Part 6

The thing had become visible in an instant. It could be seen as a rushing white streak in the dark water, and was coming towards the destroyer with the speed of an express train, coming like a bullet out of a gun.

The captain uttered a quick word of command. The wheel spun, the roaring, trembling ship turned in the dark. A strange thing happened. Just as the destroyer had cleared the danger line, the torpedo, as if actuated by some malevolent intelligence, porpoised, and actually turned again towards the vessel. The fate of the destroyer lay on the knees of the gods. Those on the bridge instinctively braced themselves for the shock. The affair seemed to be taking a long time, a terribly long time. An instant later, the contrivance rushed through the foaming wake of the destroyer only a few yards astern, and continuing on, disappeared in the calm and glittering dark. A floating red light suddenly appeared just ahead and at the same moment all caught sight of the _Zemblan_.

She was hardly more than half a mile away. Somebody aboard her had evidently just thrown over one of those life buoys with a self-igniting torch attachment, and this buoy burned a steady orange red just off that side on which the vessel was listing. The dark, stricken, motionless bulk leaned over the little pool of orange radiance gleaming in a fitful pool; round the floating torch one could see vague figures working on a boat by the stern, and one figure walking briskly down the deck to join them. There was not a sign of any explosion, no breakage, no splintered wood. Some ships are stricken, and go to their death in flames and eddying steam, go to their death as a wounded soldier goes; other ships resemble a strong man suddenly stricken by some incurable and mysterious disease. The unhappy _Zemblan_ was of this latter class. There were two boats on the water, splashing their oars with a calm regularity of the college crews; there were inarticulate and lonely cries.

Away from the light, and but vaguely seen against the midnight sky, lay a British patrol boat which had happened to be very close at hand. And other boats were signalling--"_Zemblan_--am coming." The sloop signalled the destroyer that she would look after the survivors. Cries were no longer heard. Round and round the ship in great sweeps went the destroyer, seeking a chance to be of use,--to avenge. Other vessels arrived, talked by wireless and disappeared before they had been but vaguely seen.

Just after two o'clock, the _Zemblan's_ stem rose in the air, and hung suspended motionless. The tilted bulk might have been a rock thrust suddenly out of the deep towards the starry sky. Then suddenly, as if released from a pose, the stern plunged under, plunged as if it were the last act of the vessel's conscious will.

The destroyer cruised about till dawn. A breeze sprang up with the first glow of day, and scattered the little wreckage which had floated silly-solemnly about. Nothing remained to tell of an act more terrible than murder, more base than assassination.

XV

CAMOUFLAGE

In the annals of the Navy one may read of many a famous duel, and if the code duello were in existence to-day, I feel certain that the present would not be less fiery than the past. The subject which stirs up all the discussion is camouflage. To ask at a crowded table: "What do you think of camouflage," is to hurl a very apple of discord down among your hosts. For there will be some who will stand by camouflage to the last bright drop of blood, and strive to win you to their mind with tales that do "amaze the very faculties of eyes and ears." You will hear of ships melting into cloud, of vessels apparently going full speed backward, of ships whose funnels have one and all been rendered invisible. And now the mocker is sure to ask the pro-camouflager in the most serious of tones if he ever saw the ship disguised as a sunset which the Germans unhappily discovered on a rainy day. The signal gun of the anti-camouflage squad now having sounded, the assault begins with a demand of "What's your theory?" The pro's reply something about breaking up spaces of colour, optical illusions--"if you draw horizontal lines along a boat's hull, she will appear longer; if you draw vertical or angular parallels, the vessel will appear shorter." The anti's answer that such an expedient might possibly, just possibly, deceive an idiot child for exactly five and one-eighths seconds, as for deceiving a wily Hun,--Good Night! "Do you mean to tell me," cries the devotee of camouflage, growing angry, "that a ship painted one flat, dead colour is less visible against the sea than one whose surface is broken up into many colours?" "Yes, that's what I mean," retorts the anti. "You know as well as I do that a thing that looks like Vesuvius in eruption is ten times more easily seen than a boat painted a dull neutral grey."

"Yes," cries some one else, "but hasn't camouflage on land proved its utility?" "I'm talking about naval camouflage," answers the anti. "On land your camouflaged object is usually stationary itself, and stands in relation to a surface which is always stationary,--the surrounding landscape. Out here, both surfaces, sea and vessel, are constantly in motion and constantly changing their relation to each other." "But I _saw_ a boat--" begins a pro. "Oh, cut it out," cries somebody else wholeheartedly, and the discussion ends exactly where a thousand others have ended.

