Part 9
Under his command, then, they sailed with a cargo of timber in each hold, and in due course, about 9.45 one morning, a torpedo was seen approaching the starboard beam. Observing his rôle as Master of a careless tramp, with poor look-outs, the Commander held on his course. At the last moment, however, the helm was imperceptibly altered to ensure the ship being struck abaft the engine-room, where the torpedo might do least damage. Those whom fate has afforded the opportunity of studying the trail of an approaching torpedo will, if they recall their sensations, appreciate to some extent the iron nerve requisite to such a manœuvre. The torpedo burst abreast No. 3 hold, hurling a wall of water and wreckage to the height of the mast, and blowing a hole in the ship's side 40 feet wide. Half-stunned and deafened by the concussion, the Commander raised himself on his hands and knees, where he had been flung, and shouted to the Navigator: "They've got us this time!" The Navigator, who was inside the chart-house, thrust his head out for a moment, moistening a lead pencil with his lips. "I reckon I've got time to finish working out this sight, sir," he replied with a grin, and withdrew his head.
The alarm-gongs had already sent the guns' crews to their invisible guns, and immediately after the explosion "Panic stations" was ordered, followed in due course by "Abandon ship." The Navigator, having finished his "sight," and now acting as "Master," abandoned ship with the "panic party." No sooner had the boats been lowered and shoved off from the ship's side, however, than the Chief Engineer rang up from below and reported that the after bulkhead had gone and that the engine-room was filling fast. Peering, on all fours, through a slit in the bridge-screen, waiting for the inevitable periscope to appear, the Commander bade him hold on as long as he could and keep enough steam to work the pumps; when the water had extinguished the fires, and then only, the engines were abandoned and the staff remained concealed. This they did, crawling eventually on to the cylinders to escape from the rising flood.
Shortly after the torpedo struck the ship the periscope of a submarine broke the surface a couple of hundred yards distant, evidently watching proceedings with a deliberate, cautious scrutiny. Moving slowly through the water, like the fin of a waiting shark, the sinister object came gradually down the ship's side, within five yards of the breathless boats, and not ten yards from where the Commander lay beside the voice-pipes that connected him with the Assistant-Paymaster, R.N.R., who, concealed in the gun control position, was awaiting the order to open fire. From the altitude of the bridge, the submerged whale-back hull was plainly visible to the figure crouched behind the bridge-screens, and the temptation to yield to the impulse of the moment, to open fire and end the suspense, shook even his iron nerves. A lucky shot might pierce the lead-grey shadow that moved 15 feet beneath the surface; but water plays strange tricks with projectiles, deflecting them at unexpected ricochets, at angles no man can foretell; moreover, the submarine was in diving trim. The odds against a broadside overwhelming her before she could plunge into the depths and escape were too great. So the Commander waited, with self-control that was almost superhuman, and, prone beside their guns, unseeing and unseen, his men waited too.
The ship had then sunk by the stern until it was awash, and the crew of the gun masked by the wheelhouse were crouched up to their knees in water. A black cat, the ship's mascot, that had been blown off the forecastle by the explosion of the torpedo, swam aft and in over the stern, whose counter rose normally 20 feet above the surface. Still the periscope continued its unhurried observation; it travelled past the ship, across the bow, and then slowly moved away, as if content that the task was done. For the space of nearly a minute bitter disappointment and mortification rose in the Commander's heart. His ship had been torpedoed and was sinking. Their quarry had all but been within their grasp, and was now going to escape unscathed. Then, when hope was flickering to extinction, the submarine rose to the surface 300 yards on the port bow, and came slowly back towards the ship.
Up to this juncture, although the ship was settling deeper every moment, the Commander had purposely refrained from summoning assistance by wireless, lest interruption should come before his grim work was done. Now, however, he saw at one quick glance that the Lord had indeed "placed the enemy upon his lee bow," and the rest was only a matter of a few bloody moments. Accordingly he gave orders for an urgent wireless signal to be sent out forthwith summoning assistance, and waited until the submarine was on a line when all his guns would bear. She reached the desired spot at the moment when the German Commander was complacently emerging from the conning-tower; up went the White Ensign, and the first shot beheaded him; he dropped back into the interior of the submarine, and his wholly unexpected reappearance imparted a shock of surprise to the remainder of the inmates from which they never recovered. The submarine lay motionless as a dead whale, while the avenging broadside shattered the hull, and the grizzled pensioner inside a hen-coop scientifically raked her deck with a Maxim to prevent her gun from being manned. She finally sank with her conning-tower open and the crew pouring shrieking out of the hatchway.
