
+think she must have intended to ram us." She was a large
+three-funnelled thing, her centre funnel shot away and "lights were
+flickering under her foc'sle as if she was on fire forward." Fancy the
+vision of her, hurtling out of the dark, red-lighted from within, and
+fleeing on like a man with his throat cut!
+
+[As an interlude, all enemy cruisers that night were not keen on
+ramming. They wanted to get home. A man I know who was on another part
+of the drive saw a covey bolt through our destroyers; and had just
+settled himself for a shot at one of them when the night threw up a
+second bird coming down full speed on his other beam. He had bare
+time to jink between the two as they whizzed past. One switched on her
+searchlight and fired a whole salvo at him point blank. The heavy
+stuff went between his funnels. She must have sighted along her own
+beam of light, which was about a thousand yards.
+
+"How did you feel?" I asked.
+
+"I was rather sick. It was my best chance all that night, and I had to
+miss it or be cut in two."
+
+"What happened to the cruisers?"
+
+"Oh, they went on, and I heard 'em being attended to by some of our
+fellows. They didn't know what they were doing, or they couldn't have
+missed me sitting, the way they did.]
+
+
+THE CONFIDENTIAL BOOKS
+
+After all that Eblis picked herself up, and discovered that she was
+still alive, with a dog's chance of getting to port. But she did not
+bank on it. That grand slam had wrecked the bridge, pinning the
+commander under the wreckage. By the time he had extricated himself
+he "considered it advisable to throw overboard the steel chest and
+dispatch-box of confidential and secret books." These are never
+allowed to fall into strange hands, and their proper disposal is the
+last step but one in the ritual of the burial service of His Majesty's
+ships at sea. Gehenna, afire and sinking, out somewhere in the dark,
+was going through it on her own account. This is her Acting
+Sub-Lieutenant's report: "The confidential books were got up. The
+First Lieutenant gave the order: 'Every man aft,' and the confidential
+books were thrown overboard. The ship soon afterwards heeled over to
+starboard and the bows went under. The First Lieutenant gave the
+order: 'Everybody for themselves.' The ship sank in about a minute,
+the stern going straight up into the air."
+
+But it was not written in the Book of Fate that stripped and battered
+Eblis should die that night as Gehenna died. After the burial of the
+books it was found that the several fires on her were manageable,
+that she "was not making water aft of the damage," which meant
+two-thirds of her were, more or less, in commission, and, best of all,
+that three boilers were usable in spite of the cruiser's shells. So
+she "shaped course and speed to make the least water and the most
+progress towards land." On the way back the wind shifted eight points
+without warning--it was this shift, if you remember, that so
+embarrassed Cripple and Paralytic on their homeward crawl--and, what
+with one thing and another, Eblis was unable to make port till the
+scandalously late hour of noon on June 2, "the mutual ramming having
+occurred about 11.40 P.M. on May 31." She says, this time without any
+legal reservation whatever, "I cannot speak too highly of the courage,
+discipline, and devotion of the officers and ship's company."
+
+Her recommendations are a Compendium of Godly Deeds for the Use of
+Mariners. They cover pretty much all that man may be expected to do.
+There was, as there always is, a first lieutenant who, while his
+commander was being extricated from the bridge wreckage, took charge
+of affairs and steered the ship first from the engine-room, or what
+remained of it, and later from aft, and otherwise manoeuvred as
+requisite, among doubtful bulkheads. In his leisure he "improvised
+means of signalling," and if there be not one joyous story behind that
+smooth sentence I am a Hun!
+
+
+THE ART OF IMPROVISING
+
+They all improvised like the masters of craft they were. The chief
+engine-room artificer, after he had helped to put out fires,
+improvised stops to the gaps which were left by the carrying away of
+the forward funnel and mast. He got and kept up steam "to a much
+higher point than would have appeared at all possible," and when the
+sea rose, as it always does if you are in trouble, he "improvised
+pumping and drainage arrangements, thus allowing the ship to steam at
+a good speed on the whole." There could not have been more than 40
+feet of hole.
+
+The surgeon--a probationer--performed an amputation single-handed in
+the wreckage by the bridge, and by his "wonderful skill, resource, and
+unceasing care and devotion undoubtedly saved the lives of the many
+seriously wounded men." That no horror might be lacking, there was "a
+short circuit among the bridge wreckage for a considerable time." The
+searchlight and wireless were tangled up together, and the electricity
+leaked into everything.
+
+There were also three wise men who saved the ship whose names must not
+be forgotten. They were Chief Engine-room Artificer Lee, Stoker Petty
+Officer Gardiner, and Stoker Elvins. When the funnel carried away it
+was touch and go whether the foremost boiler would not explode. These
+three "put on respirators and kept the fans going till all fumes,
+etc., were cleared away." To each man, you will observe, his own
+particular Hell which he entered of his own particular initiative.
+
+Lastly, there were the two remaining Quartermasters--mutinous dogs,
+both of 'em--one wounded in the right hand and the other in the left,
+who took the wheel between them all the way home, thus improvising one
+complete Navy-pattern Quartermaster, and "refused to be relieved
+during the whole thirty-six hours before the ship returned to port."
+So Eblis passes out of the picture with "never a moan or complaint
+from a single wounded man, and in spite of the rough weather of June
+1st they all remained cheery." They had one Hun cruiser, torpedoed, to
+their credit, and strong evidence abroad that they had knocked the end
+out of another.
+
+But Gehenna went down, and those of her crew who remained hung on to
+the rafts that destroyers carry till they were picked up about the
+dawn by Shaitan, third in the line, who, at that hour, was in no shape
+to give much help. Here is Shaitan's tale. She saw the unknown
+cruisers overtake the flotilla, saw their leader switch on
+searchlights and open fire as she drew abreast of Gehenna, and at
+once fired a torpedo at the third German ship. Shaitan could not see
+Eblis, her next ahead, for, as we know, Eblis after firing her
+torpedoes had hauled off to reload. When the enemy switched his
+searchlights off Shaitan hauled out too. It is not wholesome for
+destroyers to keep on the same course within a thousand yards of big
+enemy cruisers.
+
+She picked up a destroyer of another division, Goblin, who for the
+moment had not been caught by the enemy's searchlights and had
+profited by this decent obscurity to fire a torpedo at the hindmost of
+the cruisers. Almost as Shaitan took station behind Goblin the latter
+was lighted up by a large ship and heavily fired at. The enemy fled,
+but she left Goblin out of control, with a grisly list of casualties,
+and her helm jammed. Goblin swerved, returned, and swerved again;
+Shaitan astern tried to clear her, and the two fell aboard each other,
+Goblin's bows deep in Shaitan's fore-bridge. While they hung thus,
+locked, an unknown destroyer rammed Shaitan aft, cutting off several
+feet of her stern and leaving her rudder jammed hard over. As complete
+a mess as the Personal Devil himself could have devised, and all due
+to the merest accident of a few panicky salvoes. Presently the two
+ships worked clear in a smother of steam and oil, and went their
+several ways. Quite a while after she had parted from Shaitan, Goblin
+discovered several of Shaitan's people, some of them wounded, on her
+own foc'sle, where they had been pitched by the collision. Goblin,
+working her way homeward on such boilers as remained, carried on a
+one-gun fight at a few cables' distance with some enemy destroyers,
+who, not knowing what state she was in, sheered off after a few
+rounds. Shaitan, holed forward and opened up aft, came across the
+survivors from Gehenna clinging to their raft, and took them aboard.
+Then some of our destroyers--they were thick on the sea that
+night--tried to tow her stern-first, for Goblin had cut her up badly
+forward. But, since Shaitan lacked any stern, and her rudder was
+jammed hard across where the stern should have been, the hawsers
+parted, and, after leave asked of lawful authority, across all that
+waste of waters, they sank Shaitan by gun-fire, having first taken all
+the proper steps about the confidential books. Yet Shaitan had had her
+little crumb of comfort ere the end. While she lay crippled she saw
+quite close to her a German cruiser that was trailing homeward in the
+dawn gradually heel over and sink.
+
+This completes my version of the various accounts of the four
+destroyers directly concerned for a few hours, on one minute section
+of one wing of our battle. Other ships witnessed other aspects of the
+agony and duly noted them as they went about their business. One of
+our battleships, for instance, made out by the glare of burning
+Gehenna that the supposed cruiser that Eblis torpedoed was a German
+battleship of a certain class. So Gehenna did not die in vain, and we
+may take it that the discovery did not unduly depress Eblis's wounded
+in hospital.
+
+
+ASKING FOR TROUBLE
+
+The rest of the flotilla that the four destroyers belonged to had
+their own adventures later. One of them, chasing or being chased, saw
+Goblin out of control just before Goblin and Shaitan locked, and
+narrowly escaped adding herself to that triple collision. Another
+loosed a couple of torpedoes at the enemy ships who were attacking
+Gehenna, which, perhaps, accounts for the anxiety of the enemy to
+break away from that hornets' nest as soon as possible. Half a dozen
+or so of them ran into four German battleships, which they set about
+torpedoing at ranges varying from half a mile to a mile and a half. It
+was asking for trouble and they got it; but they got in return at
+least one big ship, and the same observant battleship of ours who
+identified Eblis's bird reported _three_ satisfactory explosions in
+half an hour, followed by a glare that lit up all the sky. One of the
+flotilla, closing on what she thought was the smoke of a sister in
+difficulties, found herself well in among the four battleships. "It
+was too late to get away," she says, so she attacked, fired her
+torpedo, was caught up in the glare of a couple of searchlights, and
+pounded to pieces in five minutes, not even her rafts being left. She
+went down with her colours flying, having fought to the last available
+gun.
+
+Another destroyer who had borne a hand in Gehenna's trouble had her
+try at the four battleships and got in a torpedo at 800 yards. She saw
+it explode and the ship take a heavy list. "Then I was chased," which
+is not surprising. She picked up a friend who could only do 20 knots.
+They sighted several Hun destroyers who fled from them; then dropped
+on to four Hun destroyers all together, who made great parade of
+commencing action, but soon afterwards "thought better of it, and
+turned away." So you see, in that flotilla alone there was every
+variety of fight, from the ordered attacks of squadrons under control,
+to single ship affairs, every turn of which depended on the second's
+decision of the men concerned; endurance to the hopeless end; bluff
+and cunning; reckless advance and red-hot flight; clear vision and as
+much of blank bewilderment as the Senior Service permits its children
+to indulge in. That is not much. When a destroyer who has been dodging
+enemy torpedoes and gun-fire in the dark realises about midnight that
+she is "following a strange British flotilla, having lost sight of my
+own," she "decides to remain with them," and shares their fortunes and
+whatever language is going.
+
+If lost hounds could speak when they cast up next day, after an
+unchecked night among the wild life of the dark, they would talk much
+as our destroyers do.
+
+    The doorkeepers of Zion,
+      They do not always stand
+    In helmet and whole armour,
+      With halberds in their hand;
+    But, being sure of Zion,
+      And all her mysteries,
+    They rest awhile in Zion,
+    Sit down and smile in Zion;
+    Ay, even jest in Zion,
+      In Zion, at their ease.
+
+    The gatekeepers of Baal,
+      They dare not sit or lean,
+    But fume and fret and posture
+      And foam and curse between;
+    For being bound to Baal,
+      Whose sacrifice is vain,
+    Their rest is scant with Baal,
+    They glare and pant for Baal,
+    They mouth and rant for Baal,
+      For Baal in their pain.
+
+    But we will go to Zion,
+      By choice and not through dread,
+    With these our present comrades
+      And those our present dead;
+    And, being free of Zion
+      In both her fellowships,
+    Sit down and sup in Zion--
+    Stand up and drink in Zion
+    Whatever cup in Zion
+      Is offered to our lips!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE MEANING OF "JOSS"
+
+A YOUNG OFFICER'S LETTER
+
+
+As one digs deeper into the records, one sees the various temperaments
+of men revealing themselves through all the formal wording. One
+commander may be an expert in torpedo-work, whose first care is how
+and where his shots went, and whether, under all circumstances of
+pace, light, and angle, the best had been achieved. Destroyers do not
+carry unlimited stocks of torpedoes. It rests with commanders whether
+they shall spend with a free hand at first or save for night-work
+ahead--risk a possible while he is yet afloat, or hang on coldly for a
+certainty. So in the old whaling days did the harponeer bring up or
+back off his boat till some shift of the great fish's bulk gave him
+sure opening at the deep-seated life.
+
+And then comes the question of private judgment. "I thought so-and-so
+would happen. Therefore, I did thus and thus." Things may or may not
+turn out as anticipated, but that is merely another of the million
+chances of the sea. Take a case in point. A flotilla of our destroyers
+sighted six (there had been eight the previous afternoon) German
+battleships of Kingly and Imperial caste very early in the morning of
+the 1st June, and duly attacked. At first our people ran parallel to
+the enemy, then, as far as one can make out, headed them and swept
+round sharp to the left, firing torpedoes from their port or left-hand
+tubes. Between them they hit a battleship, which went up in flame and
+_débris_. But one of the flotilla had not turned with the rest. She
+had anticipated that the attack would be made on another quarter, and,
+for certain technical reasons, she was not ready. When she was, she
+turned, and single-handed--the rest of the flotilla having finished
+and gone on--carried out two attacks on the five remaining
+battleships. She got one of them amidships, causing a terrific
+explosion and flame above the masthead, which signifies that the
+magazine has been touched off. She counted the battleships when the
+smoke had cleared, and there were but four of them. She herself was
+not hit, though shots fell close. She went her way, and, seeing
+nothing of her sisters, picked up another flotilla and stayed with it
+till the end. Do I make clear the maze of blind hazard and wary
+judgment in which our men of the sea must move?
+
+
+SAVED BY A SMOKE SCREEN
+
+Some of the original flotilla were chased and headed about by cruisers
+after their attack on the six battleships, and a single shell from
+battleship or cruiser reduced one of them to such a condition that she
+was brought home by her sub-lieutenant and a midshipman. Her captain,
+first lieutenant, gunner, torpedo coxswain, and both signalmen were
+either killed or wounded; the bridge, with charts, instruments, and
+signalling gear went; all torpedoes were expended; a gun was out of
+action, and the usual cordite fires developed. Luckily, the engines
+were workable. She escaped under cover of a smoke-screen, which is an
+unbearably filthy outpouring of the densest smoke, made by increasing
+the proportion of oil to air in the furnace-feed. It rolls forth from
+the funnels looking solid enough to sit upon, spreads in a
+searchlight-proof pat of impenetrable beastliness, and in still
+weather hangs for hours. But it saved that ship.
+
+It is curious to note the subdued tone of a boy's report when by some
+accident of slaughter he is raised to command. There are certain
+formalities which every ship must comply with on entering certain
+ports. No fully-striped commander would trouble to detail them any
+more than he would the aspect of his Club porter. The young 'un puts
+it all down, as who should say: "I rang the bell, wiped my feet on the
+mat, and asked if they were at home." He is most careful of the port
+proprieties, and since he will be sub. again to-morrow, and all his
+equals will tell him exactly how he ought to have handled her, he
+almost apologises for the steps he took--deeds which ashore might be
+called cool or daring.
+
+The Senior Service does not gush. There are certain formulae
+appropriate to every occasion. One of our destroyers, who was knocked
+out early in the day and lay helpless, was sighted by several of her
+companions. One of them reported her to the authorities, but, being
+busy at the time, said he did not think himself justified in hampering
+himself with a disabled ship in the middle of an action. It was not as
+if she was sinking either. She was only holed foreward and aft, with a
+bad hit in the engine-room, and her steering-gear knocked out. In this
+posture she cheered the passing ships, and set about repairing her
+hurts with good heart and a smiling countenance. She managed to get
+under some sort of way at midnight, and next day was taken in tow by a
+friend. She says officially, "his assistance was invaluable, as I had
+no oil left and met heavy weather."
+
+What actually happened was much less formal. Fleet destroyers, as a
+rule, do not worry about navigation. They take their orders from the
+flagship, and range out and return, on signal, like sheep-dogs whose
+fixed point is their shepherd. Consequently, when they break loose on
+their own they may fetch up rather doubtful of their whereabouts--as
+this injured one did. After she had been so kindly taken in tow, she
+inquired of her friend ("Message captain to captain")--"Have you any
+notion where we are?" The friend replied, "I have not, but I will find
+out." So the friend waited on the sun with the necessary implements,
+which luckily had not been smashed, and in due time made: "Our
+observed position at this hour is thus and thus." The tow,
+irreverently, "Is it? Didn't know you were a navigator." The friend,
+with hauteur, "Yes; it's rather a hobby of mine." The tow, "Had no
+idea it was as bad as all that; but I'm afraid I'll have to trust you
+this time. Go ahead, and be quick about it." They reached a port,
+correctly enough, but to this hour the tow, having studied with the
+friend at a place called Dartmouth, insists that it was pure Joss.
+
+
+CONCERNING JOSS
+
+And Joss, which is luck, fortune, destiny, the irony of Fate or
+Nemesis, is the greatest of all the Battle-gods that move on the
+waters. As I will show you later, knowledge of gunnery and a delicate
+instinct for what is in the enemy's minds may enable a destroyer to
+thread her way, slowing, speeding, and twisting between the heavy
+salvoes of opposing fleets. As the dank-smelling waterspouts rise and
+break, she judges where the next grove of them will sprout. If her
+judgment is correct, she may enter it in her report as a little
+feather in her cap. But it is Joss when the stray 12-inch shell,
+hurled by a giant at some giant ten miles away, falls on her from
+Heaven and wipes out her and her profound calculations. This was seen
+to happen to a Hun destroyer in mid-attack. While she was being
+laboriously dealt with by a 4-inch gun something immense took her,
+and--she was not.
+
+Joss it is, too, when the cruiser's 8-inch shot, that should have
+raked out your innards from the forward boiler to the ward-room stove,
+deflects miraculously, like a twig dragged through deep water, and,
+almost returning on its track, skips off unbursten and leaves you
+reprieved by the breadth of a nail from three deaths in one. Later, a
+single splinter, no more, may cut your oil-supply pipes as dreadfully
+and completely as a broken wind-screen in a collision cuts the
+surprised motorist's throat. Then you must lie useless, fighting
+oil-fires while the precious fuel gutters away till you have to ask
+leave to escape while there are yet a few tons left. One ship who was
+once bled white by such a piece of Joss, suggested it would be better
+that oil-pipes should be led along certain lines which she sketched.
+As if that would make any difference to Joss when he wants to show
+what he can do!
+
+Our sea-people, who have worked with him for a thousand wettish years,
+have acquired something of Joss's large toleration and humour. He
+causes ships in thick weather, or under strain, to mistake friends for
+enemies. At such times, if your heart is full of highly organised
+hate, you strafe frightfully and efficiently till one of you perishes,
+and the survivor reports wonders which are duly wirelessed all over
+the world. But if you worship Joss, you reflect, you put two and two
+together in a casual insular way, and arrive--sometimes both parties
+arrive--at instinctive conclusions which avoid trouble.
+
+
+AN AFFAIR IN THE NORTH SEA
+
+Witness this tale. It does not concern the Jutland fight, but another
+little affair which took place a while ago in the North Sea. It was
+understood that a certain type of cruiser of ours would _not_ be
+taking part in a certain show. Therefore, if anyone saw cruisers very
+like them he might blaze at them with a clear conscience, for they
+would be Hun-boats. And one of our destroyers--thick weather as
+usual--spied the silhouettes of cruisers exactly like our own stealing
+across the haze. Said the Commander to his Sub., with an inflection
+neither period, exclamation, nor interrogation-mark can
+render--"That--is--them."
+
+Said the Sub. in precisely the same tone--"That is them, sir." "As my
+Sub.," said the Commander, "your observation is strictly in accord
+with the traditions of the Service. Now, as man to man, what _are_
+they?" "We-el," said the Sub., "since you put it that way, I'm d----d
+if _I'd_ fire." And they didn't, and they were quite right. The
+destroyer had been off on another job, and Joss had jammed the latest
+wireless orders to her at the last moment. But Joss had also put it
+into the hearts of the boys to save themselves and others.
+
+I hold no brief for the Hun, but honestly I think he has not lied as
+much about the Jutland fight as people believe, and that when he
+protests he sank a ship, he _did_ very completely sink a ship. I am
+the more confirmed in this belief by a still small voice among the
+Jutland reports, musing aloud over an account of an unaccountable
+outlying brawl witnessed by one of our destroyers. The voice suggests
+that what the destroyer saw was one German ship being sunk by another.
+Amen!
+
+Our destroyers saw a good deal that night on the face of the waters.
+Some of them who were working in "areas of comparative calm" submit
+charts of their tangled courses, all studded with notes along the
+zigzag--something like this:--
+
+8 P.M.--_Heard explosion to the N.W._ (A neat arrow-head points that
+way.) Half an inch farther along, a short change of course, and the
+word _Hit_ explains the meaning of--"_Sighted enemy cruiser engaged
+with destroyers._" Another twist follows. "9.30 P.M.--_Passed
+wreckage. Engaged enemy destroyers port beam opposite courses._" A
+long straight line without incident, then a tangle, and--_Picked up
+survivors So-and-So_. A stretch over to some ship that they were
+transferred to, a fresh departure, and another brush with "_Single
+destroyer on parallel course. Hit. 0.7 A.M.--Passed bows enemy cruiser
+sticking up. 0.18.--Joined flotilla for attack on battleship
+squadron._" So it runs on--one little ship in a few short hours
+passing through more wonders of peril and accident than all the old
+fleets ever dreamed.
+
+
+A "CHILD'S" LETTER
+
+In years to come naval experts will collate all those diagrams, and
+furiously argue over them. A lot of the destroyer work was inevitably
+as mixed as bombing down a trench, as the scuffle of a polo match, or
+as the hot heaving heart of a football scrum. It is difficult to
+realise when one considers the size of the sea, that it is that very
+size and absence of boundary which helps the confusion. To give an
+idea, here is a letter (it has been quoted before, I believe, but it
+is good enough to repeat many times), from a nineteen-year-old child
+to his friend aged seventeen (and minus one leg), in a hospital:
+
+"I'm so awfully sorry you weren't in it. It was rather terrible, but a
+wonderful experience, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but,
+by Jove, it isn't a thing one wants to make a habit of.
+
+"I must say it is very different from what I expected. I expected to
+be excited, but was not a bit. It's hard to express what we did feel
+like, but you know the sort of feeling one has when one goes in to bat
+at cricket, and rather a lot depends upon your doing well, and you are
+waiting for the first ball. Well, it's very much the same as that. Do
+you know what I mean? A sort of tense feeling, not quite knowing what
+to expect. One does not feel the slightest bit frightened, and the
+idea that there's a chance of you and your ship being scuppered does
+not enter one's head. There are too many other things to think
+about."
+
+Follows the usual "No ship like our ship" talkee, and a note of where
+she was at the time.
+
+"Then they ordered us to attack, so we bustled off full bore. Being
+navigator, also having control of all the guns, I was on the bridge
+all the time, and remained for twelve hours without leaving it at all.
+When we got fairly close I sighted a good-looking Hun destroyer, which
+I thought I'd like to strafe. You know, it's awful fun to know that
+you can blaze off at a real ship, and do as much damage as you like.
+Well, I'd just got their range on the guns, and we'd just fired one
+round, when some more of our destroyers coming from the opposite
+direction got between us and the enemy and completely blanketed us, so
+we had to stop, which was rather rot. Shortly afterwards they recalled
+us, so we bustled back again. How any destroyer got out of it is
+perfectly wonderful.
+
+"Literally there were hundreds of progs (shells falling) all round us,
+from a 15-inch to a 4-inch, and you know what a big splash a 15-inch
+bursting in the water does make. We got washed through by the spray.
+Just as we were getting back, a whole salvo of big shells fell just in
+front of us and short of our big ships. The skipper and I did rapid
+calculations as to how long it would take them to reload, fire again,
+time of flight, etc., as we had to go right through the spot. We came
+to the conclusion that, as they were short a bit, they would probably
+go up a bit, and (they?) didn't, but luckily they altered deflection,
+and the next fell right astern of us. Anyhow, we managed to come out
+of that row without the ship or a man on board being touched.
+
+
+WHAT THE BIG SHIPS STAND
+
+"It's extraordinary the amount of knocking about the big ships can
+stand. One saw them hit, and they seemed to be one mass of flame and
+smoke, and you think they're gone, but when the smoke clears away they
+are apparently none the worse and still firing away. But to see a
+ship blow up is a terrible and wonderful sight; an enormous volume of
+flame and smoke almost 200 feet high and great pieces of metal, etc.,
+blown sky-high, and then when the smoke clears not a sign of the ship.
+We saw one other extraordinary sight. Of course, you know the North
+Sea is very shallow. We came across a Hun cruiser absolutely on end,
+his stern on the bottom and his bow sticking up about 30 feet in the
+water; and a little farther on a destroyer in precisely the same
+position.
+
+"I couldn't be certain, but I rather think I saw your old ship
+crashing along and blazing away, but I expect you have heard from some
+of your pals. But the night was far and away the worse time of all. It
+was pitch dark, and, of course, absolutely no lights, and the firing
+seems so much more at night, as you could see the flashes lighting up
+the sky, and it seemed to make much more noise, and you could see
+ships on fire and blowing up. Of course _we_ showed absolutely no
+lights. One expected to be surprised any moment, and eventually we
+were. We suddenly found ourselves within 1000 yards of two or three
+big Hun cruisers. They switched on their searchlights and started
+firing like nothing on earth. Then they put their searchlights on us,
+but for some extraordinary reason did not fire on us. As, of course,
+we were going full speed we lost them in a moment, but I must say,
+that I, and I think everybody else, thought that that was the end, but
+one does not feel afraid or panicky. I think I felt rather cooler then
+than at any other time. I asked lots of people afterwards what they
+felt like, and they all said the same thing. It all happens in a few
+seconds; one hasn't time to think; but never in all my life have I
+been so thankful to see daylight again--and I don't think I ever want
+to see another night like that--it's such an awful strain. One does
+not notice it at the time, but it's the reaction afterwards.
+
+"I never noticed I was tired till I got back to harbour, and then we
+all turned in and absolutely slept like logs. We were seventy-two
+hours with little or no sleep. The skipper was perfectly wonderful. He
+never left the bridge for a minute for twenty-four hours, and was on
+the bridge or in the chart-house the whole time we were out (the
+chart-house is an airy dog-kennel that opens off the bridge) and I've
+never seen anybody so cool and unruffled. He stood there smoking his
+pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.
+
+"One quite forgot all about time. I was relieved at 4 A.M., and on
+looking at my watch found I had been up there nearly twelve hours, and
+then discovered I was rather hungry. The skipper and I had some cheese
+and biscuits, ham sandwiches, and water on the bridge, and then I went
+down and brewed some cocoa and ship's biscuit."
+
+    Not in the thick of the fight,
+      Not in the press of the odds,
+    Do the heroes come to their height
+      Or we know the demi-gods.
+
+    That stands over till peace.
+      We can only perceive
+    Men returned from the seas,
+      Very grateful for leave.
+
+    They grant us sudden days
+      Snatched from their business of war.
+    We are too close to appraise
+      What manner of men they are.
+
+    And whether their names go down
+      With age-kept victories,
+    Or whether they battle and drown
+      Unreckoned is hid from our eyes.
+
+    They are too near to be great,
+      But our children shall understand
+    When and how our fate
+      Was changed, and by whose hand.
+
+    Our children shall measure their worth.
+      We are content to be blind,
+    For we know that we walk on a new-born earth
+      With the saviours of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MINDS OF MEN
+
+HOW IT IS DONE
+
+
+What mystery is there like the mystery of the other man's job--or what
+world so cut off as that which he enters when he goes to it? The
+eminent surgeon is altogether such an one as ourselves, even till his
+hand falls on the knob of the theatre door. After that, in the
+silence, among the ether fumes, no man except his acolytes, and they
+won't tell, has ever seen his face. So with the unconsidered curate.
+Yet, before the war, he had more experience of the business and detail
+of death than any of the people who contemned him. His face also, as
+he stands his bedside-watches--that countenance with which he shall
+justify himself to his Maker--none have ever looked upon. Even the
+ditcher is a priest of mysteries at the high moment when he lays out
+in his mind his levels and the fall of the water that he alone can
+draw off clearly. But catch any of these men five minutes after they
+have left their altars, and you will find the doors are shut.
+
+Chance sent me almost immediately after the Jutland fight a Lieutenant
+of one of the destroyers engaged. Among other matters, I asked him if
+there was any particular noise.
+
+"Well, I haven't been in the trenches, of course," he replied, "but I
+don't think there could have been much more noise than there was."
+
+This bears out a report of a destroyer who could not be certain
+whether an enemy battleship had blown up or not, saying that, in that
+particular corner, it would have been impossible to identify anything
+less than the explosion of a whole magazine.
+
+"It wasn't exactly noise," he reflected. "Noise is what you take in
+from outside. This was _inside_ you. It seemed to lift you right out
+of everything."
+
+"And how did the light affect one?" I asked, trying to work out a
+theory that noise and light produced beyond known endurance form an
+unknown anaesthetic and stimulant, comparable to, but infinitely more
+potent than, the soothing effect of the smoke-pall of ancient battles.
+
+"The lights were rather curious," was the answer. "I don't know that
+one noticed searchlights particularly, unless they meant business; but
+when a lot of big guns loosed off together, the whole sea was lit up
+and you could see our destroyers running about like cockroaches on a
+tin soup-plate."
+
+"Then is black the best colour for our destroyers? Some commanders
+seem to think we ought to use grey."
+
+"Blessed if _I_ know," said young Dante. "Everything shows black in
+that light. Then it all goes out again with a bang. Trying for the
+eyes if you are spotting."
+
+
+SHIP DOGS
+
+"And how did the dogs take it?" I pursued. There are several
+destroyers more or less owned by pet dogs, who start life as the
+chance-found property of a stoker, and end in supreme command of the
+bridge.
+
+"Most of 'em didn't like it a bit. They went below one time, and
+wanted to be loved. They knew it wasn't ordinary practice."
+
+"What did Arabella do?" I had heard a good deal of Arabella.
+
+"Oh, Arabella's _quite_ different. Her job has always been to look
+after her master's pyjamas--folded up at the head of the bunk, you
+know. She found out pretty soon the bridge was no place for a lady, so
+she hopped downstairs and got in. You know how she makes three little
+jumps to it--first, on to the chair; then on the flap-table, and then
+up on the pillow. When the show was over, there she was as usual."
+
+"Was she glad to see her master?"
+
+"_Ra-ather._ Arabella was the bold, gay lady-dog _then_!"
+
+Now Arabella is between nine and eleven and a half inches long.
+
+"Does the Hun run to pets at all?"
+
+"I shouldn't say so. He's an unsympathetic felon--the Hun. But he
+might cherish a dachshund or so. We never picked up any ships' pets
+off him, and I'm sure we should if there had been."
+
+That I believed as implicitly as the tale of a destroyer attack some
+months ago, the object of which was to flush Zeppelins. It succeeded,
+for the flotilla was attacked by several. Right in the middle of the
+flurry, a destroyer asked permission to stop and lower dinghy to pick
+up ship's dog which had fallen overboard. Permission was granted, and
+the dog was duly rescued. "Lord knows what the Hun made of it," said
+my informant. "He was rumbling round, dropping bombs; and the dinghy
+was digging out for all she was worth, and the Dog-Fiend was swimming
+for Dunkirk. It must have looked rather mad from above. But they
+saved the Dog-Fiend, and then everybody swore he was a German spy in
+disguise."
+
+
+THE FIGHT
+
+"And--about this Jutland fight?" I hinted, not for the first time.
+
+"Oh, that was just a fight. There was more of it than any other fight,
+I suppose, but I expect all modern naval actions must be pretty much
+the same."
+
+"But what does one _do_--how does one feel?" I insisted, though I knew
+it was hopeless.
+
+"One does one's job. Things are happening all the time. A man may be
+right under your nose one minute--serving a gun or something--and the
+next minute he isn't there."
+
+"And one notices that at the time?"
+
+"Yes. But there's no time to keep _on_ noticing it. You've got to
+carry on somehow or other, or your show stops. I tell you what one
+_does_ notice, though. If one goes below for anything, or has to pass
+through a flat somewhere, and one sees the old wardroom clock ticking,
+or a photograph pinned up, or anything of that sort, one notices
+_that_. Oh yes, and there was another thing--the way a ship seemed to
+blow up if you were far off her. You'd see a glare, then a blaze, and
+then the smoke--miles high, lifting quite slowly. Then you'd get the
+row and the jar of it--just like bumping over submarines. Then, a long
+while after p'raps, you run through a regular rain of bits of burnt
+paper coming down on the decks--like showers of volcanic ash, you
+know." The door of the operating-room seemed just about to open, but
+it shut again.
+
+"And the Huns' gunnery?"
+
+"That was various. Sometimes they began quite well, and went to pieces
+after they'd been strafed a little; but sometimes they picked up
+again. There was one Hun-boat that got no end of a hammering, and it
+seemed to do her gunnery good. She improved tremendously till we sank
+her. I expect we'd knocked out some scientific Hun in the controls,
+and he'd been succeeded by a man who knew how."
+
+It used to be "Fritz" last year when they spoke of the enemy. Now it
+is Hun or, as I have heard, "Yahun," being a superlative of Yahoo. In
+the Napoleonic wars we called the Frenchmen too many names for any one
+of them to endure; but this is the age of standardisation.
+
+"And what about our Lower Deck?" I continued.
+
+"They? Oh, they carried on as usual. It takes a lot to impress the
+Lower Deck when they're busy." And he mentioned several little things
+that confirmed this. They had a great deal to do, and they did it
+serenely because they had been trained to carry on under all
+conditions without panicking. What they did in the way of running
+repairs was even more wonderful, if that be possible, than their
+normal routine.
+
+The Lower Deck nowadays is full of strange fish with unlooked-for
+accomplishments, as in the recorded case of two simple seamen of a
+destroyer who, when need was sorest, came to the front as trained
+experts in first-aid.
+
+"And now--what about the actual Hun losses at Jutland?" I ventured.
+
+"You've seen the list, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, but it occurred to me--that they might have been a shade
+under-estimated, and I thought perhaps--"
+
+A perfectly plain asbestos fire-curtain descended in front of the
+already locked door. It was none of his business to dispute the drive.
+If there were any discrepancies between estimate and results, one
+might be sure that the enemy knew about them, which was the chief
+thing that mattered.
+
+It was, said he, Joss that the light was so bad at the hour of the
+last round-up when our main fleet had come down from the north and
+shovelled the Hun round on his tracks. _Per contra_, had it been any
+other kind of weather, the odds were the Hun would not have ventured
+so far. As it was, the Hun's fleet had come out and gone back again,
+none the better for air and exercise. We must be thankful for what we
+had managed to pick up. But talking of picking up, there was an
+instance of almost unparalleled Joss which had stuck in his memory. A
+soldier-man, related to one of the officers in one of our ships that
+was put down, had got five days' leave from the trenches which he
+spent with his relative aboard, and thus dropped in for the whole
+performance. He had been employed in helping to spot, and had lived up
+a mast till the ship sank, when he stepped off into the water and swam
+about till he was fished out and put ashore. By that time, the tale
+goes, his engine-room-dried khaki had shrunk half-way up his legs and
+arms, in which costume he reported himself to the War Office, and
+pleaded for one little day's extension of leave to make himself
+decent. "Not a bit of it," said the War Office. "If you choose to
+spend your leave playing with sailor-men and getting wet all over,
+that's _your_ concern. You will return to duty by to-night's boat."
+(This may be a libel on the W.O., but it sounds very like them.) "And
+he had to," said the boy, "but I expect he spent the next week at
+Headquarters telling fat generals all about the fight."
+
+"And, of course, the Admiralty gave _you_ all lots of leave?"
+
+"Us? Yes, heaps. We had nothing to do except clean down and oil up,
+and be ready to go to sea again in a few hours."
+
+That little fact was brought out at the end of almost every
+destroyer's report. "Having returned to base at such and such a time,
+I took in oil, etc., and reported ready for sea at ---- o'clock." When
+you think of the amount of work a ship needs even after peace
+manoeuvres, you can realise what has to be done on the heels of an
+action. And, as there is nothing like housework for the troubled soul
+of a woman, so a general clean-up is good for sailors. I had this from
+a petty officer who had also passed through deep waters. "If you've
+seen your best friend go from alongside you, and your own officer, and
+your own boat's crew with him, and things of that kind, a man's best
+comfort is small variegated jobs which he is damned for continuous."
+
+
+THE SILENT NAVY
+
+Presently my friend of the destroyer went back to his stark, desolate
+life, where feelings do not count, and the fact of his being cold,
+wet, sea-sick, sleepless, or dog-tired had no bearing whatever on his
+business, which was to turn out at any hour in any weather and do or
+endure, decently, according to ritual, what that hour and that weather
+demanded. It is hard to reach the kernel of Navy minds. The unbribable
+seas and mechanisms they work on and through have given them the
+simplicity of elements and machines. The habit of dealing with swift
+accident, a life of closest and strictest association with their own
+caste as well as contact with all kinds of men all earth over, have
+added an immense cunning to those qualities; and that they are from
+early youth cut out of all feelings that may come between them and
+their ends, makes them more incomprehensible than Jesuits, even to
+their own people. What, then, must they be to the enemy?
+
+Here is a Service which prowls forth and achieves, at the lowest,
+something of a victory. How far-reaching a one only the war's end will
+reveal. It returns in gloomy silence, broken by the occasional hoot of
+the long-shore loafer, after issuing a bulletin which though it may
+enlighten the professional mind does not exhilarate the layman.
+Meantime the enemy triumphs, wirelessly, far and wide. A few frigid
+and perfunctory-seeming contradictions are put forward against his
+resounding claims; a Naval expert or two is heard talking "off"; the
+rest is silence. Anon, the enemy, after a prodigious amount of
+explanation which not even the neutrals seem to take any interest in,
+revises his claims, and, very modestly, enlarges his losses. Still no
+sign. After weeks there appears a document giving our version of the
+affair, which is as colourless, detached, and scrupulously impartial
+as the findings of a prize-court. It opines that the list of enemy
+losses which it submits "give the minimum in regard to numbers though
+it is possibly not entirely accurate in regard to the particular class
+of vessel, especially those that were sunk during the night attacks."
+Here the matter rests and remains--just like our blockade. There is an
+insolence about it all that makes one gasp.
+
+Yet that insolence springs naturally and unconsciously as an oath, out
+of the same spirit that caused the destroyer to pick up the dog. The
+reports themselves, and tenfold more the stories not in the reports,
+are charged with it, but no words by any outsider can reproduce just
+that professional tone and touch. A man writing home after the fight,
+points out that the great consolation for not having cleaned up the
+enemy altogether was that "anyhow those East Coast devils"--a
+fellow-squadron, if you please, which up till Jutland had had most of
+the fighting--"were not there. They missed that show. We were as
+cock-ahoop as a girl who had been to a dance that her sister has
+missed."
+
+This was one of the figures in that dance:
+
+"A little British destroyer, her midships rent by a great shell meant
+for a battle-cruiser; exuding steam from every pore; able to go ahead
+but not to steer; unable to get out of anybody's way, likely to be
+rammed by any one of a dozen ships; her syren whimpering: 'Let me
+through! Make way!'; her crew fallen in aft dressed in life-belts
+ready for her final plunge, and cheering wildly as it might have been
+an enthusiastic crowd when the King passes."
+
+Let us close on that note. We have been compassed about so long and so
+blindingly by wonders and miracles; so overwhelmed by revelations of
+the spirit of men in the basest and most high; that we have neither
+time to keep tally of these furious days, nor mind to discern upon
+which hour of them our world's fate hung.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEUTRAL
+
+    Brethren, how shall it fare with me
+      When the war is laid aside,
+    If it be proven that I am he
+      For whom a world has died?
+
+    If it be proven that all my good,
+      And the greater good I will make,
+    Were purchased me by a multitude
+      Who suffered for my sake?
+
+    That I was delivered by mere mankind
+      Vowed to one sacrifice,
+    And not, as I hold them, battle-blind,
+      But dying with opened eyes?
+
+    That they did not ask me to draw the sword
+      When they stood to endure their lot,
+    What they only looked to me for a word,
+      And I answered I knew them not?
+
+    If it be found, when the battle clears,
+      Their death has set me free,
+    Then how shall I live with myself through the years
+      Which they have bought for me?
+
+    Brethren, how must it fare with me,
+      Or how am I justified,
+    If it be proven that I am he
+      For whom mankind has died;
+    If it be proven that I am he
+      Who being questioned denied?
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Warfare, by Rudyard Kipling
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Warfare, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sea Warfare
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2006 [EBook #17689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA WARFARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h1>SEA WARFARE</h1>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<br />
+<h2>RUDYARD KIPLING</h2>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br />
+ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON<br />
+1916</h5>
+
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="80%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdrsc" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">Page</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Fringes of the Fleet</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_FRINGES_OF_THE_FLEET">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Tales of "The Trade"</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#TALES_OF_THE_TRADE">93</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Destroyers at Jutland</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#DESTROYERS_AT_JUTLAND">145</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_FRINGES_OF_THE_FLEET" id="THE_FRINGES_OF_THE_FLEET"></a><hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET</h3>
+<h4>(1915)</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In Lowestoft a boat was laid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mark well what I do say!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she was built for the herring trade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Lord knows where!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They gave her Government coal to burn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sent her out a-rovin', etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which always killed one man per trip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So he is used to rovin', etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so he fights in topper and tails&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Religi-ous tho' rovin', etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her engineer is fifty-eight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So he's prepared to meet his fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which ain't unlikely rovin', etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her leading-stoker's seventeen,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">So he don't know what the Judgments mean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless he cops 'em rovin', etc.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs' Home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mark well what I do say!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I'm sorry for Fritz when they all come<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A-rovin', a-rovin', a-roarin' and a-rovin',<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Round the North Sea rovin',<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Lord knows where!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+<h3>THE AUXILIARIES</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Navy is very old and very wise. Much of her wisdom is on record
+and available for reference; but more of it works in the unconscious
+blood of those who serve her. She has a thousand years of experience,
+and can find precedent or parallel for any situation that the force of
+the weather or the malice of the King's enemies may bring about.</p>
+
+<p>The main principles of sea-warfare hold good throughout all ages, and,
+<i>so far as the Navy has been allowed to put out her strength</i>, these
+principles have been applied over all the seas of the world. For
+matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply
+returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>In the late French wars, a merchant sailing out of a Channel port
+might in a few hours find himself laid by the heels and under way for
+a French prison. His Majesty's ships of the Line, and even the big
+frigates, took little part in policing the waters for him, unless he
+were in convoy. The sloops, cutters, gun-brigs, and local craft of all
+kinds were supposed to look after that, while the Line was busy
+elsewhere. So the merchants passed resolutions against the inadequate
+protection afforded to the trade, and the narrow seas were full of
+single-ship actions; mail-packets, West Country brigs, and fat East
+Indiamen fighting, for their own hulls and cargo, anything that the
+watchful French ports sent against them; the sloops and cutters
+bearing a hand if they happened to be within reach.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Oldest Navy</h4>
+
+<p>It was a brutal age, ministered to by hard-fisted men, and we had put
+it a hundred decent years behind us when&mdash;it all comes back again!
+To-day there are no prisons <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>for the crews of merchantmen, but they
+can go to the bottom by mine and torpedo even more quickly than their
+ancestors were run into Le Havre. The submarine takes the place of the
+privateer; the Line, as in the old wars, is occupied, bombarding and
+blockading, elsewhere, but the sea-borne traffic must continue, and
+that is being looked after by the lineal descendants of the crews of
+the long extinct cutters and sloops and gun-brigs. The hour struck,
+and they reappeared, to the tune of fifty thousand odd men in more
+than two thousand ships, of which I have seen a few hundred. Words of
+command may have changed a little, the tools are certainly more
+complex, but the spirit of the new crews who come to the old job is
+utterly unchanged. It is the same fierce, hard-living, heavy-handed,
+very cunning service out of which the Navy as we know it to-day was
+born. It is called indifferently the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet. It
+is chiefly composed of fishermen, but it takes in every one who may
+have maritime tastes&mdash;from retired admirals to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>the sons of the
+sea-cook. It exists for the benefit of the traffic and the annoyance
+of the enemy. Its doings are recorded by flags stuck into charts; its
+casualties are buried in obscure corners of the newspapers. The Grand
+Fleet knows it slightly; the restless light cruisers who chaperon it
+from the background are more intimate; the destroyers working off
+unlighted coasts over unmarked shoals come, as you might say, in
+direct contact with it; the submarine alternately praises and&mdash;since
+one periscope is very like another&mdash;curses its activities; but the
+steady procession of traffic in home waters, liner and tramp, six
+every sixty minutes, blesses it altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Since this most Christian war includes laying mines in the fairways of
+traffic, and since these mines may be laid at any time by German
+submarines especially built for the work, or by neutral ships, all
+fairways must be swept continuously day and night. When a nest of
+mines is reported, traffic must be hung up or deviated till it is
+cleared out. When traffic comes up Channel it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>must be examined for
+contraband and other things; and the examining tugs lie out in a blaze
+of lights to remind ships of this. Months ago, when the war was young,
+the tugs did not know what to look for specially. Now they do. All
+this mine-searching and reporting and sweeping, <i>plus</i> the direction
+and examination of the traffic, <i>plus</i> the laying of our own
+ever-shifting mine-fields, is part of the Trawler Fleet's work,
+because the Navy-as-we-knew-it is busy elsewhere. And there is always
+the enemy submarine with a price on her head, whom the Trawler Fleet
+hunts and traps with zeal and joy. Add to this, that there are boats,
+fishing for real fish, to be protected in their work at sea or chased
+off dangerous areas whither, because they are strictly forbidden to
+go, they naturally repair, and you will begin to get some idea of what
+the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet does.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Ships and the Men</h4>
+
+<p>Now, imagine the acreage of several dock-basins crammed, gunwale to
+gunwale, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>with brown and umber and ochre and rust-red steam-trawlers,
+tugs, harbour-boats, and yachts once clean and respectable, now dirty
+and happy. Throw in fish-steamers, surprise-packets of unknown lines
+and indescribable junks, sampans, lorchas, catamarans, and General
+Service stink-pontoons filled with indescribable apparatus, manned by
+men no dozen of whom seem to talk the same dialect or wear the same
+clothes. The mustard-coloured jersey who is cleaning a six-pounder on
+a Hull boat clips his words between his teeth and would be happier in
+Gaelic. The whitish singlet and grey trousers held up by what is
+obviously his soldier brother's spare regimental belt is pure
+Lowestoft. The complete blue-serge-and-soot suit passing a wire down a
+hatch is Glasgow as far as you can hear him, which is a fair distance,
+because he wants something done to the other end of the wire, and the
+flat-faced boy who should be attending to it hails from the remoter
+Hebrides, and is looking at a girl on the dock-edge. The bow-legged
+man in the ulster and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>green-worsted comforter is a warm Grimsby
+skipper, worth several thousands. He and his crew, who are mostly his
+own relations, keep themselves to themselves, and save their money.