Whether camouflage be valuable or not, it certainly is the fad of the hour. The good, old-fashioned, one-colour boat has practically disappeared from the seas, and the ships that cross the ocean in these perilous times have been docked to make a cubist holiday; the futurists are saving democracy. There are countless tricks. I remember seeing one boat with a false water line floating in a painted sea whose roaring waves contrasted oddly with a frightfully placid horizon, and I recall another with the silhouette of a schooner painted on her side. I remember a little tramp remorselessly striped, funnels and all with alternate slanting bands of apple-green and snuff brown; I have an indistinct memory of a terrible mess of milky-pink, lemon-yellow and rusty black, which earned for the vessel displaying it the odious title of "The Boil." We saw the prize monstrosity in midocean. Every school of camouflage had evidently had a chance at her. She was striped, she was blotched; she was painted in curves; she was slashed with jagged angles; she was bone grey; she was pink; she was purple; she was green; she was blue; she was egg yellow. To see her was to gasp and turn aside. We had quite a time picking a suitable name for her, but finally decided on the Conscientious Objector, though her full title was "The State of Mind of a C.O. on Being Sent to the Front."

Finally destiny put in my path just the man I wanted to see, the captain of a British submarine. "What do you think of camouflage?" I asked.

"Well," he answered, after a pause, "I can't remember that it ever hindered us from seeing a ship. Visibility at sea strikes me as being more a matter of mass than of colour. The optical illusion tricks are too priceless silly. Must amuse the Huns. You see if the eye does play him false, Fritz detects the error with his gauges."

The P.C's, I am sure, will put this down as a bit of typical submarine "side." Indignant letters, care H.M.S. X999.

XVI

TRAGEDY

Just at the fall of night, three days before, a weak and fragmentary wireless had cried forlornly over the face of the waters for immediate help, and had then ceased abruptly like a lamp blown out by a gust of wind. The destroyers, stationed here and there in the vast loneliness of the gathering dark, had heard and waited for "the position" of the disaster, but nothing more came through the night. Presently, it had begun to rain.

And now for three interminable and tedious days and nights rain had been falling, falling with the monotony and purpose of water over a dam. There being little or no wind the drops fell straight as plummets from a sky flat as a vast ceiling, and the air reverberated with that murmuring hum which is the voice of the rain mingling with the sea. Rain greasy with oil it had gathered from the plates poured in little streams off the deck; drops hissed on the iron of the hot stacks. Clad in stout waterproof clothes, and wearing their waterproof hoods, the crew went casually about their duties, their hardy faces showing no sign of discomfort or weariness.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of a January day.

Presently the lookout, from his station on the mast, reported: "Floating object off starboard bow," and a few minutes later one of the watch on the bridge reported two more floating masses, this time visible to port. The destroyer was making her way into a vast field of wreckage. Within the radius of visibility, there lay, drifting silently about in the incessant rain, an incredible quantity of barrels, boxes, bits of wood, crates, vegetables, apples, onions, fragments of coke, life preservers and planks.

"See if you can spot a name on anything," said the destroyer's captain. But though everybody looked carefully, not a sign of a name could be seen. Mile after mile went the destroyer down the rain lashed sea, mile after mile of wreckage opened before her.

"Life boat ahead showing flag!"

The captain raised to his eyes the pair of binoculars he wore hanging from his neck, and peered out of the window by the wheel.

"Found her yet, sir?"

"Yes ... it's a small grey boat. Barely afloat, I guess. They've got a shirt or something tied to a mast or an oar. We'll have a look at it. Tell Mullens to have a couple of men stand by with boat hooks in case we run alongside."

The swamped boat, motionless as a stone in the driving rain, lay no more than half a mile off. Voices eagerly discussed the possibility of finding survivors.

"Alive? Course they ain't. Why, the boat's awash."

"Sure, but look at the flag."

"Those poor guys are gonners long ago."

Handled skilfully the destroyer crept alongside the motionless boat, and presently those on the bridge looked directly down upon it. It lay, floating on even keel, not more than six or seven feet off the starboard side, and was held up by its tanks. A red flannel shirt hung soggily against an upright pole, and coloured the shaft with the drippings of its dye. The interior of the boat was but a deep puddle, a dark puddle into which the rain fell monotonous and implacable. Floating face down and side by side in the water lay the fully clothed bodies of two men, whilst at the stern, sitting on a seat just under water, with his feet in the water and his body toppled over on the gunwale, could be seen a third figure dressed in a kind of seaman's jacket. The wet cloth of his trousers clung lightly to his thin legs and revealed the taut muscles of his thighs. Then boat hooks fished out from the side of the destroyer and drew the heavy craft in. A sailor cried out that all were dead.

"Any name on the boat, Hardy?" asked the officer standing by.

"No, sir."