From the swirling vortex of oil and blood and air bubbles in which the majority vanished, two dazed prisoners were rescued by the exultant "panic party" in the boats, and brought back to the ship. Once on board, however, the imperious necessities of the moment overwhelmed even the elation of victory. Bulkheads were shored in all compartments still accessible, confidential documents destroyed in anticipation of the worst, and then all but the Commander and a handful of men took to the boats and awaited succour. It came at noon in the guise of a congratulatory and businesslike Destroyer, and was augmented later by a couple of Sloops. By 5 P.M. the water had ceased to gain and the ship was in tow, heading for port; there she arrived, and was safely beached after dark the following day.
Thus her crew, emerging triumphant from the ordeal, added at the last a feat of seamanship which saved the ship. It required no great power of imagination to foretell what lay ahead; yet, when the time came for a fresh venture under the command of the man who had brought them victorious through the ordeals that were past, they sailed with light hearts and unafraid. As if for a pledge of that devotion, he wore thenceforward, on the left breast of his ancient monkey-jacket, the scrap of ribbon which it is the King's pleasure men shall wear "For Valour."
3
WON BY WAITING
The disguise adopted by such of his Majesty's ships as were selected to cope with the U-boat menace, varied according to the changing fashions. In the early days of the war the rôle of care-free tramp, steering a steady course, and minus look-outs or gun, was sufficient to lure the enemy to close quarters on the surface. But as the peculiar methods of warfare adopted by the German Government harked back to piracy and rape, so the custom of the seas reverted to the arming of merchantmen for defensive purposes.
For purpose of offence against the enemy, with which this story of a King's ship is concerned, a dummy gun sufficed; at all events for preliminaries. It was mounted prominently aft, attended by a conspicuously vigilant gunner. To outward appearances the ship was then an armed British merchant vessel, steering a zigzag course for home at a good speed, conscious that she was in the danger zone, and, by virtue of her unmistakable gun and position, liable to be torpedoed at sight according to the code of customs and chivalry of the sea--as revised by Germany. Torpedoed at sight she was, at eight o'clock of a misty summer morning, in a blinding rain storm and heavy sea. The torpedo was fired at apparently close range, since it jumped out of the water when one hundred yards from the ship; it struck the engine-room near the water-line, flooding the boiler-room, engine-room, and adjacent hold. The Stoker Petty Officer on duty in the engine-room was killed outright by the explosion, and the Third Engineer, who held a commission as Engineer Sub-Lieutenant, in the Naval Reserve, was half-stunned and badly wounded by flying splinters and fragments of coal. Despite the inrush of water, he contrived to reach the hatchway, and arrived on deck reeling with shock, half-flayed, and bleeding, to stagger to his post in the second act of the grim drama.
One of the lifeboats had been blown to smithereens, fragments of it being lodged even in the wires of the aerial between the masts, so great was the force of the explosion. Under the command of the Navigator, acting the part of Master, the "panic party" abandoned the ship in the remaining three boats as the ship settled deeper in the water. The officers and men whose station was on board were already motionless at their invisible guns; in the majority of cases they were concealed by screens, but the crew of the foremost gun were compelled to lie prone on their faces on the exposed forecastle, unable to stir a muscle until the order came to open fire.
Then for thirty-five leaden minutes, followed the savage ordeal of waiting for the unknown. For aught these motionless figures knew, the submarine might torpedo them again at any moment, might break surface and shell them at extreme range till they sank, or, an even more nerve-racking possibility, might set off in pursuit of a fresh victim and escape. Withal was the consciousness that a single movement on board, so much as a finger raised above screen or coaming, would betray their true character and bring the game of bluff to a swift and tragic conclusion. The periscope of the submarine had broken surface a quarter of an hour after the torpedo struck, about 400 yards distant on the port beam. It turned after a while and steered towards the ship, but the Captain and Signalman, prone at each end of the bridge, with their eyes glued to the observation slits, alone were aware of their quarry's movements. It was in the tense stillness of those moments, a stillness only disturbed by the lapping of the waves round the water-logged hull, and by the hiss of escaping steam, that from the little group of prostrate figures round the foremost gun rose a man's whistle, executing a gay, if somewhat tremulous, ditty of the sea. For a moment those in the immediate vicinity of the performer listened to the eerie music without comment. Then a motionless officer, moved by a sense of what was seemly at such a time and what was not, rebuked the minstrel. "I dursn't stop, sir," said the boy--he was only seventeen--"cos if I stops whistlin' I gits scared."