+The pirate with the red beard, barking over the rail at a friend with
+gold earrings, comes from Skye. The friend is West Country. The
+noticeably insignificant man with the soft and deprecating eye is
+skipper and part-owner of the big slashing Iceland trawler on which he
+droops like a flower. She is built to almost Western Ocean lines,
+carries a little boat-deck aft with tremendous stanchions, has a nose
+cocked high against ice and sweeping seas, and resembles a hawk-moth
+at rest. The small, sniffing man is reported to be a "holy terror at
+sea."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Hunters and Fishers</h4>
+
+<p>The child in the Pullman-car uniform just going ashore is a wireless
+operator, aged nineteen. He is attached to a flagship at least 120
+feet long, under an admiral aged twenty-five, who was, till the other
+day, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>third mate of a North Atlantic tramp, but who now leads a
+squadron of six trawlers to hunt submarines. The principle is simple
+enough. Its application depends on circumstances and surroundings. One
+class of German submarines meant for murder off the coasts may use a
+winding and rabbit-like track between shoals where the choice of water
+is limited. Their career is rarely long, but, while it lasts,
+moderately exciting. Others, told off for deep-sea assassinations, are
+attended to quite quietly and without any excitement at all. Others,
+again, work the inside of the North Sea, making no distinction between
+neutrals and Allied ships. These carry guns, and since their work
+keeps them a good deal on the surface, the Trawler Fleet, as we know,
+engages them there&mdash;the submarine firing, sinking, and rising again in
+unexpected quarters; the trawler firing, dodging, and trying to ram.
+The trawlers are strongly built, and can stand a great deal of
+punishment. Yet again, other German submarines hang about the skirts
+of fishing-fleets and fire into the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>brown of them. When the war was
+young this gave splendidly "frightful" results, but for some reason or
+other the game is not as popular as it used to be.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, there are German submarines who perish by ways so curious and
+inexplicable that one could almost credit the whispered idea (it must
+come from the Scotch skippers) that the ghosts of the women they
+drowned pilot them to destruction. But what form these shadows
+take&mdash;whether of "The Lusitania Ladies," or humbler stewardesses and
+hospital nurses&mdash;and what lights or sounds the thing fancies it sees
+or hears before it is blotted out, no man will ever know. The main
+fact is that the work is being done. Whether it was necessary or
+politic to re-awaken by violence every sporting instinct of a
+sea-going people is a question which the enemy may have to consider
+later on.</p>
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dawn off the Foreland&mdash;the young flood making<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Jumbled and short and steep&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Awkward water to sweep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Mines reported in the fairway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Warn all traffic and detain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"'Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Noon off the Foreland&mdash;the first ebb making<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lumpy and strong in the bight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the jackdaws wild with fright!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Mines located in the fairway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Boats now working up the chain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Sweepers&mdash;Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock and Golden Gain."<br /></span>
+</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a></span><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dusk off the Foreland&mdash;the last light going<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the traffic crowding through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heading the whole review!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Sweep completed in the fairway.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"No more mines remain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"'Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+<h3>THE AUXILIARIES</h3>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Trawlers seem to look on mines as more or less fairplay. But with
+the torpedo it is otherwise. A Yarmouth man lay on his hatch, his gear
+neatly stowed away below, and told me that another Yarmouth boat had
+"gone up," with all hands except one. "'Twas a submarine. Not a mine,"
+said he. "They never gave our boys no chance. Na! She was a Yarmouth
+boat&mdash;we knew 'em all. They never gave the boys no chance." He was a
+submarine hunter, and he illustrated by means of matches placed at
+various angles how the blindfold business is conducted. "And then," he
+ended, "there's always what <i>he'll</i> do. You've got to think that out
+for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>yourself&mdash;while you're working above him&mdash;same as if 'twas fish."
+I should not care to be hunted for the life in shallow waters by a man
+who knows every bank and pothole of them, even if I had not killed his
+friends the week before. Being nearly all fishermen they discuss their
+work in terms of fish, and put in their leisure fishing overside, when
+they sometimes pull up ghastly souvenirs. But they all want guns.
+Those who have three-pounders clamour for sixes; sixes for twelves;
+and the twelve-pound aristocracy dream of four-inchers on
+anti-aircraft mountings for the benefit of roving Zeppelins. They will
+all get them in time, and I fancy it will be long ere they give them
+up. One West Country mate announced that "a gun is a handy thing to
+have aboard&mdash;always." "But in peacetime?" I said. "Wouldn't it be in
+the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'm used to 'em now," was the smiling answer. "Niver go to sea again
+without a gun&mdash;<i>I</i> wouldn't&mdash;if I had my way. It keeps all hands
+pleased-like."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>They talk about men in the Army who will never willingly go back to
+civil life. What of the fishermen who have tasted something sharper
+than salt water&mdash;and what of the young third and fourth mates who have
+held independent commands for nine months past? One of them said to me
+quite irrelevantly: "I used to be the animal that got up the trunks
+for the women on baggage-days in the old Bodiam Castle," and he
+mimicked their requests for "the large brown box," or "the black dress
+basket," as a freed soul might scoff at his old life in the flesh.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">"A Common Sweeper"</h4>
+
+<p>My sponsor and chaperon in this Elizabethan world of
+eighteenth-century seamen was an A.B. who had gone down in the
+<i>Landrail</i>, assisted at the Heligoland fight, seen the <i>Bl&uuml;cher</i> sink
+and the bombs dropped on our boats when we tried to save the drowning
+("Whereby," as he said, "those Germans died gottstrafin' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>their own
+country because <i>we</i> didn't wait to be strafed"), and has now found
+more peaceful days in an Office ashore. He led me across many decks
+from craft to craft to study the various appliances that they
+specialise in. Almost our last was what a North Country trawler called
+a "common sweeper," that is to say, a mine-sweeper. She was at tea in
+her shirt-sleeves, and she protested loudly that there was "nothing in
+sweeping." "'See that wire rope?" she said. "Well, it leads through
+that lead to the ship which you're sweepin' <i>with</i>. She makes her end
+fast and you make yourn. Then you sweep together at whichever depth
+you've agreed upon between you, by means of that arrangement there
+which regulates the depth. They give you a glass sort o' thing for
+keepin' your distance from the other ship, but <i>that's</i> not wanted if
+you know each other. Well, then, you sweep, as the sayin' is. There's
+nothin' <i>in</i> it. You sweep till this wire rope fouls the bloomin'
+mines. Then you go on till they appear on the surface, so to say, and
+then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>you explodes them by means of shootin' at 'em with that rifle in
+the galley there. There's nothin' in sweepin' more than that."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you hit a mine?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You go up&mdash;but you hadn't ought to hit em', if you're careful. The
+thing is to get hold of the first mine all right, and then you go on
+to the next, and so on, in a way o' speakin'."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can fish, too, 'tween times," said a voice from the next
+boat. A man leaned over and returned a borrowed mug. They talked about
+fishing&mdash;notably that once they caught some red mullet, which the
+"common sweeper" and his neighbour both agreed was "not natural in
+those waters." As for mere sweeping, it bored them profoundly to talk
+about it. I only learned later as part of the natural history of
+mines, that if you rake the tri-nitro-toluol by hand out of a German
+mine you develop eruptions and skin-poisoning. But on the authority of
+two experts, there is nothing in sweeping. Nothing whatever!</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">A Block in the Traffic</h4>
+
+<p>Now imagine, not a pistol-shot from these crowded quays, a little
+Office hung round with charts that are pencilled and noted over
+various shoals and soundings. There is a movable list of the boats at
+work, with quaint and domestic names. Outside the window lies the
+packed harbour&mdash;outside that again the line of traffic up and down&mdash;a
+stately cinema-show of six ships to the hour. For the moment the film
+sticks. A boat&mdash;probably a "common sweeper"&mdash;reports an obstruction in
+a traffic lane a few miles away. She has found and exploded one mine.
+The Office heard the dull boom of it before the wireless report came
+in. In all likelihood there is a nest of them there. It is possible
+that a submarine may have got in last night between certain shoals and
+laid them out. The shoals are being shepherded in case she is hidden
+anywhere, but the boundaries of the newly discovered mine-area must be
+fixed and the traffic deviated. There is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>tramp outside with tugs in
+attendance. She has hit something and is leaking badly. Where shall
+she go? The Office gives her her destination&mdash;the harbour is too full
+for her to settle down here. She swings off between the faithful tugs.
+Down coast some one asks by wireless if they shall hold up their
+traffic. It is exactly like a signaller "offering" a train to the next
+block. "Yes," the Office replies. "Wait a while. If it's what we
+think, there will be a little delay. If it isn't what we think, there
+will be a little longer delay." Meantime, sweepers are nosing round
+the suspected area&mdash;"looking for cuckoos' eggs," as a voice suggests;
+and a patrol-boat lathers her way down coast to catch and stop
+anything that may be on the move, for skippers are sometimes rather
+careless. Words begin to drop out of the air into the chart-hung
+Office. "Six and a half cables south, fifteen east" of something or
+other. "Mark it well, and tell them to work up from there," is the
+order. "Another mine exploded!" "Yes, and we heard that too," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>says
+the Office. "What about the submarine?" "<i>Elizabeth Huggins</i> reports..."</p>
+
+<p><i>Elizabeth's</i> scandal must be fairly high flavoured, for a
+torpedo-boat of immoral aspect slings herself out of harbour and
+hastens to share it. If <i>Elizabeth</i> has not spoken the truth, there
+may be words between the parties. For the present a pencilled
+suggestion seems to cover the case, together with a demand, as far as
+one can make out, for "more common sweepers." They will be forthcoming
+very shortly. Those at work have got the run of the mines now, and are
+busily howking them up. A trawler-skipper wishes to speak to the
+Office. "They" have ordered him out, but his boiler, most of it, is on
+the quay at the present time, and "ye'll remember, it's the same wi'
+my foremast an' port rigging, sir." The Office does not precisely
+remember, but if boiler and foremast are on the quay the rest of the
+ship had better stay alongside. The skipper falls away relieved. (He
+scraped a tramp a few nights ago in a bit of a sea.) There is a little
+mutter of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>gun-fire somewhere across the grey water where a fleet is
+at work. A monitor as broad as she is long comes back from wherever
+the trouble is, slips through the harbour mouth, all wreathed with
+signals, is received by two motherly lighters, and, to all appearance,
+goes to sleep between them. The Office does not even look up; for that
+is not in their department. They have found a trawler to replace the
+boilerless one. Her name is slid into the rack. The immoral
+torpedo-boat flounces back to her moorings. Evidently what <i>Elizabeth
+Huggins</i> said was not evidence. The messages and replies begin again
+as the day closes.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Night Patrol</h4>
+
+<p>Return now to the inner harbour. At twilight there was a stir among
+the packed craft like the separation of dried tea-leaves in water. The
+swing-bridge across the basin shut against us. A boat shot out of the
+jam, took the narrow exit at a fair seven knots and rounded in the
+outer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>harbour with all the pomp of a flagship, which was exactly what
+she was. Others followed, breaking away from every quarter in silence.
+Boat after boat fell into line&mdash;gear stowed away, spars and buoys in
+order on their clean decks, guns cast loose and ready, wheel-house
+windows darkened, and everything in order for a day or a week or a
+month out. There was no word anywhere. The interrupted foot-traffic
+stared at them as they slid past below. A woman beside me waved her
+hand to a man on one of them, and I saw his face light as he waved
+back. The boat where they had demonstrated for me with matches was the
+last. Her skipper hadn't thought it worth while to tell me that he was
+going that evening. Then the line straightened up and stood out to
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>"You never said this was going to happen," I said reproachfully to my
+A.B.</p>
+
+<p>"No more I did," said he. "It's the night-patrol going out. Fact is,
+I'm so used to the bloomin' evolution that it never struck me to
+mention it as you might say."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>Next morning I was at service in a man-of-war, and even as we came to
+the prayer that the Navy might "be a safeguard to such as pass upon
+the sea on their lawful occasions," I saw the long procession of
+traffic resuming up and down the Channel&mdash;six ships to the hour. It
+has been hung up for a bit, they said.</p>
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Farewell and adieu to you, Greenwich ladies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For we've received orders to work to the eastward<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until we strike something that doesn't expect us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The first thing we did was to dock in a mine-field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which isn't a place where repairs should be done;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></span><span class="i0">And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But what in the&mdash;Heavens can you do with six-pounders?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+<h3>SUBMARINES</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>The chief business of the Trawler Fleet is to attend to the traffic.
+The submarine in her sphere attends to the enemy. Like the destroyer,
+the submarine has created its own type of officer and man&mdash;with
+language and traditions apart from the rest of the Service, and yet at
+heart unchangingly of the Service. Their business is to run monstrous
+risks from earth, air, and water, in what, to be of any use, must be
+the coldest of cold blood.</p>
+
+<p>The commander's is more a one-man job, as the crew's is more
+team-work, than any other employment afloat. That is why the relations
+between submarine officers and men are what they are. They play
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>hourly for each other's lives with Death the Umpire always at their
+elbow on tiptoe to give them "out."</p>
+
+<p>There is a stretch of water, once dear to amateur yachtsmen, now given
+over to scouts, submarines, destroyers, and, of course, contingents of
+trawlers. We were waiting the return of some boats which were due to
+report. A couple surged up the still harbour in the afternoon light
+and tied up beside their sisters. There climbed out of them three or
+four high-booted, sunken-eyed pirates clad in sweaters, under jackets
+that a stoker of the last generation would have disowned. This was
+their first chance to compare notes at close hand. Together they
+lamented the loss of a Zeppelin&mdash;"a perfect mug of a Zepp," who had
+come down very low and offered one of them a sitting shot. "But what
+<i>can</i> you do with our guns? I gave him what I had, and then he started
+bombing."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he did," another said. "I heard him. That's what brought me
+down to you. I thought he had you that last time."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>"No, I was forty foot under when he hove out the big un. What happened
+to <i>you</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"My steering-gear jammed just after I went down, and I had to go round
+in circles till I got it straightened out. But <i>wasn't</i> he a mug!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was he the brute with the patch on his port side?" a sister-boat
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"No! This fellow had just been hatched. He was almost sitting on the
+water, heaving bombs over."</p>
+
+<p>"And my blasted steering-gear went and chose <i>then</i> to go wrong," the
+other commander mourned. "I thought his last little egg was going to
+get me!"</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, I was formally introduced to three or four quite
+strange, quite immaculate officers, freshly shaved, and a little tired
+about the eyes, whom I thought I had met before.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Labour and Refreshment</h4>
+
+<p>Meantime (it was on the hour of evening drinks) one of the boats was
+still unaccounted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>for. No one talked of her. They rather discussed
+motor-cars and Admiralty constructors, but&mdash;it felt like that queer
+twilight watch at the front when the homing aeroplanes drop in.
+Presently a signaller entered. "V 42 outside, sir; wants to know which
+channel she shall use." "Oh, thank you. Tell her to take so-and-so."
+... Mine, remember, was vermouth and bitters, and later on V 42
+himself found a soft chair and joined the committee of instruction.
+Those next for duty, as well as those in training, wished to hear what
+was going on, and who had shifted what to where, and how certain
+arrangements had worked. They were told in language not to be found in
+any printable book. Questions and answers were alike Hebrew to one
+listener, but he gathered that every boat carried a second in
+command&mdash;a strong, persevering youth, who seemed responsible for
+everything that went wrong, from a motor cylinder to a torpedo. Then
+somebody touched on the mercantile marine and its habits.</p>
+
+<p>Said one philosopher: "They can't be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>expected to take any more risks
+than they do. <i>I</i> wouldn't, if I was a skipper. I'd loose off at any
+blessed periscope I saw."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all very fine. You wait till you've had a patriotic tramp
+trying to strafe you at your own back-door," said another.</p>
+
+<p>Some one told a tale of a man with a voice, notable even in a Service
+where men are not trained to whisper. He was coming back,
+empty-handed, dirty, tired, and best left alone. From the peace of the
+German side he had entered our hectic home-waters, where the usual
+tramp shelled, and by miraculous luck, crumpled his periscope. Another
+man might have dived, but Boanerges kept on rising. Majestic and
+wrathful he rose personally through his main hatch, and at 2000 yards
+(have I said it was a still day?) addressed the tramp. Even at that
+distance she gathered it was a Naval officer with a grievance, and by
+the time he ran alongside she was in a state of coma, but managed to
+stammer: "Well, sir, at least you'll admit that our shooting was
+pretty good."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>"And that," said my informant, "put the lid on!" Boanerges went down
+lest he should be tempted to murder; and the tramp affirms she heard
+him rumbling beneath her, like an inverted thunder-storm, for fifteen
+minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"All those tramps ought to be disarmed, and <i>we</i> ought to have all
+their guns," said a voice out of a corner.</p>
+
+<p>"What? Still worrying over your 'mug'?" some one replied.</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>was</i> a mug!" went on the man of one idea. "If I'd had a couple of
+twelves even, I could have strafed him proper. I don't know whether I
+shall mutiny, or desert, or write to the First Sea Lord about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Strafe all Admiralty constructors to begin with. <i>I</i> could build a
+better boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine-tin than &mdash;&mdash;," the
+speaker named her by letter and number.</p>
+
+<p>"That's pure jealousy," her commander explained to the company. "Ever
+since I installed&mdash;ahem!&mdash;my patent electric washbasin he's been
+intriguin' to get her. Why? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>We know he doesn't wash. He'd only use
+the basin to keep beer in."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Underwater Works</h4>
+
+<p>However often one meets it, as in this war one meets it at every turn,
+one never gets used to the Holy Spirit of Man at his job. The "common
+sweeper," growling over his mug of tea that there was "nothing in
+sweepin'," and these idly chaffing men, new shaved and attired, from
+the gates of Death which had let them through for the fiftieth time,
+were all of the same fabric&mdash;incomprehensible, I should imagine, to
+the enemy. And the stuff held good throughout all the world&mdash;from the
+Dardanelles to the Baltic, where only a little while ago another batch
+of submarines had slipped in and begun to be busy. I had spent some of
+the afternoon in looking through reports of submarine work in the Sea
+of Marmora. They read like the diary of energetic weasels in an
+overcrowded chicken-run, and the results for each boat were tabulated
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>something like a cricket score. There were no maiden overs. One came
+across jewels of price set in the flat official phraseology. For
+example, one man who was describing some steps he was taking to remedy
+certain defects, interjected casually: "At this point I had to go
+under for a little, as a man in a boat was trying to grab my periscope
+with his hand." No reference before or after to the said man or his
+fate. Again: "Came across a dhow with a Turkish skipper. He seemed so
+miserable that I let him go." And elsewhere in those waters, a
+submarine overhauled a steamer full of Turkish passengers, some of
+whom, arguing on their allies' lines, promptly leaped overboard. Our
+boat fished them out and returned them, for she was not killing
+civilians. In another affair, which included several ships (now at the
+bottom) and one submarine, the commander relaxes enough to note that:
+"The men behaved very well under direct and flanking fire from rifles
+at about fifteen yards." This was <i>not</i>, I believe, the submarine that
+fought the Turkish cavalry on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>the beach. And in addition to matters
+much more marvellous than any I have hinted at, the reports deal with
+repairs and shifts and contrivances carried through in the face of
+dangers that read like the last delirium of romance. One boat went
+down the Straits and found herself rather canted over to one side. A
+mine and chain had jammed under her forward diving-plane. So far as I
+made out, she shook it off by standing on her head and jerking
+backwards; or it may have been, for the thing has occurred more than
+once, she merely rose as much as she could, when she could, and then
+"released it by hand," as the official phrase goes.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Four Nightmares</h4>
+
+<p>And who, a few months ago, could have invented, or having invented,
+would have dared to print such a nightmare as this: There was a boat
+in the North Sea who ran into a net and was caught by the nose. She
+rose, still entangled, meaning to cut the thing away on the surface.
+But a Zeppelin <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>in waiting saw and bombed her, and she had to go down
+again at once&mdash;but not too wildly or she would get herself more
+wrapped up than ever. She went down, and by slow working and weaving
+and wriggling, guided only by guesses at the meaning of each scrape
+and grind of the net on her blind forehead, at last she drew clear.
+Then she sat on the bottom and thought. The question was whether she
+should go back at once and warn her confederates against the trap, or
+wait till the destroyers which she knew the Zeppelin would have
+signalled for, should come out to finish her still entangled, as they
+would suppose, in the net? It was a simple calculation of comparative
+speeds and positions, and when it was worked out she decided to try
+for the double event. Within a few minutes of the time she had allowed
+for them, she heard the twitter of four destroyers' screws quartering
+above her; rose; got her shot in; saw one destroyer crumple; hung
+round till another took the wreck in tow; said good-bye to the spare
+brace (she was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>at the end of her supplies), and reached the
+rendezvous in time to turn her friends.</p>
+
+<p>And since we are dealing in nightmares, here are two more&mdash;one
+genuine, the other, mercifully, false. There was a boat not only at,
+but <i>in</i> the mouth of a river&mdash;well home in German territory. She was
+spotted, and went under, her commander perfectly aware that there was
+not more than five feet of water over her conning-tower, so that even
+a torpedo-boat, let alone a destroyer, would hit it if she came over.
+But nothing hit anything. The search was conducted on scientific
+principles while they sat on the silt and suffered. Then the commander
+heard the rasp of a wire trawl sweeping over his hull. It was not a
+nice sound, but there happened to be a couple of gramophones aboard,
+and he turned them both on to drown it. And in due time that boat got
+home with everybody's hair of just the same colour as when they had
+started!</p>
+
+<p>The other nightmare arose out of silence and imagination. A boat had
+gone to bed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>on the bottom in a spot where she might reasonably expect
+to be looked for, but it was a convenient jumping-off, or up, place
+for the work in hand. About the bad hour of 2.30 <span class="scfake">A.M.</span> the
+commander was waked by one of his men, who whispered to him: "They've
+got the chains on us, sir!" Whether it was pure nightmare, an
+hallucination of long wakefulness, something relaxing and releasing in
+that packed box of machinery, or the disgustful reality, the commander
+could not tell, but it had all the makings of panic in it. So the Lord
+and long training put it into his head to reply! "Have they? Well, we
+shan't be coming up till nine o'clock this morning. Well see about it
+then. Turn out that light, please."</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i> did not sleep, but the dreamer and the others did, and when
+morning came and he gave the order to rise, and she rose unhampered,
+and he saw the grey, smeared seas from above once again, he said it
+was a very refreshing sight.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, which is on all fours with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>gamble of the chase, a man was
+coming home rather bored after an uneventful trip. It was necessary
+for him to sit on the bottom for awhile, and there he played patience.
+Of a sudden it struck him, as a vow and an omen, that if he worked out
+the next game correctly he would go up and strafe something. The cards
+fell all in order. He went up at once and found himself alongside a
+German, whom, as he had promised and prophesied to himself, he
+destroyed. She was a mine-layer, and needed only a jar to dissipate
+like a cracked electric-light bulb. He was somewhat impressed by the
+contrast between the single-handed game fifty feet below, the ascent,
+the attack, the amazing result, and when he descended again, his cards
+just as he had left them.</p>
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ships destroy us above<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And ensnare us beneath.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We arise, we lie down, and we move<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the belly of Death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ships have a thousand eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To mark where we come ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the mirth of a seaport dies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When our blow gets home.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+<h3>SUBMARINES</h3>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>I was honoured by a glimpse into this veiled life in a boat which was
+merely practising between trips. Submarines are like cats. They never
+tell "who they were with last night," and they sleep as much as they
+can. If you board a submarine off duty you generally see a perspective
+of fore-shortened fattish men laid all along. The men say that except
+at certain times it is rather an easy life, with relaxed regulations
+about smoking, calculated to make a man put on flesh. One requires
+well-padded nerves. Many of the men do not appear on deck throughout
+the whole trip. After all, why should they if they don't want to? They
+know that they are responsible in their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>department for their
+comrades' lives as their comrades are responsible for theirs. What's
+the use of flapping about? Better lay in some magazines and
+cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>When we set forth there had been some trouble in the fairway, and a
+mined neutral, whose misfortune all bore with exemplary calm, was
+careened on a near-by shoal.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose there are more mines knocking about?" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll hope there aren't," was the soothing reply. "Mines are all
+Joss. You either hit 'em or you don't. And if you do, they don't
+always go off. They scrape alongside."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the etiquette then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut off both propellers and hope."</p>
+
+<p>We were dodging various craft down the harbour when a squadron of
+trawlers came out on our beam, at that extravagant rate of speed which
+unlimited Government coal always leads to. They were led by an ugly,
+upstanding, black-sided buccaneer with twelve-pounders.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! That's the King of the Trawlers. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>Isn't he carrying dog, too!
+Give him room!" one said.</p>
+
+<p>We were all in the narrowed harbour mouth together.</p>
+
+<p>"'There's my youngest daughter. Take a look at her!'" some one hummed
+as a punctilious navy cap slid by on a very near bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll fall in behind him. They're going over to the neutral. Then
+they'll sweep. By the bye, did you hear about one of the passengers in
+the neutral yesterday? He was taken off, of course, by a destroyer,
+and the only thing he said was: 'Twenty-five time I 'ave insured, but
+not <i>this</i> time.... 'Ang it!'"</p>
+
+<p>The trawlers lunged ahead toward the forlorn neutral. Our destroyer
+nipped past us with that high-shouldered, terrier-like pouncing action
+of the newer boats, and went ahead. A tramp in ballast, her propeller
+half out of water, threshed along through the sallow haze.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! What a shot!" somebody said enviously. The men on the little
+deck <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>looked across at the slow-moving silhouette. One of them, a
+cigarette behind his ear, smiled at a companion.</p>
+
+<p>Then we went down&mdash;not as they go when they are pressed (the record, I
+believe, is 50 feet in 50 seconds from top to bottom), but genteelly,
+to an orchestra of appropriate sounds, roarings, and blowings, and
+after the orders, which come from the commander alone, utter silence
+and peace.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the bottom. We bumped at fifty&mdash;fifty-two," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try again. Watch the gauge, and you'll see it flick a little."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Practice of the Art</h4>
+
+<p>It may have been so, but I was more interested in the faces, and above
+all the eyes, all down the length of her. It was to them, of course,
+the simplest of man[oe]uvres. They dropped into gear as no machine
+could; but the training of years and the experience of the year leaped
+up behind those steady <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>eyes under the electrics in the shadow of the
+tall motors, between the pipes and the curved hull, or glued to their
+special gauges. One forgot the bodies altogether&mdash;but one will never
+forget the eyes or the ennobled faces. One man I remember in
+particular. On deck his was no more than a grave, rather striking
+countenance, cast in the unmistakable petty officer's mould. Below, as
+I saw him in profile handling a vital control, he looked like the Doge
+of Venice, the Prior of some sternly-ruled monastic order, an old-time
+Pope&mdash;anything that signifies trained and stored intellectual power
+utterly and ascetically devoted to some vast impersonal end. And so
+with a much younger man, who changed into such a monk as Frank Dicksee
+used to draw. Only a couple of torpedo-men, not being in gear for the
+moment, read an illustrated paper. Their time did not come till we
+went up and got to business, which meant firing at our destroyer, and,
+I think, keeping out of the light of a friend's torpedoes.</p>
+
+<p>The attack and everything connected with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>it is solely the commander's
+affair. He is the only one who gets any fun at all&mdash;since he is the
+eye, the brain, and the hand of the whole&mdash;this single figure at the
+periscope. The second in command heaves sighs, and prays that the
+dummy torpedo (there is less trouble about the live ones) will go off
+all right, or he'll be told about it. The others wait and follow the
+quick run of orders. It is, if not a convention, a fairly established
+custom that the commander shall inferentially give his world some idea
+of what is going on. At least, I only heard of one man who says
+nothing whatever, and doesn't even wriggle his shoulders when he is on
+the sight. The others soliloquise, etc., according to their
+temperament; and the periscope is as revealing as golf.</p>
+
+<p>Submarines nowadays are expected to look out for themselves more than
+at the old practices, when the destroyers walked circumspectly. We
+dived and circulated under water for a while, and then rose for a
+sight&mdash;something like this: "Up a little&mdash;up! Up still! Where the
+deuce has he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>got to&mdash;Ah! (Half a dozen orders as to helm and depth of
+descent, and a pause broken by a drumming noise somewhere above, which
+increases and passes away.) That's better! Up again! (This refers to
+the periscope.) Yes. Ah! No, we <i>don't</i> think! All right! Keep her
+<i>down</i>, damn it! Umm! That ought to be nineteen knots.... Dirty trick!
+He's changing speed. No, he isn't. <i>He's</i> all right. Ready forward
+there! (A valve sputters and drips, the torpedo-men crouch over their
+tubes and nod to themselves. <i>Their</i> faces have changed now.) He
+hasn't spotted us yet. We'll ju-ust&mdash;(more helm and depth orders, but
+specially helm)&mdash;'Wish we were working a beam-tube. Ne'er mind! Up! (A
+last string of orders.) Six hundred, and he doesn't see us! Fire!"</p>
+
+<p>The dummy left; the second in command cocked one ear and looked
+relieved. Up we rose; the wet air and spray spattered through the
+hatch; the destroyer swung off to retrieve the dummy.</p>
+
+<p>"Careless brutes destroyers are," said one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>officer. "That fellow
+nearly walked over us just now. Did you notice?"</p>
+
+<p>The commander was playing his game out over again&mdash;stroke by stroke.
+"With a beam-tube I'd ha' strafed him amidships," he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you then?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>There were loads of shiny reasons, which reminded me that we were at
+war and cleared for action, and that the interlude had been merely
+play. A companion rose alongside and wanted to know whether we had
+seen anything of her dummy.</p>
+
+<p>"No. But we heard it," was the short answer.</p>
+
+<p>I was rather annoyed, because I had seen that particular daughter of
+destruction on the stocks only a short time ago, and here she was
+grown up and talking about her missing children!</p>
+
+<p>In the harbour again, one found more submarines, all patterns and
+makes and sizes, with rumours of yet more and larger to follow.
+Naturally their men say that we are only at the beginning of the
+submarine. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>We shall have them presently for all purposes.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Man and the Work</h4>
+
+<p>Now here is a mystery of the Service.</p>
+
+<p>A man gets a boat which for two years becomes his very self&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i01">His morning hope, his evening dream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i01">His joy throughout the day.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With him is a second in command, an engineer, and some others. They
+prove each other's souls habitually every few days, by the direct test
+of peril, till they act, think, and endure as a unit, in and with the
+boat. That commander is transferred to another boat. He tries to take
+with him if he can, which he can't, as many of his other selves as
+possible. He is pitched into a new type twice the size of the old one,
+with three times as many gadgets, an unexplored temperament and
+unknown leanings. After his first trip he comes back clamouring for
+the head of her constructor, of his own second in command, his
+engineer, his cox, and a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>other ratings. They for their part wish
+him dead on the beach, because, last commission with So-and-so,
+nothing ever went wrong anywhere. A fortnight later you can remind the
+commander of what he said, and he will deny every word of it. She's
+not, he says, so very vile&mdash;things considered&mdash;barring her five-ton
+torpedo-derricks, the abominations of her wireless, and the tropical
+temperature of her beer-lockers. All of which signifies that the new
+boat has found her soul, and her commander would not change her for
+battle-cruisers. Therefore, that he may remember he is the Service and
+not a branch of it, he is after certain seasons shifted to a
+battle-cruiser, where he lives in a blaze of admirals and
+aiguillettes, responsible for vast decks and crypt-like flats, a
+student of extended above-water tactics, thinking in tens of thousands
+of yards instead of his modest but deadly three to twelve hundred.</p>
+
+<p>And the man who takes his place straight-way forgets that he ever
+looked down on great rollers from a sixty-foot bridge under the whole
+breadth of heaven, but crawls and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>climbs and dives through
+conning-towers with those same waves wet in his neck, and when the
+cruisers pass him, tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he
+is not as they are, and goes to bed beneath their distracted keels.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Expert Opinions</h4>
+
+<p>"But submarine work is cold-blooded business."</p>
+
+<p>(This was at a little session in a green-curtained "wardroom" cum
+owner's cabin.)</p>
+
+<p>"Then there's no truth in the yarn that you can feel when the
+torpedo's going to get home?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word. You sometimes see it get home, or miss, as the case may
+be. Of course, it's never your fault if it misses. It's all your
+second-in-command."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, too," said the second. "I catch it all round. That's
+what I am here for."</p>
+
+<p>"And what about the third man?" There was one aboard at the time.</p>
+
+<p>"He generally comes from a smaller <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>boat, to pick up real work&mdash;if he
+can suppress his intellect and doesn't talk 'last commission.'"</p>
+
+<p>The third hand promptly denied the possession of any intellect, and
+was quite dumb about his last boat.</p>
+
+<p>"And the men?"</p>
+
+<p>"They train on, too. They train each other. Yes, one gets to know 'em
+about as well as they get to know us. Up topside, a man can take you
+in&mdash;take himself in&mdash;for months; for half a commission, p'rhaps. Down
+below he can't. It's all in cold blood&mdash;not like at the front, where
+they have something exciting all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Then bumping mines isn't exciting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not one little bit. You can't bump back at 'em. Even with a Zepp&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, now and then," one interrupted, and they laughed as they
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that was rather funny. One of our boats came up slap underneath
+a low Zepp. 'Looked for the sky, you know, and couldn't see anything
+except this fat, shining belly almost on top of 'em. Luckily, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>it
+wasn't the Zepp's stingin' end. So our boat went to windward and kept
+just awash. There was a bit of a sea, and the Zepp had to work against
+the wind. (They don't like that.) Our boat sent a man to the gun. He
+was pretty well drowned, of course, but he hung on, choking and
+spitting, and held his breath, and got in shots where he could. This
+Zepp was strafing bombs about for all she was worth, and&mdash;who was
+it?&mdash;Macartney, I think, potting at her between dives; and naturally
+all hands wanted to look at the performance, so about half the North
+Sea flopped down below and&mdash;oh, they had a Charlie Chaplin time of it!
+Well, somehow, Macartney managed to rip the Zepp a bit, and she went
+to leeward with a list on her. We saw her a fortnight later with a
+patch on her port side. Oh, if Fritz only fought clean, this wouldn't
+be half a bad show. But Fritz can't fight clean."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>we</i> can't do what he does&mdash;even if we were allowed to," one
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we can't. 'Tisn't done. We have to fish Fritz out of the water,
+dry him, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>give him cocktails, and send him to Donnington Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"And what does Fritz do?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He sputters and clicks and bows. He has all the correct motions, you
+know; but, of course, when he's your prisoner you can't tell him what
+he really is."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you suppose Fritz understands any of it?" I went on.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Or he wouldn't have lusitaniaed. This war was his first chance of
+making his name, and he chucked it all away for the sake of showin'
+off as a foul Gottstrafer."</p>
+
+<p>And they talked of that hour of the night when submarines come to the
+top like mermaids to get and give information; of boats whose business
+it is to fire as much and to splash about as aggressively as possible;
+and of other boats who avoid any sort of display&mdash;dumb boats watching
+and relieving watch, with their periscope just showing like a
+crocodile's eye, at the back of islands and the mouths of channels
+where something may some day move out in procession to its doom.</p>
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be well assured that on our side<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our challenged oceans fight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though headlong wind and heaping tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Make us their sport to-night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through force of weather, not of war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In jeopardy we steer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whereby it shall appear<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">How in all time of our distress<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As in our triumph too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The game is more than the player of the game,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And the ship is more than the crew!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be well assured, though wave and wind<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Have mightier blows in store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That we who keep the watch assigned<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Must stand to it the more;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as our streaming bows dismiss<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Each billow's baulked career,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">Sing, welcome Fate's discourtesy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whereby it is made clear<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">How in all time of our distress<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As in our triumph too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The game is more than the player of the game,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And the ship is more than the crew!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be well assured, though in our power<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is nothing left to give<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But time and place to meet the hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And leave to strive to live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till these dissolve our Order holds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our Service binds us here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whereby it is made clear<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">How in all time of our distress<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And our deliverance too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The game is more than the player of the game,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And the ship is more than the crew!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+<h3>PATROLS</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>On the edge of the North Sea sits an Admiral in charge of a stretch of
+coast without lights or marks, along which the traffic moves much as
+usual. In front of him there is nothing but the east wind, the enemy,
+and some few our ships. Behind him there are towns, with M.P.'s
+attached, who a little while ago didn't see the reason for certain
+lighting orders. When a Zeppelin or two came, they saw. Left and right
+of him are enormous docks, with vast crowded sheds, miles of
+stone-faced quay-edges, loaded with all manner of supplies and crowded
+with mixed shipping.</p>
+
+<p>In this exalted world one met Staff-Captains, Staff-Commanders,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>Staff-Lieutenants, and Secretaries, with Paymasters so senior that
+they almost ranked with Admirals. There were Warrant Officers, too,
+who long ago gave up splashing about decks barefoot, and now check and
+issue stores to the ravenous, untruthful fleets. Said one of these,
+guarding a collection of desirable things, to a cross between a
+sick-bay attendant and a junior writer (but he was really an expert
+burglar), "<i>No!</i> An' you can tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compliments,
+that the storekeeper's gone away&mdash;right away&mdash;with the key of these
+stores in his pocket. Understand me? In his trousers pocket."</p>
+
+<p>He snorted at my next question.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> I know any destroyer-lootenants?" said he. "This coast's rank
+with 'em! Destroyer-lootenants are born stealing. It's a mercy they's
+too busy to practise forgery, or I'd be in gaol. Engineer-Commanders?
+Engineer-Lootenants? They're worse!... Look here! If my own mother was
+to come to me beggin' brass screws for her own coffin, I'd&mdash;I'd think
+twice before I'd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>oblige the old lady. War's war, I grant you that;
+but what I've got to contend with is crime."</p>
+
+<p>I referred to him a case of conscience in which every one concerned
+acted exactly as he should, and it nearly ended in murder. During a
+lengthy action, the working of a gun was hampered by some empty
+cartridge-cases which the lieutenant in charge made signs (no man
+could hear his neighbour speak just then) should be hove overboard.
+Upon which the gunner rushed forward and made other signs that they
+were "on charge," and must be tallied and accounted for. He, too, was
+trained in a strict school. Upon which the lieutenant, but that he was
+busy, would have slain the gunner for refusing orders in action.
+Afterwards he wanted him shot by court-martial. But every one was
+voiceless by then, and could only mouth and croak at each other, till
+somebody laughed, and the pedantic gunner was spared.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's what you might fairly call a naval crux," said my friend
+among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>the stores. "The Lootenant was right. 'Mustn't refuse orders in
+action. The Gunner was right. Empty cases <i>are</i> on charge. No one
+ought to chuck 'em away that way, but.... Damn it, they were <i>all</i> of
+'em right! It ought to ha' been a marine. Then they could have killed
+him and preserved discipline at the same time."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">A Little Theory</h4>
+
+<p>The problem of this coast resolves itself into keeping touch with the
+enemy's movements; in preparing matters to trap and hinder him when he
+moves, and in so entertaining him that he shall not have time to draw
+clear before a blow descends on him from another quarter. There are
+then three lines of defence: the outer, the inner, and the home
+waters. The traffic and fishing are always with us.</p>
+
+<p>The blackboard idea of it is always to have stronger forces more
+immediately available everywhere than those the enemy can send. <i>x</i>
+German submarines draw <i>a</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>English destroyers. Then <i>x</i> calls <i>x + y</i>
+to deal with <i>a</i>, who, in turn, calls up <i>b</i>, a scout, and possibly
+<i>a&sup2;</i>, with a fair chance that, if <i>x + y + z</i> (a Zeppelin) carry on,
+they will run into <i>a&sup2; + b&sup2; + c</i> cruisers. At this point, the equation
+generally stops; if it continued, it would end mathematically in the
+whole of the German Fleet coming out. Then another factor which we may
+call the Grand Fleet would come from another place. To change the
+comparisons: the Grand Fleet is the "strong left" ready to give the
+knock-out blow on the point of the chin when the head is thrown up.
+The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar
+plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the
+"blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn
+as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive
+at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up to date.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy lies behind his mines, and ours, raids our coasts when he
+sees a chance, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>and kills seagoing civilians at sight or guess, with
+intent to terrify. Most sailor-men are mixed up with a woman or two; a
+fair percentage of them have seen men drown. They can realise what it
+is when women go down choking in horrible tangles and heavings of
+draperies. To say that the enemy has cut himself from the fellowship
+of all who use the seas is rather understating the case. As a man
+observed thoughtfully: "You can't look at any water now without seeing
+'Lusitania' sprawlin' all across it. And just think of those words,
+'North-German Lloyd,' 'Hamburg-Amerika' and such things, in the time
+to come. They simply mustn't be."</p>
+
+<p>He was an elderly trawler, respectable as they make them, who, after
+many years of fishing, had discovered his real vocation. "I never
+thought I'd like killin' men," he reflected. "Never seemed to be any
+o' my dooty. But it is&mdash;and I do!"</p>
+
+<p>A great deal of the East Coast work concerns mine-fields&mdash;ours and the
+enemy's&mdash;both of which shift as occasion requires. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>We search for and
+root out the enemy's mines; they do the like by us. It is a perpetual
+game of finding, springing, and laying traps on the least as well as
+the most likely runaways that ships use&mdash;such sea snaring and wiring
+as the world never dreamt of. We are hampered in this, because our
+Navy respects neutrals; and spends a great deal of its time in making
+their path safe for them. The enemy does not. He blows them up,
+because that cows and impresses them, and so adds to his prestige.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Death and the Destroyer</h4>
+
+<p>The easiest way of finding a mine-field is to steam into it, on the
+edge of night for choice, with a steep sea running, for that brings
+the bows down like a chopper on the detonator-horns. Some boats have
+enjoyed this experience and still live. There was one destroyer (and
+there may have been others since) who came through twenty-four hours
+of highly-compressed life. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>She had an idea that there was a
+mine-field somewhere about, and left her companions behind while she
+explored. The weather was dead calm, and she walked delicately. She
+saw one Scandinavian steamer blow up a couple of miles away, rescued
+the skipper and some hands; saw another neutral, which she could not
+reach till all was over, skied in another direction; and, between her
+life-saving efforts and her natural curiosity, got herself as
+thoroughly mixed up with the field as a camel among tent-ropes. A
+destroyer's bows are very fine, and her sides are very straight. This
+causes her to cleave the wave with the minimum of disturbance, and
+this boat had no desire to cleave anything else. None the less, from
+time to time, she heard a mine grate, or tinkle, or jar (I could not
+arrive at the precise note it strikes, but they say it is unpleasant)
+on her plates. Sometimes she would be free of them for a long while,
+and began to hope she was clear. At other times they were numerous,
+but when at last she seemed to have worried out of the danger zone
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>lieutenant and sub together left the bridge for a cup of tea. ("In
+those days we took mines very seriously, you know.") As they were in
+act to drink, they heard the hateful sound again just outside the
+wardroom. Both put their cups down with extreme care, little fingers
+extended ("We felt as if they might blow up, too"), and tip-toed on
+deck, where they met the foc'sle also on tip-toe. They pulled
+themselves together, and asked severely what the foc'sle thought it
+was doing. "Beg pardon, sir, but there's another of those blighters
+tap-tapping alongside, our end." They all waited and listened to their
+common coffin being nailed by Death himself. But the things bumped
+away. At this point they thought it only decent to invite the rescued
+skipper, warm and blanketed in one of their bunks, to step up and do
+any further perishing in the open.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you," said he. "Last time I was blown up in my bunk, too.