"Very well. Cast off!" The life boat, watched by some rather horrified eyes, slid alongside the destroyers, and drifted solemnly behind.

"Now," said the captain, who had come on deck, "I want one tidy shot put into that boat, Butler."

Ten seconds later, the roar of the four-inch at the stern burst asunder the murmur of the rain, and the watchers saw the boat of the dead crumple and disappear in the loneliness and rain.

XVII

"CONSOLIDATION, NOT COÖPERATION"

Talking one day with an English member of the House of Commons, I asked him what he held to be the most important result of American intervention.

"The spirit of coöperation which you have stirred up among the Allies," he answered. "Not that I mean to say that the Allies were continually quarrelling among themselves; the manner in which Britain has shared her ships with other hard pressed nations would refute any such insinuation, but not until you came on the scene was there a really scientific attempt at the coördination of our various forces. You were quite right to insist on a generalissimo. But of course the great lesson you've given us has been through your Navy. There's been nothing like it in the history of the allied forces. What an extraordinary position Admiral Sims has won in England! His influence is perfectly tremendous; there isn't another allied leader who has a tithe of his power. I really do not think that there is a parallel to it in English history."

Now this is no over-statement of the case. The influence of Admiral Sims over the British people _is_ tremendous. All along he has had but one watchword, "Consolidation, not Coöperation." It is a splendid phrase, and Admiral Sims has turned it into action. The way, I gathered from various members of the Staff and the Embassy, had not been without its obstacles. For instance, once upon a time certain American forces were to be sent into a distant area, and a member of the Allied Naval Council sitting in London had taken the stand that the little force should be supplied from the United States. Immediately Admiral Sims pointed out that these American forces must be considered as _allied_ forces and must be supplied from the nearest and most convenient _allied_ sources of supply. And he carried the day. Not only has the Admiral insisted on the _consolidation_ of material forces; but he has also insisted on a consolidation of the allied spirit. Himself a master of diplomacy and tact, he loses no opportunity of reminding the individual officers under his control to bear in mind the good points of other services and to remember the fact that the success of this work would be directly affected by their relations with their comrades of the Great Cause. And this extraordinary consolidation of force and spirit is precisely the thing which more than anything else takes the attention of the visiting correspondent. "Consolidation, not Coöperation"--it is a phrase that well might have been our allied motto from the first.

While in London, I had several talks with Admiral Sims in his office in Grosvenor Gardens. Of the many distinguished men it has been my lot to interview, Admiral Sims stands first for the ability to put a guest at ease. Tall, spare, erect, and walking with a fine carriage, our Admiral is a personality whom the interviewer can never forget. One has but to talk with him a few minutes to realize the secret of the extraordinary personal loyalty he inspires. And he is as popular in France as he is in England. Speaking French fluently, he is able to carry on discussion with the French members of the Naval Council in their own language.

"Consolidation, not Coöperation." There's a real phrase. And thanks to the great man who said it and insisted upon it, we defeated the common enemy.

XVIII

MACHINE AGAINST MACHINE

The year stood at the threshold of the spring; a promise of warmth lay in the climbing sun; on land one might have heard the first songs of the birds. At sea, the mists of winter were lifting from the waters, and the sun, for many months shrunk and silver pale, shone hard and golden bright. A fresh, clear wind was blowing from the west, driving ahead of it a multitude of low foam-streaked waves. There was not a sign of life to be seen anywhere on the vast disk of the sea, not a trail, not a smudge of smoke on the horizon's circle, not even a solitary gull or diver. The destroyer, dwarfed by her world, ran up and down the square she had been chosen to guard. She had the air of performing a casual evolution. There was never anything to be found in this particular square. It lay beyond the great highways; even the sight of a coaster was there something of a rarity. Periscopes were never reported from that area, never had been reported, and probably never would be. Caressed by the sun, enveloped in the serenity of the day as in a mantle, the destroyer went back and forth on her patrol.

The emergence of the periscope a quarter of a mile ahead off the starboard bow had in it something so unattended that the incident had a character of abnormality ... much as if a familiar hill should suddenly turn into a volcano. It is greatly to the honour of the ship's discipline, that those aboard were not staled by months of unfruitful vigil, and acted as swiftly as if the destruction of a submarine were matter of daily practice. There it lay, going steadily along about two hundred yards away, ... a simple, most unromantic black rod rising two feet or so above the waves. A white furrow like a kind of comet's tail, streamed behind it, forever widening at the end. Later on, they asked themselves what the submarine could possibly have been doing. Seeking a quiet place to come up to breathe, to effect repairs, to send out a hurried wireless message?