As the submarine drew nearer to the ship the Commander on the bridge of the disguised man-of-war cast a swift glance round to see that all was well, and saw the old and trusted Quartermaster lying face downwards beside the wheel. "For God's sake," he called, "don't show yourself, he's nibbling...." "Aye, aye, sir," said the faithful seaman. And then, so ingrained apparently had become the habit of disguise on board, he furtively dragged a lifebelt over the most prominent portion of his anatomy.
When fifty yards off the ship the periscope vanished, to reappear a few minutes later directly astern. Very deliberately, as a cat plays with a mouse before dealing the last stroke, the periscope travelled on to the starboard quarter, turned, and came back round the stem to the port beam, where the boats were lying. The stage management of the drama then passed into the hands of the Navigator in charge of the boats. His task was not lightened by a disposition on the part of the "panic party" to regard the affair in the light of high comedy, despite the cold scrutiny of the periscope. In no measured terms he reminded them that they were presumed by the Teutonic intelligence beneath the waves to be terrified mariners, not a boat-load of grinning buffoons; and then, mindful of the shortness of the visibility and the known weakness of the enemy for light banter with castaways in boats, he began pulling towards the ship. As he had foreseen, the submarine promptly rose to the surface and followed in pursuit, closing to within a few yards of the masked guns on board. An angry Hun shouted abuse through a megaphone from the top of the submarine's conning tower, and was reinforced a moment later by an equally abusive and impatient gentleman of the good old Prussian school, clasping a Maxim in his hands.
The prospect of being shot by either party at this juncture of the performance was none too remote. Yet the boat continued pulling as if manned by deaf mutes until the submarine had been lured into the desired position. Then suddenly the eagerly awaited White Ensign shot up to the masthead. Screens clattered down along the length of the ship's side, and a broadside of yellow flame leaped out over their heads. The submarine was suddenly plastered by bursting shell and half hidden by leaping waterspouts, as she slowly listed over to her side, with oil spouting from the rents in her hull. Her crew scrambled wildly out of the conning tower and waved their hands above their heads in token of surrender. Fire instantly ceased on board the British man-of-war, when unexpectedly the crippled enemy, her stern submerged, shot ahead and made off at high speed. The would-be "Kamerads" on her deck were swept into the sea by her last wild rush through the water, and the British guns broke out again in vengeful chorus. Fire was continued until she blew up and sank, one wretch clinging to her bows as she disappeared.
In spite of the heavy sea, the boats succeeded in rescuing two prisoners from the water before returning to the ship. An American Destroyer arrived a few hours later, accompanied by two Sloops. With their assistance the ship was brought safely into port, and of all who had passed through the soul-stirring events of the day none exhibited greater satisfaction or surprise at living to see it close than the late upholders of German freedom of the seas.
By command of his Majesty the King, one officer and one man were selected by ballot for the honour of the Victoria Cross from among the ship's company in recognition of the fact that, where all played so valiant a part, the distinction was earned by the ship rather than by the individual. Yet their task, the task required of them by the England which reads these lines at a well-found breakfast table, was still unfinished. They sailed again in another ship, knowing full well that they alone could never accomplish it entirely. But the name of that ship* shall be a household word some day wherever the English tongue is spoken, because of the ordeal these men endured behind her shattered bulwarks for England's sake.
* H.M.S. _Dunraven_.
4
THE SPLENDID FAILURE
To travel hopefully, said Robert Louis Stevenson, is better than to arrive; and therein he summed up the whole attitude of the Anglo-Saxon race towards human endeavour. It is our custom to honour the achievement less than the spirit, in the wistful hope, perhaps, that thus may we, too, be judged in our turn at the last. This is a record of failure, if the venture is to be judged by its material result. Yet the lesson it will carry to succeeding generations is concerned with neither success nor failure, but with those shining heights of the Spirit (attainable by every mother's son) where no fear is.
The King's ship to which this story relates was a steamer of some 3,000 tons, to outward appearances an armed merchantman with a light gun mounted on her poop. To make plain what happened on board it is necessary, however, that the uninitiated should be admitted into certain secrets of her construction. A wooden structure on the poop, common to merchantmen of her type, concealed a gun of effective calibre behind collapsible covers. Beneath this gun position, and occupying much of the space below the poop, were the magazine and shell rooms. Four depth-charges were fitted at her stern; any one of these dropped over the position of a submerged submarine was calculated on detonating to do all that was necessary. In addition, a smaller gun was mounted on the forecastle on a disappearing mounting, while hen-coops and deck fittings concealed similar armament at other points of vantage. To complete her offensive capabilities, she carried a masked torpedo tube on either beam.