+That was all right. So I think, now, too, I stay in my bunk here. It
+is cold upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow or other they got out of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>mess after all. "Yes, we used to
+take mines awfully seriously in those days. One comfort is, Fritz'll
+take them seriously when he comes out. Fritz don't like mines."</p>
+
+<p>"Who does?" I wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'd been here a little while ago, you'd seen a Commander comin'
+in with a big 'un slung under his counter. He brought the beastly
+thing in to analyse. The rest of his squadron followed at two-knot
+intervals, and everything in harbour that had steam up scattered."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Admirable Commander</h4>
+
+<p>Presently I had the honour to meet a Lieutenant-Commander-Admiral who
+had retired from the service, but, like others, had turned out again
+at the first flash of the guns, and now commands&mdash;he who had great
+ships erupting at his least signal&mdash;a squadron of trawlers for the
+protection of the Dogger Bank Fleet. At present prices&mdash;let alone the
+chance of the paying submarine&mdash;men would fish in much warmer places.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>His flagship was once a multi-millionaire's private yacht. In her
+mixture of stark, carpetless, curtainless, carbolised present, with
+voluptuously curved, broad-decked, easy-stairwayed past, she might be
+Queen Guinevere in the convent at Amesbury. And her
+Lieutenant-Commander, most careful to pay all due compliments to
+Admirals who were midshipmen when <i>he</i> was a Commander, leads a
+congregation of very hard men indeed. They do precisely what he tells
+them to, and with him go through strange experiences, because they
+love him and because his language is volcanic and wonderful&mdash;what you
+might call Popocatapocalyptic. I saw the Old Navy making ready to lead
+out the New under a grey sky and a falling glass&mdash;the wisdom and
+cunning of the old man backed up by the passion and power of the
+younger breed, and the discipline which had been his soul for half a
+century binding them all.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll he do <i>this</i> time?" I asked of one who might know.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll cruise between Two and Three <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>East; but if you'll tell me what
+he <i>won't</i> do, it 'ud be more to the point! He's mine-hunting, I
+expect, just now."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Wasted Material</h4>
+
+<p>Here is a digression suggested by the sight of a man I had known in
+other scenes, despatch-riding round a fleet in a petrol-launch. There
+are many of his type, yachtsmen of sorts accustomed to take chances,
+who do not hold masters' certificates and cannot be given sea-going
+commands. Like my friend, they do general utility work&mdash;often in their
+own boats. This is a waste of good material. Nobody wants amateur
+navigators&mdash;the traffic lanes are none too wide as it is. But these
+gentlemen ought to be distributed among the Trawler Fleet as strictly
+combatant officers. A trawler skipper may be an excellent seaman, but
+slow with a submarine shelling and diving, or in cutting out enemy
+trawlers. The young ones who can master Q.F. gun work in a very short
+time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>would&mdash;though there might be friction, a court-martial or two,
+and probably losses at first&mdash;pay for their keep. Even a hundred or so
+of amateurs, more or less controlled by their squadron commanders,
+would make a happy beginning, and I am sure they would all be
+extremely grateful.</p>
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I heard a destroyer sing: "What an enjoyable life does one<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">lead on the North Sea Patrol!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritz's),<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which means there are mine-fields wherever you stroll.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless you've particular wish to die quick, you'll avoid steering<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">close to the North Sea Patrol.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We warn from disaster the mercantile master<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who takes in high dudgeon our life-saving r&ocirc;le,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">For every one's grousing at docking and dowsing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The marks and the lights on the North Sea Patrol."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i01">[Twelve verses omitted.]<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I watched her head out through the swell off the shoal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I heard her propellers roar: "Write to poor fellers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who run such a Hell as the North Sea Patrol!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+<h3>PATROLS</h3>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>The great basins were crammed with craft of kinds never known before
+on any Navy List. Some were as they were born, others had been
+converted, and a multitude have been designed for special cases. The
+Navy prepares against all contingencies by land, sea, and air. It was
+a relief to meet a batch of comprehensible destroyers and to drop
+again into the little mouse-trap ward-rooms, which are as
+large-hearted as all Our oceans. The men one used to know as
+destroyer-lieutenants ("born stealing") are serious Commanders and
+Captains to-day, but their sons, Lieutenants in command and
+Lieutenant-Commanders, do follow them. The sea in peace is a hard
+life; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>war only sketches an extra line or two round the young mouths.
+The routine of ships always ready for action is so part of the blood
+now that no one notices anything except the absence of formality and
+of the "crimes" of peace. What Warrant Officers used to say at length
+is cut down to a grunt. What the sailor-man did not know and expected
+to have told him, does not exist. He has done it all too often at sea
+and ashore.</p>
+
+<p>I watched a little party working under a leading hand at a job which,
+eighteen months ago, would have required a Gunner in charge. It was
+comic to see his orders trying to overtake the execution of them.
+Ratings coming aboard carried themselves with a (to me) new swing&mdash;not
+swank, but consciousness of adequacy. The high, dark foc'sles which,
+thank goodness, are only washed twice a week, received them and their
+bags, and they turned-to on the instant as a man picks up his life at
+home. Like the submarine crew, they come to be a breed
+apart&mdash;double-jointed, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>extra-toed, with brazen bowels and no sort of
+nerves.</p>
+
+<p>It is the same in the engine-room, when the ships come in for their
+regular looking-over. Those who love them, which you would never guess
+from the language, know exactly what they need, and get it without
+fuss. Everything that steams has her individual peculiarity, and the
+great thing is, at overhaul, to keep to it and not develop a new one.
+If, for example, through some trick of her screws not synchronising, a
+destroyer always casts to port when she goes astern, do not let any
+zealous soul try to make her run true, or you will have to learn her
+helm all over again. And it is vital that you should know exactly what
+your ship is going to do three seconds before she does it. Similarly
+with men. If any one, from Lieutenant-Commander to stoker, changes his
+personal trick or habit&mdash;even the manner in which he clutches his chin
+or caresses his nose at a crisis&mdash;the matter must be carefully
+considered in this world where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>each is trustee for his neighbour's
+life and, vastly more important, the corporate honour.</p>
+
+<p>"What are the destroyers doing just now?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;running about&mdash;much the same as usual."</p>
+
+<p>The Navy hasn't the least objection to telling one everything that it
+is doing. Unfortunately, it speaks its own language, which is
+incomprehensible to the civilian. But you will find it all in "The
+Channel Pilot" and "The Riddle of the Sands."</p>
+
+<p>It is a foul coast, hairy with currents and rips, and mottled with
+shoals and rocks. Practically the same men hold on here in the same
+ships, with much the same crews, for months and months. A most senior
+officer told me that they were "good boys"&mdash;on reflection, "quite good
+boys"&mdash;but neither he nor the flags on his chart explained how they
+managed their lightless, unmarked navigations through black night,
+blinding rain, and the crazy, rebounding North Sea gales. They
+themselves ascribe <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>it to Joss that they have not piled up their ships
+a hundred times.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it must be because we're always dodging about over the same
+ground. One gets to smell it. We've bumped pretty hard, of course, but
+we haven't expended much up to date. You never know your luck on
+patrol, though."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Nature of the Beast</h4>
+
+<p>Personally, though they have been true friends to me, I loathe
+destroyers, and all the raw, racking, ricochetting life that goes with
+them&mdash;the smell of the wet "lammies" and damp wardroom cushions; the
+galley-chimney smoking out the bridge; the obstacle-strewn deck; and
+the pervading beastliness of oil, grit, and greasy iron. Even at
+moorings they shiver and sidle like half-backed horses. At sea they
+will neither rise up and fly clear like the hydroplanes, nor dive and
+be done with it like the submarines, but imitate the vices of both. A
+scientist of the lower deck <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>describes them as: "Half switchback, half
+water-chute, and Hell continuous." Their only merit, from a landsman's
+point of view, is that they can crumple themselves up from stem to
+bridge and (I have seen it) still get home. But one does not breathe
+these compliments to their commanders. Other destroyers may be&mdash;they
+will point them out to you&mdash;poisonous bags of tricks, but their own
+command&mdash;never! Is she high-bowed? That is the only type which
+over-rides the seas instead of smothering. Is she low? Low bows glide
+through the water where those collier-nosed brutes smash it open. Is
+she mucked up with submarine-catchers? They rather improve her trim.
+No other ship has them. Have they been denied to her? Thank Heaven,
+<i>we</i> go to sea without a fish-curing plant on deck. Does she roll,
+even for her class? She is drier than Dreadnoughts. Is she permanently
+and infernally wet? Stiff; sir&mdash;stiff: the first requisite of a
+gun-platform.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">"Service as Requisite"</h4>
+
+<p>Thus the C&aelig;sars and their fortunes put out to sea with their subs and
+their sad-eyed engineers, and their long-suffering signallers&mdash;I do
+not even know the technical name of the sin which causes a man to be
+born a destroyer-signaller in this life&mdash;and the little yellow shells
+stuck all about where they can be easiest reached. The rest of their
+acts is written for the information of the proper authorities. It
+reads like a page of Todhunter. But the masters of merchant-ships
+could tell more of eyeless shapes, barely outlined on the foam of
+their own arrest, who shout orders through the thick gloom alongside.
+The strayed and anxious neutral knows them when their searchlights pin
+him across the deep, or their syrens answer the last yelp of his as
+steam goes out of his torpedoed boilers. They stand by to catch and
+soothe him in his pyjamas at the gangway, collect his scattered
+lifeboats, and see a warm drink into him before they turn to hunt the
+slayer. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>drifters, punching and reeling up and down their ten-mile
+line of traps; the outer trawlers, drawing the very teeth of Death
+with water-sodden fingers, are grateful for their low, guarded
+signals; and when the Zeppelin's revealing star-shell cracks darkness
+open above him, the answering crack of the invisible destroyers' guns
+comforts the busy mine-layers. Big cruisers talk to them, too; and,
+what is more, they talk back to the cruisers. Sometimes they draw
+fire&mdash;pinkish spurts of light&mdash;a long way off, where Fritz is trying
+to coax them over a mine-field he has just laid; or they steal on
+Fritz in the midst of his job, and the horizon rings with barking,
+which the inevitable neutral who saw it all reports as "a heavy fleet
+action in the North Sea." The sea after dark can be as alive as the
+woods of summer nights. Everything is exactly where you don't expect
+it, and the shyest creatures are the farthest away from their holes.
+Things boom overhead like bitterns, or scutter alongside like hares,
+or arise dripping and hissing from below like otters. It is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>the
+destroyer's business to find out what their business may be through
+all the long night, and to help or hinder accordingly. Dawn sees them
+pitch-poling insanely between head-seas, or hanging on to bridges that
+sweep like scythes from one forlorn horizon to the other. A
+homeward-bound submarine chooses this hour to rise, very
+ostentatiously, and signals by hand to a lieutenant in command. (They
+were the same term at Dartmouth, and same first ship.)</p>
+
+<p>"What's he sayin'? Secure that gun, will you? 'Can't hear oneself
+speak," The gun is a bit noisy on its mountings, but that isn't the
+reason for the destroyer-lieutenant's short temper.</p>
+
+<p>"'Says he's goin' down, sir," the signaller replies. What the
+submarine had spelt out, and everybody knows it, was: "Cannot approve
+of this extremely frightful weather. Am going to bye-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" snaps the lieutenant to his signaller, "what are you grinning
+at?" The submarine has hung on to ask if the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>destroyer will "kiss her
+and whisper good-night." A breaking sea smacks her tower in the middle
+of the insult. She closes like an oyster, but&mdash;just too late. <i>Habet!</i>
+There must be a quarter of a ton of water somewhere down below, on its
+way to her ticklish batteries.</p>
+
+<p>"What a wag!" says the signaller, dreamily. "Well, 'e can't say 'e
+didn't get 'is little kiss."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant in command smiles. The sea is a beast, but a just
+beast.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Racial Untruths</h4>
+
+<p>This is trivial enough, but what would you have? If Admirals will not
+strike the proper attitudes, nor Lieutenants emit the appropriate
+sentiments, one is forced back on the truth, which is that the men at
+the heart of the great matters in our Empire are, mostly, of an even
+simplicity. From the advertising point of view they are stupid, but
+the breed has always been stupid in this department. It may be due,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>as our enemies assert, to our racial snobbery, or, as others hold, to
+a certain God-given lack of imagination which saves us from being
+over-concerned at the effects of our appearances on others. Either
+way, it deceives the enemies' people more than any calculated lie.
+When you come to think of it, though the English are the worst
+paper-work and <i>viva voce</i> liars in the world, they have been
+rigorously trained since their early youth to live and act lies for
+the comfort of the society in which they move, and so for their own
+comfort. The result in this war is interesting.</p>
+
+<p>It is no lie that at the present moment we hold all the seas in the
+hollow of our hands. For that reason we shuffle over them shame-faced
+and apologetic, making arrangements here and flagrant compromises
+there, in order to give substance to the lie that we have dropped
+fortuitously into this high seat and are looking round the world for
+some one to resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, had we used the
+Navy's bare fist instead of its gloved hand from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>beginning, we
+could in all likelihood have shortened the war. That being so, we
+elected to dab and peck at and half-strangle the enemy, to let him go
+and choke him again. It is no lie that we continue on our inexplicable
+path animated, we will try to believe till other proof is given, by a
+cloudy idea of alleviating or mitigating something for somebody&mdash;not
+ourselves. [Here, of course, is where our racial snobbery comes in,
+which makes the German gibber. I cannot understand why he has not
+accused us to our Allies of having secret commercial understandings
+with him.] For that reason, we shall finish the German eagle as the
+merciful lady killed the chicken. It took her the whole afternoon, and
+then, you will remember, the carcase had to be thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, there is a large and unlovely water, inhabited by plain men
+in severe boats, who endure cold, exposure, wet, and monotony almost
+as heavy as their responsibilities. Charge them with heroism&mdash;but that
+needs heroism, indeed! Accuse them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>of patriotism, they become ribald.
+Examine into the records of the miraculous work they have done and are
+doing. They will assist you, but with perfect sincerity they will make
+as light of the valour and fore-thought shown as of the ends they have
+gained for mankind. The Service takes all work for granted. It knew
+long ago that certain things would have to be done, and it did its
+best to be ready for them. When it disappeared over the sky-line for
+man[oe]uvres it was practising&mdash;always practising; trying its men and
+stuff and throwing out what could not take the strain. That is why,
+when war came, only a few names had to be changed, and those chiefly
+for the sake of the body, not of the spirit. And the Seniors who hold
+the key to our plans and know what will be done if things happen, and
+what lines wear thin in the many chains, they are of one fibre and
+speech with the Juniors and the lower deck and all the rest who come
+out of the undemonstrative households ashore. "Here is the situation
+as it exists now," say the Seniors. "This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>is what we do to meet it.
+Look and count and measure and judge for yourself, and then you will
+know."</p>
+
+<p>It is a safe offer. The civilian only sees that the sea is a vast
+place, divided between wisdom and chance. He only knows that the
+uttermost oceans have been swept clear, and the trade-routes purged,
+one by one, even as our armies were being convoyed along them; that
+there was no island nor key left unsearched on any waters that might
+hide an enemy's craft between the Arctic Circle and the Horn. He only
+knows that less than a day's run to the eastward of where he stands,
+the enemy's fleets have been held for a year and four months, in order
+that civilisation may go about its business on all our waters.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="TALES_OF_THE_TRADE" id="TALES_OF_THE_TRADE"></a><hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+<h3>TALES OF "THE TRADE"</h3>
+
+<h3>(1916)</h3>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+<h3><i>"THE TRADE"</i></h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They bear, in place of classic names,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Letters and numbers on their skin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They play their grisly blindfold games<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In little boxes made of tin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sometimes they learn where mines are laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or where the Baltic ice is thin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is the custom of "The Trade."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They seldom tow their targets in.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They follow certain secret aims<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Down under, far from strife or din.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When they are ready to begin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No flag is flown, no fuss is made<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">More than the shearing of a pin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is the custom of "The Trade."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">The Scout's quadruple funnel flames<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A mark from Sweden to the Swin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Cruiser's thundrous screw proclaims<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her comings out and goings in:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But only whiffs of paraffin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or creamy rings that fizz and fade<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Show where the one-eyed Death has been.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is the custom of "The Trade."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Their feats, their fortunes and their fames<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are hidden from their nearest kin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No eager public backs or blames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No journal prints the yarns they spin<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(The Censor would not let it in!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When they return from run or raid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unheard they work, unseen they win.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is the custom of "The Trade."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<h3>SOME WORK IN THE BALTIC</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>No one knows how the title of "The Trade" came to be applied to the
+Submarine Service. Some say that the cruisers invented it because they
+pretend that submarine officers look like unwashed chauffeurs. Others
+think it sprang forth by itself, which means that it was coined by the
+Lower Deck, where they always have the proper names for things.
+Whatever the truth, the Submarine Service is now "the trade"; and if
+you ask them why, they will answer: "What else could you call it? The
+Trade's 'the trade,' of course."</p>
+
+<p>It is a close corporation; yet it recruits its men and officers from
+every class that uses the sea and engines, as well as from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>many
+classes that never expected to deal with either. It takes them; they
+disappear for a while and return changed to their very souls, for the
+Trade lives in a world without precedents, of which no generation has
+had any previous experience&mdash;a world still being made and enlarged
+daily. It creates and settles its own problems as it goes along, and
+if it cannot help itself no one else can. So the Trade lives in the
+dark and thinks out inconceivable and impossible things which it
+afterwards puts into practice.</p>
+
+<p>It keeps books, too, as honest traders should. They are almost as bald
+as ledgers, and are written up, hour by hour, on a little sliding
+table that pulls out from beneath the commander's bunk. In due time
+they go to my Lords of the Admiralty, who presently circulate a few
+carefully watered extracts for the confidential information of the
+junior officers of the Trade, that these may see what things are done
+and how. The juniors read but laugh. They have heard the stories, with
+all the flaming detail and much of the language, either from a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>chief
+actor while they perched deferentially on the edge of a mess-room
+fender, or from his subordinate, in which case they were not so
+deferential, or from some returned member of the crew present on the
+occasion, who, between half-shut teeth at the wheel, jerks out what
+really happened. There is very little going on in the Trade that the
+Trade does not know within a reasonable time. But the outside world
+must wait until my Lords of the Admiralty release the records. Some of
+them have been released now.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Submarine and Ice-breaker</h4>
+
+<p>Let us take, almost at random, an episode in the life of H.M.
+Submarine E9. It is true that she was commanded by Commander Max
+Horton, but the utter impersonality of the tale makes it as though the
+boat herself spoke. (Also, never having met or seen any of the
+gentlemen concerned in the matter, the writer can be impersonal too.)
+Some time ago, E9 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>was in the Baltic, in the deeps of winter, where
+she used to be taken to her hunting grounds by an ice-breaker.
+Obviously a submarine cannot use her sensitive nose to smash heavy ice
+with, so the broad-beamed pushing chaperone comes along to see her
+clear of the thick harbour and shore ice. In the open sea apparently
+she is left to her own devices. In company of the ice-breaker, then,
+E9 "proceeded" (neither in the Senior nor the Junior Service does any
+one officially "go" anywhere) to a "certain position."</p>
+
+<p>Here&mdash;it is not stated in the book, but the Trade knows every aching,
+single detail of what is left out&mdash;she spent a certain time in testing
+arrangements and apparatus, which may or may not work properly when
+immersed in a mixture of block-ice and dirty ice-cream in a
+temperature well towards zero. This is a pleasant job, made the more
+delightful by the knowledge that if you slip off the superstructure
+the deadly Baltic chill will stop your heart long before even your
+heavy clothes can drown you. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>Hence (and this is not in the book
+either) the remark of the highly trained sailor-man in these latitudes
+who, on being told by his superior officer in the execution of his
+duty to go to Hell, did insubordinately and enviously reply: "D'you
+think I'd be here if I could?" Whereby he caused the entire personnel,
+beginning with the Commander, to say "Amen," or words to that effect.
+E9 evidently made things work.</p>
+
+<p>Next day she reports: "As circumstances were favourable decided to
+attempt to bag a destroyer." Her "certain position" must have been
+near a well-used destroyer-run, for shortly afterwards she sees three
+of them, but too far off to attack, and later, as the light is
+failing, a fourth destroyer towards which she man[oe]uvres.
+"Depth-keeping," she notes, "very difficult owing to heavy swell." An
+observation balloon on a gusty day is almost as stable as a submarine
+"pumping" in a heavy swell, and since the Baltic is shallow, the
+submarine runs the chance of being let down with a whack on the
+bottom. None the less, E9 works <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>her way to within 600 yards of the
+quarry; fires and waits just long enough to be sure that her torpedo
+is running straight, and that the destroyer is holding her course.
+Then she "dips to avoid detection." The rest is deadly simple: "At the
+correct moment after firing, 45 to 50 seconds, heard the unmistakable
+noise of torpedo detonating." Four minutes later she rose and "found
+destroyer had disappeared." Then, for reasons probably connected with
+other destroyers, who, too, may have heard that unmistakable sound,
+she goes to bed below in the chill dark till it is time to turn
+homewards. When she rose she met storm from the north and logged it
+accordingly. "Spray froze as it struck, and bridge became a mass of
+ice. Experienced considerable difficulty in keeping the conning-tower
+hatch free from ice. Found it necessary to keep a man continuously
+employed on this work. Bridge screen immovable, ice six inches thick
+on it. Telegraphs frozen." In this state she forges ahead till
+midnight, and any one who pleases can imagine the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>thoughts of the
+continuous employee scraping and hammering round the hatch, as well as
+the delight of his friends below when the ice-slush spattered down the
+conning-tower. At last she considered it "advisable to free the boat
+of ice, so went below."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">"As Requisite"</h4>
+
+<p>In the Senior Service the two words "as requisite" cover everything
+that need not be talked about. E9 next day "proceeded as requisite"
+through a series of snowstorms and recurring deposits of ice on the
+bridge till she got in touch with her friend the ice-breaker; and in
+her company ploughed and rooted her way back to the work we know.
+There is nothing to show that it was a near thing for E9, but somehow
+one has the idea that the ice-breaker did not arrive any too soon for
+E9's comfort and progress. (But what happens in the Baltic when the
+ice-breaker does not arrive?)</p>
+
+<p>That was in winter. In summer quite the other way, E9 had to go to bed
+by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>day very often under the long-lasting northern light when the
+Baltic is as smooth as a carpet, and one cannot get within a mile and
+a half of anything with eyes in its head without being put down. There
+was one time when E9, evidently on information received, took up "a
+certain position" and reported the sea "glassy." She had to suffer in
+silence, while three heavily laden German ships went by; for an attack
+would have given away her position. Her reward came next day, when she
+sighted (the words run like Marryat's) "enemy squadron coming up fast
+from eastward, proceeding inshore of us." They were two heavy
+battleships with an escort of destroyers, and E9 turned to attack. She
+does not say how she crept up in that smooth sea within a quarter of a
+mile of the leading ship, "a three-funnel ship, of either the
+Deutschland or Braunschweig class," but she managed it, and fired both
+bow torpedoes at her.</p>
+
+<p>"No. 1 torpedo was seen and heard to strike her just before foremost
+funnel: smoke and <i>d&eacute;bris</i> appeared to go as high <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>as masthead." That
+much E9 saw before one of the guardian destroyers ran at her. "So,"
+says she, "observing her I took my periscope off the battleship." This
+was excusable, as the destroyer was coming up with intent to kill and
+E9 had to flood her tanks and get down quickly. Even so, the destroyer
+only just missed her, and she struck bottom in 43 feet. "But," says
+E9, who, if she could not see, kept her ears open, "at the correct
+interval (the 45 or 50 seconds mentioned in the previous case) the
+second torpedo was heard to explode, though not actually seen." E9
+came up twenty minutes later to make sure. The destroyer was waiting
+for her a couple of hundred yards away, and again E9 dipped for the
+life, but "just had time to see one large vessel approximately four or
+five miles away."</p>
+
+<p>Putting courage aside, think for a moment of the mere drill of it
+all&mdash;that last dive for that attack on the chosen battleship; the eye
+at the periscope watching "No. 1 torpedo" get home; the rush of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>vengeful destroyer; the instant orders for flooding everything; the
+swift descent which had to be arranged for with full knowledge of the
+shallow sea-floors waiting below, and a guess at the course that might
+be taken by the seeking bows above, for assuming a destroyer to draw
+10 feet and a submarine on the bottom to stand 25 feet to the top of
+her conning-tower, there is not much clearance in 43 feet salt water,
+specially if the boat jumps when she touches bottom. And through all
+these and half a hundred other simultaneous considerations, imagine
+the trained minds below, counting, as only torpedo-men can count, the
+run of the merciless seconds that should tell when that second shot
+arrived. Then "at the correct interval" as laid down in the table of
+distances, the boom and the jar of No. 2 torpedo, the relief, the
+exhaled breath and untightened lips; the impatient waiting for a
+second peep, and when that had been taken and the eye at the periscope
+had reported <i>one</i> little nigger-boy in place of two on the waters,
+perhaps cigarettes, &amp;c., while <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>the destroyer sickled about at a
+venture overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly they give men rewards for doing such things, but what reward
+can there be in any gift of Kings or peoples to match the enduring
+satisfaction of having done them, not alone, but with and through and
+by trusty and proven companions?</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Defeated by Darkness</h4>
+
+<p>E1, also a Baltic boat, her Commander F.N. Laurence, had her
+experiences too. She went out one summer day and late&mdash;too late&mdash;in
+the evening sighted three transports. The first she hit. While she was
+arranging for the second, the third inconsiderately tried to ram her
+before her sights were on. So it was necessary to go down at once and
+waste whole minutes of the precious scanting light. When she rose, the
+stricken ship was sinking and shortly afterwards blew up. The other
+two were patrolling near by. It would have been a fair chance in
+daylight, but the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>darkness defeated her and she had to give up the
+attack.</p>
+
+<p>It was E1 who during thick weather came across a squadron of
+battle-cruisers and got in on a flanking ship&mdash;probably the <i>Moltke</i>.
+The destroyers were very much on the alert, and she had to dive at
+once to avoid one who only missed her by a few feet. Then the fog shut
+down and stopped further developments. Thus do time and chance come to
+every man.</p>
+
+<p>The Trade has many stories, too, of watching patrols when a boat must
+see chance after chance go by under her nose and write&mdash;merely
+write&mdash;what she has seen. Naturally they do not appear in any
+accessible records. Nor, which is a pity, do the authorities release
+the records of glorious failures, when everything goes wrong; when
+torpedoes break surface and squatter like ducks; or arrive full square
+with a clang and burst of white water and&mdash;fail to explode; when the
+devil is in charge of all the motors, and clutches develop play that
+would scare a shore-going mechanic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>bald; when batteries begin to give
+off death instead of power, and atop of all, ice or wreckage of the
+strewn seas racks and wrenches the hull till the whole leaking bag of
+tricks limps home on six missing cylinders and one ditto propeller,
+<i>plus</i> the indomitable will of the red-eyed husky scarecrows in
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>There might be worse things in this world for decent people to read
+than such records.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<h3>BUSINESS IN THE SEA OF MARMARA</h3>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>This war is like an iceberg. We, the public, only see an eighth of it
+above water. The rest is out of sight and, as with the berg, one
+guesses its extent by great blocks that break off and shoot up to the
+surface from some underlying out-running spur a quarter of a mile
+away. So with this war sudden tales come to light which reveal
+unsuspected activities in unexpected quarters. One takes it for
+granted such things are always going on somewhere, but the actual
+emergence of the record is always astonishing.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, there were certain E type boats who worked the Sea
+of Marmara <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>with thoroughness and humanity; for the two, in English
+hands, are compatible. The road to their hunting-grounds was strewn
+with peril, the waters they inhabited were full of eyes that gave them
+no rest, and what they lost or expended in wear and tear of the chase
+could not be made good till they had run the gauntlet to their base
+again. The full tale of their improvisations and "makee-does" will
+probably never come to light, though fragments can be picked up at
+intervals in the proper places as the men concerned come and go. The
+Admiralty gives only the bones, but those are not so dry, of the
+boat's official story.</p>
+
+<p>When E14, Commander E. Courtney-Boyle, went to her work in the Sea of
+Marmara, she, like her sister, "proceeded" on her gas-engine up the
+Dardanelles; and a gas-engine by night between steep cliffs has been
+described by the Lower-deck as a "full brass band in a railway
+cutting." So a fort picked her up with a searchlight and missed her
+with artillery. She dived under the minefield that guarded the
+Straits, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>when she rose at dawn in the narrowest part of the
+channel, which is about one mile and a half across, all the forts
+fired at her. The water, too, was thick with steamboat patrols, out of
+which E14 selected a Turkish gunboat and gave her a torpedo. She had
+just time to see the great column of water shoot as high as the
+gunboat's mast when she had to dip again as "the men in a small
+steamboat were leaning over trying to catch hold of the top of my
+periscope."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">"Six Hours of Blind Death"</h4>
+
+<p>This sentence, which might have come out of a French exercise book, is
+all Lieutenant-Commander Courtney-Boyle sees fit to tell, and that
+officer will never understand why one taxpayer at least demands his
+arrest after the war till he shall have given the full tale. Did he
+sight the shadowy underline of the small steamboat green through the
+deadlights? Or did she suddenly swim into his vision from behind, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>and
+obscure, without warning, his periscope with a single brown clutching
+hand? Was she alone, or one of a mob of splashing, shouting small
+craft? He may well have been too busy to note, for there were patrols
+all around him, a minefield of curious design and undefined area
+somewhere in front, and steam trawlers vigorously sweeping for him
+astern and ahead. And when E14 had burrowed and bumped and scraped
+through six hours of blind death, she found the Sea of Marmara
+crawling with craft, and was kept down almost continuously and grew
+hot and stuffy in consequence. Nor could she charge her batteries in
+peace, so at the end of another hectic, hunted day of starting them up
+and breaking off and diving&mdash;which is bad for the temper&mdash;she decided
+to quit those infested waters near the coast and charge up somewhere
+off the traffic routes.</p>
+
+<p>This accomplished, after a long, hot run, which did the motors no
+good, she went back to her beat, where she picked up three destroyers
+convoying a couple of troopships. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>But it was a glassy calm and the
+destroyers "came for me." She got off a long-range torpedo at one
+transport, and ducked before she could judge results. She apologises
+for this on the grounds that one of her periscopes had been
+damaged&mdash;not, as one would expect, by the gentleman leaning out of the
+little steamboat, but by some casual shot&mdash;calibre not specified&mdash;the
+day before. "And so," says E14, "I could not risk my remaining one
+being bent." However, she heard a thud, and the depth-gauges&mdash;those
+great clock-hands on the white-faced circles&mdash;"flicked," which is
+another sign of dreadful certainty down under. When she rose again she
+saw a destroyer convoying one burning transport to the nearest beach.
+That afternoon she met a sister-boat (now gone to Valhalla), who told
+her that she was almost out of torpedoes, and they arranged a
+rendezvous for next day, but "before we could communicate we had to
+dive, and I did not see her again." There must be many such meetings
+in the Trade, under all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>skies&mdash;boat rising beside boat at the point
+agreed upon for interchange of news and materials; the talk shouted
+aloud with the speakers' eyes always on the horizon and all hands
+standing by to dive, even in the middle of a sentence.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Annoying Patrol Ships</h4>
+
+<p>E14 kept to her job, on the edge of the procession of traffic. Patrol
+vessels annoyed her to such an extent that "as I had not seen any
+transports lately I decided to sink a patrol-ship as they were always
+firing on me." So she torpedoed a thing that looked like a mine-layer,
+and must have been something of that kidney, for it sank in less than
+a minute. A tramp-steamer lumbering across the dead flat sea was
+thoughtfully headed back to Constantinople by firing rifles ahead of
+her. "Under fire the whole day," E14 observes philosophically. The
+nature of her work made this inevitable. She was all among the
+patrols, which kept her down a good deal and made her draw on her
+batteries, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>and when she rose to charge, watchers ashore burned
+oil-flares on the beach or made smokes among the hills according to
+the light. In either case there would be a general rush of patrolling
+craft of all kinds, from steam launches to gunboats. Nobody loves the
+Trade, though E14 did several things which made her popular. She let
+off a string of very surprised dhows (they were empty) in charge of a
+tug which promptly fled back to Constantinople; stopped a couple of
+steamers full of refugees, also bound for Constantinople, who were
+"very pleased at being allowed to proceed" instead of being
+lusitaniaed as they had expected. Another refugee-boat, fleeing from
+goodness knows what horror, she chased into Rodosto Harbour, where,
+though she could not see any troops, "they opened a heavy rifle fire
+on us, hitting the boat several times. So I went away and chased two
+more small tramps who returned towards Constantinople."</p>
+
+<p>Transports, of course, were fair game, and in spite of the necessity
+she was under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>of not risking her remaining eye, E14 got a big one in
+a night of wind and made another hurriedly beach itself, which then
+opened fire on her, assisted by the local population. "Returned fire
+and proceeded," says E14. The diversion of returning fire is one much
+appreciated by the lower-deck as furnishing a pleasant break in what
+otherwise might be a monotonous and odoriferous task. There is no
+drill laid down for this evolution, but etiquette and custom prescribe
+that on going up the hatch you shall not too energetically prod the
+next man ahead with the muzzle of your rifle. Likewise, when
+descending in quick time before the hatch closes, you are requested
+not to jump directly on the head of the next below. Otherwise you act
+"as requisite" on your own initiative.</p>
+
+<p>When she had used up all her torpedoes E14 prepared to go home by the
+way she had come&mdash;there was no other&mdash;and was chased towards Gallipoli
+by a mixed pack composed of a gunboat, a torpedo-boat, and a tug.
+"They shepherded me to Gallipoli, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>one each side of me and one astern,
+evidently expecting me to be caught by the nets there." She walked
+very delicately for the next eight hours or so, all down the Straits,
+underrunning the strong tides, ducking down when the fire from the
+forts got too hot, verifying her position and the position of the
+minefield, but always taking notes of every ship in sight, till
+towards teatime she saw our Navy off the entrance and "rose to the
+surface abeam of a French battleship who gave us a rousing cheer." She
+had been away, as nearly as possible, three weeks, and a kind
+destroyer escorted her to the base, where we will leave her for the
+moment while we consider the performance of E11 (Lieutenant-Commander
+M.E. Nasmith) in the same waters at about the same season.</p>
+
+<p>E11 "proceeded" in the usual way, to the usual accompaniments of
+hostile destroyers, up the Straits, and meets the usual difficulties
+about charging-up when she gets through. Her wireless naturally takes
+this opportunity to give trouble, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>E11 is left, deaf and dumb,
+somewhere in the middle of the Sea of Marmara, diving to avoid hostile
+destroyers in the intervals of trying to come at the fault in her
+aerial. (Yet it is noteworthy that the language of the Trade, though
+technical, is no more emphatic or incandescent than that of top-side
+ships.)</p>
+
+<p>Then she goes towards Constantinople, finds a Turkish torpedo-gunboat
+off the port, sinks her, has her periscope smashed by a six-pounder,
+retires, fits a new top on the periscope, and at 10.30
+<span class="scfake">A.M.</span>&mdash;they must have needed it&mdash;pipes "All hands to bathe."
+Much refreshed, she gets her wireless linked up at last, and is able
+to tell the authorities where she is and what she is after.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Mr. Silas Q. Swing</h4>
+
+<p>At this point&mdash;it was off Rodosto&mdash;enter a small steamer which does
+not halt when requested, and so is fired at with "several rounds" from
+a rifle. The crew, on being told to abandon her, tumble into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>their
+boats with such haste that they capsize two out of three.
+"Fortunately," says E11, "they are able to pick up everybody." You can
+imagine to yourself the confusion alongside, the raffle of odds and
+ends floating out of the boats, and the general parti-coloured
+hurrah's-nest all over the bright broken water. What you cannot
+imagine is this: "An American gentleman then appeared on the upper
+deck who informed us that his name was Silas Q. Swing, of the <i>Chicago
+Sun</i>, and that he was pleased to make our acquaintance. He then
+informed us that the steamer was proceeding to Chanak and he wasn't
+sure if there were any stores aboard." If anything could astonish the
+Trade at this late date, one would almost fancy that the apparition of
+Silas Q. Swing ("very happy to meet you, gentlemen") might have
+started a rivet or two on E11's placid skin. But she never even
+quivered. She kept a lieutenant of the name of D'Oyley Hughes, an
+expert in demolition parties; and he went aboard the tramp and
+reported <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>any quantity of stores&mdash;a six-inch gun, for instance, lashed
+across the top of the forehatch (Silas Q. Swing must have been an
+unobservant journalist), a six-inch gun-mounting in the forehold,
+pedestals for twelve-pounders thrown in as dunnage, the afterhold full
+of six-inch projectiles, and a scattering of other commodities. They
+put the demolition charge well in among the six-inch stuff, and she
+took it all to the bottom in a few minutes, after being touched off.</p>
+
+<p>"Simultaneously with the sinking of the vessel," the E11 goes on,
+"smoke was observed to the eastward." It was a steamer who had seen
+the explosion and was running for Rodosto. E11 chased her till she
+tied up to Rodosto pier, and then torpedoed her where she lay&mdash;a
+heavily laden store-ship piled high with packing-cases. The water was
+shallow here, and though E11 bumped along the bottom, which does not
+make for steadiness of aim, she was forced to show a good deal of her
+only periscope, and had it dented, but not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>damaged by rifle-fire from
+the beach. As she moved out of Rodosto Bay she saw a paddle-boat
+loaded with barbed wire, which stopped on the hail, but "as we ranged
+alongside her, attempted to ram us, but failed owing to our superior
+speed." Then she ran for the beach "very skilfully," keeping her stern
+to E11 till she drove ashore beneath some cliffs. The demolition-squad
+were just getting to work when "a party of horsemen appeared on the
+cliffs above and opened a hot fire on the conning tower." E11 got out,
+but owing to the shoal water it was some time before she could get
+under enough to fire a torpedo. The stern of a stranded paddle-boat is
+no great target and the thing exploded on the beach. Then she
+"recharged batteries and proceeded slowly on the surface towards
+Constantinople." All this between the ordinary office hours of 10
+<span class="scfake">A.M.</span> and 4 <span class="scfake">P.M.</span></p>
+
+<p>Her next day's work opens, as no pallid writer of fiction dare begin,
+thus: "Having dived unobserved into Constantinople, observed, etc."
+Her observations were rather <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>hampered by cross-tides, mud, and
+currents, as well as the vagaries of one of her own torpedoes which
+turned upside down and ran about promiscuously. It hit something at
+last, and so did another shot that she fired, but the waters by
+Constantinople Arsenal are not healthy to linger in after one has
+scared up the whole sea-front, so "turned to go out." Matters were a
+little better below, and E11 in her perilous passage might have been a
+lady of the harem tied up in a sack and thrown into the Bosporus. She
+grounded heavily; she bounced up 30 feet, was headed down again by a
+man[oe]uvre easier to shudder over than to describe, and when she came
+to rest on the bottom found herself being swivelled right round the
+compass. They watched the compass with much interest. "It was
+concluded, therefore, that the vessel (E11 is one of the few who
+speaks of herself as a 'vessel' as well as a 'boat') was resting on
+the shoal under the Leander Tower, and was being turned round by the
+current." So they corrected her, started the motors, and "bumped
+gently down into 85 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>feet of water" with no more knowledge than the
+lady in the sack where the next bump would land them.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Preening Perch</h4>
+
+<p>And the following day was spent "resting in the centre of the Sea of
+Marmara." That was their favourite preening perch between operations,
+because it gave them a chance to tidy the boat and bathe, and they
+were a cleanly people both in their methods and their persons. When
+they boarded a craft and found nothing of consequence they "parted
+with many expressions of good will," and E11 "had a good wash." She
+gives her reasons at length; for going in and out of Constantinople
+and the Straits is all in the day's work, but going dirty, you
+understand, is serious. She had "of late noticed the atmosphere in the
+boat becoming very oppressive, the reason doubtless being that there
+was a quantity of dirty linen aboard, and also the scarcity of fresh
+water necessitated a limit being placed on the frequency of personal
+washing." Hence the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>centre of the Sea of Marmara; all hands playing
+overside and as much laundry work as time and the Service allowed. One
+of the reasons, by the way, why we shall be good friends with the Turk
+again is that he has many of our ideas about decency.</p>
+
+<p>In due time E11 went back to her base. She had discovered a way of
+using unspent torpedoes twice over, which surprised the enemy, and she
+had as nearly as possible been cut down by a ship which she thought
+was running away from her. Instead of which (she made the discovery at
+three thousand yards, both craft all out) the stranger steamed
+straight at her. "The enemy then witnessed a somewhat spectacular dive
+at full speed from the surface to 20 feet in as many seconds. He then
+really did turn tail and was seen no more." Going through the Straits
+she observed an empty troopship at anchor, but reserved her torpedoes
+in the hope of picking up some battleships lower down. Not finding
+these in the Narrows, she nosed her way back and sank the trooper,
+"afterwards continuing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>journey down the Straits." Off Kilid Bahr
+something happened; she got out of trim and had to be fully flooded
+before she could be brought to her required depth. It might have been
+whirlpools under water, or&mdash;other things. (They tell a story of a boat
+which once went mad in these very waters, and for no reason
+ascertainable from within plunged to depths that contractors do not
+allow for; rocketed up again like a swordfish, and would doubtless
+have so continued till she died, had not something she had fouled
+dropped off and let her recover her composure.)</p>
+
+<p>An hour later: "Heard a noise similar to grounding. Knowing this to be
+impossible in the water in which the boat then was, I came up to 20
+feet to investigate, and observed a large mine preceding the periscope
+at a distance of about 20 feet, which was apparently hung up by its
+moorings to the port hydroplane." Hydroplanes are the fins at bow and
+stern which regulate a submarine's diving. A mine weighs anything from
+hundredweights to half-tons. Sometimes it explodes if you merely think
+about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>it; at others you can batter it like an empty sardine-tin and
+it submits meekly; but at no time is it meant to wear on a hydroplane.
+They dared not come up to unhitch it, "owing to the batteries ashore,"
+so they pushed the dim shape ahead of them till they got outside Kum
+Kale. They then went full astern, and emptied the after-tanks, which
+brought the bows down, and in this posture rose to the surface, when
+"the rush of water from the screws together with the sternway gathered
+allowed the mine to fall clear of the vessel."</p>
+
+<p>Now a fool, said Dr. Johnson, would have tried to describe that.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<h3>RAVAGES AND REPAIRS</h3>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>Before we pick up the further adventures of H.M. Submarine E14 and her
+partner E11, here is what you might call a cutting-out affair in the
+Sea of Marmara which E12 (Lieutenant-Commander K.M. Bruce) put through
+quite on the old lines.</p>
+
+<p>E12's main motors gave trouble from the first, and she seems to have
+been a cripple for most of that trip. She sighted two small steamers,
+one towing two, and the other three, sailing vessels; making seven
+keels in all. She stopped the first steamer, noticed she carried a lot
+of stores, and, moreover, that her crew&mdash;she had no boats&mdash;were all on
+deck in life-belts. Not seeing any gun, E12 ran up alongside and told
+the first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>lieutenant to board. The steamer then threw a bomb at E12,
+which struck, but luckily did not explode, and opened fire on the
+boarding-party with rifles and a concealed 1-in. gun. E12 answered
+with her six-pounder, and also with rifles. The two sailing ships in
+tow, very properly, tried to foul E12's propellers and "also opened
+fire with rifles."</p>
+
+<p>It was as Orientally mixed a fight as a man could wish: The first
+lieutenant and the boarding-party engaged on the steamer, E12 foul of
+the steamer, and being fouled by the sailing ships; the six-pounder
+methodically perforating the steamer from bow to stern; the steamer's
+1-in. gun and the rifles from the sailing ships raking everything and
+everybody else; E12's coxswain on the conning-tower passing up
+ammunition; and E12's one workable motor developing "slight defects"
+at, of course, the moment when power to man[oe]uvre was vital.</p>
+
+<p>The account is almost as difficult to disentangle as the actual mess
+must have been. At any rate, the six-pounder caused an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>explosion in
+the steamer's ammunition, whereby the steamer sank in a quarter of an
+hour, giving time&mdash;and a hot time it must have been&mdash;for E12 to get
+clear of her and to sink the two sailing ships. She then chased the
+second steamer, who slipped her three tows and ran for the shore. E12
+knocked her about a good deal with gun-fire as she fled, saw her drive
+on the beach well alight, and then, since the beach opened fire with a
+gun at 1500 yards, went away to retinker her motors and write up her
+log. She approved of her first lieutenant's behaviour "under very
+trying circumstances" (this probably refers to the explosion of the
+ammunition by the six-pounder which, doubtless, jarred the
+boarding-party) and of the cox who acted as ammunition-hoist; and of
+the gun's crew, who "all did very well" under rifle and small-gun fire
+"at a range of about ten yards." But she never says what she really
+said about her motors.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">A Brawl at a Pier</h4>
+
+<p>Now we will take E14 on various work, either alone or as flagship of a
+squadron composed of herself and Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith's boat,
+E11. Hers was a busy midsummer, and she came to be intimate with all
+sort of craft&mdash;such as the two-funnelled gunboat off Sar Kioi, who
+"fired at us, and missed as usual"; hospital ships going back and
+forth unmolested to Constantinople; "the gunboat which fired at me on
+Sunday," and other old friends, afloat and ashore.</p>
+
+<p>When the crew of the Turkish brigantine full of stores got into their
+boats by request, and then "all stood up and cursed us," E14 did not
+lose her temper, even though it was too rough to lie alongside the
+abandoned ship. She told Acting Lieutenant R.W. Lawrence, of the Royal
+Naval Reserve, to swim off to her, which he did, and after a "cursory
+search"&mdash;Who can be expected to Sherlock Holmes for hours with nothing
+on?&mdash;set fire to her "with the aid of her own matches and paraffin
+oil."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>Then E14 had a brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and
+black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the
+game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 man[oe]uvred about the
+roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion
+which strained her very badly. "I think," she muses, "I must have
+caught the moorings of a mine with my tail as I was turning, and
+exploded it. It is possible that it might have been a big shell
+bursting over us, but I think this unlikely, as we were 30 feet at the
+time." She is always a philosophical boat, anxious to arrive at the
+reason of facts, and when the game is against her she admits it
+freely.</p>
+
+<p>There was nondescript craft of a few hundred tons, who "at a distance
+did not look very warlike," but when chased suddenly played a couple
+of six-pounders and "got off two dozen rounds at us before we were
+under. Some of them were only about 20 yards off." And when a wily
+steamer, after sidling along the shore, lay up in front of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>town she
+became "indistinguishable from the houses," and so was safe because we
+do not l&ouml;westrafe open towns.</p>
+
+<p>Sailing dhows full of grain had to be destroyed. At one rendezvous,
+while waiting for E11, E14 dealt with three such cases and then "towed
+the crews inshore and gave them biscuits, beef, and rum and water, as
+they were rather wet." Passenger steamers were allowed to proceed,
+because they were "full of people of both sexes," which is an
+unkultured way of doing business.</p>
+
+<p>Here is another instance of our insular type of mind. An empty dhow is
+passed which E14 was going to leave alone, but it occurs to her that
+the boat looks "rather deserted," and she fancies she sees two heads
+in the water. So she goes back half a mile, picks up a couple of badly
+exhausted men, frightened out of their wits, gives them food and
+drink, and puts them aboard their property. Crews that jump overboard
+have to be picked up, even if, as happened in one case, there are
+twenty of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>them and one of them is a German bank manager taking a
+quantity of money to the Chanak Bank. Hospital ships are carefully
+looked over as they come and go, and are left to their own devices;
+but they are rather a nuisance because they force E14 and others to
+dive for them when engaged in stalking warrantable game. There were a
+good many hospital ships, and as far as we can make out they all
+played fair. E11 boarded one and "reported everything satisfactory."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Strange Messmates</h4>
+
+<p>A layman cannot tell from the reports which of the duties demanded the
+most work&mdash;whether the continuous clearing out of transports, dhows,
+and sailing ships, generally found close to the well-gunned and
+attentive beach, or the equally continuous attacks on armed vessels of
+every kind. Whatever else might be going on, there was always the
+problem how to arrange for the crews of sunk ships. If a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>dhow has no
+small boats, and you cannot find one handy, you have to take the crew
+aboard, where they are horribly in the way, and add to the
+oppressiveness of the atmosphere&mdash;like "the nine people, including two
+very old men," whom E14 made honorary members of her mess for several
+hours till she could put them ashore after dark. Oddly enough she
+"could not get anything out of them." Imagine nine bewildered Moslems
+suddenly decanted into the reeking clamorous bowels of a fabric
+obviously built by Shaitan himself, and surrounded by&mdash;but our people
+are people of the Book and not dog-eating Kaffirs, and I will wager a
+great deal that that little company went ashore in better heart and
+stomach than when they were passed down the conning-tower hatch.</p>
+
+<p>Then there were queer amphibious battles with troops who had to be
+shelled as they marched towards Gallipoli along the coast roads. E14
+went out with E11 on this job, early one morning, each boat taking her
+chosen section of landscape. Thrice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>E14 rose to fire, thinking she
+saw the dust of feet, but "each time it turned out to be bullocks."