It might have been a rendezvous between the two vessels. One felt that the gods had brought to pass there no careless drama, but a tragedy long meditated and skillfully prepared. The morning sun watched, a casual spectator, the duel between the two engines of violence.

There had been a command, a call of the summoning bell, a release of power carefully stored for just such an event, and the destroyer leaped ahead like a runner from the starting line. The periscope, meanwhile, continued to plough its way straight ahead almost into the teeth of the wind and the flattened, marbly waves. Presently, either because the destroyer had been seen or heard on the submarine telephone, the submarine began to submerge, sucking in a kind of a foaming hollow as she sank. Aboard the destroyer, they wondered if the keel would clear her, and waited for the shock, the rasping grind. But nothing happened. The first depth bomb fell into the heart of the submarine's swirl even as a well placed stone falls in the heart of a pool. Trembling to the roar of her fans, the destroyer fled across the spot, and turned. The wake of her passing had almost obliterated the platter-shaped swirl the submarine had left behind; one had a vision of the great steel cylinder tumbling, bubbling down through green water to dark, harmless as a spool of thread on the surface, but presently to be changed by the wisdom and cunning of men into monstrous and chaotic strength. One, two, three, four, five ... a thundering pound.... The submarine rose behind them, her bow on the crest of the geyser, an immense, tapering rusty mass, wet and shining in the placid glance of the day. From a kind of hole some distance up the side, a stream of oil ran much like blood from a small deep wound.... A gun spoke, and spoke again, a careening whizz, ... ugly hollow crashes of tearing steel ... the sub heeled far over on her starboard side ... those nearest heard, or thought they heard, screaming ... the bow sank, tilting up the great planes and propellers. A monstrous bubble or two broke on the tormented surface just before she disappeared ... and with her going, the calm of the spring morning, which had been frightened away like a singing bird, returned once more to the tragic and mysterious sea.

XIX

THE LEGEND OF KELLEY

Kelley, not Von Biberstein or Hans Bratwurst, is his name, Kelley spelled with an "e." The first destroyer officer whom you question will very possibly have never heard of him, the second will have heard the legend, the third will tell you of a radio officer, a friend of his, who received one of Kelley's messages. So day by day the legend grows apace. Kelley is the captain of a German submarine.

The first time that I heard about him he figured as a young Irishman of good family who had attached himself to the German cause in order to settle old scores. "Lots of people know him in the west of Ireland; he goes ashore there any time he cares to." Another version, perhaps the true one, if there be any truth at all in this fantastic business, is that Kelley is no Irishman but a cosmopolitan, jesting German with a Celtic camouflage. No less a person than Captain James Norman Hall testifies that the Germans in the trenches often tried to anger the British troops by pretending they were disloyal Irish. So perhaps Kelley is Von Biberstein after all. A third version has it that Kelley is a Californian of Irish origin. Those who hold to this last view have it that Kelley spares all American ships but sends the Union Jack to the bottom without mercy.

Many and varied are Kelley's activities. He has penchant for sending messages. "I am in latitude x and longitude y; come and get me--Kelley," has come at the dead of night into the ears of many an astounded radio operator. Others declare that these messages were sent by Hans Rose, the skipper of the submarine which attacked the shipping off Nantucket in 1916. All agree that Kelley was the beau ideal of pirates. He sinks a ship and apologizes for his action, he sees the women passengers into the boats with the grace and urbanity of a Chesterfield, he comes alongside a wretched huddle of survivors, supplies them with food, and sends out notice of their position. When they ask his name, he replies "Captain Kelley," and disappears from view beneath the sea. He goes ashore, and proves his visit with theatre tickets and hotel bills. "London hotel bills made out to Kelley, Esquire." He requests the survivors as a slight favour to tell Captain Nameless of the Destroyer XYZ that his propeller shaft needs repairing; that he, Kelley, has been seriously annoyed by having to listen to the imperfect beat via the submarine telephone. There is certainly a flavour of Celt in this chivalry tinged with mockery.

I could never find anybody who had actually seen him, much to my regret, for I should have been glad to describe so famous a person. Months have passed since last I heard of him. Perhaps he is still in the Irish Sea; perhaps he is now at Harwich, perhaps he has gone aloft to join his kinsman "The Flying Dutchman." If so, let us keep his memory green, for he was a pirate _sans peur et sans reproche_.

XX

SONS OF THE TRIDENT

Any essay on the British sailor must rise from a foundation of wholesome respect. One cannot look at the master of the world without philosophy. And British Jack is the world's master, for he holds in his hands that mastery of the seas which is the mastery of the land. He is a sailor of the mightiest of all navies, an inheritor of the world's most remarkable naval tradition, a true son of Britannia's ancient trident.

What is he like, British Jack? How does he impress those companions who share the vigil of the seas?