This, then, was the true character of the ship which a German submarine sighted on the horizon at eleven o'clock one morning. She noted the small gun displayed defensively aft, and started in pursuit, firing as she went. The submarine was sighted directly she rose to the surface, whereupon the Captain of the man-of-war ordered the after gun to be manned and the remainder of the crew to take shell cover, tactics which differed in no respect from those customary to merchantmen under the circumstances. On the other hand, speed was imperceptibly decreased, and the crew of the light gun at the stern directed to shoot short in order to encourage the adversary to draw closer. It says much for the discipline on board that men thus prominently exposed to the fire of the pursuing enemy could deliberately continue to reply to it in the consciousness that their shots were not required to hit. German submarine commanders at this phase of the war were growing notoriously "nervy"; hysterical appeals for help were therefore sent out by wireless, in the hope that the enemy would intercept them and gain confidence.
The heavy sea gradually rendered it impossible for the submarine to maintain the pursuit and man her gun. She therefore abandoned the bombardment and came on at full speed, until after a chase of about an hour she turned broadside on and again opened fire. Shots were then falling close, and at 12.40 the steamer stopped, as great clouds of steam emerging from the engine-room showed she was disabled, and the "panic party" proceeded to abandon ship. To lend colour to the general atmosphere of demoralisation and confusion, one of the boats was purposely dropped by a single fall, and remained hanging from the davit in a vertical position. In the meantime the enemy had closed nearer and continued methodically shelling the ship. A shell struck the poop, exploding one of the depth-charges and blowing the officer in charge of the after concealed gun out of his control position; on recovering consciousness, however, he crawled inside the gun hatch, where his crew of seven men were hidden. The seaman superintending the depth-charges was badly wounded by this explosion and lay motionless. Seeing his condition, the hidden crew of the after gun attempted to drag him within their place of concealment, but the injured man stubbornly refused to be moved. "I was put here in charge of these things," he replied, indicating the remaining depth-charges, "and here I stop." And stop he did until subsequent events proved stronger than even his indomitable spirit. Two more shells burst inside the poop in quick succession, and a few moments later dense clouds of smoke and flames disclosed the disquieting fact that the after part of the ship was heavily on fire.
From his customary place at the end of the bridge, peering through slits in his armoured coign of observation, the Captain watched the submarine turn and come slowly past the ship 400 yards away. The next moment, as he was about to open fire on an easy target, the wind caught the smoke from the conflagration aft and blew it like a curtain across his vision. The Captain was confronted with two alternatives. One was to open fire there and then on a partially obscured target, or wait until the submarine should round the stern and come past the weather side, where the smoke did not interfere with the accuracy of the shooting. At the same time he was conscious that the fire raging aft must very soon engulf the magazine. It could only be a matter of moments before the magazine blew up, and with it the masked gun and its crew.
Nothing but utter confidence in the devotion of that gun's crew, the conviction that even in the direst extremity they would remain concealed and motionless, enabled the Captain to choose the second of these alternatives. Yet he chose it, determined at all costs to make sure of his quarry, and waited; and while he waited the deck on which this gun's crew were crouched grew slowly red-hot, so that they were compelled to cling to the mounting of the gun and to hold the cartridges in their arms. Their ordeal ended as the submarine was rounding the stern. The magazine and two more depth-charges blew up with a deafening roar, hurling gun, gun's crew, fragments of wreckage, and unexploded shells high in the air. One member of the crew fell into the water, where he was picked up by the "panic party"; the remainder, including the depth-charge keeper, landed in the well-deck, with the gun.
The concussion of the explosion had, however, started the electrically controlled fire-gongs at the remaining gun positions. Thereupon the White Ensign fluttered automatically up to the masthead, and one gun--the only one that would bear--opened an unavailing fire on the enemy, who had begun to dive immediately the explosion had taken place. The ruse had failed, and every man on board realised on the instant that what must follow was to be the supreme test. The wounded were removed out of sight with all speed, hoses were turned on to the burning part of the ship, and wireless signals sent out warning all men-of-war to divert traffic for a radius of 30 miles, that nothing should interrupt the last phase of this savage duel a entrance.
To borrow a phrase from sporting parlance, they ensured that the ring was kept, but in so doing they deprived themselves of any hope of succour from the savagery of the enemy, should the ship sink and leave them at the submarine's mercy. In this comfortable reflection, therefore, they settled down and awaited the inevitable torpedo.