+When the shelling was ended "I think the troops marching along that
+road must have been delayed and a good many killed." The Turks got up
+a field-gun in the course of the afternoon&mdash;your true believer never
+hurries&mdash;which out-ranged both boats, and they left accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>The next day she changed billets with E11, who had the luck to pick up
+and put down a battleship close to Gallipoli. It turned out to be the
+<i>Barbarossa</i>. Meantime E14 got a 5000-ton supply ship, and later had
+to burn a sailing ship loaded with 200 bales of leaf and cut
+tobacco&mdash;Turkish tobacco! Small wonder that E11 "came alongside that
+afternoon and remained for an hour"&mdash;probably making cigarettes.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Refitting under Difficulties</h4>
+
+<p>Then E14 went back to her base. She had a hellish time among the
+Dardanelles nets; was, of course, fired at by the forts, just missed a
+torpedo from the beach, scraped a mine, and when she had time to take
+stock found electric mine-wires twisted round her propellers and all
+her hull scraped and scored with wire marks. But that, again, was only
+in the day's work. The point she insisted upon was that she had been
+for seventy days in the Sea of Marmara with no securer base for refit
+than the centre of the same, and during all that while she had not had
+"any engine-room defect which has not been put right by the
+engine-room staff of the boat." The commander and the third officer
+went sick for a while; the first lieutenant got gastro-enteritis and
+was in bed (if you could see that bed!) "for the remainder of our stay
+in the Sea of Marmara," but "this boat has never been out of running
+order." The credit is ascribed to "the excellence of my chief
+engine-room artificer, James Hollier <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>Hague, O.N. 227715," whose name
+is duly submitted to the authorities "for your consideration for
+advancement to the rank of warrant officer."</p>
+
+<p>Seventy days of every conceivable sort of risk, within and without, in
+a boat which is all engine-room, except where she is sick-bay; twelve
+thousand miles covered since last overhaul and "never out of running
+order"&mdash;thanks to Mr. Hague. Such artists as he are the kind of
+engine-room artificers that commanders intrigue to get hold of&mdash;each
+for his own boat&mdash;and when the tales are told in the Trade, their
+names, like Abou Ben Adhem's, lead all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know the exact line of demarcation between engine-room and
+gunnery repairs, but I imagine it is faint and fluid. E11, for
+example, while she was helping E14 to shell a beached steamer, smashed
+half her gun-mounting, "the gun-layer being thrown overboard, and the
+gun nearly following him." However, the mischief was repaired in the
+next twenty-four hours, which, considering the very limited deck space
+of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>submarine, means that all hands must have been moderately busy.
+One hopes that they had not to dive often during the job.</p>
+
+<p>But worse is to come. E2 (Commander D. Stocks) carried an externally
+mounted gun which, while she was diving up the Dardanelles on
+business, got hung up in the wires and stays of a net. She saw them
+through the conning-tower scuttles at a depth of 80 ft&mdash;one wire
+hawser round the gun, another round the conning-tower, and so on.
+There was a continuous crackling of small explosions overhead which
+she thought were charges aimed at her by the guard-boats who watch the
+nets. She considered her position for a while, backed, got up steam,
+barged ahead, and shore through the whole affair in one wild surge.
+Imagine the roof of a navigable cottage after it has snapped telegraph
+lines with its chimney, and you will get a small idea of what happens
+to the hull of a submarine when she uses her gun to break wire hawsers
+with.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Trouble with a Gun</h4>
+
+<p>E2 was a wet, strained, and uncomfortable boat for the rest of her
+cruise. She sank steamers, burned dhows; was worried by torpedo-boats
+and hunted by Hun planes; hit bottom freely and frequently; silenced
+forts that fired at her from lonely beaches; warned villages who might
+have joined in the game that they had better keep to farming; shelled
+railway lines and stations; would have shelled a pier, but found there
+was a hospital built at one end of it, "so could not bombard"; came
+upon dhows crowded with "female refugees" which she "allowed to
+proceed," and was presented with fowls in return; but through it all
+her chief preoccupation was that racked and strained gun and mounting.
+When there was nothing else doing she reports sourly that she "worked
+on gun." As a philosopher of the lower deck put it: "'Tisn't what you
+blanky <i>do</i> that matters, it's what you blanky <i>have</i> to do." In other
+words, worry, not work, kills.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>E2's gun did its best to knock the heart out of them all. She had to
+shift the wretched thing twice; once because the bolts that held it
+down were smashed (the wire hawser must have pretty well pulled it off
+its seat), and again because the hull beneath it leaked on pressure.
+She went down to make sure of it. But she drilled and tapped and
+adjusted, till in a short time the gun worked again and killed
+steamers as it should. Meanwhile, the whole boat leaked. All the
+plates under the old gun-position forward leaked; she leaked aft
+through damaged hydroplane guards, and on her way home they had to
+keep the water down by hand pumps while she was diving through the
+nets. Where she did not leak outside she leaked internally, tank
+leaking into tank, so that the petrol got into the main fresh-water
+supply and the men had to be put on allowance. The last pint was
+served out when she was in the narrowest part of the Narrows, a place
+where one's mouth may well go dry of a sudden.</p>
+
+<p>Here for the moment the records end. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>have been at some pains not to
+pick and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any
+of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have
+made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied
+actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a
+finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They
+were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to
+boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of
+business to the safe, unexploding beach. Sometimes they part from
+their chaperones "with many expressions of good will," at others they
+seem greatly relieved and rather surprised at not being knocked on the
+head after the custom of their Allies. But the boats with a hundred
+things on their minds no more take credit for their humanity than
+their commanders explain the feats for which they won their respective
+decorations.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="DESTROYERS_AT_JUTLAND" id="DESTROYERS_AT_JUTLAND"></a><hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+<h3>DESTROYERS AT JUTLAND</h3>
+
+<h3>(1916)</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i01">"Have you news of my boy Jack?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not this tide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i01">"When d'you think that he'll come back?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i01">"Has any one else had word of him?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not this tide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For what is sunk will hardly swim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not with this wind blowing and this tide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i01">"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">None this tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor any tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Except he didn't shame his kind<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not even with that wind blowing and that tide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then hold your head up all the more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And every tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because he was the son you bore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<h3>STORIES OF THE BATTLE</h3>
+
+<h4>CRIPPLE AND PARALYTIC</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>There was much destroyer-work in the Battle of Jutland. The actual
+battle field may not have been more than twenty thousand square miles,
+but the incidental patrols, from first to last, must have covered many
+times that area. Doubtless the next generation will comb out every
+detail of it. All we need remember is there were many squadrons of
+battleships and cruisers engaged over the face of the North Sea, and
+that they were accompanied in their dread comings and goings by
+multitudes of destroyers, who attacked the enemy both by day and by
+night from the afternoon of May 31 to the morning of June 1, 1916. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>We
+are too close to the gigantic canvas to take in the meaning of the
+picture; our children stepping backward through the years may get the
+true perspective and proportions.</p>
+
+<p>To recapitulate what every one knows.</p>
+
+<p>The German fleet came out of its North Sea ports, scouting ships
+ahead; then destroyers, cruisers, battle-cruisers, and, last, the main
+battle fleet in the rear. It moved north, parallel with the coast of
+stolen Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland. Our fleets were already out;
+the main battle fleet (Admiral Jellicoe) sweeping down from the north,
+and our battle-cruiser fleet (Admiral Beatty) feeling for the enemy.
+Our scouts came in contact with the enemy on the afternoon of May 31
+about 100 miles off the Jutland coast, steering north-west. They
+satisfied themselves he was in strength, and reported accordingly to
+our battle-cruiser fleet, which engaged the enemy's battle-cruisers at
+about half-past three o'clock. The enemy steered south-east to rejoin
+their own fleet, which was coming up from that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>quarter. We fought him
+on a parallel course as he ran for more than an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Then his battle-fleet came in sight, and Beatty's fleet went about and
+steered north-west in order to retire on our battle-fleet, which was
+hurrying down from the north. We returned fighting very much over the
+same waters as we had used in our slant south. The enemy up till now
+had lain to the eastward of us, whereby he had the advantage in that
+thick weather of seeing our hulls clear against the afternoon light,
+while he himself worked in the mists. We then steered a little to the
+north-west bearing him off towards the east till at six o'clock Beatty
+had headed the enemy's leading ships and our main battle-fleet came in
+sight from the north. The enemy broke back in a loop, first eastward,
+then south, then south-west as our fleet edged him off from the land,
+and our main battle-fleet, coming up behind them, followed in their
+wake. Thus for a while we had the enemy to westward of us, where he
+made a better mark; but the day was closing and the weather
+thickened, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>and the enemy wanted to get away. At a quarter past eight
+the enemy, still heading south-west, was covered by his destroyers in
+a great screen of grey smoke, and he got away.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Night and Morning</h4>
+
+<p>As darkness fell, our fleets lay between the enemy and his home ports.
+During the night our heavy ships, keeping well clear of possible
+mine-fields, swept down south to south and west of the Horns Reef, so
+that they might pick him up in the morning. When morning came our main
+fleet could find no trace of the enemy to the southward, but our
+destroyer-flotillas further north had been very busy with enemy ships,
+apparently running for the Horns Reef Channel. It looks, then, as if
+when we lost sight of the enemy in the smoke screen and the darkness
+he had changed course and broken for home astern our main fleets. And
+whether that was a sound man[oe]uvre or otherwise, he and the still
+flows of the North Sea alone can tell.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>But how is a layman to give any coherent account of an affair where a
+whole country's coast-line was background to battle covering
+geographical degrees? The records give an impression of illimitable
+grey waters, nicked on their uncertain horizons with the smudge and
+blur of ships sparkling with fury against ships hidden under the curve
+of the world. One sees these distances maddeningly obscured by walking
+mists and weak fogs, or wiped out by layers of funnel and gun smoke,
+and realises how, at the pace the ships were going, anything might be
+stumbled upon in the haze or charge out of it when it lifted. One
+comprehends, too, how the far-off glare of a great vessel afire might
+be reported as a local fire on a near-by enemy, or <i>vice versa</i>; how a
+silhouette caught, for an instant, in a shaft of pale light let down
+from the low sky might be fatally difficult to identify till too late.
+But add to all these inevitable confusions and misreckonings of time,
+shape, and distance, charges at every angle of squadrons through and
+across other squadrons; sudden shifts of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>centres of the fights,
+and even swifter restorations; wheelings, sweepings, and regroupments
+such as accompany the passage across space of colliding universes.
+Then blanket the whole inferno with the darkness of night at full
+speed, and&mdash;see what you can make of it.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Three Destroyers</h4>
+
+<p>A little time after the action began to heat up between our
+battle-cruisers and the enemy's, eight or ten of our destroyers opened
+the ball for their branch of the service by breaking up the attack of
+an enemy light cruiser and fifteen destroyers. Of these they accounted
+for at least two destroyers&mdash;some think more&mdash;and drove the others
+back on their battle-cruisers. This scattered that fight a good deal
+over the sea. Three of our destroyers held on for the enemy's
+battle-fleet, who came down on them at ranges which eventually grew
+less than 3000 yards. Our people ought to have been lifted off the
+seas bodily, but they managed to fire a couple <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>of torpedoes apiece
+while the range was diminishing. They had no illusions. Says one of
+the three, speaking of her second shot, which she loosed at fairly
+close range, "This torpedo was fired because it was considered very
+unlikely that the ship would escape disablement before another
+opportunity offered." But still they lived&mdash;three destroyers against
+all a battle-cruiser fleet's quick-firers, as well as the fire of a
+batch of enemy destroyers at 600 yards. And they were thankful for
+small mercies. "The position being favourable," a third torpedo was
+fired from each while they yet floated.</p>
+
+<p>At 2500 yards, one destroyer was hit somewhere in the vitals and
+swerved badly across her next astern, who "was obliged to alter course
+to avoid a collision, thereby failing to fire a fourth torpedo." Then
+that next astern "observed signal for destroyers' recall," and went
+back to report to her flotilla captain&mdash;alone. Of her two companions,
+one was "badly hit and remained stopped between the lines." The other
+"remained stopped, but was afloat when last seen." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Ships that "remain
+stopped" are liable to be rammed or sunk by methodical gun-fire. That
+was, perhaps, fifty minutes' work put in before there was any really
+vicious "edge" to the action, and it did not steady the nerves of the
+enemy battle-cruisers any more than another attack made by another
+detachment of ours.</p>
+
+<p>"What does one do when one passes a ship that 'remains stopped'?" I
+asked of a youth who had had experience.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing special. They cheer, and you cheer back. One doesn't think
+about it till afterwards. You see, it may be your luck in another
+minute."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Luck</h4>
+
+<p>There were many other torpedo attacks in all parts of the battle that
+misty afternoon, including a quaint episode of an enemy light cruiser
+who "looked as if she were trying" to torpedo one of our
+battle-cruisers while the latter was particularly engaged. A destroyer
+of ours, returning <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>from a special job which required delicacy, was
+picking her way back at 30 knots through batches of enemy
+battle-cruisers and light cruisers with the idea of attaching herself
+to the nearest destroyer-flotilla and making herself useful. It
+occurred to her that as she "was in a most advantageous position for
+repelling enemy's destroyers endeavouring to attack, she could not do
+better than to remain on the 'engaged bow' of our battle-cruiser." So
+she remained and considered things.</p>
+
+<p>There was an enemy battle-cruiser squadron in the offing; with several
+enemy light cruisers ahead of that squadron, and the weather was
+thickish and deceptive. She sighted the enemy light cruiser, "class
+uncertain," only a few thousand yards away, and "decided to attack her
+in order to frustrate her firing torpedoes at our Battle Fleet." (This
+in case the authorities should think that light cruiser wished to buy
+rubber.) So she fell upon the light cruiser with every gun she had, at
+between two and four thousand yards, and secured a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>number of hits,
+just the same as at target practice. While thus occupied she sighted
+out of the mist a squadron of enemy battle-cruisers that had worried
+her earlier in the afternoon. Leaving the light cruiser, she closed to
+what she considered a reasonable distance of the newcomers, and let
+them have, as she thought, both her torpedoes. She possessed an active
+Acting Sub-Lieutenant, who, though officers of that rank think
+otherwise, is not very far removed from an ordinary midshipman of the
+type one sees in tow of relatives at the Army and Navy Stores. He sat
+astride one of the tubes to make quite sure things were in order, and
+fired when the sights came on.</p>
+
+<p><i>But</i>, at that very moment, a big shell hit the destroyer on the side
+and there was a tremendous escape of steam. Believing&mdash;since she had
+seen one torpedo leave the tube before the smash came&mdash;believing that
+both her tubes had been fired, the destroyer turned away "at greatly
+reduced speed" (the shell reduced it), and passed, quite reasonably
+close, the light cruiser <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>whom she had been hammering so faithfully
+till the larger game appeared. Meantime, the Sub-Lieutenant was
+exploring what damage had been done by the big shell. He discovered
+that only <i>one</i> of the two torpedoes had left the tubes, and
+"observing enemy light cruiser beam on and apparently temporarily
+stopped," he fired the providential remainder at her, and it hit her
+below the conning-tower and well and truly exploded, as was witnessed
+by the Sub-Lieutenant himself, the Commander, a leading signalman, and
+several other ratings. Luck continued to hold! The Acting
+Sub-Lieutenant further reported that "we still had three torpedoes
+left and at the same time drew my attention to enemy's line of
+battleships." They rather looked as if they were coming down with
+intent to assault. So the Sub-Lieutenant fired the rest of the
+torpedoes, which at least started off correctly from the shell-shaken
+tubes, and must have crossed the enemy's line. When torpedoes turn up
+among a squadron, they upset the steering and distract the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>attention
+of all concerned. Then the destroyer judged it time to take stock of
+her injuries. Among other minor defects she could neither steam,
+steer, nor signal.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Towing under Difficulties</h4>
+
+<p>Mark how virtue is rewarded! Another of our destroyers an hour or so
+previously had been knocked clean out of action, before she had done
+anything, by a big shell which gutted a boiler-room and started an oil
+fire. (That is the drawback to oil.) She crawled out between the
+battleships till she "reached an area of comparative calm" and
+repaired damage. She says: "The fire having been dealt with it was
+found a mat kept the stokehold dry. My only trouble now being lack of
+speed, I looked round for useful employment, and saw a destroyer in
+great difficulties, so closed her." That destroyer was our paralytic
+friend of the intermittent torpedo-tubes, and a grateful ship she was
+when her crippled sister (but still good for a few knots) offered her
+a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>tow, "under very trying conditions with large enemy ships
+approaching." So the two set off together, Cripple and Paralytic, with
+heavy shells falling round them, as sociable as a couple of lame
+hounds. Cripple worked up to 12 knots, and the weather grew vile, and
+the tow parted. Paralytic, by this time, had raised steam in a boiler
+or two, and made shift to get along slowly on her own, Cripple
+hirpling beside her, till Paralytic could not make any more headway in
+that rising sea, and Cripple had to tow her once more. Once more the
+tow parted. So they tied Paralytic up rudely and effectively with a
+cable round her after bollards and gun (presumably because of strained
+forward bulkheads) and hauled her stern-first, through heavy seas, at
+continually reduced speeds, doubtful of their position, unable to
+sound because of the seas, and much pestered by a wind which backed
+without warning, till, at last, they made land, and turned into the
+hospital appointed for brave wounded ships. Everybody speaks well of
+Cripple. Her name crops <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>up in several reports, with such compliments
+as the men of the sea use when they see good work. She herself speaks
+well of her Lieutenant, who, as executive officer, "took charge of the
+fire and towing arrangements in a very creditable manner," and also of
+Tom Battye and Thomas Kerr, engine-room artificer and stoker petty
+officer, who "were in the stokehold at the time of the shell striking,
+and performed cool and prompt decisive action, although both suffering
+from shock and slight injuries."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Useful Employment</h4>
+
+<p>Have you ever noticed that men who do Homeric deeds often describe
+them in Homeric language? The sentence "I looked round for useful
+employment" is worthy of Ulysses when "there was an evil sound at the
+ships of men who perished and of the ships themselves broken at the
+same time."</p>
+
+<p>Roughly, very roughly, speaking, our destroyers enjoyed three phases
+of "prompt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>decisive action"&mdash;the first, a period of daylight attacks
+(from 4 to 6 <span class="scfake">P.M.</span>) such as the one I have just described,
+while the battle was young and the light fairly good on the afternoon
+of May 31; the second, towards dark, when the light had lessened and
+the enemy were more uneasy, and, I think, in more scattered formation;
+the third, when darkness had fallen, and the destroyers had been
+strung out astern with orders to help the enemy home, which they did
+all night as opportunity offered. One cannot say whether the day or
+the night work was the more desperate. From private advices, the young
+gentlemen concerned seem to have functioned with efficiency either
+way. As one of them said: "After a bit, you see, we were all pretty
+much on our own, and you could really find out what your ship could
+do."</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you later of a piece of night work not without merit.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<h3>THE NIGHT HUNT</h3>
+
+<h4>RAMMING AN ENEMY CRUISER</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>As I said, we will confine ourselves to something quite sane and
+simple which does not involve more than half-a-dozen different
+reports.</p>
+
+<p>When the German fleet ran for home, on the night of May 31, it seems
+to have scattered&mdash;"starred," I believe, is the word for the
+evolution&mdash;in a general <i>sauve qui peut</i>, while the Devil, livelily
+represented by our destroyers, took the hindmost. Our flotillas were
+strung out far and wide on this job. One man compared it to hounds
+hunting half a hundred separate foxes.</p>
+
+<p>I take the adventures of several couples <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>of destroyers who, on the
+night of May 31, were nosing along somewhere towards the
+Schleswig-Holstein coast, ready to chop any Hun-stuff coming back to
+earth by that particular road. The leader of one line was Gehenna, and
+the next two ships astern of her were Eblis and Shaitan, in the order
+given. There were others, of course, but with the exception of one
+Goblin they don't come violently into this tale. There had been a good
+deal of promiscuous firing that evening, and actions were going on all
+round. Towards midnight our destroyers were overtaken by several
+three-and four-funnel German ships (cruisers they thought) hurrying
+home. At this stage of the game anybody might have been
+anybody&mdash;pursuer or pursued. The Germans took no chances, but switched
+on their searchlights and opened fire on Gehenna. Her acting
+sub-lieutenant reports: "A salvo hit us forward. I opened fire with
+the after-guns. A shell then struck us in a steam-pipe, and I could
+see nothing but steam. But both starboard torpedo-tubes were fired."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>Eblis, Gehenna's next astern, at once fired a torpedo at the second
+ship in the German line, a four-funnelled cruiser, and hit her between
+the second funnel and the mainmast, when "she appeared to catch fire
+fore and aft simultaneously, heeled right over to starboard, and
+undoubtedly sank." Eblis loosed off a second torpedo and turned aside
+to reload, firing at the same time to distract the enemy's attention
+from Gehenna, who was now ablaze fore and aft. Gehenna's acting
+sub-lieutenant (the only executive officer who survived) says that by
+the time the steam from the broken pipe cleared he found Gehenna
+stopped, nearly everybody amidships killed or wounded, the
+cartridge-boxes round the guns exploding one after the other as the
+fires took hold, and the enemy not to be seen. Three minutes or less
+did all that damage. Eblis had nearly finished reloading when a shot
+struck the davit that was swinging her last torpedo into the tube and
+wounded all hands concerned. Thereupon she dropped torpedo work, fired
+at an enemy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>searchlight which winked and went out, and was closing in
+to help Gehenna when she found herself under the noses of a couple of
+enemy cruisers. "The nearer one," he says, "altered course to ram me
+apparently." The Senior Service writes in curiously lawyer-like
+fashion, but there is no denying that they act quite directly. "I
+therefore put my helm hard aport and the two ships met and rammed each
+other, port bow to port bow." There could have been no time to think
+and, for Eblis's commander on the bridge, none to gather information.
+But he had observant subordinates, and he writes&mdash;and I would humbly
+suggest that the words be made the ship's motto for evermore&mdash;he
+writes, "Those aft noted" that the enemy cruiser had certain marks on
+her funnel and certain arrangements of derricks on each side which,
+quite apart from the evidence she left behind her, betrayed her class.
+Eblis and she met. Says Eblis: "I consider I must have considerably
+damaged this cruiser, as 20 feet of her side plating was left in my
+foc'sle." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>Twenty feet of ragged rivet-slinging steel, razoring and
+reaping about in the dark on a foc'sle that had collapsed like a
+concertina! It was very fair plating too. There were side-scuttle
+holes in it&mdash;what we passengers would call portholes. But it might
+have been better, for Eblis reports sorrowfully, "by the thickness of
+the coats of paint (duly given in 32nds of the inch) she would not
+appear to have been a very new ship."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">A Fugitive on Fire</h4>
+
+<p>New or old, the enemy had done her best. She had completely demolished
+Eblis's bridge and searchlight platform, brought down the mast and the
+fore-funnel, ruined the whaler and the dinghy, split the foc'sle open
+above water from the stem to the galley which is abaft the bridge, and
+below water had opened it up from the stem to the second bulkhead. She
+had further ripped off Eblis's skin-plating for an amazing number of
+yards on one side of her, and had fired a couple of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>large-calibre
+shells into Eblis at point-blank range, narrowly missing her vitals.
+Even so, Eblis is as impartial as a prize-court. She reports that the
+second shot, a trifle of eight inches, "may have been fired at a
+different time or just after colliding." But the night was yet young,
+and "just after getting clear of this cruiser an enemy battle-cruiser
+grazed past our stern at high speed" and again the judgmatic mind&mdash;"I
+think she must have intended to ram us." She was a large
+three-funnelled thing, her centre funnel shot away and "lights were
+flickering under her foc'sle as if she was on fire forward." Fancy the
+vision of her, hurtling out of the dark, red-lighted from within, and
+fleeing on like a man with his throat cut!</p>
+
+<p>[As an interlude, all enemy cruisers that night were not keen on
+ramming. They wanted to get home. A man I know who was on another part
+of the drive saw a covey bolt through our destroyers; and had just
+settled himself for a shot at one of them when the night threw up a
+second bird coming down full speed on his other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>beam. He had bare
+time to jink between the two as they whizzed past. One switched on her
+searchlight and fired a whole salvo at him point blank. The heavy
+stuff went between his funnels. She must have sighted along her own
+beam of light, which was about a thousand yards.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you feel?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I was rather sick. It was my best chance all that night, and I had to
+miss it or be cut in two."</p>
+
+<p>"What happened to the cruisers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they went on, and I heard 'em being attended to by some of our
+fellows. They didn't know what they were doing, or they couldn't have
+missed me sitting, the way they did.]</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Confidential Books</h4>
+
+<p>After all that Eblis picked herself up, and discovered that she was
+still alive, with a dog's chance of getting to port. But she did not
+bank on it. That grand slam had wrecked the bridge, pinning the
+commander <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>under the wreckage. By the time he had extricated himself
+he "considered it advisable to throw overboard the steel chest and
+dispatch-box of confidential and secret books." These are never
+allowed to fall into strange hands, and their proper disposal is the
+last step but one in the ritual of the burial service of His Majesty's
+ships at sea. Gehenna, afire and sinking, out somewhere in the dark,
+was going through it on her own account. This is her Acting
+Sub-Lieutenant's report: "The confidential books were got up. The
+First Lieutenant gave the order: 'Every man aft,' and the confidential
+books were thrown overboard. The ship soon afterwards heeled over to
+starboard and the bows went under. The First Lieutenant gave the
+order: 'Everybody for themselves.' The ship sank in about a minute,
+the stern going straight up into the air."</p>
+
+<p>But it was not written in the Book of Fate that stripped and battered
+Eblis should die that night as Gehenna died. After the burial of the
+books it was found <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>that the several fires on her were manageable,
+that she "was not making water aft of the damage," which meant
+two-thirds of her were, more or less, in commission, and, best of all,
+that three boilers were usable in spite of the cruiser's shells. So
+she "shaped course and speed to make the least water and the most
+progress towards land." On the way back the wind shifted eight points
+without warning&mdash;it was this shift, if you remember, that so
+embarrassed Cripple and Paralytic on their homeward crawl&mdash;and, what
+with one thing and another, Eblis was unable to make port till the
+scandalously late hour of noon on June 2, "the mutual ramming having
+occurred about 11.40 <span class="scfake">P.M.</span> on May 31." She says, this time
+without any legal reservation whatever, "I cannot speak too highly of
+the courage, discipline, and devotion of the officers and ship's
+company."</p>
+
+<p>Her recommendations are a Compendium of Godly Deeds for the Use of
+Mariners. They cover pretty much all that man may be expected to do.
+There was, as there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>always is, a first lieutenant who, while his
+commander was being extricated from the bridge wreckage, took charge
+of affairs and steered the ship first from the engine-room, or what
+remained of it, and later from aft, and otherwise man[oe]uvred as
+requisite, among doubtful bulkheads. In his leisure he "improvised
+means of signalling," and if there be not one joyous story behind that
+smooth sentence I am a Hun!</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Art of Improvising</h4>
+
+<p>They all improvised like the masters of craft they were. The chief
+engine-room artificer, after he had helped to put out fires,
+improvised stops to the gaps which were left by the carrying away of
+the forward funnel and mast. He got and kept up steam "to a much
+higher point than would have appeared at all possible," and when the
+sea rose, as it always does if you are in trouble, he "improvised
+pumping and drainage arrangements, thus allowing the ship to steam at
+a good speed on the whole." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>There could not have been more than 40
+feet of hole.</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon&mdash;a probationer&mdash;performed an amputation single-handed in
+the wreckage by the bridge, and by his "wonderful skill, resource, and
+unceasing care and devotion undoubtedly saved the lives of the many
+seriously wounded men." That no horror might be lacking, there was "a
+short circuit among the bridge wreckage for a considerable time." The
+searchlight and wireless were tangled up together, and the electricity
+leaked into everything.</p>
+
+<p>There were also three wise men who saved the ship whose names must not
+be forgotten. They were Chief Engine-room Artificer Lee, Stoker Petty
+Officer Gardiner, and Stoker Elvins. When the funnel carried away it
+was touch and go whether the foremost boiler would not explode. These
+three "put on respirators and kept the fans going till all fumes,
+etc., were cleared away." To each man, you will observe, his own
+particular Hell which he entered of his own particular initiative.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>Lastly, there were the two remaining Quartermasters&mdash;mutinous dogs,
+both of 'em&mdash;one wounded in the right hand and the other in the left,
+who took the wheel between them all the way home, thus improvising one
+complete Navy-pattern Quartermaster, and "refused to be relieved
+during the whole thirty-six hours before the ship returned to port."
+So Eblis passes out of the picture with "never a moan or complaint
+from a single wounded man, and in spite of the rough weather of June
+1st they all remained cheery." They had one Hun cruiser, torpedoed, to
+their credit, and strong evidence abroad that they had knocked the end
+out of another.</p>
+
+<p>But Gehenna went down, and those of her crew who remained hung on to
+the rafts that destroyers carry till they were picked up about the
+dawn by Shaitan, third in the line, who, at that hour, was in no shape
+to give much help. Here is Shaitan's tale. She saw the unknown
+cruisers overtake the flotilla, saw their leader switch on
+searchlights and open fire as she drew abreast of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>Gehenna, and at
+once fired a torpedo at the third German ship. Shaitan could not see
+Eblis, her next ahead, for, as we know, Eblis after firing her
+torpedoes had hauled off to reload. When the enemy switched his
+searchlights off Shaitan hauled out too. It is not wholesome for
+destroyers to keep on the same course within a thousand yards of big
+enemy cruisers.</p>
+
+<p>She picked up a destroyer of another division, Goblin, who for the
+moment had not been caught by the enemy's searchlights and had
+profited by this decent obscurity to fire a torpedo at the hindmost of
+the cruisers. Almost as Shaitan took station behind Goblin the latter
+was lighted up by a large ship and heavily fired at. The enemy fled,
+but she left Goblin out of control, with a grisly list of casualties,
+and her helm jammed. Goblin swerved, returned, and swerved again;
+Shaitan astern tried to clear her, and the two fell aboard each other,
+Goblin's bows deep in Shaitan's fore-bridge. While they hung thus,
+locked, an unknown destroyer rammed Shaitan aft, cutting off <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>several
+feet of her stern and leaving her rudder jammed hard over. As complete
+a mess as the Personal Devil himself could have devised, and all due
+to the merest accident of a few panicky salvoes. Presently the two
+ships worked clear in a smother of steam and oil, and went their
+several ways. Quite a while after she had parted from Shaitan, Goblin
+discovered several of Shaitan's people, some of them wounded, on her
+own foc'sle, where they had been pitched by the collision. Goblin,
+working her way homeward on such boilers as remained, carried on a
+one-gun fight at a few cables' distance with some enemy destroyers,
+who, not knowing what state she was in, sheered off after a few
+rounds. Shaitan, holed forward and opened up aft, came across the
+survivors from Gehenna clinging to their raft, and took them aboard.
+Then some of our destroyers&mdash;they were thick on the sea that
+night&mdash;tried to tow her stern-first, for Goblin had cut her up badly
+forward. But, since Shaitan lacked any stern, and her rudder was
+jammed hard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>across where the stern should have been, the hawsers
+parted, and, after leave asked of lawful authority, across all that
+waste of waters, they sank Shaitan by gun-fire, having first taken all
+the proper steps about the confidential books. Yet Shaitan had had her
+little crumb of comfort ere the end. While she lay crippled she saw
+quite close to her a German cruiser that was trailing homeward in the
+dawn gradually heel over and sink.</p>
+
+<p>This completes my version of the various accounts of the four
+destroyers directly concerned for a few hours, on one minute section
+of one wing of our battle. Other ships witnessed other aspects of the
+agony and duly noted them as they went about their business. One of
+our battleships, for instance, made out by the glare of burning
+Gehenna that the supposed cruiser that Eblis torpedoed was a German
+battleship of a certain class. So Gehenna did not die in vain, and we
+may take it that the discovery did not unduly depress Eblis's wounded
+in hospital.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Asking for Trouble</h4>
+
+<p>The rest of the flotilla that the four destroyers belonged to had
+their own adventures later. One of them, chasing or being chased, saw
+Goblin out of control just before Goblin and Shaitan locked, and
+narrowly escaped adding herself to that triple collision. Another
+loosed a couple of torpedoes at the enemy ships who were attacking
+Gehenna, which, perhaps, accounts for the anxiety of the enemy to
+break away from that hornets' nest as soon as possible. Half a dozen
+or so of them ran into four German battleships, which they set about
+torpedoing at ranges varying from half a mile to a mile and a half. It
+was asking for trouble and they got it; but they got in return at
+least one big ship, and the same observant battleship of ours who
+identified Eblis's bird reported <i>three</i> satisfactory explosions in
+half an hour, followed by a glare that lit up all the sky. One of the
+flotilla, closing on what she thought was the smoke of a sister in
+difficulties, found herself well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>in among the four battleships. "It
+was too late to get away," she says, so she attacked, fired her
+torpedo, was caught up in the glare of a couple of searchlights, and
+pounded to pieces in five minutes, not even her rafts being left. She
+went down with her colours flying, having fought to the last available
+gun.</p>
+
+<p>Another destroyer who had borne a hand in Gehenna's trouble had her
+try at the four battleships and got in a torpedo at 800 yards. She saw
+it explode and the ship take a heavy list. "Then I was chased," which
+is not surprising. She picked up a friend who could only do 20 knots.
+They sighted several Hun destroyers who fled from them; then dropped
+on to four Hun destroyers all together, who made great parade of
+commencing action, but soon afterwards "thought better of it, and
+turned away." So you see, in that flotilla alone there was every
+variety of fight, from the ordered attacks of squadrons under control,
+to single ship affairs, every turn of which depended on the second's
+decision of the men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>concerned; endurance to the hopeless end; bluff
+and cunning; reckless advance and red-hot flight; clear vision and as
+much of blank bewilderment as the Senior Service permits its children
+to indulge in. That is not much. When a destroyer who has been dodging
+enemy torpedoes and gun-fire in the dark realises about midnight that
+she is "following a strange British flotilla, having lost sight of my
+own," she "decides to remain with them," and shares their fortunes and
+whatever language is going.</p>
+
+<p>If lost hounds could speak when they cast up next day, after an
+unchecked night among the wild life of the dark, they would talk much
+as our destroyers do.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The doorkeepers of Zion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They do not always stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In helmet and whole armour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With halberds in their hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, being sure of Zion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And all her mysteries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They rest awhile in Zion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sit down and smile in Zion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ay, even jest in Zion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In Zion, at their ease.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The gatekeepers of Baal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They dare not sit or lean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But fume and fret and posture<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And foam and curse between;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For being bound to Baal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose sacrifice is vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their rest is scant with Baal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They glare and pant for Baal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They mouth and rant for Baal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For Baal in their pain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">But we will go to Zion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By choice and not through dread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With these our present comrades<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And those our present dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, being free of Zion<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In both her fellowships,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sit down and sup in Zion&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stand up and drink in Zion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whatever cup in Zion<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is offered to our lips!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<h3>THE MEANING OF "JOSS"</h3>
+
+<h4>A YOUNG OFFICER'S LETTER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>As one digs deeper into the records, one sees the various temperaments
+of men revealing themselves through all the formal wording. One
+commander may be an expert in torpedo-work, whose first care is how
+and where his shots went, and whether, under all circumstances of
+pace, light, and angle, the best had been achieved. Destroyers do not
+carry unlimited stocks of torpedoes. It rests with commanders whether
+they shall spend with a free hand at first or save for night-work
+ahead&mdash;risk a possible while he is yet afloat, or hang on coldly for a
+certainty. So in the old whaling days did the harponeer bring up or
+back off his boat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>till some shift of the great fish's bulk gave him
+sure opening at the deep-seated life.</p>
+
+<p>And then comes the question of private judgment. "I thought so-and-so
+would happen. Therefore, I did thus and thus." Things may or may not
+turn out as anticipated, but that is merely another of the million
+chances of the sea. Take a case in point. A flotilla of our destroyers
+sighted six (there had been eight the previous afternoon) German
+battleships of Kingly and Imperial caste very early in the morning of
+the 1st June, and duly attacked. At first our people ran parallel to
+the enemy, then, as far as one can make out, headed them and swept
+round sharp to the left, firing torpedoes from their port or left-hand
+tubes. Between them they hit a battleship, which went up in flame and
+<i>d&eacute;bris</i>. But one of the flotilla had not turned with the rest. She
+had anticipated that the attack would be made on another quarter, and,
+for certain technical reasons, she was not ready. When she was, she
+turned, and single-handed&mdash;the rest of the flotilla having finished
+and gone <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>on&mdash;carried out two attacks on the five remaining
+battleships. She got one of them amidships, causing a terrific
+explosion and flame above the masthead, which signifies that the
+magazine has been touched off. She counted the battleships when the
+smoke had cleared, and there were but four of them. She herself was
+not hit, though shots fell close. She went her way, and, seeing
+nothing of her sisters, picked up another flotilla and stayed with it
+till the end. Do I make clear the maze of blind hazard and wary
+judgment in which our men of the sea must move?</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Saved by a Smoke Screen</h4>
+
+<p>Some of the original flotilla were chased and headed about by cruisers
+after their attack on the six battleships, and a single shell from
+battleship or cruiser reduced one of them to such a condition that she
+was brought home by her sub-lieutenant and a midshipman. Her captain,
+first lieutenant, gunner, torpedo coxswain, and both <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>signalmen were
+either killed or wounded; the bridge, with charts, instruments, and
+signalling gear went; all torpedoes were expended; a gun was out of
+action, and the usual cordite fires developed. Luckily, the engines
+were workable. She escaped under cover of a smoke-screen, which is an
+unbearably filthy outpouring of the densest smoke, made by increasing
+the proportion of oil to air in the furnace-feed. It rolls forth from
+the funnels looking solid enough to sit upon, spreads in a
+searchlight-proof pat of impenetrable beastliness, and in still
+weather hangs for hours. But it saved that ship.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to note the subdued tone of a boy's report when by some
+accident of slaughter he is raised to command. There are certain
+formalities which every ship must comply with on entering certain
+ports. No fully-striped commander would trouble to detail them any
+more than he would the aspect of his Club porter. The young 'un puts
+it all down, as who should say: "I rang the bell, wiped my feet on the
+mat, and asked if they were at home." He is most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>careful of the port
+proprieties, and since he will be sub. again to-morrow, and all his
+equals will tell him exactly how he ought to have handled her, he
+almost apologises for the steps he took&mdash;deeds which ashore might be
+called cool or daring.</p>
+
+<p>The Senior Service does not gush. There are certain formulae
+appropriate to every occasion. One of our destroyers, who was knocked
+out early in the day and lay helpless, was sighted by several of her
+companions. One of them reported her to the authorities, but, being
+busy at the time, said he did not think himself justified in hampering
+himself with a disabled ship in the middle of an action. It was not as
+if she was sinking either. She was only holed foreward and aft, with a
+bad hit in the engine-room, and her steering-gear knocked out. In this
+posture she cheered the passing ships, and set about repairing her
+hurts with good heart and a smiling countenance. She managed to get
+under some sort of way at midnight, and next day was taken in tow by a
+friend. She says officially, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>"his assistance was invaluable, as I had
+no oil left and met heavy weather."</p>
+
+<p>What actually happened was much less formal. Fleet destroyers, as a
+rule, do not worry about navigation. They take their orders from the
+flagship, and range out and return, on signal, like sheep-dogs whose
+fixed point is their shepherd. Consequently, when they break loose on
+their own they may fetch up rather doubtful of their whereabouts&mdash;as
+this injured one did. After she had been so kindly taken in tow, she
+inquired of her friend ("Message captain to captain")&mdash;"Have you any
+notion where we are?" The friend replied, "I have not, but I will find
+out." So the friend waited on the sun with the necessary implements,
+which luckily had not been smashed, and in due time made: "Our
+observed position at this hour is thus and thus." The tow,
+irreverently, "Is it? Didn't know you were a navigator." The friend,
+with hauteur, "Yes; it's rather a hobby of mine." The tow, "Had no
+idea it was as bad as all that; but I'm afraid I'll have to trust you
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>this time. Go ahead, and be quick about it." They reached a port,
+correctly enough, but to this hour the tow, having studied with the
+friend at a place called Dartmouth, insists that it was pure Joss.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Concerning Joss</h4>
+
+<p>And Joss, which is luck, fortune, destiny, the irony of Fate or
+Nemesis, is the greatest of all the Battle-gods that move on the
+waters. As I will show you later, knowledge of gunnery and a delicate
+instinct for what is in the enemy's minds may enable a destroyer to
+thread her way, slowing, speeding, and twisting between the heavy
+salvoes of opposing fleets. As the dank-smelling waterspouts rise and
+break, she judges where the next grove of them will sprout. If her
+judgment is correct, she may enter it in her report as a little
+feather in her cap. But it is Joss when the stray 12-inch shell,
+hurled by a giant at some giant ten miles away, falls on her from
+Heaven and wipes out her and her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>profound calculations. This was seen
+to happen to a Hun destroyer in mid-attack. While she was being
+laboriously dealt with by a 4-inch gun something immense took her,
+and&mdash;she was not.</p>
+
+<p>Joss it is, too, when the cruiser's 8-inch shot, that should have
+raked out your innards from the forward boiler to the ward-room stove,
+deflects miraculously, like a twig dragged through deep water, and,
+almost returning on its track, skips off unbursten and leaves you
+reprieved by the breadth of a nail from three deaths in one. Later, a
+single splinter, no more, may cut your oil-supply pipes as dreadfully
+and completely as a broken wind-screen in a collision cuts the
+surprised motorist's throat. Then you must lie useless, fighting
+oil-fires while the precious fuel gutters away till you have to ask
+leave to escape while there are yet a few tons left. One ship who was
+once bled white by such a piece of Joss, suggested it would be better
+that oil-pipes should be led along certain lines which she sketched.
+As if that would make any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>difference to Joss when he wants to show
+what he can do!</p>
+
+<p>Our sea-people, who have worked with him for a thousand wettish years,
+have acquired something of Joss's large toleration and humour. He
+causes ships in thick weather, or under strain, to mistake friends for
+enemies. At such times, if your heart is full of highly organised
+hate, you strafe frightfully and efficiently till one of you perishes,
+and the survivor reports wonders which are duly wirelessed all over
+the world. But if you worship Joss, you reflect, you put two and two
+together in a casual insular way, and arrive&mdash;sometimes both parties
+arrive&mdash;at instinctive conclusions which avoid trouble.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">An Affair in the North Sea</h4>
+
+<p>Witness this tale. It does not concern the Jutland fight, but another
+little affair which took place a while ago in the North Sea. It was
+understood that a certain type of cruiser of ours would <i>not</i> be
+taking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>part in a certain show. Therefore, if anyone saw cruisers very
+like them he might blaze at them with a clear conscience, for they
+would be Hun-boats. And one of our destroyers&mdash;thick weather as
+usual&mdash;spied the silhouettes of cruisers exactly like our own stealing
+across the haze. Said the Commander to his Sub., with an inflection
+neither period, exclamation, nor interrogation-mark can
+render&mdash;"That&mdash;is&mdash;them."</p>
+
+<p>Said the Sub. in precisely the same tone&mdash;"That is them, sir." "As my
+Sub.," said the Commander, "your observation is strictly in accord
+with the traditions of the Service. Now, as man to man, what <i>are</i>
+they?" "We-el," said the Sub., "since you put it that way, I'm d&mdash;&mdash;d
+if <i>I'd</i> fire." And they didn't, and they were quite right. The
+destroyer had been off on another job, and Joss had jammed the latest
+wireless orders to her at the last moment. But Joss had also put it
+into the hearts of the boys to save themselves and others.</p>
+
+<p>I hold no brief for the Hun, but honestly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>I think he has not lied as
+much about the Jutland fight as people believe, and that when he
+protests he sank a ship, he <i>did</i> very completely sink a ship. I am
+the more confirmed in this belief by a still small voice among the
+Jutland reports, musing aloud over an account of an unaccountable
+outlying brawl witnessed by one of our destroyers. The voice suggests
+that what the destroyer saw was one German ship being sunk by another.
+Amen!</p>
+
+<p>Our destroyers saw a good deal that night on the face of the waters.
+Some of them who were working in "areas of comparative calm" submit
+charts of their tangled courses, all studded with notes along the
+zigzag&mdash;something like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>8 <span class="scfake">P.M.</span>&mdash;<i>Heard explosion to the N.W.</i> (A neat arrow-head
+points that way.) Half an inch farther along, a short change of
+course, and the word <i>Hit</i> explains the meaning of&mdash;"<i>Sighted enemy
+cruiser engaged with destroyers.</i>" Another twist follows. "9.30
+<span class="scfake">P.M.</span>&mdash;<i>Passed wreckage. Engaged enemy destroyers port beam
+opposite courses.</i>" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>A long straight line without incident, then a
+tangle, and&mdash;<i>Picked up survivors So-and-So</i>. A stretch over to some
+ship that they were transferred to, a fresh departure, and another
+brush with "<i>Single destroyer on parallel course. Hit. 0.7
+<span class="scfake">A.M.</span>&mdash;Passed bows enemy cruiser sticking up. 0.18.&mdash;Joined
+flotilla for attack on battleship squadron.</i>" So it runs on&mdash;one
+little ship in a few short hours passing through more wonders of peril
+and accident than all the old fleets ever dreamed.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4  class="sc">A "Child's" Letter</h4>
+
+<p>In years to come naval experts will collate all those diagrams, and
+furiously argue over them. A lot of the destroyer work was inevitably
+as mixed as bombing down a trench, as the scuffle of a polo match, or
+as the hot heaving heart of a football scrum. It is difficult to
+realise when one considers the size of the sea, that it is that very
+size and absence of boundary which helps the confusion. To give an
+idea, here is a letter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>(it has been quoted before, I believe, but it
+is good enough to repeat many times), from a nineteen-year-old child
+to his friend aged seventeen (and minus one leg), in a hospital:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so awfully sorry you weren't in it. It was rather terrible, but a
+wonderful experience, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but,
+by Jove, it isn't a thing one wants to make a habit of.</p>
+
+<p>"I must say it is very different from what I expected. I expected to
+be excited, but was not a bit. It's hard to express what we did feel
+like, but you know the sort of feeling one has when one goes in to bat
+at cricket, and rather a lot depends upon your doing well, and you are
+waiting for the first ball. Well, it's very much the same as that. Do
+you know what I mean? A sort of tense feeling, not quite knowing what
+to expect. One does not feel the slightest bit frightened, and the
+idea that there's a chance of you and your ship being scuppered does
+not enter one's head. There are too many other things to think
+about."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>Follows the usual "No ship like our ship" talkee, and a note of where
+she was at the time.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they ordered us to attack, so we bustled off full bore. Being
+navigator, also having control of all the guns, I was on the bridge
+all the time, and remained for twelve hours without leaving it at all.
+When we got fairly close I sighted a good-looking Hun destroyer, which
+I thought I'd like to strafe. You know, it's awful fun to know that
+you can blaze off at a real ship, and do as much damage as you like.
+Well, I'd just got their range on the guns, and we'd just fired one
+round, when some more of our destroyers coming from the opposite
+direction got between us and the enemy and completely blanketed us, so
+we had to stop, which was rather rot. Shortly afterwards they recalled
+us, so we bustled back again. How any destroyer got out of it is
+perfectly wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>"Literally there were hundreds of progs (shells falling) all round us,
+from a 15-inch to a 4-inch, and you know what a big <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>splash a 15-inch
+bursting in the water does make. We got washed through by the spray.
+Just as we were getting back, a whole salvo of big shells fell just in
+front of us and short of our big ships. The skipper and I did rapid
+calculations as to how long it would take them to reload, fire again,
+time of flight, etc., as we had to go right through the spot. We came
+to the conclusion that, as they were short a bit, they would probably
+go up a bit, and (they?) didn't, but luckily they altered deflection,
+and the next fell right astern of us. Anyhow, we managed to come out
+of that row without the ship or a man on board being touched.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">What the Big Ships Stand</h4>
+
+<p>"It's extraordinary the amount of knocking about the big ships can
+stand. One saw them hit, and they seemed to be one mass of flame and
+smoke, and you think they're gone, but when the smoke clears away they
+are apparently none the worse and still <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>firing away. But to see a
+ship blow up is a terrible and wonderful sight; an enormous volume of
+flame and smoke almost 200 feet high and great pieces of metal, etc.,
+blown sky-high, and then when the smoke clears not a sign of the ship.
+We saw one other extraordinary sight. Of course, you know the North
+Sea is very shallow. We came across a Hun cruiser absolutely on end,
+his stern on the bottom and his bow sticking up about 30 feet in the
+water; and a little farther on a destroyer in precisely the same
+position.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't be certain, but I rather think I saw your old ship
+crashing along and blazing away, but I expect you have heard from some
+of your pals. But the night was far and away the worse time of all. It
+was pitch dark, and, of course, absolutely no lights, and the firing
+seems so much more at night, as you could see the flashes lighting up
+the sky, and it seemed to make much more noise, and you could see
+ships on fire and blowing up. Of course <i>we</i> showed absolutely no
+lights. One expected <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>to be surprised any moment, and eventually we
+were. We suddenly found ourselves within 1000 yards of two or three
+big Hun cruisers. They switched on their searchlights and started
+firing like nothing on earth. Then they put their searchlights on us,
+but for some extraordinary reason did not fire on us. As, of course,
+we were going full speed we lost them in a moment, but I must say,
+that I, and I think everybody else, thought that that was the end, but
+one does not feel afraid or panicky. I think I felt rather cooler then
+than at any other time. I asked lots of people afterwards what they
+felt like, and they all said the same thing. It all happens in a few
+seconds; one hasn't time to think; but never in all my life have I
+been so thankful to see daylight again&mdash;and I don't think I ever want
+to see another night like that&mdash;it's such an awful strain. One does
+not notice it at the time, but it's the reaction afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"I never noticed I was tired till I got back to harbour, and then we
+all turned in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>and absolutely slept like logs. We were seventy-two
+hours with little or no sleep. The skipper was perfectly wonderful. He
+never left the bridge for a minute for twenty-four hours, and was on
+the bridge or in the chart-house the whole time we were out (the
+chart-house is an airy dog-kennel that opens off the bridge) and I've
+never seen anybody so cool and unruffled. He stood there smoking his
+pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.</p>
+
+<p>"One quite forgot all about time. I was relieved at 4 <span class="scfake">A.M.</span>,
+and on looking at my watch found I had been up there nearly twelve
+hours, and then discovered I was rather hungry. The skipper and I had
+some cheese and biscuits, ham sandwiches, and water on the bridge, and
+then I went down and brewed some cocoa and ship's biscuit."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not in the thick of the fight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not in the press of the odds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do the heroes come to their height<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or we know the demi-gods.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That stands over till peace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We can only perceive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men returned from the seas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Very grateful for leave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They grant us sudden days<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Snatched from their business of war.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We are too close to appraise<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What manner of men they are.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And whether their names go down<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With age-kept victories,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or whether they battle and drown<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unreckoned is hid from our eyes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">They are too near to be great,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But our children shall understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When and how our fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was changed, and by whose hand.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our children shall measure their worth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We are content to be blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For we know that we walk on a new-born earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the saviours of mankind.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<h3>THE MINDS OF MEN</h3>
+
+<h4>HOW IT IS DONE</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>What mystery is there like the mystery of the other man's job&mdash;or what
+world so cut off as that which he enters when he goes to it? The
+eminent surgeon is altogether such an one as ourselves, even till his
+hand falls on the knob of the theatre door. After that, in the
+silence, among the ether fumes, no man except his acolytes, and they
+won't tell, has ever seen his face. So with the unconsidered curate.
+Yet, before the war, he had more experience of the business and detail
+of death than any of the people who contemned him. His face also, as
+he stands his bedside-watches&mdash;that countenance with which he shall
+justify himself to his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>Maker&mdash;none have ever looked upon. Even the
+ditcher is a priest of mysteries at the high moment when he lays out
+in his mind his levels and the fall of the water that he alone can
+draw off clearly. But catch any of these men five minutes after they
+have left their altars, and you will find the doors are shut.</p>
+
+<p>Chance sent me almost immediately after the Jutland fight a Lieutenant
+of one of the destroyers engaged. Among other matters, I asked him if
+there was any particular noise.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I haven't been in the trenches, of course," he replied, "but I
+don't think there could have been much more noise than there was."</p>
+
+<p>This bears out a report of a destroyer who could not be certain
+whether an enemy battleship had blown up or not, saying that, in that
+particular corner, it would have been impossible to identify anything
+less than the explosion of a whole magazine.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't exactly noise," he reflected. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>"Noise is what you take in
+from outside. This was <i>inside</i> you. It seemed to lift you right out
+of everything."</p>
+
+<p>"And how did the light affect one?" I asked, trying to work out a
+theory that noise and light produced beyond known endurance form an
+unknown anaesthetic and stimulant, comparable to, but infinitely more
+potent than, the soothing effect of the smoke-pall of ancient battles.</p>
+
+<p>"The lights were rather curious," was the answer. "I don't know that
+one noticed searchlights particularly, unless they meant business; but
+when a lot of big guns loosed off together, the whole sea was lit up
+and you could see our destroyers running about like cockroaches on a
+tin soup-plate."</p>
+
+<p>"Then is black the best colour for our destroyers? Some commanders
+seem to think we ought to use grey."</p>
+
+<p>"Blessed if <i>I</i> know," said young Dante. "Everything shows black in
+that light. Then it all goes out again with a bang. Trying for the
+eyes if you are spotting."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Ship Dogs</h4>
+
+<p>"And how did the dogs take it?" I pursued. There are several
+destroyers more or less owned by pet dogs, who start life as the
+chance-found property of a stoker, and end in supreme command of the
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Most of 'em didn't like it a bit. They went below one time, and
+wanted to be loved. They knew it wasn't ordinary practice."</p>
+
+<p>"What did Arabella do?" I had heard a good deal of Arabella.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Arabella's <i>quite</i> different. Her job has always been to look
+after her master's pyjamas&mdash;folded up at the head of the bunk, you
+know. She found out pretty soon the bridge was no place for a lady, so
+she hopped downstairs and got in. You know how she makes three little
+jumps to it&mdash;first, on to the chair; then on the flap-table, and then
+up on the pillow. When the show was over, there she was as usual."</p>
+
+<p>"Was she glad to see her master?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>"<i>Ra-ather.</i> Arabella was the bold, gay lady-dog <i>then</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Now Arabella is between nine and eleven and a half inches long.</p>
+
+<p>"Does the Hun run to pets at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't say so. He's an unsympathetic felon&mdash;the Hun. But he
+might cherish a dachshund or so. We never picked up any ships' pets
+off him, and I'm sure we should if there had been."</p>
+
+<p>That I believed as implicitly as the tale of a destroyer attack some
+months ago, the object of which was to flush Zeppelins. It succeeded,
+for the flotilla was attacked by several. Right in the middle of the
+flurry, a destroyer asked permission to stop and lower dinghy to pick
+up ship's dog which had fallen overboard. Permission was granted, and
+the dog was duly rescued. "Lord knows what the Hun made of it," said
+my informant. "He was rumbling round, dropping bombs; and the dinghy
+was digging out for all she was worth, and the Dog-Fiend was swimming
+for Dunkirk. It must have looked rather mad from above. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>But they
+saved the Dog-Fiend, and then everybody swore he was a German spy in
+disguise."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Fight</h4>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;about this Jutland fight?" I hinted, not for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was just a fight. There was more of it than any other fight,
+I suppose, but I expect all modern naval actions must be pretty much
+the same."</p>
+
+<p>"But what does one <i>do</i>&mdash;how does one feel?" I insisted, though I knew
+it was hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>"One does one's job. Things are happening all the time. A man may be
+right under your nose one minute&mdash;serving a gun or something&mdash;and the
+next minute he isn't there."</p>
+
+<p>"And one notices that at the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But there's no time to keep <i>on</i> noticing it. You've got to
+carry on somehow or other, or your show stops. I tell you what one
+<i>does</i> notice, though. If one goes below for anything, or has to pass
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>through a flat somewhere, and one sees the old wardroom clock ticking,
+or a photograph pinned up, or anything of that sort, one notices
+<i>that</i>. Oh yes, and there was another thing&mdash;the way a ship seemed to
+blow up if you were far off her. You'd see a glare, then a blaze, and
+then the smoke&mdash;miles high, lifting quite slowly. Then you'd get the
+row and the jar of it&mdash;just like bumping over submarines. Then, a long
+while after p'raps, you run through a regular rain of bits of burnt
+paper coming down on the decks&mdash;like showers of volcanic ash, you
+know." The door of the operating-room seemed just about to open, but
+it shut again.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Huns' gunnery?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was various. Sometimes they began quite well, and went to pieces
+after they'd been strafed a little; but sometimes they picked up
+again. There was one Hun-boat that got no end of a hammering, and it
+seemed to do her gunnery good. She improved tremendously till we sank
+her. I expect we'd knocked out some scientific <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>Hun in the controls,
+and he'd been succeeded by a man who knew how."</p>
+
+<p>It used to be "Fritz" last year when they spoke of the enemy. Now it
+is Hun or, as I have heard, "Yahun," being a superlative of Yahoo. In
+the Napoleonic wars we called the Frenchmen too many names for any one
+of them to endure; but this is the age of standardisation.</p>
+
+<p>"And what about our Lower Deck?" I continued.</p>
+
+<p>"They? Oh, they carried on as usual. It takes a lot to impress the
+Lower Deck when they're busy." And he mentioned several little things
+that confirmed this. They had a great deal to do, and they did it
+serenely because they had been trained to carry on under all
+conditions without panicking. What they did in the way of running
+repairs was even more wonderful, if that be possible, than their
+normal routine.</p>
+
+<p>The Lower Deck nowadays is full of strange fish with unlooked-for
+accomplishments, as in the recorded case of two simple <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>seamen of a
+destroyer who, when need was sorest, came to the front as trained
+experts in first-aid.</p>
+
+<p>"And now&mdash;what about the actual Hun losses at Jutland?" I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen the list, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but it occurred to me&mdash;that they might have been a shade
+under-estimated, and I thought perhaps&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A perfectly plain asbestos fire-curtain descended in front of the
+already locked door. It was none of his business to dispute the drive.
+If there were any discrepancies between estimate and results, one
+might be sure that the enemy knew about them, which was the chief
+thing that mattered.</p>
+
+<p>It was, said he, Joss that the light was so bad at the hour of the
+last round-up when our main fleet had come down from the north and
+shovelled the Hun round on his tracks. <i>Per contra</i>, had it been any
+other kind of weather, the odds were the Hun would not have ventured
+so far. As it was, the Hun's fleet had come out and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>gone back again,
+none the better for air and exercise. We must be thankful for what we
+had managed to pick up. But talking of picking up, there was an
+instance of almost unparalleled Joss which had stuck in his memory. A
+soldier-man, related to one of the officers in one of our ships that
+was put down, had got five days' leave from the trenches which he
+spent with his relative aboard, and thus dropped in for the whole
+performance. He had been employed in helping to spot, and had lived up
+a mast till the ship sank, when he stepped off into the water and swam
+about till he was fished out and put ashore. By that time, the tale
+goes, his engine-room-dried khaki had shrunk half-way up his legs and
+arms, in which costume he reported himself to the War Office, and
+pleaded for one little day's extension of leave to make himself
+decent. "Not a bit of it," said the War Office. "If you choose to
+spend your leave playing with sailor-men and getting wet all over,
+that's <i>your</i> concern. You will return to duty by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>to-night's boat."
+(This may be a libel on the W.O., but it sounds very like them.) "And
+he had to," said the boy, "but I expect he spent the next week at
+Headquarters telling fat generals all about the fight."</p>
+
+<p>"And, of course, the Admiralty gave <i>you</i> all lots of leave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Us? Yes, heaps. We had nothing to do except clean down and oil up,
+and be ready to go to sea again in a few hours."</p>
+
+<p>That little fact was brought out at the end of almost every
+destroyer's report. "Having returned to base at such and such a time,
+I took in oil, etc., and reported ready for sea at &mdash;&mdash; o'clock." When
+you think of the amount of work a ship needs even after peace
+man[oe]uvres, you can realise what has to be done on the heels of an
+action. And, as there is nothing like housework for the troubled soul
+of a woman, so a general clean-up is good for sailors. I had this from
+a petty officer who had also passed through deep waters. "If you've
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>seen your best friend go from alongside you, and your own officer, and
+your own boat's crew with him, and things of that kind, a man's best
+comfort is small variegated jobs which he is damned for continuous."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Silent Navy</h4>
+
+<p>Presently my friend of the destroyer went back to his stark, desolate
+life, where feelings do not count, and the fact of his being cold,
+wet, sea-sick, sleepless, or dog-tired had no bearing whatever on his
+business, which was to turn out at any hour in any weather and do or
+endure, decently, according to ritual, what that hour and that weather
+demanded. It is hard to reach the kernel of Navy minds. The unbribable
+seas and mechanisms they work on and through have given them the
+simplicity of elements and machines. The habit of dealing with swift
+accident, a life of closest and strictest association with their own
+caste as well as contact with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>all kinds of men all earth over, have
+added an immense cunning to those qualities; and that they are from
+early youth cut out of all feelings that may come between them and
+their ends, makes them more incomprehensible than Jesuits, even to
+their own people. What, then, must they be to the enemy?</p>
+
+<p>Here is a Service which prowls forth and achieves, at the lowest,
+something of a victory. How far-reaching a one only the war's end will
+reveal. It returns in gloomy silence, broken by the occasional hoot of
+the long-shore loafer, after issuing a bulletin which though it may
+enlighten the professional mind does not exhilarate the layman.
+Meantime the enemy triumphs, wirelessly, far and wide. A few frigid
+and perfunctory-seeming contradictions are put forward against his
+resounding claims; a Naval expert or two is heard talking "off"; the
+rest is silence. Anon, the enemy, after a prodigious amount of
+explanation which not even the neutrals seem to take any interest in,
+revises his claims, and, very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>modestly, enlarges his losses. Still no
+sign. After weeks there appears a document giving our version of the
+affair, which is as colourless, detached, and scrupulously impartial
+as the findings of a prize-court. It opines that the list of enemy
+losses which it submits "give the minimum in regard to numbers though
+it is possibly not entirely accurate in regard to the particular class
+of vessel, especially those that were sunk during the night attacks."
+Here the matter rests and remains&mdash;just like our blockade. There is an
+insolence about it all that makes one gasp.</p>
+
+<p>Yet that insolence springs naturally and unconsciously as an oath, out
+of the same spirit that caused the destroyer to pick up the dog. The
+reports themselves, and tenfold more the stories not in the reports,
+are charged with it, but no words by any outsider can reproduce just
+that professional tone and touch. A man writing home after the fight,
+points out that the great consolation for not having cleaned up the
+enemy altogether was that "anyhow those East <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>Coast devils"&mdash;a
+fellow-squadron, if you please, which up till Jutland had had most of
+the fighting&mdash;"were not there. They missed that show. We were as
+cock-ahoop as a girl who had been to a dance that her sister has
+missed."</p>
+
+<p>This was one of the figures in that dance:</p>
+
+<p>"A little British destroyer, her midships rent by a great shell meant
+for a battle-cruiser; exuding steam from every pore; able to go ahead
+but not to steer; unable to get out of anybody's way, likely to be
+rammed by any one of a dozen ships; her syren whimpering: 'Let me
+through! Make way!'; her crew fallen in aft dressed in life-belts
+ready for her final plunge, and cheering wildly as it might have been
+an enthusiastic crowd when the King passes."</p>
+
+<p>Let us close on that note. We have been compassed about so long and so
+blindingly by wonders and miracles; so overwhelmed by revelations of
+the spirit of men in the basest and most high; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>that we have neither
+time to keep tally of these furious days, nor mind to discern upon
+which hour of them our world's fate hung.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+<h3><i>THE NEUTRAL</i></h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Brethren, how shall it fare with me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When the war is laid aside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If it be proven that I am he<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For whom a world has died?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If it be proven that all my good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the greater good I will make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were purchased me by a multitude<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who suffered for my sake?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That I was delivered by mere mankind<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vowed to one sacrifice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not, as I hold them, battle-blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But dying with opened eyes?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That they did not ask me to draw the sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When they stood to endure their lot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What they only looked to me for a word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I answered I knew them not?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a></span>
+<span class="i0">If it be found, when the battle clears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their death has set me free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then how shall I live with myself through the years<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which they have bought for me?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Brethren, how must it fare with me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or how am I justified,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If it be proven that I am he<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For whom mankind has died;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If it be proven that I am he<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who being questioned denied?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5><i>Printed by</i> <span class="sc">R. &amp; R. Clark, Limited</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i>.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Warfare, by Rudyard Kipling
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Warfare, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sea Warfare
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2006 [EBook #17689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA WARFARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA WARFARE
+
+
+
+BY
+
+RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
+1916
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+
+THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET                                   1
+
+TALES OF "THE TRADE"                                      93
+
+DESTROYERS AT JUTLAND                                    145
+
+
+
+
+THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET
+
+(1915)
+
+    In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
+      Mark well what I do say!
+    And she was built for the herring trade,
+      But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',
+      The Lord knows where!
+
+    They gave her Government coal to burn,
+    And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern,
+    And sent her out a-rovin', etc.
+
+    Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship
+    Which always killed one man per trip,
+    So he is used to rovin', etc.
+
+    Her mate was skipper of a chapel in Wales,
+    And so he fights in topper and tails--
+    Religi-ous tho' rovin', etc.
+
+    Her engineer is fifty-eight,
+    So he's prepared to meet his fate,
+    Which ain't unlikely rovin', etc.
+
+    Her leading-stoker's seventeen,
+    So he don't know what the Judgments mean,
+    Unless he cops 'em rovin', etc.
+
+    Her cook was chef in the Lost Dogs' Home,
+      Mark well what I do say!
+    And I'm sorry for Fritz when they all come
+      A-rovin', a-rovin', a-roarin' and a-rovin',
+      Round the North Sea rovin',
+      The Lord knows where!
+
+
+
+
+THE AUXILIARIES
+
+I
+
+
+The Navy is very old and very wise. Much of her wisdom is on record
+and available for reference; but more of it works in the unconscious
+blood of those who serve her. She has a thousand years of experience,
+and can find precedent or parallel for any situation that the force of
+the weather or the malice of the King's enemies may bring about.
+
+The main principles of sea-warfare hold good throughout all ages, and,
+_so far as the Navy has been allowed to put out her strength_, these
+principles have been applied over all the seas of the world. For
+matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply
+returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days.
+
+In the late French wars, a merchant sailing out of a Channel port
+might in a few hours find himself laid by the heels and under way for
+a French prison. His Majesty's ships of the Line, and even the big
+frigates, took little part in policing the waters for him, unless he
+were in convoy. The sloops, cutters, gun-brigs, and local craft of all
+kinds were supposed to look after that, while the Line was busy
+elsewhere. So the merchants passed resolutions against the inadequate
+protection afforded to the trade, and the narrow seas were full of
+single-ship actions; mail-packets, West Country brigs, and fat East
+Indiamen fighting, for their own hulls and cargo, anything that the
+watchful French ports sent against them; the sloops and cutters
+bearing a hand if they happened to be within reach.
+
+
+THE OLDEST NAVY
+
+It was a brutal age, ministered to by hard-fisted men, and we had put
+it a hundred decent years behind us when--it all comes back again!
+To-day there are no prisons for the crews of merchantmen, but they
+can go to the bottom by mine and torpedo even more quickly than their
+ancestors were run into Le Havre. The submarine takes the place of the
+privateer; the Line, as in the old wars, is occupied, bombarding and
+blockading, elsewhere, but the sea-borne traffic must continue, and
+that is being looked after by the lineal descendants of the crews of
+the long extinct cutters and sloops and gun-brigs. The hour struck,
+and they reappeared, to the tune of fifty thousand odd men in more
+than two thousand ships, of which I have seen a few hundred. Words of
+command may have changed a little, the tools are certainly more
+complex, but the spirit of the new crews who come to the old job is
+utterly unchanged. It is the same fierce, hard-living, heavy-handed,
+very cunning service out of which the Navy as we know it to-day was
+born. It is called indifferently the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet. It
+is chiefly composed of fishermen, but it takes in every one who may
+have maritime tastes--from retired admirals to the sons of the
+sea-cook. It exists for the benefit of the traffic and the annoyance
+of the enemy. Its doings are recorded by flags stuck into charts; its
+casualties are buried in obscure corners of the newspapers. The Grand
+Fleet knows it slightly; the restless light cruisers who chaperon it
+from the background are more intimate; the destroyers working off
+unlighted coasts over unmarked shoals come, as you might say, in
+direct contact with it; the submarine alternately praises and--since
+one periscope is very like another--curses its activities; but the
+steady procession of traffic in home waters, liner and tramp, six
+every sixty minutes, blesses it altogether.
+
+Since this most Christian war includes laying mines in the fairways of
+traffic, and since these mines may be laid at any time by German
+submarines especially built for the work, or by neutral ships, all
+fairways must be swept continuously day and night. When a nest of
+mines is reported, traffic must be hung up or deviated till it is
+cleared out. When traffic comes up Channel it must be examined for
+contraband and other things; and the examining tugs lie out in a blaze
+of lights to remind ships of this. Months ago, when the war was young,
+the tugs did not know what to look for specially. Now they do. All
+this mine-searching and reporting and sweeping, _plus_ the direction
+and examination of the traffic, _plus_ the laying of our own
+ever-shifting mine-fields, is part of the Trawler Fleet's work,
+because the Navy-as-we-knew-it is busy elsewhere. And there is always
+the enemy submarine with a price on her head, whom the Trawler Fleet
+hunts and traps with zeal and joy. Add to this, that there are boats,
+fishing for real fish, to be protected in their work at sea or chased
+off dangerous areas whither, because they are strictly forbidden to
+go, they naturally repair, and you will begin to get some idea of what
+the Trawler and Auxiliary Fleet does.
+
+
+THE SHIPS AND THE MEN
+
+Now, imagine the acreage of several dock-basins crammed, gunwale to
+gunwale, with brown and umber and ochre and rust-red steam-trawlers,
+tugs, harbour-boats, and yachts once clean and respectable, now dirty
+and happy. Throw in fish-steamers, surprise-packets of unknown lines
+and indescribable junks, sampans, lorchas, catamarans, and General
+Service stink-pontoons filled with indescribable apparatus, manned by
+men no dozen of whom seem to talk the same dialect or wear the same
+clothes. The mustard-coloured jersey who is cleaning a six-pounder on
+a Hull boat clips his words between his teeth and would be happier in
+Gaelic. The whitish singlet and grey trousers held up by what is
+obviously his soldier brother's spare regimental belt is pure
+Lowestoft. The complete blue-serge-and-soot suit passing a wire down a
+hatch is Glasgow as far as you can hear him, which is a fair distance,
+because he wants something done to the other end of the wire, and the
+flat-faced boy who should be attending to it hails from the remoter
+Hebrides, and is looking at a girl on the dock-edge. The bow-legged
+man in the ulster and green-worsted comforter is a warm Grimsby
+skipper, worth several thousands. He and his crew, who are mostly his
+own relations, keep themselves to themselves, and save their money.
+The pirate with the red beard, barking over the rail at a friend with
+gold earrings, comes from Skye. The friend is West Country. The
+noticeably insignificant man with the soft and deprecating eye is
+skipper and part-owner of the big slashing Iceland trawler on which he
+droops like a flower. She is built to almost Western Ocean lines,
+carries a little boat-deck aft with tremendous stanchions, has a nose
+cocked high against ice and sweeping seas, and resembles a hawk-moth
+at rest. The small, sniffing man is reported to be a "holy terror at
+sea."
+
+
+HUNTERS AND FISHERS
+
+The child in the Pullman-car uniform just going ashore is a wireless
+operator, aged nineteen. He is attached to a flagship at least 120
+feet long, under an admiral aged twenty-five, who was, till the other
+day, third mate of a North Atlantic tramp, but who now leads a
+squadron of six trawlers to hunt submarines. The principle is simple
+enough. Its application depends on circumstances and surroundings. One
+class of German submarines meant for murder off the coasts may use a
+winding and rabbit-like track between shoals where the choice of water
+is limited. Their career is rarely long, but, while it lasts,
+moderately exciting. Others, told off for deep-sea assassinations, are
+attended to quite quietly and without any excitement at all. Others,
+again, work the inside of the North Sea, making no distinction between
+neutrals and Allied ships. These carry guns, and since their work
+keeps them a good deal on the surface, the Trawler Fleet, as we know,
+engages them there--the submarine firing, sinking, and rising again in
+unexpected quarters; the trawler firing, dodging, and trying to ram.
+The trawlers are strongly built, and can stand a great deal of
+punishment. Yet again, other German submarines hang about the skirts
+of fishing-fleets and fire into the brown of them. When the war was
+young this gave splendidly "frightful" results, but for some reason or
+other the game is not as popular as it used to be.
+
+Lastly, there are German submarines who perish by ways so curious and
+inexplicable that one could almost credit the whispered idea (it must
+come from the Scotch skippers) that the ghosts of the women they
+drowned pilot them to destruction. But what form these shadows
+take--whether of "The Lusitania Ladies," or humbler stewardesses and
+hospital nurses--and what lights or sounds the thing fancies it sees
+or hears before it is blotted out, no man will ever know. The main
+fact is that the work is being done. Whether it was necessary or
+politic to re-awaken by violence every sporting instinct of a
+sea-going people is a question which the enemy may have to consider
+later on.
+
+    Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making
+      Jumbled and short and steep--
+    Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking--
+      Awkward water to sweep.
+      "Mines reported in the fairway,
+      "Warn all traffic and detain.
+    "'Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."
+
+    Noon off the Foreland--the first ebb making
+      Lumpy and strong in the bight.
+    Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking
+      And the jackdaws wild with fright!
+      "Mines located in the fairway,
+      "Boats now working up the chain,
+    "Sweepers--Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock and Golden Gain."
+
+    Dusk off the Foreland--the last light going
+      And the traffic crowding through,
+    And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing
+      Heading the whole review!
+      "Sweep completed in the fairway.
+      "No more mines remain.
+    "'Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain."
+
+
+
+
+THE AUXILIARIES
+
+II
+
+
+The Trawlers seem to look on mines as more or less fairplay. But with
+the torpedo it is otherwise. A Yarmouth man lay on his hatch, his gear
+neatly stowed away below, and told me that another Yarmouth boat had
+"gone up," with all hands except one. "'Twas a submarine. Not a mine,"
+said he. "They never gave our boys no chance. Na! She was a Yarmouth
+boat--we knew 'em all. They never gave the boys no chance." He was a
+submarine hunter, and he illustrated by means of matches placed at
+various angles how the blindfold business is conducted. "And then," he
+ended, "there's always what _he'll_ do. You've got to think that out
+for yourself--while you're working above him--same as if 'twas fish."
+I should not care to be hunted for the life in shallow waters by a man
+who knows every bank and pothole of them, even if I had not killed his
+friends the week before. Being nearly all fishermen they discuss their
+work in terms of fish, and put in their leisure fishing overside, when
+they sometimes pull up ghastly souvenirs. But they all want guns.
+Those who have three-pounders clamour for sixes; sixes for twelves;
+and the twelve-pound aristocracy dream of four-inchers on
+anti-aircraft mountings for the benefit of roving Zeppelins. They will
+all get them in time, and I fancy it will be long ere they give them
+up. One West Country mate announced that "a gun is a handy thing to
+have aboard--always." "But in peacetime?" I said. "Wouldn't it be in
+the way?"
+
+"We'm used to 'em now," was the smiling answer. "Niver go to sea again
+without a gun--_I_ wouldn't--if I had my way. It keeps all hands
+pleased-like."
+
+They talk about men in the Army who will never willingly go back to
+civil life. What of the fishermen who have tasted something sharper
+than salt water--and what of the young third and fourth mates who have
+held independent commands for nine months past? One of them said to me
+quite irrelevantly: "I used to be the animal that got up the trunks
+for the women on baggage-days in the old Bodiam Castle," and he
+mimicked their requests for "the large brown box," or "the black dress
+basket," as a freed soul might scoff at his old life in the flesh.
+
+
+"A COMMON SWEEPER"
+
+My sponsor and chaperon in this Elizabethan world of
+eighteenth-century seamen was an A.B. who had gone down in the
+_Landrail_, assisted at the Heligoland fight, seen the _Bluecher_ sink
+and the bombs dropped on our boats when we tried to save the drowning
+("Whereby," as he said, "those Germans died gottstrafin' their own
+country because _we_ didn't wait to be strafed"), and has now found
+more peaceful days in an Office ashore. He led me across many decks
+from craft to craft to study the various appliances that they
+specialise in. Almost our last was what a North Country trawler called
+a "common sweeper," that is to say, a mine-sweeper. She was at tea in
+her shirt-sleeves, and she protested loudly that there was "nothing in
+sweeping." "'See that wire rope?" she said. "Well, it leads through
+that lead to the ship which you're sweepin' _with_. She makes her end
+fast and you make yourn. Then you sweep together at whichever depth
+you've agreed upon between you, by means of that arrangement there
+which regulates the depth. They give you a glass sort o' thing for
+keepin' your distance from the other ship, but _that's_ not wanted if
+you know each other. Well, then, you sweep, as the sayin' is. There's
+nothin' _in_ it. You sweep till this wire rope fouls the bloomin'
+mines. Then you go on till they appear on the surface, so to say, and
+then you explodes them by means of shootin' at 'em with that rifle in
+the galley there. There's nothin' in sweepin' more than that."
+
+"And if you hit a mine?" I asked.
+
+"You go up--but you hadn't ought to hit em', if you're careful. The
+thing is to get hold of the first mine all right, and then you go on
+to the next, and so on, in a way o' speakin'."
+
+"And you can fish, too, 'tween times," said a voice from the next
+boat. A man leaned over and returned a borrowed mug. They talked about
+fishing--notably that once they caught some red mullet, which the
+"common sweeper" and his neighbour both agreed was "not natural in
+those waters." As for mere sweeping, it bored them profoundly to talk
+about it. I only learned later as part of the natural history of
+mines, that if you rake the tri-nitro-toluol by hand out of a German
+mine you develop eruptions and skin-poisoning. But on the authority of
+two experts, there is nothing in sweeping. Nothing whatever!
+
+
+A BLOCK IN THE TRAFFIC
+
+Now imagine, not a pistol-shot from these crowded quays, a little
+Office hung round with charts that are pencilled and noted over
+various shoals and soundings. There is a movable list of the boats at
+work, with quaint and domestic names. Outside the window lies the
+packed harbour--outside that again the line of traffic up and down--a
+stately cinema-show of six ships to the hour. For the moment the film
+sticks. A boat--probably a "common sweeper"--reports an obstruction in
+a traffic lane a few miles away. She has found and exploded one mine.
+The Office heard the dull boom of it before the wireless report came
+in. In all likelihood there is a nest of them there. It is possible
+that a submarine may have got in last night between certain shoals and
+laid them out. The shoals are being shepherded in case she is hidden
+anywhere, but the boundaries of the newly discovered mine-area must be
+fixed and the traffic deviated. There is a tramp outside with tugs in
+attendance. She has hit something and is leaking badly. Where shall
+she go? The Office gives her her destination--the harbour is too full
+for her to settle down here. She swings off between the faithful tugs.
+Down coast some one asks by wireless if they shall hold up their
+traffic. It is exactly like a signaller "offering" a train to the next
+block. "Yes," the Office replies. "Wait a while. If it's what we
+think, there will be a little delay. If it isn't what we think, there
+will be a little longer delay." Meantime, sweepers are nosing round
+the suspected area--"looking for cuckoos' eggs," as a voice suggests;
+and a patrol-boat lathers her way down coast to catch and stop
+anything that may be on the move, for skippers are sometimes rather
+careless. Words begin to drop out of the air into the chart-hung
+Office. "Six and a half cables south, fifteen east" of something or
+other. "Mark it well, and tell them to work up from there," is the
+order. "Another mine exploded!" "Yes, and we heard that too," says
+the Office. "What about the submarine?" "_Elizabeth Huggins_ reports...."
+
+_Elizabeth's_ scandal must be fairly high flavoured, for a
+torpedo-boat of immoral aspect slings herself out of harbour and
+hastens to share it. If _Elizabeth_ has not spoken the truth, there
+may be words between the parties. For the present a pencilled
+suggestion seems to cover the case, together with a demand, as far as
+one can make out, for "more common sweepers." They will be forthcoming
+very shortly. Those at work have got the run of the mines now, and are
+busily howking them up. A trawler-skipper wishes to speak to the
+Office. "They" have ordered him out, but his boiler, most of it, is on
+the quay at the present time, and "ye'll remember, it's the same wi'
+my foremast an' port rigging, sir." The Office does not precisely
+remember, but if boiler and foremast are on the quay the rest of the
+ship had better stay alongside. The skipper falls away relieved. (He
+scraped a tramp a few nights ago in a bit of a sea.) There is a little
+mutter of gun-fire somewhere across the grey water where a fleet is
+at work. A monitor as broad as she is long comes back from wherever
+the trouble is, slips through the harbour mouth, all wreathed with
+signals, is received by two motherly lighters, and, to all appearance,
+goes to sleep between them. The Office does not even look up; for that
+is not in their department. They have found a trawler to replace the
+boilerless one. Her name is slid into the rack. The immoral
+torpedo-boat flounces back to her moorings. Evidently what _Elizabeth
+Huggins_ said was not evidence. The messages and replies begin again
+as the day closes.
+
+
+THE NIGHT PATROL
+
+Return now to the inner harbour. At twilight there was a stir among
+the packed craft like the separation of dried tea-leaves in water. The
+swing-bridge across the basin shut against us. A boat shot out of the
+jam, took the narrow exit at a fair seven knots and rounded in the
+outer harbour with all the pomp of a flagship, which was exactly what
+she was. Others followed, breaking away from every quarter in silence.
+Boat after boat fell into line--gear stowed away, spars and buoys in
+order on their clean decks, guns cast loose and ready, wheel-house
+windows darkened, and everything in order for a day or a week or a
+month out. There was no word anywhere. The interrupted foot-traffic
+stared at them as they slid past below. A woman beside me waved her
+hand to a man on one of them, and I saw his face light as he waved
+back. The boat where they had demonstrated for me with matches was the
+last. Her skipper hadn't thought it worth while to tell me that he was
+going that evening. Then the line straightened up and stood out to
+sea.
+
+"You never said this was going to happen," I said reproachfully to my
+A.B.
+
+"No more I did," said he. "It's the night-patrol going out. Fact is,
+I'm so used to the bloomin' evolution that it never struck me to
+mention it as you might say."
+
+Next morning I was at service in a man-of-war, and even as we came to
+the prayer that the Navy might "be a safeguard to such as pass upon
+the sea on their lawful occasions," I saw the long procession of
+traffic resuming up and down the Channel--six ships to the hour. It
+has been hung up for a bit, they said.
+
+    Farewell and adieu to you, Greenwich ladies,
+    Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
+    For we've received orders to work to the eastward
+    Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.
+
+    We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,
+    We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,
+    Until we strike something that doesn't expect us,
+    From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!
+
+    The first thing we did was to dock in a mine-field,
+    Which isn't a place where repairs should be done;
+    And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water
+    With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.
+
+    The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin,
+    With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky.
+    But what in the--Heavens can you do with six-pounders?
+    So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye.
+
+
+
+
+SUBMARINES
+
+I
+
+
+The chief business of the Trawler Fleet is to attend to the traffic.
+The submarine in her sphere attends to the enemy. Like the destroyer,
+the submarine has created its own type of officer and man--with
+language and traditions apart from the rest of the Service, and yet at
+heart unchangingly of the Service. Their business is to run monstrous
+risks from earth, air, and water, in what, to be of any use, must be
+the coldest of cold blood.
+
+The commander's is more a one-man job, as the crew's is more
+team-work, than any other employment afloat. That is why the relations
+between submarine officers and men are what they are. They play
+hourly for each other's lives with Death the Umpire always at their
+elbow on tiptoe to give them "out."
+
+There is a stretch of water, once dear to amateur yachtsmen, now given
+over to scouts, submarines, destroyers, and, of course, contingents of
+trawlers. We were waiting the return of some boats which were due to
+report. A couple surged up the still harbour in the afternoon light
+and tied up beside their sisters. There climbed out of them three or
+four high-booted, sunken-eyed pirates clad in sweaters, under jackets
+that a stoker of the last generation would have disowned. This was
+their first chance to compare notes at close hand. Together they
+lamented the loss of a Zeppelin--"a perfect mug of a Zepp," who had
+come down very low and offered one of them a sitting shot. "But what
+_can_ you do with our guns? I gave him what I had, and then he started
+bombing."
+
+"I know he did," another said. "I heard him. That's what brought me
+down to you. I thought he had you that last time."
+
+"No, I was forty foot under when he hove out the big un. What happened
+to _you_?"
+
+"My steering-gear jammed just after I went down, and I had to go round
+in circles till I got it straightened out. But _wasn't_ he a mug!"
+
+"Was he the brute with the patch on his port side?" a sister-boat
+demanded.
+
+"No! This fellow had just been hatched. He was almost sitting on the
+water, heaving bombs over."
+
+"And my blasted steering-gear went and chose _then_ to go wrong," the
+other commander mourned. "I thought his last little egg was going to
+get me!"
+
+Half an hour later, I was formally introduced to three or four quite
+strange, quite immaculate officers, freshly shaved, and a little tired
+about the eyes, whom I thought I had met before.
+
+
+LABOUR AND REFRESHMENT
+
+Meantime (it was on the hour of evening drinks) one of the boats was
+still unaccounted for. No one talked of her. They rather discussed
+motor-cars and Admiralty constructors, but--it felt like that queer
+twilight watch at the front when the homing aeroplanes drop in.
+Presently a signaller entered. "V 42 outside, sir; wants to know which
+channel she shall use." "Oh, thank you. Tell her to take so-and-so."
+... Mine, remember, was vermouth and bitters, and later on V 42
+himself found a soft chair and joined the committee of instruction.
+Those next for duty, as well as those in training, wished to hear what
+was going on, and who had shifted what to where, and how certain
+arrangements had worked. They were told in language not to be found in
+any printable book. Questions and answers were alike Hebrew to one
+listener, but he gathered that every boat carried a second in
+command--a strong, persevering youth, who seemed responsible for
+everything that went wrong, from a motor cylinder to a torpedo. Then
+somebody touched on the mercantile marine and its habits.
+
+Said one philosopher: "They can't be expected to take any more risks
+than they do. _I_ wouldn't, if I was a skipper. I'd loose off at any
+blessed periscope I saw."
+
+"That's all very fine. You wait till you've had a patriotic tramp
+trying to strafe you at your own back-door," said another.
+
+Some one told a tale of a man with a voice, notable even in a Service
+where men are not trained to whisper. He was coming back,
+empty-handed, dirty, tired, and best left alone. From the peace of the
+German side he had entered our hectic home-waters, where the usual
+tramp shelled, and by miraculous luck, crumpled his periscope. Another
+man might have dived, but Boanerges kept on rising. Majestic and
+wrathful he rose personally through his main hatch, and at 2000 yards
+(have I said it was a still day?) addressed the tramp. Even at that
+distance she gathered it was a Naval officer with a grievance, and by
+the time he ran alongside she was in a state of coma, but managed to
+stammer: "Well, sir, at least you'll admit that our shooting was
+pretty good."
+
+"And that," said my informant, "put the lid on!" Boanerges went down
+lest he should be tempted to murder; and the tramp affirms she heard
+him rumbling beneath her, like an inverted thunder-storm, for fifteen
+minutes.
+
+"All those tramps ought to be disarmed, and _we_ ought to have all
+their guns," said a voice out of a corner.
+
+"What? Still worrying over your 'mug'?" some one replied.
+
+"He _was_ a mug!" went on the man of one idea. "If I'd had a couple of
+twelves even, I could have strafed him proper. I don't know whether I
+shall mutiny, or desert, or write to the First Sea Lord about it."
+
+"Strafe all Admiralty constructors to begin with. _I_ could build a
+better boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine-tin than ----," the
+speaker named her by letter and number.
+
+"That's pure jealousy," her commander explained to the company. "Ever
+since I installed--ahem!--my patent electric washbasin he's been
+intriguin' to get her. Why? We know he doesn't wash. He'd only use
+the basin to keep beer in."
+
+
+UNDERWATER WORKS
+
+However often one meets it, as in this war one meets it at every turn,
+one never gets used to the Holy Spirit of Man at his job. The "common
+sweeper," growling over his mug of tea that there was "nothing in
+sweepin'," and these idly chaffing men, new shaved and attired, from
+the gates of Death which had let them through for the fiftieth time,
+were all of the same fabric--incomprehensible, I should imagine, to
+the enemy. And the stuff held good throughout all the world--from the
+Dardanelles to the Baltic, where only a little while ago another batch
+of submarines had slipped in and begun to be busy. I had spent some of
+the afternoon in looking through reports of submarine work in the Sea
+of Marmora. They read like the diary of energetic weasels in an
+overcrowded chicken-run, and the results for each boat were tabulated
+something like a cricket score. There were no maiden overs. One came
+across jewels of price set in the flat official phraseology. For
+example, one man who was describing some steps he was taking to remedy
+certain defects, interjected casually: "At this point I had to go
+under for a little, as a man in a boat was trying to grab my periscope
+with his hand." No reference before or after to the said man or his
+fate. Again: "Came across a dhow with a Turkish skipper. He seemed so
+miserable that I let him go." And elsewhere in those waters, a
+submarine overhauled a steamer full of Turkish passengers, some of
+whom, arguing on their allies' lines, promptly leaped overboard. Our
+boat fished them out and returned them, for she was not killing
+civilians. In another affair, which included several ships (now at the
+bottom) and one submarine, the commander relaxes enough to note that:
+"The men behaved very well under direct and flanking fire from rifles
+at about fifteen yards." This was _not_, I believe, the submarine that
+fought the Turkish cavalry on the beach. And in addition to matters
+much more marvellous than any I have hinted at, the reports deal with
+repairs and shifts and contrivances carried through in the face of
+dangers that read like the last delirium of romance. One boat went
+down the Straits and found herself rather canted over to one side. A
+mine and chain had jammed under her forward diving-plane. So far as I
+made out, she shook it off by standing on her head and jerking
+backwards; or it may have been, for the thing has occurred more than
+once, she merely rose as much as she could, when she could, and then
+"released it by hand," as the official phrase goes.
+
+
+FOUR NIGHTMARES
+
+And who, a few months ago, could have invented, or having invented,
+would have dared to print such a nightmare as this: There was a boat
+in the North Sea who ran into a net and was caught by the nose. She
+rose, still entangled, meaning to cut the thing away on the surface.
+But a Zeppelin in waiting saw and bombed her, and she had to go down
+again at once--but not too wildly or she would get herself more
+wrapped up than ever. She went down, and by slow working and weaving
+and wriggling, guided only by guesses at the meaning of each scrape
+and grind of the net on her blind forehead, at last she drew clear.
+Then she sat on the bottom and thought. The question was whether she
+should go back at once and warn her confederates against the trap, or
+wait till the destroyers which she knew the Zeppelin would have
+signalled for, should come out to finish her still entangled, as they
+would suppose, in the net? It was a simple calculation of comparative
+speeds and positions, and when it was worked out she decided to try
+for the double event. Within a few minutes of the time she had allowed
+for them, she heard the twitter of four destroyers' screws quartering
+above her; rose; got her shot in; saw one destroyer crumple; hung
+round till another took the wreck in tow; said good-bye to the spare
+brace (she was at the end of her supplies), and reached the
+rendezvous in time to turn her friends.
+
+And since we are dealing in nightmares, here are two more--one
+genuine, the other, mercifully, false. There was a boat not only at,
+but _in_ the mouth of a river--well home in German territory. She was
+spotted, and went under, her commander perfectly aware that there was
+not more than five feet of water over her conning-tower, so that even
+a torpedo-boat, let alone a destroyer, would hit it if she came over.
+But nothing hit anything. The search was conducted on scientific
+principles while they sat on the silt and suffered. Then the commander
+heard the rasp of a wire trawl sweeping over his hull. It was not a
+nice sound, but there happened to be a couple of gramophones aboard,
+and he turned them both on to drown it. And in due time that boat got
+home with everybody's hair of just the same colour as when they had
+started!
+
+The other nightmare arose out of silence and imagination. A boat had
+gone to bed on the bottom in a spot where she might reasonably expect
+to be looked for, but it was a convenient jumping-off, or up, place
+for the work in hand. About the bad hour of 2.30 A.M. the commander
+was waked by one of his men, who whispered to him: "They've got the
+chains on us, sir!" Whether it was pure nightmare, an hallucination of
+long wakefulness, something relaxing and releasing in that packed box
+of machinery, or the disgustful reality, the commander could not tell,
+but it had all the makings of panic in it. So the Lord and long
+training put it into his head to reply! "Have they? Well, we shan't be
+coming up till nine o'clock this morning. Well see about it then. Turn
+out that light, please."
+
+_He_ did not sleep, but the dreamer and the others did, and when
+morning came and he gave the order to rise, and she rose unhampered,
+and he saw the grey, smeared seas from above once again, he said it
+was a very refreshing sight.
+
+Lastly, which is on all fours with the gamble of the chase, a man was
+coming home rather bored after an uneventful trip. It was necessary
+for him to sit on the bottom for awhile, and there he played patience.
+Of a sudden it struck him, as a vow and an omen, that if he worked out
+the next game correctly he would go up and strafe something. The cards
+fell all in order. He went up at once and found himself alongside a
+German, whom, as he had promised and prophesied to himself, he
+destroyed. She was a mine-layer, and needed only a jar to dissipate
+like a cracked electric-light bulb. He was somewhat impressed by the
+contrast between the single-handed game fifty feet below, the ascent,
+the attack, the amazing result, and when he descended again, his cards
+just as he had left them.
+
+    The ships destroy us above
+      And ensnare us beneath.
+    We arise, we lie down, and we move
+      In the belly of Death.
+
+    The ships have a thousand eyes
+      To mark where we come ...
+    And the mirth of a seaport dies
+      When our blow gets home.
+
+
+
+
+SUBMARINES
+
+II
+
+
+I was honoured by a glimpse into this veiled life in a boat which was
+merely practising between trips. Submarines are like cats. They never
+tell "who they were with last night," and they sleep as much as they
+can. If you board a submarine off duty you generally see a perspective
+of fore-shortened fattish men laid all along. The men say that except
+at certain times it is rather an easy life, with relaxed regulations
+about smoking, calculated to make a man put on flesh. One requires
+well-padded nerves. Many of the men do not appear on deck throughout
+the whole trip. After all, why should they if they don't want to? They
+know that they are responsible in their department for their
+comrades' lives as their comrades are responsible for theirs. What's
+the use of flapping about? Better lay in some magazines and
+cigarettes.
+
+When we set forth there had been some trouble in the fairway, and a
+mined neutral, whose misfortune all bore with exemplary calm, was
+careened on a near-by shoal.
+
+"Suppose there are more mines knocking about?" I suggested.
+
+"We'll hope there aren't," was the soothing reply. "Mines are all
+Joss. You either hit 'em or you don't. And if you do, they don't
+always go off. They scrape alongside."
+
+"What's the etiquette then?"
+
+"Shut off both propellers and hope."
+
+We were dodging various craft down the harbour when a squadron of
+trawlers came out on our beam, at that extravagant rate of speed which
+unlimited Government coal always leads to. They were led by an ugly,
+upstanding, black-sided buccaneer with twelve-pounders.
+
+"Ah! That's the King of the Trawlers. Isn't he carrying dog, too!
+Give him room!" one said.
+
+We were all in the narrowed harbour mouth together.
+
+"'There's my youngest daughter. Take a look at her!'" some one hummed
+as a punctilious navy cap slid by on a very near bridge.
+
+"We'll fall in behind him. They're going over to the neutral. Then
+they'll sweep. By the bye, did you hear about one of the passengers in
+the neutral yesterday? He was taken off, of course, by a destroyer,
+and the only thing he said was: 'Twenty-five time I 'ave insured, but
+not _this_ time.... 'Ang it!'"
+
+The trawlers lunged ahead toward the forlorn neutral. Our destroyer
+nipped past us with that high-shouldered, terrier-like pouncing action
+of the newer boats, and went ahead. A tramp in ballast, her propeller
+half out of water, threshed along through the sallow haze.
+
+"Lord! What a shot!" somebody said enviously. The men on the little
+deck looked across at the slow-moving silhouette. One of them, a
+cigarette behind his ear, smiled at a companion.
+
+Then we went down--not as they go when they are pressed (the record, I
+believe, is 50 feet in 50 seconds from top to bottom), but genteelly,
+to an orchestra of appropriate sounds, roarings, and blowings, and
+after the orders, which come from the commander alone, utter silence
+and peace.
+
+"There's the bottom. We bumped at fifty--fifty-two," he said.
+
+"I didn't feel it."
+
+"We'll try again. Watch the gauge, and you'll see it flick a little."
+
+
+THE PRACTICE OF THE ART
+
+It may have been so, but I was more interested in the faces, and above
+all the eyes, all down the length of her. It was to them, of course,
+the simplest of manoeuvres. They dropped into gear as no machine
+could; but the training of years and the experience of the year leaped
+up behind those steady eyes under the electrics in the shadow of the
+tall motors, between the pipes and the curved hull, or glued to their
+special gauges. One forgot the bodies altogether--but one will never
+forget the eyes or the ennobled faces. One man I remember in
+particular. On deck his was no more than a grave, rather striking
+countenance, cast in the unmistakable petty officer's mould. Below, as
+I saw him in profile handling a vital control, he looked like the Doge
+of Venice, the Prior of some sternly-ruled monastic order, an old-time
+Pope--anything that signifies trained and stored intellectual power
+utterly and ascetically devoted to some vast impersonal end. And so
+with a much younger man, who changed into such a monk as Frank Dicksee
+used to draw. Only a couple of torpedo-men, not being in gear for the
+moment, read an illustrated paper. Their time did not come till we
+went up and got to business, which meant firing at our destroyer, and,
+I think, keeping out of the light of a friend's torpedoes.
+
+The attack and everything connected with it is solely the commander's
+affair. He is the only one who gets any fun at all--since he is the
+eye, the brain, and the hand of the whole--this single figure at the
+periscope. The second in command heaves sighs, and prays that the
+dummy torpedo (there is less trouble about the live ones) will go off
+all right, or he'll be told about it. The others wait and follow the
+quick run of orders. It is, if not a convention, a fairly established
+custom that the commander shall inferentially give his world some idea
+of what is going on. At least, I only heard of one man who says
+nothing whatever, and doesn't even wriggle his shoulders when he is on
+the sight. The others soliloquise, etc., according to their
+temperament; and the periscope is as revealing as golf.
+
+Submarines nowadays are expected to look out for themselves more than
+at the old practices, when the destroyers walked circumspectly. We
+dived and circulated under water for a while, and then rose for a
+sight--something like this: "Up a little--up! Up still! Where the
+deuce has he got to--Ah! (Half a dozen orders as to helm and depth of
+descent, and a pause broken by a drumming noise somewhere above, which
+increases and passes away.) That's better! Up again! (This refers to
+the periscope.) Yes. Ah! No, we _don't_ think! All right! Keep her
+_down_, damn it! Umm! That ought to be nineteen knots.... Dirty trick!
+He's changing speed. No, he isn't. _He's_ all right. Ready forward
+there! (A valve sputters and drips, the torpedo-men crouch over their
+tubes and nod to themselves. _Their_ faces have changed now.) He
+hasn't spotted us yet. We'll ju-ust--(more helm and depth orders, but
+specially helm)--'Wish we were working a beam-tube. Ne'er mind! Up! (A
+last string of orders.) Six hundred, and he doesn't see us! Fire!"
+
+The dummy left; the second in command cocked one ear and looked
+relieved. Up we rose; the wet air and spray spattered through the
+hatch; the destroyer swung off to retrieve the dummy.
+
+"Careless brutes destroyers are," said one officer. "That fellow
+nearly walked over us just now. Did you notice?"
+
+The commander was playing his game out over again--stroke by stroke.
+"With a beam-tube I'd ha' strafed him amidships," he concluded.
+
+"Why didn't you then?" I asked.
+
+There were loads of shiny reasons, which reminded me that we were at
+war and cleared for action, and that the interlude had been merely
+play. A companion rose alongside and wanted to know whether we had
+seen anything of her dummy.
+
+"No. But we heard it," was the short answer.
+
+I was rather annoyed, because I had seen that particular daughter of
+destruction on the stocks only a short time ago, and here she was
+grown up and talking about her missing children!
+
+In the harbour again, one found more submarines, all patterns and
+makes and sizes, with rumours of yet more and larger to follow.
+Naturally their men say that we are only at the beginning of the
+submarine. We shall have them presently for all purposes.
+
+
+THE MAN AND THE WORK
+
+Now here is a mystery of the Service.
+
+A man gets a boat which for two years becomes his very self--
+
+    His morning hope, his evening dream,
+    His joy throughout the day.
+
+With him is a second in command, an engineer, and some others. They
+prove each other's souls habitually every few days, by the direct test
+of peril, till they act, think, and endure as a unit, in and with the
+boat. That commander is transferred to another boat. He tries to take
+with him if he can, which he can't, as many of his other selves as
+possible. He is pitched into a new type twice the size of the old one,
+with three times as many gadgets, an unexplored temperament and
+unknown leanings. After his first trip he comes back clamouring for
+the head of her constructor, of his own second in command, his
+engineer, his cox, and a few other ratings. They for their part wish
+him dead on the beach, because, last commission with So-and-so,
+nothing ever went wrong anywhere. A fortnight later you can remind the
+commander of what he said, and he will deny every word of it. She's
+not, he says, so very vile--things considered--barring her five-ton
+torpedo-derricks, the abominations of her wireless, and the tropical
+temperature of her beer-lockers. All of which signifies that the new
+boat has found her soul, and her commander would not change her for
+battle-cruisers. Therefore, that he may remember he is the Service and
+not a branch of it, he is after certain seasons shifted to a
+battle-cruiser, where he lives in a blaze of admirals and
+aiguillettes, responsible for vast decks and crypt-like flats, a
+student of extended above-water tactics, thinking in tens of thousands
+of yards instead of his modest but deadly three to twelve hundred.
+
+And the man who takes his place straight-way forgets that he ever
+looked down on great rollers from a sixty-foot bridge under the whole
+breadth of heaven, but crawls and climbs and dives through
+conning-towers with those same waves wet in his neck, and when the
+cruisers pass him, tearing the deep open in half a gale, thanks God he
+is not as they are, and goes to bed beneath their distracted keels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+EXPERT OPINIONS
+
+"But submarine work is cold-blooded business."
+
+(This was at a little session in a green-curtained "wardroom" cum
+owner's cabin.)
+
+"Then there's no truth in the yarn that you can feel when the
+torpedo's going to get home?" I asked.
+
+"Not a word. You sometimes see it get home, or miss, as the case may
+be. Of course, it's never your fault if it misses. It's all your
+second-in-command."
+
+"That's true, too," said the second. "I catch it all round. That's
+what I am here for."
+
+"And what about the third man?" There was one aboard at the time.
+
+"He generally comes from a smaller boat, to pick up real work--if he
+can suppress his intellect and doesn't talk 'last commission.'"
+
+The third hand promptly denied the possession of any intellect, and
+was quite dumb about his last boat.
+
+"And the men?"
+
+"They train on, too. They train each other. Yes, one gets to know 'em
+about as well as they get to know us. Up topside, a man can take you
+in--take himself in--for months; for half a commission, p'rhaps. Down
+below he can't. It's all in cold blood--not like at the front, where
+they have something exciting all the time."
+
+"Then bumping mines isn't exciting?"
+
+"Not one little bit. You can't bump back at 'em. Even with a Zepp----"
+
+"Oh, now and then," one interrupted, and they laughed as they
+explained.
+
+"Yes, that was rather funny. One of our boats came up slap underneath
+a low Zepp. 'Looked for the sky, you know, and couldn't see anything
+except this fat, shining belly almost on top of 'em. Luckily, it
+wasn't the Zepp's stingin' end. So our boat went to windward and kept
+just awash. There was a bit of a sea, and the Zepp had to work against
+the wind. (They don't like that.) Our boat sent a man to the gun. He
+was pretty well drowned, of course, but he hung on, choking and
+spitting, and held his breath, and got in shots where he could. This
+Zepp was strafing bombs about for all she was worth, and--who was
+it?--Macartney, I think, potting at her between dives; and naturally
+all hands wanted to look at the performance, so about half the North
+Sea flopped down below and--oh, they had a Charlie Chaplin time of it!
+Well, somehow, Macartney managed to rip the Zepp a bit, and she went
+to leeward with a list on her. We saw her a fortnight later with a
+patch on her port side. Oh, if Fritz only fought clean, this wouldn't
+be half a bad show. But Fritz can't fight clean."
+
+"And _we_ can't do what he does--even if we were allowed to," one
+said.
+
+"No, we can't. 'Tisn't done. We have to fish Fritz out of the water,
+dry him, and give him cocktails, and send him to Donnington Hall."
+
+"And what does Fritz do?" I asked.
+
+"He sputters and clicks and bows. He has all the correct motions, you
+know; but, of course, when he's your prisoner you can't tell him what
+he really is."
+
+"And do you suppose Fritz understands any of it?" I went on.
+
+"No. Or he wouldn't have lusitaniaed. This war was his first chance of
+making his name, and he chucked it all away for the sake of showin'
+off as a foul Gottstrafer."
+
+And they talked of that hour of the night when submarines come to the
+top like mermaids to get and give information; of boats whose business
+it is to fire as much and to splash about as aggressively as possible;
+and of other boats who avoid any sort of display--dumb boats watching
+and relieving watch, with their periscope just showing like a
+crocodile's eye, at the back of islands and the mouths of channels
+where something may some day move out in procession to its doom.
+
+    Be well assured that on our side
+      Our challenged oceans fight,
+    Though headlong wind and heaping tide
+      Make us their sport to-night.
+    Through force of weather, not of war,
+      In jeopardy we steer.
+    Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy
+      Whereby it shall appear
+        How in all time of our distress
+        As in our triumph too,
+        The game is more than the player of the game,
+        And the ship is more than the crew!
+
+    Be well assured, though wave and wind
+      Have mightier blows in store,
+    That we who keep the watch assigned
+      Must stand to it the more;
+    And as our streaming bows dismiss
+      Each billow's baulked career,
+    Sing, welcome Fate's discourtesy
+      Whereby it is made clear
+        How in all time of our distress
+        As in our triumph too,
+        The game is more than the player of the game,
+        And the ship is more than the crew!
+
+    Be well assured, though in our power
+      Is nothing left to give
+    But time and place to meet the hour
+      And leave to strive to live,
+    Till these dissolve our Order holds,
+      Our Service binds us here.
+    Then, welcome Fate's discourtesy
+      Whereby it is made clear
+        How in all time of our distress
+        And our deliverance too,
+        The game is more than the player of the game,
+        And the ship is more than the crew!
+
+
+
+
+PATROLS
+
+I
+
+
+On the edge of the North Sea sits an Admiral in charge of a stretch of
+coast without lights or marks, along which the traffic moves much as
+usual. In front of him there is nothing but the east wind, the enemy,
+and some few our ships. Behind him there are towns, with M.P.'s
+attached, who a little while ago didn't see the reason for certain
+lighting orders. When a Zeppelin or two came, they saw. Left and right
+of him are enormous docks, with vast crowded sheds, miles of
+stone-faced quay-edges, loaded with all manner of supplies and crowded
+with mixed shipping.
+
+In this exalted world one met Staff-Captains, Staff-Commanders,
+Staff-Lieutenants, and Secretaries, with Paymasters so senior that
+they almost ranked with Admirals. There were Warrant Officers, too,
+who long ago gave up splashing about decks barefoot, and now check and
+issue stores to the ravenous, untruthful fleets. Said one of these,
+guarding a collection of desirable things, to a cross between a
+sick-bay attendant and a junior writer (but he was really an expert
+burglar), "_No!_ An' you can tell Mr. So-and-so, with my compliments,
+that the storekeeper's gone away--right away--with the key of these
+stores in his pocket. Understand me? In his trousers pocket."
+
+He snorted at my next question.
+
+"_Do_ I know any destroyer-lootenants?" said he. "This coast's rank
+with 'em! Destroyer-lootenants are born stealing. It's a mercy they's
+too busy to practise forgery, or I'd be in gaol. Engineer-Commanders?
+Engineer-Lootenants? They're worse!... Look here! If my own mother was
+to come to me beggin' brass screws for her own coffin, I'd--I'd think
+twice before I'd oblige the old lady. War's war, I grant you that;
+but what I've got to contend with is crime."
+
+I referred to him a case of conscience in which every one concerned
+acted exactly as he should, and it nearly ended in murder. During a
+lengthy action, the working of a gun was hampered by some empty
+cartridge-cases which the lieutenant in charge made signs (no man
+could hear his neighbour speak just then) should be hove overboard.
+Upon which the gunner rushed forward and made other signs that they
+were "on charge," and must be tallied and accounted for. He, too, was
+trained in a strict school. Upon which the lieutenant, but that he was
+busy, would have slain the gunner for refusing orders in action.
+Afterwards he wanted him shot by court-martial. But every one was
+voiceless by then, and could only mouth and croak at each other, till
+somebody laughed, and the pedantic gunner was spared.
+
+"Well, that's what you might fairly call a naval crux," said my friend
+among the stores. "The Lootenant was right. 'Mustn't refuse orders in
+action. The Gunner was right. Empty cases _are_ on charge. No one
+ought to chuck 'em away that way, but.... Damn it, they were _all_ of
+'em right! It ought to ha' been a marine. Then they could have killed
+him and preserved discipline at the same time."
+
+
+A LITTLE THEORY
+
+The problem of this coast resolves itself into keeping touch with the
+enemy's movements; in preparing matters to trap and hinder him when he
+moves, and in so entertaining him that he shall not have time to draw
+clear before a blow descends on him from another quarter. There are
+then three lines of defence: the outer, the inner, and the home
+waters. The traffic and fishing are always with us.
+
+The blackboard idea of it is always to have stronger forces more
+immediately available everywhere than those the enemy can send. _x_
+German submarines draw _a_ English destroyers. Then _x_ calls _x + y_
+to deal with _a_, who, in turn, calls up _b_, a scout, and possibly
+_a squared_, with a fair chance that, if _x + y + z_ (a Zeppelin) carry on,
+they will run into _a squared + b squared + c_ cruisers. At this point, the equation
+generally stops; if it continued, it would end mathematically in the
+whole of the German Fleet coming out. Then another factor which we may
+call the Grand Fleet would come from another place. To change the
+comparisons: the Grand Fleet is the "strong left" ready to give the
+knock-out blow on the point of the chin when the head is thrown up.
+The other fleets and other arrangements threaten the enemy's solar
+plexus and stomach. Somewhere in relation to the Grand Fleet lies the
+"blockading" cordon which examines neutral traffic. It could be drawn
+as tight as a Turkish bowstring, but for reasons which we may arrive
+at after the war, it does not seem to have been so drawn up to date.
+
+The enemy lies behind his mines, and ours, raids our coasts when he
+sees a chance, and kills seagoing civilians at sight or guess, with
+intent to terrify. Most sailor-men are mixed up with a woman or two; a
+fair percentage of them have seen men drown. They can realise what it
+is when women go down choking in horrible tangles and heavings of
+draperies. To say that the enemy has cut himself from the fellowship
+of all who use the seas is rather understating the case. As a man
+observed thoughtfully: "You can't look at any water now without seeing
+'Lusitania' sprawlin' all across it. And just think of those words,
+'North-German Lloyd,' 'Hamburg-Amerika' and such things, in the time
+to come. They simply mustn't be."
+
+He was an elderly trawler, respectable as they make them, who, after
+many years of fishing, had discovered his real vocation. "I never
+thought I'd like killin' men," he reflected. "Never seemed to be any
+o' my dooty. But it is--and I do!"
+
+A great deal of the East Coast work concerns mine-fields--ours and the
+enemy's--both of which shift as occasion requires. We search for and
+root out the enemy's mines; they do the like by us. It is a perpetual
+game of finding, springing, and laying traps on the least as well as
+the most likely runaways that ships use--such sea snaring and wiring
+as the world never dreamt of. We are hampered in this, because our
+Navy respects neutrals; and spends a great deal of its time in making
+their path safe for them. The enemy does not. He blows them up,
+because that cows and impresses them, and so adds to his prestige.
+
+
+DEATH AND THE DESTROYER
+
+The easiest way of finding a mine-field is to steam into it, on the
+edge of night for choice, with a steep sea running, for that brings
+the bows down like a chopper on the detonator-horns. Some boats have
+enjoyed this experience and still live. There was one destroyer (and
+there may have been others since) who came through twenty-four hours
+of highly-compressed life. She had an idea that there was a
+mine-field somewhere about, and left her companions behind while she
+explored. The weather was dead calm, and she walked delicately. She
+saw one Scandinavian steamer blow up a couple of miles away, rescued
+the skipper and some hands; saw another neutral, which she could not
+reach till all was over, skied in another direction; and, between her
+life-saving efforts and her natural curiosity, got herself as
+thoroughly mixed up with the field as a camel among tent-ropes. A
+destroyer's bows are very fine, and her sides are very straight. This
+causes her to cleave the wave with the minimum of disturbance, and
+this boat had no desire to cleave anything else. None the less, from
+time to time, she heard a mine grate, or tinkle, or jar (I could not
+arrive at the precise note it strikes, but they say it is unpleasant)
+on her plates. Sometimes she would be free of them for a long while,
+and began to hope she was clear. At other times they were numerous,
+but when at last she seemed to have worried out of the danger zone
+lieutenant and sub together left the bridge for a cup of tea. ("In
+those days we took mines very seriously, you know.") As they were in
+act to drink, they heard the hateful sound again just outside the
+wardroom. Both put their cups down with extreme care, little fingers
+extended ("We felt as if they might blow up, too"), and tip-toed on
+deck, where they met the foc'sle also on tip-toe. They pulled
+themselves together, and asked severely what the foc'sle thought it
+was doing. "Beg pardon, sir, but there's another of those blighters
+tap-tapping alongside, our end." They all waited and listened to their
+common coffin being nailed by Death himself. But the things bumped
+away. At this point they thought it only decent to invite the rescued
+skipper, warm and blanketed in one of their bunks, to step up and do
+any further perishing in the open.
+
+"No, thank you," said he. "Last time I was blown up in my bunk, too.
+That was all right. So I think, now, too, I stay in my bunk here. It
+is cold upstairs."
+
+Somehow or other they got out of the mess after all. "Yes, we used to
+take mines awfully seriously in those days. One comfort is, Fritz'll
+take them seriously when he comes out. Fritz don't like mines."
+
+"Who does?" I wanted to know.
+
+"If you'd been here a little while ago, you'd seen a Commander comin'
+in with a big 'un slung under his counter. He brought the beastly
+thing in to analyse. The rest of his squadron followed at two-knot
+intervals, and everything in harbour that had steam up scattered."
+
+
+THE ADMIRABLE COMMANDER
+
+Presently I had the honour to meet a Lieutenant-Commander-Admiral who
+had retired from the service, but, like others, had turned out again at
+the first flash of the guns, and now commands--he who had great ships
+erupting at his least signal--a squadron of trawlers for the protection
+of the Dogger Bank Fleet. At present prices--let alone the chance of the
+paying submarine--men would fish in much warmer places. His flagship
+was once a multi-millionaire's private yacht. In her mixture of stark,
+carpetless, curtainless, carbolised present, with voluptuously curved,
+broad-decked, easy-stairwayed past, she might be Queen Guinevere in the
+convent at Amesbury. And her Lieutenant-Commander, most careful to pay
+all due compliments to Admirals who were midshipmen when _he_ was a
+Commander, leads a congregation of very hard men indeed. They do
+precisely what he tells them to, and with him go through strange
+experiences, because they love him and because his language is volcanic
+and wonderful--what you might call Popocatapocalyptic. I saw the Old
+Navy making ready to lead out the New under a grey sky and a falling
+glass--the wisdom and cunning of the old man backed up by the passion
+and power of the younger breed, and the discipline which had been his
+soul for half a century binding them all.
+
+"What'll he do _this_ time?" I asked of one who might know.
+
+"He'll cruise between Two and Three East; but if you'll tell me what
+he _won't_ do, it 'ud be more to the point! He's mine-hunting, I
+expect, just now."
+
+
+WASTED MATERIAL
+
+Here is a digression suggested by the sight of a man I had known in
+other scenes, despatch-riding round a fleet in a petrol-launch. There
+are many of his type, yachtsmen of sorts accustomed to take chances,
+who do not hold masters' certificates and cannot be given sea-going
+commands. Like my friend, they do general utility work--often in their
+own boats. This is a waste of good material. Nobody wants amateur
+navigators--the traffic lanes are none too wide as it is. But these
+gentlemen ought to be distributed among the Trawler Fleet as strictly
+combatant officers. A trawler skipper may be an excellent seaman, but
+slow with a submarine shelling and diving, or in cutting out enemy
+trawlers. The young ones who can master Q.F. gun work in a very short
+time would--though there might be friction, a court-martial or two,
+and probably losses at first--pay for their keep. Even a hundred or so
+of amateurs, more or less controlled by their squadron commanders,
+would make a happy beginning, and I am sure they would all be
+extremely grateful.
+
+    Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning,
+      And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole,
+    I heard a destroyer sing: "What an enjoyable life does one
+              lead on the North Sea Patrol!
+
+    "To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritz's),
+      Which means there are mine-fields wherever you stroll.
+    Unless you've particular wish to die quick, you'll avoid steering
+              close to the North Sea Patrol.
+
+    "We warn from disaster the mercantile master
+      Who takes in high dudgeon our life-saving role,
+    For every one's grousing at docking and dowsing
+      The marks and the lights on the North Sea Patrol."
+
+    [Twelve verses omitted.]
+
+    So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving,
+    I watched her head out through the swell off the shoal,
+    And I heard her propellers roar: "Write to poor fellers
+      Who run such a Hell as the North Sea Patrol!"
+
+
+
+
+PATROLS
+
+II
+
+
+The great basins were crammed with craft of kinds never known before
+on any Navy List. Some were as they were born, others had been
+converted, and a multitude have been designed for special cases. The
+Navy prepares against all contingencies by land, sea, and air. It was
+a relief to meet a batch of comprehensible destroyers and to drop
+again into the little mouse-trap ward-rooms, which are as
+large-hearted as all Our oceans. The men one used to know as
+destroyer-lieutenants ("born stealing") are serious Commanders and
+Captains to-day, but their sons, Lieutenants in command and
+Lieutenant-Commanders, do follow them. The sea in peace is a hard
+life; war only sketches an extra line or two round the young mouths.
+The routine of ships always ready for action is so part of the blood
+now that no one notices anything except the absence of formality and
+of the "crimes" of peace. What Warrant Officers used to say at length
+is cut down to a grunt. What the sailor-man did not know and expected
+to have told him, does not exist. He has done it all too often at sea
+and ashore.
+
+I watched a little party working under a leading hand at a job which,
+eighteen months ago, would have required a Gunner in charge. It was
+comic to see his orders trying to overtake the execution of them.
+Ratings coming aboard carried themselves with a (to me) new
+swing--not swank, but consciousness of adequacy. The high, dark
+foc'sles which, thank goodness, are only washed twice a week,
+received them and their bags, and they turned-to on the instant as a
+man picks up his life at home. Like the submarine crew, they come to
+be a breed apart--double-jointed, extra-toed, with brazen bowels and
+no sort of nerves.
+
+It is the same in the engine-room, when the ships come in for their
+regular looking-over. Those who love them, which you would never guess
+from the language, know exactly what they need, and get it without
+fuss. Everything that steams has her individual peculiarity, and the
+great thing is, at overhaul, to keep to it and not develop a new one.
+If, for example, through some trick of her screws not synchronising, a
+destroyer always casts to port when she goes astern, do not let any
+zealous soul try to make her run true, or you will have to learn her
+helm all over again. And it is vital that you should know exactly what
+your ship is going to do three seconds before she does it. Similarly
+with men. If any one, from Lieutenant-Commander to stoker, changes his
+personal trick or habit--even the manner in which he clutches his chin
+or caresses his nose at a crisis--the matter must be carefully
+considered in this world where each is trustee for his neighbour's
+life and, vastly more important, the corporate honour.
+
+"What are the destroyers doing just now?" I asked.
+
+"Oh--running about--much the same as usual."
+
+The Navy hasn't the least objection to telling one everything that it
+is doing. Unfortunately, it speaks its own language, which is
+incomprehensible to the civilian. But you will find it all in "The
+Channel Pilot" and "The Riddle of the Sands."
+
+It is a foul coast, hairy with currents and rips, and mottled with
+shoals and rocks. Practically the same men hold on here in the same
+ships, with much the same crews, for months and months. A most senior
+officer told me that they were "good boys"--on reflection, "quite good
+boys"--but neither he nor the flags on his chart explained how they
+managed their lightless, unmarked navigations through black night,
+blinding rain, and the crazy, rebounding North Sea gales. They
+themselves ascribe it to Joss that they have not piled up their ships
+a hundred times.
+
+"I expect it must be because we're always dodging about over the same
+ground. One gets to smell it. We've bumped pretty hard, of course, but
+we haven't expended much up to date. You never know your luck on
+patrol, though."
+
+
+THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
+
+Personally, though they have been true friends to me, I loathe
+destroyers, and all the raw, racking, ricochetting life that goes with
+them--the smell of the wet "lammies" and damp wardroom cushions; the
+galley-chimney smoking out the bridge; the obstacle-strewn deck; and
+the pervading beastliness of oil, grit, and greasy iron. Even at
+moorings they shiver and sidle like half-backed horses. At sea they
+will neither rise up and fly clear like the hydroplanes, nor dive and
+be done with it like the submarines, but imitate the vices of both. A
+scientist of the lower deck describes them as: "Half switchback, half
+water-chute, and Hell continuous." Their only merit, from a landsman's
+point of view, is that they can crumple themselves up from stem to
+bridge and (I have seen it) still get home. But one does not breathe
+these compliments to their commanders. Other destroyers may be--they
+will point them out to you--poisonous bags of tricks, but their own
+command--never! Is she high-bowed? That is the only type which
+over-rides the seas instead of smothering. Is she low? Low bows glide
+through the water where those collier-nosed brutes smash it open. Is
+she mucked up with submarine-catchers? They rather improve her trim.
+No other ship has them. Have they been denied to her? Thank Heaven,
+_we_ go to sea without a fish-curing plant on deck. Does she roll,
+even for her class? She is drier than Dreadnoughts. Is she permanently
+and infernally wet? Stiff; sir--stiff: the first requisite of a
+gun-platform.
+
+
+"SERVICE AS REQUISITE"
+
+Thus the Caesars and their fortunes put out to sea with their subs and
+their sad-eyed engineers, and their long-suffering signallers--I do
+not even know the technical name of the sin which causes a man to be
+born a destroyer-signaller in this life--and the little yellow shells
+stuck all about where they can be easiest reached. The rest of their
+acts is written for the information of the proper authorities. It
+reads like a page of Todhunter. But the masters of merchant-ships
+could tell more of eyeless shapes, barely outlined on the foam of
+their own arrest, who shout orders through the thick gloom alongside.
+The strayed and anxious neutral knows them when their searchlights pin
+him across the deep, or their syrens answer the last yelp of his as
+steam goes out of his torpedoed boilers. They stand by to catch and
+soothe him in his pyjamas at the gangway, collect his scattered
+lifeboats, and see a warm drink into him before they turn to hunt the
+slayer. The drifters, punching and reeling up and down their ten-mile
+line of traps; the outer trawlers, drawing the very teeth of Death
+with water-sodden fingers, are grateful for their low, guarded
+signals; and when the Zeppelin's revealing star-shell cracks darkness
+open above him, the answering crack of the invisible destroyers' guns
+comforts the busy mine-layers. Big cruisers talk to them, too; and,
+what is more, they talk back to the cruisers. Sometimes they draw
+fire--pinkish spurts of light--a long way off, where Fritz is trying
+to coax them over a mine-field he has just laid; or they steal on
+Fritz in the midst of his job, and the horizon rings with barking,
+which the inevitable neutral who saw it all reports as "a heavy fleet
+action in the North Sea." The sea after dark can be as alive as the
+woods of summer nights. Everything is exactly where you don't expect
+it, and the shyest creatures are the farthest away from their holes.
+Things boom overhead like bitterns, or scutter alongside like hares,
+or arise dripping and hissing from below like otters. It is the
+destroyer's business to find out what their business may be through
+all the long night, and to help or hinder accordingly. Dawn sees them
+pitch-poling insanely between head-seas, or hanging on to bridges that
+sweep like scythes from one forlorn horizon to the other. A
+homeward-bound submarine chooses this hour to rise, very
+ostentatiously, and signals by hand to a lieutenant in command. (They
+were the same term at Dartmouth, and same first ship.)
+
+"What's he sayin'? Secure that gun, will you? 'Can't hear oneself
+speak," The gun is a bit noisy on its mountings, but that isn't the
+reason for the destroyer-lieutenant's short temper.
+
+"'Says he's goin' down, sir," the signaller replies. What the
+submarine had spelt out, and everybody knows it, was: "Cannot approve
+of this extremely frightful weather. Am going to bye-bye."
+
+"Well!" snaps the lieutenant to his signaller, "what are you grinning
+at?" The submarine has hung on to ask if the destroyer will "kiss her
+and whisper good-night." A breaking sea smacks her tower in the middle
+of the insult. She closes like an oyster, but--just too late. _Habet!_
+There must be a quarter of a ton of water somewhere down below, on its
+way to her ticklish batteries.
+
+"What a wag!" says the signaller, dreamily. "Well, 'e can't say 'e
+didn't get 'is little kiss."
+
+The lieutenant in command smiles. The sea is a beast, but a just
+beast.
+
+
+RACIAL UNTRUTHS
+
+This is trivial enough, but what would you have? If Admirals will not
+strike the proper attitudes, nor Lieutenants emit the appropriate
+sentiments, one is forced back on the truth, which is that the men at
+the heart of the great matters in our Empire are, mostly, of an even
+simplicity. From the advertising point of view they are stupid, but
+the breed has always been stupid in this department. It may be due,
+as our enemies assert, to our racial snobbery, or, as others hold, to
+a certain God-given lack of imagination which saves us from being
+over-concerned at the effects of our appearances on others. Either
+way, it deceives the enemies' people more than any calculated lie.
+When you come to think of it, though the English are the worst
+paper-work and _viva voce_ liars in the world, they have been
+rigorously trained since their early youth to live and act lies for
+the comfort of the society in which they move, and so for their own
+comfort. The result in this war is interesting.
+
+It is no lie that at the present moment we hold all the seas in the
+hollow of our hands. For that reason we shuffle over them shame-faced
+and apologetic, making arrangements here and flagrant compromises
+there, in order to give substance to the lie that we have dropped
+fortuitously into this high seat and are looking round the world for
+some one to resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, had we used the
+Navy's bare fist instead of its gloved hand from the beginning, we
+could in all likelihood have shortened the war. That being so, we
+elected to dab and peck at and half-strangle the enemy, to let him go
+and choke him again. It is no lie that we continue on our inexplicable
+path animated, we will try to believe till other proof is given, by a
+cloudy idea of alleviating or mitigating something for somebody--not
+ourselves. [Here, of course, is where our racial snobbery comes in,
+which makes the German gibber. I cannot understand why he has not
+accused us to our Allies of having secret commercial understandings
+with him.] For that reason, we shall finish the German eagle as the
+merciful lady killed the chicken. It took her the whole afternoon, and
+then, you will remember, the carcase had to be thrown away.
+
+Meantime, there is a large and unlovely water, inhabited by plain men
+in severe boats, who endure cold, exposure, wet, and monotony almost
+as heavy as their responsibilities. Charge them with heroism--but that
+needs heroism, indeed! Accuse them of patriotism, they become ribald.
+Examine into the records of the miraculous work they have done and are
+doing. They will assist you, but with perfect sincerity they will make
+as light of the valour and fore-thought shown as of the ends they have
+gained for mankind. The Service takes all work for granted. It knew
+long ago that certain things would have to be done, and it did its
+best to be ready for them. When it disappeared over the sky-line for
+manoeuvres it was practising--always practising; trying its men and
+stuff and throwing out what could not take the strain. That is why,
+when war came, only a few names had to be changed, and those chiefly
+for the sake of the body, not of the spirit. And the Seniors who hold
+the key to our plans and know what will be done if things happen, and
+what lines wear thin in the many chains, they are of one fibre and
+speech with the Juniors and the lower deck and all the rest who come
+out of the undemonstrative households ashore. "Here is the situation
+as it exists now," say the Seniors. "This is what we do to meet it.
+Look and count and measure and judge for yourself, and then you will
+know."
+
+It is a safe offer. The civilian only sees that the sea is a vast
+place, divided between wisdom and chance. He only knows that the
+uttermost oceans have been swept clear, and the trade-routes purged,
+one by one, even as our armies were being convoyed along them; that
+there was no island nor key left unsearched on any waters that might
+hide an enemy's craft between the Arctic Circle and the Horn. He only
+knows that less than a day's run to the eastward of where he stands,
+the enemy's fleets have been held for a year and four months, in order
+that civilisation may go about its business on all our waters.
+
+
+
+
+TALES OF "THE TRADE"
+
+(1916)
+
+
+
+
+"THE TRADE"
+
+    They bear, in place of classic names,
+      Letters and numbers on their skin.
+    They play their grisly blindfold games
+      In little boxes made of tin.
+      Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,
+    Sometimes they learn where mines are laid
+      Or where the Baltic ice is thin.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+    Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.
+      They seldom tow their targets in.
+    They follow certain secret aims
+      Down under, far from strife or din.
+      When they are ready to begin
+    No flag is flown, no fuss is made
+      More than the shearing of a pin.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+    The Scout's quadruple funnel flames
+      A mark from Sweden to the Swin,
+    The Cruiser's thundrous screw proclaims
+      Her comings out and goings in:
+      But only whiffs of paraffin
+    Or creamy rings that fizz and fade
+      Show where the one-eyed Death has been.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+    Their feats, their fortunes and their fames
+      Are hidden from their nearest kin;
+    No eager public backs or blames,
+      No journal prints the yarns they spin
+      (The Censor would not let it in!)
+    When they return from run or raid.
+      Unheard they work, unseen they win.
+    That is the custom of "The Trade."
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+SOME WORK IN THE BALTIC
+
+
+No one knows how the title of "The Trade" came to be applied to the
+Submarine Service. Some say that the cruisers invented it because they
+pretend that submarine officers look like unwashed chauffeurs. Others
+think it sprang forth by itself, which means that it was coined by the
+Lower Deck, where they always have the proper names for things.
+Whatever the truth, the Submarine Service is now "the trade"; and if
+you ask them why, they will answer: "What else could you call it? The
+Trade's 'the trade,' of course."
+
+It is a close corporation; yet it recruits its men and officers from
+every class that uses the sea and engines, as well as from many
+classes that never expected to deal with either. It takes them; they
+disappear for a while and return changed to their very souls, for the
+Trade lives in a world without precedents, of which no generation has
+had any previous experience--a world still being made and enlarged
+daily. It creates and settles its own problems as it goes along, and
+if it cannot help itself no one else can. So the Trade lives in the
+dark and thinks out inconceivable and impossible things which it
+afterwards puts into practice.
+
+It keeps books, too, as honest traders should. They are almost as bald
+as ledgers, and are written up, hour by hour, on a little sliding
+table that pulls out from beneath the commander's bunk. In due time
+they go to my Lords of the Admiralty, who presently circulate a few
+carefully watered extracts for the confidential information of the
+junior officers of the Trade, that these may see what things are done
+and how. The juniors read but laugh. They have heard the stories, with
+all the flaming detail and much of the language, either from a chief
+actor while they perched deferentially on the edge of a mess-room
+fender, or from his subordinate, in which case they were not so
+deferential, or from some returned member of the crew present on the
+occasion, who, between half-shut teeth at the wheel, jerks out what
+really happened. There is very little going on in the Trade that the
+Trade does not know within a reasonable time. But the outside world
+must wait until my Lords of the Admiralty release the records. Some of
+them have been released now.
+
+
+SUBMARINE AND ICE-BREAKER
+
+Let us take, almost at random, an episode in the life of H.M.
+Submarine E9. It is true that she was commanded by Commander Max
+Horton, but the utter impersonality of the tale makes it as though the
+boat herself spoke. (Also, never having met or seen any of the
+gentlemen concerned in the matter, the writer can be impersonal too.)
+Some time ago, E9 was in the Baltic, in the deeps of winter, where
+she used to be taken to her hunting grounds by an ice-breaker.
+Obviously a submarine cannot use her sensitive nose to smash heavy ice
+with, so the broad-beamed pushing chaperone comes along to see her
+clear of the thick harbour and shore ice. In the open sea apparently
+she is left to her own devices. In company of the ice-breaker, then,
+E9 "proceeded" (neither in the Senior nor the Junior Service does any
+one officially "go" anywhere) to a "certain position."
+
+Here--it is not stated in the book, but the Trade knows every aching,
+single detail of what is left out--she spent a certain time in testing
+arrangements and apparatus, which may or may not work properly when
+immersed in a mixture of block-ice and dirty ice-cream in a
+temperature well towards zero. This is a pleasant job, made the more
+delightful by the knowledge that if you slip off the superstructure
+the deadly Baltic chill will stop your heart long before even your
+heavy clothes can drown you. Hence (and this is not in the book
+either) the remark of the highly trained sailor-man in these latitudes
+who, on being told by his superior officer in the execution of his
+duty to go to Hell, did insubordinately and enviously reply: "D'you
+think I'd be here if I could?" Whereby he caused the entire personnel,
+beginning with the Commander, to say "Amen," or words to that effect.
+E9 evidently made things work.
+
+Next day she reports: "As circumstances were favourable decided to
+attempt to bag a destroyer." Her "certain position" must have been
+near a well-used destroyer-run, for shortly afterwards she sees three
+of them, but too far off to attack, and later, as the light is
+failing, a fourth destroyer towards which she manoeuvres.
+"Depth-keeping," she notes, "very difficult owing to heavy swell." An
+observation balloon on a gusty day is almost as stable as a submarine
+"pumping" in a heavy swell, and since the Baltic is shallow, the
+submarine runs the chance of being let down with a whack on the
+bottom. None the less, E9 works her way to within 600 yards of the
+quarry; fires and waits just long enough to be sure that her torpedo
+is running straight, and that the destroyer is holding her course.
+Then she "dips to avoid detection." The rest is deadly simple: "At the
+correct moment after firing, 45 to 50 seconds, heard the unmistakable
+noise of torpedo detonating." Four minutes later she rose and "found
+destroyer had disappeared." Then, for reasons probably connected with
+other destroyers, who, too, may have heard that unmistakable sound,
+she goes to bed below in the chill dark till it is time to turn
+homewards. When she rose she met storm from the north and logged it
+accordingly. "Spray froze as it struck, and bridge became a mass of
+ice. Experienced considerable difficulty in keeping the conning-tower
+hatch free from ice. Found it necessary to keep a man continuously
+employed on this work. Bridge screen immovable, ice six inches thick
+on it. Telegraphs frozen." In this state she forges ahead till
+midnight, and any one who pleases can imagine the thoughts of the
+continuous employee scraping and hammering round the hatch, as well as
+the delight of his friends below when the ice-slush spattered down the
+conning-tower. At last she considered it "advisable to free the boat
+of ice, so went below."
+
+
+"AS REQUISITE"
+
+In the Senior Service the two words "as requisite" cover everything
+that need not be talked about. E9 next day "proceeded as requisite"
+through a series of snowstorms and recurring deposits of ice on the
+bridge till she got in touch with her friend the ice-breaker; and in
+her company ploughed and rooted her way back to the work we know.
+There is nothing to show that it was a near thing for E9, but somehow
+one has the idea that the ice-breaker did not arrive any too soon for
+E9's comfort and progress. (But what happens in the Baltic when the
+ice-breaker does not arrive?)
+
+That was in winter. In summer quite the other way, E9 had to go to bed
+by day very often under the long-lasting northern light when the
+Baltic is as smooth as a carpet, and one cannot get within a mile and
+a half of anything with eyes in its head without being put down. There
+was one time when E9, evidently on information received, took up "a
+certain position" and reported the sea "glassy." She had to suffer in
+silence, while three heavily laden German ships went by; for an attack
+would have given away her position. Her reward came next day, when she
+sighted (the words run like Marryat's) "enemy squadron coming up fast
+from eastward, proceeding inshore of us." They were two heavy
+battleships with an escort of destroyers, and E9 turned to attack. She
+does not say how she crept up in that smooth sea within a quarter of a
+mile of the leading ship, "a three-funnel ship, of either the
+Deutschland or Braunschweig class," but she managed it, and fired both
+bow torpedoes at her.
+
+"No. 1 torpedo was seen and heard to strike her just before foremost
+funnel: smoke and _debris_ appeared to go as high as masthead." That
+much E9 saw before one of the guardian destroyers ran at her. "So,"
+says she, "observing her I took my periscope off the battleship." This
+was excusable, as the destroyer was coming up with intent to kill and
+E9 had to flood her tanks and get down quickly. Even so, the destroyer
+only just missed her, and she struck bottom in 43 feet. "But," says
+E9, who, if she could not see, kept her ears open, "at the correct
+interval (the 45 or 50 seconds mentioned in the previous case) the
+second torpedo was heard to explode, though not actually seen." E9
+came up twenty minutes later to make sure. The destroyer was waiting
+for her a couple of hundred yards away, and again E9 dipped for the
+life, but "just had time to see one large vessel approximately four or
+five miles away."
+
+Putting courage aside, think for a moment of the mere drill of it
+all--that last dive for that attack on the chosen battleship; the eye
+at the periscope watching "No. 1 torpedo" get home; the rush of the
+vengeful destroyer; the instant orders for flooding everything; the
+swift descent which had to be arranged for with full knowledge of the
+shallow sea-floors waiting below, and a guess at the course that might
+be taken by the seeking bows above, for assuming a destroyer to draw
+10 feet and a submarine on the bottom to stand 25 feet to the top of
+her conning-tower, there is not much clearance in 43 feet salt water,
+specially if the boat jumps when she touches bottom. And through all
+these and half a hundred other simultaneous considerations, imagine
+the trained minds below, counting, as only torpedo-men can count, the
+run of the merciless seconds that should tell when that second shot
+arrived. Then "at the correct interval" as laid down in the table of
+distances, the boom and the jar of No. 2 torpedo, the relief, the
+exhaled breath and untightened lips; the impatient waiting for a
+second peep, and when that had been taken and the eye at the periscope
+had reported _one_ little nigger-boy in place of two on the waters,
+perhaps cigarettes, &c., while the destroyer sickled about at a
+venture overhead.
+
+Certainly they give men rewards for doing such things, but what reward
+can there be in any gift of Kings or peoples to match the enduring
+satisfaction of having done them, not alone, but with and through and
+by trusty and proven companions?
+
+
+DEFEATED BY DARKNESS
+
+E1, also a Baltic boat, her Commander F.N. Laurence, had her
+experiences too. She went out one summer day and late--too late--in
+the evening sighted three transports. The first she hit. While she was
+arranging for the second, the third inconsiderately tried to ram her
+before her sights were on. So it was necessary to go down at once and
+waste whole minutes of the precious scanting light. When she rose, the
+stricken ship was sinking and shortly afterwards blew up. The other
+two were patrolling near by. It would have been a fair chance in
+daylight, but the darkness defeated her and she had to give up the
+attack.
+
+It was E1 who during thick weather came across a squadron of
+battle-cruisers and got in on a flanking ship--probably the _Moltke_.
+The destroyers were very much on the alert, and she had to dive at
+once to avoid one who only missed her by a few feet. Then the fog shut
+down and stopped further developments. Thus do time and chance come to
+every man.
+
+The Trade has many stories, too, of watching patrols when a boat must
+see chance after chance go by under her nose and write--merely
+write--what she has seen. Naturally they do not appear in any
+accessible records. Nor, which is a pity, do the authorities release
+the records of glorious failures, when everything goes wrong; when
+torpedoes break surface and squatter like ducks; or arrive full square
+with a clang and burst of white water and--fail to explode; when the
+devil is in charge of all the motors, and clutches develop play that
+would scare a shore-going mechanic bald; when batteries begin to give
+off death instead of power, and atop of all, ice or wreckage of the
+strewn seas racks and wrenches the hull till the whole leaking bag of
+tricks limps home on six missing cylinders and one ditto propeller,
+_plus_ the indomitable will of the red-eyed husky scarecrows in
+charge.
+
+There might be worse things in this world for decent people to read
+than such records.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+BUSINESS IN THE SEA OF MARMARA
+
+
+This war is like an iceberg. We, the public, only see an eighth of it
+above water. The rest is out of sight and, as with the berg, one
+guesses its extent by great blocks that break off and shoot up to the
+surface from some underlying out-running spur a quarter of a mile
+away. So with this war sudden tales come to light which reveal
+unsuspected activities in unexpected quarters. One takes it for
+granted such things are always going on somewhere, but the actual
+emergence of the record is always astonishing.
+
+Once upon a time, there were certain E type boats who worked the Sea
+of Marmara with thoroughness and humanity; for the two, in English
+hands, are compatible. The road to their hunting-grounds was strewn
+with peril, the waters they inhabited were full of eyes that gave them
+no rest, and what they lost or expended in wear and tear of the chase
+could not be made good till they had run the gauntlet to their base
+again. The full tale of their improvisations and "makee-does" will
+probably never come to light, though fragments can be picked up at
+intervals in the proper places as the men concerned come and go. The
+Admiralty gives only the bones, but those are not so dry, of the
+boat's official story.
+
+When E14, Commander E. Courtney-Boyle, went to her work in the Sea of
+Marmara, she, like her sister, "proceeded" on her gas-engine up the
+Dardanelles; and a gas-engine by night between steep cliffs has been
+described by the Lower-deck as a "full brass band in a railway
+cutting." So a fort picked her up with a searchlight and missed her
+with artillery. She dived under the minefield that guarded the
+Straits, and when she rose at dawn in the narrowest part of the
+channel, which is about one mile and a half across, all the forts
+fired at her. The water, too, was thick with steamboat patrols, out of
+which E14 selected a Turkish gunboat and gave her a torpedo. She had
+just time to see the great column of water shoot as high as the
+gunboat's mast when she had to dip again as "the men in a small
+steamboat were leaning over trying to catch hold of the top of my
+periscope."
+
+
+"SIX HOURS OF BLIND DEATH"
+
+This sentence, which might have come out of a French exercise book, is
+all Lieutenant-Commander Courtney-Boyle sees fit to tell, and that
+officer will never understand why one taxpayer at least demands his
+arrest after the war till he shall have given the full tale. Did he
+sight the shadowy underline of the small steamboat green through the
+deadlights? Or did she suddenly swim into his vision from behind, and
+obscure, without warning, his periscope with a single brown clutching
+hand? Was she alone, or one of a mob of splashing, shouting small
+craft? He may well have been too busy to note, for there were patrols
+all around him, a minefield of curious design and undefined area
+somewhere in front, and steam trawlers vigorously sweeping for him
+astern and ahead. And when E14 had burrowed and bumped and scraped
+through six hours of blind death, she found the Sea of Marmara
+crawling with craft, and was kept down almost continuously and grew
+hot and stuffy in consequence. Nor could she charge her batteries in
+peace, so at the end of another hectic, hunted day of starting them up
+and breaking off and diving--which is bad for the temper--she decided
+to quit those infested waters near the coast and charge up somewhere
+off the traffic routes.
+
+This accomplished, after a long, hot run, which did the motors no
+good, she went back to her beat, where she picked up three destroyers
+convoying a couple of troopships. But it was a glassy calm and the
+destroyers "came for me." She got off a long-range torpedo at one
+transport, and ducked before she could judge results. She apologises
+for this on the grounds that one of her periscopes had been
+damaged--not, as one would expect, by the gentleman leaning out of the
+little steamboat, but by some casual shot--calibre not specified--the
+day before. "And so," says E14, "I could not risk my remaining one
+being bent." However, she heard a thud, and the depth-gauges--those
+great clock-hands on the white-faced circles--"flicked," which is
+another sign of dreadful certainty down under. When she rose again she
+saw a destroyer convoying one burning transport to the nearest beach.
+That afternoon she met a sister-boat (now gone to Valhalla), who told
+her that she was almost out of torpedoes, and they arranged a
+rendezvous for next day, but "before we could communicate we had to
+dive, and I did not see her again." There must be many such meetings
+in the Trade, under all skies--boat rising beside boat at the point
+agreed upon for interchange of news and materials; the talk shouted
+aloud with the speakers' eyes always on the horizon and all hands
+standing by to dive, even in the middle of a sentence.
+
+
+ANNOYING PATROL SHIPS
+
+E14 kept to her job, on the edge of the procession of traffic. Patrol
+vessels annoyed her to such an extent that "as I had not seen any
+transports lately I decided to sink a patrol-ship as they were always
+firing on me." So she torpedoed a thing that looked like a mine-layer,
+and must have been something of that kidney, for it sank in less than
+a minute. A tramp-steamer lumbering across the dead flat sea was
+thoughtfully headed back to Constantinople by firing rifles ahead of
+her. "Under fire the whole day," E14 observes philosophically. The
+nature of her work made this inevitable. She was all among the
+patrols, which kept her down a good deal and made her draw on her
+batteries, and when she rose to charge, watchers ashore burned
+oil-flares on the beach or made smokes among the hills according to
+the light. In either case there would be a general rush of patrolling
+craft of all kinds, from steam launches to gunboats. Nobody loves the
+Trade, though E14 did several things which made her popular. She let
+off a string of very surprised dhows (they were empty) in charge of a
+tug which promptly fled back to Constantinople; stopped a couple of
+steamers full of refugees, also bound for Constantinople, who were
+"very pleased at being allowed to proceed" instead of being
+lusitaniaed as they had expected. Another refugee-boat, fleeing from
+goodness knows what horror, she chased into Rodosto Harbour, where,
+though she could not see any troops, "they opened a heavy rifle fire
+on us, hitting the boat several times. So I went away and chased two
+more small tramps who returned towards Constantinople."
+
+Transports, of course, were fair game, and in spite of the necessity
+she was under of not risking her remaining eye, E14 got a big one in
+a night of wind and made another hurriedly beach itself, which then
+opened fire on her, assisted by the local population. "Returned fire
+and proceeded," says E14. The diversion of returning fire is one much
+appreciated by the lower-deck as furnishing a pleasant break in what
+otherwise might be a monotonous and odoriferous task. There is no
+drill laid down for this evolution, but etiquette and custom prescribe
+that on going up the hatch you shall not too energetically prod the
+next man ahead with the muzzle of your rifle. Likewise, when
+descending in quick time before the hatch closes, you are requested
+not to jump directly on the head of the next below. Otherwise you act
+"as requisite" on your own initiative.
+
+When she had used up all her torpedoes E14 prepared to go home by the
+way she had come--there was no other--and was chased towards Gallipoli
+by a mixed pack composed of a gunboat, a torpedo-boat, and a tug.
+"They shepherded me to Gallipoli, one each side of me and one astern,
+evidently expecting me to be caught by the nets there." She walked
+very delicately for the next eight hours or so, all down the Straits,
+underrunning the strong tides, ducking down when the fire from the
+forts got too hot, verifying her position and the position of the
+minefield, but always taking notes of every ship in sight, till
+towards teatime she saw our Navy off the entrance and "rose to the
+surface abeam of a French battleship who gave us a rousing cheer." She
+had been away, as nearly as possible, three weeks, and a kind
+destroyer escorted her to the base, where we will leave her for the
+moment while we consider the performance of E11 (Lieutenant-Commander
+M.E. Nasmith) in the same waters at about the same season.
+
+E11 "proceeded" in the usual way, to the usual accompaniments of
+hostile destroyers, up the Straits, and meets the usual difficulties
+about charging-up when she gets through. Her wireless naturally takes
+this opportunity to give trouble, and E11 is left, deaf and dumb,
+somewhere in the middle of the Sea of Marmara, diving to avoid hostile
+destroyers in the intervals of trying to come at the fault in her
+aerial. (Yet it is noteworthy that the language of the Trade, though
+technical, is no more emphatic or incandescent than that of top-side
+ships.)
+
+Then she goes towards Constantinople, finds a Turkish torpedo-gunboat
+off the port, sinks her, has her periscope smashed by a six-pounder,
+retires, fits a new top on the periscope, and at 10.30 A.M.--they must
+have needed it--pipes "All hands to bathe." Much refreshed, she gets
+her wireless linked up at last, and is able to tell the authorities
+where she is and what she is after.
+
+
+MR. SILAS Q. SWING
+
+At this point--it was off Rodosto--enter a small steamer which does
+not halt when requested, and so is fired at with "several rounds" from
+a rifle. The crew, on being told to abandon her, tumble into their
+boats with such haste that they capsize two out of three.
+"Fortunately," says E11, "they are able to pick up everybody." You can
+imagine to yourself the confusion alongside, the raffle of odds and
+ends floating out of the boats, and the general parti-coloured
+hurrah's-nest all over the bright broken water. What you cannot
+imagine is this: "An American gentleman then appeared on the upper
+deck who informed us that his name was Silas Q. Swing, of the _Chicago
+Sun_, and that he was pleased to make our acquaintance. He then
+informed us that the steamer was proceeding to Chanak and he wasn't
+sure if there were any stores aboard." If anything could astonish the
+Trade at this late date, one would almost fancy that the apparition of
+Silas Q. Swing ("very happy to meet you, gentlemen") might have
+started a rivet or two on E11's placid skin. But she never even
+quivered. She kept a lieutenant of the name of D'Oyley Hughes, an
+expert in demolition parties; and he went aboard the tramp and
+reported any quantity of stores--a six-inch gun, for instance, lashed
+across the top of the forehatch (Silas Q. Swing must have been an
+unobservant journalist), a six-inch gun-mounting in the forehold,
+pedestals for twelve-pounders thrown in as dunnage, the afterhold full
+of six-inch projectiles, and a scattering of other commodities. They
+put the demolition charge well in among the six-inch stuff, and she
+took it all to the bottom in a few minutes, after being touched off.
+
+"Simultaneously with the sinking of the vessel," the E11 goes on,
+"smoke was observed to the eastward." It was a steamer who had seen
+the explosion and was running for Rodosto. E11 chased her till she
+tied up to Rodosto pier, and then torpedoed her where she lay--a
+heavily laden store-ship piled high with packing-cases. The water was
+shallow here, and though E11 bumped along the bottom, which does not
+make for steadiness of aim, she was forced to show a good deal of her
+only periscope, and had it dented, but not damaged by rifle-fire from
+the beach. As she moved out of Rodosto Bay she saw a paddle-boat
+loaded with barbed wire, which stopped on the hail, but "as we ranged
+alongside her, attempted to ram us, but failed owing to our superior
+speed." Then she ran for the beach "very skilfully," keeping her stern
+to E11 till she drove ashore beneath some cliffs. The demolition-squad
+were just getting to work when "a party of horsemen appeared on the
+cliffs above and opened a hot fire on the conning tower." E11 got out,
+but owing to the shoal water it was some time before she could get
+under enough to fire a torpedo. The stern of a stranded paddle-boat is
+no great target and the thing exploded on the beach. Then she
+"recharged batteries and proceeded slowly on the surface towards
+Constantinople." All this between the ordinary office hours of 10
+A.M. and 4 P.M.
+
+Her next day's work opens, as no pallid writer of fiction dare begin,
+thus: "Having dived unobserved into Constantinople, observed, etc."
+Her observations were rather hampered by cross-tides, mud, and
+currents, as well as the vagaries of one of her own torpedoes which
+turned upside down and ran about promiscuously. It hit something at
+last, and so did another shot that she fired, but the waters by
+Constantinople Arsenal are not healthy to linger in after one has
+scared up the whole sea-front, so "turned to go out." Matters were a
+little better below, and E11 in her perilous passage might have been a
+lady of the harem tied up in a sack and thrown into the Bosporus. She
+grounded heavily; she bounced up 30 feet, was headed down again by a
+manoeuvre easier to shudder over than to describe, and when she came
+to rest on the bottom found herself being swivelled right round the
+compass. They watched the compass with much interest. "It was
+concluded, therefore, that the vessel (E11 is one of the few who
+speaks of herself as a 'vessel' as well as a 'boat') was resting on
+the shoal under the Leander Tower, and was being turned round by the
+current." So they corrected her, started the motors, and "bumped
+gently down into 85 feet of water" with no more knowledge than the
+lady in the sack where the next bump would land them.
+
+
+THE PREENING PERCH
+
+And the following day was spent "resting in the centre of the Sea of
+Marmara." That was their favourite preening perch between operations,
+because it gave them a chance to tidy the boat and bathe, and they
+were a cleanly people both in their methods and their persons. When
+they boarded a craft and found nothing of consequence they "parted
+with many expressions of good will," and E11 "had a good wash." She
+gives her reasons at length; for going in and out of Constantinople
+and the Straits is all in the day's work, but going dirty, you
+understand, is serious. She had "of late noticed the atmosphere in the
+boat becoming very oppressive, the reason doubtless being that there
+was a quantity of dirty linen aboard, and also the scarcity of fresh
+water necessitated a limit being placed on the frequency of personal
+washing." Hence the centre of the Sea of Marmara; all hands playing
+overside and as much laundry work as time and the Service allowed. One
+of the reasons, by the way, why we shall be good friends with the Turk
+again is that he has many of our ideas about decency.
+
+In due time E11 went back to her base. She had discovered a way of
+using unspent torpedoes twice over, which surprised the enemy, and she
+had as nearly as possible been cut down by a ship which she thought
+was running away from her. Instead of which (she made the discovery at
+three thousand yards, both craft all out) the stranger steamed
+straight at her. "The enemy then witnessed a somewhat spectacular dive
+at full speed from the surface to 20 feet in as many seconds. He then
+really did turn tail and was seen no more." Going through the Straits
+she observed an empty troopship at anchor, but reserved her torpedoes
+in the hope of picking up some battleships lower down. Not finding
+these in the Narrows, she nosed her way back and sank the trooper,
+"afterwards continuing journey down the Straits." Off Kilid Bahr
+something happened; she got out of trim and had to be fully flooded
+before she could be brought to her required depth. It might have been
+whirlpools under water, or--other things. (They tell a story of a boat
+which once went mad in these very waters, and for no reason
+ascertainable from within plunged to depths that contractors do not
+allow for; rocketed up again like a swordfish, and would doubtless
+have so continued till she died, had not something she had fouled
+dropped off and let her recover her composure.)
+
+An hour later: "Heard a noise similar to grounding. Knowing this to be
+impossible in the water in which the boat then was, I came up to 20
+feet to investigate, and observed a large mine preceding the periscope
+at a distance of about 20 feet, which was apparently hung up by its
+moorings to the port hydroplane." Hydroplanes are the fins at bow and
+stern which regulate a submarine's diving. A mine weighs anything from
+hundredweights to half-tons. Sometimes it explodes if you merely think
+about it; at others you can batter it like an empty sardine-tin and
+it submits meekly; but at no time is it meant to wear on a hydroplane.
+They dared not come up to unhitch it, "owing to the batteries ashore,"
+so they pushed the dim shape ahead of them till they got outside Kum
+Kale. They then went full astern, and emptied the after-tanks, which
+brought the bows down, and in this posture rose to the surface, when
+"the rush of water from the screws together with the sternway gathered
+allowed the mine to fall clear of the vessel."
+
+Now a fool, said Dr. Johnson, would have tried to describe that.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+RAVAGES AND REPAIRS
+
+
+Before we pick up the further adventures of H.M. Submarine E14 and her
+partner E11, here is what you might call a cutting-out affair in the
+Sea of Marmara which E12 (Lieutenant-Commander K.M. Bruce) put through
+quite on the old lines.
+
+E12's main motors gave trouble from the first, and she seems to have
+been a cripple for most of that trip. She sighted two small steamers,
+one towing two, and the other three, sailing vessels; making seven
+keels in all. She stopped the first steamer, noticed she carried a lot
+of stores, and, moreover, that her crew--she had no boats--were all on
+deck in life-belts. Not seeing any gun, E12 ran up alongside and told
+the first lieutenant to board. The steamer then threw a bomb at E12,
+which struck, but luckily did not explode, and opened fire on the
+boarding-party with rifles and a concealed 1-in. gun. E12 answered
+with her six-pounder, and also with rifles. The two sailing ships in
+tow, very properly, tried to foul E12's propellers and "also opened
+fire with rifles."
+
+It was as Orientally mixed a fight as a man could wish: The first
+lieutenant and the boarding-party engaged on the steamer, E12 foul of
+the steamer, and being fouled by the sailing ships; the six-pounder
+methodically perforating the steamer from bow to stern; the steamer's
+1-in. gun and the rifles from the sailing ships raking everything and
+everybody else; E12's coxswain on the conning-tower passing up
+ammunition; and E12's one workable motor developing "slight defects"
+at, of course, the moment when power to manoeuvre was vital.
+
+The account is almost as difficult to disentangle as the actual mess
+must have been. At any rate, the six-pounder caused an explosion in
+the steamer's ammunition, whereby the steamer sank in a quarter of an
+hour, giving time--and a hot time it must have been--for E12 to get
+clear of her and to sink the two sailing ships. She then chased the
+second steamer, who slipped her three tows and ran for the shore. E12
+knocked her about a good deal with gun-fire as she fled, saw her drive
+on the beach well alight, and then, since the beach opened fire with a
+gun at 1500 yards, went away to retinker her motors and write up her
+log. She approved of her first lieutenant's behaviour "under very
+trying circumstances" (this probably refers to the explosion of the
+ammunition by the six-pounder which, doubtless, jarred the
+boarding-party) and of the cox who acted as ammunition-hoist; and of
+the gun's crew, who "all did very well" under rifle and small-gun fire
+"at a range of about ten yards." But she never says what she really
+said about her motors.
+
+
+A BRAWL AT A PIER
+
+Now we will take E14 on various work, either alone or as flagship of a
+squadron composed of herself and Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith's boat,
+E11. Hers was a busy midsummer, and she came to be intimate with all
+sort of craft--such as the two-funnelled gunboat off Sar Kioi, who
+"fired at us, and missed as usual"; hospital ships going back and
+forth unmolested to Constantinople; "the gunboat which fired at me on
+Sunday," and other old friends, afloat and ashore.
+
+When the crew of the Turkish brigantine full of stores got into their
+boats by request, and then "all stood up and cursed us," E14 did not
+lose her temper, even though it was too rough to lie alongside the
+abandoned ship. She told Acting Lieutenant R.W. Lawrence, of the Royal
+Naval Reserve, to swim off to her, which he did, and after a "cursory
+search"--Who can be expected to Sherlock Holmes for hours with nothing
+on?--set fire to her "with the aid of her own matches and paraffin
+oil."
+
+Then E14 had a brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and
+black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the
+game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 manoeuvred about the
+roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion
+which strained her very badly. "I think," she muses, "I must have
+caught the moorings of a mine with my tail as I was turning, and
+exploded it. It is possible that it might have been a big shell
+bursting over us, but I think this unlikely, as we were 30 feet at the
+time." She is always a philosophical boat, anxious to arrive at the
+reason of facts, and when the game is against her she admits it
+freely.
+
+There was nondescript craft of a few hundred tons, who "at a distance
+did not look very warlike," but when chased suddenly played a couple
+of six-pounders and "got off two dozen rounds at us before we were
+under. Some of them were only about 20 yards off." And when a wily
+steamer, after sidling along the shore, lay up in front of a town she
+became "indistinguishable from the houses," and so was safe because we
+do not loewestrafe open towns.
+
+Sailing dhows full of grain had to be destroyed. At one rendezvous,
+while waiting for E11, E14 dealt with three such cases and then "towed
+the crews inshore and gave them biscuits, beef, and rum and water, as
+they were rather wet." Passenger steamers were allowed to proceed,
+because they were "full of people of both sexes," which is an
+unkultured way of doing business.
+
+Here is another instance of our insular type of mind. An empty dhow is
+passed which E14 was going to leave alone, but it occurs to her that
+the boat looks "rather deserted," and she fancies she sees two heads
+in the water. So she goes back half a mile, picks up a couple of badly
+exhausted men, frightened out of their wits, gives them food and
+drink, and puts them aboard their property. Crews that jump overboard
+have to be picked up, even if, as happened in one case, there are
+twenty of them and one of them is a German bank manager taking a
+quantity of money to the Chanak Bank. Hospital ships are carefully
+looked over as they come and go, and are left to their own devices;
+but they are rather a nuisance because they force E14 and others to
+dive for them when engaged in stalking warrantable game. There were a
+good many hospital ships, and as far as we can make out they all
+played fair. E11 boarded one and "reported everything satisfactory."
+
+
+STRANGE MESSMATES
+
+A layman cannot tell from the reports which of the duties demanded the
+most work--whether the continuous clearing out of transports, dhows,
+and sailing ships, generally found close to the well-gunned and
+attentive beach, or the equally continuous attacks on armed vessels of
+every kind. Whatever else might be going on, there was always the
+problem how to arrange for the crews of sunk ships. If a dhow has no
+small boats, and you cannot find one handy, you have to take the crew
+aboard, where they are horribly in the way, and add to the
+oppressiveness of the atmosphere--like "the nine people, including two
+very old men," whom E14 made honorary members of her mess for several
+hours till she could put them ashore after dark. Oddly enough she
+"could not get anything out of them." Imagine nine bewildered Moslems
+suddenly decanted into the reeking clamorous bowels of a fabric
+obviously built by Shaitan himself, and surrounded by--but our people
+are people of the Book and not dog-eating Kaffirs, and I will wager a
+great deal that that little company went ashore in better heart and
+stomach than when they were passed down the conning-tower hatch.
+
+Then there were queer amphibious battles with troops who had to be
+shelled as they marched towards Gallipoli along the coast roads. E14
+went out with E11 on this job, early one morning, each boat taking her
+chosen section of landscape. Thrice E14 rose to fire, thinking she
+saw the dust of feet, but "each time it turned out to be bullocks."
+When the shelling was ended "I think the troops marching along that
+road must have been delayed and a good many killed." The Turks got up
+a field-gun in the course of the afternoon--your true believer never
+hurries--which out-ranged both boats, and they left accordingly.
+
+The next day she changed billets with E11, who had the luck to pick up
+and put down a battleship close to Gallipoli. It turned out to be the
+_Barbarossa_. Meantime E14 got a 5000-ton supply ship, and later had
+to burn a sailing ship loaded with 200 bales of leaf and cut
+tobacco--Turkish tobacco! Small wonder that E11 "came alongside that
+afternoon and remained for an hour"--probably making cigarettes.
+
+
+REFITTING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
+
+Then E14 went back to her base. She had a hellish time among the
+Dardanelles nets; was, of course, fired at by the forts, just missed a
+torpedo from the beach, scraped a mine, and when she had time to take
+stock found electric mine-wires twisted round her propellers and all
+her hull scraped and scored with wire marks. But that, again, was only
+in the day's work. The point she insisted upon was that she had been
+for seventy days in the Sea of Marmara with no securer base for refit
+than the centre of the same, and during all that while she had not had
+"any engine-room defect which has not been put right by the
+engine-room staff of the boat." The commander and the third officer
+went sick for a while; the first lieutenant got gastro-enteritis and
+was in bed (if you could see that bed!) "for the remainder of our stay
+in the Sea of Marmara," but "this boat has never been out of running
+order." The credit is ascribed to "the excellence of my chief
+engine-room artificer, James Hollier Hague, O.N. 227715," whose name
+is duly submitted to the authorities "for your consideration for
+advancement to the rank of warrant officer."
+
+Seventy days of every conceivable sort of risk, within and without, in
+a boat which is all engine-room, except where she is sick-bay; twelve
+thousand miles covered since last overhaul and "never out of running
+order"--thanks to Mr. Hague. Such artists as he are the kind of
+engine-room artificers that commanders intrigue to get hold of--each
+for his own boat--and when the tales are told in the Trade, their
+names, like Abou Ben Adhem's, lead all the rest.
+
+I do not know the exact line of demarcation between engine-room and
+gunnery repairs, but I imagine it is faint and fluid. E11, for
+example, while she was helping E14 to shell a beached steamer, smashed
+half her gun-mounting, "the gun-layer being thrown overboard, and the
+gun nearly following him." However, the mischief was repaired in the
+next twenty-four hours, which, considering the very limited deck space
+of a submarine, means that all hands must have been moderately busy.
+One hopes that they had not to dive often during the job.
+
+But worse is to come. E2 (Commander D. Stocks) carried an externally
+mounted gun which, while she was diving up the Dardanelles on
+business, got hung up in the wires and stays of a net. She saw them
+through the conning-tower scuttles at a depth of 80 ft--one wire
+hawser round the gun, another round the conning-tower, and so on.
+There was a continuous crackling of small explosions overhead which
+she thought were charges aimed at her by the guard-boats who watch the
+nets. She considered her position for a while, backed, got up steam,
+barged ahead, and shore through the whole affair in one wild surge.
+Imagine the roof of a navigable cottage after it has snapped telegraph
+lines with its chimney, and you will get a small idea of what happens
+to the hull of a submarine when she uses her gun to break wire hawsers
+with.
+
+
+TROUBLE WITH A GUN
+
+E2 was a wet, strained, and uncomfortable boat for the rest of her
+cruise. She sank steamers, burned dhows; was worried by torpedo-boats
+and hunted by Hun planes; hit bottom freely and frequently; silenced
+forts that fired at her from lonely beaches; warned villages who might
+have joined in the game that they had better keep to farming; shelled
+railway lines and stations; would have shelled a pier, but found there
+was a hospital built at one end of it, "so could not bombard"; came
+upon dhows crowded with "female refugees" which she "allowed to
+proceed," and was presented with fowls in return; but through it all
+her chief preoccupation was that racked and strained gun and mounting.
+When there was nothing else doing she reports sourly that she "worked
+on gun." As a philosopher of the lower deck put it: "'Tisn't what you
+blanky _do_ that matters, it's what you blanky _have_ to do." In other
+words, worry, not work, kills.
+
+E2's gun did its best to knock the heart out of them all. She had to
+shift the wretched thing twice; once because the bolts that held it
+down were smashed (the wire hawser must have pretty well pulled it off
+its seat), and again because the hull beneath it leaked on pressure.
+She went down to make sure of it. But she drilled and tapped and
+adjusted, till in a short time the gun worked again and killed
+steamers as it should. Meanwhile, the whole boat leaked. All the
+plates under the old gun-position forward leaked; she leaked aft
+through damaged hydroplane guards, and on her way home they had to
+keep the water down by hand pumps while she was diving through the
+nets. Where she did not leak outside she leaked internally, tank
+leaking into tank, so that the petrol got into the main fresh-water
+supply and the men had to be put on allowance. The last pint was
+served out when she was in the narrowest part of the Narrows, a place
+where one's mouth may well go dry of a sudden.
+
+Here for the moment the records end. I have been at some pains not to
+pick and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any
+of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have
+made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied
+actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a
+finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They
+were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to
+boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of
+business to the safe, unexploding beach. Sometimes they part from
+their chaperones "with many expressions of good will," at others they
+seem greatly relieved and rather surprised at not being knocked on the
+head after the custom of their Allies. But the boats with a hundred
+things on their minds no more take credit for their humanity than
+their commanders explain the feats for which they won their respective
+decorations.
+
+
+
+
+DESTROYERS AT JUTLAND
+
+(1916)
+
+    "Have you news of my boy Jack?"
+      _Not this tide._
+    "When d'you think that he'll come back?"
+      _Not with this wind blowing, and this tide._
+
+    "Has any one else had word of him?"
+      _Not this tide.
+    For what is sunk will hardly swim,
+      Not with this wind blowing and this tide._
+
+    "Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
+      _None this tide,
+      Nor any tide,
+    Except he didn't shame his kind
+      Not even with that wind blowing and that tide._
+
+    _Then hold your head up all the more,
+      This tide,
+      And every tide,
+    Because he was the son you bore,
+      And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+STORIES OF THE BATTLE
+
+CRIPPLE AND PARALYTIC
+
+
+There was much destroyer-work in the Battle of Jutland. The actual
+battle field may not have been more than twenty thousand square miles,
+but the incidental patrols, from first to last, must have covered many
+times that area. Doubtless the next generation will comb out every
+detail of it. All we need remember is there were many squadrons of
+battleships and cruisers engaged over the face of the North Sea, and
+that they were accompanied in their dread comings and goings by
+multitudes of destroyers, who attacked the enemy both by day and by
+night from the afternoon of May 31 to the morning of June 1, 1916. We
+are too close to the gigantic canvas to take in the meaning of the
+picture; our children stepping backward through the years may get the
+true perspective and proportions.
+
+To recapitulate what every one knows.
+
+The German fleet came out of its North Sea ports, scouting ships
+ahead; then destroyers, cruisers, battle-cruisers, and, last, the main
+battle fleet in the rear. It moved north, parallel with the coast of
+stolen Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland. Our fleets were already out;
+the main battle fleet (Admiral Jellicoe) sweeping down from the north,
+and our battle-cruiser fleet (Admiral Beatty) feeling for the enemy.
+Our scouts came in contact with the enemy on the afternoon of May 31
+about 100 miles off the Jutland coast, steering north-west. They
+satisfied themselves he was in strength, and reported accordingly to
+our battle-cruiser fleet, which engaged the enemy's battle-cruisers at
+about half-past three o'clock. The enemy steered south-east to rejoin
+their own fleet, which was coming up from that quarter. We fought him
+on a parallel course as he ran for more than an hour.
+
+Then his battle-fleet came in sight, and Beatty's fleet went about and
+steered north-west in order to retire on our battle-fleet, which was
+hurrying down from the north. We returned fighting very much over the
+same waters as we had used in our slant south. The enemy up till now
+had lain to the eastward of us, whereby he had the advantage in that
+thick weather of seeing our hulls clear against the afternoon light,
+while he himself worked in the mists. We then steered a little to the
+north-west bearing him off towards the east till at six o'clock Beatty
+had headed the enemy's leading ships and our main battle-fleet came in
+sight from the north. The enemy broke back in a loop, first eastward,
+then south, then south-west as our fleet edged him off from the land,
+and our main battle-fleet, coming up behind them, followed in their
+wake. Thus for a while we had the enemy to westward of us, where he
+made a better mark; but the day was closing and the weather
+thickened, and the enemy wanted to get away. At a quarter past eight
+the enemy, still heading south-west, was covered by his destroyers in
+a great screen of grey smoke, and he got away.
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING
+
+As darkness fell, our fleets lay between the enemy and his home ports.
+During the night our heavy ships, keeping well clear of possible
+mine-fields, swept down south to south and west of the Horns Reef, so
+that they might pick him up in the morning. When morning came our main
+fleet could find no trace of the enemy to the southward, but our
+destroyer-flotillas further north had been very busy with enemy ships,
+apparently running for the Horns Reef Channel. It looks, then, as if
+when we lost sight of the enemy in the smoke screen and the darkness
+he had changed course and broken for home astern our main fleets. And
+whether that was a sound manoeuvre or otherwise, he and the still
+flows of the North Sea alone can tell.
+
+But how is a layman to give any coherent account of an affair where a
+whole country's coast-line was background to battle covering
+geographical degrees? The records give an impression of illimitable
+grey waters, nicked on their uncertain horizons with the smudge and
+blur of ships sparkling with fury against ships hidden under the curve
+of the world. One sees these distances maddeningly obscured by walking
+mists and weak fogs, or wiped out by layers of funnel and gun smoke,
+and realises how, at the pace the ships were going, anything might be
+stumbled upon in the haze or charge out of it when it lifted. One
+comprehends, too, how the far-off glare of a great vessel afire might
+be reported as a local fire on a near-by enemy, or _vice versa_; how a
+silhouette caught, for an instant, in a shaft of pale light let down
+from the low sky might be fatally difficult to identify till too late.
+But add to all these inevitable confusions and misreckonings of time,
+shape, and distance, charges at every angle of squadrons through and
+across other squadrons; sudden shifts of the centres of the fights,
+and even swifter restorations; wheelings, sweepings, and regroupments
+such as accompany the passage across space of colliding universes.
+Then blanket the whole inferno with the darkness of night at full
+speed, and--see what you can make of it.
+
+
+THREE DESTROYERS
+
+A little time after the action began to heat up between our
+battle-cruisers and the enemy's, eight or ten of our destroyers opened
+the ball for their branch of the service by breaking up the attack of
+an enemy light cruiser and fifteen destroyers. Of these they accounted
+for at least two destroyers--some think more--and drove the others
+back on their battle-cruisers. This scattered that fight a good deal
+over the sea. Three of our destroyers held on for the enemy's
+battle-fleet, who came down on them at ranges which eventually grew
+less than 3000 yards. Our people ought to have been lifted off the
+seas bodily, but they managed to fire a couple of torpedoes apiece
+while the range was diminishing. They had no illusions. Says one of
+the three, speaking of her second shot, which she loosed at fairly
+close range, "This torpedo was fired because it was considered very
+unlikely that the ship would escape disablement before another
+opportunity offered." But still they lived--three destroyers against
+all a battle-cruiser fleet's quick-firers, as well as the fire of a
+batch of enemy destroyers at 600 yards. And they were thankful for
+small mercies. "The position being favourable," a third torpedo was
+fired from each while they yet floated.
+
+At 2500 yards, one destroyer was hit somewhere in the vitals and
+swerved badly across her next astern, who "was obliged to alter course
+to avoid a collision, thereby failing to fire a fourth torpedo." Then
+that next astern "observed signal for destroyers' recall," and went
+back to report to her flotilla captain--alone. Of her two companions,
+one was "badly hit and remained stopped between the lines." The other
+"remained stopped, but was afloat when last seen." Ships that "remain
+stopped" are liable to be rammed or sunk by methodical gun-fire. That
+was, perhaps, fifty minutes' work put in before there was any really
+vicious "edge" to the action, and it did not steady the nerves of the
+enemy battle-cruisers any more than another attack made by another
+detachment of ours.
+
+"What does one do when one passes a ship that 'remains stopped'?" I
+asked of a youth who had had experience.
+
+"Nothing special. They cheer, and you cheer back. One doesn't think
+about it till afterwards. You see, it may be your luck in another
+minute."
+
+
+LUCK
+
+There were many other torpedo attacks in all parts of the battle that
+misty afternoon, including a quaint episode of an enemy light cruiser
+who "looked as if she were trying" to torpedo one of our
+battle-cruisers while the latter was particularly engaged. A destroyer
+of ours, returning from a special job which required delicacy, was
+picking her way back at 30 knots through batches of enemy
+battle-cruisers and light cruisers with the idea of attaching herself
+to the nearest destroyer-flotilla and making herself useful. It
+occurred to her that as she "was in a most advantageous position for
+repelling enemy's destroyers endeavouring to attack, she could not do
+better than to remain on the 'engaged bow' of our battle-cruiser." So
+she remained and considered things.
+
+There was an enemy battle-cruiser squadron in the offing; with several
+enemy light cruisers ahead of that squadron, and the weather was
+thickish and deceptive. She sighted the enemy light cruiser, "class
+uncertain," only a few thousand yards away, and "decided to attack her
+in order to frustrate her firing torpedoes at our Battle Fleet." (This
+in case the authorities should think that light cruiser wished to buy
+rubber.) So she fell upon the light cruiser with every gun she had, at
+between two and four thousand yards, and secured a number of hits,
+just the same as at target practice. While thus occupied she sighted
+out of the mist a squadron of enemy battle-cruisers that had worried
+her earlier in the afternoon. Leaving the light cruiser, she closed to
+what she considered a reasonable distance of the newcomers, and let
+them have, as she thought, both her torpedoes. She possessed an active
+Acting Sub-Lieutenant, who, though officers of that rank think
+otherwise, is not very far removed from an ordinary midshipman of the
+type one sees in tow of relatives at the Army and Navy Stores. He sat
+astride one of the tubes to make quite sure things were in order, and
+fired when the sights came on.
+
+_But_, at that very moment, a big shell hit the destroyer on the side
+and there was a tremendous escape of steam. Believing--since she had
+seen one torpedo leave the tube before the smash came--believing that
+both her tubes had been fired, the destroyer turned away "at greatly
+reduced speed" (the shell reduced it), and passed, quite reasonably
+close, the light cruiser whom she had been hammering so faithfully
+till the larger game appeared. Meantime, the Sub-Lieutenant was
+exploring what damage had been done by the big shell. He discovered
+that only _one_ of the two torpedoes had left the tubes, and
+"observing enemy light cruiser beam on and apparently temporarily
+stopped," he fired the providential remainder at her, and it hit her
+below the conning-tower and well and truly exploded, as was witnessed
+by the Sub-Lieutenant himself, the Commander, a leading signalman, and
+several other ratings. Luck continued to hold! The Acting
+Sub-Lieutenant further reported that "we still had three torpedoes
+left and at the same time drew my attention to enemy's line of
+battleships." They rather looked as if they were coming down with
+intent to assault. So the Sub-Lieutenant fired the rest of the
+torpedoes, which at least started off correctly from the shell-shaken
+tubes, and must have crossed the enemy's line. When torpedoes turn up
+among a squadron, they upset the steering and distract the attention
+of all concerned. Then the destroyer judged it time to take stock of
+her injuries. Among other minor defects she could neither steam,
+steer, nor signal.
+
+
+TOWING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
+
+Mark how virtue is rewarded! Another of our destroyers an hour or so
+previously had been knocked clean out of action, before she had done
+anything, by a big shell which gutted a boiler-room and started an oil
+fire. (That is the drawback to oil.) She crawled out between the
+battleships till she "reached an area of comparative calm" and
+repaired damage. She says: "The fire having been dealt with it was
+found a mat kept the stokehold dry. My only trouble now being lack of
+speed, I looked round for useful employment, and saw a destroyer in
+great difficulties, so closed her." That destroyer was our paralytic
+friend of the intermittent torpedo-tubes, and a grateful ship she was
+when her crippled sister (but still good for a few knots) offered her
+a tow, "under very trying conditions with large enemy ships
+approaching." So the two set off together, Cripple and Paralytic, with
+heavy shells falling round them, as sociable as a couple of lame
+hounds. Cripple worked up to 12 knots, and the weather grew vile, and
+the tow parted. Paralytic, by this time, had raised steam in a boiler
+or two, and made shift to get along slowly on her own, Cripple
+hirpling beside her, till Paralytic could not make any more headway in
+that rising sea, and Cripple had to tow her once more. Once more the
+tow parted. So they tied Paralytic up rudely and effectively with a
+cable round her after bollards and gun (presumably because of strained
+forward bulkheads) and hauled her stern-first, through heavy seas, at
+continually reduced speeds, doubtful of their position, unable to
+sound because of the seas, and much pestered by a wind which backed
+without warning, till, at last, they made land, and turned into the
+hospital appointed for brave wounded ships. Everybody speaks well of
+Cripple. Her name crops up in several reports, with such compliments
+as the men of the sea use when they see good work. She herself speaks
+well of her Lieutenant, who, as executive officer, "took charge of the
+fire and towing arrangements in a very creditable manner," and also of
+Tom Battye and Thomas Kerr, engine-room artificer and stoker petty
+officer, who "were in the stokehold at the time of the shell striking,
+and performed cool and prompt decisive action, although both suffering
+from shock and slight injuries."
+
+
+USEFUL EMPLOYMENT
+
+Have you ever noticed that men who do Homeric deeds often describe
+them in Homeric language? The sentence "I looked round for useful
+employment" is worthy of Ulysses when "there was an evil sound at the
+ships of men who perished and of the ships themselves broken at the
+same time."
+
+Roughly, very roughly, speaking, our destroyers enjoyed three phases
+of "prompt decisive action"--the first, a period of daylight attacks
+(from 4 to 6 P.M.) such as the one I have just described, while the
+battle was young and the light fairly good on the afternoon of May 31;
+the second, towards dark, when the light had lessened and the enemy
+were more uneasy, and, I think, in more scattered formation; the
+third, when darkness had fallen, and the destroyers had been strung
+out astern with orders to help the enemy home, which they did all
+night as opportunity offered. One cannot say whether the day or the
+night work was the more desperate. From private advices, the young
+gentlemen concerned seem to have functioned with efficiency either
+way. As one of them said: "After a bit, you see, we were all pretty
+much on our own, and you could really find out what your ship could
+do."
+
+I will tell you later of a piece of night work not without merit.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE NIGHT HUNT
+
+RAMMING AN ENEMY CRUISER
+
+
+As I said, we will confine ourselves to something quite sane and
+simple which does not involve more than half-a-dozen different
+reports.
+
+When the German fleet ran for home, on the night of May 31, it seems
+to have scattered--"starred," I believe, is the word for the
+evolution--in a general _sauve qui peut_, while the Devil, livelily
+represented by our destroyers, took the hindmost. Our flotillas were
+strung out far and wide on this job. One man compared it to hounds
+hunting half a hundred separate foxes.
+
+I take the adventures of several couples of destroyers who, on the
+night of May 31, were nosing along somewhere towards the
+Schleswig-Holstein coast, ready to chop any Hun-stuff coming back to
+earth by that particular road. The leader of one line was Gehenna, and
+the next two ships astern of her were Eblis and Shaitan, in the order
+given. There were others, of course, but with the exception of one
+Goblin they don't come violently into this tale. There had been a good
+deal of promiscuous firing that evening, and actions were going on all
+round. Towards midnight our destroyers were overtaken by several
+three-and four-funnel German ships (cruisers they thought) hurrying
+home. At this stage of the game anybody might have been
+anybody--pursuer or pursued. The Germans took no chances, but switched
+on their searchlights and opened fire on Gehenna. Her acting
+sub-lieutenant reports: "A salvo hit us forward. I opened fire with
+the after-guns. A shell then struck us in a steam-pipe, and I could
+see nothing but steam. But both starboard torpedo-tubes were fired."
+
+Eblis, Gehenna's next astern, at once fired a torpedo at the second
+ship in the German line, a four-funnelled cruiser, and hit her between
+the second funnel and the mainmast, when "she appeared to catch fire
+fore and aft simultaneously, heeled right over to starboard, and
+undoubtedly sank." Eblis loosed off a second torpedo and turned aside
+to reload, firing at the same time to distract the enemy's attention
+from Gehenna, who was now ablaze fore and aft. Gehenna's acting
+sub-lieutenant (the only executive officer who survived) says that by
+the time the steam from the broken pipe cleared he found Gehenna
+stopped, nearly everybody amidships killed or wounded, the
+cartridge-boxes round the guns exploding one after the other as the
+fires took hold, and the enemy not to be seen. Three minutes or less
+did all that damage. Eblis had nearly finished reloading when a shot
+struck the davit that was swinging her last torpedo into the tube and
+wounded all hands concerned. Thereupon she dropped torpedo work, fired
+at an enemy searchlight which winked and went out, and was closing in
+to help Gehenna when she found herself under the noses of a couple of
+enemy cruisers. "The nearer one," he says, "altered course to ram me
+apparently." The Senior Service writes in curiously lawyer-like
+fashion, but there is no denying that they act quite directly. "I
+therefore put my helm hard aport and the two ships met and rammed each
+other, port bow to port bow." There could have been no time to think
+and, for Eblis's commander on the bridge, none to gather information.
+But he had observant subordinates, and he writes--and I would humbly
+suggest that the words be made the ship's motto for evermore--he
+writes, "Those aft noted" that the enemy cruiser had certain marks on
+her funnel and certain arrangements of derricks on each side which,
+quite apart from the evidence she left behind her, betrayed her class.
+Eblis and she met. Says Eblis: "I consider I must have considerably
+damaged this cruiser, as 20 feet of her side plating was left in my
+foc'sle." Twenty feet of ragged rivet-slinging steel, razoring and
+reaping about in the dark on a foc'sle that had collapsed like a
+concertina! It was very fair plating too. There were side-scuttle
+holes in it--what we passengers would call portholes. But it might
+have been better, for Eblis reports sorrowfully, "by the thickness of
+the coats of paint (duly given in 32nds of the inch) she would not
+appear to have been a very new ship."
+
+
+A FUGITIVE ON FIRE
+
+New or old, the enemy had done her best. She had completely demolished
+Eblis's bridge and searchlight platform, brought down the mast and the
+fore-funnel, ruined the whaler and the dinghy, split the foc'sle open
+above water from the stem to the galley which is abaft the bridge, and
+below water had opened it up from the stem to the second bulkhead. She
+had further ripped off Eblis's skin-plating for an amazing number of
+yards on one side of her, and had fired a couple of large-calibre
+shells into Eblis at point-blank range, narrowly missing her vitals.
+Even so, Eblis is as impartial as a prize-court. She reports that the
+second shot, a trifle of eight inches, "may have been fired at a
+different time or just after colliding." But the night was yet young,
+and "just after getting clear of this cruiser an enemy battle-cruiser
+grazed past our stern at high speed" and again the judgmatic mind--"I
+think she must have intended to ram us." She was a large
+three-funnelled thing, her centre funnel shot away and "lights were
+flickering under her foc'sle as if she was on fire forward." Fancy the
+vision of her, hurtling out of the dark, red-lighted from within, and
+fleeing on like a man with his throat cut!
+
+[As an interlude, all enemy cruisers that night were not keen on
+ramming. They wanted to get home. A man I know who was on another part
+of the drive saw a covey bolt through our destroyers; and had just
+settled himself for a shot at one of them when the night threw up a
+second bird coming down full speed on his other beam. He had bare
+time to jink between the two as they whizzed past. One switched on her
+searchlight and fired a whole salvo at him point blank. The heavy
+stuff went between his funnels. She must have sighted along her own
+beam of light, which was about a thousand yards.
+
+"How did you feel?" I asked.
+
+"I was rather sick. It was my best chance all that night, and I had to
+miss it or be cut in two."
+
+"What happened to the cruisers?"
+
+"Oh, they went on, and I heard 'em being attended to by some of our
+fellows. They didn't know what they were doing, or they couldn't have
+missed me sitting, the way they did.]
+
+
+THE CONFIDENTIAL BOOKS
+
+After all that Eblis picked herself up, and discovered that she was
+still alive, with a dog's chance of getting to port. But she did not
+bank on it. That grand slam had wrecked the bridge, pinning the
+commander under the wreckage. By the time he had extricated himself
+he "considered it advisable to throw overboard the steel chest and
+dispatch-box of confidential and secret books." These are never
+allowed to fall into strange hands, and their proper disposal is the
+last step but one in the ritual of the burial service of His Majesty's
+ships at sea. Gehenna, afire and sinking, out somewhere in the dark,
+was going through it on her own account. This is her Acting
+Sub-Lieutenant's report: "The confidential books were got up. The
+First Lieutenant gave the order: 'Every man aft,' and the confidential
+books were thrown overboard. The ship soon afterwards heeled over to
+starboard and the bows went under. The First Lieutenant gave the
+order: 'Everybody for themselves.' The ship sank in about a minute,
+the stern going straight up into the air."
+
+But it was not written in the Book of Fate that stripped and battered
+Eblis should die that night as Gehenna died. After the burial of the
+books it was found that the several fires on her were manageable,
+that she "was not making water aft of the damage," which meant
+two-thirds of her were, more or less, in commission, and, best of all,
+that three boilers were usable in spite of the cruiser's shells. So
+she "shaped course and speed to make the least water and the most
+progress towards land." On the way back the wind shifted eight points
+without warning--it was this shift, if you remember, that so
+embarrassed Cripple and Paralytic on their homeward crawl--and, what
+with one thing and another, Eblis was unable to make port till the
+scandalously late hour of noon on June 2, "the mutual ramming having
+occurred about 11.40 P.M. on May 31." She says, this time without any
+legal reservation whatever, "I cannot speak too highly of the courage,
+discipline, and devotion of the officers and ship's company."
+
+Her recommendations are a Compendium of Godly Deeds for the Use of
+Mariners. They cover pretty much all that man may be expected to do.
+There was, as there always is, a first lieutenant who, while his
+commander was being extricated from the bridge wreckage, took charge
+of affairs and steered the ship first from the engine-room, or what
+remained of it, and later from aft, and otherwise manoeuvred as
+requisite, among doubtful bulkheads. In his leisure he "improvised
+means of signalling," and if there be not one joyous story behind that
+smooth sentence I am a Hun!
+
+
+THE ART OF IMPROVISING
+
+They all improvised like the masters of craft they were. The chief
+engine-room artificer, after he had helped to put out fires,
+improvised stops to the gaps which were left by the carrying away of
+the forward funnel and mast. He got and kept up steam "to a much
+higher point than would have appeared at all possible," and when the
+sea rose, as it always does if you are in trouble, he "improvised
+pumping and drainage arrangements, thus allowing the ship to steam at
+a good speed on the whole." There could not have been more than 40
+feet of hole.
+
+The surgeon--a probationer--performed an amputation single-handed in
+the wreckage by the bridge, and by his "wonderful skill, resource, and
+unceasing care and devotion undoubtedly saved the lives of the many
+seriously wounded men." That no horror might be lacking, there was "a
+short circuit among the bridge wreckage for a considerable time." The
+searchlight and wireless were tangled up together, and the electricity
+leaked into everything.
+
+There were also three wise men who saved the ship whose names must not
+be forgotten. They were Chief Engine-room Artificer Lee, Stoker Petty
+Officer Gardiner, and Stoker Elvins. When the funnel carried away it
+was touch and go whether the foremost boiler would not explode. These
+three "put on respirators and kept the fans going till all fumes,
+etc., were cleared away." To each man, you will observe, his own
+particular Hell which he entered of his own particular initiative.
+
+Lastly, there were the two remaining Quartermasters--mutinous dogs,
+both of 'em--one wounded in the right hand and the other in the left,
+who took the wheel between them all the way home, thus improvising one
+complete Navy-pattern Quartermaster, and "refused to be relieved
+during the whole thirty-six hours before the ship returned to port."
+So Eblis passes out of the picture with "never a moan or complaint
+from a single wounded man, and in spite of the rough weather of June
+1st they all remained cheery." They had one Hun cruiser, torpedoed, to
+their credit, and strong evidence abroad that they had knocked the end
+out of another.
+
+But Gehenna went down, and those of her crew who remained hung on to
+the rafts that destroyers carry till they were picked up about the
+dawn by Shaitan, third in the line, who, at that hour, was in no shape
+to give much help. Here is Shaitan's tale. She saw the unknown
+cruisers overtake the flotilla, saw their leader switch on
+searchlights and open fire as she drew abreast of Gehenna, and at
+once fired a torpedo at the third German ship. Shaitan could not see
+Eblis, her next ahead, for, as we know, Eblis after firing her
+torpedoes had hauled off to reload. When the enemy switched his
+searchlights off Shaitan hauled out too. It is not wholesome for
+destroyers to keep on the same course within a thousand yards of big
+enemy cruisers.
+
+She picked up a destroyer of another division, Goblin, who for the
+moment had not been caught by the enemy's searchlights and had
+profited by this decent obscurity to fire a torpedo at the hindmost of
+the cruisers. Almost as Shaitan took station behind Goblin the latter
+was lighted up by a large ship and heavily fired at. The enemy fled,
+but she left Goblin out of control, with a grisly list of casualties,
+and her helm jammed. Goblin swerved, returned, and swerved again;
+Shaitan astern tried to clear her, and the two fell aboard each other,
+Goblin's bows deep in Shaitan's fore-bridge. While they hung thus,
+locked, an unknown destroyer rammed Shaitan aft, cutting off several
+feet of her stern and leaving her rudder jammed hard over. As complete
+a mess as the Personal Devil himself could have devised, and all due
+to the merest accident of a few panicky salvoes. Presently the two
+ships worked clear in a smother of steam and oil, and went their
+several ways. Quite a while after she had parted from Shaitan, Goblin
+discovered several of Shaitan's people, some of them wounded, on her
+own foc'sle, where they had been pitched by the collision. Goblin,
+working her way homeward on such boilers as remained, carried on a
+one-gun fight at a few cables' distance with some enemy destroyers,
+who, not knowing what state she was in, sheered off after a few
+rounds. Shaitan, holed forward and opened up aft, came across the
+survivors from Gehenna clinging to their raft, and took them aboard.
+Then some of our destroyers--they were thick on the sea that
+night--tried to tow her stern-first, for Goblin had cut her up badly
+forward. But, since Shaitan lacked any stern, and her rudder was
+jammed hard across where the stern should have been, the hawsers
+parted, and, after leave asked of lawful authority, across all that
+waste of waters, they sank Shaitan by gun-fire, having first taken all
+the proper steps about the confidential books. Yet Shaitan had had her
+little crumb of comfort ere the end. While she lay crippled she saw
+quite close to her a German cruiser that was trailing homeward in the
+dawn gradually heel over and sink.
+
+This completes my version of the various accounts of the four
+destroyers directly concerned for a few hours, on one minute section
+of one wing of our battle. Other ships witnessed other aspects of the
+agony and duly noted them as they went about their business. One of
+our battleships, for instance, made out by the glare of burning
+Gehenna that the supposed cruiser that Eblis torpedoed was a German
+battleship of a certain class. So Gehenna did not die in vain, and we
+may take it that the discovery did not unduly depress Eblis's wounded
+in hospital.
+
+
+ASKING FOR TROUBLE
+
+The rest of the flotilla that the four destroyers belonged to had
+their own adventures later. One of them, chasing or being chased, saw
+Goblin out of control just before Goblin and Shaitan locked, and
+narrowly escaped adding herself to that triple collision. Another
+loosed a couple of torpedoes at the enemy ships who were attacking
+Gehenna, which, perhaps, accounts for the anxiety of the enemy to
+break away from that hornets' nest as soon as possible. Half a dozen
+or so of them ran into four German battleships, which they set about
+torpedoing at ranges varying from half a mile to a mile and a half. It
+was asking for trouble and they got it; but they got in return at
+least one big ship, and the same observant battleship of ours who
+identified Eblis's bird reported _three_ satisfactory explosions in
+half an hour, followed by a glare that lit up all the sky. One of the
+flotilla, closing on what she thought was the smoke of a sister in
+difficulties, found herself well in among the four battleships. "It
+was too late to get away," she says, so she attacked, fired her
+torpedo, was caught up in the glare of a couple of searchlights, and
+pounded to pieces in five minutes, not even her rafts being left. She
+went down with her colours flying, having fought to the last available
+gun.
+
+Another destroyer who had borne a hand in Gehenna's trouble had her
+try at the four battleships and got in a torpedo at 800 yards. She saw
+it explode and the ship take a heavy list. "Then I was chased," which
+is not surprising. She picked up a friend who could only do 20 knots.
+They sighted several Hun destroyers who fled from them; then dropped
+on to four Hun destroyers all together, who made great parade of
+commencing action, but soon afterwards "thought better of it, and
+turned away." So you see, in that flotilla alone there was every
+variety of fight, from the ordered attacks of squadrons under control,
+to single ship affairs, every turn of which depended on the second's
+decision of the men concerned; endurance to the hopeless end; bluff
+and cunning; reckless advance and red-hot flight; clear vision and as
+much of blank bewilderment as the Senior Service permits its children
+to indulge in. That is not much. When a destroyer who has been dodging
+enemy torpedoes and gun-fire in the dark realises about midnight that
+she is "following a strange British flotilla, having lost sight of my
+own," she "decides to remain with them," and shares their fortunes and
+whatever language is going.
+
+If lost hounds could speak when they cast up next day, after an
+unchecked night among the wild life of the dark, they would talk much
+as our destroyers do.
+
+    The doorkeepers of Zion,
+      They do not always stand
+    In helmet and whole armour,
+      With halberds in their hand;
+    But, being sure of Zion,
+      And all her mysteries,
+    They rest awhile in Zion,
+    Sit down and smile in Zion;
+    Ay, even jest in Zion,
+      In Zion, at their ease.
+
+    The gatekeepers of Baal,
+      They dare not sit or lean,
+    But fume and fret and posture
+      And foam and curse between;
+    For being bound to Baal,
+      Whose sacrifice is vain,
+    Their rest is scant with Baal,
+    They glare and pant for Baal,
+    They mouth and rant for Baal,
+      For Baal in their pain.
+
+    But we will go to Zion,
+      By choice and not through dread,
+    With these our present comrades
+      And those our present dead;
+    And, being free of Zion
+      In both her fellowships,
+    Sit down and sup in Zion--
+    Stand up and drink in Zion
+    Whatever cup in Zion
+      Is offered to our lips!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE MEANING OF "JOSS"
+
+A YOUNG OFFICER'S LETTER
+
+
+As one digs deeper into the records, one sees the various temperaments
+of men revealing themselves through all the formal wording. One
+commander may be an expert in torpedo-work, whose first care is how
+and where his shots went, and whether, under all circumstances of
+pace, light, and angle, the best had been achieved. Destroyers do not
+carry unlimited stocks of torpedoes. It rests with commanders whether
+they shall spend with a free hand at first or save for night-work
+ahead--risk a possible while he is yet afloat, or hang on coldly for a
+certainty. So in the old whaling days did the harponeer bring up or
+back off his boat till some shift of the great fish's bulk gave him
+sure opening at the deep-seated life.
+
+And then comes the question of private judgment. "I thought so-and-so
+would happen. Therefore, I did thus and thus." Things may or may not
+turn out as anticipated, but that is merely another of the million
+chances of the sea. Take a case in point. A flotilla of our destroyers
+sighted six (there had been eight the previous afternoon) German
+battleships of Kingly and Imperial caste very early in the morning of
+the 1st June, and duly attacked. At first our people ran parallel to
+the enemy, then, as far as one can make out, headed them and swept
+round sharp to the left, firing torpedoes from their port or left-hand
+tubes. Between them they hit a battleship, which went up in flame and
+_debris_. But one of the flotilla had not turned with the rest. She
+had anticipated that the attack would be made on another quarter, and,
+for certain technical reasons, she was not ready. When she was, she
+turned, and single-handed--the rest of the flotilla having finished
+and gone on--carried out two attacks on the five remaining
+battleships. She got one of them amidships, causing a terrific
+explosion and flame above the masthead, which signifies that the
+magazine has been touched off. She counted the battleships when the
+smoke had cleared, and there were but four of them. She herself was
+not hit, though shots fell close. She went her way, and, seeing
+nothing of her sisters, picked up another flotilla and stayed with it
+till the end. Do I make clear the maze of blind hazard and wary
+judgment in which our men of the sea must move?
+
+
+SAVED BY A SMOKE SCREEN
+
+Some of the original flotilla were chased and headed about by cruisers
+after their attack on the six battleships, and a single shell from
+battleship or cruiser reduced one of them to such a condition that she
+was brought home by her sub-lieutenant and a midshipman. Her captain,
+first lieutenant, gunner, torpedo coxswain, and both signalmen were
+either killed or wounded; the bridge, with charts, instruments, and
+signalling gear went; all torpedoes were expended; a gun was out of
+action, and the usual cordite fires developed. Luckily, the engines
+were workable. She escaped under cover of a smoke-screen, which is an
+unbearably filthy outpouring of the densest smoke, made by increasing
+the proportion of oil to air in the furnace-feed. It rolls forth from
+the funnels looking solid enough to sit upon, spreads in a
+searchlight-proof pat of impenetrable beastliness, and in still
+weather hangs for hours. But it saved that ship.
+
+It is curious to note the subdued tone of a boy's report when by some
+accident of slaughter he is raised to command. There are certain
+formalities which every ship must comply with on entering certain
+ports. No fully-striped commander would trouble to detail them any
+more than he would the aspect of his Club porter. The young 'un puts
+it all down, as who should say: "I rang the bell, wiped my feet on the
+mat, and asked if they were at home." He is most careful of the port
+proprieties, and since he will be sub. again to-morrow, and all his
+equals will tell him exactly how he ought to have handled her, he
+almost apologises for the steps he took--deeds which ashore might be
+called cool or daring.
+
+The Senior Service does not gush. There are certain formulae
+appropriate to every occasion. One of our destroyers, who was knocked
+out early in the day and lay helpless, was sighted by several of her
+companions. One of them reported her to the authorities, but, being
+busy at the time, said he did not think himself justified in hampering
+himself with a disabled ship in the middle of an action. It was not as
+if she was sinking either. She was only holed foreward and aft, with a
+bad hit in the engine-room, and her steering-gear knocked out. In this
+posture she cheered the passing ships, and set about repairing her
+hurts with good heart and a smiling countenance. She managed to get
+under some sort of way at midnight, and next day was taken in tow by a
+friend. She says officially, "his assistance was invaluable, as I had
+no oil left and met heavy weather."
+
+What actually happened was much less formal. Fleet destroyers, as a
+rule, do not worry about navigation. They take their orders from the
+flagship, and range out and return, on signal, like sheep-dogs whose
+fixed point is their shepherd. Consequently, when they break loose on
+their own they may fetch up rather doubtful of their whereabouts--as
+this injured one did. After she had been so kindly taken in tow, she
+inquired of her friend ("Message captain to captain")--"Have you any
+notion where we are?" The friend replied, "I have not, but I will find
+out." So the friend waited on the sun with the necessary implements,
+which luckily had not been smashed, and in due time made: "Our
+observed position at this hour is thus and thus." The tow,
+irreverently, "Is it? Didn't know you were a navigator." The friend,
+with hauteur, "Yes; it's rather a hobby of mine." The tow, "Had no
+idea it was as bad as all that; but I'm afraid I'll have to trust you
+this time. Go ahead, and be quick about it." They reached a port,
+correctly enough, but to this hour the tow, having studied with the
+friend at a place called Dartmouth, insists that it was pure Joss.
+
+
+CONCERNING JOSS
+
+And Joss, which is luck, fortune, destiny, the irony of Fate or
+Nemesis, is the greatest of all the Battle-gods that move on the
+waters. As I will show you later, knowledge of gunnery and a delicate
+instinct for what is in the enemy's minds may enable a destroyer to
+thread her way, slowing, speeding, and twisting between the heavy
+salvoes of opposing fleets. As the dank-smelling waterspouts rise and
+break, she judges where the next grove of them will sprout. If her
+judgment is correct, she may enter it in her report as a little
+feather in her cap. But it is Joss when the stray 12-inch shell,
+hurled by a giant at some giant ten miles away, falls on her from
+Heaven and wipes out her and her profound calculations. This was seen
+to happen to a Hun destroyer in mid-attack. While she was being
+laboriously dealt with by a 4-inch gun something immense took her,
+and--she was not.
+
+Joss it is, too, when the cruiser's 8-inch shot, that should have
+raked out your innards from the forward boiler to the ward-room stove,
+deflects miraculously, like a twig dragged through deep water, and,
+almost returning on its track, skips off unbursten and leaves you
+reprieved by the breadth of a nail from three deaths in one. Later, a
+single splinter, no more, may cut your oil-supply pipes as dreadfully
+and completely as a broken wind-screen in a collision cuts the
+surprised motorist's throat. Then you must lie useless, fighting
+oil-fires while the precious fuel gutters away till you have to ask
+leave to escape while there are yet a few tons left. One ship who was
+once bled white by such a piece of Joss, suggested it would be better
+that oil-pipes should be led along certain lines which she sketched.
+As if that would make any difference to Joss when he wants to show
+what he can do!
+
+Our sea-people, who have worked with him for a thousand wettish years,
+have acquired something of Joss's large toleration and humour. He
+causes ships in thick weather, or under strain, to mistake friends for
+enemies. At such times, if your heart is full of highly organised
+hate, you strafe frightfully and efficiently till one of you perishes,
+and the survivor reports wonders which are duly wirelessed all over
+the world. But if you worship Joss, you reflect, you put two and two
+together in a casual insular way, and arrive--sometimes both parties
+arrive--at instinctive conclusions which avoid trouble.
+
+
+AN AFFAIR IN THE NORTH SEA
+
+Witness this tale. It does not concern the Jutland fight, but another
+little affair which took place a while ago in the North Sea. It was
+understood that a certain type of cruiser of ours would _not_ be
+taking part in a certain show. Therefore, if anyone saw cruisers very
+like them he might blaze at them with a clear conscience, for they
+would be Hun-boats. And one of our destroyers--thick weather as
+usual--spied the silhouettes of cruisers exactly like our own stealing
+across the haze. Said the Commander to his Sub., with an inflection
+neither period, exclamation, nor interrogation-mark can
+render--"That--is--them."
+
+Said the Sub. in precisely the same tone--"That is them, sir." "As my
+Sub.," said the Commander, "your observation is strictly in accord
+with the traditions of the Service. Now, as man to man, what _are_
+they?" "We-el," said the Sub., "since you put it that way, I'm d----d
+if _I'd_ fire." And they didn't, and they were quite right. The
+destroyer had been off on another job, and Joss had jammed the latest
+wireless orders to her at the last moment. But Joss had also put it
+into the hearts of the boys to save themselves and others.
+
+I hold no brief for the Hun, but honestly I think he has not lied as
+much about the Jutland fight as people believe, and that when he
+protests he sank a ship, he _did_ very completely sink a ship. I am
+the more confirmed in this belief by a still small voice among the
+Jutland reports, musing aloud over an account of an unaccountable
+outlying brawl witnessed by one of our destroyers. The voice suggests
+that what the destroyer saw was one German ship being sunk by another.
+Amen!
+
+Our destroyers saw a good deal that night on the face of the waters.
+Some of them who were working in "areas of comparative calm" submit
+charts of their tangled courses, all studded with notes along the
+zigzag--something like this:--
+
+8 P.M.--_Heard explosion to the N.W._ (A neat arrow-head points that
+way.) Half an inch farther along, a short change of course, and the
+word _Hit_ explains the meaning of--"_Sighted enemy cruiser engaged
+with destroyers._" Another twist follows. "9.30 P.M.--_Passed
+wreckage. Engaged enemy destroyers port beam opposite courses._" A
+long straight line without incident, then a tangle, and--_Picked up
+survivors So-and-So_. A stretch over to some ship that they were
+transferred to, a fresh departure, and another brush with "_Single
+destroyer on parallel course. Hit. 0.7 A.M.--Passed bows enemy cruiser
+sticking up. 0.18.--Joined flotilla for attack on battleship
+squadron._" So it runs on--one little ship in a few short hours
+passing through more wonders of peril and accident than all the old
+fleets ever dreamed.
+
+
+A "CHILD'S" LETTER
+
+In years to come naval experts will collate all those diagrams, and
+furiously argue over them. A lot of the destroyer work was inevitably
+as mixed as bombing down a trench, as the scuffle of a polo match, or
+as the hot heaving heart of a football scrum. It is difficult to
+realise when one considers the size of the sea, that it is that very
+size and absence of boundary which helps the confusion. To give an
+idea, here is a letter (it has been quoted before, I believe, but it
+is good enough to repeat many times), from a nineteen-year-old child
+to his friend aged seventeen (and minus one leg), in a hospital:
+
+"I'm so awfully sorry you weren't in it. It was rather terrible, but a
+wonderful experience, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but,
+by Jove, it isn't a thing one wants to make a habit of.
+
+"I must say it is very different from what I expected. I expected to
+be excited, but was not a bit. It's hard to express what we did feel
+like, but you know the sort of feeling one has when one goes in to bat
+at cricket, and rather a lot depends upon your doing well, and you are
+waiting for the first ball. Well, it's very much the same as that. Do
+you know what I mean? A sort of tense feeling, not quite knowing what
+to expect. One does not feel the slightest bit frightened, and the
+idea that there's a chance of you and your ship being scuppered does
+not enter one's head. There are too many other things to think
+about."
+
+Follows the usual "No ship like our ship" talkee, and a note of where
+she was at the time.
+
+"Then they ordered us to attack, so we bustled off full bore. Being
+navigator, also having control of all the guns, I was on the bridge
+all the time, and remained for twelve hours without leaving it at all.
+When we got fairly close I sighted a good-looking Hun destroyer, which
+I thought I'd like to strafe. You know, it's awful fun to know that
+you can blaze off at a real ship, and do as much damage as you like.
+Well, I'd just got their range on the guns, and we'd just fired one
+round, when some more of our destroyers coming from the opposite
+direction got between us and the enemy and completely blanketed us, so
+we had to stop, which was rather rot. Shortly afterwards they recalled
+us, so we bustled back again. How any destroyer got out of it is
+perfectly wonderful.
+
+"Literally there were hundreds of progs (shells falling) all round us,
+from a 15-inch to a 4-inch, and you know what a big splash a 15-inch
+bursting in the water does make. We got washed through by the spray.
+Just as we were getting back, a whole salvo of big shells fell just in
+front of us and short of our big ships. The skipper and I did rapid
+calculations as to how long it would take them to reload, fire again,
+time of flight, etc., as we had to go right through the spot. We came
+to the conclusion that, as they were short a bit, they would probably
+go up a bit, and (they?) didn't, but luckily they altered deflection,
+and the next fell right astern of us. Anyhow, we managed to come out
+of that row without the ship or a man on board being touched.
+
+
+WHAT THE BIG SHIPS STAND
+
+"It's extraordinary the amount of knocking about the big ships can
+stand. One saw them hit, and they seemed to be one mass of flame and
+smoke, and you think they're gone, but when the smoke clears away they
+are apparently none the worse and still firing away. But to see a
+ship blow up is a terrible and wonderful sight; an enormous volume of
+flame and smoke almost 200 feet high and great pieces of metal, etc.,
+blown sky-high, and then when the smoke clears not a sign of the ship.
+We saw one other extraordinary sight. Of course, you know the North
+Sea is very shallow. We came across a Hun cruiser absolutely on end,
+his stern on the bottom and his bow sticking up about 30 feet in the
+water; and a little farther on a destroyer in precisely the same
+position.
+
+"I couldn't be certain, but I rather think I saw your old ship
+crashing along and blazing away, but I expect you have heard from some
+of your pals. But the night was far and away the worse time of all. It
+was pitch dark, and, of course, absolutely no lights, and the firing
+seems so much more at night, as you could see the flashes lighting up
+the sky, and it seemed to make much more noise, and you could see
+ships on fire and blowing up. Of course _we_ showed absolutely no
+lights. One expected to be surprised any moment, and eventually we
+were. We suddenly found ourselves within 1000 yards of two or three
+big Hun cruisers. They switched on their searchlights and started
+firing like nothing on earth. Then they put their searchlights on us,
+but for some extraordinary reason did not fire on us. As, of course,
+we were going full speed we lost them in a moment, but I must say,
+that I, and I think everybody else, thought that that was the end, but
+one does not feel afraid or panicky. I think I felt rather cooler then
+than at any other time. I asked lots of people afterwards what they
+felt like, and they all said the same thing. It all happens in a few
+seconds; one hasn't time to think; but never in all my life have I
+been so thankful to see daylight again--and I don't think I ever want
+to see another night like that--it's such an awful strain. One does
+not notice it at the time, but it's the reaction afterwards.
+
+"I never noticed I was tired till I got back to harbour, and then we
+all turned in and absolutely slept like logs. We were seventy-two
+hours with little or no sleep. The skipper was perfectly wonderful. He
+never left the bridge for a minute for twenty-four hours, and was on
+the bridge or in the chart-house the whole time we were out (the
+chart-house is an airy dog-kennel that opens off the bridge) and I've
+never seen anybody so cool and unruffled. He stood there smoking his
+pipe as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.
+
+"One quite forgot all about time. I was relieved at 4 A.M., and on
+looking at my watch found I had been up there nearly twelve hours, and
+then discovered I was rather hungry. The skipper and I had some cheese
+and biscuits, ham sandwiches, and water on the bridge, and then I went
+down and brewed some cocoa and ship's biscuit."
+
+    Not in the thick of the fight,
+      Not in the press of the odds,
+    Do the heroes come to their height
+      Or we know the demi-gods.
+
+    That stands over till peace.
+      We can only perceive
+    Men returned from the seas,
+      Very grateful for leave.
+
+    They grant us sudden days
+      Snatched from their business of war.
+    We are too close to appraise
+      What manner of men they are.
+
+    And whether their names go down
+      With age-kept victories,
+    Or whether they battle and drown
+      Unreckoned is hid from our eyes.
+
+    They are too near to be great,
+      But our children shall understand
+    When and how our fate
+      Was changed, and by whose hand.
+
+    Our children shall measure their worth.
+      We are content to be blind,
+    For we know that we walk on a new-born earth
+      With the saviours of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MINDS OF MEN
+
+HOW IT IS DONE
+
+
+What mystery is there like the mystery of the other man's job--or what
+world so cut off as that which he enters when he goes to it? The
+eminent surgeon is altogether such an one as ourselves, even till his
+hand falls on the knob of the theatre door. After that, in the
+silence, among the ether fumes, no man except his acolytes, and they
+won't tell, has ever seen his face. So with the unconsidered curate.
+Yet, before the war, he had more experience of the business and detail
+of death than any of the people who contemned him. His face also, as
+he stands his bedside-watches--that countenance with which he shall
+justify himself to his Maker--none have ever looked upon. Even the
+ditcher is a priest of mysteries at the high moment when he lays out
+in his mind his levels and the fall of the water that he alone can
+draw off clearly. But catch any of these men five minutes after they
+have left their altars, and you will find the doors are shut.
+
+Chance sent me almost immediately after the Jutland fight a Lieutenant
+of one of the destroyers engaged. Among other matters, I asked him if
+there was any particular noise.
+
+"Well, I haven't been in the trenches, of course," he replied, "but I
+don't think there could have been much more noise than there was."
+
+This bears out a report of a destroyer who could not be certain
+whether an enemy battleship had blown up or not, saying that, in that
+particular corner, it would have been impossible to identify anything
+less than the explosion of a whole magazine.
+
+"It wasn't exactly noise," he reflected. "Noise is what you take in
+from outside. This was _inside_ you. It seemed to lift you right out
+of everything."
+
+"And how did the light affect one?" I asked, trying to work out a
+theory that noise and light produced beyond known endurance form an
+unknown anaesthetic and stimulant, comparable to, but infinitely more
+potent than, the soothing effect of the smoke-pall of ancient battles.
+
+"The lights were rather curious," was the answer. "I don't know that
+one noticed searchlights particularly, unless they meant business; but
+when a lot of big guns loosed off together, the whole sea was lit up
+and you could see our destroyers running about like cockroaches on a
+tin soup-plate."
+
+"Then is black the best colour for our destroyers? Some commanders
+seem to think we ought to use grey."
+
+"Blessed if _I_ know," said young Dante. "Everything shows black in
+that light. Then it all goes out again with a bang. Trying for the
+eyes if you are spotting."
+
+
+SHIP DOGS
+
+"And how did the dogs take it?" I pursued. There are several
+destroyers more or less owned by pet dogs, who start life as the
+chance-found property of a stoker, and end in supreme command of the
+bridge.
+
+"Most of 'em didn't like it a bit. They went below one time, and
+wanted to be loved. They knew it wasn't ordinary practice."
+
+"What did Arabella do?" I had heard a good deal of Arabella.
+
+"Oh, Arabella's _quite_ different. Her job has always been to look
+after her master's pyjamas--folded up at the head of the bunk, you
+know. She found out pretty soon the bridge was no place for a lady, so
+she hopped downstairs and got in. You know how she makes three little
+jumps to it--first, on to the chair; then on the flap-table, and then
+up on the pillow. When the show was over, there she was as usual."
+
+"Was she glad to see her master?"
+
+"_Ra-ather._ Arabella was the bold, gay lady-dog _then_!"
+
+Now Arabella is between nine and eleven and a half inches long.
+
+"Does the Hun run to pets at all?"
+
+"I shouldn't say so. He's an unsympathetic felon--the Hun. But he
+might cherish a dachshund or so. We never picked up any ships' pets
+off him, and I'm sure we should if there had been."
+
+That I believed as implicitly as the tale of a destroyer attack some
+months ago, the object of which was to flush Zeppelins. It succeeded,
+for the flotilla was attacked by several. Right in the middle of the
+flurry, a destroyer asked permission to stop and lower dinghy to pick
+up ship's dog which had fallen overboard. Permission was granted, and
+the dog was duly rescued. "Lord knows what the Hun made of it," said
+my informant. "He was rumbling round, dropping bombs; and the dinghy
+was digging out for all she was worth, and the Dog-Fiend was swimming
+for Dunkirk. It must have looked rather mad from above. But they
+saved the Dog-Fiend, and then everybody swore he was a German spy in
+disguise."
+
+
+THE FIGHT
+
+"And--about this Jutland fight?" I hinted, not for the first time.
+
+"Oh, that was just a fight. There was more of it than any other fight,
+I suppose, but I expect all modern naval actions must be pretty much
+the same."
+
+"But what does one _do_--how does one feel?" I insisted, though I knew
+it was hopeless.
+
+"One does one's job. Things are happening all the time. A man may be
+right under your nose one minute--serving a gun or something--and the
+next minute he isn't there."
+
+"And one notices that at the time?"
+
+"Yes. But there's no time to keep _on_ noticing it. You've got to
+carry on somehow or other, or your show stops. I tell you what one
+_does_ notice, though. If one goes below for anything, or has to pass
+through a flat somewhere, and one sees the old wardroom clock ticking,
+or a photograph pinned up, or anything of that sort, one notices
+_that_. Oh yes, and there was another thing--the way a ship seemed to
+blow up if you were far off her. You'd see a glare, then a blaze, and
+then the smoke--miles high, lifting quite slowly. Then you'd get the
+row and the jar of it--just like bumping over submarines. Then, a long
+while after p'raps, you run through a regular rain of bits of burnt
+paper coming down on the decks--like showers of volcanic ash, you
+know." The door of the operating-room seemed just about to open, but
+it shut again.
+
+"And the Huns' gunnery?"
+
+"That was various. Sometimes they began quite well, and went to pieces
+after they'd been strafed a little; but sometimes they picked up
+again. There was one Hun-boat that got no end of a hammering, and it
+seemed to do her gunnery good. She improved tremendously till we sank
+her. I expect we'd knocked out some scientific Hun in the controls,
+and he'd been succeeded by a man who knew how."
+
+It used to be "Fritz" last year when they spoke of the enemy. Now it
+is Hun or, as I have heard, "Yahun," being a superlative of Yahoo. In
+the Napoleonic wars we called the Frenchmen too many names for any one
+of them to endure; but this is the age of standardisation.
+
+"And what about our Lower Deck?" I continued.
+
+"They? Oh, they carried on as usual. It takes a lot to impress the
+Lower Deck when they're busy." And he mentioned several little things
+that confirmed this. They had a great deal to do, and they did it
+serenely because they had been trained to carry on under all
+conditions without panicking. What they did in the way of running
+repairs was even more wonderful, if that be possible, than their
+normal routine.
+
+The Lower Deck nowadays is full of strange fish with unlooked-for
+accomplishments, as in the recorded case of two simple seamen of a
+destroyer who, when need was sorest, came to the front as trained
+experts in first-aid.
+
+"And now--what about the actual Hun losses at Jutland?" I ventured.
+
+"You've seen the list, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, but it occurred to me--that they might have been a shade
+under-estimated, and I thought perhaps--"
+
+A perfectly plain asbestos fire-curtain descended in front of the
+already locked door. It was none of his business to dispute the drive.
+If there were any discrepancies between estimate and results, one
+might be sure that the enemy knew about them, which was the chief
+thing that mattered.
+
+It was, said he, Joss that the light was so bad at the hour of the
+last round-up when our main fleet had come down from the north and
+shovelled the Hun round on his tracks. _Per contra_, had it been any
+other kind of weather, the odds were the Hun would not have ventured
+so far. As it was, the Hun's fleet had come out and gone back again,
+none the better for air and exercise. We must be thankful for what we
+had managed to pick up. But talking of picking up, there was an
+instance of almost unparalleled Joss which had stuck in his memory. A
+soldier-man, related to one of the officers in one of our ships that
+was put down, had got five days' leave from the trenches which he
+spent with his relative aboard, and thus dropped in for the whole
+performance. He had been employed in helping to spot, and had lived up
+a mast till the ship sank, when he stepped off into the water and swam
+about till he was fished out and put ashore. By that time, the tale
+goes, his engine-room-dried khaki had shrunk half-way up his legs and
+arms, in which costume he reported himself to the War Office, and
+pleaded for one little day's extension of leave to make himself
+decent. "Not a bit of it," said the War Office. "If you choose to
+spend your leave playing with sailor-men and getting wet all over,
+that's _your_ concern. You will return to duty by to-night's boat."
+(This may be a libel on the W.O., but it sounds very like them.) "And
+he had to," said the boy, "but I expect he spent the next week at
+Headquarters telling fat generals all about the fight."
+
+"And, of course, the Admiralty gave _you_ all lots of leave?"
+
+"Us? Yes, heaps. We had nothing to do except clean down and oil up,
+and be ready to go to sea again in a few hours."
+
+That little fact was brought out at the end of almost every
+destroyer's report. "Having returned to base at such and such a time,
+I took in oil, etc., and reported ready for sea at ---- o'clock." When
+you think of the amount of work a ship needs even after peace
+manoeuvres, you can realise what has to be done on the heels of an
+action. And, as there is nothing like housework for the troubled soul
+of a woman, so a general clean-up is good for sailors. I had this from
+a petty officer who had also passed through deep waters. "If you've
+seen your best friend go from alongside you, and your own officer, and
+your own boat's crew with him, and things of that kind, a man's best
+comfort is small variegated jobs which he is damned for continuous."
+
+
+THE SILENT NAVY
+
+Presently my friend of the destroyer went back to his stark, desolate
+life, where feelings do not count, and the fact of his being cold,
+wet, sea-sick, sleepless, or dog-tired had no bearing whatever on his
+business, which was to turn out at any hour in any weather and do or
+endure, decently, according to ritual, what that hour and that weather
+demanded. It is hard to reach the kernel of Navy minds. The unbribable
+seas and mechanisms they work on and through have given them the
+simplicity of elements and machines. The habit of dealing with swift
+accident, a life of closest and strictest association with their own
+caste as well as contact with all kinds of men all earth over, have
+added an immense cunning to those qualities; and that they are from
+early youth cut out of all feelings that may come between them and
+their ends, makes them more incomprehensible than Jesuits, even to
+their own people. What, then, must they be to the enemy?
+
+Here is a Service which prowls forth and achieves, at the lowest,
+something of a victory. How far-reaching a one only the war's end will
+reveal. It returns in gloomy silence, broken by the occasional hoot of
+the long-shore loafer, after issuing a bulletin which though it may
+enlighten the professional mind does not exhilarate the layman.
+Meantime the enemy triumphs, wirelessly, far and wide. A few frigid
+and perfunctory-seeming contradictions are put forward against his
+resounding claims; a Naval expert or two is heard talking "off"; the
+rest is silence. Anon, the enemy, after a prodigious amount of
+explanation which not even the neutrals seem to take any interest in,
+revises his claims, and, very modestly, enlarges his losses. Still no
+sign. After weeks there appears a document giving our version of the
+affair, which is as colourless, detached, and scrupulously impartial
+as the findings of a prize-court. It opines that the list of enemy
+losses which it submits "give the minimum in regard to numbers though
+it is possibly not entirely accurate in regard to the particular class
+of vessel, especially those that were sunk during the night attacks."
+Here the matter rests and remains--just like our blockade. There is an
+insolence about it all that makes one gasp.
+
+Yet that insolence springs naturally and unconsciously as an oath, out
+of the same spirit that caused the destroyer to pick up the dog. The
+reports themselves, and tenfold more the stories not in the reports,
+are charged with it, but no words by any outsider can reproduce just
+that professional tone and touch. A man writing home after the fight,
+points out that the great consolation for not having cleaned up the
+enemy altogether was that "anyhow those East Coast devils"--a
+fellow-squadron, if you please, which up till Jutland had had most of
+the fighting--"were not there. They missed that show. We were as
+cock-ahoop as a girl who had been to a dance that her sister has
+missed."
+
+This was one of the figures in that dance:
+
+"A little British destroyer, her midships rent by a great shell meant
+for a battle-cruiser; exuding steam from every pore; able to go ahead
+but not to steer; unable to get out of anybody's way, likely to be
+rammed by any one of a dozen ships; her syren whimpering: 'Let me
+through! Make way!'; her crew fallen in aft dressed in life-belts
+ready for her final plunge, and cheering wildly as it might have been
+an enthusiastic crowd when the King passes."
+
+Let us close on that note. We have been compassed about so long and so
+blindingly by wonders and miracles; so overwhelmed by revelations of
+the spirit of men in the basest and most high; that we have neither
+time to keep tally of these furious days, nor mind to discern upon
+which hour of them our world's fate hung.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEUTRAL
+
+    Brethren, how shall it fare with me
+      When the war is laid aside,
+    If it be proven that I am he
+      For whom a world has died?
+
+    If it be proven that all my good,
+      And the greater good I will make,
+    Were purchased me by a multitude
+      Who suffered for my sake?
+
+    That I was delivered by mere mankind
+      Vowed to one sacrifice,
+    And not, as I hold them, battle-blind,
+      But dying with opened eyes?
+
+    That they did not ask me to draw the sword
+      When they stood to endure their lot,
+    What they only looked to me for a word,
+      And I answered I knew them not?
+
+    If it be found, when the battle clears,
+      Their death has set me free,
+    Then how shall I live with myself through the years
+      Which they have bought for me?
+
+    Brethren, how must it fare with me,
+      Or how am I justified,
+    If it be proven that I am he
+      For whom mankind has died;
+    If it be proven that I am he
+      Who being questioned denied?
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Warfare, by Rudyard Kipling
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